Model consent form

You can find the model consent forms which were signed by Mariyam, Annamaria and Sophia, the models in my magazine:

Flatplan deconstructed

This is the deconstruction of my flatplan below:

Visual mood board

The visual mood board below shows the representations within Grime and why people rap. Some of the words used are totally the opposite of happy but this is due to the fact that these are the reasons why people choose to rap. They are able to express their beliefs whether they are about politics or living poverty.

Reader profile

This is Sophie Cortez; currently she is studying four subjects at AS level which are Music, History, Media Studies and Economics. Sophie enjoys listening to music and shares the view like several others that women are not treated equally enough compared to men. She currently plays basketball in her college basketball team, however also takes part in karate every Tuesday and Friday. Sophie is on her black-stripe belt and will be attempting to obtain the black-belt as she dreams to one day become a sensei and start her own dojo.

Sophie enjoys Grime music as it is something she can relate with as she was born and raised in one of South London’s most crime-ridden area, Thornton Heath meaning she has been around the Grime culture for the most of 17 years as a lot of the people from these areas use music as their escape from all the hardships life has to offer.

Alongside Grime, Sophie enjoys listening to Hip Hop artists such as Eminem who she feels is truly inspiring as he came from the ghetto of America and now he has officially been labelled the ‘Rap God’.

Artist profile

Rozay, also known as Mariyam Khan, is a Grime artist who pushed through her past struggles with gangs mainly due to the area which she lived in and the circumstances her family were in at the time. She started rapping mainly to inspire those just like her in difficult situations and to help them get through what they are facing as sometimes we can’t control the events that occur.

Mariyam’s mother used to really enjoy music when she was younger and was an R&B artist herself. This allowed Mariyam to see what her mother did and gave her the ability to use the tools needed to make music from a young age (from 8 years old Mariyam has been creating instrumentals for her own music and other’s).

Originally, Rozay was noticed on several social media applications like Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. These social media apps have allowed Mariyam to build a fan base which led her on to make music videos and post them on YouTube. Enormous YouTube music channels such as SBTV and Link Up TV began recognising her and featuring her on their channels. She managed to gain over a million viewers within three days of the videos being released with an approximate 10:1 like to dislike ratio.

As younger music listeners are very active on social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, these were the perfect applications to use to boost her fan base as most 16-25 year olds would have both of them meaning she give the ease of access to her audience without them having to download new applications, they can simply just open their normal apps and see what she has posted. Furthermore, Rozay can contact her fans to ask for advice and generally help them if they are struggling with anything as this is her main cause.

You can see her choice of fashion below. Mariyam tends to wear dark colours to suit the genre but most importantly because she prefers to wear darker clothing. Dark colours suit the Grime genre as the stereotypical view of a 'hood rat' is someone seen in dark colours and looking intimidating however I don't believe that you have to be a 'hood rat' to make Grime, you just need the flow and punch lines. 

main cause.

Findings

Through this research I have found that the methods that most 16-25 year olds use are extremely digitised. I understand this because a very small minority of people actually bought music magazines. Due to this, I will incorporate a code which the reader can scan and which will lead to a website where the reader can vote their best artists and vote for interviews. This is to ensure that the readers of these magazines feel that they have a say within it.

I further found that there were others who agreed with my statement that males dominate Grime. This shows that I have other people who also have the same opinion as me on female grime artists. This means that I will be typing the ideal content for my audience.

In addition to this, I found the perfect price for the magazine I am going to publish which is below £3.00 as the majority of people voted for this (8/9 respondents).

Lastly, I found that the main thing people look at when they first look at a magazine is the images that are present on the front cover. Due to this, I will need to ensure that the images have a lot of colour in them or colours that really stand out and contrast with each other like black and white or red and black.

Focused research

Question 1) Who is your favourite Grime artist and why?

Question 2) Do you listen to more male or female grime artists?

Question 3) From looking at this magazine, what grabs your attention the most?

Question 4) What information would you like to know about a Grime artist in an interview?

Broad research

It is evident from the bar chart above that not very many people purchase magazines anymore (1/9 people buy music magazines). I believe this is due to the social media platforms and applications we have available to us. Social media platforms and other news applications allow people to access magazines online maybe for cheaper or even for free meaning people don’t have to make the effort to go out to buy the magazine which is easy access and this could be something I could incorporate into my magazine.

From this data I have collected on Survey Monkey, I am able to understand that the most popular price groups for magazines are £0.01-£1.49 and £1.50-£2.99. As I have given this survey to those who listen to and enjoy Grime, it is clear that I have to keep the price low as it is affordable and the price will stand out to my target audience.

Most of what is listed above I was going to use anyway but the interview was a great idea and I will try my best to slot in at least one within the magazine. I especially like the idea of the list of top Grime artists and I will do this by giving the readers access to a website where they can vote who they think should go on the list.

It is clear that I have to include celebrity gossip, features and information about new releases. I was going to include all the things listed by the respondents but this has just certified the importance of these topics.

Approximately 70% of respondents informed me that the pictures on a magazine cover is the first thing they notice so to ensure I am meeting the requirements of my target audience I will use interesting images along with a punchy colour scheme ensure it stands out from any other magazines which are of the same genre if there are any.

Artists of Grime

I have embedded a power point I made on two artists from the Grime industry who are female which is my main focus for the magazine I am going to produce.

Genre research

If you read the timeline below, you are able to understand that Grime has had a very uncertain past however large icons within the industry today made sure that Grime remained by making large sacrifices for themselves and all the others within our society who want to make something out of music due to a lack of opportunities or just a passion and real drive for music.

Research rationale

My target audience for this magazine are for those who are interested in grime from the age 16 onwards to 25. I chose the age group starting at 16 because I believe that Grime can be very explicit due to the profanity used and sexual innuendos. I purposely didn’t make the age group starting from 18 as I believe those who are aged 16 are mature and have been exposed to that kind of material especially in this day and age where movies which are 12A have profanity showing that it is more accepted. Also, through my own experiences, I have seen that students tend to listen to a lot of up-tempo, rave type music going to school, while doing work, while revising, going home, etc. And have had a lot of peers who have decided to pursue a career within the grime industry however have had no female friends entering the grime industry. This magazine is aimed at a female audience but doesn’t have any restriction as if men are interested, they are more than welcome to read the magazine but it is aimed mainly for women due to the fact that as I said in my brief, not very many women are given the limelight for their music even when it is of high quality.

For example, Lady Leshurr had some publicity for her music however this was very short-lived but if you look at male artists, their music seems to have a very long life-span like Ard Adz. He didn’t post for quite some time but people were still much hyped and in my opinion, Lady Leshurr did a greater job than him which isn’t just my opinion but my peer’s opinions too.

Lady Leshurr

Ard Adz

In order to generate graphs for my research, I will create a survey on Microsoft Office Word and ask a minimum of ten people to complete the survey to ensure the reliability of my research. For my audience research I will gather a focus group and conduct an interview with them which will consist of two or more students within my sixth form. This is beneficial because it will give me opinions of my target audience allowing for the production of my magazine to be at the best of my ability and to hopefully meet everybody’s expectation.

Typography

I searched up many different magazine mastheads and found that the most common type of font used is San-Serif in bold with the colours black and white. The font used by magazine editors are specifically used in order to show what the magazine is about and who it’s for.

Vibe, Q Magazine, Wave, Movement and NME all use block capitals in bold in order to stand out to the target audience so they can find the magazine with ease among several others in stalls within stores. Also, the one other colour that is used in the mastheads is red which stands out on the black it is surrounded by. In addition to his, red is a punchy colour and really stands out on a black backdrop.

Rolling Stone uses an Italic font which indicates that the magazine is aimed at a more mature audience because adults are more for the content rather than the cover being colourful and attractive which is the total opposite for teenagers who look for attractive colours and then read the content. Furthermore, Rolling Stones has used a retro red which may indicate that it is aimed at an older audience as it looks more pixelated and old.

Below is the mood board I created using the different mastheads I found on Google:

These examples are just a few methods used by magazine editors in order to present the gender or age group the magazine is for. Analysing these mastheads has allowed me to understand how an editor manipulates fonts in order to portray a certain genre for music.

Magazine deconstruction

These magazine deconstructions were produced using Prezi: Deconstruction of a VIBE magazine: Deconstruction of a Q magazine:

Music moodboard

I have created a mood board on PowerPoint which you can find below:

Introduction to my music magazine

Brief

Hi, I’m back and have something really intriguing for everyone today and for the coming days. I have been put to the task by my teacher to create a music magazine. I have to produce the front page, contents page and a double page spread with an interview with my chosen artist.

Initial feelings

It’s understandable to say that writing about an artist is easy; however, I have to create my own artist. This is the main section I am wary about as this is the first time I have been asked to create a character so I will find this difficult because I want to create a unique rapper which is going to take a lot of research as I need to find a gap within the magazine market which I have already done but creating the idea of a female grime artist is literally only the start.

Personally, I’m overwhelmed by this task as I am not too confident with my Photoshop skills yet and just generally looking at all the different aspects of a magazine, especially a music magazine, but I will put all my effort into this task.

Plans

My plan is to create a female grime artist as I believe that female grime artists don’t seem to get much recognition for what they are producing. Furthermore, the grime industry is flooded with male rappers. This may just be due to stereotypical views that a lot of us have of women not being as ‘hard’ or strong as men but I am creating this magazine in order to change this stereotype and create an equal image of men and women due to the fact that we are all equal regardless of age, gender, size and culture.

As you can see from this print screen above, I simply searched 'Grime magazine' and not even one female grime artist appeared as they are all male. There is one woman that came up whilst researching and even she looked like an asset to the man she's being held by. I do not approve of inequality so I am taking this opportunity and using it to put forward my opinions as well as I possibly can.