FOCUS GROUP

Luke Vosper is a 17 year old boy interested in skateboarding and his band. He fits my target audience and therefore I spoke to him about what he would like to see featured in my magazine and he said:

 

“I don’t really enjoy the reading part of a magazine so I wouldn’t want long articles but some writing with cool graphics and pictures would really interest me, magazines work best when they look good”

This tells me that I need to focus primarily on the design aspect of my magazine more so than the writing, I should have short articles which engage the reader.

Another person I spoke to is Matt Stolworthy, a 24 year who spends most of his time travelling or writing songs for his band, about what makes him interested in buying a magazine and he said:

"I think the cover is always the main thing to draw me in, I'm not as interested in the contents, if there's a well-known musician shown or someone I haven't heard much about I'll buy it. I like finding new music to listen to so that is always important to me"

Again this shows me that the appearance of the magazine is most important and also that I should feature an up-and-coming band or artist

To find a female point of view, as I am trying to make a music magazine to be bought by more females, I spoke to my sister Lucca Joy. She is a 22 year old bar manager and event organiser who lives in Peckham, she is interested in fashion and graphic design. I asked her if she would be interested in buying a music magazine rather than finding information online:

"I often feel intimidated by music magazines as they are normally aimed at guys and aren't really female friendly. If you were able to make a unisex magazine I would definitely be interested in buying it, getting information online isn't the same as reading published fact, and I find interviews very interesting. Plus modern media is always filled with interesting pictures by new artists and that is just a bonus for me"

This shows me I need to make sure my writing and layout isn't aimed at one gender in particular as this could intimidate the audience and make them feel as though they don't want to read it.