1. Articles which are going to feature in my music magazine is an Interview with my made up Trance DJ called Lola van Mayer. I'm going to also include information about upcoming giggs from different artists and the perfect clubbing holiday resorts for our readership.

2. The features page I've created is going to be the main page which is advertised on my contents page. It will also be near the front of my magazine so it will be the first thing people read and hopefully inspire them to read  other articles like this one in my magazine.

3. If an article I was making was something like an interview or an article about a celebrity i would dedicate a whole double page spread to it which will allow enough space for pictures and text. If it was some thing small like tour dates i would dedicate a small section of a page for this. My target audience doesn't have the longest attention span so i need to make sure my long articles don't drag on and they keep them interested.  If I make the articles interesting and colourful and include lots of pictures, my target audience wouldn't just flick through my magazine and will take the time to read it.

4. The genre of music represented in my magazine is Trance/Dance music. I have made up the name Lola van Mayer but she is fictionally established in my magazine. I'm going to include tour dates on real established artists such as Tiesto and Paul van Dyke.

5. House colours I have chosen to use are black then splashes of bright colours like blue, pink and yellow. These help reflect the music genre of Trace as the black represents the dark club and the bright colours represent the strobe lights you find in clubs.

6. I have decided to put my article on my features page in columns but decided to put them in jaggered order. I think it would of looked too formal if it was all in columns. I have included two pull quotes and a strapline underneath

Survey Monkey results

Content of my features page

Reader Profile

We looked at NME's Reader Profile to help us create our own. NME's profile included facts such as Key Stats, NME reader quotes and short paragraphs about music. I didn't want to over crowd my page with pictures because i wanted to keep a minimalist look about it. I wanted it to look smart and i think i achieved that with the font i decided to use and the use of only black and white colours.  Including relevant pictures to the genre of music seemed appropriate as they link into my magazine and help show what the magazine is about.

Results of Questionnaire

To find out what my target audience are like, I created a questionnaire for them to fill out. I generalised the results to get a general idea.
The majority or people lives busy lifestyles, whether it be school or work. This means I'll need to magazine easy to read and portable. I found out almost everyone who answered my questionnaire do download music, so including websites and songs for them to download could be a good feature. The genre of music people most liked was 'trance/house' music, so creating my magazine specifically for this genre of music, will relate to these people. Most people would happily pay £2.50-3.50 for a decent magazine they can rely on. Other types of media the people i asked used was mainly Radio and TV, so features related to these types of media can appeal and interest them. Social places they visited was generally clubs for example Ministry Of Sound, so writing articles on pubs wouldn't interest my target audience. The ages ranged from 16-22 so house style and house colours need to appeal to these ages and the gender was a complete mixed bag so it also needs to appeal to males and females. Including free objects such as posters and Cd's would encourage people to buy my magazine too. Most people said they only buy music magazines once or twice a month so making my magazine into a monthly thing, will keep those who don't really buy them happy as if i did a weekly magazine, people may stop buying it because they've missed out on other issues or just don't have the time.

Flat plan of features page

Forms and Conventions and Target Audience of another music magazine

As you can tell, Top of The Pops uses completely different forms and conventions to NME.
The mast head goes all along the top of the front cover and uses a serif typeface. They use a pink serif typeface as that appeals to the audience that its trying to attract and helps connect with their young audience. The mode of address TOTP uses is quite a casual way to speak to their audience. Their cover isn't full of writing and the writing which is there, isn't formal or hard to read. As you can see, they've decided to use a lot of brightly coloured graphics such as pictures and words. What they achieve by doing this is catching peoples attention to their magazine and try to encourage them to buy it. They have used cover lines to summarise the most enticing features and articles which are inside the magazine such as ''54 star style essentials'' to persuade a reader to buy this magazine.

Forms and Conventions and Target Audience of a music magazine

The masthead on NME is always in capital letters and always uses the house colour red. Excluding the strapline, everything written on the front cover is all in capitals. The masthead is always in the top left corner which follows the housestyle.

Brand Identity is used in NME to make it easy to identify what magazine it is. Things they use is putting the masthead in the top left corner on every issue. The colour and typeface used is always the same so it is easy to distinguish NME to other magazines. The mode of address used by NME is quite casual and they use a laid back type of language. No formal words are used to it can related to their younger audience. NME has a mass audience which appeals to both genders aged from late teens to mid 30's.

The cover of a magazine needs to be able to attract their readers. NME does this by using bright, distinctive colours and lures are used to encourage them to buy the magazine and read the rest of the article. Direct address is also used in this example of a NME front cover to give the buyer a sense of connection with the magazine and influence buyers.