Preliminary task:
To gain experience on how to construct a magazine we were given a preliminary task of creating the front cover, contents page flat plan and a double page spread for a student magazine. I decided to aim my magazine at female students. I did this by making the main colour pink and including a cover story about finding love at a festival and a section on what to wear to a festival. Completing this task gave me a chance to look at the conventions of a magazine in general and learn how to relate different codes to target audiences.
Conventions:
To ensure that my magazine was going to be successful I researched into different target audiences for different magazines. This helped me determine
what type of magazine I wanted and what audience to aim it at. I first looked at the conventions of music magazines.
I researched MOJO and NME to get a feeling of what different conventions matched different groups
The typical conventions were, Masthead, dateline, a main image, cover lines, main cover line, and a selling line, the left third, this is used because in shops magazines will be stacked only showing the left third of the magazine
Target audience:
I found that NME magazine was aimed at a much younger audience because it focuses on new up and coming bands and the general layout of the magazine is quite quirky. Whereas MOJO was aimed at an older audience you know this because it focuses on older bands. I also made a survey on survey monkey. I used the results to determine my target audience
Because of these results I decided to have my target audience to be 16-25 year old individuals and innovators. My secondary target audience will be mainstreamers as this is the biggest group of people, this will help sell the magazine. To make this apparent I have used modern colours like black, red and white which are conventional to a music magazine and I also have used relevant stories for teenagers like gigs and fashion tips. Most of the people like rock and indie music, so I will make the genre of my magazine indie rock. To appeal to my audience I will make sure that the bands that feature in the magazine are popular indie rock groups.
Genre:
The genre of my magazine is Indie/Rock. I decided this from analysing the results from my survey. I found that indie and rock music was the most popular genre of music. I tried to reflect this in my images and in the band that I created for the interview.
Planning:
I planned my magazine by making Flat plans of all of my pages. This was an effective way of planning because once I wrote the articles and cover lines I was able to just position them in the correct place. It also made it easier to change the size and structure of the magazine. The areas of my magazine I feel I planned well were the photo shoot and the article in my magazine. this meant that all of my photos looked professional and my article interpreted the style of the magazine. I feel that the layout of my magazine was not planned as well as I wanted it to be because I had to change it quite a lot. This meant that it took longer to construct the final outcome.
Photos:
For my magazine I wanted my photos to reflect the style of the magazine. I decided to hold a photo shoot in a bedroom and bathroom. I used two of my friends to model as the band. The pictures were used on the contents page, front cover and double page spread. I decided that the outfits for the models needed to be quirky and fun to reflect the style of the band. As they were an indie band I wanted them to look quite cool and stylish so I used lots of colour. i wanted to include pictures of the band in there rehearsal area. I decided to use a bedroom as this to convey what the bands life is like. There were lots of random colourful objects to show the carefree approach the band had to there work. I then took some pictures in a bathroom with a tiled background to create a nautical feel.
Psychographics and social groups:
I wanted my magazine to represent Individualist young female adults from 16-25. You can tell this because my magazine is aimed at females which are not common in a music magazine. I did this by having the models on the magazine cover to be about the same age as my target audience. Also I made sure that in all of the pictures of teenagers they looked presentable to represent them in a positive way. I also wanted to aim my magazine at mainly the social economic groups A- C2. I decided this because it broadens the range of people who would read the magazine. From the initial research of other music magazines I found that the prices ranged from £2 to £3+. I have decided to have my magazine at £2 as it is an affordable price that most people from each economic group will be able to manage.
Font and Graphics:
The graphics for my magazine were inspired by Q magazine. I decided to make it quite simple and not look too formal to suit my target audience. I used ‘Word art’ on word for the ‘M’ and then created a white box to go around it. I tried to use this as the logo throughout my magazine so it connects all the way through. I then used ‘word art’ again to write magazine, I made the whole masthead italic. I used
Photos and Editing:
For my pictures I used a 7 mega pixel digital camera. The mis en scene in my images worked well because of the style of my magazine but it caused problems because I had to edit out the background in most of my pictures. I used natural light for my pictures, the issues with this was I had to do my pictures before dark this created a time deadline that I had to complete my work to. I used Photoshop to edit all of my images. This gave me a chance to add lighting affects and make the colours more vibrant. In the front cover image I edited out the background because it was too busy. I also did the same in the two shot in the double page spread.
Final magazine:
To make sure my magazine was successful I tried to stick to all of the conventions of a music magazine. I have challenged forms and conventions of music magazines by having a picture of a girl band on the front as most music magazines have males on the front. My music magazine would be positioned along side NME magazine as both magazines are indie rock magazines. I have appealed to the target audience by using models that are around the same age, colours that will appeal to both sexes and having interesting cover lines and stories that they would want to read about. The feedback from my focus group suggests that my magazine is appropriate for my target audience and genre of music magazine. I took the constructive criticism and re did the front cover, contents and double page spread to improve it. The most likely industry to publish my magazine would be IPC as they are responsible for 80 magazines in the
What I have learnt:
From the process of constructing this product I have learnt what different conventions are included in creating a music magazine and how the magazine industry works. All of the research into the different genres of music magazine helped me learn more and helped me decide what style and genre I wanted my magazine to be. By creating the blogs I learnt how to structure my work and present it in a neat way. Using the internet enabled me to do the relevant research necessary. I was able to asses and re-do parts of my magazine that needed changing by getting constructive criticism from my peers. This ensured that my magazine was appropriate for my target audience. Looking back on my preliminary task, I have learnt how to structure a front page and how to identify different genres and styles of magazine. I have progressed from the preliminary task to the music magazine by making my music magazine more suitable to both sexes instead of just female. Constructing both of these magazines was a great way to get an insight into the industry and I am very pleased with the result of my music magazine and I feel I have learnt a great deal on how to create a conventional music magazine.
