My Magazine Evaluation

By Lily Saunders

In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of a real media product?

Forms and Conventions of a Magazine Kerrang Front Page

Masthead – eroded font, capital letters and large font size.

Central Image – black top against red background.

Strapline – bold capital letters that are eye catching.

Banner strip – stands out due to bright yellow colour.

Advertising free poster – exclamation marks create emphasis.

Competition - sticker like border. Fits in with colour scheme

Red, yellow, black and white house style colours. Red, black and white are often colours used on rock or alternate music magazines.Paper tear

Barcode

My Front Page

Front Page Masthead• The masthead of my magazine is at the tope of the page, this is where it is predominantly located in most magazines, including Kerranng. My ANAR-KEY

masthead is similar to the masthead of the magazine KERRANG, in that it uses a large, bold print with capital letters making it stand out clearly. Also the eroded style of the font is something that I have used that is similar to the scratched out or broken looking parts of the KERRANG log. This is an example of how I have developed my own media product from my style guide, a Kerrang Magazine.

• My masthead is not straight, the letters vary in the height that they are as some are higher than others. This is one way that my media product challenges other, real media products. Also, there is a safety pin in between the words ANAR and Key, so I have used an object to link the two words together. This differs from most media products which would be inclined to use a hyphen between two words. The choice of the safety pin links to the audience that the magazine is aimed at, showing that this is a tactful divergence from the normal conventions of a magazine’s title. One final point on the masthead is the fact that I have used the same colour scheme of black, red and white that many other rock magazines also use.

Front Page Barcode

• On the front page of my magazine, I have used a barcode, which is a normal convention for real media products. However, I have developed this by adding a leopard print background to the barcode. This links to one of Banksy’s leopard and barcode graffiti, as it displays how barcodes act as a cage, representing establishments and products that are produced. To develop this, I created my own leopard print on Photoshop to place behind the barcode cage.

House Style and Colour

• The house style of my magazine is a development of many magazines that I have looked at. The main house style that I have taken ideas from is the popular Kerrang! magazine. I have developed on the most common house style colours for a music magazine, red, black and white, by using the colour blue as well. My choice for this colour was because it contrasts strongly against the red. This effect is often used on film poster, (using orange instead of red) as it makes the image stand out.

Front Page Bricolage Style• The Bricolage effect that I have adopted when creating my magazine is a development of the fanzine magazines such as Sniffin’ Glue, Up

Yours and Vague, as punks use an anti establishment style, where they make and repair by hand as an act of rebellion against the norms. This is shown in the scrapbook style of the fanzines. Kerrang! Magazine is a much more developed version of this, however it still uses layering and texts at angles which reflect those styles. In my magazine I include the layering of boxes underneath texts, using polaroid frames, the angles that texts and pictures are placed on. These all add up to create a scrapbook type of style that links to the Bricolage effect. Punk’s used the Bricolage effect to create their own styles, as demonstrated by fanzines.

• My use of torn paper on the bottom right of the magazine goes against the conventions of a magazine in a few ways. Firstly, the paper is torn, creating a un-neat scrapbook kind of style which links well to the DIY attitudes of the punk subculture. Also, the un-straight angles that I placed the writing on top of the paper is again to show how punks go against the expected behaviours of society, this is shown by the fact that the writing is not between the lines of the piece of paper as well.

Front Page Background

• In the background of my front page I have used images of circles that to emit from the Anarchy symbol on "Spike's" top. This makes it similar to the drawn on Anarchy symbol on "Spike's" top, perhaps creating the graphic match effect of showing two items that are similar in shape and linking them together, the circle on the anarchy symbol and the concentric circles. Concentric circles are circles that seem to be either emitted from the centre of the circles, or from the outer circle moving inward. There seems to be a direction to which way the circles are moving. I used this idea a Kerrang! front page, where Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens, is holding a and the background of this page is lined with these concentric circles. This makes it appear as though he is shouting into the megaphone and the sound-waves are projecting outwards linking to the band name ‘sirens’.

• My use of these concentric circles links to punk rock which is clearly a loud and hardcore genre of music that is not for the faint hearted. This is similar to the Kerrang front cover above, the implication of noise being projected outwards for everyone to hear.

Forms and Conventions of a Magazine Kerrang Contents Page

Contents Title – white against red stands out and fits with house style colours.

Main image – takes up most of the page as it is an important competition that is being advertised.

Button – links to the picture, bright red and yellow stands out against the low lit picture in the background.

Information about the competition, links to the button and the main picture. Also sticks to the white and yellow colour scheme.

Note from the editor with a picture beside it.

Banner with issue and cover date written in white against the red background.

The layout follows a pattern where each of the titles are in a black box and their font is yellow. Then the content bellow is written in bold black with extra information in a smaller font. The number of the page is written in red. These contrasts make the main text that is important easy to read. The red stands out against the black and the bold font is much clearer.

My Contents Page

Contents Page Banner

• The banner along the top of my magazine’s contents page is similar to the banner of Kerrang. It is a good way to highlight the masthead of the magazine. However, I have developed on this by creating a London Underground style button behind the word “Title”. This links to the main target audience of punks as they are often associated with London, where the movement is thought to originate from.

• I’ve looked at a number of different banners and found that they contain the masthead or magazine logo and sometimes the date. I only used the issue number of my magazine as the date is on the front cover.

Contents Page Main Image

• I have chosen my main image, a picture of “Buffy”, similar to Kerrang’s Parkway Drive image. My image takes up most of the page as it is an important article, advertising the chance to win a prize as well as a double page that is later on in the magazine.

• In order to improve my double page spread, I would have made the main image a little smaller in proportion to the rest of the page. However, I found that Kerrang magazines sometimes have a large main image that takes up a large amount of the page. This is why I kept the size of the main image.

Contents Page Layout

• I have used the layout of the contents page of Kerrang magazine in my own magazine. This includes the black boxes around each of the headings and the red numbers beside the bold contents in a black font.

• The layout of my magazine does not exactly follow the layout of the Kerrang contents page, however they both contain very similar features. The differences are where the note from the editor are and the content within them.

Forms and Conventions of a MagazineKerrang Double Page Spread

Quote

Large, bold fontText

Main image

Black, red and white colour scheme.

My Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread Main Quote

• The main quote on the left page of Kerrang’s double page spread is an idea that I have used in my own double page spread. But I have spread it out across the two pages rather than restricting it to the left page. I have also used a font similar to Kerrang’s as it links well to the Bricolage style of my magazine. I took this idea because I like how it appears similar the kidnapping note effect, a font used by the famous punk rock band The Sex Pistols. The font I used is called phorssa, I found this font on dafont.com, a website that has free fonts available for download.

Double Page Spread Background

• The double page spread of Kerrang uses a plain white background, where as in my own double page spread I have used a violent red background which I created on photoshop using a tutorial and adding my own personal effects to it to incorporate different tones and temperatures in different places. I moved away from just using a plain background as I wanted the page to stand out and be eye catching. Also, the colour red, I found from research, has very powerful connotations including anger and blood.

Double Page Spread Text• The text on the Kerrang double page spread starts with a much larger font than the rest of the writing. This is something that is used often in

articles and so I used the idea for my own text to make it look more professional.

• My text describes a band and one of the members in particular. The layout of it is meant to reflect the layout of a magazine column. It is structured as a magazine column would be in terms of the spacing and the way it is split into three columns.

• The text includes a few quotes from an interview, this reflects the normal conventions of a music magazines. I looked through some columns of Kerrang magazine to compare it in terms of the content and layout which helped me with developing my own.

How does your media product represent particular social

groups? • My punk magazine mainly represents the subculture of punks, as

well as other social groups around and within this scene such as Scene Kids, Emos, Skate Punks, pop punks, pop rockers, etc. The immediate dominant representation of a punk would be that they are loud, aggressive, rebellious, angry and violent. In my magazine I conform to these stereotypes about punks to build up a Bricolage image of the subculture in a number of ways.

Front Page• On the front cover of my magazine, I have included a main image of a teenage punk called

“Spike”, he is representative of young adult, male punks. He has his bright red hair spiked up into a Mohawk, which is a typical punk hairstyle. It is an unnatural hair colour which portrays how punks fight against regular hair styles and colours. He is wearing a torn white shirt with the ‘A’ of the anarchy symbol drawn on roughly by hand. This reinforces the representation of punks being anti-establishment and acting out against the government. The fact that it is hand drawn onto the top symbolises the DIY nature of punks, using their materials and resources to customise clothes for example the safety pin. This creates individuality and diverges from large corporate manufacturers of clothing, thus, reinforcing the representation that punks dislike big businesses and conformity. He bears a moody facial expression, frowning slightly as he looks up to the camera. This represents punks as being moody and slightly arrogant, following the stereotype of punks generally being unhappy but also being confident enough to stand up to the norm.

• This also links to the magazine title: ANAR-KEY, a homonym of the word Anarchy. The Google definition of anarchy is firstly “a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems” and secondly “absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal”. I chose this title for my punk magazine as it describes the attitudes and ideologies of the punk subculture, as they are anti-capitalist and are not discreet about their feelings and beliefs. The word ‘KEY’ in the title ANAR-KEY, represents punks as being musically orientated, as key is a term in music for the chords played.

• The concentric circles that emit from the anarchy symbol were chosen specifically for the background due to how they relate to punk music, which is relevant to the magazine genre and how they could be representative of the punk movement. Punk rock music is loud and would be projected loudly out of speakers at concerts and gigs, my media product shows the punk subcultures as having a passion for loud music using these circles. Also, the concentric circles are representing the movement of the punk subculture, they show punks as being influential as their movement spread out worldwide. The circles demonstrate this power and dominance that punks have in terms of expressing their views out loud, despite others reactions.

• I chose a rough and unpolished style for the front page, which continues throughout the magazine, which is an embodiment of punk culture. This represents punks in an unorganised way portraying their dishevelled attitudes.

Contents Page• On my contents page I have included a main image of a girl who is also on the cover of the

magazine, called “Buffy”. This image is to represent the female side of the target audience, making it more appealing to them. Although she appears very innocent and her calm facial expression is calm, her clothing is more suited to the style of the magazine. Tartan is often associated with punks, especially when worn with doc martens. As well as this her short hair cut could be seen to link to the skinheads era of the 1960s. These factors contribute to the representation of female rockstars, creating a wider audience of women and girls who will benefit and feel considered by the producers of the magazine as I am not using solely the social group of males for the magazine.

• The guess the venue feature, bellow the main image, shows a wall covered in posters, some which are quite explicit. This was taken from a rather grotty venue, I felt this would be a good image to represent the subcultures around punk for a number of reasons. Punk’s are often associated with a working and lower classes, living in rough areas and taking part in violent and socially unacceptable activities. The posters show some sexual images, punks were less discrete in sexual terms, wearing leopard print and being the a strong inspiration for Vivienne Westwood’s shop SEX. The bright colours are similar to the retro punk styles and this is to appeal to the target audience of people with a taste in rock music.

• I have used another picture of “Spike” on the contents page, where he is putting his middle finger up so that it covers his face. This is quite a violent and punk like pose, it is representative of the more aggressive side of punk culture. This is also demonstrated in the picture of the editor, where I am using the devil horns hand symbol and pulling a face.

Double Page Spread

• Following the theme of showing the aggressive nature of punks, I have used a number of features showing this on the double page spread.

• The main image shows a band member Zack, putting two fingers up to the camera, partially blocking his face. His hair is not typically punk as he is more representative of other subcultures of rebellious youths, perhaps a scene kid. He supports a fashionable coat, showing the more modern day styles of subcultures and his platinum blond, grey hair goes against the normal hair colours of society today.

• My choice of the bright red background links to the meanings behind the colour. Red is thought to signify energy, danger and violence. It is known to raise blood pressure and is the colour of blood. I thought this colour would be a good representation of punks because they are sometimes known for their aggressive behaviour. The fact that it raises your blood pressure links to how it evokes feelings of danger. I thought this would be an appropriate representation of the punk subculture who were known to act out against the norms of society and do things that would be considered wrong by the majority of society. As well as red, I chose the colour yellow to go with the black and white. All together, this made an almost fire like effect. I chose this style because fire is often linked to rage and anger. I thought this was an appropriate emotion for the background to portray, as subcultures that are acting against the government are often considered angry, especially at large establishment.

What kind of media institution would distribute your product and

why?

Bauer Consumer Media

• My magazine would be distributed by the Bauer Consumer Media, this is because the style guide that I chose for my media product would be Kerrang which is distributed by Bauer. Although Bauer is a popular and mass producing establishment (which goes against Punk ideologies), it would distribute my media product because it would be sold across the country, widening the opportunity for it to be bought and therefore increasing sales.

• Bauer Media not only publishes magazines, but also radio station, television channels and websites. They expand some of their most popular magazine products, such as Kerrang, which has its own television channel, radio station and website.

• Although my magazine is already similar to Kerrang, I would still want it to be published by Bauer Media, because they often create magazines which are noticeably similar but this doesn’t affect the popularity. For example Closer and Heat magazine are both celebrity gossip and fashion magazines with the same target audience of women, but they are both distributed by Bauer Consumer Media.

Research Into Bauer Media (from my powerpoint on slideshare)• Bauer Media is an international media company that is based in

Germany, Hamburg.

• It operates worldwide across 15 countries.

• It was first found in 1875 by the Bauer family and has been privately owned by the Bauer’s ever since.

• Bauer Media has 19 million consumers every week with some of the most influential brands in the UK.

Why this Media Institution

• I would choose Bauer Media to distribute my magazine as it invests time into researching what sells well and how to appeal to its target audiences. For example, the Bauer Project Phoenix look at the trends and influences of music consumption within the UK. They use this knowledge in their products to create magazines that are popular and well known. Kerrang is a good demonstration of this. Although a mass producing media institution like Bauer Media goes against punk’s anti establishment ideologies, it is necessary for a magazine to make a profit, a loss would be costly to the producers of the magazine.

Who would be the audience for

your media product?• The target audience would be similar to the target audience of magazines similar to Kerrang, the

pop punk nature of some of the music is appealing to teenage target audiences, but the more heavy metal would appeal to older audiences. In terms of sex, the majority of the people on the front cover are male, however there is one female. The overall age group for my magazine are younger people. Also, the punk rock nature of the magazine would means it is aimed at working classes who are sometimes anti-establishment in their ideologies.

• The people who’s picture I used for my magazine would in fact be representative of my target audience – Buffy is a regular reader of Kerrang, Zack who likes alternate scream music, Terminal Moraine are a heavy metal band and so like this kind of music, and Spike who also enjoys rock music.

• I took feedback from a number of people asking who they thought would be the target audience for my magazine.

My Target Audiences

• As my music magazine is based on punk and rock bands I have a specific target audience of people who listen to this style of music. This would generally be working classes and rebellious youths as they are the social groups who used to be and still are involved with the punk subculture. My main audience in terms of sex would be men. This is because punks and anti establishment subcultures are known for being aggressive, a behaviour more often displayed in men and teenage boys than women. Arguably this could be due to higher testosterones levels in men than women. However, the magazine is also open to female audiences, there is a female punk rocker displayed on the front cover and she is the main image of the contents page. The primary age range of my media product would be older teenagers, 15 year olds, to around 30 years olds. This chosen target audience for my magazine is because it is around a similar age to the largest audience of Kerrang magazine, my style model.

Feedback on Target Audience

• I asked a number of people which target audiences they thought my media product would appeal to and these are a list of their verbal responses.

• Punk• Goth• Emo• Anarchists• Alternative

How did you attract/addr

ess your audience?

My Magazine Questionnaire

My Magazine Questionnaire and Interview Findings• I gave out the magazine questionnaire to a random group of people. I

used a range of open and closed questions to gather my results so that they had the opportunity to add their own answers if the answers given were not what they would choose.

• As well as this I did a several interviews to find out people’s opinions on my magazine when I was half way through finishing it.

Front Cover

• From the interviews and questionnaires that I distributed, I have found that the front cover is a strong factor in appealing to audiences. From these findings, I decided to emphasize features that would be appealing to my target audience. I focused on attracting my target audience of younger adults who are interested in rock or alternate music and who are rebellious in a number of ways, including the fonts, the pictures and the layout of the magazine.

• To do this, I used “Spike” who represented the more rebellious side of young people. He is wearing a torn up shirt with the anarchy symbol on, this links to the title. I felt that this would attract my audience to the magazine as teenagers and young adults are often thought of as being anti conformist; they will challenge the normal conventions of modern day society by acting out against parents, teachers, and occasionally the law.

Contents Page

• The main image on my contents page shows a girl wearing tartan and doc martens, these are examples of punk/mod era clothing. She also supports a short boyish haircut which goes against the social norm of acceptable hair for girls. With these features, I have demonstrated an example of a reader who might have a similar taste in fashion and their ideologies.

• The audience is likely to follow the punk’s anti-establishment views, and so they feel they can associate with the celebrities portrayed on the contents page.

• My font choice references the fanzine’s that were around during the original punk era and so it is a modern day interpretation of the style. Most of these fonts are eroded and distorted, this echoes punks altering their own clothes by ripping or tearing them and using safety pins or buckles to attach the broken parts together.

Double Page Spread

• The fiery, explosive background could be thought to link to punk’s violence in riots, for example, the San Bernardino riots, where the punks used fire to express their anger against the police (representing authority figure). Punks despise authority as they see it as a controlling force against personal expression.

• The ‘V’ sign that the main image shows is an iconic punk symbol as it is a visual mode of communication. This could be similar to the attitudes displayed by readers of the magazine, they may also share a lack of respect to authority figures.

What have you learnt about

technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

• From the process of constructing this product, I have acquired the use of photo editing programmes such as Adobe Photoshop and paint. In Adobe Photoshop, I have learnt how to cut out the background of a photo so that it leaves the main focus of the image only.

Creating a background

• I have also learnt how to create my own background using Adobe Photoshop, I found a website that gave a step by step guide to create an explosion like background which I then used for my double page spread.

• For the image of “Spike” on the contents page, I cut out and spread the cloud sky background to cover the entire image. This blocked out the middle class scenery (yachts and posh flat blocks) which were subverting the stereotypes of a punk.

Simple Shapes

• Also, on paint, I was able to create more simple shapes. Firstly I made the background to my front page, the emitting circles which had an outward boom kind of effect which was helpful in the representation of punks in a number of ways (in terms of music, the wide spread of the punk movement etc). To make this, I used the circle tool which I then followed over the top with the airbrush tool, to replicate the hand-drawn ‘A’ on “Spike’s” shirt.

• On Paint I made a mod circle to go on my contents page, again simply by using the circle tool but changing the thickness and colour of the circles.

Layouts

• Finally, I created my layouts using a number of tools in Adobe Photoshop for each of the pages, mostly using squares to create boxes around texts, headings, page numbers and pictures. I also was able to create a Polaroid style frame for two of the images on the front page of my magazine using a picture that I found on Google Images as a template.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you

feel you have learnt in the

progression from it to the full

product?

Institutions and Target Audience Feedback• From my research into Bauer Media, I have learnt the importance of

institutions and distributors of media products. This has helped me in the production of my magazine as I have l been able to find about the ways that Bauer Media research their target audiences, for example, in the Phoenix Project, where they did an in-depth analysis of music trends. Prior to the making of my media project, I did some research into what would be appealing in my magazine and used this to help me with the production of my own.

• In my preliminary task, I did not research institutions or look to audiences for feedback on what would help me with my magazine. I think that in doing this for my full product, I was able to benefit from learning about the background of magazine production.

Research into Subcultures

• In the preliminary task I did no research into the audience, which would be parents of children at secondary school, where as in my coursework I did extensive research into the target audience of my magazine.

• My genre for the magazine was rock music, punk rock in particular. This automatically impacted the audience for my magazine, so I looked up the subculture of punk in depth and took ideas from what I found to use within my magazine. An example of this is my research into the mods, a pre-punk subculture. I took their use of the RAF Roundel and placed it into my magazine contents page in place of the dot on top of an ‘i’. I looked at how the mod’s took this symbol and made it representative of their subculture, in a Bricolage kind of fashion.

• From this research, as well as research into Bauer Media, I have learnt the importance of understanding the target audience when creating a magazine. A magazine is more likely to be successful if it is appealing to it’s target audience.

Kerrang Magazine Model

• For the preliminary magazine there was no model for me to base my magazine on, however, with my final media production I had time to research into music magazines and fanzines. This helped me in terms of the layouts and styles of my magazines, where as in the preliminary task I had nothing to base the way I structured my magazine on. Therefore, I have learnt the importance of a style model when creating my magazine as it gave me a lot of ideas for my own coursework. An example of how it helped is the emitting circles, which I took from one of Kerrang’s front covers. I was able to give a number of reasons for my choice of the circles in depth due to how they could be linked to the punk subculture, where as I could not deeply evaluate my preliminary front cover.

Preliminary Task

Media Coursework