Jazz and Soul Visual Moodboard

To give a little introduction of the genre of my music magazine, I've created a visual moodboard to present some of the words and music related to the genre. 

Reader Profile

This is a glogster of my reader profile.

Artist Profile

This is a video of the artist (Little Robyn) of my Jazz/ Soul music magazine I'm going to produce, introducing herself and talking about what her music is about. 

Audience Research & Analysis - Focus

Here is a PowerPoint presentation of the audience research (focus), with the questions and answers from the two people I asked. Because the target audience of my music magazine is 16+, I decided to have one friend of 16 and the other a family member who is middle aged to help me with this section of my research. I have also made sure that for this part of the audience research, due to the fact that it's more focused on my music genre of the magazine, I ensured that both the people I had received help from, had an interest in jazz/ soul music.

Audience Research & Analysis - General

I created a survey on Google Forms for my general audience research. I sent the link to 18 of my contacts and asked them to fill it out. I sent the form to people of different ages to give the results more of a range like my target audience of my music magazine.  With the information I have collected by producing and sending out my survey, when making the magazine, I can cater to my target audience's requirements of what they like to see in a music magazine.

1)

From these results I can infer that the most common genre of music listened to is R&B/ Hip Hop, whereas second is Pop, Jazz and Soul or another genre of music. These results can help me to produce the music magazine successfully because I know that it will reach a good number of people who actually enjoy listening to the music genre of jazz/ soul. 

2)

After receiving the answers to question number two, I can tell that a lot of artists people listen to are mostly artists who don't fit the genre of my magazine. A couple responses mention Jazz and Soul artists such as Lauryn Hill and Amy Winehouse. By asking this question, I could get a general knowledge of what people within my target audience listen to and possibly features some articles inside my magazine of the singers mentioned; helping me to reach out to audiences more.

3)

This question was one of the most useful in the survey for helping me with creating my music magazine and catering to my target audience. From these results, I can gather that, in my magazine, I should include new music and artists emerging into the music industry. Also, I can infer from the results that I should put artist interviews and tour dates in the music magazine as this was also a common answer to the question. 

4)

I asked this question so I can get a little bit of information about what I would need to include (on my front cover especially) so that the magazine would appeal to audiences. From the answers of the question, I can tell that while making the music magazine, the image on the front cover should look original, making the model stand out. I could do this by working with what my model will wear and the props used. I can also see that majority of the results are that the feature which makes them buy a music magazine is what's written on the coverlines. This tells me that I will need to include text of interesting features inside the magazine, in the coverlines. 

5)

From the results of this question, I can now get a good sense about what questions I should ask the artist of my magazine, this way I would be informing my target audience about things that they actually want to know about. A common answer to the question was what influences and inspires the artist. Also, I've found that in an interview, many would like to know about upcoming music and gigs that the artist is doing anytime soon. By receiving these results, I will be sure to use the answers when producing the double page spread in my music magazine. 

Artists in Jazz/ Soul

This post is my research about a few jazz/ soul artists: Amy Winehouse, George Benson and Sam Cooke.

I've found that all artists present/ presented themselves in similar ways. For example, the guitar is a common instrument used within the genre. Also, their styles of clothing are relatively unique, especially Amy Winehouse and her hair. Because Jazz and Soul is music which had become mostly popular in 1920s-60s, the fashion of older artists go well with that time period; however, Amy's fashion can be considered vintage in order to fit well with her genre of music she produced. 

Introduction to Soul and Jazz

Here is a Prezi I have made introducing soul music, the history of it, what's been influenced by it and main old and new soul artists.

Research Rationale

I plan to produce a Soul/ Jazz music magazine with a target audience of 16+ since it’s hard to put a specific age range on who listens to soul. I have a wide access to my target audience, for example I go to sixth form which has an age range from 16-18. Also, I have access to young adults and adults to help me build my research. This will help me to gather accurate information and cater to what they look for in a music magazine and what attracts them to purchasing one.

For the research into making my Soul/ Jazz music magazine, I will do two types of research: general and focused. I will put together a set of questions around what people’s interests are in music, what they like to see inside a music magazine and what attracts them into buying one. This will help me with my general research as I should be able to gather a good amount of feedback to influence my magazine. As for the focused research, I am planning to get a few magazines already published and show a small group of people; asking them what they like and dislike about them. By doing this type of research, it allows me to get a good understanding of what those belonging to the target audience of my magazine, expect and like to see.

To produce my research I will have to create a set of questions on Google Forms and send it to people, obviously belonging to the target audience of 16+, for them to fill out and send back to me. My focused audience research will require a few different magazines that I can use to get feedback on. I intend to video the couple of people who will give their opinions and ask them why/ why not they make like or dislike the exemplar magazines that they are shown. 

Magazine Typography Moodboard

This is an image moodboard that I have created featuring different fonts used on music magazines for their mastheads.

I've found that the majority of the masthead fonts can help to identify to audiences what type of magazine they belong to. For example, 'Kerrang!' instantly suggests that the magazine has something to do with rock/ metal music because of the cracks in the text as it's seen as quite a ruthless genre of music. Additionally, the font is relatively simple, black, bold, san- serif and the letters are all connected; this helps to identify what type of music magazine it is because rock/ metal is usually associated with the colour black.
The 'Blue's & Soul' masthead gives away what genre of music the magazine is based on just from the name of it, however, the choice of feature colours have also contributed to it being easily recognised. The shades of yellow and purple give an older feel to it, helping to suggest a genre of music which had been extremely popular in past years.


Fonts and colours used for these mastheads meet the target audiences successfully. For example, the 'Billboard' masthead is more colourful than some other magazines because of the red, yellow and blue inside a few letters of the word. This will grab the target audience easily (most likely teenagers) as it gives off a more mature vibe than a children's pop magazine would due to the plain san- serif text and primary colours.

Music Magazine Moodboard

Here is a moodboard I created showing examples of different music magazines and what is currently featured in them regarding news within the music industry and songs in the charts.
From this, I can gather some features of a music magazine to include in the one I will produce. However, because these magazines are different genres to the magazine I am planning to make (Soul), there's a limited number of features I can use; such as, the 'Mojo' type feature colours- quite dim, associated with an older feel to it. Also, the idea of featuring who's big at the moment within the industry and the current news, which is is all the magazines above, I can use in my Soul music magazine.

Music Magazine Deconstruction

Here's a PowerPoint Presentation of a 'Blue's & Soul' magazine
 features deconstructed and explained.

Introduction and Initial Ideas

This is a brief explanation of the music magazine project I'm working on, along with how I feel about it and what my initial ideas are for my magazine, Enjoy!