Skills development

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from the progression from in to full product?

I feel as though I have come quite a way since the preliminary task of the college magazine. In doing the preliminary task it allowed me to try and arrange things how I wanted and I was able to experiment with a few basic elements like imagery, layout and fonts. I feel this was a useful task to do to get into producing the music magazine as it was sort of an experiment and experience in what to include on the front cover and how to use the images to the greatest effect etc.

My main image for the preliminary task could have been better, I should have had my model looking directly at the camera as to grab the attention of potential readers. The images below (left) is the image from my college magazine and has an objective gaze and I think is therefore less striking as the image (right) from my music magazine which has a wide eyed subjective gaze which stands out quite instantly to a reader to draw them in.



There is no obvious main headline for my college magazine, all the articles are in the same style, size and font so there is no way to tell what the main story for the magazine is, which is needed to attract readers, all the articles are quite plain and boring, there is no 'breaking news!' or some sort of controversy to make readers want to pick up the magazine and look at it. However I feel that I have learnt from this with my college magazine and was able to make the changes needed and used different fonts and colours for


The image (left) of the post-it-note and the text is what I used for all the cover lines on my college magazine, and is quite dull and boring. The images (right) are some of the fonts used on my front cover for my music magazine and are slightly more interesting to look at and add to the rest of the composition of the cover.

I feel that I was ok with the software as I've been using it for over a year now so I didn't really learn much from doing these and didn't have any problems that I can recall, however I think the music magazine looks better because I was able to use the software to a higher standard with better imagery and having looked at quite a few front covers of magazines to get ideas on how to fade images out and make them stand out, which I hadn't thought about when doing the preliminary.

Technologies

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The main program that I used to compose all of my music magazine was Adobe PhotoShop CS4 as it seems the best program in which to do so, it's easy to edit and manipulate your imagery and then arrange it all together once you've finished.
Other programs I used were 'dafont.com' which I used to get most of the typography on my magazine.

I used 'Flickr' to analyse things like front covers and contents pages etc of other music magazines, this helped me to get an idea of the different elements incorporated and for what reasons, so that i could then apply this to my own magazine.

Target Audience

Who would be the audience for your media product?













This is an image of the band 'You Me At Six', and this is what I imagine my target audience to look like, relatively young, up to date with fashion, like to have fun, sociable with most, more likely to be so with people with similar interests such as music taste and hobbies.
I feel that my target audience would listen to a range of music, mainly sub genres from under rock music, so this could include metal to blues to pop punk and acoustic.

They would shop at some 'mainstream' places such as River Island, TopMan/TopShop, Burton, also some more genre specific which cater for more band based clothing, Internet stores such as 'dropdeadclothing.com', 'attitudeclothing.co.uk' and 'ebtm.com' would be included.
I feel it would be important to know what kind of places my audience shops at and what types of products they purchase as when it comes to advertising space in the magazine, this would hopefully make them want to advertise in the magazine and continue to do so if it had a positive effect on their sales income.

I feel they would be into Tv shows such as Never mind the Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Family Guy and music channels such as Kerrang! and Scuzz.

I feel they would buy my magazine as it is fairly similar to Kerrang!, which is dubbed 'the world's biggest selling weekly rock magazine', except mine is not so much less genre specific but has a bit of a wider variation and includes a few more elements such as music tabalature and a bit of lifestyle within it. The name 'Pulse' sounds quite contemporary and youthful, the typography used links nicely to the name and has a bit of an edgy look about it. The audience are also offered posters, feedback, gig reviews and dates, the opportunity to learn songs with tips from the composers and some fashion and lifestyle tips.

Institutions

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The publisher/distributor has a very important part in each of the magazines they produce. One of their key responsibilities is to attract the target audience through a number of ways. Advertising and marketing; where they'd do it would have to be thought about, whether it be posters, Tv ads, radio broadcasts etc. When, which times of day, when they are most likely to have the attention of the target audience and how often etc. Next would be the distribution, how many copies, to which stores, how often it's released etc.

I would ideally like to use a well known company which would not only be very capable of advertising and distributing my magazine but would give my magazine some instant credibility (with it being with a large, well established company). So the company I would like to advertise my magazine would be Bauer. Bauer already holds music magazines such as Mojo, Q and Kerrang!, which is the Uks biggest weekly selling music magazine, so they obviously know what they are doing when it comes to advertising them. Although my magazine is quite similar to Kerrang! is does have it's own USP. Kerrang!'s audience profile according to Bauer is 'Individually minded, independent of thought and musicallly experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty'. However my magazine has a broader range of music, appealing hopefully to a slightly different audience as well as the same. It also has the music to learn from each of the bands on the cover which I would say is it's main USP which would attract a more musically orientated audience.

My magazine could be advertised on Tv and in other Bauer magazines to increase it's exposure. It could be marketed using similar selling techniques like, free posters/stickers, meet and greets and cds. It could then be sold in places like supermarkets, newsagents and shops like WH Smith's that sell a huge variety of magazines. I also feel shops like HMV and other music shops as I feel this is where quite alot of my audience would shop.

Lastly on the internet on sites like play.com, amazon.com etc or having it's own website could be effective.

Representation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?




















On the left is the cover from the weekly rock magazine 'Kerrang!' and on the right is the cover for my music magazine 'Pulse'.

I have decided to compare this front cover to mine because they contain a few of the same elements and I would say that Kerrang! would be the magazine that mine would be most similar to.

The main image on each of the covers are quite similar, they are very in your face and have subjective gazes to grab the attention of the reader. The lighting in the Kerrang! front cover is much brighter and the face looks very smooth whereas my photo is pretty much as it was taken and I haven't messed around with the levels of it. Both images are close up shots and neither of the figures are smiling, which could possibly set tones for the articles about them.

The coverlines and other images have been placed around the main image and over the top of the chest region of the figures, sort of framing the face of each of them.

I would say that the demographics would be quite similar between the magazines, I buy and read Kerrang! every week and took a lot of my influences from the magazine so they are bound to be aimed at a similar audiences. I would say that my magazine is possibly aimed at a slightly younger audience and including more recent bands rather than old classic bands, I think the average age of my reader would be late teens to early 20s, where as Kerrang! appeals to a generation above this as well as the younger. Again I think any race or gender is likely to read it, maybe a slightly bigger male audience than female though.
I think that all areas would read the magazine, north and south, however more urban areas as they are closer to the cities in which most gigs are at.
I think that the magazine would be aimed more toward the individuals, however I feel it may slightly fall into the category of 'mainstreamers' at times, with some of the bands that are featured being classified as 'pop punk' but being appealing to a more mainstream audience.

Double Page Spread Developments

Front Cover Development