Music Magazine Evaluation
I produced a front cover, contents page and double page spread of a music magazine using a minimum on 4 of my own pictures, including a masthead, price of the magazine and how often it will be released.I am going to construct an evaluation of my music magazine titled ‘Conspiracy’ I named my magazine Conspiracy because it means a group of people coming together to discuss something in private, this has two meanings towards my magazine 1) because it could connote the group discussing a band nobody has ever heard of which shows that my magazine is targeting a niche rock audience so that they can get heard by the readers of the magazine and also I feel that because my magazine is targeting a niche audience they will be interested in buying this magazine and so this will make my institution more money 2) because it could also link in with rock bands being rebellious, sharing secrets. I used a font for my masthead called pulse which would be appropriate for a rock magazine, it gives a distorted heart rate effect, which connotes that this magazine and the bands featured will get the audiences heart beat faster, I then added a strap line in the same font, saying ‘spread the word’ again linking with the meaning of conspiracy, I have used a typical house style for my magazine to be conventional these colours are dark blue, yellow and red I think that these colours connote danger in some way which is why I chose them because they link with the fact that sometimes rock music can be dangerous. I was going for a dark theme also to represent the meaning of rock music, these three colours are primary for a music magazine, and I have stuck with them throughout the front cover, contents page and double page spread to make it conventional and continuous. Also on my front page I have added a headline saying the title of the band that are featuring in the magazine and then a brief description of what the main story is going to be about. To fill the spaces left on my front cover I have added, extra features, other stories included in the magazine, a banner headline, and also price, issue number and date. I have used conventions of real magazine such as large masthead, sticking to the house style and features of what is going to be in the magazine to make ‘Conspiracy’ appeal to audiences more, because they will easily understand what is going on in that issue.
My contents page and double page spread are also conventional because I have used page numbers, with a description of that story, I have used pictures of the main band features with a quote from the bassist, and I have also included ‘Conspiracy’s’ web address. Again with my double page spread, I have used traditional columns to divide the interview with the band, I have used a drop cap to introduce the band, and included a picture also with a quote.
I have added features to my magazine to make it appeal to a certain social group, such as winning tickets to Leeds festival and including free posters, this will appeal to the socio economic group; C2-E which usually appeals to students and people with casual jobs which means they can afford to spend money on gigs and festivals. Because my magazine is targeting ages 15-20 I have added posters into the magazine to make it more exciting for the readers, and to make them want to buy it every week depending on what bands they like, the fact that my magazine targets 15 year olds and they do not work, their parents would usually pay for them to go to gigs or even buy the magazine. This also links to the price of my magazine, I have made it moderately cheap for a weekly issue £2.10 because I understand that sometimes people cannot afford to buy the magazine every week.
Because the genre of my magazine is rock, and I have used conventional features within a rock magazine, I think that the publishing group Bauer may distribute Conspiracy because they also distribute other rock magazines such as Q and Kerrang, because they would find it interesting and exciting, and because they know that I have targeted a niche audience within the same genre they would want to know more about Conspiracy, I think that if my magazine was published by Bauer it would benefit the magazine because they are a huge company, and it could also make the magazine more popular. I think most rock magazines on sale now are usually male dominated and so I have tried to develop this by making my magazine for both genders by the use of the male band dominating the magazine this will add female appeal, but it will also make the male readers want to be like the band features, and vice versa with girl bands featured. The institutions that have influenced my genre of magazine, have websites also, which may be another reason why they would want to distribute my product.
I have decided to target a younger audience, I understand that with the media technology now, teenagers love music and when they like a band they want to know what is happening in their life all the time, and so I think a rock magazine would help do that also because I also have a website, they can find backstage and exclusive stories which are not included in the magazine on my magazine I also have links to bands websites, and social networking groups such as face book and twitter, because now we have new media technology products such as iphones and ipod touches are useful convergence such as downloading apps on bands you like where you can also listen to that band at the same time, while accessing such things as twitter, my target age range is from 15-20 because I know this is the specific age for people that like rock music. I would like to think my magazine targets both male and females and by doing that I have included stories and posters about bands that females will like and bands that males will like, this will encourage the readers to buy the magazine every week because they know it is not always male dominated. My magazine doesn’t just feature poplar bands, it also features new bands, which again relating to my strap line ‘spread the word’ about the new upcoming bands.
I have taken a look at the readers polls from Kerrang magazine and rocksound magazine this has shown me how to review how many people would read my magazine, and I have taken a look at their websites to see features they have compared to mine. I have also made a questionnaire asking on a scale of 1 to 10 how good each section of my magazine is and how I could improve them most people said I needed more photo’s added onto all parts of my magazine this has been posted onto my blog I have asked random people that maybe wouldn’t like my magazine to see what their opinion is about it, because I know that if I ask people of a niche audience that I will get the same response. Because I also have a website aside from the magazine, both will attract different audiences, people that want backstage information and would like to read the stories for free would have the advantage of going on the website.
I have attracted the audience to my magazine by using bright bold colours which are eye catching, and also have the effect on the font that the audience and particular group would enjoy I have used a male band for the main feature of my magazine, they are wearing conventional rock clothes, the lead singer in particular is wearing a t-shirt from the clothing range ‘Drop Dead’ which is owned by the member of ‘Bring Me The Horizon’s’ lead singer Oli Sykes, this shows that he represents the genre of music he likes. The bassist is wearing a t-shirt with Jimi Hendrix on it, which again represents the type of music he likes as the band explain in the double page spread interview, I think that the fact the band members wore t-shirts like that could influence the readers to buy t-shirts like that, this could be seen as synergy. The pictures were taken in the specific locations because they look derelict and old, but damaged which connotes their music. The picture I have used of the lead singer in the contents page, was inspirational, because he is stood in front of the bars, looking up towards the sky, making him looks powerful but it also makes it seem like he’s looking at the text above him. The picture I have used for my double page spread, I believe is very conventional, because it was taken at a later time and so it was darker, it was taken on a roof with tree’s in the background, I went for a dark effect because this also this also represents the bands type of music. I have stuck to using mainly medium close ups for my magazine, because I wanted to show the emotion of the band, as rock music cane be represented as quite emotional. The props I used are conventional for a rock magazine, which is instruments, but the only pictures I used which included instruments were on the contents page, where I used a quote of what the bassist says on the double page spread.
In the process of constructing my magazine, I learnt how to use adobe Photoshop more, I have developed my skills by using layers, effects and scaling my pictures. I had a few problems with Photoshop crashing sometimes which resulted in my work not saving, which put a strain on time meaning I had to restart the whole thing, I didn’t find using the software challenging because I also used Photoshop on my preliminary task which helped me get used to the software and how everything was used, I picked it up easily and so I didn’t find it hard to do anything I’d done before. If I had to do a task like this again, I would handle my development with Photoshop the same, because again the only problem was when it crashed which was time consuming. I also use blogger a lot more, and post everything that I have changed. All the original pictures I have taken has been posted on my blogger, to show which ones I would I use for my magazine and which ones I wouldn’t and also to show how I have developed and made each part of my magazine better. This coursework has also made me change my idea’s on taking photographs, such as camera angles and lighting, before I would just take pictures and hopefully make them better by relying on Photoshop.
When I first started making my front cover, I limited my colours to blue and white, after weeks of developing, I realised I needed to add more house colours to make my magazine more conventional and so I added some yellow and red, throughout the rest of my magazine I kept the same colours to make my magazine continuous and so I stuck to the same colours that represented my band and colours that represented my masthead. Before I started the process of Conspiracy, I did some research of existing magazines, I analysed 3 different rock magazines, Kerrang, Rocksound and NME. After every time I changed parts of my magazine, I always saved them as jpgs which after a while I realised was a bad idea because there was always something I needed to change and this meant I I had to start all over again, an example of this is my double page spread, I needed to crop it in half to make 2 A4 sheets, when I did this, some of my text was not on the same pages as the rest of it, if I had saved my double page spread as a psd, I could of changed it to make the text all on the same page.
