Music Magazine Evaluation

Forms and Conventions

My magazine follows the forms and

conventions by having a masthead, selling line, a left third filled with cover lines, a main image and

a main cover line.

With the contents page I needed to maintain a consistent house style. To do this I made the ‘Contents’

header using the same font as the masthead of the front cover with the same cherry symbol. I also

used the same colours or blue and red on a white background as the

front cover. To keep with the winter theme I used a brush of wintery

branches.

I wanted the double-page spread to have its own individuality but, at the same time, still keep a consistent house style. To do this I kept the

same shade of blue to make the page more colourful and used the same font for the page numbers. However, for the headers I used

different fonts which were individual to the article but still had a wintry branch theme to them.

Who would be your audience for your media product?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My USP“My music magazine will be rock and alternative based and aim at an

audience of teenage to young adult females. It will be fun and fresh-

faced with bright colours without being too

‘bubblegum’ pop. It will appeal to my target

audience because other rock music magazines

are dark, serious, unlike what I plan to produce,

and primarily male targeted.”

In my opinion there is no rock/alternative based magazines aimed for girls. There are “unisex” magazines, such as ‘Kerrang’, ‘NME’ and ‘Q’ but they are very male orientated because of their dark colours and hard attitudes. My magazine is specifically for girls. I did this by using soft, bright colours to give it a fresher attitude, used a model who would appeal to girls on the front cover and advertised female based articles which empathise with girls, eg. ‘Top rock tips for top rocks chicks’ and ‘A “good” girl’s new year’s resolutions’, ect.

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

My music magazine could be distributed to specialist magazine shops by ‘IPC’, or online using issuu.com.

Influence from Audience Research

On my initial audience research I was influenced to make my magazine how it was because:

• Most people said they liked rock music. This directed me to making a magazine that was rock/alternative based.• Most people downloaded music and more than half of these people downloaded illegally. The amount of money spent on music was quite low as well. This made me think it would be a good idea to offer a free music download of the readers’ choice as they like free music so much.• I found that people look for exclusive interviews and gig information which I incorporated into my magazine.• Most people said they read ‘Kerrang’. I used ‘Kerrang’ a lot for inspiration into making my music magazine as it seems to be a very popular rock music magazine.

Audience Feedback from finished magazineWhat type of music genre do you think this magazine is for?

RockPopAlternative

What sort of shop would you expect this magazine to be sold in?

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Any general shop sellingmagazines (eg. newsagents

and supermarkets)

Specific magazine shops(eg. WHSmiths, ect.)

Specialised music shops(eg. HMV, ect.)

I was pleased with the results of my survey.

Most people could see that my magazine was

rock or alternative though there were a few who said pop.

Everyone understood that it was for females.

I found it quite interesting that most

people thought that the magazine could be sold

in any shop selling magazines as I thought

it was a bit too specialised for that.

Learning Process

TechnologiesI learnt about downloading brushes and that they are a

simple and easy way to instantly brighten up a page

which looks a bit dull and like it’s missing something, eg. front and contents page.

I also learnt a lot about editing photos so they look a lot better.

Brightening them up and sometimes going a little bit

further so they are exaggerated.

I also learnt about websites like ‘Blogger’ and ‘Survey Monkey’ which have been very useful.

Initial Project

When I started this project I knew very little about Photoshop and I think this is very obvious in the progression from my college

magazine to my music magazine.

There isn’t much on my college magazine, the cover lines are dull and boring and the main cover line doesn’t stand out

enough. The free gift advertisement looks very

amateurish and simple. The whole thing looks simple.

I also think the consistency of the house style is better in the music magazine although the

contents page is relatively simple. If it wasn’t for the ‘L’ plate symbol and blue in the college magazine it doesn’t

match up as well as the music magazine.