To work out what target audience to aim my magazine at, i visited mixmag's website (http://www.mixmag.net/) for some advice through their media pack. Mixmag is a British dance music and clubbing magazine. It styles itself as "the world's biggest selling dance music magazine". I have pasted an image of the media pack into this blog, however it is difficult to read so I will type up the results found.
Mixmag readers are the opinion formers and leaders in clubbing. They are the ones who make the happening music happen and the cool products cool within their peer group. They are the first to recommend a new tune and the first on a new fashion trend. They're at that new cool club very early and they move on before it starts to go cold . They're the best informed about top DJs and upcoming tunes, and they just have to have the latest mobile (even if their current one is less than six months old). They're the biggest downloaders of music in the UK.
The median age of a Mixmag reader is 26 - 72% male, 28% female - and they tend to be urban and single. They have a high disposable income and a high propensity to spend it on, Nearly 80% do not read another music magazine and they spend little time watching TV, especially at weekends.
1. Nights out
2. Clothes
3. Tunes
4. The latest mobile and MP3 player
Knowing the target audience is very important when producing a magazine as it is always good to know what area of the public your magazine will be aiming at. When finding this out you could do what i have done and conduct research into it or it could be done in other ways such as questionaires. When looking at psychographics of my magazine readers it is quite difficult to distinguish between which group they belong to. I believe that they most belong into groups such as aspirers and Individualists. Aspirers are people who want to have more money or status and will often buy “flashy” products to try to send out messages about status. An individualist is someone who wants to show the world they are different.
Another magazine from the same music genre is a magazine called DJ MAG.It bases itself on similar factors as mixmag. Its target audience is the same as mixmags and come from similar backgrounds. The graph on the left is showing the target audience in clearer detail. The demographics of the magazine are,it has a youthful audience with an average age of around 26, it is male dominated making up 94% of the target audience and 67% of these males are single with money. 70% are employed as well as 18% being students. The second graph is showing the statistics from how often the consumers go clubbing. Due to the fact the magazine is a dance/clubbing magazine I would have expected these statistics to be of high order, which they are. This gives me a bit of psychographic background into the reader, i would believe them to be succeeders which means they have more money to spend than aspirers but won’t feel the need to show it as much. They choose to spend there money on clubbing.
This is a front cover from the magazine mix-mag. When looking at the cover, instantly the image stands out to me. It is an important factor to consider when producing a magazine. A huge selling point of a magazine is what or who is on the front of it. For this issue mix-mag have chosen the artist Sam Sparro. This is a wise decision as Sam sparro is a worldwide reknown electro/dance musician, therefore the more popular a person on the front cover the more likely a regular consumer is to buy. And due to the artists popularity mix-mag have chosen to have a large image. The colour scheme is visually pleasing and is maintained throughout the cover, ensuring the colours are not clashing. The layout is intresting, contrasting with the classic design of a front cover. All of the headlines and sub-headlines are facing inwards in different directions and adds a slight informal feel to the cover which i think is what the publishers are trying to achieve. Also at the top of the pages there are two small captions about whats in the issue, "Free Armin Van Burren CD- Huge club guide 1,203 nights out". The language is focused on causing the reader to read on more, with words such as Huge and using the figure 1,203. The figure is also highlighted in yellow as it is the main part of the sentence this is the same with Almin Van Burren in the other caption. 
The next cover is from the magazine DJ MAG. DJ Magazine is,as of Janurary 1991 ,a monthly magazine dedicated to Electronic Dance Music and DJs. The magazine has styled itself as "the world's largest selling dance music magazine and currently claims sales of 27,500. The magazine cover differs to mix-mag's in the fact that it has a lot more going on in the cover. It follows a colour scheme just like mix-mag however it dosen't seem as suitable. When looking at the cover it is difficult to distinguish between articles and pick out words from the background. It also packs more articles onto its front cover, with the main article being smaller then mix-mag's. I can only imagine this is because the main article involves people who arn't too well known to the public. It has more packed onto the cover then mix-mag this could be because of the fact that it isn't as popular as mix-mag and needs to entise its audience further by adding more onto the cover that could lead to someone buying it. The language is basic and dosen't use persuasive language. It is different to lots of other magazines due to the fact it has packed a lot of colours and pictures onto its front cover, however this is good because it would stand out on a shelf in a shop. 
This is the contents page from mix-mag, when looking at it firstly. It dosen't appear to take the usual format of a contents page, it has a large title at the top which has nothing to do with the genre of dance or signifys that it is a contents page. The picture is the main focus of the page. Without reading the magazine, it seems that the picture is irrelevant to the dance music genre. The stories and sections are clearly highlighted down the left hand side of the page but take a back seat in the layout of the page. At the bottom highlighted in a blue box it reads "All the hottest releases reviewed and rated". This is possibly because it is a key part of the magazine or the main article, therefore it gets a box of its own. This is likely to be down to the fact that consumers mostly read this magazine for the album and venue reviews. In addition the magazine comes with a key in the top right corner in relation to the magazines grading system for albums and tracks. This is a good place to base the key as it is one of the first things the consumers sees when opening the magazine. 
This is the two page from mix-mag. It is layed out suitably and despite having large images there is also the content with blocks of writing. The way the blocks of text have been layed out is intresting and despite having lots of it, it takes an informal style across the two pages. There is a colour scheme throughout the page which is suitable to the magazine. However if someone was looking at this without knowing what magazine genre it was from, it wouldn't be instantly recognisable as dance magazine. It looks as if the page has 3 different perspectives of the same story which is effective when keeping a reader intrested in the magazine. Overall it is an effective layout and looks modern and visually pleasing.
