How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my music magazine to my audience through using several different conventions of which appealed to their interests. The major feature that can instantly attract a reader to pick up a magazine is the use of colour. I was very specific to only use bright, positive colours throughout my production as I felt these would best appeal to fans of pop music as opposed dark colours; my magazine consisted of a simple colour scheme of red, blue and white. Red and blue are contradictory colours meaning they created an attractive, funky appearance which would hopefully appeal to my young target audience of teenagers and entice them to pick my magazine up. These colours are also significant as they are the colours of the American flag, therefore, reinforcing the theme of my music magazine.  

I also used the models in my magazine to attract my audience – especially the cover model as she is both young and attractive, appealing to my audience of teenagers. Her beauty widened the audience of my magazine as this appealed to both genders because whilst the boys would find her physically attractive the girls would be attracted to the example she sets. I made sure my models wore fashionable clothing also, to further appeal to a younger, trendy audience of pop music fans.

On my front cover, the largest font on the page is the masthead. This is because it is the most important feature as it is vital for the reader to instantly recognise the name of the publication. I chose a modern, rounded font to appeal to a younger audience. I used iconography by placing the American flag behind my masthead as this is a hugely recognised symbol across the world. This was primarily done in order to visualise the main theme of the magazine about bringing music from the states however this would also instantly grab any reader’s attention who was a particular fan of America and its music due to how iconic the American flag is.

After the masthead, the headline relating to the central image is the next largest font on the page. This is significant as it makes this text instantly stand out from the rest of the page, grabbing the reader’s attention and attracting them to the cover star. It is significant that the reader is totally aware who the cover star is as I know from my own experience that fans of a particular music artist are likely to buy any magazine of which they star on the cover of, regardless of what publication it is. I placed this headline in red, as I believe red is an incredibly bold, striking and dynamic colour, further improving its power to grab the reader’s attention. This is also signifant as the red text matched with the red lipstick of the model, enforcing a high level of cohesion across the page with both the images and the text.    

I also used text as a feature to attract my audience in my double page spread. I took a direct quote from my interview and blew it up on the following page to the article, making it the largest font on the entire double page. This was appealing as it instantly grabbed the reader’s attention, making them read the small snippet of the article. This acted as a tease upon the audience as once they had read a small preview this would then hopefully entice them to read the full interview. Furthermore, I made certain words within the quote larger and placed them in different colours to make them grab the reader’s attention even more and also to highlight the key words. I placed the quote inside a graphic bubble as this gave the page a more light-hearted and playful feel which appeals to my younger audience.

The use of language with the article on my double page spread was also a very important device in helping to attract and appeal to my target audience of teenagers. I deliberately used relatively simple lexis so as not to make reading too difficult or strenuous as I was writing for an audience of teenagers. This also opened my magazine to a wider audience as it meant that those who may not have a high capability of reading were not excluded. I wrote my article the first person and used an informal register as I felt both of this devices appeal particularly to teenagers who would most likely be uninterested in reading a piece with a tone which was too serious. Instead, this created a personal tone as well as a friendly tenor between the writer and the reader. Additionally, I used colloquial language at several moments when writing the article in order to create a more relaxed, down-to-earth persona for my reporter which would appeal to a younger teenage audience. This created the idea that the writer and the reader were on the same level and made the reader feel included as part of a team – significant as many people experience insecurities during their teens and want to feel accepted.