Music Magazine Evaluation

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In my magazine I have used a variety of media product on my magazine. Firstly on my cover  I have used many cover lines to advertise articles inside, certain word in the cover lines are varied in shape to make the words stand out to the reader, as well as varying in colour to highlight certain words. Another product I have used is a strap line at the bottom of my cover, advertising that the magazine was voted the best in Europe, similar strap lines are used on many magazines so that its proof that other people have said that the magazine is worth buying.

I have also included a barcode, date, and price to make the magazine seem authentic. Most magazines have these included, so thought even though the magazine would not be for sale I would still include it to make the magazine look more professional. Also I included a title, and interesting picture that would be typical for any magazine, but I downloaded a font from the internet and used it in my house style throughout my magazine, keeping the house style colours, black, white and red.

On my contents page I have included sections to put my articles into, I saw this technique being used on other magazines during my textual analysis, so I adapted it for my own magazine. On my contents page I included a large amount of images and put page numbers on them so the reader can find that particular article. At the bottom of the contents page I have created a small editors section where I have listed all of the contributors of the magazine. This is also seen on most magazines and due to the magazine being not genuine, so are all the names mentioned, besides my own.

On my double page spread I have included a large image that took up the whole of one page. Usually in all of the double pages I have looked at the large images takes up the majority of both pages, but I wanted to include some more text to illustrate the images with some text. In the text I have written half as a summary as what the subject if doing, and half questions and answers, both are also used frequently in modern magazines.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have tried to represent a broad range of people in my magazine from young to old, but mainly focusing on anyone interested in modern music. I have used formal text to not to put off elder generations with slang that may not be understood by certain people

I have also tried to include many images so the reader doesn’t get bored by looking at too much text. I have tried not to relate to a particular genre but to cover a range of music that is modern at the moment. If I did have to assign it to a certain genre it would probably be either rock or indie music. I have used blacks and dark blues to give it a similar feel to that of Q magazine, so my magazine would have similar readers to them.

Possibly seeing about music labels distributing my magazine, as they may wish to use my magazine to promote certain artists, and it would promote my magazine and possible help with sales.

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

I think if the magazine was well known enough, the types of institution that may sell the magazine would be shops like HMV that sell music related products, and supermarkets, as this is where most magazines are bought. I don’t think there would be one institution in particular as the magazine covers a variety in types of music, so a varied amount of people would want to read it.

As the magazine covers stories affecting the most modern music, it has no certain genre; therefore I think that as its offering a broad range of

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of my magazine I think is generally of the younger generation but also could be of any age if they are interested in the feature inside the magazine. Both males and females as I believe the music features are not gender related, and is neutral throughout.  Also I think the types of people to purchase my magazine would change depending on what articles are included, such as certain bands featured and  other reviews or competitions on offer.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract the audience I mainly used the front cover, as the majority of people by a magazine on what is on the cover. Firstly I used images that would catch the reader’s attention. Using famous people would make people want to buy the magazine so that they can find out what the artist is promoting. I also used different colours to catch the readers eye of it were on a shelf.

Another technique I used was to make certain words larger so that instead of seeing a section of words the reader’s attention is drawn to the most interesting. This was in the cover lines, where another cover line featured a competition. By putting this on the cover the chances for people seeing the competition are higher and encourage a purchase.

On my contents page I have used as many images as possible so if I have encouraged a customer to pick up the magazine and flick through it, they will immediately see the images instead of just words.

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

Creating this magazine I have developed my photo editing skills very much. In the magazine I had to place the text from cover lines all over the front page, and change the colours. I didn’t have the knowledge to do this creating my draft pages, which is why I developed my skills so I could include the interesting font and still have the background show though

I also created all of my pages with editing software then added text afterwards; this made the posses much easier and simple to do. I then changed some of the photos settings so that they looked like they were of a higher quality. Plus I had to use my digital camera to frame all of my photographs so they looked professional.

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Compared with my student magazine I feel that firstly my cover has been improved greatly as before I had very little content on it and the image was slightly boring. Also the colours I used were very plain and simple. But on my new cover I have included much more contents and used more techniques seen on modern magazines, such as more professional looking fonts and images.

I defiantly think my contents page has improved as with my student magazine again the background was very plain and didn’t really show the reader what was available in the magazine, but now I think I have improved as I have filled the page with images and included a summary of what is available in the magazine for each article, I also used more sophisticated software to create it.