Music MagazineEvaluation

By Alex Dougherty

First of AllThrough this project a lot of my skills improved. By this I mean I furthered my ICT skills continentally asI progressed through the task. Another skill that Ideveloped was my photography skills. As a writer re-draftshis work over and over, I re-planned, retook and edited my images againand in some ways I did this all with the whole look of my magazine till I was 100% happy with it. The next few slides will show you the different ways I did this.

OLD Front Cover

I retook my main image, resized it so that it covered the full page. The image shows the model looking into the camera drawing the viewer in and attracting the male attention due to the attractiveness of the image. This attracts males for sexual reasons, and females for them to idealise her.

I changed my colour scheme to a lot more basic with a plain white background which really makes the text and the image stand out a lot more which again draws the reader in.

New Front Cover

My title of the artist changed as well, through out the magazine I felt that things were standing out enough, my first draft wasn’t drawing me in, so I used more bold thicker texts to make the reader fell more attracted to the cover.

FRONT COVER COMPARRSION TO NME

Bold heading for Artists names usedso the read can easily see what the mainarticle is about.

Full size image used so that the image stands out dueto its size. I also used the technique of getting the model to look into the camera so the viewer feels as thoughthe model Is looking at them.

Other bands mentioned so the magazine can appeal to a large range of people who like different bands.

Upcoming events shown on front cover to interest gig goers.

I changed the structure of the contents page so that it was easier to read and a lot more tidier as after all this is where the reader looks for the clearest information on where the articles are.

I separated each section of the contents into easy readable subtitles.

Old Contents Page

New Contents Page

I decided to insert the image into the centre of the screen for it to be more visible and outstanding.

CONTENTS COMPARRSION TO QLarge image of artist used with band name and page number so the reader can easily be directed to the page.

Subtitles used for different parts of the magazine. So again the reader can find their way around the page.

I change my text style to columns to follow the traditional music magazine style.

I made the image bigger and more focused on the models upper body. I edited the walls out so that the image would fit in with the white background.

I created a page indicator customised to the style of the logo I created.

Focused Artist indicator so the reader knows their on the right page

Columns used to follow the traditional style that readers are used to.

Noticeable info box to that the reader can learn some facts about the artist.

A cut out of text used with a coloured background to make it stand out.

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

Throughout all of the pages I have produced for this magazine, I believe I have developed the current styles of music magazine, and adapted them, to fit my specific target audience.

Each page is adapted in a way that they are following connotations seen in common music magazines, such as columned text, bold bright colours, easy readable text, and large images of the artists.

This media product represents the Indie-Rock youngsters of the modern day. The themes used in the magazine are bright and warming, just like the clothing worn today. The magazine allows for a lot of different people to read it, I think a main reason why its so accessible is because its very appealing to both sexes. An attractive female holds the front position of the magazine and this will attract men and women, for separate reasons but never the less very important.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What did I base my magazine on?First of all, I studied different types of magazine companies that I thought were relevant tomy style and creation that I wanted my magazine to be based on. IPC’s NME magazine was the most popular music magazine that the company sold therefore I decided to base my magazine on its photos, style and language used. You can see through out the front cover only I used similar connotations to create an overall traditional IPC looking music magazine.

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

Being a big fan of the NME magazine distributed by IPC Media, I decided to base my magazine on the appearance and theme of the NME magazine as I know it so well. Being a fan myself, I know what I want in my magazine, info on bands, news, event information etc. This is a big reason why I included these things in my magazine. I believe that IPC would distribute my magazine because its what the fans want. Its bold, its fresh and its aimed at the same target audience that NME is aimed at. NME being the only music magazine that IPC produce, the company have been extremely successful, therefore I do think that adopting a new music magazine would be a great move and I think my magazine would fit perfectly for that position, simply because its what the fans want.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The magazine is targeted at young British males and females from the ages of 15-25. The stylish images used, the big, bright, warm colours and the rock attitude of the magazine would be very appealing to the young indie-rock audience that I was looking to target. Speaking to friends about the reasons why they buy magazines allowed me to understand what I needed to involve in my magazine. Finally settling on the overall idea of a large front image as they said that they were often drawn in my large photos of artists, that appear to be looking directly at them.

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

Using Photoshop to create this media piece, my ability to create and edit text, images and even shapes has improved drastically. I am able to re-size images so that they are bigger to fill out more space. For example, in this image, the image was re-sized a lot to make it bigger enough to fill up the magazine front cover. Other things I have learnt is how to is to use the line tool to create my logo and make it sharp, fitted and very bold.

I used similar poses with the models to create a similar style of photo that my target readers could relate to.

Jaw lines are made visible and sharp

Bliss MagazineI used a similar technique that Bliss magazine use for their question and answer sections.

My MagazineI used highlighted text in blue so that its a lot easier to distinguish the questions from the answers.

How did I improve from the preliminary task?Since producing my preliminary task, I have been able to

produce a much more professional looking magazine. I think this because I have made things a lot closer together and tighter. The shapes used are all bold and outstanding so that the reader is drawn in more. I used more planning in my second magazine to ensure that everything was done correctly and on time. I didn’t want to waste anytime so that I could have as much time as possible actually producing my magazine and editing it.

What have I learnt overall-

Through this task I have learned that many things can go wrong if planning Isn't done correctly. I feel I planned it well, but it seems like that even though i did the magazine didn’t come out as well as it could of the first time. Thankfully I redrafted my work and now I feel like it has came out much better and looks like a professional standard magazine.Now I know that It is very important to always redraft and edit work as it can always improve it.