I wanted to create a different type of genre for my magazine, instead of a specific one like NME, the indie genre, and Kerrang, the rock genre, I wanted to try and include two types of genres. After researching, I found that their wasn't actually any type of magazine that focused on main stream music that you hear on the radio, however I also wanted to include more independent bands, therefore decided to create a merge of mainstream and indie to create Fusion. This idea would fill a big gap in the market as with a lot of people, you like more than one type of genre and by buying the magazine, you’re restricting yourself.
For the front cover I decided to use my friend Lydia, who would be posing as Ellie Goulding; mixing with people who also like the same sort of music as me gave guidance to help pick the bands that would best suit the magazine. Ellie Goulding is very popular at the moment and is often played on the radio, however before she reached this fame, she was very well known as an undiscovered, independent artist. This is why I picked her for my magazine, because she appeals to a lot of different types of people and this would widen my audience; however to use her, I would have to make sure she wouldn’t intimidate people away from the magazine with her clothes, hair etc. Therefore I had to be careful what types of other bands/stories were included, I had to include bands that a variety of people would have heard of, and I used this summer’s upcoming festivals to help me.
I dressed the model in simple clothes from Topshop, a mainstream shop; this was to my advantage as this could branch off into another story and be included in the double page spread on how down to Earth Ellie is. I wanted the image to look friendly and welcoming; from research I had done earlier, I found that many of the images are quite intimidating to the audience, I think if I had taken influence from that and posed her in a position like these, then my magazine wouldn’t work as well as many people would just brush it off as another indie magazine where you don’t know half the artists.
Throughout the magazine, when using pictures of “Ellie Goulding”, I kept to friendly, fun poses that reflected her as a real person, this also reflected when writing the whole article.
The contents page was essential to get right, as that included the bands who would be featured in that week’s issue; the band index helped with this, however I had to be careful what bands I picked as I was aiming for two types of audience and this could be easily lost when including too many bands that people haven’t heard of. I mixed the bands with some of the mainstream festivals happening this summer too, for example I had an exclusive on Reading and Leeds and a chance to win tickets to the sold out Isle of Wight festival, this responded to my specific genre.
I think the use of images, especially on the double page spread, was aimed more at the indie audience who would appreciate little features like an image looking like a Polaroid picture. I linked the bands to the audience and added little features, like mainstream festivals and bands, to advertise the genre of my magazine as well as making the whole article on “Ellie Goulding” a lot friendlier compared to double page spreads done by NME, the Pete Doherty article is an example of this. I wanted to show that a magazine can mix two genres and to read a magazine you don’t have to be labelled this type of person or that, I think my front cover, double page spread and contents page portrayed this really well and I was happy with the outcome.
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