Evaluation

 For the magazine I have made I have used many of the conventions used in real media products, the magazine I made was a r&b magazine and the common conventions were used in my magazine e.g. masthead, image, skyline, anchors, barcode, price etc. These conventions are important to use because it makes the magazine look professional, the image I have used is conventional for r&b magazines because it shows the artist in the image with a bit of attitude and the posture shows this well, the bright colours in the background are also conventional as in the research I have done the audience have clearly stated that the colours I used were there favourites, these are the normal conventions used for real media products. I have also used a t-shape layout, as this a convention of magazines along with a z shape layout.

 There are six social groups, and they are, A) upper middle class, e.g. doctors and lawyers, B) Middle class e.g. teachers and artists, C1) Lower middle class e.g. supervisors and deputy managers, C2) Skilled working class e.g. trades people, C) Working class e.g. semi skilled and labour workers, D) People at lowest level of income e.g. unemployed and students. My magazine product represents the social group D because r&b is normally related to students and their age group prefer this type of magazine, the cover I have made will appeal to them more than any social group, it could also appeal to the social group B because middle class also prefer to read magazines although it sometimes will not be r&b but some young adults to prefer r&b magazines, as I found out in research. The reason that these social groups are represented in my cover is so that when they see the cover they can have something to relate to when they see it as this will increase the liking to magazine, this is important for the sales of the magazine because once the audience can relate themselves to the image or the artist then they will be interested in buying it.

The kind of media institution that might distribute my product may be organisations like IPC because they have a history of distributing famous magazines like NME and Billboard, billboard has a similar genre to me which is r&b and this is why IPC may distribute my magazine, these magazines are also distributed on the internet which is what I would have liked my magazine to be distributed also, because majority of the target audience are on the internet so giving them access to my magazine via the net could increase the number of people looking at my magazine.

The target audience for my magazine are males and females of an age group between 16-24 who have a favourite music genre of r&b, this is the audience I chose because while I did my research that was the age group who responded the most so majority of the answers were from them, also because I am part of that audience I am able to know what the audience are expecting from a magazine cover on r&b, I made sure that while I made my magazine the cover will appeal to the target audience, I done this by using bright colours to catch the eye of the audience, I also made sure the image would be relatable to the audience by making it a popular artist showing a posture which shows his attitude.

The ways I attracted the target audience to my magazine was in many ways, one of those ways was to make the cover very bright and interesting, the anchors used on the cover are done to interest the reader and make them want to open the magazine and read on, i also made sure the price is a reasonable price so when they do buy it they won’t need to worry too much about cost, the audience will be more likely to buy the magazine, the other important thing I have done in order to address the audience is the image, as I have mentioned before the audience can relate to the image and see the popular artist showing an attitude of which you expect to see in young people.

While making my magazine I have learnt about different technologies and also about web 2.0 and how information is shared across media, the technologies I have learnt about are software like adobe Photoshop, on this software I have been able to make my magazine look professional and highly skilled, Photoshop allows you to edit pictures and help construct the magazine and add text and colour to my magazine, it has many features and tools on the software and many of them I used for example I cropped the image I used for the cover. Another technology I used was the camera used for the images, the camera used was a SLR camera this camera ensured that the image will be highly professional and easy to capture images, I made sure while taking the pictures that Mis en scene of the frame was right, the picture quality is very important to a good magazine because it makes it look more professional and the SLR camera ensured this.

Since the preliminary task I have learnt a lot, in the main task I have done a lot of market research and found out what the customer actually wants, and sometimes it is not what you expect so you have to change according to the audience, I have also learnt a lot about the technologies and improved my Photoshop skills greatly, I have been able to develop my magazine further. I have also learnt different colour schemes and the ones which attract the audience better, I have also learnt how to make the text stand out on a cover in order to catch the eye of the audience, and another thing I have picked up on is the ways to construct a magazine and how to make it look professional. These are all important things in making a successful magazine.

Double page spread

Contents page

Final Magazine Cover

This is the final cover i have made for my magazine.

Institutional Case Study

Conclusion of research (Conventions&Techniques)

While doing my research for my magzine i have found out a lot of things concerning the cover of a magazine, the contents page and the feature page (double page spread) here i will analyse the conventions and techniques used in music magazines for this day and age.

Front Cover- While doing my research i analysed three front covers, in all three covers i noticed that an eye catching image was always used, these images all had a unique presence about them in their different ways, for example in the 'XXI' magazine the shot type made the artist stand out and catch the eye of the audience, and in 'vibe' the pose of the artist was paticularly interesting which also caught the eye of the audience, and in third magazine 'hip hop' the facial expressions were unique, so all in all the image can have a huge effect on the front cover and different attributes of the image can have the same effect on the target audience, also the target audience much prefer images on their magazine covers rather than text, i gatherd this from my questionnaire results as the vast majority stated they prefer images. Another convention i noticed was the use of different colours used to catch the eye of the target audience, on a magazine cover bright colours are tend to be used to catch the eye and makes the cover look more attractive, bright colours used on a magazine cover is a commonly used technique and is the most obvious way to catch the eye of the audience. There are also other common features on a front cover like a skyline, which gives extra information, and there are also anchors used which are there to give a hint of what is going to be in the magazine and get the target audience interested and intrigued of what is to come. There is also obviously the masthead of the magazine which is normally bold to help advertise the magazine name and help stand out. On all the covers there were also the barcode of the magazine and the price of the magazine, which must appear on the cover.

Contents Page- For the contents page of a magzine i also noticed common conventions and techniques, the idea of the contents page is to give the target audience a guide of what is to come in the magazine. In the three magazines i analysed that they all had one image which stood out from the rest of the inserts on the page, the images used on the pages were eye catching but also relaxed compared to the front covers of magazines, this is to give the audience a sense of comfort while reading the magazine. For the contents page i also noticed a common convention used with the colour scheme, the use of black and white was used a lot, theses colours are used because they contrast well together and help compliment the image on the page well, it also makes the text on the page more clear and easier for the target audience to read. On a few of the contents pages the use of insert images were used, these were used to show what else is coming up in the magazine, the images are normally a close up to show the image more clearly, as the pictures are quite small already, the use of inserts are good because it makes the page more visual rather than the audience reading becuase as stated before the audience prefer images rather than text.

Double Page Spread- On the double page spread of a magazine there is normally a interview or a top ten article with something to represent in the music industry at this current time, in the research i have done i have a noticed a common convention which is that there is normally one main image and a few inserts with majority of the page of text around it, this goes well because the image can support the text or vice versa. Another common convention i noticed was the use of black and white again, all be it on a few occasions other colours were shown but for majority of the page the use of black and white was imminent, they used black and white because of the contrast and because it provides a good background for the text which is then easier for the audience to read. Another technique which was used while i was doing my research on double page spreads were the clear and consistent layouts, the text on the pages were layout very clearly and made the text very accessible, this is important because it makes it easier for the audience to read and makes them feel comfortable while reading.

Colour Schemes

 This colour scheme shows four of the brightest colours, and also has three of the primary colours, these colours are commonly used in magazines because they are so bright and grab the eye of the target audience, these colours are normally very popular with the target audience.

This colour scheme has the theme of black and white, this colour scheme is also commonly used but normally inside of a magazine and not on a cover, it is normally used in the background, this is because these two colours contrsast well together, these are the different shades of black and white to show the different ones which are used.



This colour scheme is colurs which give a relaxing feel to the magazine, these colours are used to make the magazine easy on the eye, this makes the target audience comfortable while reading, the sort of colurs used are turquoise and lavender, these are colours assocaited with relaxing and not extravagant like bright colours.