Music Magazine Evaluation

Media Evaluation- Music Magazine

For my media project I was assigned to create a music magazine including these features; a front cover, a contents page and a double page spread of an article from a music genre of my choice. I chose to conduct a Funky House/ Garage UK genre, directing the audience at females in their teens, more directed at a London audience- as this is where this genre of music is more popular and established.

I have been able to develop my music magazine to fit the original forms and conventions of existing magazines in the media industry by trying to make my media product as realistic as I could. Before creating the media product, I carried out numerous research tasks and was able to develop my knowledge with a better understanding of the magazine industry than I already have- as I previously created a children’s magazine at GCSE media. For example, I researched different types of genres of music magazines, as well as creating a questionnaire on http://www.surveymonkey.com/ which enabled me to send on the questionnaire via the internet on email and social networking sites such as Facebook, getting different people to fill in the survey. This enabled me to discover what was more popular within the general public including; genres of music, affordable prices of magazines, features included in magazines and more. This then helped me to think and choose what type of magazine I would be creating and what I would include in it. I decided to pick a genre of music which I enjoyed listening to, as I would have more knowledge in this area, and furthermore, I would enjoy creating the product, therefore I choose to develop my magazine with a Funky House and Garage genre. I also chose this as I think it’s a fairly popular genre within London for teenagers. As another research task, I researched into the use of PhotoShop which was posted in the blog for the ‘School Magazine’ project. I carried out research on the manipulation of images as I was interested in how models are perceived to be perfect in the media industry. I was shocked when I found a clip on ‘YouTube’ on how editors change images to completely transform the images they use in the media- which relates to the edits I may experiment with when creating the product on PhotoShop: (CLINK LINK) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcFlxSlOKNI&feature=PlayList&p=D0125E3C2C4FC54F&index=0
This clip helped me get a better understanding of how PhotoShop can really change the whole look of someone, and how PhotoShop has affected society, especially with weight problems throughout the media.

My music magazine is able to develop the forms of a real music magazine as I have stuck to the original conventions to create a professional effect, making it seem more realistic. For example, I made sure that the genre of my magazine was represented within the use of imagery, colours, fonts and language that I included within my magazine which are typical conventions of a magazines structure. This was also so that my magazine could attract its target audience to make sure the magazine would be successful. I also stuck to typical conventions throughout the magazine such as, including a barcode on the front cover, a price, the magazines website, the issue number, page numbers, headings, subheadings and more. This made my magazine seem more realistic and well presented for the reader, catching their attention.

My magazine doesn’t particularly represent certain social groups, however it is preferably targeted at teens that enjoy Funky House music, as well as Garage. I wanted to make my magazine welcoming for all different types of teenagers therefore, I didn’t include misunderstanding slang in my text which might only be recognised by a particular social group. I simply represented the genre of music for my magazine, rather than making particular people feel as though the magazine isn’t directed at them which would reduce the magazines popularity.
My music magazine might be distributed by a larger type of media institution, as my magazine involved some mainstream artists in which could be quite expensive to include them, as well as giving interviews etc. Furthermore, a smaller media institution may not necessarily have enough funds to promote the magazine as much is needed to get the magazine established within the industry.

My audience for my music magazine is aimed at females in their teenage years in the UK, mainly in London, as the artists within the magazine are from London and are more established in this area. My magazine represents the target audience (females) through aspects such as the type of people who are included in my magazine- such as girly female artists, as well as the feminine colours, fonts and type of friendly language. I made sure that everything featured in my magazine would try to be of interest to my particular target audience, which I think in the final product it shows this.After I developed ideas and then began creating the project, I found it fairly difficult to begin with as I was introduced to new programmes such as Adobe PhotoShop 7.0- which I had never really used before. I then experimented numerous times so that I could get used to the programme before starting initial ideas for my magazine. Below is some before/ after images when I manipulated them on PhotoShop:

BEFORE -> AFTER

FINAL Front Cover

Final Front Cover:

I was a lot happier with the results of my final front cover which I created, shown above. I thought it looked a lot more sophisticated and feminine than the first draft, and it also didn't look as childish. I also think it is able to represent the target audience of whom my magazine is targeted at- being female teens into Funky and Garage music. I have been able to interest and catch my target audience's attention by using slogans such as 'iTunes Vouchers to be won'. This could attract the audience as they assume they're getting more for their money when buying the magazine. Furthermore 'A chance to win cash...' would also interest the audience as, again, they will be getting more for their money. In addition to this, I have been able to use similar colours which makes the front cover seem more neatly organised and not as 'clashy', this also makes it clear that the magazine is directed at females. As I have overlapped some text on the image, I changed the font colour, as it was unclear what the text read, because of how similar the colours of the imagery and text were, so it was too difficult to read. Different font's for the text were used all over the page, to make it look more interesting for the reader, capturing their eye, for example on the more colourful fonts first.
Underneath the title of the magazine, I also included a web page for my magazine. This is a way of promoting Funky Fuse, as well as giving the customer the option to search up Funky Fuse online, getting all the new tracks. Overall, I am much happier with how my front cover has improved from my initial ideas.

Front Cover

My first attempt at the front cover:

Above is the first front cover I was developing. I wasn't happy with how it looked, as I thought it was too plain and didn't represent the apearance of a real magazine front cover. I also thought there were too many colours used which wouldn't reflect my target audience, as it doesn't look feminine enough and looks too childish for the age of my targeted audience. Therefore, I re-did the front cover.

Contents page

This is the contents page for my music magazine. I wanted it to connect with my article and front cover by using very similar colours, as well as the 'star' brush pattern I have used on every page which almost acts as a logo/symbol for my magazine.

The image of Rihanna was taken by me when I recently went to one of her concerts at the 02 Arena. I think it works well as the photo was taken from the audiences perspective, almost as though the reader of the magazine is really seeing her in person too. The image of 'Fenix Taylor' was also taken by me of a friend, which relates to the article too as she plays the role of a UK artist. On the bottom left of the contents page, there is a photograph which includes, myself and my cousins playing the role of the show 'X Factor' winners. Unfortunately, as I was included in the photo I wasn't able to take the picture myself, therefore I got someone to take it for me on how I wanted it to look. I think all the imagery works well together, by using different camera shots and different sizes, organizing them on the page neatly by cropping and manipulating them on Photoshop.

I thought of different pages which could be included in my magazine to give my contents page a more interesting, realistic feel. For example, 'Primark VS River Island', I thought of this idea because shopping now especially through this ecological crisis with the recession is a major downfall for many people, therefore consumers are choosing to shop at cheaper stores such as Primark. I thought this would be original to include in my magazine, making the readers get involved by sending in their thoughts, for example. Another page I created was, 'Rihanna’s drastic change. Is her new image better than her good girl act?'. This is because Rihanna has recently become popular within different genres through the music industry, especially after her dramatic trauma with RnB star Chris Brown, and her image and style of music has completely changed from her very first album when she was just a teenager.

The editors letter I also included which welcomes the readers, as well as making the contents page look more realistic as I discovered many magazines within the industry include this.

Overall, I think I am fairly happy with how my contents page has turned out. I think that it fits in well with the genre of my magazine, and could really engage the target audience I chose.


Below is the final contents page I created. I just added some extra page numbers with features, as I thought I should add some more Funky House and Garage artists:

Double page spread- Article (Interview)

Interview with Funky House music artist- Fenix Taylor

This is my improved article for my music magazine. I made it more colourful and eye catching which looks more exciting to read, capturing the audiences attention, making them want to read on. I cropped images of the music artist and used different sizes making it look more exciting. I also used 'Render-> Lens flare' effect on the artists image to almost give a celebrity affect, making a spotlight on her. Other tools were also used such as, the airbrush tool, rubber, blur, sharpen, smudge which I used again, on the images of the artist to touch up. The background of the article was initially just the pink colour, however I thought it was too plain and didn't look like a typical magazine article. I therefore added some pictures (stamps) which I used from the pattern stamp tool, using different colours making it look more fun for the reader.

FINAL ARTICLE
Above is the final article for my music magazine. I added page numbers to make it seem more realistic, following the conventions of a magazine article, I also noticed a mistake within the text as it says 'Charlie' for the artists name in the previous article which I had changed, therefore I touched up the final article to correct it. Overall, I am very happy with how my article developed, as I think I have shown improvements from my initial ideas. Furthermore, I think I have been able to stick to the typical conventions of a music magazine of this type of genre and have been able to keep my article of interest to my target audience.

Developing the front cover

When I originally started creating my front cover experimenting with different ideas. I noticed that the figures hand on the front cover had been distorted, therefore I had to crop the hand from the original image and fix it onto my front cover. I also did this around the mouth area, when I saw that this technique worked quite well.
This is the first stage I got to when developing my front cover:

Images

I took a range of images of a friend, who was representing the young female music artist in my magazine. I took a variety of images from different angles which I would use for my magazine, some shown below:

High angle camera shot:

Medium shot:

Medium shot:

High angle shot:

I decided to use the image shown below for the front cover of my magazine as I thought it looked quite 'funky' and jolly, which not only represents the magazines genre, but also the audience being young, outgoing females.
Medium shot: