Media Music Magazine Evaluation

Oyewunmi Makinde

Research on existing magazines.Research on existing magazines.

I used the following magazines Flavour, RWD, and Vibe magazines, in order to help me create my new magazine. I followed various codes and conventions of RWD the most because I thought it suited my chosen genre of music, which is grime and also due to the fact that both of the magazines have a similar target audience.

I used RWD’s magazine’s layout for my front cover because I thought it looked appropriate for the genre of my magazine. As the cover for RWD magazine corresponds with the colours that the artist is wearing. It contains a small amount of information also it is a well known, popular magazine.

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

The genre of music for my music magazine is grime music, so to create my music magazine front cover, I looked at RWD, Musicology, and Flavour magazines which showed me the codes and conventions of a grime music magazines. Out of all the magazines I looked at I decided to look deeper into RWD and Vibe.

For my masthead I used a bold font, in order to make the masthead stand out. I decided to make the colour of my masthead black because the colour scheme of my magazine would correspond better with this.

My sell line is: ‘its time 4 grime’ which is different to most of the magazines i looked at as it rhymes. I chose this because it fits with the name of my magazine ‘Grime Time,’ also similarly to musicology magazine I have included possible wins for the readers of my magazine, by adding a competition it makes possible readers more likely to buy as they win a free lord of the mics 3 DVD.

I decided to make the artists name in bold this is similar to RWD magazine as in my magazine the main artist that I have used is in bold this makes the artists name stand out more. As the main artist that is featured in the magazine is extremely important.

Cover lines follow the colour scheme in the main article. It is similar to the RWD magazine. `

I have followed conventions by adding a strap line for competition it attracts attention because it stands out on the page. The background for the competition is white, therefore making it stand out more. I have chosen to write ‘WIN FREE LOTM3 DVD’ because I learnt, that many of my target audience buy magazines for the free LOTM3 DVD included.

I have kept the conventions of a music magazine by using a mid shot image of my model as many music magazines, such as RWD and Flavour, use close up images on their covers to attract attention. In my image, my model is looking directly at the camera as if looking at the reader; this makes the magazine seem more personal.

My model is wearing a black hoody with a gold logo, and a black jacket with the colours grey, gold, black and white on it as this is the house style of my magazine. The interior of the hoody goes with the house style. I chose these colours because I believe they go together well.

The lights corresponds with the colour scheme of the magazine the lights represent blessed wanting to go over ground.

I have followed codes and conventions for my front cover I used a similar layout to RWD magazine by this I have not put a lot of information on the front cover.

Similarly to the double page spread on the right I have used what the RWD magazine have done with ‘doin’it well’ I have also done it with ‘next blessed thing. By doing so it makes my magazine look more realistic.

The layout of my contents page is similar to my magazine as all of my features have a sentence below describing what will be happening in the feature.

I’ve kept the background black, as a result of this the text is visible also easy to read. The numbers are in a different colour, therefore making it stand out more as on a contents page the page number is extremely important.

I decided to have the background the same throughout, therefore it is corresponding throughout the whole magazine , by this I mean that all the backgrounds of my magazine I lights in the background.

I also found that a lot of the double page spreads use one whole page for an image of the featured artist and write the article on the other page. I liked this idea, as a result of this I decided to do that similarly to the double page spread at the bottom right corner I used an image with a bit of text in the corner.

Similarly to the rest of the pages in my magazine I have lights in my background this shows the artist blessed wanting to go over ground.

For my double page spread I looked at a variety of grime magazines, such as Vibe, RWD and Flavour. All the articles are written in columns so I used this in my layout to follow codes and conventions.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?The social group I have represented belong in the C2DE social grades. The social group of 16-19 year old males and females, however mainly male this is represented through the house style for my magazine; the colours I have used for my house style are black, gold, grey and white. Although the background is black a dark colour the colour of the font are in lighter colours, therefore showing a contrast. I used the two different fonts throughout my magazine to keep a consistent house style, I used these fonts as they are easy to read, yet they are quite cool and unique similar to the people that read this magazine.

The image on my front cover represents this social group through the model’s clothing; he is wearing a hooded jumper with a jacket, which many of this social group wear. On the double page spread, you can see the same model is wearing the same hoody. The setting of the image is near the river Thames, it has the lights from the 02 in the background showing that the artist is representing their area as it is a well known landmark in the This represents the people in this social group because a majority of the young people would have been to the 02 on an occasion, whether it is for a rave, concert or another social event

People from my magazine social group

The clothing I chose my models to wear is what my social group that my magazine would wear. A hoody is a piece of clothing that is worn regularly by my target audience, a hoody is stereotypically associated with inner-city youths of London.

Also I made one of my models wear bright colours this was used as a contrast, to the dark colours my other models were wearing. Also it shows that the social group doesn’t just wear dark colours and that they also wear bright vibrant colours.

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

I decided not to choose IPC media to be my publishing company for my magazine entitled "Grime Time", as although 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 I felt that the audience that read magazines published by IPC media are too old as my target audience is aimed at teenagers. Even though if I chose IPC media to be my publishing company it would be a fresh new magazine to the elder audience, however it could either be beneficial or not as the older generation could be interested and start purchasing the magazine, or the older generation could just stick to what they prefer and not want to change to a new magazine.

I decided to choose Bauer to be my publishing company for my magazine as although similarly to IPC Media they also have an elder audience so it might not be beneficial choosing Bauer as my publishing company, however I believe they will be interested in having a new genre in music, this is where “Grime Time” comes in. This genre of magazine will be fresh to Bauer also it will attract a younger audience to Bauer media, due to these reasons, this is why I’m going to choose Bauer media

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As shown from my ideal reader profile my average age is 16, also a majority of my readers are male.

As shown my readers like to keep themselves updated with the freshest clothing, and also the newest technology.

Also that is evident shown from my ideal reader profile, they are extremely social as shown from the websites that they are using, also they use blackberry an extremely social device.

How did you attract/address your audience?I made a questionnaire in order to identify what people would like to see in a new magazine by doing this questionnaire I can I will get an insight into what my audience will want to see in a magazine.

In order to address my audience I shared my link for my questionnaire on facebook as most of the people on my facebook are my possible target audience.

In the questionnaire I uploaded onto zoomerang I got beneficial results from this and I learnt how much my ideal reader would spend on average on a magazine. From the results from the second question I can see the majority of people that filled out my results would like to pay £1-£3 this is a reasonable price of a music magazine I predicted most people would choose the cheaper price as everyone loves a bargain, as a result of this I made my magazine cheap and affordable.

From the last questions results I can see that most of the people that filled out my questionnaire would like to see more of unsigned artists this is good as all artists start off unsigned looking for support from the public. As a result of this in order to attract my audience I made blessed an under-ground artist the main focus of my magazine.

Also a majority of the people that filled out my questionnaire preferred to see an image of a male on the front cover, as a result of this I put blessed a male artist on the front cover.

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

I used Photoshop CS3 to create my magazine and by using this software, I learnt how to design and also make a powerful and unique magazine cover, contents page as well as double page spread.

I learnt how to use the crop tool in order to cut unnecessary parts of an image this was extremely useful when I need to cut out backgrounds of images, I learnt how to add effects to images for example the blusher tool to get rid of spots, also I learnt how to use the blur tool to blur the image of an artist swearing.

For the text I used an effect for ‘Grime Time’ on the cover I used a fade this slyly changed the colour of ‘Grime Time’ the colour is not consistent from the top to the bottom due to the fade. Also I made the text for the title bold and also I used the free transform tool in order to make it stand out more.

I learnt how to hide and cover up spots I used the blusher tool this got rid of the model’s spot. As the image I used was a close up so if I didn’t use the blusher tool the spot would’ve been visible on closer inspection.

Using Photoshop, I learnt how to edit and manipulate images so they can be used on my contents page. For example the image on the left I used the blur tool to blur out the fingers of the artist as he is swearing.

Using Photoshop was more beneficial for making a high quality magazine, as opposed to using programs such as Microsoft publisher because Photoshop is highly equipped with tools that can allow users to edit images, text and backgrounds. I learnt how to use Photoshop quite quickly, once I learnt how to use it I could take full advantage of the tools that Photoshop has.

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

I named my preliminary task magazine Negus Magazine’ and used the house style of white, red/ green and blue. I have learnt that the house style is important when following conventions because a consistent house style makes the magazine look professional. However the house style also has to attract readers.

Looking back at my preliminary task I could do extremely better as my magazine cover shows this. Although the colours are significant to the college, however the colours don’t correspond with each other and they slightly clash.

The layout I used is quite simplistic, therefore it makes it easy to read and understand. I have one main image of a student doing an experiment possibly if he was looking at the camera it would have been more beneficial as that would’ve made it direct address.

I think my magazine has been fairly successful and it has turned out better than I once anticipated. However it could be improved more by changing where the selling line is to underneath the title, as in Flavour magazine the selling line is underneath the title. Also, I think I should move the text over on the contents page as some of the text is covering up the image by moving the text over it will make my magazine look more professional.

On the contents page I believe the image used is suitable for my magazine as it corresponds with the rest of the images I used as it has lights in the background similarly to the image on the front page, as well as double page spread.

I think my double page spread looks quite professional and is suitable for the music genre I have chosen which is grime. I believe it looks grimey, yet sophisticated as the darkness makes it grimey but the light makes it sophisticated.