Proposal Submitted

To:
From:
Title of Project:
Suggested Period of Performance:
Requested Budget:

SARW/AJON
Sal Creber
The Unicorn
13/04/15-22/06/15
450 per month

Date Submitted:

28/04/15

Principal Investigator:

SARW

Applicants Address/Contact Information: 44 Hardings

Chalgrove
Oxfordshire
OX44 7TJ
Phone: 01865 890 363
Email:
961597@henleycol.ac.uk
PIs Address and Contact Information:
The Henley College
Deanfield Avenue
Henley-on-Thames
RG9 1UH
Phone: 01491 579 988
Email: sarw@henleycol.ac.uk

The Unicorn

INDEX
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)

Content Outline
Analysis of Target Audience
Details of Competitors
Budgeting Overview and Details
Project Schedule
Contact Details

The Unicorn

(1)Content Outline
My final major project is going to be a ten to fifteen page magazine
(including adverts) centering on queer culture, history and life. The
magazine is going to be named The Unicorn, as unicorns have a
general cultural association with the LGBTQ+ community, and are a
bright, cheerful emblem which fits in with the general aesthetic of the
magazine. In addition to this I have also devised a basic design for the
masthead of my magazine: a unicorn on either side of the text
accompanied by clouds underneath, seemingly supporting the main
text. Personally I think this will be a fun and interesting design, as a lot
of LGBTQ+ magazines have quite serious and mid to darkly coloured
fonts and designs, and it has also been approved by the majority of
people that I have consulted within the community and within my peer
group. Also, as mentioned above, because a lot of LGBTQ+ themed
magazines arent as brightly coloured as mine, then The Unicorn will
also be a more distinctive magazine and therefore will have that as an
additional USP. In terms of my magazines content, I will be
interviewing three people: Dollie Darling, a transgender drag queen,
based in Dunfermline; a representative from Trouble Films, a queer
independent film company; and Mazz Image, the event planner from
Oxford Pride. Dollie and Mazz have both been confirmed and I am in
the process of organizing their interviews, and the interviewee from
Trouble Films is currently sorting out their schedule to find a time when
an interview is convenient. In terms of advertisements for my
magazine (whose costs are outlined below), I am hoping for five
separate adverts which link to the theme of the magazine i.e. LGBT
events, services and shops. These will collectively take up three pages
and will be included in the final 10-15 page, A5 magazine. An
additional feature in my magazine will be four half page reviews of
queer books and films; Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg and
The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp; Pride (2014) and The Boys
in the Band (1970). Finally, when it comes to content, I will be writing
up a minimum of two articles on topics relevant to the magazines
theme: one on the upcoming Oxford Pride, and its history; and one on
the importance of positive LGBTQ+ representation in the media. Both
these articles will be extensively researched and well written, so that
they will engage and interest readers, and hopefully give them an
incentive to recommend the magazine to new readers with similar
interests.

(2) Target Audience

The main, most obvious target audience for The Unicorn is anyone who
falls under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, be they queer, trans or gender
variant. As my magazine is themed solely around the culture of people

The Unicorn

under the umbrella of the acronym then they are a clear and easy to
target audience, who are sorely in need of a magazine that doesnt
solely focus on dating or social events. Given that all other magazines
that I have looked at which have similar content to my magazine are
solely focused on the LGB part of the acronym (and social events
linked to those three sections), my magazine will also have the added
advantage of appealing to everyone who identifies as any part of the
whole acronym. Additionally, as a reaction to other LGB magazines,
who tend to focus on queer people aged around 20-50, The Unicorn will
mainly be aimed at younger people who have an interest in queer
theory and culture, and who are looking for something to read that
doesnt have such a heavy focus on relationships and meeting other
queer people (my magazine will feature these things, however they will
be in moderation rather than taking up the whole of the magazine).
Although this may seem exclusionary to older queer people, there will
still be content to interest them, such as reviews and articles on queer
events, but the main design of the magazine and the style of writing
will solely be focused on queer people aged around 16-25, as a lot of
queer theory/culture writing is already focused on older, academic
queer people who have had a longer time to become familiar with their
identities and read more into their culture and history. In this respect, it
could be said that The Unicorn is going to act as a gateway magazine
for young queer people to begin learning more about their culture in a
non-threatening, non-imposing environment, as a lot of writing in the
LGBTQ+ community can come across as patronising or exclusionary to
people who dont understand long, complicated passages or who dont
identify neatly within the shorter LGBT acronym. In regards to the
socio-economic bands that I am aiming my magazine at, the C1 to D
bands seem to be the most appropriate
(http://www.abc1demographic.co.uk/), as the magazine probably wont
be written in a style that would appeal to anyone above the C1 band
due to a large amount of slang and general vernacular usage.
However, it could potentially still be interesting to anyone below the D
band, despite not being aimed deliberately at them. The price of the
magazine is key to this, with 2 being enough to keep a good income
for the magazine but low enough that it is affordable to the majority of
people. In addition to this, I am aiming my magazine at lowermiddle/working class people as the majority of LGBTQ+ magazines
have a tendency to write for middle/upper class people, especially
couples who have a high disposable income and are often invested in
(consciously or otherwise) perpetuating an upper-middle class,
heteronormative lifestyle. Clearly the targeting of this magazine relies
on generalisations, but these are important in creating a product as it
enables you to find an audience who can easily be marketed towards
and who would definitely be interested in the final product (such as the
queer community and my magazine). My magazine will also be aimed

The Unicorn

at any gender or race and I will be doing my best not to discriminate

against anyone in its content, so as not to exclude or alienate any
potential readers. As mentioned earlier my magazine is going to be
aimed at everyone under the LBGTQ+ umbrella and I hope and
anticipate that this will be an easy goal for me to reach and to help
minimize any discriminatory issues.

(3) Competitors
The two main competitors that I have identified are Diva
(http://divamag.co.uk/) and Attitude (http://attitude.co.uk/) magazine,
both of which are aimed at queer women and men respectively. Diva is
the UKs largest magazine aimed at queer women, it has a reader
following of about 150,000 readers a week and was established in
London in 1994. Their mission statement in their About Us page is
that they aim to provide excellence in innovation, information and
entertainment for all our customers. Attitude magazine is a lifestyle
magazine aimed at queer men, which was also first published in 1994.
It also has magazines being published in Thailand and Vietnam,
launched in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Additionally it has a digital
reader circulation of about 9,996. Both of these magazines are among
a very small amount of LGBTQ+ periodicals that circulate around the
UK, with Wikipedia listing only nine noteworthy publications
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_periodicals#United_Kingdom
) that are not free. Although there may be a large amount of digital
content aimed at the LGBTQ+ community, there are evidently very few
physical magazines in circulation, which means that The Unicorn has a
high chance of success in the physical market. Not only does it have
additional USPs to its competitors i.e. higher focus on trans people;
less focus on dating; introductions to new parts of queer culture, it also
has the advantage over its competitors with its younger target
audience, who are often the most politically active/curious in the
LGBTQ+ community and also are able to spare 4 a month for two
copies of the magazine. By providing an alternative to Diva and
Attitude (both aimed at 20-50 year olds), The Unicorn will be able to
give younger queer people the opportunity to read about subjects
relevant to them and also to learn about new parts of their history and
culture, which is more than these two competitors can offer.

(4) Budgeting
I am planning on costing each magazine at 2, with a bi-monthly
release date. My main income will be coming from magazine sales and

The Unicorn

advertising revenue, from the five advertisements that will be included

in the magazine. With the magazines selling at 2 each, and with 50
being distributed to 5 different shops, and then assuming that all those
copies sell; the final net worth of my magazine will be around 530.
Expenses are both final editing pieces of software (Adobe Photoshop
and InDesign), which will be rented on a monthly basis using the plan
that Adobe has for small business single application hire
(https://creative.adobe.com/plans?plan=team&store_code=gb);
publicity, based on the figures I have looked at below, should cost 20
for four half page advertisements in magazines that are of a similar
caliber and format to mine; finally the hiring of freelance journalists,
again based off of the figures for Shire Folk magazine, should be
around 20, as 10 an article is the standard rate for that magazine
and seems like a reasonable enough rate for a small magazine. As I am
intending to write all articles apart from two, 20 allocated to freelance
journalists seems like a realistic amount. There is also the cost of
photocopying the magazines pages, which should come to 150
(http://www.ryman.co.uk/photocopying). The total of my expenses and
therefore the money that I will need to produce a bi-monthly magazine
is 218.58. And given that I appointed 310 of my budget to the bimonthly expenses I am very happy with a difference of around 90
with that and the actual amount that will be spent. This means that I
could be able to hire additional freelance journalists and potentially
hire a consultant who could advise on the images that I will be using in
the magazine. The requested budget from Vibe Productions is 450 per
month, which gives me the ability and resources to create two issues
of The Unicorn every month. It also allows for any additional or
unforeseen expenses that might arise e.g. additional photographers or
freelancers, and any personal expenses from either myself or any other
employees. In regards to personal expenses or requirements, the main
issue will be phone bills, as the majority of interviews will be conducted
over the phone. However, as both I and my interviewees have
contracts to cover this then the expenses should be minimal, leaving a
reasonable amount for food and other supplies for myself and any
freelance journalists I hire for the issue. Mentioned above, Shire Folk
Magazine (http://www.shirefolk.org.uk/shirefolkadvertise.html) is a
similar publication size to mine, and gives me a rough idea of how
much an advertisement would cost in my magazine. Im planning on
having five adverts for my magazine, one full-page piece and four halfpage pieces. With the half page adverts costed at 40 from the link
above, and the full page one costed at 60; the revenue from this will
be an additional 220 to the 500 generated by magazine sales. With
this bringing my total income (without subtracting expenses) to 750,
the final income of The Unicorn comes to a bi-monthly total of 531.42.
Doubling this to show the monthly income of my magazine brings it to
1062.84, and subtracting expenses from this brings up a final total of

The Unicorn

624.84, which I think is an incredibly promising revenue for such a

small magazine, and shows that The Unicorn is an exceptionally
positive investment for Vibe. This final total also means that I will be
able to pay back my loan from your company in a relatively short
period of time, plus interest, while maintaining a high level of quality
and content for my magazine.

(5)Project Schedule
For the first week of this project I worked on idea development:
brainstorming different concepts and formats until I came to the
decision to produce this magazine. This final decision was made after
sending out a survey
asking which final
project I should choose
and why, with 75% of
people concurring that
I
should produce a
magazine on an
LGBTQ+ theme.
Reasons for this
included the fact that,
as I am a part of the
community, I have a firsthand knowledge of the subject and am also
able to write high quality articles within the magazine using said
knowledge. Additionally, a respondent pointed out that it would enable
me to work independently, which is something I excel at and also
means that I wont have to rely on other team members to produce
content at a quality that I am happy with. During this week of
production (20/04/15), I have been working on putting together the
pitch for you, and also on this proposal. My original concept for the
pitch was to use PowerPoint however, I chose Prezi as the more
interesting and engaging format to work with, which I hope you
approve of. From the 4th to the 18th of May I will be interviewing the
subjects for the first publication of The Unicorn, and writing up all of
the articles that I am going to be including in the final product. In
addition I will be designing the adverts for the magazine using Adobe
InDesign and Microsoft Word, and completing all of the designs for the
rest of the magazine, again using InDesign. During the half term
(25/05/15), I will be touching up any design issues and proof-reading

The Unicorn

the articles and interviews to make sure they are suitable for the
magazine and are written in an engaging style. On the week of June 1st
I will be looking for peer feedback on the design and articles, and
editing the magazine according to that feedback; I will also be
finalizing every aspect of my magazine to make sure that it is ready to
be printed off as a master copy, to be given to Vibe Productions for
evaluation. Overall this project should be finished on the 5th of June at
the very latest, which I hope is agreeable to you.
(6)

Contact Details
Editor:

Sal Creber
44 Hardings
Chalgrove
OX44 7TJ

Dollie Darling: 15 Mathieson Place

Dunfermline
Fife
Scotland
KY11 4XL
(@beardelacreme)
Trouble Films:

info@troublefilms.com
@TROUBLEfilms

Mazz Image:

Oxford Pride
41 Hermitage Road
Abingdon
Oxon
OX4 3HJ
07929 139961

The Unicorn