RyanMaguireASMedia (New)

(Research) Styling & Fashion within my chosen genre

Four words can some up rock fashion, black, leather, long hair. When you look at 90% of rock bands, they all have long hair, are wearing some type of leather whether it be a guitar strap, trousers, top or jacket, and almost always dress in black. But like i said, Rock has many sub-genres like glam rock and heavy metal, and I want to combine all of these into my magazine to reach my target audience. And we must remember most of these rock bands, of at least the once who have influenced me, have been around for decades and have changed there look and style various times. But to generalise it, black, leather and long hair are usually associated with rock music. For example take the band Motley Crue, they started off in full leather clothes, but 6 inch stiletto heels, long puffy black hair with make up, but over the years it has been toned down, keeping the long hair and leather. And again KISS, one of the most influential rock groups of all time. Started off in their comic like but now iconic make-up and fantasy based costumes, but over the years took off the make-up and stripped it all back for a more raw look. These bands like KISS, Motley Crue, AC-DC and many more will help shape my magazine, the style, the look, and mainly the photo's I take. I will try my best to resemble the aura and look they had with the resources I can get a hold of.

(Research) 20 songs that have influenced my magazine

In order to create a music magazine, in this case a rock based magazine. You must have bands or songs to help style and create your magazine. Here are 20 songs that will help me shape my magazine.

1) Strutter - KISS

2) High n' Dry - Def Leppard

3) Bad Boy Boogie - Motley Crue

4) One Way Street - Aerosmith

5) Get it Hot - AC-DC

6) Still Take You Home - Arctic Monkeys

7) Rango - Catfish & the Bottlemen

8) Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry

9) Twenty Flight Rock - Eddie Cochran

10) Helter Skelter - The Beatles

11) Whiskey in the Jar - Thin Lizzy

12) Slumville Sunrise - Jake Bugg

13) Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult

14) Anaesthesia (Pulling Teeth) - Metallica

15) Peace Sells - Megadeth

16) Respectable - The Rolling Stones

17) Train in Vain - The Clash

18) Bodies - Sex Pistols

19) Iron Man - Black Sabbath

20) Spirit of the Radio - RUSH

Though these songs span from the 1950's right through till the present day, they all still fall under the rock genre, due to many sub-genres and niche genres in rock. But most of these artists are still active today, for example Chuck Berry, one of the pioneers of rock music who was in his prime in the 50's, is still active today.

(Research) Target Audience Research

Detailed target audience:
My rock magazine will appeal to a very wide category of people from ages 16 to about 50. This is because the rock content can stretch back to the 50’s to modern day so there will be a wide range of people that the magazine will appeal to. And in this blog post I am going to create an ideal reader of the magazine to show who I am trying to market this product to.

Name: Darren
Age: 29
Race: White
Socio-demographic: C1
Gender: Male

This is Darren, he is 29 years old and enjoys classic rock music. Darren lives in a one bedroom flat in Sheffield with his dog Terry. He listens to rock bands like KISS, Aerosmith and Motley Crue and has seen many classic rock acts like Def Leppard in their prime back in the 80’s so he has grown up from birth listening to this kind of classic rock music. This type of music also effects the way he dresses, leather jackets, ripped black skinny jeans and leather boots. Also when he was younger he had long black hair like the bands he idolized and still idolizes. He works a 9-5 job, working in a call centre and rock music is his escape from the boring reality of work. He has an AC-DC live photo pinned in his work cubicle and a Megadeth cd in his car stereo. Darren also likes to keep up with technology buying things like I-Pads, I-phones e.t.c. He is also a keen TV and movie fan and watches at least one movie a day when he gets home from work. His claim to fame is that he watched the entire breaking bad series in one day. Darren also enjoys fast food like McDonalds, Chinese and Burger King and has various empty food dishes from these restaurants lying around his flat. HE is very loud, outspoken and says what he thinks, this can often lead to fall-outs with friends or drunken fights in bars. He also enjoys socializing with his friends like going out for a drink, going to gigs or going bowling and playing snooker.

(Research) Magazine Moodboard

This is a collage of different bands that I like and the kind of bands / style that I want to include in my magazine. As you can see it is a rock collage but there is a sharp contrast when you compare some of the photos. That's because of the variety of rock acts, at the top of the collage is some classic rock bands like AC-DC and Def Leppard who look far more stripped back compared to the bands on the lower half like Motley Crue and KISS. They all produce the same type of music but due to the many sub-genres in the rock category there are lots of different styles and looks. I want to make my magazine as accessible as possible but also keep a specific and detailed target market, which I believe I can do with thorough planning and research into different target markets. But by also asking my peers, I am currently planning to create a questionnaire for my class mates.

(Research) 10 Magazine Masthead Fonts

Magazine names

The Grind
GR!T
Pyromania

These are the three magazine names I have created, but I must narrow it down to one. The name I have chosen for my magazine is “The Grind”, I have chosen this because I believe it matches with the dark, gritty, hard rock theme I am going for. These are also the three magazine fonts I have chosen, as of right now I'm not sure which one to use, I'll narrow it down to one when I begin to create my front cover. There are various different styles ranging from an urban tone, to a more simple smarter tone.

Fonts for the masthead: