Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When creating my magazine, I designed and used a conventional layout throughout which allows my magazine to appear genuine. On my front cover, I included a main heading (title) subheadings, storylines, a dominant image, barcode, price, magazine issue number and continuous colours. For my contents page, I also designed and used a conventional layout. I included a modern design which included, a list of the contents, an image, and boxes which attracts the readers to look at and take note of the information inside. I also used a continuous colour scheme which allows consistency. For my middle article however, I decided to challenge a conventional layout, by using a simple layout where I just had a heading, sub heading main article and main image. This was challenging for my magazine, as many music magazine articles are much more complex and include a number of images and also some quotes. I feel that my layout is successful, as it is easy to read with just one dominant image that attracts the readers as they browse through the magazine.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?After having researched music magazines that are already available to buy in the shops today, I decided that I wanted my magazine to fill an empty gap rather than be too similar to music magazines that already exist. For this reason, I created my magazine to promote chart music created and performed by female artists, whether they be solo artists or in a band. I represented these people as strong, influencing artists who each create individual and unique music and I did this by my main cover story, which represented a young female artist, who went from being an ordinary girl to a chart topping singer. I used clever captions and an article which I created, that talks about my artists realistic ‘rise to fame’ story. I feel that this challenging representation will allow my readers to relate to my artists story and continue to feel interested throughout the article.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Although my magazine is unique and like no other already on the market, I feel after having done some research, that Blender magazine could possibly fund my magazine, as they publish similar magazines but not based on one particular gender or type of music. I feel this magazine would find my product likely to make a profit, as it fills an empty gap on the market today and it aims itself at very large audience. The simplicity of the design is very similar to Blender magazines design, as it has a bold heading (title), a large dominant image, and then other cover stories around the image which promotes some of the contents of the magazine. The similar layout and design could therefore suggest it is from the same publishers. However, my music magazine also carries its own personality, with brightly coloured text, backgrounds and attractive fonts.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
I feel that the audience at whom my magazine is aimed at 

and the audience m

ost likely to purchase and enjoy my magazine is an age group of around 16-34 year old females. However, this does not limit my audience as I do believe that a percentage of males would also buy and enjoy my magazine and feel that males of the same age groups are an appropriate secondary target audience. I feel this is a good audience to target as females are potentially a large mass audience as I found more females read music magazines than males and so with my magazine being mainly aimed at females, I will be more likely to sell m

y product and make a high percentage of profit. Looking at my audience feedback, there was more positive comments from females than males and statistically, 80% of the positive feedback was from females and so I feel that my target audience was a great success.

How did you attract/ address your audience?I choose my title when thinking of words relating to the key word ‘music’ and felt that ‘sound’ was a clear connotation of this. I didn’t want the title to appea

r too girly or feminine as I didn’t want to absolutely restrict my audience to strictly females. I chose a light, bold blue and bright yellow as colours for the text on both my front cover and contents page, as I felt the brightness looked attractive and striking and especially as the colours were on a black background causing the bright colours to stand out more. The image on the front of my magazine is a very large image which appears extremely dominant and therefore attracts passers by to purchase the magazine. The shot is close up and therefore allows the reader to feel in connection with the artist. The lighting on the image is light and bright, which contrasts with the dark background allowing the image to clearly stand out. I created storylines of some of the contents of the magazine that are most popular on current music magazines to allow the reader to promote the other features, other than the main s

tory which is promoted by an image. I used ellipsis when creating these, as this omit’s some of the words from the sentence, stopping them from being too long-winded, but still allows the readers to understand what is meant from the context. Some of these on the cover, included ellipsis such as, competitions, personal articles such as guides, and extras such as allowing the reader to get involved and vote!

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I used the internet and the search engine Google as my main source for researching, which I found was the quickest, easiest and most reliable source to get my information from. I researched music and the music charts on the radio one website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1 as part of my audience research and popularity of certain genres of music. When creating my magazine, I used the software Photoshop, to manipulate and edit my photographs to make them look more attractive by altering the brightness and contrasting the images. I also used Photoshop, to cut out images which allowed me to remove any backgrounds from my primary photographs and just be left with the main image of the ‘artist.’ I did this by using the pen tool were I carefully cut around the object and then created a vector mask which removed all traces of anything outside the pen line and the image that I had cut around. I then used the software ‘In Design’ to mock up my magazine and place all the features where I wanted them. I did this by creating guide lines and borders. I changed the size of the image by stretching it out so that it would appear dominant on the front cover and look in proportion with my heading and text. I also changed the size of my text in In-Design and also carefully selected appropriate text which I had downloaded into the software from the website dafont.com. Technology played a huge part in my coursework, as it was the software that helped me create a professional look and allowed it to look official and attractive for the readers to buy.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Although I was rather happy with the outcome of my preliminary task, I feel that I learnt to lay my features out much more carefully and that the smallest things such as selecting a font makes a big difference to the quality of the product. I took much more care on my full product, when selecting fonts, colours, and the way I arranged my images.


Overall, I feel that my magazine was a great success. From my feedback, the name of the magazine, colours, images and layout all appeared to be popular with the audience when receiving my feedback and 70% of my audience feedback said it was the bright colours and bright, dominant image that attracted them to the front cover. I managed my time well and completed my magazine within the allocated 10 weeks given to me. I feel that the hardest parts of creating the product, was creating an article and choosing the fonts but once I had done this, I found it rather easy when arranging everything and laying out my images etc. I feel my weaknesses when creating my magazine, was the font size in the article, as did my audience, as when I was evaluating my audience feedback, 60% said one way in which I could improve my magazine, would be to make the font size bigger in my article. As I had to fit my main image and a heading with sub heading in a double page spread space, my font size was rather small. I also feel my sub heading font didn’t really go well with the genre of the magazine. I therefore changed this once I had got my audience evaluations back.

My final product

My Music Magazine

Photographs
For my front cover, I have decided to use quite a large image, so it looks dominant on the front page and therefore it will attract the readers. The image along side being rather a large scaled image, will be a close up shot allowing the reader to feel engaged with the artist. I will allign my image to the right hand side of the magazine so that there is a focus point on the cover and then the dominant text relating to the artists will be to the left of the image and in line. This will allow the text to stand out and make it easier for the reader to find out who the artist is if they don't know already.
For my contents page, i will include one image to represent the one other story inside the magazine to give the reader a taste of the contents. This will also attract the readers to the more interesting articles as images draw the attention of the eye more than text does.
For my middle article i will include one main picture along side the article. After researching other music magazine articles and the images included in these, I have noticed that there are a number of images from various places and images of the artists not just in the photo shoot, but from music gigs, paparrazi photographs etc. I decided to go against this conventional layout of photographs and just included one dominant image as I didn't want my images to over rule my main text.
Fonts
Choosing fonts for my magazine was a rather difficuilt task. I had to take into consideration the genre of music the magazine was promoting, and the readers, in terms of gender and target audience. I had to be sure that the font I chose clearly represented a music magazine and the genre of RnB/Pop/Indie. I looked at dafont.com for a font that I thought would fit my magazine perfectly. I decided on boogie nights as this didn't look too masculine but represented the magazine genre really well. For the subheadings, I chose a very simple font as looking at my research for magazien front covers, I noticed that the subheadings are very simple and plain so the reader can cleealry read them as they are of course much smaller that main headings. I used these two fonts continuously throughtout the conents page and middle article to create a sense of consistency.
Colour Scheme
I decided to use the same colour scheme as I did in my pliminary task as I feel the colours stood but also allowed the image to stand out and therefore were a great success. The blue and yellow although aren't altogther related to feminimity, look fresh, bright, contrast well and are attractive. They are also a combination that I hadn't seen on any other magazine and so I felt that my choice of colour was original for my magazine. I also added black to my colour palette as I felt that although the blue and yellow contrasted well together there was too much white space. I used the black as a background colour on my front cover.

Preliminary Task

For my preliminary task, I was to design the front page of a magazine for either a school or a college. I took photographs of my friend looking 'bored' so that my main cover article 'bored with revision" would relate well to my image. I added other text advertising other features of the magazine and created a main heading for my magazine "Marys High."

As you can see below, is my front cover and layout for a contents page. 

I am pleased the the outcome of my magazine cover, it looks like the magazines that I have previously researched and the colours contrast well, the text is in proportion and the fonts that i have used were carefully selected by relating well to the image and magazine type. 

However when creating my actual magazine cover for my music magazine, i will be sure to include more text and features to make the magazine look busy and attractive. 

Double Page Spread Article Research and anaylsis

For the double page spread that I am to create, I am going to study music journalism to find out what definate skills are required. I will look at the blend in features on my artist of quotation, paraphrase and journalistic prose.
When researching music magazine double page spread articles, I noticed that all magazines approach them differently. NME's articles are worded very differently to Q magazine and so when creating my double page spread, I too need to be unique and word my article differently from the magazines that already exist in order for my article to interest readers and not only draw the readers in, but keep them interested and inticed the whole way through the article.

Contents Page Analysis

As I have to also design a contents page to include in my magazine, I decided to research and analyse the contents page in current music magazines. Below are a couple of images of contents pages from the music magazines Q and NME.

They are both very different with the Q contents page much more simple with an image being the most dominant part of the page whereas the actual contents is minimal and simple. This allows the reader to firstly look at the image then focus their attention onto the contents text, which stands out and makes it easier for the reader to read and find the page they are looking for much more quickly. I particularly like this design as it is very simple with the contents clearly standing out due to the one image in the background. All the information needed in on the page without any complicated design or irrelevant text. This contents page is a positive inspiration for the creation of my own contents page.

NME's contents page is much more detailed and complex than Q's contents page.

The actual contents of the magazine have been separated under different headings which does make it easier to navigate and find the particular page that the reader is looking to read.

Down the left had side of the contents page is a "band index which helps the reader find a specific band inside of the magazine. However this looks complicated and the white background looks unattractive to read and monotamous.

Stories that can be found on the cover are navigated by a small red arrow which makes it easier and quicker for the reader to find the story.

Inbetween the two content is columns are two pictures with a small story underneath, this is a taster to give the reader and idea of what the rest of the magazine will be like. However this does not make the page a strict contents page. Although, adding the story makes the page more interesting and fills the large gap between thr two colums. The fact that a astory was used about Oasis, makes the story more appealing as they will be recognised amonst the British audience. If the story wasn't there then the writing would go against the the common conventions of NME.

Thisa contents page is very busy with different sized fonts and colours but it also has a sensible layout with headings and sub headings,allowing it to be easier to find certain pages.

Contents Page Research

The role of a contents page is basically self explanatory, it lists the contents of the magazine and what the magazine contains. This page is usually the first page the reader will come across and so it needs to be attractive, therefore the rest of the magazine will automatically become appealing to the reader.
As the contents page determines whether the magazine is what the reader is looking for, the most popular and important parts of the magazine should stand out to ensure more sales and attract more readers.

Further Magazine Analysis

Above, I have analysed the front cover of a Rolling Stone magazine which also gave me a clear idea of what I am to include in my magazine. 

Magazine Analysis

When looking at the magazines that I had researched, I noticed that despite the variation in headings, sub headings, fonts, colouring and imagery, the layouts are all very simular. They all have the magazine name in big bold letters at the very top of the magazine, a dominant image and headings with subheadings to reveal what else the magazine has to offer inside.
Magazines have also changed over time to adapt to modernization. As my music magazine represents modern music, I feel that my magazine has to connotate this and so I looked at magazine adaptation over time to get a feel for a modern style magazine.
Below is a transformation of music magazine "SMASH HITS" from 1987 to more recent times.



Looking at the two magazines there is a clear change in logo, colours, graphics, imagaery, layout etc.The logo is much more 'pop' looking with the colours bright and attractive. It also has an attractive font type that looks modern, therefore going well with the magazine. The logo also lowers the age of an appropriate audience as it looks appealing to a much younger audience than the older version of the magazine.
The layout and contents of the cover are a lot busier than the older version creating more excitement and a higher attractive factor about the magazine. There is a bright background but only slight sections of it can be seen as the images, texts and vector images are only allowing small bits of the background to be seen.

The reason that the newer version of this magazine looks more like a pop magazine, is due to the bright colours, the busyness of the cover and the use of vector, more graphic images.

Research

This part is all my own initial research that allowed me to find out more about music magazines and get inspiration and ideas so that I can move foward successfully in my creation of my own music magazine.

Facts and Figures
Ciculation reporting firm ABC, had some disapoining news for UK music magazines: readers are getting their music news elsewhere.
Q lost 8,000 readers over the last 6months, NME lost 8000 readers and Kerrang! lost 17,000 readers
January-June 2008 Circulation (Prior 6months)

• Classic Rock 66,632(67,339)
• Kerrang! 60,294 (76,937)
• Metal Hammer 48,540 (45,809)
• Mixmag 34,073 (35,817
• Mojo 106,367 (106 218)
• NME 56,284 (64,033)
• Q 113,174 (131,330)
• Rock Sound 22,527 (23,021)
• Word 33,775 (33,217)

Music Research

As I have chosen to create a magazine that promotes female artists who perform music from the genres of RnB, Pop and indie, I have decided to research the charts to see how many of the artists in this chart are females who specialize in my choice of music genres. My theory is that the more female artists there are in the UK chart, the more popular my magazine will be due to the fact that if people in the UK like to listen to female solo artists and the genres of music RnB, pop and Indie, and so will enjoy reading about it too.

1. Kelly Clarkson- My life would suck without you.

2. Taylor swift- Love story.

3. Lady GaGa- Poker face

4. T.I Ft. Justin Timberlake- Dead and gone

5. Lily Allen- The fear 

6. Lady GaGa- Just dance

7. Kings Of Leon- Use somebody

8. Shontelle- T-shirt

9. Pussycat Dolls Ft. Misyy Elliott- Whatcha' think about that

10. Alesha Dixon- Breathe

As you can see from the above,  8 out of the 10  singles that are in the top 10 singles chart are by female artists who specialise in singing particulary RnB and Pop. From this evidence I can be sure that female artists are particulary popular in todays music industry. I therefore hope that my magazine will be just as popular.  

Music Magazine Research

For inspiration for my music magazine, I researched some current or discontinued music magazines that are already available to buy or have been in previous years. I found, when researching, that there are a only two kinds of music magazines. One for the rock/heavy metal genre, and one for the more pop side of music.
Below are some images of music magazines that I found from the two genres.

I noticed when having researched these magazines, that some are more appealing than other and i narrowed it down to two of my personal favourites, Rolling Stones and Q magazine.My reasons being that I feel they are the most attractive with the colours contrasting well and therefore looking much more appealing. Rolling stones has a very clear layout with a much lighter backgound which allows the images and dominant text to stand out.

Most music magazines feature agenda-setting news, the UK's most comprehensive gig guide, definate reviews of the weeks's hottests gigs, tracks, albums and fiery comments from the nations most opinionated . These are the kinds of things that readers are thirsty for in a music magazine and so I will include these in the creation of my very own music magazine, in order to attract readers.

Design and magazine type determines the audience of which the magazine is distributed to and so I will be using a modern design to go with the music genre and gender audience, therefore my magazine will appeal to all people of anyone interested in music of popular genres such as RnB, Pop and Indie.

Introduction and Initial Ideas.

Welcome to my blog! :)

For my practical project, I am going to create a music magazine using In-Design and desktop publisher. I decided to create this rather than a film clip, as I wanted to work independantly and felt I would be more creative in creating this than a film. Below are some inital ideas that sprung to mind after deciding on what I wanted to do for my project.

Magazine Name

All magazines have a unique name that in some way reflects the contents and genre of the magazine.
I have chosen "sound" as the name of the magazine as it is the sound of the music that determines whether of not the listener likes the music. The word "sound" also denotes clearly what the magazine is about - music.

Magazine Target Audience
I have decided that my music magazine, will target mainly females, as my magazine is based on solo females in the music industry today. I have also decided that the target audience for my magazine ranges from young girls, aged 14 to young women aged 30. I decided on this target audience as I feel that there are more and more female artists being launched into the music industry and there is a huge gap in the market for magazines that represent these people.

Magazine Genre
The magazine contains entertainment and information of music variety . Genres included are:

• RnB
• Pop
• Indie

I chose these genres of music as there does not appear to be many music magazines that cover more than one particular genres in one magazine. Magazines such as NME, Kerrang! and Rock Sound, all represent one particular genre where as my magazine with contain a variety of music, therefore appealing to a wider audience.