Magazine Name Ideas

My target audience is males aged from 15-24. This is quite a young target audience so they will be easy to relate to. The genre of music I have decided to base my magazine on is Rock. I have chosen this genre because it is easy to identify compared to other genres such as Pop music.
The names that I though of to call my magazine included "The Cult", "Evolution", "Domination", "Alternative" and "Live".

"Alternative" received the least amount of market research feedback. "Live" and "The Cult" received the most amount. I have decided to call my magazine "Live" as I feel this is the name that my target audience could relate to the most as the age that they are attend a lot of live gigs and bring back memories to them.

I asked 20 people in my target audience age group to complete a tally chart of my magazine name ideas, here are the results:

Magazine Conventions

MOJO and NME are similar to Cosmopolitan in may ways. They both contain a model/celebrity on the front, this is generally the main article and attracts a lot of attention. The image also overlaps over They both contain cover lines that include language devices such as quotes and repetition. They also have features that make particular sections stand out such as the yellow stamp on the front cover. All of the magazines contain a colour scheme, for cosmopolitan the colour scheme is black, blue, white and pink.

Some of the differences between celebrity gossip and lifestyle magazines with music magazines are the picture. The main image is very happy and bright in the cosmopolitan magazine whereas in the music magazines they are quite sophisticated and dark. The fonts for the magazines are very different also, in cosmopolitan the fonts are very feminine unlike the music magazines that include very straight writing which attracts a completely different target audience.

Magazine Analysis - MOJO (Inside)

In MOJO there are 146 pages in total, out of those pages 40 are used up by adverts. This is 28% of the magazine. Comparing this to other magazines that is only a small amount. The products advertised in the magazine could be classed into groups of: music related adverts and non-music related adverts. This shows that they do not get adverts from anyone but for ones that will interest their target audience such as gig guides.

The features of the magazine could be classed as:
Music related stories/reviews
- Pink Floyd - main article
- What goes on: New Lennon biopic approached
- Susanna and the magical orchestra portico quartet
- Rock 'n' Roll confidential: Steward Copeland

Lifestyle
- Albums
- Play list
- Books

Celebrity News/Gossip
- Hot news
- Hello Goodbye
- Theories, rants etc
- Ask Fred

The magazine manages to use a unified "house style" throughout by using the same sans serif font in all the articles. This gives the magazine a sense of stability and shows some routine throughout. The magazine also contains text in the top left corner in the same style at the beginning of each section, this also adds to the house style.

Magazine Analysis - MOJO (Cover 4)

All of the fonts on the cover of MOJO are a sans serif font. This takes away the formality of the magazine and makes it look more approachable and young. They use the colours black, grey, white and red. These are very basic colour but work together making the red and white writing stand out. They use a small drop shadow on a lot of the cover lines making them stand out of the page but not making it look too busy. The title of the magazine is the only part that does not contain a drop shadow which is ironic as this is the part that you would think would stand out the most. To make specific features stand out they have used red boxes behind some of the writing, this follows the colour theme but also makes them attractive to the reader.
On the front page they use some language devices. Some of these include a rhetorical question which makes the reader want to look inside and find out about the "joke" that has been asked. They also use a quote, this attracts the target audience as it is usually the best part of an interview making the reader want to read more of the interview.

This cover is distinctive from others as it sticks to very little change of fonts which often might not work but in this particular magazine it does. The USP (unique selling point) of MOJO could be their distinctive style of music that not many other magazines produce.

Magazine Analysis - MOJO (Cover 3)

The only other image that appears on the front cover of MOJO is an image placed on the top right corner of the magazine. This image does not affect the rest of the magazine or take the focus away from the main article. The picture is at an angle making it look like more of a collage than a magazine which does not follow the style of the magazine as they generally have photographs lined up. Again the picture is of a male to attract the specified target audience.

The cover lines of the magazine are very busy and promote a lot of what is inside. Some of them contain the main articles in the magazine - such as "U2 in the US", "Kiss "We're like the Beatles on steroids"". These groups and bands are from the ear of music that the magazine approaches. This is what the target audience wants to read about and so they are placed on the front cover to make people want to buy the magazine.

Magazine Analysis - MOJO (Cover 2)

The main image of the magazine is Pink Floyd, it is a medium shot (from the waist up). The pose of the artist is very serious. He is looking into the camera face on. He somehow looks angry by the way he is holding himself, with his arms crossed and very tense. He is wearing a black top which contrasts with the light grey background making him stand out. The image is not very busy but yet very simple and shows that music is the sole purpose of this particular magazine. This image would appeal to the taregt audience as he is around the same age and is male, this means that the audience may be able to relate with the articles in the magazine.

Magazine Analysis - MOJO (Cover)

This is the only section of the title that is on show on the front cover of MOJO. The title is in a bold black font which stands out on the light grey background. The main image is covering over the title, this shows that the magazine is confident people do not need to see the whole name of their magazine to understand the purpose. The word "mojo" could be replaced for the word confidence which suits the magazine as they are confident about the success and music they produce. The title of the magazine is in a sans serif font and is very basic. The strapline of the magazine says "music magazine" this is very simple and gets the message across that the magazine is there for music as that is not clear from the title.