The document provides an evaluation of a magazine created by the author for a class assignment. The summary discusses the goals of appealing to alternative music fans, research on similar magazines, conventions followed like layout and number of images, challenges to conventions through font choice, intended teenage audience, and skills developed in photography, Photoshop and layout. The author concludes they are satisfied their magazine fulfilled the brief of discovering new music and bands while appealing to a broad young audience.

1. Magazine Evaluation In this evaluation, I will be discussing my brief and what I aimed to achieve from my magazine. Also I will be talking about my audience, the forms and conventions and the media industry as a whole. Finally I will evaluate my progress and conclude whether I believe I have been successful in completing the given task.

2. My Brief I aimed to design and create a music magazine that would be both exciting and informative. I chose to focus on the alternative genre as that is my preference in music magazines as I read ones such as Kerrang! and NME, I took my inspiration from these.

3. I chose this genre as I believed that I would be able to relate to it the most and I was most comfortable with the style of the writing and the layout.

4. For my research purposes, I browsed the websites of Kerrang! and NME and also bought a copy of Kerrang! so I could establish the ratio of writing to images and how much slang was used. My research helped me to decide how relaxed to be with the language, how many images I should use and what sort of fonts would be appropriate. Forms and ConventionsI believe that my magazine follows the conventions of a music magazine, as I used fonts I thought would make my magazine have a modern feel to it, which is what most magazines aim to achieve. The Kerrang! music covers, contents and articles I looked at had a fair amount of images, and therefore I tried to mirror this convention in my final piece.

5. I challenged the forms and conventions of the magazines in my genre by making my text a lot more futuristic, whereas the font of Kerrang! for example, is a lot more scattered and distressed, which reflects the genre of the magazine, however I aimed to create a timeless effect with my font choice.

6. On my front cover, I included one primary image and one secondary image. On my contents page I included five images, which fulfils the conventions of music magazines. I decided to position my mast head in the left hand top corner, as this followed the conventions. The rule of 3 I used was red, black and white. Social Groups I intended to make my magazine aimed at the younger audience members, i.e. Teenagers. This can be reflected in the price of the magazine, at £2.99 per issue it is affordable.

7. The majority of the band content was probably leaning more towards the rock genre, however I did not specify in the magazine that it was a specifically rock magazine.

8. Teenagers are represented in the magazine as members of the band of the primary article. Teenagers are often represented badly so I decided to show that they are not all badly behaved. Their clothes represent their social groups, and the interview shows that they can be individuals.

9. I did not create sarcasm towards other social groups, however I did ask a question in the interview of the band were or were not ‘emo’. This could be classed as sarcastic towards other social groups, however it was not intended.

10. Social class is not relevant in my magazine, as the language is not particularly formal, however I believe that the readers would either fit in group D or group E.

11. Media Institution I believe that my magazine would be published and distributed by a mainstream publisher, as most of the popular music magazines are. I would use a successful publisher such as IPC Media.

12. If it was published by a larger company, it would have a better chance of achieving a higher level of readers as they would be able to provide advice and they would be aware of the techniques that are needed to make my magazine appealing to a wider audience.

13. A larger company would be able to gain a substantial amount of advertising revenue, and would also be able to use synergy to gain readers.

14. I believe that my magazine shows potential to be mainstream as it uses a fair amount of images, which make it attractive, and the language used is colloquial, yet understandable at the same time. Audience I believe my audience would be anyone interested in the alternative music scene, or someone who enjoys finding new genres of music and unsigned bands. I picked this genre as I can relate to it personally as I enjoy al types of music, and especially finding new bands.

15. If I was being really specific about my target audience I would say it would be people in their late teens, of either genre.

16. I decided to attract this audience by using phrases on the front cover such as “ World Exclusive” and “ Best Gigs Ever”. The word gig, usually insinuates a concert, mainly for the alternative genre. I believed that this word would attract people that are interested in music as a whole, and not just a specific genre.