Georgie Thorrold created a music magazine called "Soul Magazine" that follows conventions of real music magazines. The magazine represents young adult rock fans through its bold colors, natural band photos from gigs, and inclusion of student photos. IPC Media, a large UK publishing house known for the NME magazine, would be a good fit to distribute Soul Magazine through traditional and online outlets. The target audience is teens and adults interested in indie rock music. Georgie addressed this audience by designing the magazine to look modern yet familiar to NME readers, and by including photography and content relevant to fans of the genre. Through creating the magazine, Georgie learned new skills with Photoshop and other technologies while improving on conventions from

1. Evaluation Questions
Georgie Thorrold

2. Question 1:In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My Music magazine definitely follows the set genre category, it is influenced by a range of bands
and different styles of music also involving students that go to the COWA. The technical
conventions I have used within my photography are for example the Low angle shot, to
emphasise the power and fame of the lead singer of the band. The symbolic conventions
would be the typical plain and simple clothing the leadsinger is wearing to reflect his style of
rock and that he is there to sing and not treating it as a fashion show, also the student at the
bottom of the contents page reflects what kind of audience is typically attracted to this
magazine. The colours used follow a scheme throughout the magazine, white,black,red and
grey which are bold colours reflecting the genre of music. With existing professional products
that I used within my magazine I chose to undertake my photography with a simple IPhone 5
because it puts the photographer (myself) in the readers shoes and what it would feel like to
experience these gigs fully so the reader can feel like they was there. Soul Magazine clearly
fits into the music genre of rock because it follows striking/bold colours and natural pictures of
bands from gigs and so on. I have used real music artists within my magazine to make it much
more realistic. I have also included a few pictures of students to give that personal emphasis
that it is my Magazine and they would be the main attraction. Its all my own photography and I
have edited the front cover by blurring the edges so the main focus is on the singer and
converted it into black and white to then make the graphics/text stand out giving it a rocky vibe.
Mise en scene is influenced throughout the magazine to emphasise music by the props used
by bands such as microphones/guitars. The lanyard on the student is also a prop and even the
costa cup just to make the reader feel a link with the magazine. Before I created my magazine
I designed a few layouts so I could get a good idea of what was best, in the end I just ended up
designing it when I went along so everything fitted in nicely together. I made sure the masthead
stood out clearly to the reader and also the pictures/ sell lines and so on.

3. Question 2:How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
My magazine represents a variety of ages mainly focusing on young adults (students) but also
is most likely to attract the adult generation as-well (30-40's) because 'Babyshambles' are a
well known band to that era, well at least Pete Doherty is anyway. This magazine is for both
genders, however it may attract more of the male generation simply because of the genre
of music. This magazine is set to be normal class being priced at a normal affordable rate
and completely British. The models (musicians), the layout and the language all combines
to represent a certain social group of young enthusiastic rockers that are all about big
Festivals and the true morality of music. They all combine to create a bold but simple effect
which would stand out to the reader. For example the text on the front cover floats around
the lead singer to make him stand out and create the effect of music bouncing around the
room. The magazine represents the intended audience by keeping modern and using
graphics/bold colours to attract the younger audience also using the main contents on the
front cover to catch the young readers eye. This magazine conforms certain stereotypes of
simple rockers-plain worn in clothes-props such as guitars- a typical rough look,mostly
male, however a medium shot of a female student is on the contents page to balance out
the genders.

4. Question 3:What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
IPC media publishing house might own my magazine simply because it has many
simularities as the NME magazine which is published by IPC. IPC is also a very
successul uk publishing house and I think this would be a huge benefit to my
magazine. My music magazine would be distributed in all traditional newsagents,
available exclusively online and on magazine apps. Soul Magazine will be circulated
monthly to create more suspense on what is going to be in it next and also enables
the magazine to store alot more information/news. It will also be available through
subscription to any customers, this can be done online or through the post. Q
magazine and nme used to be extremely popular with very high sales, however with
todays soiety, people don't really tend to buy magazines anymore. This caused sales
to fall by 20% which is a huge loss for both magazines. However my magazine has a
wider advantage of options such as the app, an option in sizes in the magazine so it
can fit in your bag and so on (large a4 or small a5) , also my magazine would be sold
at certain gigs for half price. My magazines website would be extremely modern and
also suited for phone browsing so there would be a mobile version of the site. The
song that is at the top of the current indie rock charts at that current time would also
automatically play when you open the site. The material in the magazine is mostly
exclusive to the printed version so people are then influenced to buy it , however a
little is given away on the free app/website to give a glimpse of what they would
experience, but the payed app would just be a replica of the printed version because it
has been payed for.

5. Question 4:Who would be the audience for your media
product?
My magazine targets the market of teens/adults because the indie rock music generation
is mainly known by around that age. It may also attract quite a bit of the older society
simply because it might include anniversarys of older bands such as Nirvana in future
magazines. To be successful you have to give a bit of variation. My magazine has a
very modern/ bold layout influencing the same colour scheme throughout. Its all up to
date with today's society so this should attract the targeted audiences. My magazine
targets both genders but it may attract more males than females simply because of
the music genre and the colour schemes. The targeted socio-economic groups would
be mainly C,D,E because of the music genre however it could work for all groups.
With marketing the promotion would be billboards,adverts,internet,gigs, even
newspapers with free samples of the magazine. The price of the magazine is set at
£3.60 because it is monthly so it has a slight higher price, but its still affordable for
anyone, especially students, so it sits in a good price range. The ideal readership
profile I could create would be if the reader is subscribed to my magazine they could
respond to the issue and what could be added to make it even better and so on. I
have found that the main target audiences for big music magazines such as NME are
teens/adults so I followed the same target simply because of the music genre.

6. Question 5:How did you attract/address your audience?
My magazine uses a few conventions from professional magazines such as NME and Q. The main one was
the contents page. To begin with I used many ideas from mainly the NME magazine contents page
following a similar kind of lay out but in the end I scrapped that idea and ended up just doing completely
my own layout without using any other ideas from magazines although the 'inside this week' masthead
from NME contents page I did use. This may help attract the audience of teens/adults because they
would be familar with the classic magazine known as NME, especially the older genereation, which
keeps the format of indie rock similar but there's only aspects of my magazine that have used little
sections of the New Musical Express magazine so it differentiates it quite vastly from the rest but keeping
those small references still there within the different music magazines. However my music magazine
does have a unique selling point of the fact that all that photography is done by myself on my phone and
also pictures of students are influenced throughout the magazine so it gives the magazine a slight
personal feel to the reader. The layout design I designed all myself, I used practice designs before the
beggining of the magazine and as I went along doing the magazine I changed it around. Most of the fonts
I designed myself using DaFont.com, such as the mastheads,subtitles,page numbers and the Soul
Magazine logo. Te props that were used are mainly from the band like the instruments and also even the
student holding a costa cup and wearing a lanyard would be classed as a prop. The costumes used were
the bands just ordinary clothes, plain top and jeans, and the college student is also wearing typical every
day clothing. The main models of the magazine are the lead singers/artists and the college student on
the contents page. All these things were used to communicate particular ideas to the audience to reflect
the true genre of music and realistic artists, also students to involve the target audience that may be
reading the magazine.during the begining of my magazine I carried out a survey around the college
asking people of different genders and ages. However this questionnaire was not specific to the music
magazine it was for magazines in general so I would then gain different perspectives of what to base my
magazine on. Some of the results showed that most people look for an interesting front cover within a
magazine and the content/celebrities involved, so i made sure my magazine was influenced by this as
much as possible.

7. Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing the product?
The process I went through to create my magazine varied between publisher and
Photoshop. The main basis of the magazine was created on publisher such as the
layout/images and then the photography and editing of fonts was all done on
Photoshop. I found it a lot easier to do my magazine on publisher because I already
knew how to work publisher whereas Photoshop was all new to me. With my
photography I used a simple iPhone 5 and then transferred these onto the computer to
then be edited by Photoshop. The rear facing camera on my IPhone 5 is 8 mega-
pixels and the front facing one is 1.2 mg, however the front facing one was not used.
My camera automatically focuses onto the main object and if it doesn’t you simply tap
on the screen where you want to focus it and it does it for you. I used flash within the
gigs because it was quite dark so to make it a bit clearer this was a suitable option.
Throughout production I used Dafont.com and other sources like Gmail because I had
to send the photos to myself through email so I could then add them to my magazine. I
also used Google images quite frequently just to take a glimpse of front covers and so
on from popular magazines. I have used Blogger to represent all my research,
planning, drafting and so on which gets reviewed by all the public and is very
organized. I have also used slide share to upload my evaluation to blogger and used
YouTube for certain answers so it gives a different perspective of media.

8. Question 7:What have you learnt about the conventions of
magazine productions and what progress have you made
from the student mag?
Since my College magazine I feel like I have made a huge improvement and gone into much more
detail with the music magazine. With the college magazine I only used Photoshop for the front
cover picture and that is all, whereas with my music magazine I used Photoshop for the main fonts
such as the masthead also page numbers, Soul Magazine logo and a variety of pictures mainly the
front cover and double page spread. I created both magazines on publisher because I felt this was
the best option for me, also for both of them I used the same IPhone 5 for all my photography.
However my college magazine mainly focuses on photography with students but the music
magazine is more about experiences and real life bands. With my college magazine I didn’t create
my own fonts but I did create my own barcode. The music magazine has mostly all of my own fonts
apart from the main/large texts which was Eras Demi ITC. I have also noticed that throughout my
music magazine I have used a lot more of a bolder fonting to make certain texts stand out but this
isn’t used as much in the college magazine. The college magazine follows a much more brighter
colour scheme compared to the music magazine because they both follow different genres, the
music magazine being indie rock so the colours have to be quite dark/ bold and the college
magazine focuses on students and the success of COWA so bright colours seemed necessary,
also to attract the students attention as they go by. Through both magazines it has been amazing to
see the starting product to the finishing product, technology is so advanced now so anything is
possible and there is so many different sources you can use within a computer to really explore
what’s best for your magazine. I have shown others my magazine and they have been very
impressed with it because it really reflects the genre of music well and the photography is very
good, also being very realistic at the same time. The bold colours and range of texts also seemed
to take interest in people that I have shown my magazine because it’s very well written and detailed
giving different perspectives throughout. Overall I have gone into huge detail with both magazines
and considered everything in order to be successful and different to competition.