Music magazine Evaluation
Included in my piece of coursework, I have used typical conventions of a music magazine: a bold mass head, a main background image with the people included being who the main interview is aimed at, the magazine’s website, continuity with the images used (setting of the photos, costumes, style, hair, makeup), competitions included in the magazine, features included within the magazine, a barcode, magazine price, a definite colour scheme, etc. The reason I have used a variety of typical music magazine conventions is because of the fact that my product is a music magazine and therefore some conventions need to be followed in order for my product to be recognised as a music magazine. Obviously, I have included a barcode as it is obviously required as part of purchasing the magazine as well as the price included on the cover. I have included a mass head and the magazine’s website so that my target audience is familiar with the magazine – this also goes for the colour scheme of the magazine. Without regards to the website, this had been included so that if chosen to, my target audience can read more information on the magazine itself and read more of what is featured in the magazine - a prime example of this being included in the interview which says ‘get more gossip backstage at www.boptothemusic.com’.
I opted to use continuity with regards to the photos I decided to use as I think, as well as the continuous colour theme, to make my magazine have a more professional look and to fit in with the convention look of a music magazine. Obviously, my front cover needs to attract attention from my target audience, not just because of the visual images, but because of what is included in the magazine itself. Therefore, I decided to feature competitions as it is more of less a definite way in which to get people to buy the magazine, especially when big and famous starts are included, or popular branded things are included (like iTune vouchers). However, I have decided pacifically not to follow some of the conventions of a music magazine; I have not featured any strap lines, quotations within the magazine or headlines. The reason I have not used these features is because I wanted to give my magazine a sense of individuality in comparison to other music magazines and I wanted my magazine to slightly stand out from other music magazines in the same genre and not follow all the same typical magazine conventions in an attempt to make my magazine seem more appealing and more individual – as people who enjoy indie music like being themselves as well. However, I didn’t want my magazine to stand out too music as I didn’t want to risk it standing out in a bad way and for my target audience to look bad on my magazine.
I think that my magazine represents the social group of stereotypical indie teenagers – whom fall into grade E of the social group (university and college students, people with part time jobs, etc). A social group of people who enjoy going to gigs, listening and finding newly discovered indie talent – who are not mainstream and listening, dressing and living in a indie themed life. Those people being in the social group typically being from the age of 16/late 20’s. The way in which I got this specific statistic is from asking a range of people ‘What age range of people do you think would buy this magazine’ – most people answer in this age range – thus I used my researched to decide on the social ground of which my magazine represented.
I feel that my magazine would be distribute as the same institution that distributes the music magazine NME – IPC. The reason for this is because my music magazine and NME share a lot of the same qualities and music magazine conventions. One of the biggest similarity is the fact that they both target the specific genre of the indie music genre – therefore both sharing the same target audience.
The target audience of my music magazine are people 16/to late 20’s. The reason why I have chose people in this age range to target my magazine at is because stereotypically, people who fall into this age range, and social group are interested in indie culture and indie music. Due to this information, it is obviously clear that people in this age and social range would be the most likely candidates for buying this genre of music magazine.
I have featured certain things on and in my magazine to address my target audience. These include costume/clothe choice, props and gender choice. When each of these decisions were made, my target audience were constantly taking into consideration. I have included a boy and a girl on my front cover – doing this, it widens the gender of those who buy the magazine showing that it is a magazine made for male and female audiences, making my target audience a non narrowed audience. I decided my ‘celebrities’ would wear clothes that relate to the magazine’s genre of music as well as the audience. The magazine’s music genre being indie, I decided that it would only be suitable for the featured musicians to wear indie styled clothes. Also, the clothes worn by the features musicians being clothes that my target audience wear and can also wear themselves – meaning the featured musicians relate to the target audience members. Additionally, I decided to use a prop in my photos - a guitar. There were three reasons for this; one – the use of a guitar directly relates to the fact that my magazine is a music magazine, two – due to the popularity of people learning musical instruments in my target audience’s age range, I thought that the use of a popularly played instrument would be a good idea to be included so that the range of people that play said instrument can relate to and can be interested in and three – linking with the second point, the guitar is one of the most affordable instruments to play and therefore, making the guitar one of the most popular instruments to play.
I have learnt a lot about the range of technologies used within the magazine industry whilst constructing this product, the main being Adobe Photoshop. I used Adobe Photoshop on each of my original photos I decided to include in my final product and used photo shop to edit photos, add text and backgrounds and put double spread pages together. I decided to use Adobe Photoshop due to the popularity of the programme, as well as being a very good way in which to edit photos to make them look better and add a more professional finish. When I first used the product, it was a hard adjustment to use and I struggled using it and finding each way to edit different things due to being more popularly known with Corel PaintShopPro. However, after time, I became more familiar with the programme and got used to each way in editing my product. I found it very useful in editing and enhancing my photos, giving them a professional look like photos included in other music magazines. Additionally, I have learnt a lot about cameras and photography, this including; how to use a professional camera (the different settings, how to zoom in and out using the actual lens of a camera) and camera angles (technical terms).
My preliminary task was to make a front cover and a draft of it’s content page for a college magazine. I feel, for one of my first tasks, that I did quite well with using a professional camera for one of the first times, having to take into consideration camera angles and using an editing software that I was not familiar with. However, after learning more about media; using Adobe Photoshop, learning about each stylistic, camera shots, about magazine institutions and researching magazines I feel that the task I have done now, is a lot better for different reasons. The progression I have gone through from the preliminary task is quite massive. My work now on my music magazine is quite a big change due to the knowledge I know. I have been able to edit photos on a larger scale using a variety of stylistics within the editing software. I now know the concept of analysing something more thoroughly by using LIIAR (Language, Ideology, Institution, Audience, Representation) which helped me learn about the codes and conventions of a magazine as well as a magazine specifically aimed at one thing (e.g indie music).
However, although I have learnt a lot through time, I still faced some problems. A huge problem I faced was with regards to the internet. I have a limited access to the internet and therefore, sometimes I felt rushed in my work and sometimes it ended up my work wasn’t as good as it could have been. As well as this, the website Blogger constantly crashed and wouldn’t let me upload images and text therefore, a huge problem was created with regards to getting the work up and on the internet in time for deadlines. If I were to do this again, I would refuse to hand in any work through the internet and instead, I would make arrangements so that I could print off my work and hand it in face to face to stop all the confusion and time hassle.
