This document summarizes the key learnings and improvements made by the author in developing their music magazine from a preliminary version to the final version. The author learned about magazine conventions like featuring the main artist on the cover and including headlines to describe stories inside. Photos were edited more thoroughly using software. Colors, images, and bold text were used strategically to attract readers and portray mood. The final version included more variety in its design and followed conventions to make the magazine more appealing and professional.

1. By Kieran Bradbury

2.  Ways in which my magazine follows conventions of other magazines is
that on the front page there is some text that tells the audience what
stories are inside the magazine. The reason why I did this is that if people
see some stories or captions with words that stand out to them, such
“Break Up!” they may want the magazine to see who it is about. Other
reasons for having these is that they would not know what was inside
otherwise and would probably go for a different magazine that they
knew what was inside it.
 Another way that it follows conventions is that the main image of the
person on the front page is part of the main storey in the magazine.
Magazines tend to make so that their magazine shows off the person in
the way they want, more than likely, the more popular or shocking stories
will have the person whom it is related to on the main page.

3.  The way in which my magazine represents people who are ages from
around 14 to early twenties is by having the person on the front cover to
be a young person.
 By doing this it makes so that the person can be relatable to the audience
to age, the person is dressed independently, such as she is wearing what
she wants, and not just following the tends.
 As the music magazine is about independent music, by having someone
who is dressed differently or is doing something different from other
people, could lead to that person making a new trend, and getting people
to want to act or be like the person they are following.

4.  Many magazines are sold in many superstores, the reason for this is that
they tend to be put near the entrance so that people will see them when
they first come in. Magazines are normally bought as a treat for people,
having them near the entrance means that people can pick them up when
they first see them.
 Another way to go to sell a magazine is by having online issues. As more
and more people use the internet this would be an effective way to sell it.
By selling the magazine online, it would be cheaper than using resources
to make the magazine. All of the transactions could be done online
instantly at any time, this means that the money can be put right into the
magazines business and for the person that is purchasing it they to can
get it instantly rather than having to travel to the shop to buy it.

5.  A institution that would be good for the type of magazine that mine is,
independent music, would be Emap. This institution already has
magazines such as Q which is a similar genre and target audience.
 Emap was first formed in 1947 and since then they have a large company
with over 50 magazine and radio stations. Emap has a large target
audience range from driving magazine to entertainment and music
magazines.

6.  The target audience for my magazine was for people in their teens to
early twenties. The main way to suggest this to people was by having a
younger person on the main page, rather than an older person.
 A way to get the audience to want to buy the magazine is by having
something to offer them on the front page. On my magazine I advertised
the chance to win a free guitar lesson and a guitar. By having this on the
front cover it could make people want to buy the magazine as they have a
chance to get more for they would have paid for and to know they might
have the opportunity to do something different to them.
 As Indy music tends to be fairly slow tempo and played on a guitar, this
could be effective to advertise the guitar as people who may want to
imitate the way the artist is described and what the artist does, such as
learning to play the guitar.

7.  Since making the magazine I have learnt about how magazines all follow
similar conventions such as the use of images, having the main image of
the artist covering part of the title, the reason for doing this is that people
that already buy the magazine will know what the magazine is and
would be more interested by the artist.
 For editing photos I was using the program Macromedia Fireworks from
using this I can now edit photos to how I want them, changing the
brightness, getting rid of background and other things. By using this, it
helped me to be able to edit the images so that they would look more
professional rather than normal unedited ones.
An example of the editing are these images.

8.  Since making the preliminary magazine I know more about the
conventions of magazines, not just to have a few images of the same thing
and to make photos more lively. Unlike the preliminary task, I edited the
images more thoroughly as I learnt more about how to use the editing
tools.
 By using colours that link in with the style of the magazine can help to set
the scene for the stories or show what more about it, such as a duller
background could mean something such as sadness where as a brighter
background could show the story as being more lively.
 I now know more about what needs to go into a magazine so that people
would want to purchase it, things like a good images that are not boring.
Where the picture is taken is also something that I learnt, such as having
the a image of the person to be taken on a clear day with blue sky to show
how that person it feeling or how it portrays that person. By having
interesting or bold names of the stories or having part of the stories
putting bold to make them sound more important to make you want to
read them.

9.  The Magazine on the left was my
preliminary task, it does not have
much colour to it to try to attract the
audience to it. The pictures I used
may not of been as interesting to look
at compared to others. All of the text
is the same showing that there is no
variety in the magazine.
The front cover on the right is from the music
magazine, compared to the preliminary one it
has a lot more variety of colour used. The font
cover also follows some of the conventions of
other magazines such as having a image of an
artist covering a lot of the page.