MAGAZINE PITCH

The name:‘RIFF’I have chosen this name as it is a musical term used in the rock/alternative music industry. I found this idea for a name of my music magazine by doing research on particular music ‘words’. The definition of a riff is “A short melodic or rhythmic pattern that is repeated over and over while changes take place in the music played along with it.”. I think that this name is very recognizable and eye catching as it is short but simple, like the actual meaning of the word. It states in the definition of a riff that it is repeated, emphasising the repetitive publishing of my weekly magazine. Not only that but the short 4 letter word will look great with bold lettering, inspired by ‘NME’ and ‘Q’ both of which are very well-known magazines and easily remembered by the target demographic for its simplicity of title. Moreover, the title will be detected through the large print allowed as it will fill the top column of the front cover without being too squished into the space provided. This leaves lots of space for other features of the front cover such as the main image, subheadings, buzzwords, anchorage etc. which I will discuss in a couple slides later.

Chinese Rocks

Raleigh Rock

Rocky Road

I am a rock

RocknRoll Typo

Woodcutter Rocks

Adobe Ming St L

Here are a few potential mastheads for my music magazine. I went onto ‘Dafont’ and found these particular fonts that I though suited my alternative rock based magazine. They all have a rough but relaxed look to them which sis something I want to pursue throughout the magazine – nothing too heavy.

Personally my favourite font is ‘Adobe Ming St L that I actually discovered on Microsoft Word.

The genre of music: Alternative/indie rock

I want to focus on this genre of music as it is the style I personally listen to the most, moreover it is the most popular genre from my online survey results. This genre is very interesting to work with as it is a very popular music choice currently within teenagers in the UK. Moreover, the genre allows me to experiment with different colour schemes as other magazines have particular stereotypes such as a young girls magazine would be pink. However an alternative/indie rock magazine has more space to explore with colours and layout of the magazine itself as some rock magazines are simplistic yet some are more hectic and fuller looking. This is something I discovered in my textual analysis. In addition, this style of music opens the opportunity for a variety of articles, interviews and pictures for my contents page and the two page spread itself. Personally I wanted to focus on the alternative/indie style of rock as I believe it will suit my target demographic of teenagers more in comparison to heavy rock due to stereotypes of ‘heavy rockers’ being middle aged men with long hair… Adding onto that, I haven’t been too specific on the style of music I will base my magazine on as it leaves space for more artists rather than choosing one particular style with limited musicians to have as the main image on the front cover and other features of the magazine and articles.

Frequency and cover price of publication:My magazine idea is focused at the demographic of teenagers/young adults from ages between 16-21. Although my survey was mainly taken by females within this demographic, the style of music I am aiming to create this magazine on is stereotypically concentrated on the male gender. This is due to the amount of artist within the genre are made up of male musicians and the music style appears to be the genre that boys would usually listen too, where as, stereotypically it is said girls listen to more pop/boy band music. In addition, this age group will have aspirations in life that could potentially be inspired by some of the artists I will include in my magazine. Not only that but I have decided that my magazine will have a frequency of 1 issue per week. This ensures affordability towards the young adults as the magazine will not have a s much content, implying it will be smaller than a monthly magazine enhancing the fact it is more likely to be bought at a lower price. The price of my magazine will be £1.50.

Attitude:This magazine will pursue a chillaxed attitude towards life with a hint of rebellion. This will attract my target audience as this is the stereotypical outlook on life teenagers have. I will do this through a simple colour scheme that will still stand out for the bold font and layout I will create in further planning. Moreover, I will have plenty of images in comparison to masses of text as this generation of people I have aimed my magazine towards have more interest in smaller pieces of text alongside more images as an entire page of text will not grasp the attention of the reader due to the lack of reading in this generation, let alone buying a magazine in the first place.

Style:The style of my magazine will be very bold and entirely music based. The features and elements inside the magazine will all somehow relate to musicians, festivals and just music in general. This leaves space for a chance to incorporate competitions to win prizes such as festival tickets that I discovered in my interview with the ideal reader. Not only that, but during the interview I learnt that my ideal reader prefers articles written down oppose to interviews in which he would rather watch on YouTube or television. For my double page spread I plan to take this information on board and do a mixture of article and interview as in the survey many people suggested they like to have interviews in a magazine. Since my magazine is going to be published on a weekly basis, each issue will have its main double page spread based on a particular band who will also star on the front cover as it is the main feature of the magazine and needs to be advertised to the reader.

Typical magazine contents:My magazine will have a variety of contents, although it is a weekly basis publishing pattern. However, since this music genre is slowly becoming much more popular and recognisable so it will contain well-known bands, current band and upcoming/new bands for recommendation. This will be a continuous feature of my magazine in which people will be recommended a new, upcoming band/artist every week known as “riff’s rare finds”. Not only that but there will be different segments for articles, interviews and reminders for events, gigs and festivals and every so often a special issue will have a competition in it. The reason I am doing a competition every few issues is because it will become too many due to its weekly basis. However, the contents will have lots of value to the reader and worth the £1.50 every week. I will not have ‘freebies’ as a part of my magazine, once again for the weekly publication, whereas there will be a free download of the ‘riff’s rare find’ every week to encourage the reader to listen to the band to get them some publicity and recognition. Moreover there will be certain offers and vouchers presented to the reader for music based products whether that be CD’s

READER PROFILE

Key Stats:

Male – 67%Female – 33% Age – (16-21) 94%

Name: Jake BristowAge: 17Location: YorkEducation: York College – Media Studies, Film Studies, English and History

Hobbies: Reading, writing lyrics, playing guitar, listening to music, drawing, making short films and spending time with his girlfriend Mia who also has a similar interest in music.

Jake reads 60s counter culture books and poetry to inspire him with lyrics for his band ‘Aloe Veras’. He listens to bands such as Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Velvet Underground and Catfish and the Bottlemen and many more as often as he can because he likes to create playlists to make the soundtrack for his life and mini movies him and his band mates create together. Moreover, his girlfriend, Mia is an art student at York College so him and her both draw in their time together, listen to vinyl records and watch films like Ferris Buellers Day Off as it is relatable to their own teenage years.

In addition, Jakes passion for music was introduced and inspired by his rock-loving parents. Jake plans to teach his younger brother how to play the guitar and helps him with his choice of music every now and then.