Music MagazineEvaluation

Catherine Goulding

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

My magazine would be sold in supermarkets, news agents, post offices and petrol garage shops. I feel that these places are appropriate places to retail my magazine as they sell a number of other magazines and newspapers already. These are all easy access places that most people will visit so a lot of people will be able to find it. I would sell my magazine physically but you could also purchase my magazine on the website. There would also be an option to subscribe to the magazine for a year and therefore it would get sent to their address.

In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media? My magazine uses a number of magazine conventions . My front cover contains things such as a masthead which is coloured red with a drop shadow and is in a bold font so it stands out, it is placed along the top of my magazine under the incentives banner. the incentives banner is a light shade of blue and it says about a competition as well as saying about exclusive content.

• Throughout my music magazine I have used very chatty casual tones and have addressed the reader on an eye to eye level. I have used an informal tone to make my magazine a light easy read that could be read sat down with a cup of tea or when travelling on the train.

• The front cover of my magazine uses bright eye catching colours but it isn’t over crowded. The masthead is at the top in a vibrant red colour which initially attracts the reader and they can quickly establish the name.

• In the incentives banner I have said about a free competition to win tickets to any concert.• The cover star and story I have chosen to go with is interesting for the reader and I have put a quote from

the interview on the front to make the audience want to read on.• On the front cover I have told the reader about exclusive content that they can’t get anywhere else and

this will attract them to my magazine.

How did I attract or address my audience?

Front cover

My masthead is in big bold letters along the top of the page. I used red with a drop shadow so it stands out.

Down the left side of the cover I have some of the content listed along with some information about the article making you want to know more.

I have used a medium close up for my cover star and she is looking right into the camera.

At the bottom of the page I have put my bar code and its on its side, it also has the price next to it.

Along my incentives banner I have included different things that might make you want to buy the magazine as it tells you about things you cant get anywhere else.

I have taken a quote from the interview inside to give the reader a snippet and make the interested

Contents page

Here I have put an editor note where the editor of music matters has written a brief welcome to the readers giving them an overview of what to come. These are usually found in contents pages.

I have used a more relaxed image of my cover star here, I have added a drop shadow as well as shadowing her with red and grey, to make her stand out, along with the page number you can find the interview. For the font I used the same that u chose for the contents, I also used this on the front page.

I have copied the masthead from the front cover and shrunk it slightly, then I wrote contents and entwined the C through it.

My list of the pages has all of all the numbers on the left, in blue, and the content on the right in yellow with a black stroke. Under this I have put some extra information about the page in yellow.

Double page spreadHere I have used the same text that I did on the front cover at the top of the page. I have then taken a quote from the text and have made three of the words pink to make them stand out.

In my article the questions are in blue and the answers are black. This is to brighten up all of the text and make it clearer to read.

Also on the right page I have taken another quote and put it in a bold text.

I have used another two images on the double page spread of different sizes. The larger one has a page to its self with a pink background. The smaller image is in the corner with the text wrapped around it.

I have put the page number down at the bottom quite small and next to it is the magazine title.

How does a media product represent particular social groups?

I feel that the way that I have designed my music magazine it will look more attractive to certain groups rather than others. Although I still think it is quite versatile as it has features and columns that will appeal to a few different social groups, however it won’t be to everybody’s taste. When designing my magazine I had an idea of what and who I wanted my target audience to be, therefore I knew they type of content and schemes I could include. Before starting the design work I did a survey asking what my target age wanted from a music magazine and from the results showed who liked what. I wanted my music magazine to be aimed at 15 – 25’s that are interested in mainstream music and music related gossip. When designing my magazine front cover I kept what I knew that my audience would like in mind and I also looked at a lot of different magazines that had the same target audience as me and found out things that I could include in my music magazine front cover. This helped me as looking at these other magazines it gave me ideas about what I could include. I decided to be very conventional with my cover. I had an incentives banner, saying about an exclusive competition and various other things that would be inside. As well as this I used a large image of the cover star along with a quote from the interview with her, this would make the reader want to buy the magazine to find out what else was said. I also used other quotes from various other articles and listed them down the sides along with various things about the regular columns that would make people want to get the music magazine. I also used things like a mast head and had the bar code with the price. Throughout the magazine I continued with the colour schemes that I feel are appealing to the readers as well as helping the music magazine flow from page to page. I have used bold fonts and text colours to stand out to people and catch their eyes. With all the conventions I have used I believe it to be a good magazine that suits my target audience. I feel that the music magazine represents my target social group as it has the typical conventions but I have used designs and features that I know the target readers would be attracted to. Throughout the process of making my music magazine I have made decisions that I feel my chosen target group will be well represented by as I have incorporated everything that they would want from a music magazine and created the product around this and made sure it had all the necessary conventions.

Who would the audience be for my magazine?

• When planning my music magazine I thought a the age range would be around15+ and after having conducted a survey I found that a lot of people that I asked where interested in mainstream music and music related gossip. A rough age range for the people that preferred this sort of thing was around 15 – 25.

• The people that buy my music magazine are most likely those interested in all the latest music gossip and that are in to mainstream music.

From looking at the results I can see that pop music I the most popular amongst my target audience. They also seem to like R’n’B music so these are the two that I feel the magazine would suit best.

These are the most popular results that I got from my survey showing that the artists that my target audience are most interested in are the artists that are getting into the top 40 showing that the people buying the magazine are interested in mainstream music.

Software

• Cannon camera – In making my music magazine I used this camera to take all of the pictures I have included. I learned how this particular camera takes pictures and how to upload them.

• Tripod – I used a tripod for some of the pictures I took as I wanted it to be held steady for the shots. I hadn’t used a tripod many times before

• Computer – • USB cable –

• Photoshop – At the start of the project I had never previously used photo shop so I had to learn from scratch. I have now had experience using a lot of the tools in photo shop.

• Quark – With this programme I had also never used it before and I learned how to import a picture, create a text box that fits around the images, and change around the colour of the text.

• Blogger – I learned how to create a blog here and then how to create and upload different things to my blog.

• DaFont – I used Dafont to get different font styles in my magazine. I found this really useful and I hadn’t used it before. I learned how to find different fonts and how to download them.

Hardware

Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from the full product?

• Looking back now at my college magazine and at my music magazine I can see a difference in the overall design work. I think that in the preliminary task the colours that I chose weren’t very good or eye catching, they where quite dull. Yet in my music magazine I feel I have chosen better colours that go well together and it looks more like a magazine.

• I also feel like the layout on my music magazine is better than on my college magazine, I think this is because whilst designing the music magazine I was looking at a lot of different magazines and how they have been laid out however during the preliminary task I just went for it.

• When designing my college magazine I didn’t pay much attention to detail compared to my music magazine. I feel that having been more precise with what I did in the long run.

• I think it’s good that we had the preliminary task as it helped me to learn and familiarise myself with how Photoshop worked as I hadn’t ever used it before.