Magazine Typography

I have researched and collected a series of mastheads, cover lines and captions from various magazines such as Vibe, Kerrang,Vogue and Billboard; to analyse for my final magazine cover. This collage should therefore help me choose appropriate fonts. For example the exaggeration of the font on my magazine cover, the colo|ur of my font, the style and type of my font. Analysing the variety of text fonts and style will enable me to create the ideal ones that cater to my magazine's needs.

Research Rationale

For my target audience I have decided to research teenagers ranging from ages from 16-19,as I have an easy access as I am a sixth form student.  I hope this will enable me to collect a great amount of data as I have access to different ages, gender and taste in music. I will also be using the same age group (16-19) as my main target audience for my music magazine as I believe that this age group can generally give me dependable and honest opinions. Especially as my music magazine is of a mature nature of music which would usually be listened amongst the older audience but I would rather use the opinions of the younger generation to create a music magazine suitable for both the mature and younger audience, still displaying the genre of Neo Soul.

I have also discovered among the target audience that they are easily able to recognise neo-soul artists and music tracks within conversation and discussing them they tended to have a high interest within the genre. This suggests that even though this genre is not as popular in the charts right now, it still is a huge interest and is popular amongst some of the younger generation.

I will organise and carry out research on my target audience to gain a understanding on personal opinions and interest of Neo Soul also looking at a range of Neo Soul Magazine covers. I will generally focus on a mass of students both male and female at my sixth form to calculate the general interest of Neo Soul by asking questions based on interest and opinion. For this research I will be using a voice recorder on my mobile to record the interest and opinion of my target audience.

From this research I will be able to focus on a smaller group with higher interest for the genre further developing the research by asking them to complete an questionnaire using web 2.0 based on interest and opinion of mediums within the Neo Soul genre and some conventions of a magazine; on Poll Junkie which is also accessible on handheld devices as well as the desktop.  Beforehand I will also ask my target audience to analyse the conventions of a series of magazine covers from the genre Neo Soul outlining what they are looking for in a magazine cover and within a magazine; this shall be able to help me with my layout and inspiration of my final magazine.  

Magazine Conventions

Introduction- Brief

My Brief for this project is to create a magazine consisting of a Front cover , double page spread, with the genre of my own choice, which i have chosen to be Neo Soul.

My blog will be updated regularly with research to contribute to the final making of my magazine such as, the analysis of magazine covers , focus groups, research into my genre. I believe this should help me toward my final magazine as i would then know what my audience would want in a magazine such as  the basic conventions to follow on my magazine, what should be included and the presentation of my magazine.

I chose this genre as i thought it would be a change as in to what my generation may generally listen to and also for the fact that i am a fan of the genre myself. However i also enjoy many other genre's such as R&B, Hip Hop, House, Afro beats and Grime.