By Lucy Twyman

In my magazine I have used a lot of the forms and conventions typically found in real media products to make sure that it is recognisable as an punk-rock genre magazine. However, I have challenged some so that my product does not look exactly the same as those already available.

For example, while researching punk and rock music magazines, a typical convention found on the front covers was the use of darker colours to reflect the genre of music and mood of the articles found inside. KERRANG! uses this convention in almost every issue I have looked at and analysed during this project, though they also add in a splash of colour. Usually either red, which adds attitude and danger to the cover, or yellow which quickly catches the eye as warning and danger signs are made these colours. I found only two examples of bright colour schemes while researching and I have developed and challenged that convention because, while I want my front cover to be attractive to my target audience, I didn’t want it to appear as ‘loud’ and dangerous as KERRANG! magazine. I wanted my product to fit the punk typecast well, which is why I have used a lighter background colour that runs throughout the magazine and brightly coloured text on the front cover and contents page. I have not included an exclamation mark in the masthead which is popular within these genres, but have used the same form of layout, i.e. having it at the top of the page in capital letters. I have used a neater font than that of KERRANG!, but one that still conveys the punk-rock genre better than a masthead font like NME’s would do.

Colours and fonts on my front cover compared with those on Kerrang! and NME

I have used the typical photography conventions on my front cover and DPS. In punk-rock magazines I researched, I found that on the front cover the image of the artist/band is usually posed and shot against a screen and is surprisingly rarely live. This type of photography is quite aesthetically pleasing and the posed quality appealed to my target audience, so I used the same technique. While researching different double page spreads, especially those interviewing boy bands, I found the photography sometimes outside, sometimes in the studio and very often posed. I developed this convention to make the boys appear more alive, cheeky and rebellious, which will especially appeal to the female members of my audience.

I gave the band silly string to play with and took photographs of them when they weren’t expecting it to create the look I wanted for my DPS

I have used a font similar to the ones found in other punk rock magazines such as KERRANG! on the headings of my contents page.

The photography I have used here challenges the typical live photography used on the contents pages of other punk-rock magazines I have looked at. I decided not to use live images as I wanted the contents page to have the same feel as the DPS; cheeky and rebellious. That kind of attitude is part of the punk genre, therefore really appeals to my target audience because they feel as if the bands/artists are more relatable.

I have used the contents page to attract the audience by including adverts for competitions to win free live tickets and prizes that the audience will appreciate, this is a convention used in all music magazines.

I’ve challenged the typical colour scheme for my contents page to bring out the punk element of the genre, but kept it fitting with the rest of my magazine.

The dominant age group represented in my magazine is 15 – 18. Teenagers and young adults that belong to this age range are often portrayed negatively in the media, as shoplifters, violent hoodies and thugs in the most extreme cases. More frequently they are shown just as rebels without a course, first world teenagers who don’t have problems so they invent problems and teenage drinkers. In the news, if young adults have been reported because they have achieved above average grade or done some sort of brilliant charity work, they aren’t given half as much space or word allowance than they would be given if they had robbed a convenience store. However, this is more to do with bad news selling better than good news. I have both challenged that representation and played up to it slightly in my magazine.

I have named my magazine ‘CORRUPT’, which in itself represents the magazine and music genre in a negative way. Yet this reaches out to teenagers and young adults who feel unfairly criticized by the media and they, just as they do with the music itself, find comfort in the fact that there is a community who understands and accepts them. The photography on the front cover is reminiscent of a set of mug shots, which reinforces the stereotype that the media has thrust upon young adults, yet the bright coloured writing shows a light-hearted, humorous angle to the front cover.

The target gender for my magazine is female, and my magazine represents them in a positive way. Lately there has been a lot of controversy around female representation in the media. There is so much focus on what they wear, what size they are etc. but my magazine shows them as being individual, in proportion, real and happy. This promotes a very positive and achievable set of role model for young women.

My magazine doesn’t represent a certain social group, just a group of people who like the same kind of music. The genre of my magazine is punk-rock, however it does not represent typical punks or typical rockers. I think this is a very positive way to design a music magazine because it is less exclusive, and it shows that you don’t have to look a certain way to like a certain type of music.

I researched magazines with a similar target audience and pitch to my own product, and looked at their various media packs to come up with a list of institutions. I chose Bauer Media to distribute my product. They distribute two other music magazines, KERRANG! and Q which both have similar audiences to my product, but there is still a gap that my magazine can fill. Q magazine represents classic rock and roll and KERRANG! appeals to everyone ‘From the younger teenage readers who are more open to different genres of rock music – from EMO to Thrash etc, to the readers who respect Kerrang! as an authority when it comes to our scene’s heritage bands.’ according to they’re site. My magazine wishes to represent the smaller sub-genres like punk-rock and indie.

I found that the target audience for my magazine will be a female, aged 15-18 who loves to music. She prefers alternative music, mostly punk rock and all of it’s sub-genres. She enjoys listening to music, playing music and reading about music. She finds interviews about her favourite bands and artists interesting, she can’t wait to share the information she reads with her friends. She reads about music every week, and spends the rest of her time at gigs, with friends or playing her own instrument. She either is, or knows someone who is in a band because she loves to hear live music, and is fascinated by new music being created and hopes it makes an impact in the world. Her style and ethics are influenced by her favourite punk-rock stars who have good, strong morals and show this to their fans through their lyrics.

One of the ways I attracted my audience was the font I used for the masthead. I chose this font because it is bold and easy to read, yet it’s more interesting a font such as Arial or Berlin Sans. I wanted to attract both genders, but mainly females. This font works for that particular target audience because the colour and the fact it’s in capitals appeals to the masculine side of my target audience, but the font has a certain vintage look which is very attractive to a female audience.

The colour palette I chose because it was a little different from the colours usually used to represent heavier music. The colours catch the eye and I can choose to bring attention to certain headings and offers which will attract the audience further. The use of bright turquoise and pink is attractive to the female audience of my product. On the front cover I have used words like ‘EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW’ in bright yellow capital letters to attract attention, the word exclusive makes the audience feel as if they’re getting something extra. ‘Free Posters’ makes the audience think they’ll be getting free merchandise, which is one of the most attractive things to an audience who is paying for a product. I have also added turquoise splash with a article heading and ‘find out on page 4!’ to invite the audience inside.

I have used words such as gig and festival to address the audience with words that they are familiar with, this gives a feeling of acceptance. Words like ‘live’ and

‘tour dates’ work in the same way.

‘I enjoy laughing at people who think they’re better than me’ - Addressing the audience with situations that have happened to them in real life.

Live music –addresses the audience by relating with their interests

‘We were just a garage band’ – famous bands talking about how they made it, a lot of the audience will look up to the artist and feel as if they have things in common.

Technology played an important role in every stage of creating my product, and every stage was recorded on Blogger.

For the research stage, I began by using Survey Monkey to ask my audience what they would like to see in my magazine. Here is an example of one of my questions, and how I learned to turn the responses into bar charts and percentage tables. I also posted my survey questions on Facebook and Twitter to get more results.

For the planning of my product I used Microsoft Word and Microsoft PowerPoint to present my work.

To create my magazine front cover and contents page I use Adobe Photoshop CS3 to edit pictures by changing the brightness and contrast, I also used it to layer texts and images which made the two pages look more professional. On my contents page, the most helpful thing it allowed me to do was cut out pictures from they’re own background and paste them onto the page. For my double page spread I used InDesign.

I used Youtube to upload my video interview of my target audience for my research of my magazine. I think that watching a video of an interview instead of just reading a script or listening to a voice recording is important because as well as hearing the interviewers opinion you can see who they are in how the dress and how they act and how that shows who my target audience are.

To upload this power point to my blog I have also used SlideShare. I found this convenient because it makes it easy for my PowerPoint to be viewed online and gives the readers of my blog a better way of interacting with technologies.

It is clear from these images that my College magazine is very basic compared to my finished product. I had not used Photoshop before so the only technique on my first front cover was elementary layering of text on an imported image. My contents page is also very simple, with only two images and no real layout. My final product has improved dramatically from these practises as I have included a bigger range of more appropriate photography, a planned layout based on real music magazines and a lot more text. The colour scheme on my College magazine works well for the product, but I needed something more sophisticated for my final piece. I used more colours and because there was more text I could easily put the colours together in an attractive way. The college magazine was useful because it allowed me to experiment with different techniques that have improved the look of my final product.