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.