Evaluation

Evaluation

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Evaluation

First and very important step I had to make before starting the manufacture of my music magazine was research into already existing and successful music magazines and their publishers, in order to find out what genre is the most popular with the audience and which institution would be most likely to publish my music magazine. I have decided to analyse one of the 'Q' magazines seeing as it is the most common and popular magazine with a wide range of audience and look into how they give the variety of choice to the audience and also look into the design of the magazine itself, how the cover, contents and article pages are arranged and laid out, this research would help me create my music magazine seeing as I will be more familiar with the type of design the audience is most familiar with, seeing as the placement of central image, puffs, buzz words and anchorage text is very important to catch the audience's attention and their first impression of the music magazine would greatly depend on the cover page seeing as it needs to familiarise the audience with what to expect from this music magazine in particular. Furthermore research into different institutions helped me gather knowledge of not only what type of institutions there are but also what genres they specialise in and hold the most popularity with the audience.  From this research I have decided to use a white, red and black house style in my music magazine seeing as the contrast of these colours makes the text easy to read in addition to this words like ‘Contents’, ‘Features’, ‘Interviews’ and ‘Regulars’ use the same font which I got from ‘1001 fonts’ website called ‘Nervous’ and added my own colours to suit the house style of my magazine, I have chosen this design seeing as it reminded me of an electric guitar strumming which would be reasonable to use seeing as my magazine is rock genre and the style represents the noise and anxiety which rock concerts create.

The music magazine that I have produced is aimed at people aged from 16 to 23 seeing as they are the most likely to be interested in this type of genre however the problem with this target audience would be that they are more likely to check information about their music on the internet. After all the research was complete I have decided to follow the form of convention of a typical music magazine seeing as it’s the most common in music magazines and already has an existing audience, the problem with doing that however is that the audience would prefer to stick to something they are already familiar with like their old music magazines instead of reading newly published music magazines. This would mean that I have to lure the audience in by either adding a freebie or creating an article which would interest the audience and also make the magazine at a reasonable price. Furthermore the whole layout of the magazine is familiar to the ‘Q’ or ‘NME’ magazine or just a typical magazine, giving the audience the information about what to expect from the magazine by just looking at the cover and seeing as the first impression is important, the main ‘exclusive’ to the magazine articles/information are on the front cover.

My music magazine would represents both male and female young adults as well as teenagers, this is due to the chosen house style and the choice of rock bands which have been included into the magazine, seeing as my chosen target audience are most likely to listen to bands like ‘Linkin Park’ or ‘Three Days Grace’ due to the fact that they produce songs which could appeal to my target audience. However this might not always be the case due to the fact that people above the age of my target audience could also be interested in these rock bands and this is only a benefit because it means that more people are likely to buy my music magazine. Additionally the Linkin Park poster would be appealing to this particular social group because they are most likely to stick up posters of their favourite rock band in their rooms as we would not expect an adult to have posters around his/her room. In addition to this the images I have taken and placed into my music magazine would appeal to the group because the main artist on whom the article is based on is from that social group and the audience would be interested in someone from their social group. Also the design of the images and how the main star looks might further appeal to that social group because they are most likely to dress the same way. Also the manner in which the main star looks at the audience in an aggressive way may imply a rebellious personality which would be appealing to the social group due to the fact that they would be most likely to also act rebellious and the fact that the star was from the same group and has achieved something could influence the audience and even inspire them and think that with hard work they all can achieve the same.

Institution which would publish my music magazine would most likely be Bauer seeing as they publish magazines like ‘Q’, ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Mojo’ along with other 150 magazines. Seeing as those are three main music magazines which are popular with the audience with a rock genre present along with other genres (the more genres a magazine has the more audience would be interested). Seeing as my music magazine has a main rock genre it will have a lot of competition in that institution. Additionally the following institution publishes modern magazines and my target audience are most likely to be interested in more modern magazines.

Further I had to think about my article pages, if I wanted to make a double page or a three page article and I have decided to go with a double page spread in order to see if I will have enough space to place all the information I want, the first page will have the main image of the star with her quote which will make the audience interested in the article and carry on reading it, additionally the article required an intro and I have decided to create a friendly and realistic atmosphere in which one of the ‘Echo’ representative describes the current situation and with the stars dramatic entrance in order to make the audience interested in the article and keep them reading, also the layout of the interview has to be easy to read and follow so I have decided to make the interviewers question different colour from the stars answers and make the colours contrast, also the article is laid out in columns seeing as most magazines are read on the go and the audience has to be able to easily come back to the point where they stopped reading. The main challenge I faced during the articles production was writing the article up seeing as I had to make it not only creative but also non repetitive and easy to follow, seeing as I wouldn’t want to confuse the audience and make them think through every sentence in the article also make up the whole story, so the best option would be to just make a simple friendly interview with few jokes in order to lighten the audiences mood and make the article itself seem more interesting to read. Furthermore I have used two images in my double page article one having the full page to itself and the other being under the article itself with a quote from the article, highlighting something important the star has to say and make the audience read through the article in order to relate to that quote. Additionally I thought the article pages looked simple and did not have enough to it so I have decided to add a ‘spotlight’ effect to it which is relevant to the anchorage text on the cover page ‘Life on the spotlight’ and the image used under the article of the star blurred out and looking up perfectly suited the idea of having the audience in front of her and the spotlight on her, I had to download the a brush in order to create the spotlight effect which further improved my Photoshop skills

By looking back at my preliminary task I believe I have made huge progress in not only production of a music magazine but also with the ideas behind certain layouts and chosen images how different meanings can be created through use of different angles and mise-en-scene. I have also greatly improved my skills in using programmes like Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator which helped me greatly in production and editing of my images and the magazine itself. Additionally from the research and comparing my final product to the preliminary task I have learned the importance of the structure of the magazine and the correct placement of certain ‘buzz words’ and ‘puffs’ and how the cover is most important to get the audience attention because it’s the first impression of a magazine that counts.