Proposal Form

Proposal Form

Describe your idea for the brief: The brief I was given was to create a front cover, contents page, and double page spread for a music magazine, of a genre of my own choosing for a suitable target audience. I decided I wanted to create a magazine focusing on alternative music, e.g. things not likely to be found within mainstream music charts. I am hoping to produce a high quality magazine with a fixed colour scheme and industry-standard content.

Genre/ sub genre: I have decided to focus on the alternative genre with particular focus on Pop Punk and Alt-Rock music. Similar texts, which have inspired me, include Rock Sound and Kerrang, which are incredibly popular and influential magazines, which focus on the genre of pop-punk/pop-rock. Kerrang in particular has inspired me to create my own magazine within this genre as it has a huge success rate, and is one of the only magazines actively bought by young people.

Target audience: The target audience of my magazine are young people, around 15-20, who already have an interest in the genre of music specified. This familiarity is required to build a relationship between the reader and the writer, so I can use a style of language that is quite informal and is likely to draw in a less sophisticated audience than something like Q. My target audience generally consists of both males and females, who are usually quite outspoken and wear black clothes, with colourfully dyed hair. My target audience often have poor or negative experiences with the education system, due to bullying or difficulty to follow rules, so I am not likely to speak about education positively as I know it is not something my target audience could relate to.

Major conventions: I will use a short title for my magazine, which I would like to fit it landscape across the top of my magazine, with no gaps either side, or in the right hand corner if this is possible. I would like to use a large medium shot of my model in the centre of my magazine, in a way that the model makes eye contact with my reader to draw them in. I would like to use a specific, set colour scheme that is consistent within the front cover and contents page of my magazine, with a different colour scheme for my double page spread. I would like to have my cover lines include teasers and enigma codes which will encourage my reader to buy the magazine and explore what is written inside.

Conventions: I decided I do not wish to have a physical free gift with my magazine, other than posters that can be found inside. Instead, I would like to offer a free download code, as my target audience are likely to have experience with computers and would rather have a digital download than a physical CD. I would have my barcode as small as possible in the left corner of my magazine, which would include the issue number and price, as well as the main barcode and the date. I would want this to be small as to not draw attention from the magazine.

Original images: I would like to have my main image as a medium or head-shot of my model, possibly with a chocolate box pose, and other pictures dotted around. I would like to use an image of some tickets that are available to be won, as competitions are often effective in drawing in an audience. I would like to take original images to use as previews of posters that can be found inside. On my contents page, I am likely to use a long shot of my main model and images of CDs, guitars, or other music related things that would relate to my article. I would need another long shot of my artist for my DPS.

Potential difficulties/ Plan B: If my initial plan does not work, and for some reason my genre becomes ineffective or unusable, I would like to focus on the genre of K-Pop, which is becoming increasingly popular, particularly within online media. There are few magazines currently targeting this genre of music, so I may struggle to find inspiration, however it would stop me from potentially copying or taking ideas from what already exists. If my magazine does not appeal to my target audience I may be forced to raise or lower the age of my target audience depending on the issues that would force me to change the content within.