my evaluation for my music magazine

1. Evaluation
By Esther Daniel

2. In what ways does your magazine design , use , develop or
challenge conventions of real magazines.
My magazine front cover uses and challenges forms of conventions . In
my magazine I have used the conventions , Main image, skyline ,
Masthead, box and puff out , main cover line , cover line and a issue
number and this is usually the type of conventions you will find on the
front cover of a magazine . However, in my magazine I have made it
look very colourful , maybe even a bit too colourful , whereas in a real
magazine they would use 2 or 3 colours , so this challenges the
conventions of a real life magazine . Looking at the layout of my
magazine and the layout of magazines in real life they look quite similar
to each other . In most magazines that you will find in the stores the
main image the majority of the time is placed in the centre of the page
, where I have placed mine . When I go to the stores and I am looking
at magazines , I always find that the subject in the main image is always
looking at the person viewing the magazines and anywhere their eyes
move they follow as well , I believe that is a way to catch the attention
of the viewer . If we look back at my main image, that is also what the
model I used for my magazine is doing ,giving the viewer eye contact ,
this is also a long shot . Also what I got from magazines is that the artist
or the main subject of topic would always be the second largest font
after the masthead , which is what I did in my cover also. When most
individuals purchase a magazine , its because the creator of the
magazine has added in a box or puff out or a quote , which I also have
done in my magazine . My quote was “ They believe fame brings you
happiness” and my box or puff out was “ The inside gossip on Lauryn
Hill” , this get the viewer wanting to know more .

3. This is the design of my contents page and I believe that I have used
and challenged conventions that you would see in real life
magazines. In my contents page I have used four images , one large
image and three small images . I have not seen more than two
images used in a real life magazine before, so this challenges the
convention of a real magazine . I have used realistic numbers on my
contents page too as in a real magazine you will find the numbers go
up to at least 100 and even higher .I think that This is a similar
layout to a majority of magazines with how I've styled out the font
however, where they normally have the information filling up the
page I have the information on only the left side of the page and
images on the right , this then does also challenge the convention of
a magazine. The type of information I wrote on my contents is quite
similar to most real magazines where they would have the number
of the page and next to it would be the title of the main topic that
would be on that page with a little of brief information underneath
it . Lastly, I believe that the largest image challenges the conventions
of a real magazine as you wouldn’t really find an image taking up
most of the space on a contents page, which mine has done .
In what ways does your magazine design , use , develop or challenge
conventions of real magazines.

4. In what ways does your magazine design , use , develop or challenge
conventions of real magazines.
This is the double page spread of my magazine , I do not
think this has developed or challenged any conventions of a
real magazine but has used conventions . I have used the
conventions Masthead, main image and a box or puff
out(quote). The quote is merged between the information
on the page , this is also how you would find a quote some of
the time merged in-between the text . The masthead that I
used is actually a quote , which to my knowledge a lot of
magazine do not have , this does then challenge the
convention of a real magazine . If you look at the information
that I have written at the start of the paragraph I used a large
letter A , this is what I have been seeing in a lot of magazines
where the first letter of the first paragraph would be the
largest letter throughout the whole page. The subject in the
main image I have used is giving the viewer eye contact ,
which you would find most subjects in most magazines doing
. I believe this is to get the reader to be really focused on the
information as well as trying to figure out what the subject in
the image is feeling , that is why you find that most images
on a double page spread is a medium close up, like I have
done .

5. How does your magazine represent particular social groups?
My magazine represents Social group E, This is because my target audience is aimed at people between 15-17 .
On the front cover of my magazine , I used an image of a 17 year old female as well, which then indicates that
this is aimed at a young audience , because if it was aimed at an older audience I would have used a much
older model , but that was not was I trying to do . However, it could fit into the social group c1 also , as from
the age of 16 you can have a job and I know some teenagers do have jobs which means that they are able to
afford certain things, but mostly my magazine represents Social group E , as its aimed at teenagers who are still
in education wanting to pursue a career, and because their only in education they have time to be going on
social media and reading magazines .

6. What kind of media institution might distribute your magazine and why?
I think the kind of media institution that would distribute my magazine is “ Seventeen” . This is because all
their magazines are based around the lives of mostly female teenagers . The front cover of their magazines
always include information about other young females in the industry, gives female tips and the magazine
literally talks about all the young females in the world that are in the music industry and how their coping . In
my magazine , I have tried to do the same thing with making sure that all the information I put in my magazine
is aimed at female students . Lastly, there are loads of female teenagers that do purchase the “seventeen”
magazine , and I do think that my magazine can appeal to the females that read seventeen magazine if they
were to distribute It .

7. Who would be the audience for your magazine ?
The audience for my Magazine would be female teenagers , this is because at the start when I was planning my
magazine I decided an age range that I would aim my magazine at, which were teenagers from the ages of 15-
17. I think that in this generation loads of females want to become singers or have a music in the industry , just
because they see other females doing It or want to be like celebrities such as Beyoncé , Rihanna etc. , but they
really see the bigger picture and actually how difficult and stressful being in the music industry can be . This
magazine is aimed at any female teenager that wants to have a career in the music industry, because the
subject I have used to be my artist on my magazine is in the same age range as my target audience , so I think it
would be good for my target audience to read a story of about another female that wanted to make it in the
music industry, how she made it and what the experience is like , so it give my target audience a better insight
on what they want to do .

8. How did you attract your audience?
I attracted my audience by adding a lot of colour to my magazine , not dull but bright colours . I did this
because as my target audience is quite young they tend to not look at a magazine because of how boring it
looks and that’s what I wanted to avoid . I feel that female teenagers love gossip and that they don’t like
hearing half stories , they want to know all of it , so I deliberately put phrases and quotes on my magazine front
cover to get the reader to be curious and wanting to read more . I know that a lot of females are interested in
quite a few female artist , which I have also listed on my front cover , this will also pull their focus in more as
well I believe too.

9. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
your magazine
I have learnt a lot about technologies from creating my magazine , as when I first started to create my magazine
, I didn’t know anything about any type of technologies that can be used to make a magazine , so I was clueless
and didn’t know how where to start. This was also the first time I had ever used a mac computer and that was
really a struggle at the start because I didn’t know how the Mac computer’s functioned and what keys I would
have to press to get certain things up . I was always asking people around me to help me , until it got to the
point that from when they would help me , I would watch what they are doing and note down what they had
done and I would use those notes and as time passed I dint need to use the notes anymore as I got the hand of
what I was doing . To create our magazines we used Photoshop , which I had never used in my life and it was
tricky at first when I used it to create my school magazine , but when I got to creating my Music magazine, it
was almost like I was an expert .In Photoshop I've learnt how to re size images, get rid of unwanted things,
change the colour of text and changing the lighting on the page.

10. Looking at your preliminary task –what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it the full product?
Looking back at my preliminary task and looking comparing it my Music Magazine designs I can see a drastic
change , there has been an huge improvement . I think that as the process of creating a magazine went on , I
got use to and familiar with what was expected of a magazine which I didn’t have no ide about at fist when I
did my school magazine . My skills got so much better by time I started making my Music magazine , I think this
is because I was familiar with the tools and how things worked an I also did read a lot through the guide that
my teacher prepared for us , because I didn’t really do that at first and I also think that starting the course a bit
late had an effect on how my school magazine came out as I was not familiar and in fact didn’t know what was
going on . The use of conventions that I used and how I used them was so much better in my Music magazine
than my School magazine , as well as the images I used , I photographed it much better in my Music magazine
as I was aware of the different camera shots that you could do . Overall, this was a really great experience and I
produced pieces of work that I didn’t think I was capable of .