My Media Blog

Music Magazine Evaluation

The brief for the music magazine required me to create the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text had to be original, produced by me with a minimum of four images – therefore the article, headline, cover lines, selling line etc. were written by me and the images used were taken by me.

For my media product I have attempted to use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products. For my media product I created a mainstream music magazine called “Amped”. I started off by analysing existing music magazines using LIIAR (Language, Institution, Ideology, Audience and Representation) and applied this technique to three front pages, contents and double pages using textual analysis to analyse these conventions. My music magazine challenges forms and conventions of real media products by including all the elements of a typical music magazine such as the masthead which is the name of my Institution “Amped”, a main headline to summarise the main feature and create anchorage to the main image. The splash of my front cover shows consideration of layout with cover lines placed around the main image to summarise the smaller stories, a selling line that promotes the magazine and a pull quote taken from the main article which I wrote using Microsoft Word.

My music magazine is aimed at a younger audience of both male and female college students and I feel that I have represented particular social groups in my media product. The main image on the front cover features a young male band member in medium close up. I have chosen this image because the band member represents the younger audience to which the magazine appeals to. I have used a consistent colour scheme on my magazine of black, white and red. The colour red has the connotations of danger which fits well with my selling line: “Pumping up the volume on your favourite music!” which is written in a graffiti style font with a red glow showing that the music is so loud that its dangerous and rebellious.

The type of media institution that would be likely to distribute my product would be Emap as it is currently the publisher of Mojo and Q magazine which are both long-running mainstream music magazines that focus on alternative music. Mojo magazine in particular focuses mainly on classic rock and my magazine has frequent mentioning of returning bands, making a comeback. Therefore, I think my magazine is quite similar to Mojo. The type of institution that would distribute my magazine would be leading supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Morrisons and book shops such as WHSmith. My magazine would also be available through online purchase from its own website, this is because the younger generation use the internet a lot more and the magazine is aimed mainly at younger people.

My music magazine is aimed at an audience of people aged 16-24. I have made it appeal to my target audience by using bold attractive colours but not too many so that it is still appropriate for the style of magazine which is alternative rock, and an alternative typeface for the masthead of my magazine which shows that the magazine is supposed to be represented as a rebellious type of magazine. I have also made it appeal to my target audience through the language that I have used. For example, the article on my double page spread doesn’t use language that wouldn’t be understood by younger people and it also uses lots of alliteration which makes the article more interesting to read overall.

I attracted and addressed my audience by using a balance of both images and text, and by not including an excess of text within my magazine. I have deliberately used white coloured writing for the main headline on my front cover because it contrasts with the black which is on the coat of the front cover model. For the other cover lines I have used the colours red and white which are the two main colours that I have chosen, along with black to maintain a consistent style to my magazine. I have also frequently used the word ‘exclusive’ in the language of my magazine to make the readers of the magazine feel as if they are getting something that would not be available from other magazines. The language used in my magazine isn’t too formal and is therefore easier to read. I also have included brief summaries of what’s included on the different pages of my magazine on my contents page, this way it keeps the reader engaged and makes them want to read more.

I have learned a lot about technologies from the process of constructing this media product. I started off by using a digital SLR camera to take all the pictures for my music magazine. I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to edit and construct the product, using a medium close up image of one of the band members which I deliberately photographed against a plain grey background to make them stand out more and also to make the editing process easier. I also included another much smaller image of the two band members featured in my double page spread which acts as a teaser. I used three more of my original images for my contents page to preview what’s inside the magazine and another two images for my double page spread. In order to present my double page spread on an A3 format I learnt how to change the page properties for a double page. I also learnt how to cut out images using the pen and magic wand tool which shows in my contents page and double page spread. I learnt how to insert text off another website to use as my masthead and cover lines. I also learnt how to use the blending options for text such as adding shadow and glow to my text for emphasis.

In the time between completing the preliminary task and the final product of my music magazine I have learned a lot about how to create a professional looking magazine with a suitable layout and relevant information. I have had a lot more time to anaylse existing music magazines using LIIAR to see how they are represented to their audience and what techniques are used in the creation process. For my preliminary task I was required to create a front cover for a college magazine and my work showed use of basic Photoshop techniques, however my music magazine shows use of more advanced Photoshop techniques for a more professional looking magazine. I have thought carefully about using appropriate styles of writing and images and also keeping a consistent style and colour scheme for my music magazine.

Finally, I gathered some audience feedback on my blog which gave me an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of my magazine and what appealed to the audience of my magazine. I gave multiple choice answers on these questions to allow people to select the parts that they thought needed changing and decide which aspects of my front page, contents and double page are most appealing.

In Conclusion, I think that my magazine had strengths and weaknesses, however I have attempted to identify the weaknesses using my audience feedback. I encountered problems along the way, for example on my contents page I didn’t group all of my layers which meant that when I returned to it for further editing it took a long time. Also, the original writing style that I used wasn’t suitable for the genre of magazine so I decided to change the font to a more appropriate style. I have made a lot of changes to my music magazine to make it look more professional, for example originally I used a white background with black writing for my double page spread, however I decided to change this to a black background with white writing which looked more appropriate. I also added more photos to my contents page because originally it only had two images but I noticed that most contents page use more images.