Statement of Intent

 

Product 1

I have chosen the name “Passing Tone” for my magazine as it is a type of note that passes between two chord notes, just as the magazine is meant to be a source of information passing between the audience and music artists. It also rolls of the tongue quite well and is a unique name. My target demographic is 16–25-year-olds and I have been assigned to work for an independent company so I will have creative liberty and will target an indie audience. To appeal to this audience, I will have a very grungy aesthetic with a worn-out font for the masthead and worn out/ripped boxes for the contents pages and such. My house style will change to match the story but will only consist of 4 colours (including white and black). The house style from the cover will carry on to the respective contents page. My cover stories will represent non mainstream artists such as upcoming rock bands to keep the indie demographic and will work as a spotlight for new artists trying to make a name for themselves, as long as their aesthetic isn’t too pop. The mise-en-scene will contain props conventionally associated with indie such as a guitar and the clothing worn will be thrift shop-y. My first issue will feature a woman, and my second issue will feature a man advocating for more young artists. This diversity appeals to the younger demographic and the second issue almost directly calls to my demographic. The contents page will create more representation as there will be a quote that complains about the lack of representation of gay teens and implies that at least one of the band members featured on the second story are gay, which appeals to the indie demographic especially as the indie genre has a rather queer community. As I am working for an indie institution, my magazine would not receive as much funding as more mainstream magazines, so to accommodate for this, the main images on the cover stories will be heavily edited to mask the low budget shoots and lean extremely heavily into the grunge aesthetic with visuals that immediately stand out to younger audiences without being pop-y and childish. As I am targeting 16-25 year-olds, I will also have lots of call-backs to my website such as a QR code on my first issue and a merch plug on my contents page.

Product 2

My website is going to have a navigation bar at the top with the Masthead for brand recognisability, along with a search bar and links to social media which appeals to a younger audience that may not like using individual sites rather than just social media. A subscription pop-up will appear on the screen after a few seconds, making it so it doesn’t particularly appear like a requirement by showing up as soon as you get on the website but will entice people to subscribe so they consume more of the magazines content. A strong house style of red, black and white will be used as I feel it is kind of grungy colours and I consider it to be the default colour scheme of my magazine. The cover stories from the magazines and a few extra major stories will appear as a big slideshow at the top of the page (under the menu bar) which will appeal to people as it is an automatically moving element with a read more button for every story acting as a call to action. Each main story will also have a distinct colour associated and font (only for the title that appears on the image above the read more button) associated with it to appeal to a younger audience. The “recent articles” section (website equivalent of feature stories) will be in a grid format as conventionally seen with magazine (and even news) websites, with anchorage on each image. Embedded within this section will be an advertisement for the magazine’s podcast with a button calling the visitor to listen now. There will also be automatically playing videos section for “user submitted” videos with a big submit your own button enticing people to interact with the product. There will also be a section on the website that shows the issues and a little preview of the upcoming issue.

Convergence

There will be clear iconography that lets everyone relate the website with the magazine such as the masthead, fonts and the amount of colours used for the house style. The same stories will appear on both the magazine and the website, along with QR codes for the website on the magazine, plugs about merch being available on the website. There will also be a section of the website that shows the front cover of each issue. Social media links  will appear both on the masthead and on every person in the “Meet The Team” section, enticing the readers to interact on social media.