Evaluation Of Music Magazine

By Mary Reilly

Introduction

The task we were give was to produce a music magazine which is appealing to a specific target audience. The genre of music I have chosen for my magazine is Rock. I had decided to go for this genre because I felt that it hadn’t been focused on enough. My target audience is aimed at 15-19 year old males and females, but depending on how much the magazine is appealing to the female audience it may just focus mainly on the male audience. I feel this because of the use of both males on the cover and throughout the magazine, however the females may have some attraction to those males.

I feel my music magazine cover consists of many music magazine codes and conventions. The use of the left third, top and bottom strip, mast head, pug

and cover lines. I felt that the left third should contain the most eye catching and important

parts of the magazines cover so that the selected target audience would see it and be attracted to it because of its use of images, colours and text.

I decided to include a free poster in my pug so that the target audience would be attracted more to the magazine. In my top strip I had explained what would also be featured in the magazine without giving away too much information, I

felt that the whole point in doing that, that it would give a sort of suspense feel which would then give the reader that extra push into reading the magazine.

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge the forms and

conventions of real music magazines?

Top Strip

Masthead

Pug

Left Third

Coverlines

My magazine represents itself to rockers or punks.With my magazine it focuses on a grey, white, black and yellow

outlook within all of its pages and I used these for the rock look. I would say it is more of a teenagers magazine than a adults.

For the social groups I had to think of the actual images that were going to be used, so that it would grab the eye of the rockers or

punks, who would read my magazine. I wouldn’t say my magazine was for a mixed social group, but I feel its wrong having to

stereotype people to certain magazines.

How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

For my magazine I had chosen the a target audience of both males and female between the ages of 15-19. The reason why I have chosen a mixed target audience because I personally feel that music magazine shouldn’t be aimed at a certain sex

and that it should be for both the male and female market. However for my magazine it may just push towards the male market due to there being males on the

cover and throughout the magazine but on the other hand the females may have some attraction to these artist which would make them want to buy this magazine.I have aimed my music magazine at the rock or punk rock as it is also known as,

music tribe. I feel my magazine fits that tribe because of the use of images and the contents of the images and the clothing of the artists and the use of colours

throughout the magazine.

Who would your target audience be and why?

I would chose to have Bauer to distribute my magazine because they are known to produce a numerous of magazines such as take a break, and many TV guides, but I feel it could be a challenge for

them to try and distribute a rock/punk music magazine.Bauer, is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe, which

was founded in Hamburg in 1875. Bauer had entered the UK scene with Bella magazine in 1987. With recent addition of the former

Emap consumer media titles, Bauer is now the largest consumer magazine publishing company in the UK.

What kind of Media institution might distribute your music magazine and why?

Bauer play a primary role in the Women’s Weeklies, Women’s Interest, Women’s

Lifestyle, TV Listings, Puzzles, Men’s Lifestyle, Music & Film and Specialist magazine

markets.

How did you attract and address your audience?I used basic colours grey, black, white and yellow to attract my

audience. I felt I needed to keep it as simple looking as possible so that it was a magazine that just got straight to the point. Adding the young artists should also interest other young people because of

them been at a similar age they can relate to stuff a lot more.

Audience Feedback

For my magazine I asked 20 people to give me feedback on what they thought about my music magazine. This bar chart shows what gender the audience thought my magazine was. Here it shows how 9 people thought my magazine was a males magazine, 5 people thought it was a female magazine and 6 people thought it was a bit of both.

This chart shows what the audience thought the age group was for my magazine. 4 people out of the 20 thought my magazine was for people between the ages of 10 and 14, 11 people thought it was for people between the ages of

15-19 and 5 people thought the magazine was for people over the age of 20.

This chart shows what people liked most about my music magazine. 2 people said they preferred the font that was used, 4 people said they enjoyed the

colours that were used, 6 said the images were creative and we well presented on the page, 3 people said they thought the magazines layout was creative, 2 people said they found the text useful and easy to read and understand and 3

people said they enjoyed the fonts, colours, images, layout and text on the magazine.

Throughout the whole task I have learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop And in design CS3 to produce a school and music magazine. At the start of the task we had explored Adobe

Photoshop and had designed and created a school magazine cover and contents page. When using Adobe Photoshop I had decided to go for the simple and basic shapes to help me to create the magazine. Since making the school magazine and contents page I have had the

opportunity to design and produce a music magazine cover , contents page and a double page article. The first attempt to make it was on Adobe Photoshop where I had moved onto using various fonts and I had explored different ways of presenting my images onto the pages. The

second time around at making the magazine I had used a number of creative images, fonts and colours to bring my magazine to look like a real magazine but keeping it as plain and simple as I could. Throughout the whole process I have also been privileged to use the camera equipment if I needed to and the use of Adobe Photoshop and in design CS3 to make my magazine look

as presentable as I could.

What have you learned about technologies from the process

of constructing this music magazine? (Lighting,

photography, Photoshop, in design)

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you

feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full

product?

Throughout the whole process of starting the preliminary task I have learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop and in

design CS3 to edit and create my magazine, also I have learnt how to use blogger and slide share to help me to

present my work at a good standard.