Mar 26 2009
Music Magazine Evaluation
The music magazine that I have made contains a front cover, contents page and double page spread. The audience of the product I have made is aged 15 – 30 as it includes a wide range of bands from different eras such as 80’s, 90’s and more modern music from today’s generation. From my audience research carried out before making my magazine I gained knowledge of the different tastes of many 15 – 30 year olds. I did this by making a questionnaire. My results showed me that the majority of the respondents liked a variety of genres but mostly indie/rock music. My post production feedback shows me that my magazine resembles an on the market product as it looks professional and similar to several magazine designs. I can see this as I have compared my magazine pages to other similar music magazines. I also used similar music magazines as templates for my magazine pages. This is the main reason for my magazine possessing good magazine aspects. Several aspects/features of my magazine stand out creating an appeal to the target audience. Features such as the main title of A-PUNK stand out against the black background as the font used is bold and yellow. This refers to the target audience as it is loud, identical to the genre of music which is featured throughout the magazine. In reference to the uses and gratification theory, the magazine caters for peoples different choices of what they consume by providing a wide range of artists on the pages which I have made. By showing a selection of artists/bands on these pages my magazine attracts I wider range of audiences. For instance the picture on my front cover can determine whether a potential customer buys my magazine. If it’s a picture of an artist/band they don’t like then their chances of buying my magazine will be hindered. Same goes for text on the front page as it states what’s included within the magazine. The style also establishes whether the magazine will be sold. The reason for this is because if the magazine looks un-professional and tacky people won’t buy it. Therefore I kept my magazine basic and simple to make sure it didn’t look over the top and crowded. I didn’t want the price to be over the top, I wanted it to be affordable for the target audience who are mostly students so I gave it a price of £3.00, and this gives people another reason to purchase my product.
My magazine follows basic conventions of existing magazines as my pages are structured like real and on the market magazines. For instance my front page has a bold title, an image and text in a layout similar to any other ordinary magazine. The choice of image was my own along with the colour scheme. However the content which was on the front cover i.e. stories and interviews were inspired by other magazines. My contents page includes a section for the main article plus the other articles which are situated around it. By doing this it makes it obvious to readers that it is the main story. These also include page numbers. Some of the stories have pictures included; this shows that these are mainly the more important and better stories. By doing this it gives the reader a better insight to what is involved in that specific article. On the magazines double page spread the layout looks very clear and professional. The text is in a basic font and it is laid out in columns making it easy to read. Next to the writing is the picture which is shown on the contents page. By having the picture on the contents page it gives the reader a taster of what the article is about. I looked at images within other music magazines to see how they had captured music icons. I saw that they had captured the artists in an un-natural pose so therefore with my pictures for my front cover and contents page my pictures look like the artist is un-aware of a photo being taken. In many magazines there are pictures of bands/artists performing live. On my contents page I used a photo from a concert I experienced which helped bulk out my magazine with live pictures of real bands creating a more realistic approach to my magazine. Throughout my magazine the choice of text used is very basic. In magazines which I looked at there were no more than four fonts used throughout the main part of the magazine. Therefore on my magazine I may have used more as I added in other aspects to some pages such as competitions. When advertising competitions the font is usually in your face to get your attention, therefore I used a different and louder font to make it stand out. On my front page and contents page I had the main title of A-PUNK stand out against the black background as the font used is bold and yellow. The rest of the writing throughout the magazine was printed aerial making it easy to read and a font which isn’t too fancy. The main colours used throughout the pages I had created were black, white, yellow and red. I used these colours for no particular reason other than they go well together and they stand out well against each other. In a certain aspect I feel that I challenged certain aspects of magazine conventions. For instance, on my front page the image is cut out. On the market magazines do not usually go for this look as the images tend to have features other than the subject of the photo cut out.
My magazine makes many representations to who the target audience might be. For example my magazine is represented towards males. This can be shown by the style of music and colour schemes. We can see that it isn’t aimed at women due to the fact the colours are not typical girly colours such as pink or purple. We can also tell it’s not a girl’s magazine due to the fact that the acts in the magazine aren’t as popular with girls as they are boys. My magazine is also represented towards an older generation of teenagers as there are interviews with bands/artists for an older generation. These bands/artists would be appreciated more by people who experienced the band/artist in their prime. My magazine is not represented towards any specific ethnic background or race due to the fact that anyone can like what music they choose. My magazine does not show conformity to stereotypes due the fact that there are so many genres of music involved in my magazine. Therefore it does not focus on specific groups of people such as rockers or Goths. I made these decisions because this is the sort of magazine I would look out for and knowing on previous reading of similar magazines and from my friends most teenage boys would look for this kind of read.
If my magazine were to be published I would like to think that the Bauer Media Group would produce my magazine. They also produced a magazine which I used many times to help me with my own magazine. The magazine is called Q magazine which covers many aspects of music. I think they would produce mine as it has a similar target audience and offers a wide range of music. They too offer a variety of genres and age of music which covers a similar target audience to mine.
The technology which I used to make my magazine had its ups and downs. First off all the technology I used was a digital camera, Photoshop and a blog. The camera used to take my pictures was very good as it took a very clear image for each picture I used. Photoshop was the most useful piece of technology I used due to the fact of me gaining the knowledge and ability to learn how edit photos and create pages. I used this program for every page of my magazine which helped me achieve the professional look my magazine has. The disappointing part about the technology I used was the blog. I found it very hard and complicated to use, especially when the blog ran out of space for us to upload our work. However apart from this hindrance the blog seems very useful as it keeps my work all in one place on a page of my own design.
Looking back to my preliminary task I feel that I have learnt many things on the conventions of a magazine. Not only have I learnt many presentation skills but I have learnt what makes good articles and what attracts audience to read my magazine. By doing this it has improved my language skills. I have developed an understanding of different target audiences by taking part in audience research and feedback.
