DPS Research

How is House Style Established?

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What is house style?

House style can be established through many different things, two main examples that the majority of magazines use to establish their house style is through their chosen typography and colour schemes. It is important for magazines to establish their house styles as it allows them to become a lot more easily recognized by viewers if they use a recurring theme.

Page Furniture and Design Elements

Page Furniture:

Page furniture is made of small elements which come together to allow the page to look more interesting and creative, they are elements of design which add a lot of character to the page. As well as adding character to the page, they also work to help unify the house style for the magazine. For example, for an Indie Music Magazine, lots of small elements associated with the term 'Indie' would feature on the page. 

There are many different types of design elements that could be used on a magazine cover to help unify a house style. All of the different elements such as drop caps, embellishments, typography and clip art help to make each magazine stand out above another. These design elements make a magazine more memorable and recognizable from a viewers point of view and each small elements counts. 

Front Page Design Elements

The above front page that I have taken from NME magazine shows a variety of design elements that have been implemented onto the front cover. The artist on the front cover is Lana Del Rey and she was born in the United States, an obvious design element is that flag of the United States  has been used as the background for this magazine cover. A bright blue typeface has been used to make the main feature of the magazine stand out on the white and red background. There is an obvious colour scheme for this front cover, using the colour's blue, white and black. 

The colour from the subheading on the magazine front cover has been taken and used again down the bottom of the page to show spaces between each different music artist's name. This is a noticeable design element, and it shows that the front cover sticks to a colour scheme. 

Double Page Spread Design Elements

The above image of a double page spread article from 'Vibe' music magazine shows several design elements over the spread. The first design element that completely draws in our attention is the capital 'L' written in bright red over the double page spread article. The double page spread article is about Lady Gaga, so they have taken the first initial from her first name and used that as an element of design. Throughout the article they have also made use of two drop caps to begin paragraphs to maybe signify a subject change or to signify importance of what is written underneath. In the top right hand corner of the double page spread on the second page, the name of the artist is written to show 'lady GAGA'. The contrasts between the lower case letters and the capital letters is a design element as it catches our attention and we are drawn in.  

Font/Masthead/Typography

The Masthead:

For all magazines it is important that the masthead of their magazine is the main focus from all viewers. The role of the masthead is to stand out and be recognizable to the target audience so that they remember which magazine they are reading. After researching many magazines I have noticed that the majority of Mastheads contain some of the same characteristics such as:

• Being Bold - The majority of masthead's that are used on music magazines are all very big and bold in order to stand out on the page. It is important that the masthead instantly catches the attention of the reader and to do this the title needs to be bold. An example of a bold title would be NME magazine. 

The title is very bold and has two different colour's, white and black, outlining it. The contrast between the colour's black, white and red makes the title appear more apparent and dominant to us. 

• Bright and Block Colour's - I have noticed that all of the colour's that have been used on music magazine mastheads have always been bright and they are always block colour's instead of trying to blend multiple colour's together. This can also unify the house style of the magazine as they use one colour to dominate over the other colour's used on the page.

The mastheads for music magazine 'mixmag' often change colour, however, each colour they use is always a block colour. The examples on the left show the block colour's yellow, white and pink. As well as being block colour's they also meet the expectations of being bright. 

• Short Titles - Most magazines have short titles because they are catchy and the viewers can easily remember them if they are short. When they are short they are straight to the point and it is evident what the magazine is about. 

Typography:

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My Target Audience

My Target Audience

The target audience for my music magazine will consist of both men and women as both genders enjoy listening to pop music. The age bracket for my target audience will mainly consist of 16-30 year old's, particularly people between the age of 16 and 25 as these are considered as youths and are more likely to be the biggest fans of this Pop music genre. 

UK Tribes:

Using the Channel 4's UK Tribe website, I have discovered that the particular youth society that would fit my target audience are 'Townies'. 

'Townies' are people that are seen to go with the flow. They love to keep up to date with all of the latest celebrity news and they mainly listen to the popular chart music. Townies also like fashion and tend to follow the crowd. Alcohol is connoted with Townies as they like to have that buzzing feeling and like to have fun. Therefore, Townies are my target audience. 

Social Networking:

The main social networking sites that my mass market target audience use consist of Twitter and Instagram as these are the most popular social networking sites. 

Twitter is an online social networking and blogging service which allows users to read and reply to other people's 'tweets' as well as 'tweeting' things themselves. Twitter is an extremely popular social networking site and there is over 230 million active twitter users and in total there are roughly 500 million tweets per day. 

Instagram is an online photo and video sharing social networking service that allows its users to take photographs and apply digital filters to them to improve the quality and share them on a variety of different social networking sites for many people to see and there are also options to 'like' and 'comment' on other people's photo posts. There is over 150 million users on instagram and over 1 billion likes each day. 

Brands Favoured by my Target Audience:

Concerts/Festivals my Target Audience Would Attend:

The following image shows the questionnaire that I have created to find out the different things that my target audience like. 

Using Survey Monkey, I have made my survey available to people online as well so that I can get a wider range of answers from all over the country. If you would like to visit and complete the online version of my questionnaire then please visit the link below. 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3PS22HY

Target Audience Video:

Chosen Music Genre

My chosen genre - Pop Music

The term 'Pop' originally came from the word 'popular' which implies that it is one of the most well known genres in the music industry. This genre of music draws in thousands of listeners world wide and consists of mainly top of the charts music. Pop music is seen as a type of music that implements different types of genres, such as dance and rock, into one genre which is why it is such a popular genre as it has music that fits many preferences. 

Many different artists come under the pop music genre, a particular well known artist is Michael Jackson who was known as 'the King of Pop' as he was the artist who helped pop music to become a lot more well known. Many other successful artists consist of the following:

• Rihanna

• Lady Gaga

• One Direction

• Justin Bieber

• Justin Timberlake

• Beyonce

• Taylor Swift

• Miley Cyrus

The factor that many people love about pop music is that there is always a song that you can play to fit your mood. 

This shows that the music that these artists bring out is always changing, as well as their music changing, the way in which they present themselves is also always changing in order to keep up with the popular genre that their music fits in. 

Pop Music Videos

The music videos for pop songs usually always tell a story and if they are not telling a story then they often appear to be quite sexual. I find this unusual as pop music is usually aimed at the younger generation and having sexual music videos is rather inappropriate. This implies that the pop music target audience is changing from the younger generation to people around and within the age of 16-30 year olds. 

Pop videos also appear to be the most vibrant when it comes to colour, mise en scene and the music itself. The colours used in pop videos are usually bright and portray the party atmosphere using the bright flashing lights. The mise en scene adds to the party and club atmosphere through the choreographed dance sequences used in the majority of pop music videos. The mise en scene in pop music videos is also very evident through their costume choices as they usually wear extravagant outfits or they model what is in the trends and is commercially successful at the present time. 

Some examples of pop music:
Little Mix - Move

Beyonce - Love on Top

Finalisation of Music Magazine Title

Photograph Research

I have researched several Pop music based magazines to gain an idea of how to present the front cover of my music magazine.My main focus is the different photo's that different magazines use on their front covers.

Contents:
I have researched further into the layout and structure of music magazine contents pages to see the different ideas that I could use for my own magazine. The music magazine contents pages that I have looked at are 'Q' and 'Mixmag'. 





This Contents Page is form Q Music Magazine. The layout of this contents page is very clear and well presented as the layout is very simple. The background colour of the contents page is plain white which gives the editors the opportunity of using a vast variety of colours on their page to make it stand out. Across the top of the page 'Q Contents' is written in a banner which runs across the top of the page. The 'Contents' part of this heading is written in a black banner in a white typeface. The 'Q' in this heading is in a red banner in a white typeface to make the title of the magazine look dominant. The contents page has a large long-shot image of the main feature in the magazine in the right corner, The Courteeners, this goes from the top of the page and ends three quarters of the page down emphasising that they are the main feature in the magazine. In a white box overlapping this photograph the name of the band is written to catch the readers attention, also in this white box is a quote which has been said by one of the members to give people a taster of what they will find written in their feature in the magazine. Another image that is shown on this contents page is a picture of another musician. This is another long-shot, however, it is on a much lower scale implying that this artists feature is smaller than The Courteeners. The subheadings of the magazine contents page consist of 'Features', 'Every Month' and 'Oasis Special'. The 'Features' and 'Every Month' subheadings are written in a white type face on a block red background. The words are written in capital letters to make them stand out so that people can find what they are looking for on the contents page easily. 

    

This contents page is from Mixmag Music Magazine. In comparison to the Q Magazine Contents Page, the background colour of the Mixmag contents page is plain black. This allows many vibrant colours to appear on the page and the editors of this magazine contents page have taken advantage of this. 'Mixmag' is written at the top of the page in lower case letters in a white typeface in the top left hand corner of the page. Several spaces along from this, in line with 'mixmag', 'December 2009' is written in capital letters in a small font in a yellow typeface which stands out on the black background. 'Contents' is then written next to this in a large font in capital letters in a white typeface which makes it clear to the reader that it is the contents page. The first image that draws in our attention is a large scale image of what appears to be an audience at a festival. Many different coloured pieces of confetti are falling down onto the crowd and where the colours used in this image are so loud it attracts the readers attention and makes them want to purchase the magazine. The contents page uses a yellow and white colour scheme throughout as all of the text is written in either a white or yellow typeface. The yellow typeface is mainly used for the page numbers, and the white typeface is used on the text that informs the reader of what they will find on each page of the magazine. Having a set colour scheme like this magazine allows the page to look very tidy and presents the information that is consists of very well to the reader. 

The Similarities and Comparisons between the two above contents pages;

Similarities:

• Both magazines have a colour scheme running throughout their contents page. 
• They both have straight lines separating each different section on the contents page. 
• The page numbers are on the left hand side of the text. 

Comparisons: 

• Q Magazine uses a plain white background, whereas, Mixmag uses a plain black background. 
• Mixmag consists of 3 images on its contents page, one large scale image and two smaller scale image. In comparison to this, Q Magazine only consists of 2 images, one large scale image and one lower scale image.
• Mixmag has used very bright and vibrant pictures, whereas, Q Magazine has used bright typefaces to make the page more appealing. 
• Mixmag advertises albums on its contents page, whereas Q magazine does not. 

House Style; 
The house style of the Q music magazine contents page appears to be the red, white and black typeface colour scheme which runs over the entire page. For Mixmag, the contents page house style appears to be the white and yellow typeface, these are the only two font colours used on the entire contents page. 

Double Paged Spreads:

This double page spread from Q magazine shows that the main feature is Lady Gaga. They have used a single page for a large mid-shot image of her in black and white. Her hair looks very messy giving her a reckless look and the chains draped over her chest instead of clothing adds to this effect. Her gaze is directed at the reader, she is wearing very thick makeup around her eyes which makes them stand out. Her head is angled slightly to the right and her lips are parted slightly showing her two front teeth. On the second page is the article written about Lady Gaga and the large 'L' written in red over the article makes the page very appealing to the readers. This is a different style page to other magazines and is very original, the colour white, black and red all balance well together which makes the page flow. Having the giant 'L' written in a bold red typeface could signify importance about what is written on this page and as it is so big and bold it stands out and attracts readers.