1. Script
Proposal
I am here today to pitch to you my idea for a new indie music magazine called
Riff. Oncereleased Riff will be in competition with popular music magazines
like Kerrang and NME, who share both the same target audience and genre. In
the futureI hope that our magazine could become a market leader in the indie
genre, and beat both the sales figures and popularity of competitors Kerrang
and NME.
Our magazine will contain 120 in depth detailed pages filled with exclusive
gossip and interviews from the music world. The main feature will be a 15
question double page spread interview, we will also include shorter and less
detailed quick fire question interviews with non-mainstreambands, at the
bottom of each interview the reader will find their own unique code allowing
them to download the bands most recent track from iTunes. Towards the back
of the magazine will we also include reviews of the latest released tracks and
albums from professionals in the music industry such as producers and radio
DJ’s. Another one of our magazines main features is Riff’s top 10 indie tracks,
which introduce the reader to the most popular indie tracks of the month,
which can also be found through a free spotify playlist. Reader will also notice
16 full page advertisements which relate to both a male and female audience,
covering areas such as tour posters, tour dates, festivals and headlining acts.
We have chosen to advertise my magazine on social media sites such as
Facebook and Twitter. You can see in the image below whatour Facebook
page looks like we don’thave any likes yet as the page is fairly recent.
ProductionPlans
Budget summary
Here we have a produced a budget plan which has been broken down into
sections covering job roles and salaries, marketing and advertising, printing
and publishing and distribution
2. We have highlighted the mostimportant costs like
The minimum yearly salaries for a senior editor which is £25,000 and a brand
director which is £28,000.
Also the cost for 1 full page advertisement with Bauer media which is £10,
0000, when multiplied by 16 gives us a monthly income of £160, 0000.
And the monthly costto advertiseon Facebook which is £3 and twitter £4,
which added together and multiplied by 12, gives us a yearly income of £84.
And the cost for distribution which we calculated from a website called Blurb
who gave us an online quote of £31,900for 10,000 magazines.
However the cost of printing is not yet finalised as this is negotiable with the
publisher.
Intended target audience
Demographics
(Hartley) Age & Gender
According to Hartley’s theory the intended age group for Riff magazine is 12-
18, and the intended gender is male, however there is a possibility that Riff
could appeal to a female audience.
Lifestyle
As the target age group is 12-18 a typical Riff reader would fall into audience
category E, therefore my magazinewould appeal highly to a student in full
time education.
Spending power
A reader in audience category E would be stereotypically unemployed or
working part-time earning minimum wage, thereforethey would havea lower
budget to spend. Frommy survey resultit was evident that it was best to price
my magazineat £2.50
Psychographics?
Explorers are typically younger demographics thereforelink to my target
audience of 12-18 in order to satisfy this psychographic I would haveto
providethe readers with information to keep them engaged.
3. Pre-productionMaterials
Mood Board
we created a moodboard to bring together our ideas and visualisewhat we
would like Riff magazine to look like, through identifying the colour scheme
which we have chosen as Red, White and Black. And selecting the content
which will feature within the magazine, by using images of popular indie rock
bands, and finally to make sure that Riff is easily identified by potential readers
as a British magazine.
House Style and Colour Scheme of the Magazine – “Brand Identity”
To build up brand identity we have chosen to keep the red, white and black
colour scheme consistentthroughouteach issuepublished. We will also
include a small image of our masthead at the bottom of each page, which you
can see an example of in our double page spread interview, to keep the reader
constantly informed that they are browsing through Riff magazine.
Magazine Flat Plan
We created a magazineflat plan to allow us to piece together the structurefor
our first issue, which we will not be making any changes to in the future.
Enabling us to keep our magazine in order and consistentwhen deciding the
best place to include an advertisement, to make surethat the reader is kept
engaged and entertained throughout.
Draft Pages and Sketches
Here you can see two images showing our hand drawn drafts for our front
cover and double page spread. Throughoutthe design process this enabled us
to bring to life any visual ideas we had, then present how we as a company
would like our first issueof Riff to look like. With the benefit that we could add
in distinctive details which make our magazinefit for its purposeand target
audience.
4. Draft Article
Taking inspiration fromQ magazines mostrecent interview with popular 80s
band Spandau Ballet, we drafted together a 10 question interview with Indie
star Lana Del Rey. Q focuses on the humorous sideof the band for example
question 10 asks “who fromSpandau ballet wore the single most preposterous
outfit ever?” Fromwhich our interview will be asking Lana Del Rey “What was
her mostextravagant outfit?”
Font Styles
Using dafont we selected severalfont styles which we thought best suited our
masthead, cover lines and content and wherealso similar to Q magazine. Using
Photoshop wetested out the different styles and decided to use lemon/ milk
for our masthead and cover lines, and roboto for our content. Just by looking
at a Q front cover its evident that they use a simple but easily recognizablefont
for their masthead, which is why we choselemon/milk which is easily noticed,
eye-catching to the reader and memorable to the reader.
Plan for images and Images that will be included in a typical Issue
Here you can see our photography plan which we created to allow us to plan
the images we needed to take for our frontcover and double page spread.
Taking inspiration from Q’s frontcover featuring Adele the typical setting for
our first issuewas three medium close ups taken against a plain white wall.
For further issues will be using shottypes such as; full body and wide angle
which will be taken either indoors or outdoors.
Double Page Spread
So here you can see 2 screenshots showing our firstdoublepage spread and
our final version, which weanalyzed and made changes to after we received
valuable feedback. Okay so our main feature for the two pages will be our 15
question interview as you can see fills the majority of the left page. To the left
of the interview you will notice our red drop capital which is distinctively larger
than our pull quote, and will be used to begin our stand first. Here you can see
the text is wrapping nicely around our pull quote which is now positioned in
the middle of the page. On the rightpage we have now chosen to include a
red border around both of out images which sticks to out chosen colour
scheme. Originally we had chosen a plain white background however to
5. improvethe quality of the page we added a faded silver gradient to create that
retro feel we our aiming for.
Front Cover
And this slide shows arefirstfrontcover and final version which again we
made changes and improvements to using feedback. Our main feature on the
cover is our masthead although it’s in the top corner of the magazine it’s the
area that readers instantly go to look at when they pick up a magazine. We
have designed our masthead to look similar to Q magazine by using features
like a background shapeand capital letters. As you can see fromthe small
image on the screen Q use a red background with white text, however wehave
done the oppositeby using a white background with a red gradient effect text.
And justbelow the masthead you can see our strap line which is “Like Music To
Your Ears”. Our puff promotion which you can see in the golden box is a
competition which involves Indieband Arctic Monkeys who again also appeal
to a female audience. Across the bottom of the cover will be the main headline
which is simply Lana Del Rey consisting of red text with a black drop shadow.
And down the left hand side you can see our cover lines which again use the
black drop shadow effect like our main headline. Finally the main image which
is a medium close up of Lana Del Rey positioned at the bottom right hand side
of the cover as if she was looking our towards the masthead highlighting that
this is our main feature.
Readership and circulation figures
So as of 2013 Q had a readership of 369,000 however for Riff magazinewe
would be hoping for a readership of 400,000.
Profit loss and breakdown
Okay so finally profitand loss breakdown.
Target Profit
FromJanuary 2015 I would behoping to sell a total of 30,000 magazines by
January 2016 ata fixed monthly price of £2.50. If this was successfulI would be
aiming for a target profit of £75,000.
However the question is will I gain a profit or a loss?
6. So using excel I added together all my costs including editorial and advertising
salaries, the cost to advertise on social media, and distribution. Which mean I
would have to pay out a firstyear costof £267,505.
I then subtracted my firstyear costfromthe 30,000 magazineI would be
aiming to sell however this gaveme a loss of -£237,505.
Although things did look positive when I added on the income I will gain from
my magazineadvertisements.
Which gaveme a profit of £13,495 in January 2016.