Evaluation

In one of the previous media lessons, we analysed covers of music magazines that are already on the market.We were put into groups of four and we discussed ideas about the main features of a new music magazine. After that each of us had to do their own front cover of this magazine.
We came up with the idea of a magazine that every month represents a different genre of music and social groups so that it would appeal to many people and there would be a much wider audience. Although that is not typical at all for a music magazine, we think it will definitely help boost the magazine’s popularity and sales.
Our magazine is called “Mixture” which, is easy to remember and perfectly suitable as a title for a magazine that unites different types of music. It is aimed at males and females in the age group 16-25 who are interested in music.
In our group each of us produced their own cover for the magazine with different house style.
I chose to focus on rock music for my front page as that is the music I like and normally listen to.
The target audience of my cover of course are mainly fans of rock music.
My music magazine cover has used the forms and conventions of a usual magazine, so it does look like a real one. The masthead is bold, with big capital letters and it spans the entire width at the top of the magazine. For main cover image I put a cropped picture of myself (that had been taken in one of the lessons) dressed in black, wearing black eye shadows and looking straight at the camera. I put a plain red colour as a background because I wanted the cover to look more provocative and be able to grab the attention more easily. There is a banner across the bottom of the front page that gives details of what can be found in the magazine.
For the cover lines I used a white simple font so that the cover doesn't look too complicated.
In some ways my cover challenges the conventions of the most magazines on the market as it doesn't feature any graphics, special offers or gossip that would not be appropriate as they might be considered by the readers as too superficial and commercial.
It is important for a rock magazine that the information in it and the cover in particular is all about the music and about nothing else since for people who listen to rock, the music is usually of great importance.
There is also no boxed text and the information on the page is also not too much.
In order to attract the attention of my type of audience I chose for the cover the combination of black, white and red.
In order to make it appear more like a real rock magazine and to satisfy the interests of the target social group, the cover contains the most well-known names in the rock music industry as well as a picture of a famous rock band.
The cover also displays a bar code, issue date and price on the bottom right corner that every real magazine contains. It was a good idea for the magazine to be out monthly so that there would be more content and news about each genre and that makes the price of £3.00 also realistic.

Given that I am the person who is on the cover I had to develop skills to pose effectively. Focusing my look at the camera and expressing emotions as real as possible required efforts but eventually the result fulfilled completely my expectations.
I also became familiar with the proper usage of digital cameras.
I was introduced to Adobe Photoshop software in order to edit my pictures. This was very useful because I acquired new knowledge, for example how to add text on pictures and how to choose the right font and font size for each line on the cover. I learnt how to cut images out from backgrounds and how to place different layers that contained images and text. In my opinion this is basic knowledge required for developing further skills.
In conclusion I experienced in detail the whole process of creating a magazine cover which gave me a clear idea of how professional magazine editorial operates.
The potential media institution that might distribute our music magazine may be newsagents as well as big chain stores such as ‘Borders’.
If I had another chance to do my magazine cover page again, I would have planned it better. I would add some more rock looking pictures and would try to make the cover look more aggressive. I would also use may be a little bit lighter ranges of colour.

EVALUATION.

EVALUATION.

My magazine is called “mixture”, it is a music magazine dedicated to a variety of different genre’s, from rock to hip-hop to dance. Though for our magazine, we decided to focus on a different genre for each month, so it allows the consumer of the product to enjoy their specified choice of music genre without the hassle of other genres filling the magazine up. The aim of changing the genre each month is to attract a wider spectrum of audience, mainly teenagers from the age of 16-22, to relate to the content of the magazine.

My music magazine, though it is not the same as a real magazine, tend to follow the same set of conventions as a real music magazine. For example, it uses the same concept, to entice the audience, to make the magazine appeal to the target audience. To do this, is usually dependant on the front cover, the front cover must capture the audience’s attention. Perhaps this is why the front cover of a magazine seems to be the most important. My music magazine cover tends to use a simple layout as much magazine covers use also. It has a simple colour scheme with the main themes being orange and white. Though it differs from real music magazine, as the outline of the font in my magazine, is highlighted in a yellow colour, something a real magazine usually wouldn’t do. This, is one way, my magazine breaks traditional magazine conventions as the layout of the magazine (also with the background of the magazine being black) differentiates that of a real magazine cover. Furthermore, the use of costume and body language the “model” uses conforms to typical conventions of magazines as it complies to the genre that the magazine is focusing on (in this case, hip-hop & r&b). The “model” is set out in an urban way, projecting an image that will appeal to the desired target audience. Also, the languages, promotional offers, genre of magazine are very similar to that of a real music magazine, as they derive from the real thing; it’s what we used to set an example for our magazines. Things such as “Free Mix tape CD” and “Exclusive Interview with...” are all examples of what appear to be in real music magazines, therefore to make our magazine seem more realistic.

Though, my music magazine cover aims to appeal to all social groups, it is inevitable for it to appeal mainly to one particular group. Especially for the genre I’m doing (Hip-hop, R&B) it would understandably appeal to a social group who mainly listen to Hip-hop and R&B music. I chose to do an urban theme, as I thought most people, though generalising who listen to hip-hop and R&B music would be interested in urban lifestyle. His body language, appears to have a nonchalant feel, suggesting that the reader also, has a laidback, carefree lifestyle, which perhaps, appeals to those who are similar, it isn’t too posed for, or initimidating so it reaches out to a wider audience. Also, our location was limited, so we decided to take it in the college and crop the background out, so it’s only the “model” that’s left.

Ideally, my magazine would be distributed by a popular, well known media institution such as IPC as it is a well known magazine publisher. Also, by having it distributed by IPC, I’ll be reassured at the fact it is reliable, as it also distributes other popular magazines such as NOW, LOOK, NME and Marie Claire, all of which also appeal to different age and social groups, so it would be suited for my music magazine. It being distributed by IPC also means that my magazine will reach a widespread and further audience, perhaps around the country, or international.

The audience, as stated before, would mostly be the younger generation, who are interested in the new hip-hop/R&B music out there. So it would mainly target people aged 16-22.

I attracted my audience by means of the layout of the magazine cover. Though the front is black, i used an array of bright colours to attract the audience. The magazine name “MIXTURE” is written in bold, capitals and a bright orange colour to capture the audiences eye, to make the magazine known to them. Also, the use of language “exclusive interview”, “win a chance..”, “FREE” are quite persuading, furthermore enticing the audience to go and buy the magazine as it contains such exciting contents. The choice of cover star, is young, “hip” and “urban” which aims to appeal to my target audience of the younger generation. I addressed the genre and the contents of the page, it being Hip-hop and R&B by mentioning other known Hip-hop/ R&B stars.

By creating this music magazine cover, I have learnt a variety of different technologies. This includes, the Mac, which I have used for the first time, thoroughly and also different photoshop techniques that I didn’t quite know before such as feathering, and using the duplicate stamp. Also, since I haven’t used the website Blogger before, it was also a first for me, to find my way through the site, change the font, size and colour, then posting the actual post.

If I were to make another front cover, I would’ve suggested that our group plan more, as we didn’t have enough time; we rushed straight into the work without much planning as to what we were doing. Also, the photographs were limited; we didn’t have much choice as to who would be suitable for our cover, who would suit the genre etc. So if we had more time to take photographs, perhaps the front cover model could’ve been a bit better rather than rushed.

Evaluation

The magazine that our group created is a magazine that focuses on a new genre of music every month so that it appeals to every person who is interested in music. This means that our magazine can be read by anybody, they can read about their preferred genre or even get new music from a different genre.

The magazine genre that I was focusing on was dance music for the May issue.  I chose this genre because I listen to this type of music and also, I knew how the magazine should look to reflect that genre. It had to appeal to our target audience, 16-23 year olds, so it was important that the text wasn’t too simple and that the pictures and graphic used didn’t look childish. The way I did that was use a simple font that didn’t look fussy by being italic or by having bold,  “bubble” writing. It was better to use a simple font because that means I could add graphics or glows to the writing without it looking too childish.  It was also important to have a title that would be memorable and also appealing to our audience, some of the most popular magazines use a title with 2 syllables, for example “Sugar”, “Kerrang” etc.  And those titles will stick in your head so it was a good idea to create a title that uses 2 syllables and also easy to remember. “Mixture” was a good idea for a title because it reflects what our magazine is about, which is focusing on different music, and also it is easy to remember.

The way I designed my magazine cover was by focusing on dance clubs and the colours that are used. I chose blue because there are a lot of different shades that work well together and it’s a bright colour that reflects the dance club scene. The text on the cover uses a glow because I was re-creating a “glow-stick” effect, which is often associated with dance music.

The large black image behind the main image is supposed to stand out and draw your attention to the artist on the front cover, and also it makes the cover look less plain.

As a group we chose to make it monthly because it would mean that the magazine would have more content on that genre and it means that it wouldn’t be sold too often which allows people to discover new music before next months issue.

The other thing that the group decided on was the price, £3.00, we thought that this was a good price because our target audience would be able to afford the magazine, also, there is a lot of content because it’s sold monthly so that makes the price suitable.

Compared to magazines that are actually on the market, I think that my cover looks realistic and that it would make a good magazine for people because it’s different, original and appealing to everyone. Like most popular magazines on the market, my cover uses a large image to show the new, upcoming artist of the month. This is so people focus in on this picture to see if they want to read more about them.

The layout of my magazine is also similar of that of an actual magazine cover. A real magazine has a large title, to show the name of the magazine, a website address, a price, a bar code and other headings with content of the magazine on the cover. All of which, I added to my cover to make it look more authentic.

 From creating the cover I have learnt more about layering, and how to add glows to the text, as I wasn’t aware of how to do that before. But I have used photo shop before so I had an advantage when it came to design the cover using photo shop.

If I were to do this project again then I would probably put more planning in to the magazine, I would probably look closer at existing magazines and outline the features of those magazines that make them so appealing. That would give me an even more of an idea of what I should include in the magazine. It would also give me more ideas for layout that I could possibly use and adapt.

I would also try different colours and see what would work well. I would try and use contrasting colours to see if they work well together, instead of use 1 colour and different shades and tones.

Also, I would try and do a different genre to see if the style of the cover would change depending on what type of music I’m focusing on.

Overall, I think the cover that I have managed to produce has turned out how I wanted it and that if I was to change anything it would mostly be the planning and nothing else.

Date: Wednesday 1st October:

In last lesson we looked a bit at composition of pictures and how our pictures should be taken to ensure that they are able to be edited easily.

Then we all got a camera each in our groups and went out and took pictures around the college, we took as many as we could so that we had enough to choose from.

Date: Friday 3rd October:

In today's lesson we were creating the magazine covers using the pictures we took from last lesson. I selected the picture I was going to use from the desktop and started to create my cover. 

My magazine genre of the month was Dance music so I thought I would use a lot of bright colours and glows on the text to remind people of clubs that they might associate with dance music.

I put a black shape in the background because I didn't want the cover to have just one solid colour as the background because that would look boring.

The title is in capitals because it's supposed to grab people's attention and make you want to read it. Quite a lot of the text on the cover has been added with a glow to it because it's to represent glow-sticks that might be in clubs where dance music is played.

There's also an offer on the front page to grab reader's attention because people like winning prizes and if on the cover of a magazine it says that you are able to win something expensive for free, it will definitely grab people's attention and make them want to find out more.

Our ideal audience would people people of around 16-23 so that's why it's quite bold and there's a lot more on the cover than you would normally find on a child's magazine. 

In todays lesson,we discussed the different types of music magazines and were all given a different type of magazine on our tables. The magazine that was given to us was 'Q' magazine and we had to study the cover to make some conclusions about the target audience. I concluded that the magazine was based on rock/indie music.

Later in the lesson,we had to get into groups of 4 to produce the front page of a new magazine. In our group, we all produced an individual front cover with different house styles. The name of our magazine is called MIXTURE which is aimed at both male and female aged from 16-23. I chose to do RnB/Hip-hop for my front page as that is one of the genres of music that I regularly listen to. 

1.

In today's lesson, we started a new practical project on on a music magazine. We were put into groups of 4, to decide and plan our new magazine. We then started to talk about the ideas we have, our magazine name, the price of the magazine, the photo shoot that we were planning to do for next week and so fourth.

As a group, we decided to create different genres for each monthly magazine as we could not agree on one particular genre. Which I thought was a good idea, as it would appeal to a multitude of people, boosting our potential sales and reaching out to a wider audience. Although, the focus of genre would be different, the magazine name, price, slogan and target audience who are essentially from the age of 16-23 would still stay the same. 

We also wanted the magazine to appeal to both males and females so we decided for the photo shoot to include both boys and girls for it to reach a wider audience. The title of our magazine, we decided was to be called "MIXTURE" as it seemed to go with both our genres, it being Hip-hop/R&B, Dance and Rock.

 

Today in the lesson we looked at different magazine covers. We looked at the different types of audiences that magazines would be aimed at; for example: the age, the gender, the lifestyles  of people. 

We were then put into groups and started talking about the different types of magazine genres that we would like to do for our project. At first, we couldn't agree with a type of genre but then we decided that we would do different genres for each issue. So now, we have one issue with the theme of rock, the next with dance, the next with hip hop and the last with R'N'B. 

Then, we had to decide on the title. It became difficult because some titles would work with some genres but may not work with others. In the end, we decided on "MIXTURE", which makes sense because it goes well with the type of magazine we're designing.

Extra things such as the price and the photo shoot also had to be discussed. We had to think about the price because it's going to be a monthly magazine so the price couldn't be too cheap and it couldn't be too expensive. It also had to fit with the age group which is 16-23, so we've decided that £3.00 would probably  be the most sensible price to put because people of our age group can afford that. 

For my photo shoot I am going to go to my Photography lesson and take a few people to take some pictures for my magazine. Then I will save it on to my H drive and print out the picture for next lesson.