Joshua researched music magazines to help design his own magazine called "Riff". He analyzed magazines like Total Guitar and Mixmag to understand their styles. He also studied photography in music magazines and famous musicians photographers. Joshua learned how to engage teenage audiences through creating a student magazine. He designed "Riff" to attract both younger audiences interested in newer music, and older audiences interested in classic artists. Through market research, Joshua found his target audience would mainly be teenage males due to the magazine's style. Overall, Joshua is happy with how professional his magazine looks, though he wishes he could have done more extensive market research.

1. Joshua Millington Wednesday 2nd May 2012
AS Media Coursework: Foundation Portfolio: Evaluation
To make my music magazine, titled Riff, challenge the forms and conventions of a real music
magazine, I had to do vast primary and secondary research. The first key thing I looked at was
genre and how it defines a house-style, therefore I did a comparative analysis on two binary
opposite publications; Total Guitar (of the Rock genre) and Mixmag (of the dance and electronica
hybrid genre). This helped me have a clear understanding of how to organise the house-style of my
magazine.
Next I focused on the pivotal ingredient of most music magazines of the classic genre (for example
Q, Uncut and Total Guitar), and that is photography. To establish the relevant knowledge on how to
produce a good standard of photography, I researched into current and past band/artist images. I
looked at over 10 diverse images and analysed the mise en scene of them, this furthered my
understanding of what makes a good music photograph. Then I did background research on famous
photographers of musicians, people such as Rankin & David Bailey; this influenced me heavily and
helped me get the idea of how I wanted to style my photo-shoot.
My music magazine represents a wide variety of social groups; however the most important one
would be teenagers in general, as they are the biggest market for this publication. I managed to
learn how to engage a magazine with students, through the ancillary task, which was to produce a
student magazine and a mock up of a contents page. This taught me the basics in using Adobe
Photoshop to construct a magazine, also how to meet the expectations of a target audiences by
giving them what relatable content they expect, via the house-style.
It is likely that my magazine would receive funding from an institution such as IPC Media, they
already invest one of the largest music magazines in the world NME and I’d imagine my magazine
would attract a very similar demographic. My magazine does predominately cover the rock genre;
however it also represents a range of different genres, therefore like the NME it is a hybrid
publication which would satisfy many audiences; and hopefully bring in the same fame and most of
all economic income./
The audience for Riff would mainly be among teenage culture, this is because the cardinal target
audience for music in general is young adults. However older audiences would still be attracted to
my magazine because it covers vintage and contemporary concepts, for example Lou Reed’s name
in mentioned on the front cover; this popular artist who started his career in the 1960s would pull in
an older audience. From my research I discovered through online focus groups and interviews that
the male audience has the majority over the females, therefore I’d imagine more males will be
attracted to my publication. I also believe in this theory because of my masculine house-style, for
example I used a dark red colour a lot which connotes danger and action, two stereotypical concepts
that males are interested in.
I addressed my younger audience with having one image of an extremely popular contemporary
audience taking up the majority of space on the front cover. In the primary optical area, I have
mentioned some classic music artists, such as Annie Lenox and Bob Dylan; this would pull in the
older audiences. Many consumers want the latest model of something, to meet the needs of this
material audience, I have the words “NEW ALBUM” in large font near the centre of the magazine,
this is because these words would grab the attention of these audiences. The title Riff is the first
thing people will see, if you apply the Gutenberg principle, this word connotes many different
music related aspects, for example it can be known as: a short rhythmic phrase, a clever or inventive
commentary or remark or a melodic anthem. Therefore is can apply to almost any type of music,
attracting vast demographics.

2. Joshua Millington Wednesday 2nd May 2012
AS Media Coursework: Foundation Portfolio: Evaluation
This project has taught me how to use many different types of music products, for example:
Blogger, Slide Share, Adobe Photoshop and how to take professional photographs. Some of these
skills were new to me others now enhanced; therefore if I was to repeat the task again I think I
could complete to a higher standard.
Overall, I am happy with what I have produced, the three sections to a music magazine look
professional and how I wanted them to look. If I could have another chance, I would have extended
my market research, so instead of doing a questionnaire around my local area, maybe next time I
could put the questionnaire on a social-networking-site. The reason for this is that I would get a
greater response of wider audiences, however to collate the results might be very time consuming.
Yet I do feel like I have met and challenged the conventions of this media product, my music
magazine looks authentic, which was the point of this project.