2. My music magazine follows most of the typical conventions that
you tend to see on most music magazines. I have a title block
which is central at the top of the page, which is common in most
magazines as it is important for people to establish the title and
name of the magazine they are buying.
. I have also included a date and the issue number just under the
title block on the right hand side. This is typical of most music
magazines as it informs the reader when the magazine is released
and what issue they are on.
I have a barcode and price in the bottom right hand corner with a
price. My main image of my artist on the front cover has a direct
mode of address as she is looking straight into the camera, which
appears to the audience as if she is looking directly towards them.
This is a convention of a music magazine as most music
magazines have an image with a direct mode of address because
they want to have an instant connection with the reader in order
to get them to buy the magazine. I have also used buzz words
such as ‘free’ and ‘plus’ and added puffs in order to attract the
reader’s attention and make them want to buy the magazine.
My contents page is structured with headings, sub headings, and
then text to add more information and this is a repeated theme
within music magazines as the audience wants to be informed
and know what to expect and how to find the articles. It included
a message from the editor and a subscription which again
normally features in a music magazine.
. I followed the normal layout of a double page spread as well as i
had an image first and then text with images throughout. This
was because the audience are familiar with this style of layout,
therefore will find it clear and easy to read. Overall I have kept to
conventions of a music magazine as my magazine is quite
mainstream, so I want to give the audience what they expect.
3. My music magazine is aimed mainly at females aged
16-21 who listen to mainstream music and that is why
I chose to have a strong, empowered looking female
artist on my front cover, as that would appeal to them
and the way she is positioned also makes her seem
quite sexual, so it will appeal to men, however it is
aimed more towards women.
Also the anchorage text, ‘Life without J Cole’ is aimed
more at young girls because they are more interested
in the gossip behind what has happened, and men
wouldn’t really be interested in an article about a
break-up, where as girls will want to read it as they
can probably relate to it.
my magazine will cost £2.00, which relates to how
much my target audience will be willing to pay, as
£2.00 is quite a reasonable price for a monthly
magazine, and its cheap because my audience are
mainly all students, therefore don’t have a lot of
money, so £2.00 is an affordable price for them to
pay.
My contents page and article is also very structured
and neat, and I did this to attract a slightly older
teenage audience, as if it looked messy it would seem
childish, but because it’s neat it seems more
sophisticated and will appeal more to older teenagers
and young adults.
4. I think Bauer would probably be the best
institution to distribute my magazine as they are
one of the largest and already publish many
music magazines, therefore probably have the
most experience in that, as all the others only
make a few. Also Bauer doesn’t just do
magazines, they create websites and radio
stations, so if I wanted my magazine to go further
and perhaps branch out into radio, they have
already done that, therefore it will be easy to do
that with them as my distributer. Also they
produce mainly well known, mainstream
magazines on all genres of music, and as my
magazine is mainly a pop/top forty/mainstream
music magazine, they already have experience in
distributing that sort of magazine; therefore I
think they would be the best choice.
5. The audience for my music magazine
is 16-21 year old girls who listen to
mainstream music, however it isn’t a
strict target audience as my house
colours are not gender biased and my
main image appeals to both a female
and male audience as the pose is
quite empowering and strong for
women and can also been seen as
quite sexual and provocative.
It’s not directed at a particular
ethnicity as music is for everyone
plus I have most races in all my
photos so I am not directing it a
particular ethnicity.
I have chosen this as my target
audience because I wanted to show
all different types of music, and my
music magazine covers most of the
popular ones.
6. As my magazine is a mainstream magazine, I
decided to aim my images more at the pop and r
and b genre, as most teenagers listen to that sort of
music now, and they are normal the genres you will
find within popular music. The different styles are
shown in my images, as I show genres through
them which again attract my target audience. My
contents page images show mainly pop and r and b
style images, as the costumes in the first two reflect
more r and b artists, as they are dressed down, one
with a big hat and the other with big headphones,
so it gives off a more ghetto feel. Furthermore the
mise-en-scene in those photos is a lot more dark
and basic, and I think that represents that genre
more as the music tends to be a bit more serious
than pop music. My other images are more pop
based as there more happy and fun, the mise-en-
scene is played with more as one is a girl sitting in
like a forest smiling, looking happy and the other is
of someone in a phone box, again looking happy.
This relates more to pop music as it tends to be
more upbeat and about happy things. These will
attract my target audience as its mainly pop and r
and b music that is very popular and I address both
genres, therefore my audience will be interested
regardless of which one they prefer because they
get a bit of both.
7. My main article is aimed at a female
audience as it is all about getting
over a break up and moving on from
an ex-boyfriend, which a lot of young
girls can relate to and it would
interest them to find out what
happened, where as a male audience
wouldn’t really like to read about
something like that. My magazine is
quite organised, and this shows that
its aimed at a slightly more
sophisticated and older audience, as
it has no crazy writing or random
pieces of text, its sophisticated and
neat, which would attract an older
audience of 16-21 year old girls as the
magazine seems less childish.
8. During the project I have learnt how to use a
lot of different technologies in order to edit
and put together all my work. In terms of
production work I have used the adobe
creative suit. I used Abode Photoshop to edit
all of my pictures. Using Photoshop I
changed some images to black and white,
played with contrast and lighting effects.
I then used Adobe Illustrator to create my
magazine, integrating the images with the
texts and shapes I created. I
n order to take my images I had to use a
digital camera, in which I used my own as it
had different light settings. I played with
these in order to get the perfect picture, for
example when taking a close up I changed
the mode to portrait as it made the image
sharper.
To present all my work I created a blog, in
which I had to organise posts and add links
and images into. This was something new
that I had to learn and use. I think presenting
this in a blog worked well as i could show all
my thought processes as well as my work.
9. In the progression I have learn many new
skills especially in photo manipulation and
in the conventions of magazines. In my
preliminary task I didn’t chose to edit the
photos at all, however all my photos used
in my magazine were edited. I turned all
the ones in the contents page into
greyscale, added in lighting and shadow to
my cover image and brightened all my
feature images to make them look better.
This made the images seem more
professional and they looked so much
better than the ones from my preliminary.
I think my layouts have improved, as I have
looked at magazines and used a set house
style with fonts and colours, so it looks
more tied together and more professional.
I did a lot of research in the beginning as
well so I knew a lot more about magazines
and what needed to be included in them;
therefore I had more knowledge to make it
look better.
