List of Features for Front page

How house style is established

WHAT IS HOUSE STYLE???

The New York times manual of style and usage states that house style is "The specific usage and editing conventions followed by writers and editors to ensure stylistic consistency in a particular publication or series of publications". All music magazines therefore have to follow this code also. 

 In Q magazine, there are many aspects of the front cover than are sustained throughout the other pages; contents and double page spread. The masthead colours red and white have been maintained and used in the Contents heading and DPS heading, as you can see. Also, the 'CONTENTS' font is the same used in the dps only its slightly larger. In addition to this, graphics, images and text boxes also live up to the house style. The blue used in the banner on the front page and the '+' page furniture resonates with the images and text on the contents which are also blue. A man from the cover story wears sunglasses as well as the artist on the DPS showing a consistency in house style and iconography of the genre being recognised. Here in the Source magazine, there is a double contents page. The front cover is kept quite minimalistic and simple which coincides beautifully with the first contents page, which basically lists the features and keeps them in one straight column. The focus is on the main image as it is on the front cover. The second contents page differs solely through font colour. Over a lighter background, this page used black over white, whereas the first used white over black. The artist Rick Ross from the contents is carried onto the DPS where he is styling a different pose. The large capital bold font used in the lure, is very similar to the headline on the front cover and titles on the contents pages. Colours stay very neutral and dark throughout with the odd splash of red or blue.
Finally, this trio of pages from Vibe magazine sees Ciara feature on all of them, therefore a similarity. Although she is taken by different shots each time, the house style is kept perfectly consistent as there is complimenting lighting over her body on the front and contents page. In addition to this, she appears naked(apart from shoes) on the cover and in the DPS it is clear that she is. There is always a V placed on the contents of Vibe, and this time Ciara's legs perform it well. This links the contents directly back to the cover. Finally, the masthead 'VIBE' in this issue uses light grey-dark grey colours and this gradient is then used for the background of the contents and in the DPS, both pictures have been grayscaled. They all look similar in such a way.

Front cover Shot Research

Understanding of the type of shot used:

Mood Board

I have made an online mood board using www.moodshare.com which has allowed me to present the ideas in my head and in this case, what I think of when I think R&B!!!  It includes some artists within the genre, the style often worn by people associated with this kind of music and things that listeners of R&B music like such as expensive cars, jewelry and downloading music. 

Clothing - Iconography/Planning

I created this short video using www.animoto.com in order to visually plan the type of clothing that I will want the models in my magazine to wear. From looking at the style of my target audience, I have derived the up to date codes and conventions of contemporary Stylers, in order to attract my audience in the best possible way. 

Target Audience Style

I have taken pictures of a few people in my target audience to discover the type of fashion sense they possess as an average of my whole target audience population. Below are some annotated photographs of the style:

From analysing this type of dress in my own primary research, I can see how the style of the Trendies on the UK TRIBES website definitely ARE my target audience due to the match of style described and the word TRENDY in itself connotes that these are the types of people I need to attract. 

Target Audience primary and secondary research

In order to find out the type of people that I will customise my magazine to suit the needs of, I will need to do some Primary research. For me, this will include creating questionnaires for at least 15 to be completed, getting the questions below answered well so that I can plan my magazine around them:

Obvious Questions:

• How old are you?
• Are you GCSE/A level student/ young professional?
• Are you male or female?

Specific Questions:

• Do you belong to any social networking sites and if so which ones and why?
• What shops do you like to buy clothes from?
• Could you sum up your style in a few words?
• How do you usually listen to music? (downloads, phone, ipod, radio, cds, )
• What's a typical weekend for you? (watching films, listening to your favourite jams, partying, going to festivals, shopping?)
• Would you say that you keep up with the latest technology?
• What radio stations do you normally listen to?
• Who is your favourite artist at the moment?
• What are your three favourite brands?
• Below is a video constructed of some questions answered by my target audience:

In order to discover more about the types of people that I will be aiming to please, I have done some secondary research by browsing the UK tribes website (http://www.uktribes.com/tribes/urban) in order to gain a detailed and helpful analysis of their interests and personalities.



From this video, I have learnt that the URBAN SEGMANT is the main area that I will be directing my R&B music magazine towards. I hope to catch their attention the most with the elements of my magazine. Some key words associated with these types of people include style, status, R’n’B and house music predominantly. Their icons would be celebrities such as Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Usher, Rita Ora, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj.
Urbans are best known for their music – from not only R&B, but grime, UK bass and funky to old school jungle, blues and rap. Members are proactive in their search for new sounds, getting behind new releases, picking up digital mix tapes and sharing them with their social networks. Urban Tribes play a hugely important role in dictating the artists that break through to the mainstream. Examples of this include the breakthroughs of Dizzee Rascal and Tinchee Stryder.
 
Fashion-wise, street wear rules tend to be followed, from classic sports brands to independent urban labels, such as King Apparel. Drawing inspiration from US street fashion, these Tribes were among the first to adopt the baseball jacket and snap back combo. There’s no getting away from it, urban sounds and styles dominate the mainstream and mean big business. The explosion of grime and street wear is testament to this segment’s wield over popular culture.


There are three main groups categorised in the Urban segment:
 
• Trackies, who are laid back enthusiasts motivated by the need to chill, whether that’s gaming, watching films or listening to music.
• Stylers , who love R&B/house music and have an eye for the finer things in life. Avoiding ostentatious bling, it’s about modern status symbols such as the latest iPhone.
• Get Paid Crew are highly aspirational, driven by money and being their own boss.

From these three main groups, I have identified Stylers to be my main target audience. Stylers are united by a love for partying and looking good. They’ve also a fairly discerning bunch, into the finer things in life and less brash than, say, Blingers. Sharing an urban upbringing, they’re a diverse bunch, ranging from GCSE students to young professionals.
The ‘housification’ of R&B has really prompted the emergence of the Stylers – and urban commercial dance music is the sound of the tribe. Think Drake, Rihanna, Rita Ora and Chris Brown, as well as artists like Maverick Sabre and Wiley.
 
A small subsection of the Stylers will be seeking out niche underground sounds, but most are listening to what’s readily available – artists championed by trusted sources, friends and stations like Radio 1Xtra, Choice FM and Rinse FM.
 
Keeping up appearances is a key feature of the Stylers. It’s not about ostentatious excess, but understated cool. Stylers will aspire to have the latest tech, from Samsung smart TVs to tablets. They’re also more likely than most Urban tribes to be paying a visit to music festivals. A thoroughly current creation of the 2010s, Stylers are set to grow in numbers and influence.

Best Front page photos

Original photos contact sheet

Possible magazine titles+Feedback

When trying to produce a name for my magazine, I had to look at various ways of researching potential possibilities including:

• Research into R&B album names
• Research into different R&B artists and the names of their songs/singles, as these would give me a feel of the language and vocabulary typically used around this genre and by the types of people within it.
• I gained ideas from Google and Bing search engines by simply typing in the name of my music genre and reading a few articles or blogs about it. This gave me insight into the feel of the music and words that other people used to describe it.
• Wikipedia provided me with many small words in its description of R&B music and also taught me about its history.

After  all this research into a possible name for my magazine, I ended up resorting to Dictionary.com. Due to the fact that R&B music generally evolved from and was created primarily by black people, I looked up synonyms of the word 'black'. The results found are shown to the right, with the words highlighted in darker orange being the better, most accurate and popular synonyms.

From this list I discovered where the titles of 'EBONY' and 'JET' magazine were derived from, as they are both synonyms for black and aimed at a black target audience.

I have created a mind map of some possible titles for my magazine and in the child bubbles I have stated some reasons why I would choose them. I have ensured that each possible title relates to my genre of music, R&B, in one way or another.

By scrolling through the other words there was one that stood out especially from the rest and that was ONIX. I reviewed my thoughts about this by surveying 44 people asking which one they preferred and the bar graph below presents my results. 

An onyx is a black rock characterized with parallel black and white layers. I decided to go ahead with this concept because it can resonate easily with all races who enjoy R+B/soul music. This was something that I was eager to incorporate in my magazine because black people, are often subjected to this particular genre of music. The Onyx concept fits well with my whole idea because I wish to create a magazine following the usual conventions of an R&B one, but I am aiming to include a more varied selection of models and featured artists. These will include white, black and Asian people.

Typography/Masthead Analysis

I used Powtoon to make this video, and used it to analyse some main competitor fonts relating to magazines that are as near to my music genre as possible. This research taught me much that I needed to know about the style of masthead which would attract my target audience, being large, bold, regularly in capital letters, serif/sans serif and that colour plays a large role also. 

R&B Genre research mags

Below are six examples of current R&B front covers. I will try my best to take some key common codes and conventions from these when planning my own music magazine.

These front covers have also helped me create my own cover lines which will feature on my front cover:

• JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE: "the 20/20 experience revived my career"
• BEYONCE: on balancing Blue IV with her upcoming tour
• 15 reasons 2013 will go down as a great year in R&B music
• Main Cover Story: DAMI RIDING SOUL-O
• + Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Robin Thicke, Chris Brown, Maxwell, Xtina Aguilera, Janelle Monae, Jasmine Sullivan