My Magazine

My Final Magazine in full chronological order. 

when creating my magazine i decided not to just make a cover, contents and a double page spread but try and make a few more features in my magazine. 

So i made a Front cover, Contents page, An album of the month, A page of tracks of the month, an advert, A double page spread linking to the front cover & a double page spread of photos like a poster page. 

when I was designing my front cover I decided to make it similar to many main magazines having an obvious headline, that stand out from the background also having a subline with the main headline in this case I have surrounded 'THE SHEIKS' with 'The best live band around at the moment' to give the reader some detail but also wanting more when looking at the front cover.





above is the contents page on the left, complete with an album review on the right. I felt like if I was creating a magazine, with a front cover, a contents page and a double page spread I wanted to give the magazine more context and character, even if it does count towards anything I feel like creating extra pages would make it look more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

above is on the left is would be 'songs of the week/month' in any other magazines. I felt to add this would make my magazine look better. on the right is a simple advert for an album sale

above is my double page spread/interview. I decided to make this a plain and simple looking structured spread. on the left page is what would be considered a short biography about the story of the band and then an interview with each members answer for the question. the colour scheme for the whole magazine is represented  well on this page.

 

 

Evaluation 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

- i think the main way I've managed to attract my target audience is through the mature language used in it, the colour schemes, the photo's and even the content in the magazine. The language I've used would not be used in a pop magazine, it is purely used due to the fact i know that 10 year olds would not read my magazine. the colour scheme i would consider as mature because of the black and white photo's, writing & backgrounds. the photos along with the content are ones of more grown up music, mature band ands just the whole look of the magazine. 

Evaluation 6

What have you learnt about technologies in the process of creating this product?

-      - when creating this magazine, i used multiple different software’s to create the edited photos, logo and the final magazine, and used a professional camera for the first time in taking the photo's I needed. Editing the photo i used Serif Photoplus, I normally use Adobe Photoshop but i decided to use serif to create my photo. I took the photo on a professional camera borrowed from school, in order to use the photo on my front cover. When i had already got my photos i used serif photoplus to create an edit on my photo, i wanted the photo to have a certain warmth to it and i used a filter that when zoomed closer to the photo is visible, that it has a red and blue tinge to somewhat make it look 3D even though it was not 3D. The changed the contrast and colours to a warmer, added a filter and a vignette around the outside to darken the corners of the photo slightly. when i had finally decided that my photo was edited enough i then saved the photo as a jpeg and moved it across into Microsoft Publisher. Once i had designed my logo on a separate publisher document, and moved it into the document with the jpeg edited image of my 'bands' photo. 

Evaluation 4

Target audience, how you found out what you believe to be your target audience?

- When deciding and finding out who my target audience would be for my magazine i had to look at many factors, magazines that are already out that are similar to my own, and doing my research to find out what their target audience would be. My magazine's genre is indie rock/alternative, therefore i had to look at other magazines that are based around indie rock and alternative music, so i decided to research 'NME' to gather info about my magazines target audience. the target audience for NME is mostly males aged 16-24 therefore id say the target market for my magazine is young adults from 16-25 due to the colour schemes, photos and mature language withheld in the magazine. 

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent a  particular social group?

- i feel like with my magazine having a name abbreviated for 'New Alternative Music' (NAM) was the best way for me to make it obvious as to which 'social' group my magazine was aimed to portray/represent. Indie Music/Alternative rock music, is the music genre i aimed my magazine towards, based solely on NME which features its magazine around indie rock with a few spin offs from time to time to allow diversity in the issues. I think the main reason it would represent a social group is due to what music features in it. mentions of Arctic Monkeys and even my band 'the sheiks' as to which are described in the magazine as a 'indie rock band' and mentioning things here and their that are to do with the alternative scene, festivals such as Glastonbury a festival that is heavily endorsed by big rock and indie bands. even the colour scheme I would say has a certain bland original feel to it. maybe this is due to the copious amount of greyscale photos I have put in my magazine. or the simple black and white colour scheme on the masthead. 

Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media product?

- I based my magazine around the well known and loved NME (new musical express) the forms that they use for their bold mast head, their logo which is clear and the usual content expected from NME, on new up and coming bands, and some of the biggest bands/artists from around the world have featured in it included the likes of Elvis Presley, Arctic Monkeys, Foals & even Kanye West. 

i think my magazine uses conventions in the style of the mag. It uses the same style 3 letter abbreviated for a longer phrase.. (NME = New Musical Express. NAM = New Alternative Music) for example. 

here are two magazine overs, the one on the right is my rough copy and the one of the left is one published by NME of Alex Turner. On NME they have many plugs on mine i have one main plug but a large main cover line to show the reader what and who is my magazine about. 

Evaluation 7

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

- looking back on my preliminary task (which was to design a school magazine) i think that when i have designed my magazine i had a pretty good idea as to what i wanted it to be look like, something plain, yet catchy.. having a strong masthead which was bold, for the actual magazine i decided on a name pretty early into design, and what i wanted it to mean, so NAM (New Alternative Music) was what i decided on. i knew i had to have plugs on the covers of my mag. i feel the way i designed my magazine is of a high standard and has a professional look which is what i aimed for with the magazine. my preliminary task (1st below) was a rough cover which i was still getting used to knowing what different features to use to create a magazine. once i had designed a masthead logo (bottom) i started to play around with the software and decided to create two rough magazine covers to give myself a feeling oh what i want my magazine to look like. (two in middle) i think it is visible to see the difference between the first design idea and where i have had longer and took my time to create two magazine covers to a high standard and to make them look as professional as possible. 

Evaluation 3

What media institution might distribute your magazine and why?

- when thinking about how to distribute my magazine, I have to take into consideration the fact that their is three different ways of publicising them. Independent Publishing, Self Publishing & Major Publishing.  

I researched who publishes NME magazine, and as due to the fact I believe that if I was to publish my magazine I would send it off and like it to be published & distributed by Time Inc. UK formerly known as IPC media. Time Inc. sells over 350million copies of magazines worldwide every year, the company have a huge portfolio and I believe that if my magazine was to become a real issue every month id like Time Inc. to publish it, any company with the same networks and knowledge, also produces NME and many other well known magazines such as LIFE magazine and WorldSoccer which I read too, But for my magazine to gain recognition and the respect as to what I would want it to I would want it published and distrusted by TimeInc.

When deciding which publishers would be the best, Bauer media group came into mind because they produce good magazines such as Q & Kerrang! but both of which aren't the same genre as my magazine therefore I would not like it to be published amongst a Major Pop music mag and a rock/heavy rock mag. I did seriously consider it though, due to the fact the Bauer media group would have huge connections and a big following and maybe they have room for a successful Indie music magazine amongst the other two major music magazines.

Magazine photos

When deciding what photo's and what to wear in them, my idea was pretty simple.. 'try and look like an indie rock band' & wear things that were abhorrent yet strangely worked... like one of my friends in my photos wore a tartan coloured t shirt (blue and red) with a fur coat... thinking about it, it shouldn't work, yet in context for my magazine it did. this photo (below) in the magazine was not in colour, i decided to use a greyscale filter in order to fit three separate photos together for my double page spread. all these photos are the ones I've used. 

this photo was used as my main cover photo, the left one is the unedited version, the one on the right one was used as my main cover photo and the middle photo is my rough final magazine cover. the composition of this photo is one that many of bands and major magazines use, with the main singer.. in this case, me at the front looking blankly into the camera with the rest of the band in the back ground positioned so that they are still noticeable. Many magazines use this technique when taking photos as shown below.

these photo's are original photos i took and are within the magazine itself.