There are two ways in which I will be answering this question. I will firstly talk about how through the production of my piece I attracted the audiences attention and secondly how through out the production of my pieces I have gone to my audience to ask for feedback.
While I was producing my 3 elements I employed a range of elements to try and peak the attention of my previously mentioned audience. The first thing I did was to add a competition, having the words 'WIN' in big letters and in a big red circle make them the first thing the audience notice when they look at the magazine on the shelf, This is what I want as the competition is the main hook to get people to buy the magazine. I deliberately left the details of the competition vague as I want the audience to buy the magazine to find out. If I was to put win signed record sleeves from The Beatles all of the non- Beatles fans would simply ignore the competition and maybe even the magazine all together. By just writing 'signed record sleeves' I am keeping my audiences guessing and hooked on the magazine.
I have also carefully chosen the articles that feature on the front page of my magazine. I have chosen to run a story about Adele who is one of the most popular artists this country has ever produced, as consistent album sales of over 3 million suggest she has a large following . I was hoping to tap into this following and persuade them to buy the magazine. I have also run a vote, for the audience to decide what the best Indie song ever is, by doing this I am introducing a level of audience participation. This will make them feel as if they are personally involved and will make them more likely to pick the magazine up especially if they have taken part in the vote as they will to see if where their vote has come in the overall rankings.
Continuing on with the front cover I tired to use non gender specific colours such as red and white, these colours aren't particularity associated with any gender so won't immediately appeal to one gender and not the other, perhaps like using pink or blue would.
On the contents page I used a large and very dominating photo to advertise the feature that I ran on the band the Noughtie Boys. By having the picture so large I am trying to create the impression that it is the most important and worthwhile feature in the magazine. This is in the hope that my audience will be attracted to read it, this is necessary as you want the main article to be read by everyone as it has dominated most of your time and space on the page.
On my double page spread I have used a pull quote, which puts a short summation of a whole paragraph together. A person with very little time could straightway pick up the jist of the article without spending too much of their limited time reading it. This will attract and please of the audience as they don't always have time to sit there reading large chunks of text. For this exact reason I put an introduction in bold, the introduction sets the scene for the article and discusses what the main themes will be. A person will be attracted to it as it is in bold and it will help them make their mind up as to read it or not bother. This will further please the audience as they will get the impression that the magazine has been designed with then in mind.
The second way I will be answering this question is the way that I used my audience to gain feedback. Very early on I wanted to get the look of my pages right before I put the photos in. This process ran from the moment that I finished my paper plans. As I was producing my magazine for the pleasure of my audience I felt audience feedback was very important. Every time I created a draft I asked for my audience feedback to see if what I had produced was to their liking. My audience feedback came in the form of social media, face to face and video.
The very first thing I did was to create a questionnaire to establish what the audience thought the basics of my magazine should be . Through this questionnaire I helped to choose the original name 'TMS' over 'Tuned In.' It also helped me to decide on a sensible price and as interviews received the most votes for article type it started me off on planning what the content of the actual article would be. From this point I had the idea to do an interview with a band.
As you will see from looking at my blog there were a lot of intervals that I sought audience feedback, these were most commonly in the form of showing them a printed version of my work and asking them to comment while I noted down what they were saying. They did end up suggesting some quite radical changes. For my front cover they helped me finally choose a font, they helped me to decide how the competition box should be presented. It was a rounded box but now it is a circle and they ultimately helped to see that the name should be changed to make it more convenient to be used as a masthead.
For my contents page they had a look at the draft without original photography and told me what kind of shots weren't working and what kind of shots would. I found this very helpful as at the time I wasn't really sure what kind of photos I was taking and how they would be posed. They also gave me pointers on the general layout of the colours. They told me that one grey I was going to use was too dark and wouldn't attract their attention. This was important to know as my ultimate goal is to attract the attention of and please the audience.
For my double page spread my audience made me aware of some quite basic errors that I had made, I had forgotten to add page numbers and my logo to the page. They also advised me on the layout, I was told that the 3 red boxes which have the band's name written in them didn't look very good flat so I rotated them to make them look similar to that of the Sex Pistols.
I found this feedback very useful as it gave me feedback that I probably never would have thought of myself and it allowed me to ensure that my project met its ultimate goal in pleasing the audience.
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