evaluation of music magazine

  

 

written evaluation of my music magazine

1) IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
My media product/ the magazine) follows the conventions of magazines well. Using publications such as NME and KERRANG! to inspire me well aswell as knowledge i already have of the music industry. I looked at things that makes up the magazine such  the masthead on the top of any magazine there to catch the readers eye. The  image on the cover is a convention of my  magazine. i used this image as it showed a young urban guy listening to music which would strike out to other young people.i manipulated this image so that the heading would stand out and so would the main stories. I didnt want the front cover to be to busy and destract the reader from the main purpose.i include a barcode and the price and date of themaggazine. The magazine also features a strap-line, which is a convention for many music magazines. mine states, "in this month". This is simple and short . Also the headline of the cover is one of the biggest font sizes. It is a convention as it is the main article which could determine whether the reader would buy the magazine, and to make it appealing you make it as interesting and bold as possible to make it eye catching.
The font used is called "trashed" which is quite urban , bold type face, and cool . Iteffectively adds  impact to my magazine. This font creates an identity for my magazine.

http://www.dafont.com/

2) HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?
My images are all different in different ways with models  different cultures as i didn't want it to seem that only the black population listened to urban music in the UK. However i wanted to make sure that the models in my photos looked youthful and into the urban scene. I wanted it to represent the demographics and psychographics of my target audience. It was important that i didnt just use one paticular racial group i used several and i reflected that in the photos that i took.















3) WHAT KIND OF INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE AND WHY?

The sorts of shops that would perhaps sell my music magazines are urbam shops that perhaps are not only a newsagent but also sell urban materials such as clothes etc. i also believe that my music magazine would be sold in ordinary newsagents found in london as my magazine is mainly focused on artists from london. In a newsagent there is a higher possibility of it being sold as there are more people that would walk in and out of the shop. My magazine is also suitable for a typical newsagents because it is readily available for whoever wants to buy it the price of the magazine is also suitable for the areasthey are  located in as those living around are mostly urban .

4) who would be the audience for your music magazine?

The audience that i am targeting for this music magazine are mainly youthful urban males and females in london and perhaps any other young people around the UK that are interested in urban music. I specifically didn't specify the type of urban music that i wanted to use as there are many different types i wanted to make it more broad so that you get a variety of things in the music magazine.  I used the colours black and red as the colours are bold and dark and rebellious which youth of today now are. The photos i used reflected this as they were all young and youthful and they looked cool and rebellious.  

5)HOW DID YOU ATTRACT /ADRESS TE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE?


I tried to make the colours of my magazine consistent . I used the colours i related to rebellion  which is black and red. With the colours in my magazine i related these to my target audience by  using  bold and strong colours, this relates to my target audience as at the age of 15-25 . The masthead of my magazine and the font that i had chosen for my magazine reflected well the target audience of my magazine as  i chose a graffiti styled font for my magazine i made sure that the photos that i had taken were  linked in with the rest of the magazine as the model in th double page spread wore the colours that i had made consistent throughout my magazine . What the main model wears and his positioning in each photo represents the body language and style of a young audience. I didn't want the magazine to look like  a magazine for  an older audience i would want it to appeal so my strapline. I wanted my readers to be able to relate to the language i used throughout my magazine, people in college and generally young people do not tend to be sophisticated, and tend to talk to each other in an informal way, so to get them to relate with my magazine i used informal language as if i was actually talking to them using some strapline and masthead of my magazine confirmed who i wanted this magazine to appeal to. in my double page spread i wanted the language in the interview to be laid back to represent how youth speak nowadays. i didn't want it to seem fake and so i used my own knowledge and understanding of what i know about the genre and made the interview look as if the artist had to think about the answrs and interacted with the interviewer.

6) WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM YOUR MUSIC PUBLICATIONS?


When creating my music magazine i had to use a number of different programmes that i would like to use so that my publication looked professional. i used programmes such as photoshop pages iphoto the internet and digital cameras to make my publication look as professional as those on the market, it took me a while to understand how to use photoshop but as i used it more and plaid around with it in my prelimanary task it became more simple and efficient to use. i had to use layers and learn how to lock layers and edit pages how to upload photos and to distort them so that my publication wasn't plain and had the element of it looking acceptable. I used the internet to find dafont.com which I downloaded fonts from so that i could use these to relate to my audience more. I  learnt that technology can be difficult if you dont play around with it but once i learnt how to work the programmes i could do almost anyting to make my publication perfect. Here is a print screeenof me using pages to find my downloaded text "trashed"

and here is a screen grab of me locking the layers in photoshop

7)  LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, OF DESIGNING THE FRONT PAGE OF A SCHOOL MAGAZINE, WHAT DO OU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT


Mostly i have learnt how to use programmes such as photoshop an pages properly s that i can manage. I feel like i have learnt a lot since starting this task. I learnt alot about my target audiences before i created my magazines. I looked at magazines that are already out in the market and came to a decision of what i  would do in my music magazine and what type of colours and fonts i used. It was important for me to plan first so that it could relate to my target audiencei. the photography, planning my shots was not a problem but I do not feel that I gave myself enough time to take my shots and create them exactly how I wanted them, working more on the production of the magazine itself and putting everything together, although in the end I was quite pleased with the shots that I did achieve.

preparing my photo shoot

 For my Photo shoot i had to prepare a number of different things beforehand to have successful Photo shoot. This included planning out my location: where i would take my photos and how this would reflect in my magazine, finding a model who was willing to take proffessional photos for me, prepearing the time, and any health and safety precautions that i should consider. I had a flat plans of the photographs i would like to include in my magazine i usedthis as a template. Firstly, I looked at possible models that i thought would depict the young urban genre in the uk/london well. i found this task quite easy as i had alot of willing responses. From there, I then looked at  locations I could use. looking at my flat plans I looked at ideas of both natural/street locations to places where it looked natural for an urban kid to be. From there.  For the outdoor images, I considered the time of day for Winter. I also experimented with shot types, angles, framing and lighting. I didn't stick to my flatplan as there were difficulties in getting props that ineeded for example large speakers that my model could pose on. Once i took these photos i imported them onto my computer and opened them in photoshop so i could manipulate or change whatever i needed to change.

Designing the flatplan for my music magazine

i had to design my front cover for my main magazine and what i would like to  have on my main music magazine. Preparing my front cover and contents page for my magazine meant that i could change and decide whether i liked my design or not. It meant that i could also decide where i would take my images and who and what props i would use to take my images. I created my flat plans in 1 lesson so they are basic sketches  and are a guideline for what my magazine will look like as a finished product.

Evaluation of the music industry

I have looked and researched the topic of music industry so that i could understand my target market and how i can make my production of my music magazine better. I specifically looked at urban magazines such as VIBE and XXL.In my research of Vibe magazine i found that the main target market was mainly black american people and was also sold to a minority black british community. However i found that Vibe magazine had to be closed down. The closure of Vibe left only two large-circulation music magazines, XXL and The Source, focusing on hip-hop and R&B. The Source had its own troubles, going through a bankruptcy and emerging under new ownership recently. The top 10 advertisers of the magazine decided that they no longer wanted to advertise and the magazine went out of business creating themselves debt for a very small company.818,OO copies of Vibe magazine was sold in the second half of last year (2010) Which is a healthy figure, which means it was a popular magazine. 

The statistics that i have found on the internet have helped me decide what i could include in my magazine. I have found what made the magazine work and what i failed the publication, I will take these factors into account when creating my publication. I realised advertising created most of the income for the magazine so when they lost big advertisers it effected their profit

Creating the music magazine /1st lesson

In this lesson I began to create my masthead, strapline and storylines for my magazine. I was to decide what colours and what fonts I would like to include in my layout. For a selection of fonts to suite my magazine  i went to dafont.com a website that has a variety of cool fonts that I could use I chose three fonts out of many and from those three i chose one that i prefered and that would suite my target market. I used this font to create the masthead for my magazine. I was also asked to think about where I would place my images on my front cover and the images I would use on the contents and double page spread. It was important to think of my target market so that I could choose a suitable font, colour design and use the right language to appeal.

Comparative analysis

the generic music convention codes employed by the magazine suggest that the target audience are both males and females aged between perhaps 25- 50 years old. This can be supported by the idea of the masthead title. The style of the ‘Q’ us sophisticated and appeals more to the older generation perhaps more than it would do to a younger generation.

The mode of address suggests that this issue is specifically focusing on women in the music industry this is supported by an image of Madonna at the front who is one of the mature pop stars around this time. This supports the idea that the reader of this magazine is not only a mid 20’s + reader but also enjoys the pop scene. The strap line identifies that women also read this magazine with it reading “women in music”. It is evident that this magazine contains British bands mostly apart from Madonna who is the feature article.

The features of this magazine suggest that the target audience needs are to brush up on their knowledge of the latest British music. They are very much into the British music scene and are not exactly mainstream or wanting to know about gossip so much, although it does come with the magazine, they are interested in the artist’s latest work etc.

The layout and design of the front page is quite dark it is a close up image of Madonna with her directly looking at the camera the colours black and red contrast giving the magazine cover more effect the colour of madonna’s name matches the q masthead so there is consistency in colour .


The genre , mode of address and layout and design of the magazine suggest a niche audience

The generic music convention codes employed by he magazine suggest the target audience are girls of around 8-12 years old. The masthead strapline and earpiece all are in very girly colours pinks and purples the artist in the centre of the page is also colour coordinating with the colour theme. The colours also suggest that the reader of this magazine is a younger person and so does the font style.

The mode of address suggests that this magazine is to entertain the younger generation . There are a lot of prices that can be won which is clearly presented on the main front page. Things like ‘win a call form your favourite popstar ’ immediately suggests that this magazine influences young girls they are mainly mainstreamers who follow the crowd and are highly interested in gossip.

The genre , mode of address and layout and design of the magzine suggest a mainstream audience.

masthead research

In class we established that  a masthead can define the attributes of a magazine and who the target audience may be. We can tell by the colour font size font type what the demographics and psychographics etc. I have collected a number of mastheads from different music magazines and have annotated them to show who i think the target audiences are for these main music magazines.

Cover content analysis slideshow

View more presentations from stoliros.

Here is a slideshow presenting how i produced the front cover and contents page of the prelimanary task.

masthead research

To add to my research of music magazines. I searched on the internet for mastheads of music magazines and i annotated them describing and commenting on the type of audience the masthead suggests the magazine is aimed at. 

analysis of mastheads

So far we have been analyzing music magazines in the classroom. We have basically been focusing on the target audience and have been trying to think about the type of people who will read the magazines , their demographics and their psychographics. Demographics   include  characteristics such as their gender, race and age etc. Psychographics include characteristics relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. I have been looking at many magazines including the magazine Top Of The Pops & NME magazine. We found that the mastheads of magazines can tell us the characteristics of the magazines target market. Here is one of the mastheads that i have looked at :

From my analysis of the TOTP magazine I found that the target audience of TOTP magazine was for young girls aged from about 7-13 years old. The psychographics of this audience  best suited this publication because of the bright pinks and yellows used along with other bright colours. The publication also provided free stickers including justin beiber and cheesy quotes reading 'bite me'!!! It featured interviews with the famous JLS who have many young female fans. The adverts in this publication also show that the magazine is aimed at young girls as they are advertising womens toiletries and advertise special offers for make up products.  The magazine isnt much money for the target market and if so it is likely that parents would but them this magazine.

The target market for this magazine in my opinion are boys who are in to the kind of Rock/Indie music from the age of 13+. This audience best suites the publication because of the dark colours in the publication. Majority of the bands featured in this magazines are also male. They also advertise things like computer games and boyish films and appeals to the typical emoish type of boy. I think mainstreamers are the main type of people that buy this type of magazine because there are alot of features on the way certain artists live and those who buy this magazine "follow the crowd"

By looking at these magazines it has helped me on what type of things i would like to add in my own magazine. It is important to have a target market to produce a product  so that it can sell well and so i know what to add into it eg. features, quizzes etc.

Introduction

:) Hello, my name is Laressa Sade Smith. I am a 16 year old AS student at La Swap studying AS media. I enjoy most types of music apart from heavy metal and classical music. With music im quite versatile. In media studies i have been given the task to create four pages of a music magazine, this will include the front cover, the contents page and a double page spread. Although i enjoy many types of music I will be focusing mostly on urban hip hop/RnB/rap music. Her is a new album that i enjoy listening to and recommend to you.


Usher- Raymond v Raymond



My brief is to:
Research and plan for my music magazine.. i will do this by completing my prelimanary task of creating an arts magazine for young pupils of secondary school acland burghley
-my research should include what I have found out about my target market/audience
-suitable price for my magazine
-where i would distribute this publication
-what is suitable in a magazine for my target market


Writing an article and taking my own pitures
-suitable images for my magazine
-suitable article to my target market (lexical choice)
-what the article is about. Does this appeal to my target market?
-the psychographics and demographics of my target market


Then i can get to creating my main music magazine magazine