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Evaluation!

At the beginning of the year we were asked to do a preliminary task, creating a college magazine for Wyke college. This then led into us creating a music magazine.

I think that my music magazine has the same conventions as a real music magazine. I wanted my magazine to have similar conventions to real music magazines because it makes it look more realistic and makes it look more professional. On my front cover I digitally took a medium close up of my model holding two drumsticks, after looking at many different music magazines such as Kerrang and Mojo I noticed that medium close ups were very common among music magazines. Also many Rock based magazines usually have the cover artist/artists with their instruments to re enforce the genre of music, so this is why I chose to have my model holding the drumsticks .

 I also made a banner at the top of the page with stories that would be included in my magazine. Banners are also typical conventions of a music magazine because they stand out from the rest of the page and separate the cover stories from the regular information that is shown on the front cover such as upcoming gigs and regular bands that appear in the magazine.

I used a large bold masthead which stretched across the full width of the page, again this is another typical convention of a music magazine. I think that the masthead looks much better when it fits across the full page because it stands out more from the rest of the text on the page and it doesn’t blend in with anything else on the page.

I included social networking sites in which the magazine is connected with and I included the magazine website along the side of the page, including websites and social networking sites is quite new to magazines now, but again is a typical convention which I chose to use in my magazine because its modern and as my magazine is targeted at young teenagers/students they will be up to date with all of the social networking sites and will go online to find more information about the magazine.

The obvious conventions that I included in my magazine would be the barcode in the bottom right hand corner and the price of the magazine above the barcode including the euro price.

In the contents page I included regulars and features, it separates the special stories and new bands that appear in the magazine from the regular information such as gigs and tours. I think that this is a really good convention of a magazine to use, and personally I think that if you don’t use features and regulars the magazine wouldn’t look like a music magazine.

In the double page spread of my magazine I included a quote from the artist who was being interviewed. Quotes from the artists in interviews are typical conventions of music magazines because they highlight important things that the artist has said or things that you may find interesting to read.

My music magazine is aimed at young teenagers-university students both male and female who have an interest in live music, especially rock music. I wanted my target audience to be young adults such as myself because I know what type of things people are interested in, in this age group. To make my magazine appeal to this age group I have added information about Leeds Fest, which is a very popular music festival with young people, so I thought it would be a good idea to include information about it.

Also the model on my front cover is a young adult which shows that the band members are young, the music is fashionable and contemporary, he’s also wearing clothes that young adults will wear and it shows that young people will like this band because his image is right for this age group.

There are many different music magazines out there targeted at young adults so there is a lot of competition for magazines to be sold, so I made my magazine very bold and bright, only using a few different colours so it stands out from the rest of the magazines, also after looking at other magazines and looking at the colour schemes, I think that my colour scheme is quite unique and different from the other magazines being sold.

Another way in which I have tried to attract my magazine towards my target audience is that I have put “upcoming gigs and tours” into my regulars section of the contents page, I thought this was a good idea as young people like to go and listen to live music and if it was a regular in my magazine people who read the magazine would be able to see what gigs and tours are on each month. I’ve also included “this months top 50 bands” in my regulars section because young people like to listen to the latest music out there and they would be interested in what my magazine thought were the top 50 bands this month.

If my magazine were to be distributed by a successful institution I think that IPC  MEDIA would publish my magazine because,IPC distributes magazines such as  Look, Country Life, NME, Marie Claire, Good To Know Recipes, Horse, Ideal Home, T.V. Times and Uncut, and as the only music magazine which is similar to mine is NME, I think that there is a gap in the market for my magazine to be distributed with this institution, and I wouldn’t be competing with any other magazines for sales.

The audience for my magazine “Amplify” would be teenagers and university students ranging from the ages of around 15-25.

I chose this age group because as I am 18 and I like rock music so I understand what type of things people buying the magazine will want to read about and hear about in the music world.

Also another reason for choosing this age range would be that many music magazines are out there for young people nowadays which shows that music magazines are popular with young people.

To attract my magazine to my chosen target audience I looked at other magazines which were targeted at younger audiences, like Kerrang and Uncut to see how they attracted their buyers attention. After looking at these I tried to attract my buyers in similar ways .

On my front cover I took a medium close up of my model, I asked the model to hold the drumsticks because many music magazines have props on the front cover, and also it will attract young people who play the drums to want to buy my magazine, and as my magazine is targeted at people which enjoy live music I thought that adding the drumsticks would emphasis that the artists like to play live music.

As my photo choice on the front cover is quite dark I chose to use bright and bold text to make the magazine more noticeable and stand out. Also as there are so many different magazines for my particular target audience out there already, colours in the magazine need to be bright and stand out to attract potential buyers attention.

From this experience of making a music magazine I have learnt to use Photoshop, which I personally think is a really good program to edit and create images and text on. I think that Photoshop is a really good program to use because it allows you to edit in layers and it also makes the work look a lot more professional. Another technology I used was Blogger, to upload all of my research, images and final products. Blogger is a good site to use and its very easy to use too, apart from a few times when it wouldn’t let me upload images onto my blog, but apart from this I think that it is a really good site to use.

I think that since the preliminary task of creating a College magazine, that I have improved and progressed, because I didn’t know how to use Photoshop in the making of my college magazine, and my editing skills were very poor. I have learnt how to create layers which makes it much easier to work with your product and edit it. Also I used many more conventions which a magazine would use in my Music magazine, and in my College magazine I didn’t use any conventions of a magazine because I hadn’t really researched much into the conventions of magazines whereas when I was creating my music magazine I researched many conventions which I could add into my magazine.

Contents Page!!

contents

        

contents

This is a draft of my layout which i will be using for my final contents page.

I am going toadd editors notes and a photograph of the editor because after looking through many magazines i havernoticed thatalmost ever music magazine has editors notes and or a picture of the editor inside the contents page.

I am also going to include a subscription box at the bottom of the page as this will attract people into ordering the magazine monthly rather than going out to buy it.

I will include Features and Regulars in my magazine to seperate the exclusive stories ad cover storys from the regular editions such as information on gigs and concerts and regular bands which appear in the magazine each month.

 

Editor!

Subscribe!

Features!

regulars!

This is my final front cover for my music magazine. I am pleased with most things about the cover, i like the colour schee and font styles I think that if i were to improve my front cover if i had more time i would have added a few more cover stories with photographs,but personally i think tha if i were to add more photographs it may look a bit cluttered. I will keep this colour scheme running throuhout the againe tocreate contiuaty and make sure the contents page and double page spread look like they belong to the front cover.

This is my second draft of my front cover to which I have made a few changes. I made the masthead much bigger than the previous draft because I felt it wasn’t quite bold enough. I also changed the photograph because it looked to dull and dark so i edited it to make the photograph look much softer and brighter, this makes the artist look quite heaven like because of the soft glossy look on the artists face.I decided to keep red in my colour theme but choose a much softer red tone so it didn’t look so bold and brash. I also decided to use beige as one of my main colours because it goes with the colour of the drum sticks that the artist is holding. I made the writing about the cover artist much bigger and also put his name there so people would recognise straight away who it is.

I also added the magazines website along the side of the page, I felt like this would be a good addition simply because the magazine is available on social networking sites, so adding the email address would be a good idea.

Something which I am going to add on my final magazine cover will be a poster of the cover artist advertising his band. I think that this will attract a female audience because he looks like  teenage heart throb not just a band member. Linking with the heart throb idea I put the red heart around the 50^th issue section to show its special because Ryann Docherty is featured in the magazine and not just because its the 50th issue of Amplify..

This is my draft of my front cover, it is only a draft as there are many things i would like to change about it. My first concern about the cover is the use of the red font, after looking at the magazine from a distance i think that the red clashes with the other colours used, although the red was supposed to make it stand out and look bold i think that the red sort of drowns out the others colours and takes the attention away from the main image in the centre of the page because of its boldness and brightness.
Something else which i would change would be the circle with "the 50th" issue written in it. I think including this on the front cover would look good, but i dont think the circle looks good on the page the edges are too hard, maybe i will change the colour of the circle to make it look less sharp or i might just get rid of the circle altogether.Also the main cover story about "One Of A Kind" i think needs to say the drummers name to let the buyers know who the interview is with, i think Ryann Docherty is One Of A Kind would sound much better. I think that my masthead is good but i am going to enlarge it slightly because i think it looks a little on the small side on the page.

One thing i am pleased with is the social network section at the bottom of the page, i will deffinatley keep this is my finished design because it looks unique and contemporary. Also the other thing i like is the fact my magazine is international, this shows it is popular in many countries.

Front cover illustration drafts!

Final photograph i will be using on my front cover!

Photos i have taken for my front cover!

Fonts i could use for my Masthead!

I think that these fonts are quite modern like and not strong eneough to use on my magazine, so i think i will have to create my own font to suit my style of magazine.

Things i will include on my front cover!

After looking at many music magazine covers and what they include on them i have decided to include on my front cover, either a free poster or cd. A free item in a magazine always attracts a potential buyer into buying the magazine, especially if their favorite band/artist is on the free item.



I will also include a large central image of my chosen cover band/artist, and this photograph will cover the majority of the page to look like an authentic music magazine.

Also i am going to include social networking sites in which the magazine is connected to, this will let people know that the magazine releases new news/information about bands online on social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.Also this will make my magazine quite unique as i havnt seen any music magazines  which advertize on facebook and show they advertise on facebook on the front cover of their magazine.

I will obviously have to include a barcode, date and price for my magazine so people know which issue the magazine is and how much money the magazine costs.

House Colour theme!

After looking at many different magazines i have noticed that most of the colour themes consist of black, red and white. As i would like my magazine to stand out from the crowd and look individual i need to make my colour theme different to the typical colours used in a music magazine.

Black is a mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown (black holes). It usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humor, 'black death'). Black denotes strength and authority; it is considered to be a very formal, elegant, and prestigious color (black tie, black Mercedes). In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief.
I will use black on my front cover for my text.

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

I think that red is used purley to stand out on magazine covers, but other colours can be just as effective. Also i am goi ng to try and stay away from red as it is used very often on front covers of magazines.

Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, emotion and heaven.

I think that i will be using this colour in my magazine as not many music magazines use this colour and also, as this colour represents emotional feeling it links with the type of music my magazine will be advertising. The artists in my chosen genre of music usually write songs about their own life experiences which are sometimes quite emotional which means this would be a good colour to use on my magazine.

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.
Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Yellow is often associated with food. Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter, which is the reason taxicabs are painted this color. When overused, yellow may have a disturbing effect; it is known that babies cry more in yellow rooms. Yellow is seen before other colors when placed against black; this combination is often used to issue a warning.

I will maybe use a small amount of yellow to highlight important words to make them stand out more on my front cover, but i will try not to use to much of this colour as it is a little over powering when used a lot.

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility. Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety. Dark green is also commonly associated with money.
Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for the human eye; it can improve vision. Green suggests stability and endurance. Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.

These are just someexamples of some colours with their meanings, so when i am thinking about chosing my house colour theme i will need to chose an apporipriate colour whih fits in with the mood and style of my muisc genre and magazine style.