Evaluatoin

As I have explained in the image above. I have created a magazine that I feel is similar to an NME music magazine. The way in which I have achieved this is by getting a bold image ad placing it off centre on the front cover, this way it does not look as formal. The masthead is placed behind the image and if you look at most music magazine you see that the picture of the musician is usually in front of the masthead. There is a splash in the top right corner of my magazine, the reason why I did this is because when I was studying music magazine such as NME and Q magazine, they usually had splashes in the corner either giving away something free or letting the audience know something. This way of advertising something is a lot better, because a splash is usually very eye catching and the reader will see it because they are placed to the right of the masthead. There is a skyline at the top of my front cover which shows grabs the audience’s attention. There is also a teasing contents which when I have been studying NME’s magazine, they have places a teasing contents at the bottom so I felt that it would be appropriate if I put one on my magazine.

Making my contents page was a lot more difficult than any of the others I felt because I was not sure whether or not to follow all of the conventions of the NME contents page with the information down the left and the right side. I thought that it was best if I set out the contents page in a different way with the same amount of information around the edges but just not laid out the same. At the bottom of my page there is a teasing content where it tells the readers about them being able to subscribe to the magazine. The reason why I did this was because on the NME magazine I was looking at, I noticed that on their magazine there was a subscribe box. When I was making my magazine I thought that it was a good idea to place it at the bottom, because that way it was following the conventions on the NME magazines.

In the process of producing my double page spread for my magazine I was looking at the NME magazine which I took inspiration from. As I have explained in the previous imagine, I used similar conventions from the NME double page spread for example at the start of my interview I used a drop cap which makes the letter stand out more than usual, and lets the reader know where the start of the interview is. Also there is an introduction paragraph on both of the magazines feature in the image above. The reason why I put an introduction paragraph in my double page spread is because I thought that it would be a way to introduce what that article is about and who is featured in it. There is a main picture on the left hand side of the NME magazine, so I took that idea and made it my own by putting a selection of different pictures on the left hand side.

The way in which my music magazine presents itself to particular social groups is because as you can see around the main image on the front cover, there are a lot of different artists. Which range from Miles Kane to Stone Roses. This could widen the range of my audience because you may not class the same people who like and listen to Stone Roses to people who like Miles Kane. I mentioned Stone Roses in my magazine and also Red Hot Chili Peppers because I did not want my magazine just to be focused on the indie industry of music. I felt that if I added bands from different music tastes into my magazine then this would widen my audience and become a better magazine.

At the top of my front cover there is a skyline which says ‘LEEDS AND READING FESTIVAL 2012 IS CALLING YOU.’ This shows that I wanted my readers to be interested in my magazine. If my magazine was on the music shelf then it would grab people’s attention, because the people who are interested in the music that is performing at Leeds and Reading festival, then my magazine would be eye catching to that audience.

In the process of making my magazine, I thought about the age and the stereotypes of my target audience. Throughout working on my magazine I thought that the age of my target audience would be 16-28. The reason why I chose this age group is because I mentioned going to Leeds and Reading Festival and I thought that it would be a good idea to promote the festival to a suitable age group. I personally think that going to Leeds or Reading Festival at the age of 15 is too young. I did not want my readers thinking that it was going to be acceptable. The reason why I have stopped the age at 28 is because I feel that people aged above 28 would not be interested in going to Leeds or Reading Festival or being interested in the music taste that was featured in my magazine. Also people aged above 28 would not care about what new artists were coming out in the near future.

The stereotype that I was representing my music magazine on was people who are very interested in new music and music in general. They will be interested when The Vaccines and Miles Kane’s tour dates were and they would want to know more information on the Leeds and Reading Festival. The stereotypes that I wanted my magazine to work with is people who have the same music taste that is featured in the magazine because I feel that it would obviously mean that the magazine will do well in the industry. When I was making my magazine I was using the well-known NME magazine to guide me on how to make my magazine look professional. I would like my magazine to have the same target audience as them, which would consist of people who care about up and coming artists and going to gigs. As you can see this is how I wanted my target audience to be. I wanted my magazine to be informal and look like it is not too complicated to read.

In my magazine the use of bold texts and the bright colour scene will attract the young audience. My music magazine is full of certain music and venues where you can go and see a certain band or performer. It is therefore being informative without being formal. In the Social Economic Groups, I feel that my audience would fit into the C2 section and also the D section. In the Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ my target audience would be close to the bottom of the triangle because I feel that my audience would fit into ‘social’ and also ‘safety.’ This is because my audience would have the need to belong to a part of a group, and also have personal security and have a job and friends.

The kind of institution that would distribute my music magazine would be IPC Media because they publish NME music magazine and because NME.COM now has over 7 million monthly unique users. I would like my magazine to be as successful as NME or maybe more because the fact that there is a new music magazine they are going to put a lot of marketing and advertising behind it to try and get it as big as NME. My magazine is not going to be exactly the same as NME. I believe that my unique selling point would be that my magazine lets the reader know all of the bands and festival tour dates are before anywhere else. This is a very important selling point to the music lovers because they are interested when certain bands are performing. The reason why I would not want my music magazine to be published to be distributed by the publishers of Q magazine, Bauer Media Group because I think that there audience is focused a lot higher and mine and I think that my magazine would not do as well if they were in partnership with Bauer Media Group.

The audience for my music magazine would be an indie person, or someone who can listen and likes different types of genre. The kind of person who will not only read it for the music that is inside it but also someone who will look at the pictures and really understand what is going on in the music industry world. The person who would easily read it would be an individual who likes music in general, different types of genre and enjoys going to different gigs. They will be someone who doesn’t take things to seriously, could sit down and watch skins, shameless, and could listen to Radio One rather than Capital FM. They would shop in vintage shop and charity shops. Also in my magazine, it wouldn’t just be about music, it would be talking about the lifestyle section on music, different games and certain programmes on television.

The way in which I attracted my audience was by using certain artists on my front cover and the main imagine on my front cover is of a similar age to my target audience, which is people who likes reading magazines that they can actually relate to. My target audience enjoy going to gigs and seeing their favourite bands playing in certain places. The fact that I placed a teasing contents at the bottom of the front cover telling people that they could win tickets to go and see either Miles Kane or The Vaccines would attract the audience and make them want to buy the magazine. Also the way in which I placed ‘LEEDS AND READING FESTIVAL 2012 IS CALLING YOU’ goes directly to the reader as if the magazine was talking to them. Also it looks as if the magazine is talking to the reader, making them feel more into the magazine. The way in which I used my colour scheme to connote the genre that was featured in my magazine was because the red of the text came from the red from the models lips and the black came from the darkness of the models glasses that she was wearing and the colour of her hair. The reason why I used the white colour was because I thought that it would make the other two colours stand out, and they all work with each other none of them clash with each other, they complement the whole of the magazine. Also the time where the magazine was being made, it was very common for girls to wear the dark red lipstick and to have the vintage looking glasses.

So as you can tell from the audience feedback that I received that the readers could tell what genre my music magazine fitted into. So the fact that the people who were giving me feedback on my magazine could tell what genre my magazine was. People who I actually wanted to buy my magazine they can tell what genre my magazine is.
In the process of making my magazine, I used Photoshop to help it look professional. Using Photoshop to help me create my magazine made it so much easier because I was able to select large areas from the picture and delete it straight away. This saved me a lot of time because if I did not use the quick selection tool, then it would have taken me longer, so this would have meant that I wouldn’t have spent the amount of time I did, making my magazine. I was able to work with different layers on my magazine, so I could build things up on top of each other, so I could give my magazine a sense of depth instead of it looking as if there wasn’t much on it. For example when I cut around Lucy’s head for my front cover, I placed the masthead underneath the image of Lucy. This effect that I did made my magazine look a lot more interesting. When I was using the quick selection tool for the first ever time, my technique of using it, was not that good, I did not make the edges smooth which made it look very untidy. However, now I have had a lot of practice on Photoshop and practiced smoothing out the edges my final product does look a lot more professional. After I had finished using the quick selection tool, I used the blur tool to smoothen out the edges to make them not look as shard and untidy. The transform scale tool was very useful when I was using it to make certain things bigger on my front cover, such as some of the Coverlines. I also used it to move the main image, when I transferred it to a new document to get to work with my front cover, originally it was very small and it wasn’t the correct size that I wanted. So I used the transform tool. When I was making the picture bigger I was conscious whether or not the picture would become pixelated, so my teacher told me to press ctrl. This would prevent any part of the picture becoming pixelated.

As you can see from my Music Magazine and my preliminary task that my knowledge and use of Photoshop has improved. On my music magazine it looks a lot more professional. The picture on my music magazine compared to my Wyke College magazine picture is of high quality. You can tell just from looking at the pictures that my music magazine it has lot smoother edges compared to the edges of my Wyke College magazine. I was not used to using Photoshop in the process of making my college magazine, as you can tell from the poor effort of the tools. The text that I have used in the two different magazines is completely different. In the college magazine the text is very standard and it is boring. Compared to t my music magazine it has a lot more interesting font used. There is a lot more information and a greater number of cover lines in my music magazine because my music magazine is aimed at a wider audience, and therefore I needed to attract my audience with the information that they wanted to here. Also I am asking a lot more money for my product so there should be more content in my music magazine than my college magazine

In the process of making my magazine it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. When I started planning out my magazine, it was difficult because I wasn’t sure where to place certain things on my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. When I started to take my picture for my magazine, it was difficult to get the right person who I thought would suit the genre of my magazine. As you can see on my blog, I took a lot of pictures to feature in my magazine, but when I looked at them and studied them properly. I thought to myself that it was not suitable for my magazine genre. The second time when I took my pictures they were a lot more effective and they didn’t look like a fashion magazine like the first set of pictures I took. After taking the pictures I found out how difficult it actually was to get the right pictures to fit the genre, and the right clothing and the right person to fit in with the genre. The reason why the pictures in professional music magazines look so good and why they always have outstanding quality is because it take a lot of time to make a magazine look as good as it does. I found this out when I was taking my magazine picture and when I was making my music magazine.

Another problem I had when I was making my magazine was the fact that it was very time consuming, which meant that I was always working on my magazine trying to make it better and better. When I was working on the laptops that the college provides, when I was in the process of saving my work, it usually took a long time to save because of all of the layers on Photoshop and the fact that the laptops were not in the best of conditions. Another problem about the laptops were that there sometimes were not enough for the whole of the class and the fact that they would usually take ten minutes to turn on, would waist valuable time where you could actually be doing some work.

With a lot of other work to do for my other courses, keeping up with the deadlines and making sure that you are on top of your work was another problem that I had when I was doing my magazine. When we were doing drafts for the magazines it was hard to come up with different ideas and which one you thought was the best, or which part to take out of each draft. Another problem I had with doing all of the different drafts was that when you were busy thinking about how to design your drafts, you had then also make the product on Photoshop which also took a lot of time.