Electronic Evaluation Of My Music Magazine

Q. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazine?

My music magazine 'Streetz' uses the obvious conventions that any other music magazine will use for their front cover. These conventions include the Strap line, Masthead, date, time & bar code and lastly the way they attract their targeted audience. Before I could start constructing my own music magazine, I had to carry out a research on existing music magazines in order to find out what features they had, so that I could base my magazine around the conventions they had used. The research stage of my music magazine consisted of de-constructing all the features which make up a music magazine. After de-constructing theses features, it was easier for me to analyse them in more detail. One of the main features in a music magazine cover is the Masthead. My masthead is mainly used to advertise the name of my magazine. This is the same for all music magazines. Carrying out secondary research helped the production of my music magazine very much as it all helped form my music magazine. It also gave me an insight on how other music magazines looked and what they featured. This was helpful as it allowed me to make my music magazine look different and unique in order for it to qualify as a competitor in the huge music magazine industry.

The layout and design of my contents page stays consistent with the music magazine. This tends to be the same with most real music magazines. The content page also includes the name of my magazine; 'Streetz', the tag line; 'From rap to hip hop we have got the lot' and lastly the date, which for this addition was; 'November 2010'. The font style and font colour also stays consistent. The only thing that differs on the page is obviously all the things that a contents page would consist of that the masthead wouldn't, for example, a title saying 'contents' which remains in the same font style and colour as well as all the pages and page numbers. My main aim was to make sure my magazine related to my target audience as the main way in which magazines are produced and distributed depends on the audience’s life style and spending pattern.z

Q. How does your music magazine represent particular social groups? 
Streetz represents the social group of young adults aged 16-21 who are interested in rap and R&B music. My music magazine does this effectively through the use of the dress code of the artists in my magazine and also through the consistency of the fonts used.

The different font styles and colours used for the font gives my music magazine front cover an artistic, unique look that relates to young people who are interested in rap music. On my contents page I have picture of my artist on the background which represents my page and keeps the style consistent. There are certain pictures that show the powerful and youthful side to my artist. The picture on my front page shows that the artist is thinking and in control of his life. The colours used on the page are all the colours from the background images I have used on featured rap artists. This represents the genre of my music magazine.

Q. What Kind of institution might distribute your music magazine and why?

The main places and businesses that may sell my music magazine would be local newsagents and HMV. I think areas like Central London, Camden Town. As for HMV, my music magazine might be sold by all their stores throughout London. Other shops which sell magazines such as Borders may also be a good place to distribute my music magazine. This would be a huge advantage for my music magazine as it will be selling with other well known magazines which aren't only sold around the UK but world-wide. This will also be beneficial for my music magazine as I can publish news and artists/bands which aren't just from the UK but all around the world such as America. Having a link with world known magazines like in America could help the success of my music magazine because my audience will see that my magazine doesn't just consist of news and artists based in the UK. This would work extremely well because magazines like 'Vibe' (which is an American magazine) has worked it's way to selling successfully in the UK in many sole-traders like newsagents, corner shops etc. The reason for this is because the magazines understand the concept of psycho-graphics and demographics of their target audience.

As for train stations, I don't think my magazine should be distributed there. This is simply because kiosks at train stations mainly distribute free magazines and newspapers which feature reviews about music. So, I don't think my target audience will spend money on a music magazine when they can just find out all the latest reviews in the free magazines/newspapers.

Q. Who would be the audience for your music magazine?

The main audience of my music magazine will be a youthful and mainly male audience. The reason I say this is because mostly boys like rap music and it is rare to find girls that like rap music and would spend money on buying a music magazine about rap. I have also chosen a youthful audience because Rap music is mostly listened to by young people. By aiming it at this audience I will have played against my strong points. This should make my music magazine very popular amongst my targeted audience. The picture to the right is the type of audience I expect to be interested in my magazine.

Q. How did you attract/ address the audience for your music publication?

My music magazine attracts and address’s my targeted audience in a number of ways. The front page of my music magazine is very modern and stylish which appeals to young people as soon as they see it. This gets them interested into the magazine. And my strap lines and images are also very interesting from a youthful audience. This is because I have many interviews with young people’s role models and the latest and greatest rap artists. I don't think that there is a magazine the same as mine so my magazine is unique. This makes more and different types of people interested in my magazine. Lastly the masthead is very important to any magazine an as for my music magazine I had to make sure my masthead was unique and that it stands out. I had a chance to research different mastheads and what they convey about a magazine. Below is a link of some masthead research I have done on some popular music magazines.
http://adammediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/09/learning-in-class.html


Q. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt many things while using the different types of technology to create this magazine. I have learnt how to use Photoshop to edit, create and manipulate images. I also have learnt many ways to make text and images more effective and appealing to the human eye. I have also learnt how to present information in different ways by using the internet. As you can see below I started off with the photo and cut it out from the original background using the magnetic lasso tool this then allowed me to use the photo on another background to make the picture more effective and appealing to the consumers eye. Lastly the finished magazine has come along way from just the picture and i think everything I have learnt has been shown in my final magazine piece.

Q. Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When starting off creating the front page of a school magazine I was very unaware of what you can do with the different types of technology I had at my disposal. But as I learnt and tried out a few things I progressed very well seeing as it was my first time using the certain types of software. I though that the school magazine I created was very good for a first time production. I then started to progress onto my final piece of production which is my music magazine. There was a gap of days in which I could play around with Photoshop and other software. So I was ready when it got to creating my music magazine. When I started creating my magazine I was still kind of unsure on how to use Photoshop to the best in order to create a successful magazine. With time I started to get the hang of editing and manipulating pictures to make them look effective and appealing to a youthful audience. As you can see from the preliminary task I have come a long way with using photoshop and challenging and using certain conventions.
Below is the masthead i first created for the preliminary task and also the masthead i used for my music magazine. As you can see there is a lot of difference as my music magazine masthead looks like it has been thought about much more then the school magazine. The streets masthead looks urban and almost dirty from the black dots on the text. This shows that the masthead has been thought about.

 Lastly the video below is a powerpoint presentation of all the questions.

Media powerpoint on evaluation questions

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Audience Feedback

This feedback is from people from within my class. This allowed me to get a view on what people thought of my finished magazine. This was good because if there was bad points about my music magazine I could then change my music magazine to make better. In this video there are two main questions answered and they are "How can you tell the genre of the magazine" And "Purpose and intention of my magazine". Lastly this allowed me to see whether people could understand what my music magazine was and also whether it would attract people by the look of the magazine.

Finished magazine

 This is my front page            










                          
                         


This is my contents page












This is my double page spread

This is the picture I am using on my front cover I have edited the original photo to make sure it fits in with all the writing on my front cover. I used this picture because It looks like the artist is praying or wishing for something.

I am now going to be adding the background and text to show you how the photo is effective on the front cover.

This is the picture being used in an effective way. All my text and mastheads have been put back on to the picture. The text saying "Praying and hoping to be the biggest rap artist London has seen" This makes the picture stand out more and lets the reader understand what's the idea behind the picture and what the rap artist is thinking.

Magazine Article With BIG D

Media magazine article

BIG D

In honour of new and upcoming rap artists we have got an exclusive interview with BIG D the newest and most innovative rap artist coming fresh out of North London. We tracked down Big D after we heard that he has an upcoming mix tape coming out. So we sat down with him and discussed with what it was like on being one of the biggest up and coming rap artists and how exactly it is producing and coming up with a new mix tape. We also get a scoop on the artists he has linked up with to create his mix tape.

Next up we have got the exclusive interview with Big D stay tune for the interview.

There’s talk of a new mix tape for you. When’s that coming out, like what’s up with that? Can you tell me what stage you’re at as far as recording?
Well, I’m bout to finish working on the new mix tape.

Yeah, I have heard the new mix tape is gonna have some new names that people haven’t really heard of.
There’s two different artists that I worked with on this mix tape and ima tell you they got mad bars you will see what I mean.

How will we be able to know when the mix tape comes out
Just watch the face book and twitter accounts as soon as its out its gonna be up and around everywhere in London.

Right looking forward to that. So who’s your favourite rap artists right now?
My favourite rap artist right now is Lowkey his bars are off the hook some mad skills he’s got there. I reckon my other is the game.

Have you met these rap artists?I recently met Low key when I was doing a gig at a club he is definitely someone I want to work with in the future. He’s a bigger rap star than me and I just wanna get noticed so I can help other rap artists.

How many tracks have you got on your mix tape and what artists have you got on there?I have got mostly rap artists on here. I been working with Giggs and Tinchy stryder on 2 tracks I have always been close with these 2 and there only happy to help me get noticed in the rap industry. I have got around 15 new tracks on my mix tape. All songs have new bars and no old crap just new for all the people been following me since I first came out in the game.

What’s you next step in order to get yourself noticed?I am working on getting on Tim Westwood’s show to promote my name and mix tape. Hopefully this will get me recognised amongst other rap artists and maybe make them want to work with me. I have got a lot of connections in the rap industry that could pull’a few strings to get me recognised.

Streetz: Thanks for the interview Big D we look forward to hearing your new mixtape.

Big D: It’s all love bruva if I got any other information ill hook Streetz magazine up with another exclusive interview

Conventions of NME

NME magazine also follows the usual conventions of a music magazine. The title bold and in red, which I have noted is popular colour used in music magazines, The writing is featured at the left hand side, bar code at the left. Title at top of the left hand side, However it seems to me this might be a prescribed issue, because hardily any other bands are mentioned to entice the audience.

Free things such as posters are also usually entailed to give something back to the reader.

Conventions of a music magazine

 It is clear that when producing a magazine there are certain ways media presents the content, when making my magazine I followed the usual conventions a music magazine would follow. I kept my magazine more of a masculine magazine, and in doing this I used a male artist on the front.

However, the magazine I was potentially aspiring to follow used a woman on the front of their magazine, yet as you can see it’s quite a masculine pose.

As you can see, the Name is not the main feature, and the artists name is in massive bold red writing, They have used a large dominant icon who people recognize who is giving eye contact, her outfit even fits in with the colour scheme of the magazine front cover, which follows, Red, white, grey and black.

I followed this convention on my magazine, tying all the colours together to create a theme itself. My theme was Rap Artists; because of this the colours I chose to fit in with the scheme was red black and white. The main writing follows down the left hand side, I also decided to follow this technique to make it look like a believable magazine. There are 2 people featured on the front page of the magazine because, you have to show there are more people included, Names of other bands are also used to show the magazine entails more than the main character, because some of the audience may not be a Madonna fan, they have to appeal to everybody in one way to sell more magazines, Teasing contents. I also incorporated more than one artist, as you can also see when it mentions interview; it has a humorous quote from Madonna which shows the magazine isn’t completely serious and entails more fun than a boring interview.

The bar code is placed at the right hand side, which you will find with a lot of magazines. The price is usually shown small as if not a big issue and worth the money. And also something free is usual given away etc, free poster in this case it’s a 70 page special about women in music.

Magazine analysis

Kerrang

Kerrang is targeted to people with an interest in rock music around the ages of
14-24 years old. For this particular issue it could also attract fans of the “You Me At
Six” as the front man of the band is the main image on the cover. The magazine has a
large circulation with Australian and Spanish publications. Also the magazine claims
to be the “World’s biggest selling rock weekly”.

The use of the main image on the front cover of a magazine s to attract the
readers view and to make the magazine stand out off of the shelves. On the front over
of this issue is the frontman of the band “You me at six”. The image bleeds from top
to bottom to give him an intimidating presence. But he is also seen with a grinning
smile which represents a cheery side to the magazine. The cover also uses a rule of
thirds involving an important section of the cover in each section required.

Kerrang is a music magazine which mainly specialises in rock music and is
commonly known for covering all the latest bands and the most popular bands around
the music scene at the current time. Kerrang is published by Bauer Media Group a
large global institution. Bauer Media Group also publishes the music magazine “Q”
which specialises in a range of Alternative music. Bauer Media Group also runs
several music channels.

The placement and visual look of the title is very important so that the reader
knows what magazine they are buying. “Kerrang” is situated right at the very top of
the cover so that it is easy to see. The lettering of the title is broken like glass to give a
representation of rebellion and vandalism

The colour and font of the magazine cover is a risky part of the magazine
cover. If it is too bright it can be very off putting to buy and it maybe difficult to read
any text situated on the front cover. If it is too dull and boring then it won’t stand out
to the reader and it won’t get a large circulation. The cover uses very plain and
standard colours but it makes them contrast off the main image and backgrounds to
make text and other items to stand out.

Picture analysis

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Photoshop / iphoto

In this post I will be describing what I have created using 2 programs called:

• Photoshop
• iphoto

Photoshop
When i was creating my magazine the main program I was using was photoshop I started off by creating the Masthead. Once i found the name for my masthead I then went about chosing a font to make sure that it looked appealing. I then started to add all the sentances and straplines that will entice my target audience. Once I had got all the words that I was happy with on my front cover I then decided to customise the layers. To customise the layers I added colour overaly to all my text to make sure the colour was perfect. I also a background layer behind the text to make sure that the text was highlighted as best it could be. I then applied the picture behind all the text to highlight the text even more. This picture is supposed to represent the magazine and as the magazine is aimed at boys. I decided that it was important to have a male figure on the front page. I then lastly applied an artistic filter to the photo to make the magazine look unique and interesting.
iphoto
I used iphoto to upload my original pictures that I used in my magazine. I uploaded the pictures via the camera that I took the pictures with. This piece of software helped me with all my photos and allowed me to take my pictures from iphoto on to photoshop.

Evaluation of prelim task

In this evalaution I will be talking about the Prelim Task I have completed. The main subjects I will be talking about in this evaluation are:

• The masthead
• strapline
• colour scheme
• target audience

I am now going to start my evaluation.
I will start with the masthead of my magazine first.
Masthead
I have chosen my masthead for a number of reasons the first reason being that I think it is an appropriate design and also a good font that represents how the magazine is aimes at. I included the football as the o in Sports because I thought I would give people a clear idea of what the magazine was about before they saw anything else on the magazine. This also makes the masthead a bit different and not simple and plain.

Strapline
I used a unique strapline to enhance my magazine. "For the sporty person in all of us" This doesnt only just draw in one type of audience its opening up the target audience because people that might not have thought they was that sporty. May realise that this magazine is for them aswell and start to get into sport.

Colour Scheme
I have chosen a stereotypical colour scheme that represents boys. The main colours included in the magazine are red and blue these a stereotypically boys favourite colours. As my magazine is a sports magazine I am stereotypically aiming the magazine at boys. Girls could also be interested in the magazine if they are into sports.
Target Audience

The main target audience my magazine is aimed at is teenage boys of the ages of between 12-17. The reason why  have chosen boys to aim my magazine at is because most boys are interested in sports. Where as hardly any girls are interested in sport. I have also chose to aim it at the age group I stated because I feel that between that age boys are very interested in sports and also at this age boys are trying many different sports.

Research into existing music press

I have recently been looking into different music press in the UK to help me with my magazine and the way it is designed. The different genres of music magazine I have been looking at include:

• R&B 
• Rock
• Pop
• Rap

The music magazines I have been looking at are NME, Top of the pops, Kerrang. 

http://nme.com/ 

http://www.totpmag.com/ 

http://www.kerrang.com/

I have been looking at NME mainly because I wanted to research the typical conventions of a modern music magazine that is widely purchased.

I have been looking at top of the pops magazine because I wanted to see what it took to attract a younger audience towards a magazine and what I would need to include In my magazine in order to attract a wider range of people.

I have been looking at Kerrang because I wanted to make my magazine more diverse and not just aimed at mainstreamers that are stereotypically associated with rap music.

Image of Coldplay Analysis

Coldplay

Position signs: the camera and the viewer

·         The main focus of the camera is the man’s hand

·         All 4 of them are looking straight into the camera. 3 of the 4 are staring at the camera which conveys attitude.

·         The further the person positioned the more evil or angry they look which shows there is a bad side to the group as well as a good side.

Treatment signs: Devices of filming and of processing

·         The picture is black and white which shows that the picture is supposed to be taken seriously.

Content signs: objects in the picture and their placing

·         The members of the band are positioned in what seems to be who the leader of the band is. Because the first person positioned at the front of the picture is the main singer.

·         The men’s scruffy looks make them look like they don’t care what they look like. Which insinuates that they only care about making good music and not looking good. Like other bands concentrate on.

Meaning

The meaning of this picture is to outline the band and how it should be looked upon, and how they want you to see them. Also it clearly highlights that there is 4 people within the band and that is the way that it will always be and will want to keep it.

Learning in class

Over the last few lessons in media. We have been looking at Target audience, and how the media uses people to be attracted to their certain product or advert by just simply aiming it at a target market of their choice. When looking at this we have been looking at what kind of adverts magazines use to attract different people to buy and read their magazines.


Specifically I have been looking at NME below is an image of their masthead:

It is clear from the mast head that the magazine is aimed at older teenagers and above. I would say that the age range is from about 17-28. I can tell this by the colours that are used because they are not very colourful and vibrant. The colours are very basic. Also there is a person that is over the magazine masthead which you can clearly see. This shows that the magazine is saying that this celebrity is really important and there interview should not be missed. From the data I have collected from this magazine I would say that this magazine is mainly aimed at a male audience, I think this because mostly all of the adverts within NME are typically aimed at males, there are some adverts that can be seen as for both gendas. The adverts are mainly about albums and video games. The 1st advert in the magazine is a 4 page advert about Halo Reach which is a video game that is mostly played by a male audience.

The NME magazine is a very stylish magazine and is also aimed at people who have an interest in music in general. NME is mostly about music that is in the present time but also produces some articles on older bands. You can also see the magazine is aimed at mostly men because the colour scheme used on the front cover is colours that you would stereotypically think as colours that a male audience would like. When the NME is produced they have a certain target market this also means that they study their target audience (Demographics) to understand how to attract a certain type of person so that they can make the most money. By doing this they also study the way people think (Psychographics).

When NME study demographics they mainly look at what kind of interests and potential spending bracket people have the reason for this is because they need to know what to write in the next issue of NME and also what adverts to include in their magazine so that the magazine will attract customers. Lastly they look at peoples potential spending brackets because they need to see how much people can pay for the products they advertise in their magazine for example they mostly use albums that are not so popular which means that they will cost  a lot less than many publicised albums.

I have also been looking at top of the pops magazine I have an image of their masthead below:

It is clear to me that this magazine is aimed at a younger age group then NME. I say this because the colours are very vibrant and sparkly. This shows that it is aimed at young teenagers i would say this magazine is aimed at people aged 10-15

The top of the pops magazine is a magazine that is primarily aimed at teenage girls, the reason I say this is because of the colour scheme and adverts within the actual magazine, Also the adverts are all about makeup and sanitary towels, which indicates the magazine, is aimed at young teenagers.

When top of the pops study demographics they mainly look at what kind of interest’s young teenagers have, and also what kind of spending young teenagers will have for example pocket money. They need to know the interests of young teenagers because they need to make sure that they put the appropriate pictures and extras that come with the magazine to ensure they are appealing to as many people as they can. Lastly they look at the potential spending of these young teenagers because the adverts that they put in the magazine are for example advertising make up. When choosing what make up to put in the adverts or other write ups they need to make sure that the makeup is appropriate for girls of the target market and also need to make sure it isn’t too expensive because then they would be advertising stuff that these teenagers could not get, so that would not be effective advertising.

Below is a video of the type of music I am interested in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVIf548eGBY

About me

My name is Adam Ward I am studying at Acland Burghley as part of La Swap.
I am studying Applied Business and also media studies at A level.
I am interesting in a wide variety of music and because of this for media studies I am going to be creating a music magazine.
I am creating a blog because I need to provide an electronic evaluation of my coursework.