Evaluation

By Jessica Cross

For this project I was asked to produce a student magazine, and contents page for a preliminary task, and a front cover, double page spread, and contents page for a music magazine for my main task. The preliminary task was to produce a student magazine and contents page. I found this useful as it gave me practice and taught me elements which helped me make my final music magazine easier than it would have been. I also learnt conventions of a music magazine which helped me recognise what I needed to include and make visible on my own magazine. When I made my final music magazine I changed the layout of the magazine as I think the magazine was to appeal to a different audience therefore needed a different style and layout to appeal to it.

Introduction

Preliminary Task In my preliminary task I used colours which would attract both sex’s; the image was in black and white, and the colours added were red and green, which are colours which would appeal to both sex’s. I also linked the colours to the images which I have put on the front cover, as the carpet in one of the pictures on the cover story was green, therefore I added green to the text and outline of boxes. Also another carpet in one of the pictures was red, therefore I added red also. Looking back at this task, I can see I have improved, as the way this magazine was been layed out, and the way I had presented it doesn’t look the same league as the front cover for my music magazine, this would be due to more practise/ experience and research. I also looked into the conventions f a magazine to help me see what I needed to have on my front cover, this taught me what is vital to have on a front cover of a magazine, such as; of course a masthead, cover stories, to attract the audience's attention, pictures to again attract their attention, third left, as this is the part the audience will be seeing when the magazine is stacked on a shelf, therefore it needs to look interesting so that people pick it up to have a full look at the magazine.If I could go back and do the task again I would research more student magazines to look at how they are layed out and how they attract a student audience to read them. Therefore when I had to do the same for a music magazine I looked at more magazine’s and how they layed out their front covers, contents pages, and double page spreads to see how they looked. I also looked into their target audience to see what music they have in the magazine and what type of audience it attracts, to see what sort of age my magazine would be aimed at.

My specific target audience for my magazine are males and females aged between 15-25. I chose this age choice as the magazine is aimed at a teenage audience. This is due to the music genres in the magazine being aimed at a younger audience, and the style the text is written in; separated by pictures, to make it seem like less text, also shows that it is aimed at a teenage age group. The layout and structure of the magazine also shows this, as it’s set out in a modern layout; this attracts the right type of audience. I decided that the demographics for my magazine were A, B, C1 as the price was £3.99 which is quite high. Anyone under these demographics are likely to buy a cheaper music magazine, other than mine due to a lower amount of disposable income. I priced it at this price, as I think it will attract the right type of audience I want to be buying my magazine. For example the way the double page spread is set out; There is a lot of writing as it is an interview, however the pictures I have placed there separates the writing making it look less boring and more appealing to read. As the teenage audience would Rather not read a high amount of text. The psychographics for my magazine will be aspirers; as they aspire to do their best and by reading the magazine, this could influence this, if they are interested in the music industry. Also Innovators, as they want to try new things, therefore they may buy the new magazine to see what it’s like. I intend to appeal to my audience by showing what they want to see on the front cover , which will get them to look and buy the magazine. My type of audience would rather see pictures, and interviews, rather than bulks of text in the magazine. Therefore I have shown on the front cover that the magazine is going to be simple, but fun to show the audience it will appeal to them, by the simple, but quirky layout.

Target Audience

I researched other well known magazines with the same target audience as my own, to investigate what they include in their magazine’s to get such a high amount of buyers. I found out that the magazine’s I researched have A list artists information and interviews included, which attracts the right type of audience. The type of magazines I researched also have a similar target audience, and genre in music; around 15-25 age range, and also include indie types of music in their magazines, therefore it was very helpful looking at them. After looking at different media institutors within the 2 magazines I was looking at, I decided that IPC Media would be most likely to publish my magazine, as they are one of the leading UK magazine publishers. It is the publisher of NME magazine, which is one of the magazines I researched and is very similar to my magazine; therefore it would be the most possible institutor to publish my magazine. The typical convention I found, I have shown in the next slide, by comparing my preliminary task with another magazine and seeing what conventions my magazine has in comparison to a real magazine front cover. They communicate with the audience by attracting their attention, for example big headlines would attract my teenage/ young type of audience as they would look straight at the cover stories to see what will be in the magazine. Also certain colours will also attract the audience to look at the magazine, if they are eye catching. As teenagers attention usually gets caught by bright colours, or interesting looking stories, interviews, pictures on the magazine, which I realised would need to be shown on the front cover to get them to buy the magazine.

Research

Conventions of a magazineMasthead Dateline

Main Image

Cover linesMain cover lines

Third Left

Barcode

The genre of my music magazine I planned was indie rock/ indie pop as they’re very popular genre’s with the type of audience my magazine was aimed at. There are also a wide range of artists and bands which fall under this genre which allows the magazine to have a number of possibilities when finding a band to have in the magazine. I also chose these as I created a survey on ‘surveymonkey’ which I sent to people around the age of my target audience, to get answers back which would benefit in my magazine. I asked the question ‘what genre of music do you listen to?’ to find out what type of music is the most popular within this age group to base my magazine on. As you can see the results came back that Indie was by far the most popular, therefore my magazine is based mainly around that genre of music. I planned the magazine by making templates of each of my front cover, double page spread, and contents page, to give me a plan of how they would all look, and to give me a plan to stick to. Props and costumes I used was just a guitar and a piano for other pictures, and my models own clothes. This was rather simple, as we borrowed the guitar from school, and used the piano in the schools grounds. and that’s the only prop I needed. I also decidedfor my ‘singer’ to only have one outfit, as Iwanted it to look like one thorough photo shoot, as if she didn’t have time to changein to another outfit, like a real Celebritywouldn’t, as they have busy schedules.

Planning The Magazine

I represent woman in my magazine, as music magazine’s usually have men on the cover, therefore I had a woman to show that my magazine will be different from other ‘normal’ music magazines. The woman on my front cover is also holding a guitar which indicates her playing the instrument, this is showing that woman can also play instruments and can also do things that men can do, as the way society is today, people think that woman aren’t capable of things that men are known for doing. My magazine has represented a young, white, teenager, as she was the main story in the magazine. However I would use any colour, race or sex in the magazine if I was making more than one edition.

PlanningThe outfits weren’t very planned as I just told the model to wear whatever she wanted, as I knew her fashion sense fitted in with the indie theme of the magazine anyway, and I wanted her to feel comfortable. However I knew exactly where I wanted the pictures to be taken, as I wanted it to look like it was the ‘artists’ home, so I done it inside the school, as it’s a big building so would realistically look like a celebrity’s house. I also needed the music room, to look like she had all of the Instruments, as at home I wouldn’t have had the props. This meant the photos looked as if they were taking inside and outside of the artists home, which shows quite a close relationship between the photographer and artists as she let the photographer in her home to take the photographs. This also shows the personality of the artist as she’s a kind hearted person, who isn’t like most celebrities and is polite to photographers, making it easier to take the pictures. This could make the audience want to read the interview, as you’d think she’s a nice, kind person and want to know more about her.

Constructing the magazine

The computer software I used was Pixar to edit my photographs after I took them, I edited the brightness and contrast of some of the images to make them seem better quality. I also used it to edit the main picture on the front cover, as the background was very busy. However I wanted to use it as the main image so I coloured the background in black to give more of a simpler look, this then enabled me to put cover lines and images over the top without it looking too busy. This caused problems, by having to go around the ‘artists’ head and body, however I overcome this by having a few attempts to get the perfect shape. I used a digital camera to take the pictures, I found this easy, as I knew how to work it as it was my own. However handling the camera included making sure that the camera was still and sturdy so that the image was clear and stable. The mis en scene on the front cover worked rather well as the lighting was good, and made the image clear as it was outside in the sunlight, in the final image there isn’t anything else in the shot therefore this makes it look simple. The lighting made the image seem clear, and bright as the sunlight enabled this. During the production of the magazine, I stuck quite well to the flat pans, as I liked the way they were layed out initially, therefore wanted them to stay the same. However I few minor things may have moved places from when I first planned the layout of them.

I chose my 4 favourite fonts for my magazine cover, I thought that all 4 suited the genre of my magazine. They all seemed quite ‘rocky’ and had an edge. However I decided to go with the last font, as I liked how it is quite bold, and has a pattern which would attract attention. I chose this font as it connotated a quite’ punky’ look, with the type of patterns around the heading. Which goes with the indie genre of the magazine, attracting the right type of audience.

I needed to find graphics for my masthead that fitted the genre of my magazine, therefore I chose my favourite font for the Name of the magazine.

Constructing the magazine

My initial idea I came up with was to interview a newly found singer, and interview her. I took a number of photographs of the singer, and put a selection inside the magazine, and also the front page and contents page. I have a consistent set of photographs through the pages of my magazine, as I think it looks far more professional; other than having a selection of various people on the front cover, and inside the magazine.

Constructing the magazineI had to put all of this coursework on to a blog to be assessed. I liked the way which I could put things on the blog, and then go back to them later and add things which I found out needed to be there, or changed things that I thought could be improved. I also like the way it’s easy to access each piece of work in a simple way, through the date it was placed on the blog, and also by the title. The purpose of the blog is to share the work I have done with classmates, and other people to look at it, as it’s a more technical way of sharing your work with others.

Double page spread template

Front cover Template

Contents Page Template

Final Front Cover

Final Double Page Spread

Final Contents Page