I have created a music magazine called M2U (Music to You) which includes a cover, contents page and a double page spread article.
The media product I have created follows but also challenges different conventions found in real music magazines I researched in my lead up to the production of my media product. An example of this research is into institutions and how they sell their magazines and looking back at previous magazine covers, contents pages and double page spreads from the like of Q Magazine and NME.
In my media product the conventions which I followed are mainly found on the cover of my magazine. The cover stars dominate the page with a bold headline overlaying the image. I also tried to create an easy but recognisable masthead which, as I’ve done slightly, can still be recognised when the cover stars overlap it. Further conventions I have followed on my cover are the use of a pug, cover line and puff to add more information to the magazine to appeal to the intended audience of my magazine (which I describe later).
After my front cover I began to develop in the convention of having a house style of fonts and layout throughout the rest of my magazine, I also returned to my front cover to continue this later in the project. I mainly use white, red and black colours throughout all my created pages which I believe works well as the images break up the repeated use of the same colours. I however believe I could have improved parts of my magazine by using a few different colours just to break up the page with something that stands out more.
Something I believe I challenged is on my contents page where I decided to use a main image that fills about a quarter of the page with no description and only a page number. I thought this was a good idea as my target audience and ideal reader would buy every issue of the magazine and would recognise the band and, if they wanted, go straight to the main double page spread just based on the image from the contents page; however I still kept to the form of having page numbers and information in a column to the side of the page.
I think my magazine represented its intended social group of young adults interested in music with the connotations that could be made from the use of colours, layout and images. The dark colours suggest a representation of a serious approach to music and the white and black bold text furthers this message. My front cover used to have a more casual font, as if written, but after thinking about it I believed it didn’t fit the style and serious manner I wanted the magazine to portray. I have also used a plain white background which I believe represents the particular social group who have a serious interest with music and want the information to be clear and images to stand out. With these thoughts it made me change my contents page to something more appropriate as the old page used to have a colour background which I believed didn’t fit and made the page look messy and text and images not as clear as my final choice of white. My double page spread contains an interview, profiles and Q&A which I believe provides appropriate information about the band. It isn’t what you’d find in a teen magazine; it covers questions older audiences would want to know about but still in a light-hearted way to appeal to larger range of people.
The media institution that may distribute my magazine would be one that already owns other popular monthly/weekly music magazines. The reasons for this are they would be able to advertise my magazine and possibly extend M2U to other parts of media with cross-media ownership (e.g. radio and a website). They would also have expertise in areas of media conventions which could help my music magazine sell more, plus the larger institutions would have deals with shops such as WHSmiths which are well recognised as magazine sellers, this would further my magazine sales too.
The ideal audience for my media product would be an audience between the ages of 21-24 and specifically the ABC1 readership. The ideal reader is male, in a comfortably paid job with a good education to earn a safe living. They are living in either a flat or their first house and still have the time to follow the latest rock/pop music scene. Shopping at places like Tesco, still buying their music from HMV and regular night outs with ‘the lads’ to talk about music and other subjects such as gadgets and sport. They don’t earn enough money to splash out on expensive items but still keeps disposable income aside for him to spend on luxuries including this magazine. The magazine would include advertisements such as TVs, new music releases, gigs and activity days out. These would appeal to the ideal reader who saves their money, but earns enough to treat themselves regularly on cheaper items such as CDs. The magazine focuses on providing all the latest on the alternative rock scene, and occasionally looking into other rock scenes when appropriate. The lifestyle marketing would also be affected by people who buy this magazine and adverts relating to the ideal reader and would hopefully deliver audiences to advertisers.
Ways in which I attracted and addressed my audience include main cover stars which take up the front cover, an easily recognisable masthead and bold headline (which I still believe could have been improved by possibly changing the font or colour to stand out further). My contents page also personally addressed the reader, an example being ‘Find out if your favourite...’ plus a letter from the band addressed to the reader to attract the audience and feel like there’s more interaction between the stars and reader (the ‘ASK’ section on the double page spread being an example of this interaction). The double page spread continues a simple to follow layout to attract the reader to read the article as it doesn’t appear challenging and stand out quotes break up the text and images, so the readers’ can further their knowledge on the ‘Eye-Ful Towers’. My front page headline is also a command and could attract the reader to what there is to read inside the magazine; other headlines and information inside my magazine also directly address the reader. The interview, on my double page spread, also began by setting the scene so the reader can hopefully understand the feeling of the band during the interview plus jokes included in the text and with the pictures continues the light-hearted appeal to the target audience.
I’ve learnt much about technologies from my preliminary project from the likes of Adobe Photoshop, professional cameras and www.blogger.com. Based on the finished products of my music and college magazines you can easily see I’ve learnt a lot about how Photoshop works and how to achieve the best effects to create a professional looking magazine. My first magazine shows me testing Photoshop with a lot of effects used (and less in my music magazine as I thought ‘less is more’ was a better route for my serious approach). I learnt more about the use of layers in Photoshop to either hide or show appropriate parts of images and texts so there’s nothing unnecessary showing in the magazine. When editing my images I used the dodge and burn tools on certain areas of images to improve its look for a more professional look. To continue this professional look I also showed ruler lines to help put layers in an ordered fashion, which I believe was a main factor in why my magazine worked well. I also used different edits on my layers, only when appropriate though, as I stated earlier, such as drop/inner shadows and the use of bevel and emboss to make my text appear to have a 3D effect and adding to my hope for a professional look. The use of the stroke effect on different layers aids towards certain parts of my magazine standing out more. In my photo shoot I learnt much about how professional cameras work, such as focus. However, I believe I could have improved on this front as I learn how the camera worked on the day and had no knowledge of how to achieve the best results with the camera (talking to someone who knew about cameras would have helped to achieve better shots). I have also learnt how to blog my work with ease as I’d never used the website before, I was learning how to during my preliminary task. However, by the time I started my music magazine I felt I knew how to use the website efficiently.
In the progression to my full product from my preliminary task I have learnt many things. Firstly I learnt what conventions best suit different magazine to attract the right target audience, followed by advertising in media and how this relates to lifestyle marketing and attracting audiences to both advertising and the magazine itself. Another thing I have learnt is the appropriate actions to undertake before creating and producing my magazine. This includes primary and secondary research (questionnaires and other music magazines), planning my magazine layout and text in advance, plus permissions, risk assessments and the location recce before my photo shoot. In the photo shoot I learnt about getting the images I wanted by planning with the cover stars their poses to achieve the right images. My skills have also improved with photo shoots as I actually did my music magazine photos in a controlled environment instead of out and about which I did with my College magazine. I believe I could have still improved with my music magazine photo shoot with the technical side, such as correct lighting and using the camera correctly to achieve the best shots. Continuing in the project I have learnt much about creating a magazine on Adobe Photoshop and with assistance improved a lot since my ‘College Times’ magazine with things like layout, photo/text effects and achieving a professional looking magazine. Finally I have learnt a lot about making and evidencing research and my progression through a project, this is evidenced in the amount of blog posts for my College magazine compared with the number of posts for my music magazine to show how I improved, progressed, evidenced and researched before-hand.
