Magazine Evaluation

1.) In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazines?

My magazine is like an existing music magazine because it links to what an existing magazine would have on a magazine, like the comparison colours on each page like I have done. On my magazine the titles are all in purple, and the writing is blue and green so it goes well with the title, this is what goes on in an existing magazine they makes their colours the same on the front page and the contents page. I think I do challenge existing music magazines because some magazines make all their writing on their front cover to make it all stand out, but I just made the title and the main story big and bold because they are the only pieces of texts that I want people to see as much as the other bits of writing.

2.) How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

My music magazine represents particular social groups by the person on the front cover, if the person was dressed in a skirt and top and funky colours it might represent dance music, and if it is a rock magazine the main image might be wearing skinny jeans and a tight top. This also represents that the audience may wear jeans. You can also see that all of the people on my magazine are wearing dark colours on their clothes this represents that people who listen to rock and heavy metal wear dark colours. My magazine is a rock magazine and my main image is wearing jeans, so this represents that my particular social groups will be rock groups. Also the music in my magazine is rock and metal so it appeals to a social group that will like rock and metal music.

3.) Who would be the audience for your music magazine?

The target audience for my magazine is 16-25 because I have young bands and old bands in my magazine, so this will attract all ages. Also I have unsigned bands on my magazine and I think this attracts the audience the most because readers are always looking for the next top band. I think it is mainly for the younger teenagers because all my images are of young hip teenagers in bands. Also where the person on my front cover looks kind of a rocker than it will attract readers who dress like her or who want to dress like her and who ever listens to the kind of music that it is on my magazine.

4.) How did you attract/address your target audience?

I attract my target audience by the images, the colours and the stories. I think the stories attract the readers because they are everyday stories and most people are into them. Also I think the colours attract the readers the most because they are quite childish and colourful and teenagers like colourful things, I don’t think this will attract the older generation that much because you mainly see older people in one colour or two, and I think the images attract the audience because if they are good looking people on the front cover they are going to buy it, or if the people on the front cover are famous or rock stars then they will also buy it because people buy the magazine for the main image and the main story.

5.) What kind of media institution might distribute your music magazine and why?

I think the music companies that will distribute my magazine are Kerrang! And NME, I think these music magazine companies will do this because Kerrang! And NME are rock music magazines and my magazine is a rock music magazine so I think this is an advantage because the Kerrang! Company is always looking for new music magazines and bands and I think my magazine does this because I have new bands represented in my magazine and they are all rock bands. I also think that NME music magazine company will distribute my music magazine because of the clothes or maybe the music that is on the magazine, on my main image I have a girl in skinny jeans and the people in NME most of the artists wear jeans. Also in my magazine I have rock and Indie music and NME also has this music in their magazine.

6.) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your music magazine?

I have learnt how to use Photoshop, Photoshop is very important to use in producing a music magazine because it repairs anything that looks bad, for example if you have a image and it is too dark or too light then you can put it on photoshop and fix it up. Also if you want to delete a background on a picture than you can delete it and try out all different types of things to make it look better on the front cover. I have also learnt that if you are deleting the background of an image and some of the background is too close to something on that picture than you can feather it too make it not look that bad, or you can even cover up the parts that you can not delete. Also from the feedback I got from the audience when I asked them a few questions, all of them were different some were the same but most were different, I think this helped me because I knew what the audience wanted and liked.

7.) What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from creating the school magazine (preliminary task), to creating your music magazine?

I have learnt to use different types of fonts and different types of colours, because on my preliminary task the fonts were all different and so were the colours I thought this looked messy and improved it on my final music magazine. Also the images in the school magazine were a bit blurry and not that good for a magazine, so I improved the pictures and added more to make the page look more filled up, I thought this was a good idea because I may get more marks if I do so.

Magazine

My Double Page Spread

Final Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page

My Final Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page

This is my final front cover, i think it is very good and may pass as a real magazine. The colours and fonts really work well with the magazine and i think it is improved from the preliminary task. What i like most about my magazine is the colours, i like different kinds of bright colours and i think it works well with the black background. The image in my magazine goes really well with the title Mayhem! becuase it looks like the girl in the image is about to make mayhem with the guitar she is holding.

This is my final contents page, i think this looks very professional, the images are in a good organised way and i think this will attract the readers becuase they know which image goes to which story. The thing i like best about my final contents page is the border around the writing, i think it makes the writing stand out and make the magazine look more organised.

Drafts Of My Magazine

Double Page Spread Mixmag Magazine

The target audience in this magazine is 16+ because it is about rave and rave is probably one of the favourite genres in music for teenagers because it is fast upbeat music. The people in the images don’t say much about the target audience but there are middle aged people in them so maybe middle aged people read this, so the target audience is all ages because any one can rave and everyone likes it. The language in this magazine is more science like because it says things like ‘millions of tonnes of Co2 generated by setting…’ in this part of the article they are talking about the energy you have in a rave.

The colours that are used in this magazine are all colours, there’s yellow, red, green, blue and many more, I think this is a good idea that they used all different colours because it will appeal to the audience more than a magazine with three colours, this is because a magazine with all different colours stands out more, it is vibrant and bright. The yellow is used very well in the article because the yellow is used on a smiley face and this may represent that rave is good, it makes you happy. The white is also used well because the title is white and it really brings the page to life, it is also bright and vibrant and when you just look at the page quickly you will definitely see the white writing.

I think the background colour black is used well because it makes everything else stand out; everything is bright and stands out. The style of text that is used looks well but does not stand out because the writing is small as the other double page spread I analysed. The style of the title stands out because of the colour and it is big aswell so the audience really appeals to it.

The double page spread in this magazine is laid out well because there are pictures every where all over every page and the text is underneath the images so it makes the magazine look really well.

Double Page Spread Q Magazine

In this magazine I think that the audience will be middle aged because the band in the picture are middle aged and they look quite boring, so teenagers wont be interested. They are also a rock band so it will attract readers who listen to rock and metal so this might attract teenagers who like that music because they want to know what they sound like. The language that the article is using is English this is because it is an English magazine. The colours that are used are white, red and grey; I think this makes the magazine look quite serious and dull. These colours will not attract the readers as well as other double page spreads; this is a disadvantage to the magazine. The red is used for the writing to stand out because it’s the brightest and boldest colour of the three; I think this works because I more focus on the red writing.

The white writing is used for explaining things like the picture, as you can see on the page it is underneath the writing it does stand out because the pictures background is not white. The grey writing is used for the text this does not stand out because there is loads of grey writing and it is small so it does not appeal to the audience well. The writing style that is used is small but bold. The title is just bold because it is the main text on the page and I think the designers of the magazine did this well, as for the other text I think they should of made it clearer by making it bold and a bit bigger so that the text in red really stands out.

The double page spread is laid out very neatly, I think this because the image is taking the whole of one page and on the other page it is telling the audience who they are and what they are doing. I think this is a good idea because the audience will concentrate on the image first and then move on to the text and this is what I think the designers of the magazine wanted. I think the magazine is getting wants a personal relationship with the audience because the people in the image are looking straight forward towards the reader, I think the tone they are using is trying to get the reader to be more a fan than a close friend because in the article they are talking about how the band is going on tour and they want their fans to go, but I also think they want their fans to be their close friends because they also talk about their hometown being bad for example it says ‘wife beaters’.