Dolby

Eliot, some interesting and thorough research here. Now start to plan colour schemes, layouts images etc...

BillBoard Magazine Research

BillBoard Magazine Research

BillBoard magazine is a music magazine that primarily focuses on the pop industry and all major, mainstream artists surrounding this genre, such as Justin Bieber, Kygo and Katy Perry.

BillBoard is an American magazine, owned by Prometheus Global Media. It publishes news, video, opinions, reviews, events and trending styles. It is mainly known for its music charts, consisting of the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, these include the most popular singles and albums in various genres. It also hosts events, has its own publishing firm and operates many TV shows.

Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegen's interest in 1900 for a small $500.

During the 1900s, it began to cover entertainment industries such as circuses and fairs. It also made a mail service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing on the music industry as the jukebox and radio became more of a standard item. Many topics it covered were placed into different magazines.

As recording and technology developed, the focus of BillBoard was straight onto the diverse music industry. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed on to his children and Hennegan's children, until it was sold to investors in 1985 for roughly 40 million dollars. The magazine had continued to switch between hands to Affiliated Publications (in 1987, Nielsen in 1994 for 650 million dollars and it’s finally its current owner, Prometheus Global Media since 2009 for approximately 11 billion dollars. As of 2017, it has been shifting to more of a consumer focus online in the digital age.

Trouble: During 2004, a male and female employee were fired simultaneously with the intent to damage their personal and business reputations. The two employees filed a $29 million dollar lawsuit against them. The case was sorted in court for an unreleased sum of money, this however is expected to be a large sum. 

These images below show BillBoard magazine through the years. From when they started as a simple publication to a music focused business.

Top 10 NME Front Covers

Top 10 magazine front covers NME

The front covers of the music magazine, NME, are displayed in no particular order and have been accumulated through personal preference and the front cover vote system that NME held themselves, this link takes you directly to this vote site if necessary: http://www.nme.com/photos/the-25-greatest-ever-nme-covers-as-voted-for-by-you-1424362 . 

These NME magazine front covers have provided me with valuable ideas about certain color themes, layouts, fonts  and images that I will potentially use during the development of my official music magazine. Therefore during the planning and construction stages I will be able to develop more time-effectively as I will already have ideas of all page elements to implement.

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Conclusion

From researching, reviewing and selecting my top 10 NME magazine front covers I have learnt valuable ideas about the structure, color themes and how images can be a powerful element of the front page. NME do not use a specific, consistent template for each edition of their magazine. For example, the front cover image I placed in number one position follows a highly vibrant aesthetic using bright pink and green. Additionally the amount of text on the front cover is very limited, mainly only talking about Daft Punk (who of which are the image on the cover). This uses a simplistic yet colorful and attractive style.

On the other hand, if we look at the front cover in 4th position, there is a much larger volume of text placed on this cover, their is more variety is text fonts and colors scene (blue, red, white, black, brown). The text and listed content takes up a larger amount of the cover, suggesting that the artists on the front may not be as reputable as other, larger artists, therefore they must compensate for this by placing the content titles here.

Music Magazine Questionnaire Conclusion

Conclusion to results of music questionnaire

In order to appropriately prepare for the planning and development stages of my official magazine, I have carried out a questionnaire related to the music industry and music magazines.

First of all I have learnt from the results of my questionnaire that the general target audience for my magazine is split roughly half male and half females, however male are the slightly more apparent gender of my questionnaire.

Additionally, I also learnt that the primary age group from my questionnaire is aged between 11 and 20, this is approximately 60% of all who participated. The following age groups that answered the questionnaire were in the categories 41 to 50 and 21-30 who of which took up another 20% each. My pie charts for each question demonstrate this statistic precisely.

The genres that were most followed from all of the people who completed my questionnaire was indie music and interestingly enough, RnB, Rap and Hip-Hop all had a relatively equal portion of the pie chart, these three genres are very similar and therefore collectively they take up  roughly 40% of the diagrams. I did not give out my questionnaire to a substantial amount of people therefore my questions are not fully reflective of a whole market, however it was interesting that the pop genre did have more share of the pie chart due to it being the most mainstream genre played everywhere.

Furthermore, I also learnt from my music questionnaire that the most popular price to pay for a magazine was between £3-4. Approximately one third of all people who complete the questionnaire answered with this price range in mind. After this, people found that paying £5-6 and £7-8 was less reasonable as this is evident due to it only take up a fifth of the whole pie chart each. In addition, I was surprised to found out that a free title was less popular, this suggest that my audience is within a demographic that has an income or enough money to spend money on magazines with a fee rather than free ones that may have less content, quality etc.

In progression of this, I also learnt that roughly 70% of those who completed the 

questionnaire were either active magazine readers or sometimes read music magazines. This shows to me that the audience I interviewed are actively seeking out music magazines and aware of the brands and contents that they include. This of which is helpful to the development of my own magazine and design because I have an audience I can reach out and target to if I need additional research information or to become my market.

Similarly, I found out that there is a fairly split opinion on the duration between each edition of the magazine. 15% each of those interviewed answered that there should be either a fortnight or monthly gap between each edition. This tells me that they might not be in a subscription system with a music magazine company as they do not prioritise reading these often. However, I have learnt from the answers from these questions that the most apparent answer was a weekly edition. This suggests that they may regular readers of music magazine and potentially have subscribed to a magazine company or distributor. The answer ‘weekly’ takes up roughly 60-65% of the pie chart diagram.

Equally, the next information I have learnt from my music questionnaire is about what type of content people are interested in the most. As I expected, there was a large and relatively equal proportion of the type of content people want to read about in a music magazine the most. However there was three content aspects that took a much more apparent segment of this questions pie chart. These of which were, reviews on new music, music festivals and interviews. This has suggested that my audience may be of a more youthful age range (between 11-21) and therefore the colour scheme, content and images will possible be more orientated to show mainstream and modern music.

Similarly, another question from my music magazine questionnaire was asking what elements on the front cover draw a reader in. I can conclude that the most popular chosen aspects were the colour scheme, article titles, pictures/images and the highlighted content. This tells me that these four elements should be a ‘must be’ on the front cover and inside pages in order to help draw in readers. The colour scheme took up the largest portion of the pie chart which infers to myself that I should prioritise a strong and likeable colour scheme as one of key focuses of the music magazine.

Overall, I have learnt many important elements and traits of the potential target audience. This means that when I develop the official music magazine, the predicted the success of it will be higher due to a more precise colour schemes and aspects of the front cover and inside pages are catered to my audience appropriately.

Text fonts to potentially implement on Music Magazine

As you can see above is a screenshot of the text fonts I have found and tested using the magazine title that I am confident I will follow up with.

Each of these uses a style to fit different types of genres and themes that I could use. The more bold, solid text fonts such as Adventurer Black SF and Forque follow more mainstream music magazine styles such as BillBoard and MixMag. From my questionnaire analysis using these fonts may be useful and appropriate for the audience and genre of the music magazine I proceed with.

However, the text fonts from the screenshot above such as Daniel Black and Die Nasty represent a more retro and 'old school' aesthetic, these of which may be fitting to use if I follow the genres of hip-hop, rap and RnB for the magazine genre/themes. Despite this, the data from the questionnaire answers suggested that my audience from my area may not be as interested in this, therefore these text fonts may not be followed up.

Research/Analysis of NME and other music magazines

I have had to insert my research of NME and other music magazines as screenshots so that the images and texts will appear on this document and stay in their placed order.

Questionnaire Results Diagrams

These images show the pie charts I have created for each question and answers along with these. From these I can interpret trends and the most popular/common market demographics from those who answered my questionnaire.

Music Magazine Questionnaire

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Music Questionnaire

1) What is your gender?

Male  ð            Female  ð            Otherð

2) What is your age group?

Under 10 ð         11-20 ð          21-30 ð         31-40 ð          41-50 ð     51 + ð

3) What genres do you listen to?  Pick as many that apply to you

Rock ð        Pop ð        Rap ð        Hip-Hop ð        RnB ð       Indie ð         Classical ð        Metal ð         Reggae ð         Country ð          Opera ð                    EDM ð         Acoustic ð         Jazz ð         Punk ð     

4) What price are you prepared to pay for a magazine?

Free title ð       £1 – 2 ð       £3-4 ð        £5-6 ð        £7-8 ð        £9-10 ð        £11 and more ð

5) Do you read music magazines?

Yes ð          No ð           Sometimes ð

6) How often do you expect to see a magazine published?

Once per week ð        once per fortnight ð         once per month ð

7) What contents of a magazine want to read about the most?

Interviews ð        Music festivals ð        Artist gossip/drama ð      Competitions ð            Reviews on new music/albums ð         Artist profiles ð     

8) What draws you into a magazine on the front cover?

Pictures/Images ð        Masthead ð         Captions ð       Contents highlighted ð           certain article titles ð          Colour scheme ð

9) Do you prefer the magazine to use informal or in a formal text? 

Yes ð          No ð     

10) Which of these magazines have you purchased from before?

Kerrang ð        NME ð       Q ð         Billboard ð         Rolling Stones ð          None ð

11) How do you access music magazines?

Music Shop ð           Online format (subscription) ð        Third Party companies ð           Stands ð              Supermarket ð

12) How do you listen to music?

iPod ð         Phone ð           CD ð         Vinyl ð         Radio ð     

13) How do you access music?

iTunes ð        Spotify ð        Buy from shop ð        Streaming ð        Pirate sites ð         directly from record labels website ð     other? …………………………………

14) How often do you listen to music?

Never ð        Once a week ð          a few times a week ð         every day ð          only on occasions ð          other? ð ………………………………….

15) Do you dress according to the styles/themes associated with your preferred genres? E.G Indie – Hipster, baggy clothing

Yes ð            No ð           Only sometimes ð          only at concerts/festivals ð            

16) Do you enjoy mainstream music or a specific segment/genre of the music industry?

Mainstream music ð         A specific aspect ð (please state) ………………………………

Plumtree

Elliot, there is some good research and observations here. Look at how 'busy' the contents page is for the music magazine compared to your prelim task. What will you do differently with your project to make it a better representation of a music magazine?

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Did you plan your magazine? If not, what have you learnt about the important of research and planning?

I did not plan my preliminary task magazine. From not planning the magazine I have learnt that it is important to develop a draft structure of the layout, text fonts, colour schemes, images and key themes that may be used. Without planning I learnt that it becomes very difficult to choose where and what to insert into the magazine cover, this of which cost myself time and may have shown inconsistency in relation to a specific theme.

What technology did you use to compete the task and how did you use it?

To complete this task I used a desktop computer and a camera to take photos with. On the computer I used photo manipulation software (Serif PhotoPlus X8). I used this software to make fine adjustments to my images and crop out the backgrounds to them so that they looked professional and clean cut. Similarly I used Serif PagePlus X9 in order to make the actual magazine and additionally create all elements for the magazine such as boxes, borders and background colours/gradients.

Did you encounter any difficulties? If so, what were they and how did you overcome them?

One difficult I encountered was using the tool to crop out the backgrounds to my images. At first the crop was not clean cut and left some of the background in the image, which looked messy and unprofessional. Therefore I practiced on a stock image and then understood that I needed to increase the zoom on the image and then reduce the width of the special crop tool in order to cut out the small background shapes placed inside images. After overcoming this difficulty my images looked much neater and fitting with the magazine cover.

How successful was your magazine? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?

I think that my magazine was relatively successful. I believe that the retro/vintage theme I attempted to implement had an aesthetically appealing visual. I used bold double white lines under text and images to create this theme. Next time I would change the background colour to a light grey or bage/white colour. The background would potentially include a shape or use matte layers. I would do this because it would make the front cover have more depth than just one layer with text and images placed on.

What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

From completing this task, I have learnt that planning is an important pre phase before creating any magazine cover or pages as it allows myself to draft designs and see what themes and styles work within my ability on the magazine software. This will help my future coursework as I will be able to ensure that I make drafts and plan out the ideas and designs of any work such as magazine front cover layout.