Evaluation of my music magazine

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BY FRANCESCA CUMMINS Evaluation of my Music Magazine

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Transcript of Evaluation of my music magazine

Page 1: Evaluation of my music magazine

BY FRANCESCA CUMMINS

Evaluation of my Music Magazine

Page 2: Evaluation of my music magazine

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

Within my magazine to create the realism of an actual product I included iconic codes and conventions of an existing magazine. For example, on the cover a; bar code, price, issue number, engaging cover shot, featured headline, other headlines/articles, luring techniques and mast head., are all included to add to the realism of the magazine as a product.Also used in the Contents and Double-page spread pages, with the use of; ordering the text in columns done as a technique in which most magazines use, a traditional Heading/ Stand first and Subheading within the article, an Enlarged Quote in the Interview with the artist, the Page contents listed with page numbers referenced, an editors message, page numbers, Photographer of the Images labelled (By-line), Typeface (to show consistency through a the magazine) and websites and contacts etc. This also adds to the realism of the magazine as a product and shows the use of forms and conventions of a real media product. Here you can see I have tried to imitate my magazine front cover to the famous music magazine ‘NME’ as it clearly shows the conventions a magazine should have to it. Even though these two magazines might not have the same genre I can still compare mine to the NME as its indie/rock style and mine is just indie.

Famous Brand Magazine

My Magazine

Issue date and price

Barcode

Main image of group

Masthead

Main cover line

Other cover lines

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Here I have collected an image of the contents page of the famous and successful music magazine NME. It shows there are the different types of things to include on a typical contents page and I

have used these conventions within my contents page also to make it look as effective and realistic.

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H E R E I S M Y C O N T E N T S PA G E T H AT I H AV E P R O D U C E D I H AV E U S E D T H E C O N V E N T I O N S A N D I D E A S F R O M O T H E R M A G A Z I N E S T O M A K E

M I N E LO O K E Q UA L LY A S E F F E C T I V E . I R E S E R A C H E D VA R I O U S M A G A Z I N E S O N T H E I N T E R N E T A N D A L L S H O W E D T H AT T H E Y H AV E

Q U I T E A F E W P I C T U R E W I T H I N T H I S PA G E W H I C H M AY T H E N AT T R A C T T H E AU D I E N C E T O WA N T T O B U Y I T A S I T G I V E S A N I N S I T E I N T O W H AT S G O I N G T O B E O N T H E R E S T O F T H E U P C O M I N G PA G E S

T H R O U G H O U T T H E M A G A Z I N E .

Sub-titles

Text columns

Page numbers and a sentences describing a brief incite to various pages

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Here I have tried to create my own interpretation of the typical double page spread within a magazine. Even though the ‘real’ magazine below mine may not be of the indie genre to mine, it still shows clear conventions into what should make a perfect double page spread.

I am following the codes and conventions with my double page spread as I have definite columns running down the page with a typical interview style on. The interview tends to be with an artist or band so in my case its with the band I created for my magazine, ‘Miscellaneous.’

I have used a pull-quote on the left side of the double page spread saying ‘we love our fans’ and then used another on the right side, half way down through the interview saying, ‘the vaccines they have wrote really good songs in which we aspire doing too.’ The pull quote is a typical convention I'm following as they allow something that someone has said stand out from the rest of the writing so it engages the audience to want to read the whole interview to understand what they were on about.

The columns allow there to be structure to what the audience is reading so its clear to understand. Even though in many different real music magazines they do this they still may come up with different quirky ways in which may challenge the forms of conventions.The picture in which the bottom double page expresses is that the ‘black eyed peas’ are a famous band and there standing tall to show there authority and power through the picture, especially power is shown through the main guy in band as he is the only one not slightly blurred and in definite colour. Similarly to this in mine above I have created a similar style by making my models stand with strong poses but made them stand two in front and two behind to make it look more effective. i also put there individual pictures into pilloried’s and saying there names underneath as they are suppose to be representing a new band into the ‘indie’ genre of music.

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I looked on the internet at various types of magazine and there different genres from rock to pop but I came to a conclusion that I wanted mine to be of a genre of ‘indie’. Some artists and groups which may full underneath this category would be from the likes of, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Vaccines ,Two Door Cinema Club, Arctic Monkeys, Coldplay. Although some of the artist which may not be that of a typical mainstreamer person like pop and RNB sensation Rhianna they still undertake followers and therefore do become successful also.

Whilst doing my research into this genre I noticed that its mainly a targeted genre for those of a younger audience so teens up to late 20’s seem to go to indie gigs and concerts more so than older audiences.

Within some magazines I researched in to they don't always go with a set genre throughout the magazine this is called unconventional genre as the target audience is wider therefore creating a larger market for success. This could be seen as a downfall though because not everyone necessarily likes the same things and its pointless putting a genre of pop with rock as parts of the magazine then people wouldn't want to read and therefore would loose sale.

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The ways in which I have tried to represent my particular social group also is by the colour type. I have predominantly used the colours,white,red and black. These reasons for this is that they are three bold colours which go together and make a statement and with strong colours shows a strong magazine type. My media product represents my particular social group in a positive light. As on the front image it has a group of late teens who seem to be hanging out and enjoying themselves instead of portraying them in a negative way as in I could of had them in a pose where they could be giving a hand gesture of swearing. But instead collected images that I thought would represent them in a more positive light which then would make my target audience want to buy it because it looks appealing.

I wanted mine to not have bright colours like the top of the pops one as this shows what kind of social group its aimed for and because of the use of colours especially. With the top of the pops magazine it also looks like its aimed for a younger audience because of the subtle but extreme colours to it i.e. pink and yellow. Which the colour pink is seen to be for those younger girls favourite colour which indicates the social group.

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Within my front page i ensured that my models would look like a typical representation of my indie genre, in order to this I hade to ensure that the clothing and pose were correct for the particular style I was going for. Therefore I felt that the ways in which this could be done was to pick typical people from my friends who I thought most dressed for an indie way. This was better than just imitating as getting actual people who do like indie must was better as they had the style which I wanted for my magazine e.g. simple but effective clothing, dull colours otherwise if I had them all smiling with brightly coloured tops on it could mix up what the audience buying the magazine would think the genre would be and change the whole look about it.

Converse -represents a sense of youth as a majority of young people wear these and are in fashion

Dull coloured clothing represents indie look

The things in which people wear can define them into what kinds of social groups they may belong to for example stereotypical things they would wear would be dark colours especially black so would hate the colour pink in which someone mainstream might like to wear. And there would be a complete contrast into what a country person would wear from indie. The ways in which magazine s use this to there advantage when making magazines is good as you can clearly differentiate the different social groups and what would appeal more towards certain people.

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What kinds of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

In the reality of creating a new magazine product, the design and genre etc, would only be on aspect within building a successful product for a target audience. For example advertisement, pricing and profit and the distribution on the product would all be key factors that would have to be approached for the success of the magazine. To decide what media institution I would want to distribute my Music (Indie) Magazine, I had to do initial research into existing institutions to find which would be suitable. The institutions I have researched are; IPC Media, Bauer Media and Development Hell Ltd.

As a distributing company, it is clear from the large recognizable brands included, it is a successful business. This would give  me the confidence in putting my brand in this alongside the ones given. However the target markets they work upon at the moment seem very segregated between the two genders, where as for larger sales I created my magazine to be uni-sex. On one hand this could be a new branch for the company eliminating other magazine competition within this area, or could restrict the sales and advertisement and only focus on one gender, as what they are used to for magazines.

IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults – while our websites collectively reach over 20 million users every month.IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women.Our men's portfolio (IPC Inspire) comprises a wealth of leisure brands including Country Life, Horse & Hound, Rugby World and Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mouse breaker and NME. Our mass market women's division (IPC Connect) comprises famous women's weeklies including Look, Now, Chat and Woman; TV entertainment brands including What's on TV, TV Times and TV & Satellite Week and, online, the good to know network.Our upmarket women's division (IPC Southbank) comprises luxury fashion brands including Marie Claire and InStyle, lifestyle brands including woman & home and essentials and home interest brands including Ideal Home, Living etc and house to home.  From...http://www.ipcmedia.com/about/

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B A U E R M E D I A I S A D I V I S I O N O F T H E B A U E R M E D I A G R O U P , E U R O P E ’ S L A R G E S T P R I V A T E L Y O W N E D P U B L I S H I N G G R O U P . T H E G R O U P I S A W O R L D W I D E M E D I A E M P I R E O F F E R I N G O V E R 3 0 0 M A G A Z I N E S I N 1 5 C O U N T R I E S , A S W E L L A S O N L I N E , T V A N D R A D I O S T A T I O N S .

B A U E R M E D I A J O I N E D T H E B A U E R M E D I A G R O U P I N J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 F O L L O W I N G A C Q U I S I T I O N O F E M A P P L C ’ S C O N S U M E R A N D S P E C I A L I S T M A G A Z I N E S , R A D I O , T V , O N L I N E A N D D I G I T A L B U S I N E S S E S . C O L L E C T I V E L Y , T H E G R O U P E M P L O Y S S O M E 6 , 4 0 0 P E O P L E .

B A U E R M E D I A I S A M U L T I - P L A T F O R M U K - B A S E D M E D I A G R O U P C O N S I S T I N G O F M A N Y C O M P A N I E S C O L L E C T E D A R O U N D T W O M A I N D I V I S I O N S – M A G A Z I N E S A N D R A D I O - W I D E L Y R E C O G N I S E D A N D R E W A R D E D A S B E I N G I N D U S T R Y I N N O V A T O R S .

O U R B U S I N E S S I S B U I L T O N I N F L U E N T I A L M E D I A B R A N D S W I T H M I L L I O N S O F P E R S O N A L R E L A T I O N S H I P S W I T H E N G A G E D R E A D E R S A N D L I S T E N E R S . O U R S T R A T E G Y I S T O C O N N E C T A U D I E N C E S W I T H E X C E L L E N T C O N T E N T T H R O U G H O U R B R O A D M U L T I - T O U C H P O I N T B R A N D P L A T F O R M S , W H E R E V E R A N D W H E N E V E R A N D H O W E V E R T H E Y W A N T . O U R W I D E P O R T F O L I O O F I N F L U E N T I A L B R A N D S G I V E S U S

A D V A N T A G E S O V E R P U R E P L A Y M A G A Z I N E O R R A D I O C O M P E T I T O R S . O U R M A G A Z I N E H E R I T A G E S T R E T C H E S B A C K T O 1 9 5 3 W I T H T H E L A U N C H O F A N G L I N G T I M E S A N D T H E A C Q U I S I T I O N I N 1 9 5 6 O F M O T O R C Y C L E N E W S , B O T H S T I L L I C O N I C B R A N D S W I T H I N O U R

P O R T F O L I O . T H E S E E D S O F T H E C O M P A N Y ’ S R A D I O B U S I N E S S W E R E P L A N T E D I N 1 9 9 0 W I T H T H E A C Q U I S I T I O N O F L O N D O N D A N C E S T A T I O N K I S S F M ( N O W C A L L E D K I S S 1 0 0 ) , F O L L O W E D B Y T H E A C Q U I S I T I O N O F

L I V E R P O O L ' S R A D I O C I T Y A N D L A T E R B Y T W C A N D T H E M E T R O G R O U P . T H E N C A M E T H E A C Q U I S I T I O N O F M E L O D Y F M W H I C H W A S T R A N S F O R M E D I N T O T H E M A R K E T - L E A D I N G M A G I C 1 0 5 . 4 . I N 1 9 9 4 , T H E C O M P A N Y B O U G H T A S M A L L M A G A Z I N E C A L L E D F O R H I M M A G A Z I N E W H I C H I S N O W T H E C O R E O F T H E B E S T - S E L L I N G I N T E R N A T I O N A L M U L T I - P L A T F O R M B R A N D F H M .

I N 1 9 9 6 , W E A C Q U I R E D D I G I T A L M U S I C T V C H A N N E L T H E B O X , A S A R O U T E I N T O T H E S M A L L S C R E E N B U S I N E S S , W H I C H H A S G R O W N I N T O B O X T E L E V I S I O N , A S E V E N C H A N N E L J O I N T V E N T U R E T V B U S I N E S S W I T H C H A N N E L 4 .

C O N T I N U I N G I T S H I S T O R Y O F M A G A Z I N E L A U N C H E S , C L O S E R W A S L A U N C H E D I N 2 0 0 2 A N D B R I T A I N ’ S F I R S T W E E K L Y G L O S S Y , G R A Z I A , W A S L A U N C H E D I N 2 0 0 5'

 From Bauer 'About Bauer' fromhttp://www.bauer.co.uk/aboutbauer

Bauer Media

Again for the reasons in which the company has a clear genre or type within products it

distributes shown in its about me to be mainly low priced, television or female specific

magazines which would not be ideal for my Indie-Pop choice.

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Development Hell LTD

We currently publish two monthly magazines, The Word and Mixmag, and their accompanying websites. In April 2009 we acquired DontStayIn.com, the world's biggest clubbing social network (download press release). We have provided consultancy for some of Britain’s biggest publishers such as Dennis, Future and IPC and were hired by Paul McCartney to produce the souvenir magazine for his 2002 World Tour.Among the Development Hell team are some of the most experienced and respected operators in British magazines including The Word’s editor Mark Ellen, and former Editorial Director of Q and Smash Hits, David Hepworth.The board of Development Hell is chaired by Peter Strong and comprises Managing Director Jerry Perkins, Editorial Director David Hepworth and Finance Director David Joseph. From, http://developmenthell.co.uk/

This looks like a good indie institution which is well-known throughout the genre. However Its most suited to a niche audience. This is evident as it only releases two monthly magazines and one online where as my magazine would be more weekly so therefore more mainstream

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Before making my music magazine, I had to ensure I had a strong target audience I could aim at in which maybe thinking about also their being a gap in the market for this. Ensuring my magazine would be unique and original, to prevent competition from ‘too similar’ products, with this I researched into various different music magazines from NME to INDIE which helped me to produce a similar yet better product using there codes and conventions to help me. To ensure the largest possible target audience then, I aimed at both genders, automatically increasing this. There fore seeing a gap in the magazine industry for a new, fashionable ‘Indie’ genre featured product. I also feel now looking at my piece as a finished product, in comparison to its audience I am confident to say my magazine targets, young people between the ages of 16-30 (being both aspiring to the young age for this as a style or influence, yet mature and interesting enough for the older area), of both male and female, who have an interest in the Indie culture or music scene.Here I have collected some images in which I feel represent my target audience, either from the style or appearance of the people, or the poses or surrounding settings. Revealing the Indie cultured style, linking to the house style of my magazine.

Who would be your audience for your media product?

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HTTP:/ /WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WATCH?V=-QKJ62RKBRM

The following music video links I feel represent my audience for my magazine in the way of style, personality and genre which fits with my music magazine

Bombay Bicycle Club- ‘Always like this’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGUEelmzxoWe see in this video they has tried to recreate an old fashion feel (indie) we can see this from the setting in an old style pub where people would have use to started playing there music before being famous. As well as this we see there's a juke box within the video which is an way that music use to be played on which is very different from now as we have radios, steros iPods etc in which we can listen to out music on. This is how I have tried to give my magazine the same feel that even though it will be a new magazine for young people they don’t have to forget about old styles.

Noah and the Whale- ‘L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.' 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNzCDt2eidg

Birdy- ‘skinny love’

I think within the music video by Birdy- skinny love is accurate representation of my chosen audience because I think as shown in the video it has a sense of youth which is powerful in the case of the music video her lyrics were. As well as this I think the atmosphere was quite dull with light colours which I have created my magazine to be also like. I think the way in which the girl in the video dresses is nice, gentle with an indie feel which I too have tried to create for my models on my magazine front cover. Even the surroundings of where the places in her video is set shows a sense of freedom this is represented as we see when she walks through fields.

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Mumford and Sons music videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNy8llTLvuA&ob=av2e

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7bHe--mp1g&feature=relmfu

This group In my opinion would be the types of especially in this case lads who id want my to buy my magazine and be the audience as I feel there representation

through there songs are very powerful and meaningful lyrics in which I aspire for my magazine to be powerful they create this feel by the way they represent

themselves and how they come across to the audience watching . There music and style and where there videos are shot are very random but that’s what makes it a success as its very different from what's in the mainstream market of e.g rhianna

but in there own rights are then mainstream because of the niche audience making them successful and therefore widening there music to the masses.

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I chose my target audience through my research within the industry of a magazine product, and also by the genre I chose, automatically a starting point of whom to aim for, even though I was going to change it from indie to r n b because I thought that would have been easier but I didn’t change it because I wanted to push myself to see what I could do with not a lot of initial ideas into producing an indie magazine. I addressed my audience in an informal manner, to make the reader feel at level with what they are reading and want to read on. As more of a formal tone could make the reader feel inferior and not appeal to them.

For my school magazine I chose the target audience to be specific to year 12 pupils. I attracted them by manipulating the magazine to suit them, by making the name ‘Sixth form Secrets’ to give a feeling of it being their own, used a models of their age, colour schemes that would be unisex and appeal within their age group and used current issues or trends that would interest them.

How did you attract/address your audience?

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This therefore gave me an insight into the attraction of audience’s and how to do this. For my music magazine, I got my first initial idea of what to do and use, which my audience would want, was again through my research, and my questionnaire. From this I took the most popular of choices, naturally to target the largest possible amount of people for the genre and developed from there. Again I used a name that would be simple yet effective to engaging the readers, colour schemes that would be both for male and female, which would attract the ‘indie’ type. Also using both female and male models for the photography of the magazine to show it as a unisex magazine.

Also focusing on what the readers expect to see from an ‘indie-pop’ magazine, adding realism to this by including the iconic words and features that would be seen from a magazine.

Such as a bar code, price, and issue number, and engaging features and headlines on the cover, that the target audience would be interested in knowing, as using a indie band within a feature interview would not be ideal for what the audience want or expect to read. Although to improve my magazine, typical ‘strap lines’ or more detail within the iconic features could be used more.

My music magazine front cover

My School magazine front cover

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

And

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

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When I had finished my preliminary task of creating a school magazine, I had to think about how that task was going to help me succeed in my next practical task of creating my own music magazine. In the process of creating my school magazine it gave me an initial insight as what kinds of things would appeal to my target audience by following simple codes and conventions of a magazine, i.e. by using barcode, price etc to add the effect of realism to my product. I had also researched the subject area prior to starting my actual task production, this enabled me to get a better grasp of the ideas of how to produce a music magazine and how d be successful in the process of doing that.

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Within the previous page I put my two magazines next to each other, school magazine and music magazine. I feel this is the best way of comparing the development I have made throughout the production process. I feel that my photography has changed significantly as I have been able to explore wider editing websites etc on the internet. I was able to shows how I can use the appropriate angles and shots for the magazine for example a medium close up for a cover of a magazine as an iconic shot. There were in fact weaknesses to my work that if I had the chance to start over I would go back and change these things to make it better. The one thing that I would mostly change would be on the front page and to not add as much writing because in my research I eventually noticed that writing typical indie magazines they don’t have a lot of writing and information on the front just a masthead, main image, barcode and price. However with mine I had done that but then I added more like what might be seen on different pages within my magazine and this isn't a typical thing to see on an indie magazine. I noticed this particular thing when researching into the real magazine ‘indie’ where I saw these minimal conventions being shown on the front cover.

Meanwhile I think my pictures were a success to my magazine as I

thoroughly edited my pictures in various ways. And explored what kinds of poses are usually seen

within an indie magazine and to use this as an advantage to my

magazine.

I have been able to learn about various different technologies from the process of constructing my product. Such as editing pictures on such sites as in ‘picnic’ also using documents on the computer such as paint,publisher,word and using these to my advantage by exploring more into what you can use them for. As well as this I used ‘font space’ for such things as my masthead because it was a different way and technique of getting a font and exploring the different styles instead of just sticking to a simple font style such as ‘times new roman’ which can be found on computer documents such as word.

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Here you can see I have explored into different styles of fonts for my masthead and which ones look most effective. This was a site I found on Google (Font Space) which allowed me to experiment with the colours and fonts to suit my magazine. It was indeed a difficult decision to be able to pick the most suitable font for my genre as if I chose one in ‘swirly’ writing my magazine might be seen in a different light and less formal and perhaps for a different audience.

You can see here I am on a site where you can edit pictures this particular one is called ‘picnik’ it enabled me to experiment with the editing of colours, contrast, brightness etc. this was a long process to explore into because I think the front image on a magazine is crucial and because of this made this a real focus point on my front cover. I used this site for every picture within my front page, contents and double page spread you can notice throughout all my pictures they don’t have the same editing done to them this shows I was able to use various things to make each individual picture look effective

This picture was edited by using ‘picnick’ however with the black line above and below this image I had done it within the computer document ‘paint’ this is a quick and easy way on your computer to just add a simple yet effective touch to your work. And I think it worked well with my picture.

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Conclusion

Overall I feel I learnt many new skills and techniques from the creation of the school magazine to my music magazine final piece as looking back at both it shows my development and growth into manipulating a product in

a realistic and journalistic point of view to the best of my ability. Also learning about the construction of such a product as a magazine ensuring, images, interviews, and headlines etc as crucial for it to be one. I believe I have used the codes and conventions within media well and hope this has gone to the success of my magazine. And I have thoroughly enjoyed my

tasks and the production process.