Final evaluation: 

Looking at my genre (indie rock) I spent a lot of my time working on how I would imitate and develop the outcome of my "overall look" to my magazine and the contents. Colour, text and pretension of these elements played a huge role in the outcome of my work.

I looked at how other magazine companies presented artists or this genre on their covers and improved upon my own. Simplicity, minimalist and lack of colour  was mainly what I took from looking into the typical layout. I cut down how much text and imagery I placed across my cover and started experimenting with how I would start to take my target audience into consideration.
Averagely I would be looking at quite a young adult audience and so I thought through what  content would be best to feature. Catch up stories seemed best while complementary images of other younger people kept that young and rebellious alive and well within the theme.

Who?

I researched a lot into my audience and slowly realised that there was quite a age range to be represented. Keeping in mind as to how popular and timeless indie rock has been to the world I started to become more conscious of my older audience members.

I wanted to keep my magazine current and relevant. one of the ways I managed to do this was within my photography. Leather jackets, sunglasses and jeans match the typical look of the much younger target audience which I think is important as it can be hard these days to reach out to a younger audience without some sort of link. These were the visuals I required. The mature, black&white edits were what I mainly kept for the older audience as indie should not lose that old, rebellion and slick theme running deep through it.

TIME INC.

I feel Time inc. is one of the main parent companies that would greatly help the development and growth of my magazine. With around 60 iconic brands and a reach form America, India and the UK they prove to rake in a large audience when in terms of location. Although this is impressive I am more interested in how their small time brands such as NME which do not stretch far outside of the UK succeed. I would like to think that my magazine would be a better success being distributed within the UK only rather than worldwide as I think this type of magazine might hold most popularity there.

Target audience?

My target audience would be the ages of 13-18 and mostly female. Of course this is only one small section of the audience but I feel like my magazine template compliments and matches more to someone of this description. I felt that keeping the look reflects the reader but does not communicate with the audience in such a manner as I must of course consider the range of potential audience profiles.

Attraction 

The colour (or rather the lack of it) held the most importance due to how it linked to the genre of music I was presenting. I looked into the black and white imagery typically used for indie rock albums  to see what effect this would have to my magazine. I felt like this type of photography not only gave it a mature look but a recognisable one that would capture the interest of someone who appreciated this particular aesthetic.

What skills did I gain?

I really needed the aid of what effects I could use through Photoshop and how I could range each edit. Being able to sharpen up text or to heighten colour really made me consider my presentation a lot more. Lightening up parts of my cover made me think about how this would be spotted out of many despite the dull exterior. 

Overall development

 I think from before I now have a much better grasp on how to keep a running theme going through my design when it comes to use of colour. I also think that I have taken more consideration to proportion and how each item is positioned. The main image is now more or less the biggest section of the page and is not bombarded with text. The title is placed clearly but neatly so that it doesn't overtake the page.

I feel I was able to imitate something of a more professional look and clarify my main theme through edits that show important links to my target audience.