Steve's Media Blog

Foundation Portfolio
Evaluation of music magazine

For my Foundation Production, I have created a music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread which I have put together by taking photo’s myself and using Photoshop CS3 to produce the magazine. I have put all my research is on my blog: http://www.stevewatto123.blogspot.com/

When I was in the process of developing ideas for my music magazine, I was unsure about the genre it would be based on and the target audience I wanted to attract, I had lots of ideas of what to base my magazine on and decided to base on the alternative rock genre with a main article of a solo artist from wyke college. My targeted audience is young adults e.g. 16 to 25 year olds. This is because there is a lot of people this age that are interested in this type of music and genre. Also people this age are the main customers of magazines so I thought it would be good to use this audience as the magazine could have a better chance of sales if it was put into production.

I have researched the conventions of real music magazines to see how a good music magazine is produced and what it looks like so I can develop a base onto what I want the layout of my magazine like. I analysed these magazine front covers, contents pages and double page spreads using the aspects of LIIAR (language, institution, ideology, audience and representation) this helps me use the codes and conventions of music magazine when I am producing my magazine.

The magazines that I analysed where Kerrang!, NME, and Vibe. These magazines are all different as they all have different conventions and all target a different audience, the reason why I researched magazines with different conventions was because I did not know what I wanted my magazine to be based one when doing my research.

After my research I decided that the genre of magazine a wanted to use was like kerrang! Magazine because it seems to attract the biggest audience as people of ages up to around 40 buy the magazine, this means that the magazine attracts more then one audience so it has many different aspects to the magazine. For example, it has many articles of artist of all age ranges from new bands to old like Metallica and Guns and roses etc.

My planning process was to create a spider diagram of ideas for what I would call my magazine and the target audience I would look to attract. I also created mock ups of my magazine which I would like my magazine to look like when it is finished. The mock ups where used as a guideline so that if I was stuck on what to do then I could refer to that and adapt the magazine to the mock up. I also used text boxes on Microsoft word where I would insert text and images and picture what the magazine would look like, after I was happy with the layout of my magazine I could start the creation process.

To create my music magazine I took pictures on a still digital camera and then I imported them into Photoshop CS3, I then could start the development stage which was moving pictures around until I was happy with the layout.

The development process was importing the pictures into photoshop CS3 and then I could edit the pictures by cropping them and removing the backgrounds from them if I did not want them, I then started editing the contrast and the blur the edges of the pictures to blend them into the background so it looks like the images are one and not one image just stuck on top of another. I changed the layers and contrast of the background to make it look better and more representative of conventions, I have put one of the cover lines in the top left of the front cover (the left third) the left third is where the main story or cover line is usually located on a music magazine, to follow the codes and conventions I put a main feature in the left third. Also the left third is what the customer sees when the magazine is on a rack so it is important to put the main stories there so the customer sees the most important features of the magazine and influences them more into buying the magazine.

I also have the bar code at the bottom right where usually there is no main article or cover line, I did this because if I was to put it in the top corners then the cover stories would have to be somewhere else, also when a magazine is laid on a rack the customer would only see the barcode and price of the magazine and no headlines.

When doing my contents page I went with a similar layout to Kerrang! Magazine, this is because in Kerrang! There is a main image on the left of the page and the page numbers and articles go around it, this makes it easier for the reader to read and the overall layout looks tidy and well put together. The way I did my contents page was to put all the page numbers of the features on the right hand side because people often like to see pictures of the magazine before they read it, this is because if they recognize the band or artist they may want to buy the magazine to read about that artist. I put the images on the left to make this more representative of conventions. The articles that are to the right of the main image are the main features, the reason there is only one image of these is because there is one on the front cover and I did not want my magazine to be repetitive by putting an image of the same person on the first three pages. The articles have the word Exclusive above them to draw the audience into reading about those articles. I also changed the colour of my text on the features and extras to get lighter and so they are a different colour to the previous as the colour of the contrast on the background gets darker. I have an image an article overview at the bottom left of the page so there is more then one important article. This follows conventions as there is more then one image on a contents page that is a main feature in the magazine, also to follow the conventions there has to be an overview next/below the image to show they are both one feature.

When I was creating my double page spread I developed the images and the article about the artist in photoshop CS3 as it is easier then any other programme, when I was happy with the layout and article I then saved it as a PNG file and imported it onto a A3 page on Microsoft publisher document to make it easier create the other half of my double page spread, I used a different background to the article side to show that they are different but about the same artist. The article was about a specific solo artist and it was an interview about his career and what he thinks of his music style and how he sees his future. I think that this sort of article would suit well in a music magazine as some people may want to know more information about that artist then they did before.

I think that this represents codes and conventions because it has multiple different topics in the same article so it is not boring for the reader yet they can find out a lot of information.

I think that overall my music magazine went well and I think that it represents the social group which can be known as “old school rock” this is the social group that is in to alternative rock and heavy music like Guns and roses. An institution that I think would publish and distribute my magazine would be a local newsagents or supermarket.

The things that I feel went well in my production was the development stage because I enjoy creating things with computers, the things that I didn’t enjoy so mush was the fact that I had to constantly change the layout of my magazine and how it is represented to follow the codes and conventions of music magazines.

The things that I have learnt the most from the beginning was how to use the computer software to produce things like music magazines. I enjoyed learning how to use them but did not enjoy the preliminary task as I did not know how to use the software required.