Evaluation of my magazine.
My music magazine covers most of the conventions of a real media product. I used the sort of layouts that you would see in a music magazine, for instance on the front cover I used one main image, this is done to show the audience who is the main feature of my magazine. I then used a banner headline under the main image to show the audience the reason that they are on the front cover. I also used the same house style all of the way through the magazine, with the use of things such as colours and fonts to show continuity throughout my magazine, like a real music magazine. Also on my front cover I showed features that are included inside the magazine, this shows the conventions of music magazines as they include what is in the magazine on the cover so that people want to buy the magazine. On the cover I also used a strap line under the masthead of the magazine to show the audience the music that the magazine covers, ‘Indie and rock music’, this is also seen on a typical music magazine, particularly when the masthead, (inro) is a shortened word for what in means, indie rock. I also used a logo for my magazine these are often used on magazine covers, it shows continuity and tells the audience what to expect from the magazine, ‘get the best music, old and new’. I also used a barcode and price on the front of my magazine like any other magazine would have, that will be published every fortnight.
I put my contents page on page 3 of my magazine, this is because it is conventional of a magazine to feature an advertisement on the back of the front cover in the inside of the magazine, advertisers pay more for this as the quality of the paper is better on the cover. On the contents page I used a headline informing the audience that it was the contents page, this will be seen in music magazines. I then listed each feature that is written in the magazine with page numbers, I used the same fonts and colours as I did on the cover, this would be seen on a music magazine contents page. I also used 3 images to give them more of an idea as to what is in the magazine. I realise that I needed more images on the contents page from my audience feedback as at one stage I only had one image. I then took images involving musical instruments so that it gave my magazine more of a music feel.
On my double page spread I used a quotation for the headline of the piece. This is often seen in the magazine, a highlight of what is said is often used as a title to show the readers what will be in the article. I also used a large image of the person involved which is also seen in magazines especially when a person is being interviewed. I used text of an interview, I did this as this is often seen in magazine and it is usually seen as the cover story too. I also used black boxes to separate the texts and make it look less like big blocks of writing, this is often used in magazines especially when there is a lot of text. I also pulled quotes out of the writing to show the audience some of the best things in the writing. This is conventional of magazines, particularly when they are interviewing someone.
For my audience feedback I asked 10 people that fit into my audience profile what they thought of my magazine. The results where good, 80% gave 5 out of 5 for my images and 20% giving 4 out of 5. This is good as it shows me that my images have the right effect that I wanted them to give the audience. 90% agreed that my house style is consistent and 10% said it is slightly. This is good as it shows me that my magazine matches and that a person could turn a page of my magazine and not be shocked at the difference between the style of each page. It shows that my work is the same throughout which is conventional of a music magazine. I also fount that 100% found that my colours and fonts used were good, this is good as it shows me that people find my magazine effective and that it looks good. 80% of the audience thought it fit into an indie/rock look and 20% said it does slightly. This is good as I found this a hard thing to do on my magazine and the fact that people think that it does fit the image shows me that I have achieved it well. Another good thing is that 100% said that they would buy my magazine in a shop, I see this as the most important thing and I see this as a good thing as this means that people will buy my magazine and that is what is the most important thing. Another big thing that I wanted my magazine to have was for it to look professional. 90% said that it did and 10% said that is does slightly. This shows me that I achieved this look well and that my magazine is conventional to other magazines. 100% agreed that my magazine looks like on that they have read before, I found this good as my magazine has a good look to it and it does look professional. One said that they have the, ‘same layout’, I tried to make my layout conventional of other magazines so this shows that I achieved it. Someone also said that I have a, ‘strong image’, this is good as I was worried that my images could have been better. On the question asking about what I could improve on I saw that one person said I could add more images on the contents page and double page spread. I know that I do need more images somewhere so I did add more onto my contents page.
My magazine represents the sort of people who love music. People who dress smartly and have a large passion for music, who like doing things like going to festivals. They would be the sort of person who spends a lot of their time listening to indie/rock music and enjoy this a lot. This is represented in my magazine the use of photos, the costumes worn by the main featured person show that he has an ‘indie and rock’, look to him. I also showed this in what I featured in my magazine, things such as winning tickets to Leeds Festival, this is what a person reading the magazine would be interested in. I also featured a lot of artists, this is obviously something a music lover would like to read about and something that they would be interested in. I also used contents like album reviews, a music lover would like this as it would help them find new music and find new good things to listen to. 100% agreed that my colours and fonts used are effective. This is good as it shows me that they will stand out to the audience and with effective colours and fonts people are more likely to go out and buy my magazine.
The institution I would use for my magazine would be Conde Nast, this is because out of the 3 main institutions I have looked at, (IPC Media and Bauer) this company has a gap in the market for a music magazine. The other two company already publish successful music magazines, so publishing mine may not benefit them greatly as it would be making competition for themselves. However Conde Nast have no music magazines that they publish therefore this would benefit them and also they would then be in competition with other company’s which they will benefit from also. They publish some very popular magazines also, this shows me that they know what they are doing and can help make my magazine a very successful one. They publish things like Teen Vogue and Glammor, my magazine would then make a good contrast to some of there other magazines, and also Conde Nast can then widen there audiences getting a different audience to buy their product. The other magazine company’s clearly know how to publish a successful music magazine however I believe that this company could also publish a successful music magazine and they would defiantly benefit more from my magazine than any other company would.
My target audience aimed at around 70% male, 30% female, aged between 16-25 and people that like indie/rock music. This is because I think that this audience are going to be the most passionate about music and are the sort of people who are going to go out and buy my magazine. Also it is more likely for men to like this sort of music as it is shown in statistics. I showed this in my magazine by the images I used, the costume and look of the main featured person represent something of an ‘indie and rock’, look and he is also a male, which aims my magazine at more of a male audience. I have used this age group not only because they are likely to buy the magazine but also because people of this age group are likely to be students or to have only just started a working life and this means that they may be concerned about money but they are not necessarily going to let that stop them spending it. I have also not made price a problem to a student or any other person in my target audience as my magazine is cheaper than most at £2:90, I did this so that my magazine is more likely to sell as it is cheaper and has more contents than other music magazines that are published. I wanted to give people a good deal for their money, one of my main competition when it comes to my magazine is Q magazine, they publish their magazine weekly at £2:30, I decided to offer more by raising the costs, increasing the times that my magazine publishes and also offer customers more. I would have more time in a fortnight to get more contents in my magazine than Q and I can charge more money because of this. By issuing Inro fortnightly rather than weekly my audience are more likely to buy it as they have a longer period of time to go out and buy it, yet if I published it weekly then they may not buy it every week. Also it would work out cheaper than Q because it is only published twice a month. I did think about publishing it monthly but my audience feedback showed that people tend to buy there magazines around every two weeks, if this is what my target audience would prefer then this is what would be best in order for the sales of my magazine to be successful. Also if published my magazine monthly people would expect more information within the magazine and this would mean me having to charge more for my magazine.
In the process of creating my magazine I have learned how to use professional programs such as Photoshop. Before I designed my magazine I had never used Photoshop before. It took a lot of getting used to at the beginning but by the time I had finished creating my college magazine I got used to using it, this is why the quality between my college magazine and my music magazine is so different. The new skills that I got from this are knowing how to build up a professional look through using layers in my work rather than just using something like publisher. I also learned how to edit photos so that they look a lot better and look more effective. I also learned how to make things look a lot better than I would have been able to before with the use of Photoshop, with things like overlapping layers. I had also never used blogger before I started my media, I found this easy to get used to as it is a lot like other social networks such as Facebook so I get the hang of it easily.
From creating my preliminary task I learned that I needed to take more time and effort in getting good images. I realized that to get good images, especially for the cover that it would look a lot better and a lot more professional if I did a plain background. I also learned how to use Photoshop. Because it was a new experience I did find it hard in the beginning. However, after creating my preliminary task I did not have a lot of problems with it after that as I had the knowledge of using it and I then knew how everything worked on Photoshop. I also learned that to make a good, effective and professional look to a magazine that I needed to spend a lot more time on it than I did on my preliminary task. I did not give myself long enough to make this product look as good as I would have liked. This then taught me that I would need to spend a lot more time on the rest of my coursework so that I would be pleased with my work.
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