2. Uses a theme of red
and white throughout Eyebrows – Sell Line
the cover
Main Cover Line – Masthead –
Links to the Full Stretched across
Bleed Image the page
Pull Quote – Uses font Eye contact – Attracts
size to identify artist the viewer to look at
this magazine
Cover Line – Uses
different text sizes to
identify importance
Cover Line – Uses
different text sizes to
Cover Line – Use of identify importance
language attracts
male consumers
Barcode and
Price being $5.99
Full Bleed Image
3. Masthead – Based on Eyebrows – Used to
the masthead of identify artists
Kerrang with the slits included in the
through the letters magazine
Sell Line – “Fastest Cover Line – Used to
rising hip-hop identify hit albums
magazine
worldwide!”
Pull Quote from the
main article which
Cover Line – 50
links to the full
Greatest hits of all
bleed image and
time
the cover line
Main Cover Line –
Use of font sizes to
I didn‟t use the eye
identify artist. Also
contact convention of
links to the full
magazines because I
bleed. I included
wanted the consumer to
the artists hit singles
be directed towards the
to attract the
main cover line from the
consumer into
artists view
viewing the artist
Exclusive Cover
Used a theme of Line – Used
particularly blue and different font sizes
white throughout to identify
the cover importance
Full Bleed Image Barcode, Price
of the Main and Date of
Cover Line the magazine
4. The masthead of the magazine is probably
the most important convention of all because
it is what represents the magazine as well as
being the brand logo.
The masthead may be the first thing a
consumer may look at and judge the
magazine upon it. I based part of my
masthead on the Kerrang masthead with the
use of slits through the letters. I chose to
include this feature because it shows the
physical strength of the brand which could
attract many of my target audience. I chose
to include the star with the letter „A‟ placed
inside it because many R&B and Hip-Hop
artists count themselves as stars and so it is
placed there to represent the different artists.
When designing my masthead I was aware I needed to
create a aesthetically pleasing masthead due to the fact it is
what many people judge the entire product upon. After
making adjustments, I soon came to the decision of allowing
my target audience to decide as it is what they want and
how they would judge the magazine after seeing the
masthead.
Overall, I am pleased with my masthead because I created it
from the target audiences wants instead of judging upon it
myself which could be biased. If I were to change anything, I
would most probably change the star because it bring
confusion into reading “Boss” instead of “Bass”. I would
attempt to change the star into the letter „A‟ rather than just
include the letter inside.
5. The use of eye contact in
almost all music magazines
is highly conventional, I
chose to challenge this
convention because I
wanted my artist to direct
the viewer into reading the
main cover line and
possibly search for the
article.
As many magazines use
the convention of eye
contact, it disallows the
viewer to immediately
locate the main cover line
and may end up entirely
missing it out
6. Pull Quote
Box out – Events from the artist
included
Title
Stand first
Copy – 3
columns with
aligned text
Page Page
Image Box out – Events
Number Number
7. Large letter B in
background
stands for „Bass‟, I Title based on
chose to include the contents title
this because Vibe from Vibe
magazine have magazine
included the
letter V in their
contents pages
Contents have I included the
been placed in large artist image
sections of Artist in my contents
Features, page because I
Albums and noticed many
Fashion. I chose other magazines
to include include this
sections feature and so I
because it believe it may be
allows to the highly
reader to conventional
identify their
page quicker
8. In my magazine, I have focused particularly on the type of
music, language and clothing of the artists from the R&B and
Hip-Hop genre. I did this to attract as wide of a range as
possible from the targeted genre of the magazine.
The image used in my front cover, I believe the posture suggests
the artist is linked to the genre as he is looking down with his era
cap faced up and leaning down on his knees. He also has a
calm expression on his face which implies he is deep into his
music, which many music magazines portray. I challenged the
conventional and stereotypical of artists represented in R&B
and Hip-Hop culture. Rather than using a black or white
masculine male, I used an Asian model which suggests the
magazine targets all cultures and races.
The masthead of the magazine instantly aims to tells the reader that it is an urban magazine
associated R&B, Hip-Hop music and many young adults. Within the magazine I used simple and
clear language which the audience can communicate with and understand without the need of a
dictionary.
The use of the era cap on my model is a connotation towards the R&B and Hip-Hop genre because
they are widely associated with the genre as many artist tend to wear them. Also, urban artists tend
to wear colour co-ordinated clothing which I have represented with my model.
I would associate my magazine on the stand occupational classification with C1, C2, D because
the target audience or social group is likely to be a skilled worker, or unqualified due to their age.
Overall, I think that my magazine has succeeded to represent particular social groups because of
the mise-en-scene included in my images.
9. I researched into 2 different publishers of major magazines, Bauer Media and IPC Media. Bauer publish
magazines such as Kerrang and Q with target audiences of particularly males aged 17-55. Both Q and
Kerrang are two successful magazines which sell millions each year. They also publish other magazines
such as Mojo, Heat and FHM. Although all these magazine particularly target males, Bauer also publish
magazines which target females such as Women's Weeklies and Woman's Interests. This shows Bauer aims
to target both genders ageing from teens to adults. IPC Media also aim towards both genders as they
publish magazine genre‟s such as sports, fashion and music. IPC Media publishes successful magazines
such as NME. The target audience which Bauer publishes range from 20 to 50 years of age but many of
their magazines have been targeted towards a specific gender.
I think the media institution which might publish my magazine could be Bauer Media because they publish
many magazines which target both genders as does my magazine. Bauer Media are most likely to publish
my magazine because it is not a magazine genre in which they already publish and would add to their
range of genre‟s which could benefit them as it increases the number of audience they target, As Bauer
Media helps to promote media for Cross Media Production, such as KISS which specialise in R&B and Hip-
Hop, they could possibly promote my magazine along side Kiss as they both come from the same genre.
10. When producing my magazine, I aimed to target the magazine towards young people from ages
14-25 who are into R&B and Hip-Hop music. I chose to target both males and females because if I
were to distribute the magazine worldwide then it wouldn‟t restrict my audience. I aimed for as
big of a audience as possible. I made sure not to make my magazine look similar to other male
magazines, I did this by using female models in the fashion adverts for some rather than males.
However, the model I used was a male and so I created a JD artist which included the male. Also
by using a male on my front cover, this may attract female consumers.
As bass magazine provides current hit singles on the charts and music updates, this relates to the
target audience because young urban fans tend to update music regularly as they listen to music
constantly through their headphones or speakers. Young people usually do not have high income
as they are still in education and so search for budget expenditure rather than more luxury goods.
However, the target audience are prepared to pay a higher price for the current fashion. This also
refers to the Dr Dre Beats headphones advertisement because they are prepared to pay the
higher price for high quality music.
Bass magazine promotes upcoming artists regularly; this can benefit both the consumer and the
artist. The consumer gets the benefit of listening to new music in which they may like and buy. The
benefit from this to the artist is that the consuming of audiences may lead to a future signing for
the artist and soon perhaps be on the hit charts. Bass magazine provides concert dates of
upcoming artists but also popular artists such as Chris Brown. Concerts tend to be invaded by age
groups of 15 to 25 which suit the target audience for this magazine. These age groups tend to buy
concert tickets because they are still young and active which links to the music genre being up
beat.
11. In my magazine I used many different techniques to attract my audience. Firstly,
when producing my magazine cover I used the technique of setting different
font sizes in cover lines, this automatically catches the viewers eye and provides
a hint on what the article is about before reading the entire cover line. This is
important because it also gives the reader an easy way of communicating with
magazine.
Furthermore, many magazines use the striking eye contact of the artist with the
reader because it is the first glance at which a person looks towards. I chose to
challenge this convention because I wanted the reader to be directed towards
the main cover line through the artists eye sight. When taking the photographs, I
told my model to wear clothing which would portrays the artist I hoped to
achieve. I included the era cap which is an important feature to the clothing
because it reflects the genre my model was to achieve.
Throughout the cover of my magazine, I kept a colour scheme of particularly black, blue
and white without any of the colours clashing in order to make the page stand out.
Although I have included parts of grey because of the clothing the artist is wearing. I used
white because it keeps the viewers attentions whereas plain blue on black would look dull
and is likely to lose the viewers attention easily. I kept to a colour scheme because when
researching into other magazines, I noticed many of them use specific colour schemes
which they stick towards.
In the contents page, I once again directly the viewer towards the
content through his eye sight as he looks towards the contents to
his right. However, in my contents, I used sections because this
makes the content easier to understand rather than including too
much text and confusing the reader. I also colour co-ordinated
the sections to increase effectiveness. The use of colour makes the
text stand out towards the reader and allows for them to pick out
specific bits which they may search for from the content provided.
12. When producing my magazine, I used a wide range of technology, but particularly
Adobe inDesign because it is the software I developed my entire magazine within
from scratch. As I’d never used inDesign in past, I was new to the software and had
to learn how to use the programme by developing new skills. When creating my
preliminary task, I also Adobe inDesign, during this process I struggled a lot however
I soon began to test different tools in which I soon got the hang of and slowly
developed my skills for the programme.
After having taken my photographs for the magazine and chosen the
ones I wanted to include, I then had to use Adobe Photoshop to edit the
images to remove the background as well as maintaining its quality
when cropping the photograph to A4 size. I have used Photoshop
slightly in the past however I was still lacking many skills as I did not
know how to crop an image to A4 size. When removing the background
of many images, I learnt different techniques of doing this by using
different tools. I also viewed many YouTube video tutorials for
Photoshop to make my edited image look at its best quality. Over the
time developing my magazine, I also developed many new skills in
Adobe Photoshop such as different techniques to remove a background,
how to make an image brighter and even cropping an image to A4 size,
whilst all maintaining high definition pictures.
13. As the entire project must be uploaded
online onto a blog, we used WordPress which
is a publishing platform blog for all users. As I
had never used a blog in the past, I was new
and had no idea of what to do. Although I
was new, I did get the hang of using it quite
quickly because of their instructions
provided. After signing up to the blog I
immediately began to fiddle around with the
tools learnt new skills in using the blog such
When it came to taking a photo shoot for my as creating pages and menus.
chosen artist in the magazine, I used social
networking website, Facebook to contact my model.
I also used a mobile to get hold of the model and
speak to him properly. All my photographs were
taken using an SLR camera which takes high quality
shots in less than a second. As I own a SLR camera
myself, I was experienced in using the product and
was aware of the different settings it provides.
However, the SLR camera I used did give me many
blurry images in which I had to retake a few times.
Finally, I used much of Microsoft Word in which I
produced almost all of my text as it allowed me to
type up my work with correct grammar and
spelling with no mistakes.
14. When looking back at my preliminary magazine and comparing it
to my final music magazine, I feel that I have learnt many new
things such as using different software, and new key terms for
magazines.
From my preliminary and final magazine, we can clearly see a
huge improvement through skill and perfection. I think my
preliminary task is quite dull and poor because I was new to using
Adobe InDesign and was in the process of developing my skills. My
preliminary magazine has no eye contact with the reader, which
means there a weak communication between the artist and the
reader. However, I believe the use of different colours in my cover
line has made them standout more towards the reader.
My final music magazine has been thoroughly developed with a
specific layout and colour scheme in which I believe has led to a
success. Whereas, my preliminary task was not thoroughly
developed and was created without any planning.
Also when tasking the photographs for my preliminary task, I had
not thought about the representations of clothing whereas in my
final magazine I have thought about this as well as direction of
sight from the model.
For my contents page, it very basic and plain due to the white
background. Although, I kept the sections of content as I believed
this was effective to communicating to the reader. I also kept the
different colours for different sections which I tested from my
preliminary task. However, my final magazine, has a specific
layout in which I stuck to and developed with planning. I also
tested many different techniques for the contents page whereas
on my preliminary task it was slightly rushed. Furthermore, I think
that my final contents page addresses the audience well through
directing the reader towards the content.
Overall, I think from my final magazine and my preliminary task, I
have improved in many skills and represented the genre of the
magazine well compared to my preliminary magazine which does
not look like a college magazine.