Question Four - Evaluation

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The demographic I wanted to focus my music magazine at was the young alternatives or hipster scene which I tried to portray in my target audience mood board. I feel I have created a magazine that successfully represents this social group and lifestyle. They can also be known as the ‘butterflies’ this social group is known for not conforming to any mainstream conventions, they have an equal split between the sexes and love anything alternative.

Experimenting with art, music and fashion unites the Young Alts, who are dipping in and out of scenes like there’s no tomorrow. Tribe members are likely to gravitate towards Leading Edge Tribes once they’ve figured out what they’re most interested in, but for the time being Young Alts are happy to get stuck into as much media as they can – from reading Penguin Classics on Kindle, streaming ‘Girls’ on Netflix (even the boys) and checking out the latest music on Spotify. Skater, Emo and Hipster trends are most commonly tried and tested by the Young Alts, it’s about keeping an open mind.

They are a group that are ultimately finding themselves. The hipsters fashion is very different and each young alternative have their own quirky sense of style, you’ll be sure to find them in stores such as Top shop, Urban outfitters and Zara who are big names associated with this particular social group. The usual items of clothing you will find them in would typically be the trade mark black supper skinny jeans - which you can buy from almost any retailer, ripper knees or no ripped knees; Next is the old band T-shirts usually sold as band merchandise or specifically sourced out from Ebay and Amazon e.g. Artic Monkeys, David Bowis, Guns N' Roses, Joy Division etc.Finally, for shoes a nice pair of Doc martens or converse will most likely be worn too, which can be high or low tops, YOU DECIDE!

Most of the brands for this specific type of music and fashion scene stick to a similar look and theme - as shown by my brand mood board. A lot of the brands have a very minimalist look, with a predominant colour scheme of either black, white, red or even all three - with perhaps a splash of another colour now and again. The colour scheme for modern minimalist magazines isn't always black white and red but all magazines tend to stick to the usual rule of 3-4 colours. Magazines who are an exception to this rule are usually gossip magazine that are filled with different colours on the front and throughout. There image and brand needs to successfully represent their targeted audience, so through the analysis of these brands it allowed me to identify repetitive behaviour within their marketing campaigns and advertisement which helped me, again, to create and develop my own magazine aimed at the same targeted audience with a look that I feel effectively portrays this social group within society and be a product they will look at and want to purchase.

The same can be said about the Fonts used for the this image and genre of music. As my magazine is of the indie rock sub-genre of music, known as the alternative music scene I want an effective font to portray this, with a kind of uniqueness. My favourite out of all of these fonts is Bebas Neue a sans serif font which is clear but also, I felt, quite a bold a ‘rock’ like font which would successfully make my cover lines, and titles stand out but is still very clear and easy for to read.

Whether someone has money to spend or a few pounds to their name, everybody loves a brand. With the likes of Gucci and Vivienne Westwood being at the top end of retailer fashion to the more affordable but still very fashionable brands like Adidas, Nike and converse all of us at some point will be wearing a known and popular name. I feel the way I tried to emulate the look of these brands was a persuasive selling point as my target audience will associate it with being a serious but in trend music magazine that will provide them with all of the current music gossip and info but also adding to their indie scenester image.

My magazine I feel represents this group successfully, incorporating the indie/alternative style. I made sure my product incorporated different indie genres and artists from Folk e.g. Ben Howard to more Indie rock e.g. the kooks to suit the different sorts of music they may change too. As well as this I tried to make my product seem gender neutral, I avoided any colours that could be gender associated for example any pinks or blues. The overall look of my magazine I feel portrays this stylish, alternative group with an edgy and minimalistic look.