1. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazine? The genre of music I’ve chosen is rock. I decided to research ‘Kerrang’ magazine. Having analysed the front cover of NME , I already knew the basic codes and conventions, such as headlines, image, date, price, issue. Using my knowledge that I got from NME, I also analysed the front cover of kerrang and found it mainly followed the codes and conventions of music magazines. Also, I really liked the use of font and colour because it clearly identified with the rock genre. I have adopted these ideas by using similar types of images and colours. Also I adopted the layout of Kerrang magazine because I am a key reader of Kerrang magazine and my magazine is aimed at a similar target audience to me so I thought it would fit in really well the the genre. My masthead is an font that I got from a website called www.dafont.comit fits in well with the genre of the magazine because the font looks like tattoo ink and people from this specific genre are really into tattoo’s.
2. The image I used fits in well with the genre as well because it’s a dark picture and their faces all look angry and this reflects on hardcore punk music because it is fast, angry and upbeat. The colour scheme is in darker colours and this suggests a gloomy look to it which is also like the second image I used on my front cover which complies with the genre of my music magazine.
3. How does your music magazine represent particular social groups? I think that my music magazine represents white teenagers as this is my target audience. I think it also reaches out to people who are very politcal and just like to release their anger and have fun at gigs.My front cover compares to this really well because the facial expressions on the bands page show that they all look very angry, this also has an impact on their fans because they will want to be like them and when they go to see them at gigs they will all go really crazy. The social group would be people who are white, between ages 16-25 and they would mostly be males, but there still are quite a lot of females. Their main hobbies would be going to gigs and some of them skate. The people they hang around with would be people who are fit into the same stereotype as them. My target audience profile supports this because the images I have used are of people at gigs, artists who look angry, a picture of vans because they are the shoes that they mostly wear and of people hanging around drinking, with people who fit into their own type of sterotype.
4. My target audience profile supports this because the images I have used are of people at gigs, artists who look angry, a picture of vans because they are the shoes that they mostly wear and of people hanging around drinking, with people who fit into their own type of sterotype.
5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? My music magazine would mostly be sold in news agents but it would also be sold in some traditional retail outlets such as sainsbury’s, W.H. Smith, Morrisons, Asda, Tesoc’s and also it could be sold in HMV. Another way my magazine would be distributed would through online distribution through our own website. Also mobile apps could be downloaded so that you could have the magazine on their phone or ipod. Also at our features gigs we will be giving away free magazines to people who buy a CD from the main band that is playing. I’d be selling my magazine for £2 because this would be a good price for the target audience seeing as it’s also aimed at teenagers. Also £2 isn’t very expensive so this would appeal to more people and they would want to buy it. I think that my magazine could start off as a london magazine and then it could go national after a couple of years if it’s successful.
6. This isn’t the best image of a place to sell magazines but I also think that stalls on corners could also be a very good way to start selling a magazine because usually loads of people go to them to buy news papers and if they see a new magazine and they like the look of it they might take a look at it and buy it.
7. What would be the audience of your magazine? I think the audience for my magazine would be a teenage audience as hardcore/hardcore punk music is mainly supported and listen to by teenagers so this would get the interest of teenagers. I think it also has the factor of enticing teenagers to read it as the majority of the artists are younger than a lot of the music industry, this shows that my target audience is mainly for teenagers. The image I have used on the front cover is of a teenage band in the hardcore punk scene so that this will show who my target audience is. Also on my front cover I have used specific colours to relate to the target audience so that this will engage the reader. The demographics of my music magazine is aimed at Caucasian people, they’d be between the ages of 16-25 there would be more males but there would also be quite a few females who would be into this genre of music.
8. The psychographics that my music magazine represents is people that are into their hardcore music, the way they would dress would be with vans, skinny jeans, band t-shirts, they would also have stretched ears and tattoo’s. They would usually hangout with these kind of people. There careers would be either being in a band and trying to make it big, something in the music industry or it would be something to do with working in a shop that would be linked to this genre of music. Also they can be quite ignorant people, especially towards people who do not like their genre. They would also stereotypically like to go out with friends and get drunk somewhere and smoke. I think that my Target audience profile relates to the psychographics really well. This image would be of the kind of dress code and also because of the tattoo and stretched ears.
9. How did you attract/address the audience for your music publication? To attract my audience I asked my friends to see what they find interesting about hardcore punk. From what they told me I found out that they believed that they were attracted to music because they love the thrill they got from listening to this type of music. Also they loved the way they dressed and all the tattoo’s and piercings. So I decided that the best way to attract the audience would be by having a masthead with a font that tattoo artists use. I also related the masthead to hardcore punk the ‘hxc’ is an abbreviation for hardcore so this will also address and attract the audience well. The colours I decided to use are similar to the colours that the audience of the hardcore scene wear so I thought that this also would be a good way to attract my audience. The images on my front cover are dark and gloomy, also my main image is right in the centre of my front cover so the audience will immediately see it and like it.
10. I also asked people who like this genre of music what would attract them to their genre of music and the feedback I got was angry faces, casual dress wear, dark colour scheme and a font that would link well with the genre of music.
11. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product? From constructing my product, I have learnt different tools on photoshop and other ICT skills, such as: -Layering -How to keep the colour scheme consistant -The lasso tool -How to photoshop and add effects to my images -Linking layers -video blogging -blogging -slideshare -adding gadgets to blogs -how to download fonts from online By using these techniques that I’ve learnt I managed to make my magazine different to the magazine I used to help me make it and to successfully promote my artists with similar but different genre of music.
12. Looking back at your preliminary task of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I think that from my preliminary task I have learnt how to use a colour scheme that fits in better with the target audience and not just use a few random colours and hope that they go well. Also I learnt about different type of fonts and using fonts that would go best with the genre of your music magazine. The images I used for my music magazine have also been edited to make the image more distorted so that it is harder to recognise their faces which suggests a darker side, I purposely done this because the hardcore punk genre is a darker type of genre of music with a audience that are like this. I think this improvement from my preliminary task has improved my music magazine. I also have used a lot more text on my music magazine to provide more information to my audience. I have also added a price and a barcode to make it look more like a music magazine.
