Audience Research & Teachers Improvements

This is the advice I was given from my teacher and from the surveys I did for my audience. 

Front Cover: 

The three covers they had to choose from were from when I developed my designs. I had no votes for my first design and one vote for my second. The last cover got four votes which shows my latest was the better out of the three.






In my audience survey I asked what I should do to improve my latest front cover. These are the responses I got from my audience and from my teachers feedback: 
. add a bright accent colour to make certain feature pop
. I would include a few shapes or symbols
. more things on it to link it to the magazine
. add more text on the front cover
. justify the text to the left margin
. use a wider variety of fonts and colours
. add names of the bands you're referring to and use different colours for this
. make the name of the artist bigger and include drop shadow
. make the artist or the blurb a different colour
. include issue date and price

I asked my audience whether they thought the blue filter looked "tacky" or "unprofessional" as a filter like this I hadn't seen on a front cover before. Everyone liked the filter used and they all agreed that it looked professional and not tacky.

When I asked this question I thought I would need to add more text to the cover but four out of the five people said I didn't! However when I asked my teacher on how I can improve she also didn't mention adding more text to the cover but she did say I need to mention more of the bands/artists names more so I will had a little bit of text to the cover.

Contents Page: 
I never ended up asking questions about my contents page as I began to attempt to make a double page contents page to see if that would work better. However, my teacher did give me some improvements I could make: 
. use the same blue tone as the front cover
. crop the main image
. add a quote from the article next to the main image on the contents page
. add more features
. use the blank space up more
. add more images

Double Page Spread: 

 As I had three different versions of my double page spread I wanted to find out what the best double page spread was. There was mixed reviews but in the end it was the latest double page spread (The one with the blue box)










These are the following improvements I was suggested to do to improve my double page spread: 
. more interesting photo/ another photo
. move the legendary box further left
. change the colour of the box that the pull quote is in so that it stands out and doesn't blend in with the image behind it. you could swap the colour with that of the facts and figures box
. make the text in the blue box smaller as its much larger than the rest of the text on the page
. space between the different questions should be smaller 
. text under the title looks quite cramped 

Audience Research: Surveys

I decided I needed to do more audience research so I can further improve my magazine product. I decided to use surveynuts.com as they were one of the only survey websites I could find where I could insert images which is important for the survey.  

Here is the link to my survey I made about the front cover: 

Survey Creator

Here is the survey I made about my double page spread: 
Survey Creator

Second Draft for double page spread

Draft for double page spread: 

For this double page spread I used blue instead of purple to go with my front cover draft. I have included an album and a quote to fill up the empty space more. After completing this double page spread I noticed there was still big gaps between the different questions so I decided to cooperate my first double page spread with this one to fill the gaps to improve the quality of it. 

Making an album cover for double page spread

For my double page spread I decided to make an album cover to help cover up blank space and to help fit conventions of a music magazine. Whilst I made the cover I decided to make a PowerPoint converted to a video to show the process of making it. 

Audience Feedback

In the past I have used survey monkey for audience research this time I wanted to use different resources: 

1) First I contacted someone over email to get their opinion on my front cover and contents page :

This was the email I sent and I asked ten questions to find out how I can improve my magazine.  

This was the email I got back in return giving me an insight into what my audience thinks about my product. 

First Double Page Spread

This is the first double page spread draft: 

I like the facts and figures section as I think it makes the page more interesting. Instead of one large image (I couldn't find any that worked) I used two smaller ones with a white border to make the pictures stand out more. I feel like I need to move the introduction to where the rest of the interview is to fit the conventions of a double page spread.

Article

This my article after I have made improvements and have added more detail to it: 

Antonia’s breakthrough in 2015 was huge, but with other upcoming bands the question is:  will she be able to keep up with 2016? The ever so elegant Antonia has a voice so unique no one can match and her band to amplify her talents. It’s normal to see young bands come and go with one hit, but Antonia insists her band is here to stay. What makes them so different?

 The 19 year old Antonia hit the charts back in early June this year with her song ‘Sound City’, which became one of the hottest hits of the summer. After her song became number one, their twitter account gained three million followers in three days, as soon as their music video was released their YouTube channel gained two million in one day. The band then began their tour in early September in the UK, which had to be reorganised due to the huge demand of tickets so the venue was moved to arenas instead. Antonia insists this is only the beginning for her band.

When you wrote ‘Sound City’, did you expect it to do this well?

“No, not in a million years.  We wrote that song three years ago and we performed it live a couple of times and it always got the crowd in a good party mood and when we got the chance to write an album we knew that was one. We weren’t originally going to put that song as our single, but in the end, we did and it was obviously the right choice.”

Are you happy with the album (Simple terms) you wrote?

“Yes and no. We were given three months to write an album so we had to use some of our older songs which we wrote when we were seventeen in a basement. We’ve improved since then as artists whether it’s on the stage or in the studio. However, I do love those songs and glad we got them recorded and released. Our fan base loves our music which is always good (laughs).”

Talking about fans, who was some of your idols growing up? Was it terrifying working with all your heroes?

“Hell Yeah! I have a lot of respect for the people I got to work with such as one of my idols Alex Fletcher (from the band Queen Bandit). I grew up listening to them in my bedroom and now I’m in the studio with them working on our album! It was kind of intimidating having to sing in front of them, but I’m friends with a few of these legendary people. You just don’t want to let them down and they all really helped me improve my singing techniques such as how to amplify my voice more.”

Do you think it’s important for artists to interact with their fan base or do you think it’s getting too extreme now?

“I think looking back when I was younger, I would have loved to have been able to tweet my favourite band member and its great how they (the fans) can get to know more about their favourite bands/artists. It does scare me a bit when fans sneak into hotel rooms or know where you live… it’s become part of the job to deal with it now.”

Do you think there is any negative of social media or mobiles for the music industry?

“As I said, social media is great and it means bands which may not have gotten the chance to be heard now can with a website like YouTube and Twitter because they can advertise to people for free on a large scale. I do find it sad when I meet a fan and we never really get a good conversation they just want a photo and follow… it’s almost seems they don’t care about the artist at all they just want the attention of been able to say they’ve met someone from a band.  I don’t mind taking photos I would just love a conversation with a fan.”

What sort of things would you like your fan to talk about?

“The music! What’s their favourite song off our album? What’s their favourite song in general? Have they come to any of our concerts?  I’d just like to know our fans a bit better.”

When growing up, did you ever expect to be in a band?

“I always loved being on stage and loved singing so it always made sense. Since I quit school to focus on the band I have never been happier. Music makes me feel part of something great. Music is everything to me. I always wanted to have a career in music and I’m just so lucky it turned into a reality.”

2015 has been a great year for you, what can we expect in 2016?

“We are hoping to release an EP and begin working on our next album, but we’re also touring America and some part of Asia such as Japan and the Philippians! [Tickets on sale March 18^th] 2016 was just a warm up for our band Antonia. By the end of 2016 we won’t be the band we’re today we will be even better and hopefully more music out there on the market.”