· Buy or take photos of a minimum of two magazine front covers, contents pages and double page spreads and analyse their use of conventions. Select magazines that link to the target audience/sub-genre that you’re interested in.
Consider the following points:
o How often the magazine is published, how much it costs, where it’s sold, who distributes/publishes it.
o What their target audience is and what sub-genre of music they focus on. How do you know?
o Their use of colour, different fonts and sizes, layout, number and type of images, how the text links to the images, the variety of articles.
· Upload this analysis onto your blog (including images – not loads of text) focusing on what you have learnt about what your magazine must look and ‘sound‘ like e.g. a bullet point list of the things (both visual and text) that you will include in your music magazine based on the research.
· Based on this research, decide on a final sub-genre of music to focus your magazine on and a target audience for it. Begin to research this genre including current artists, record labels, other magazines, events, gigs etc and post information on your blog e.g. links to YouTube videos or relevant websites.
· Research local artists and gigs especially those linked to the sub-genre of music you will be focusing on. Try to make links through Twitter or Facebook with these artists and consider if you’ll be able to interview and photograph them for your magazine.
Remember:
· There should be several posts (at least 5) on your blogs by 7th January – we will be checking everyone’s blog!
· There should not be lots of writing on your blog; the more images, videos and other media you have on there the better (refer to the website resources sheet for ideas on how to be more creative).
