Media AS TaskMusic Magazine Evaluation

By Adam Maestro

My media AS product is a music magazine, that devotes itself to live music, as well as new artists. Throughout the process of creating my media product, I gained a substantial amount of understanding of magazine creation, development and editing, through the use of several technological methods.

In addition, my understanding of the magazine industry increased by researching all the different areas that are required to produce and distribute a magazine. I used the major websites, blog posts and forums to help me understand how each sector works, as well as using major magazines such as 'Q', 'NME', 'Music Week'.

ESQUIRE MAGZINE

EMPIRE MAGAZINE

Non music magazines, such as 'Esquire' and 'Empire', were also helpful in giving me a basic understanding of how magazines are constructed.

WWW.ILIKEMUSIC.COM

THE FLY MAGAZINE

However, to get a more in-depth look into how I will create my magazine, I felt it was necessary to investigate local and independent magazines, such as 'ilikemusic' online magazine, and 'the fly' as these had a closer association with the magazine that I intended to create.

I decided to interpret some of the conventions of existing magazines such as including typical articles or features, so that my audience would recognise it as a legitimate and professional product. For example, the picture below demonstrates a conventional interview with an artist.

Unlike this Q magazine interview, My interviewAlso includes an additional feature to enhance The promotion of the featured artist, as well asPromote the magazine’s other media (e.g. Website, next week’s issue…)

After researching different magazines for different ideas, I came across 'Esquire' magazine, which I think has a great contents page, I decided to base my contents page on that. This is seen clearly with the feature which is placed at the bottom of my contents page, showing the readers that subscribed readers are given a 'special' covered magazine. This is done to entice the reader to subscribe monthly.

Furthermore, I decided to keep my front cover simple and have one main featured artist, who is constantly referred to throughout the magazine. This is based on most music magazines that I have read and thought that it has a great impact, as well as being a great way to promote a different artist each month. Financially, this idea is very good, as this generates high revenues from the artist's management.

Moreover, through my research I witnessed several occasions where magazines refer their audiences to their web sites or other media resources, therefore I decided to develop this by calling attention to my magazine's website as well as other media at every possible stage.

My magazine also challenges forms and conventions of real media products, as unlike any other music magazine I have come across, my magazine is dedicated to live music, as well as up and coming new artists. My magazine showcases and promotes unheard and unsigned acts.

My music magazine does not have a specific social group as such, however the sort of person who would read my magazine, would be one who enjoys live music, and is interested in new and up and coming artists. Furthermore, I believe that my magazine offers an amalgamated mix of NME and Music Week, as well as 'The Fly', thereby opening up the magazine to a large sector audience. By doing this, it has the added bonus of being an ideal source of information for those in the music industry.

I believe that I address my audience very well, as I very clearly express what my magazine is about, avoiding misinterpretations. This is clearly exposed in my front cover page:

In this section of the cover page, it is very clear that my magazine is concentrated on live music. By using a picture from an amateur gig, the reader can see that the featured artist is not a well known or popular musician, however my magazine introduces him to the world. This image is anchored with the the magazine's title "LIVE" and the slogan "Bringing You The Best Of Live Music", a very clear and straightforward way to tell the audience exactly what they will be reading when buying my magazine. In addition, by putting the links to the magazine's WebPages, I am giving the readers easy access to find out more about the featured artists in the magazine.

The media distribution company that I would approach regarding my magazine, would definitely be 'Bauer Media Group', because they are a major, top selling distribution company. However, my main reason for this is that it opens up the possibility to work along side 'NME' and 'Q' magazines and potentially give their audiences what those magazines can not deliver, or are losing over the years -dedication.

I have learnt a lot about technologies from the process of constructing this product. I learnt how to use 'Photoshop' constructively and creatively, to generate exactly what I wanted on my magazine.

In addition I obtained some photographic skills, by using different angles, lighting and lens correction to obtain the perfect images for my magazine. Furthermore, this project was the first time that I used a blog website, and during my research, I read many blogs and forums, all of which helped me to learn a lot and obtain a better understanding of the web resources that are available to me.

Looking back at my preliminary task, constructing a front cover page and contents page of a sixth form magazine, I feel that during the progress of that task and my final product (music Magazine) I have obtained many skills which helped me to create the final project. I also learnt that the most important factor of a creation of a magazine was to make it look professional, which my sixth form magazine lacked.

Also, my research into the magazine industry and how they are created, (including a talk with 'Jude Rogers' - a freelance, music writer/journalist) helped me a substantial amount in the creation of my own music magazine.

In conclusion, I am very happy with my final product, as it shows the progress that I have made throughout my first year studying Media Studies. In addition, I believe that I have obtained many different skills in several technologies, as well as gained a more in depth knowledge of the magazine industry.

FRONT COVER

CONTENTS PAGE

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD