Music Magazine

Preliminary Task

Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progession from it to full product?

I have learnt so much since I did the preliminary task because when I did the first task I was so inexperienced and unfamiluar with the programmes like Photoshop and Indesign but after I have been using them regularly for a few months I feel I know the programmes quite well. I feel that I have learnt more about the media industry as I now understand that the audience is the main theme behind any media product as you have to provide the right genre for the right audience.

I put a lot more work into my music magazine and had to do a much greater amout of research into music magzines to become more familiar with them and understand how they work etc. In my research I used different ideas from various music magazines such as Qmusic and NME I used them for the layout of my front page and contents page.
I did a lot of planning before actually arranging my magazine all screen as I wanted to achieve the highest grade possible and I learnt from the lack of planning that I did for the priliminary task, I hope this shows when my magazines are being graded. I saw the priliminary task as a piece of work that was just a preparation task for the music magazine, allowing us to become familiar with using Photoshop and Indesign. My research consisted of reseaching music magazines front pages and contents pages. I also researched what bands look like to see what sort of clothing I would need my models to wear.

I have definitelty noticed a clear change and difference in the quality of my work, from my priliminary task to my music magazine which I am very proud of seeing the change as it shows how much I have learnt and progressed over the course since September.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Programmes I used:

I used Photoshop edit and improve my photos.

I used Indesign to create and plan out the structure to my magazine and used it to add the text on the front cover, contents page and the double page spread.

I used Blogger to display all of my work and research. And it was a useful way to record the progress i've made over the year.

I used Dafont.com in my reseach to experiment with different tittle ideas for my magazine.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience through my bold vibrant tittle and different images displayed across the page. By using bold and vibrant colours, allows my magazine to stand out from its competition. The structure I used for my magazine was clear and easy to follow, read and understand. I did this by spacing my text out on the page and used a clear font that was easy to read.   

My contents page was set out how professional contents pages are set out, it was full of information and I though it was very easy to understand what article is on what page for example.  The expression given off in the picture on my front page, is of Lewis Gare  ('Louis Turner') who is a right now successful, on top of his game artist who has returned home from touring in America, I got my model to really pose for this photo but remain looking casual, cool and relexed so just a mellow picture of a successful artist.  

I drew my readers in by using the up and coming summer music festivals Reading and Leeds to draw the Indie dominated audience to want to read the magazine to see the official line up and read articles and reviews on the bands perfrorming.

Evaluation Question 4

Magazine Questionnaire

1.  Circle your age:

0-10          11-15          16-25           26-39           40-59           60+

2. Circle sex:

Male                                Female

3. Do you read magazines regularly?

Yes                                          No

4. If yes, what type of magazine do you read?

Sport          Gossip         Music          Cookery          Hobbies and past times         Other

If circled other please give more details:………………………………………………………………..

5. What genre of music do you most enjoy listening to?

Classical      Electronic       Indie        Hip Hop        Pop        R&B        Jazz       Folk       Other

If circled other please give more details:………………………………………………………………..

6. Do you enjoy going to Gigs and Festivals?

           Yes                                           No

7. Do you enjoy reading reviews and articles in magazines?

           Yes                                           No

8. Roughly how many pages do you like your magazine to be?

1-40         40-80           80-100          100-150         150-200            Other   

     If circled other please give more details:………………………………………………………………..

I got thirty people of mixed ages and sexs to fill out my questionnaire.

My results concorded that my magazine would be suitable for both gemders and the 16-25 and 26-39 age groups would be the media audience to my music magazine as the majority of that age group stated that they read music magazines regularly, are into Indie music, enjoy going to festivals, enjoy reading reviews and articles and are choose thr 80-100 page bracket which is how long my magazine would be.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I conducted a short questionnaire to work out what my target audience would be and what age group my magazine would be catering for.

Evaluation Question 3

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

After researching popular music magazines and their publishers i came up with these results and statistics:

Kerrang is the most successful music magazine that is published weekly with a circulation of 104,544 per year.

Mojo is the second best selling music monthly recording sales of 97,772 for the month.

NME recorded a circulation of 400,948 between January and June in 2009 according to IPC Media.

VIBE recorded a circulation of 800,000 sales in 2007 according to Quincy Jones.

The media institution that I would like to distribute my media product would be Bauer Media eventhough they already have a successful rock/indie magazine, I think they would be the best company to publish my magazine. Due to the fact that they are a very successful media publishing company. I also noticed when researching that the magazines that they are publishing are quite old so this could mean there could be a gap in the market for my magazine as it is fresh material something new! I think with my modern twist on ideas and ways of publishing along with Bauer Medias knowledge and experience in the market along with their finances we could form together and create a very successful team.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particuar social groups?

I aimed to make my magazine for both sex's and between the age of 16 to people in their late thirties. This can be relfected in the price at £2.50per issue as it is affordable to the younger generation. The social group that I represent in my magazine is Indie.

 

 

 

I used the indie theme because it corresponded with the genre of music I used and they take good pride in their appearence as they weaqr stylish, trendy clothes and have well kept stylish hair. Indies are usually skinnny aswell and the second model that I had in mind for my front cover matched this.

 

I also really wanted my target audience to be festival goers as I feature a lot about the up and coming summer festivals in my magazine. So my target audience needs to consist of young, fun, music loving people like this:

 

Evaluation Question 1

What ways does your media product use, develope or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I started by researching diferent music magazines and becoming familiar with what they look like and how they are set out. At first I was researching popular teenage magazines as the model I was going to use, Harry Painter had a 'Zac Efron' look about him. So i researched VIBE and Rollingstone magazines. I did a photoshoot with Harry, it went really well and I got some good starter shots but when I went to rearrange a second photo shoot I discovered that Harry was too unreliable. But I soon found three new models who were happy to model for me, three seventeen year old boys who are handsome and stylishy dressed this gave me the idea of photgraphing them as a band. I didn't want to do a pop, boy band I wanted them to be more indie and rock and roll something like 'The Artic Monkeys' or 'The Wombats'. By changing the theme of my magazine meant I had to re do all of my research. So I then went on to research magazines such as NME and Q as that was the genre of music that I wanted to use in my magazine. I then went on to study the pages in the magazines to get an idea of what they are like and how they are presented.

Once I had finished my music magazine research I began to edit and improve my photos that I had taken of my models in Photoshop. When I first started using Photoshop my work was quite weak as I had prior experience in using Photoshop and I didn't fully know how to use all the different tools provided. But the more and more I used the programme the greater my knowledge grew. When I became familiar with the programme I began to use tools such as the 'Burn Tool' 'Drop Shadow' 'Pen Tool' 'Text Wrapping' and many more.

Forms and Conventions

I believe that my music magazine follows the conventions of a real music magazine as I used fonts that I thought would produce a more professional look and make it look more like a music magaziine rather than just an average magazine. The magazines that I researched used mainly images and large text on their front cover, this is done to attract the public to pick it up and buy it for a read. A magazine needs to be eycathcing to stick out from the rest of the magazines on the shelf. I really wanted to mirror this effect as I think magazines are a lot more entertaining and interesting when presented in this way.

  For my music magazine I used a mixture of  NME and Q music magazines because they both follow the same gender that I am using and I like the layout of their magazines because they look extremely proffersional with a sharp finish but still remain to look cool and authentic. As I named my magazine Vmusic, my tittle layout is extremely similar to Qmusic but I think this works well. On my magazines front cover I used one large, main image and three smaller images to make it look like a realistic music magazine.

Masthead - Mise en Scene and Magazine Tittle

I named my magazine 'Vmusic' because I wanted my magazine to stick out from the rest of the magazines and look bold and out there! So I thought I could create a bold, excentric design with 'V' and just have 'music' in small print like this:

Vmusic

I think this is a good tittle as the V will attract people to come and look at the magazine and by having music next to it allows readers to autmoatically understand that its a music magazine.

  Q music helped me with this idea as they also only use one big letter as their magazine name. Before I researched more into Q music I wanted to make the V have a rough, shattered effect used in magazines like Kerrang, but after doing my tittle research I decided that the tittle has a greater effect when set out like Q music as I really like the crisp finish. I also feel that my masterhead is unique from the other desighns  had seen and I quite like the idea of my magazine being a bit different. The colours I used for my masterhead are conventional colours. I used a mainly used read and black in my tittle as they are bold, sharp colours. The position in which my masthead is in follows the conventions of other magazines.

 

2nd Photo shoot

Front Cover Research

The music magazine above is very busy with various text, tittles and numbers across the page, I personally feel that this creates a tacky look as I really don't like the numbers and the bands name in a light, bright blue colour as I think it fails to correspond with the rest of the page. Although I do like the captions in black and white and I think the picture is brilliant it shows a lot of attitude and shows a cool, popular band.

    I prefer this magazine as it has a sharper finish and looks much more professional. Like the above magazine it is a Q music magazine and will use a simular design to what they have done with the Q to what I will do with a V as i'm calling my magazine Vmusic

I really like this NME front cover as the text and image used look very sharp and crisp the colours are vibrant and bold and I think they work well together, the lightness of the page make it look like a fun, cool magazine but the font and image used prevent it from looking like a childrens magazine as this magazine is clearly read by young adults interested in a indie/alternate type of music.

This is by far my favourite front cover that I have researched, it looks straight forward, cool and very professional!



Contents Page Research

Due to having to change my magazine because of issues with the model ive had to change the theme of my magazine and therefore my contents page research has been totally fipped around and is in the opposite order.

I am calling my magazine Vmusic magazine so I quite like the idea of the large V in the background.  

I love the creativity of the layoout in this contents page I think its extremely unique as ive never seen anything set out like this before. The way the model creates a shape that correspondes with the tittle i think makes very flowing and creative look. The fading background is very effective as it makes the page look stylish and crisp. But my favourite part to this page is the tittle I think its really cool and funky how its set out and even tho I won't be basing my own contents page on this page I will greatly consider using the theme of the tittle in one of my pages in my magazine.

 

I really like this contents page too, even though it has a much simplier layout to the page above,  I like the mix of the black and white and in colour pictures espicially as it represents different time zones in music e.g. the image of Johnny Carson was taken in 1967 and the coloured image of Beyonce is a very recent picture as Beyonce is the charts at present. The black and white/colour theme works well in the text aswell, the text in black and white creates a crisp, sharp look which looks good but by adding a little bit of pink brightens the page up and makes it look more fun and interesting to read. I feel the layout of this contents page is better suited to my magazine although the theme of this page still fails to match the genre of music in my magazine.

 

 

  

This contents page is from Q music magazine. The layout is exteremely simular to the page above and is based on the same genre of music that I am using in my magazine. I really like this contents page because it has a simple layout and is clear and easy for the readers to understand.
 
Out of the three contents pages that I have talked this is the one that I would most like my magazines contents page to look like as it looks very proffession but cool and trendy at the same time which is the look that I am going for.