Evaluation Question Slide Show:By Nicola Roberts

1) In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazine?

•In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazine? My magazine is made up from a development of different edits and designs which are based on an a existing music magazine called KERRANG. KERRANG use disfigured font to emphasize the style of music which is portrayed in the magazine which is Rock and Punk which corresponds to the disfigured font as it loud and the music is breaking through the font. Therefore I wanted to take the effectfulness of the font and include it in my font and I feel that I created this effect in many different ways. Firstly, my font style is very fun and bold and this portrays POP music because POP music is fun and very upbeat. The font letters are also in a box, and I feel that this emphasizes that POP music is portrayed to be for the younger generation as the style of pop music has to be fun and to ensure that the younger generation can listen to pop music, therefore the boxes symbolises that every generation can listen to it because it doesn’t follow other genres of the music culture that represent violence, sex and swearing.

KERRANG magazine also has one main image on the front cover. I wanted to develop and use this existing image technique as I do not want other photos of other artists to overpower then main artist that my magazine is trying to promote therefore I used just one Image like KERRANG has. However I wanted to challenge KERRANGE as the magazine has many smaller images which go around the outside of the magazine. I feel that by having so many images of the front page is very over-powering to the audience because there is so much going on in the cover; therefore I wanted to portray a simpler font cover by only having one main image and no little images around the font cover.

2) What Kind of Institution might distribute your music magazine and why?

As a POP culture magazine, I want to distribute my magazine is shops that are very popular with my target audience, as these are shops that my target audience goes to. After researching different supermarkets and music shops, I have decided to distribute my magazine is supermarkets called Sainsbury and Marks and Spencer’s. I feel that these supermarkets are very popular with my target audience as these supermarkets attracts my target audience by selling a range of different fashion products and beauty products which appeal to my target audience. Both superstores sell foods and other resources and are both very popular with the older generation as well, therefore I think it would benefit my music magazine to be sold in these superstores.

I have also decided to sell my magazine is music distributor’s such as HMV and ZAVVI. These music shops are well promoted as they sell a range of different genres of Music which varies from POP to Punk to Rap. HMV and SAVVI have many different stores around the UK which benefits my magazine as my magazine will be broad casted across the UK. By my magazine being broad casted around the UK the magazine will have more of an audience as more people have a chance to purchase the magazine. Also, it would be beneficial to sell magazine in a music shop as these is where my target audience goes to pick up the newest POP CD or they go to see what new POP artists have released an album. As my magazine will be sold in superstores and music shops, I believe my magazine will be very successful as it is sold were my target audience go. However, I will distribute my music magazine in local news agent across London because some of my target audience do not visit superstores or music shops. It is also easier for some of my audience to pick it up from their local newsagent as it may be closer to where they live. There are many advantages about selling my magazine is large superstores and shops. The main advantage is that as it so popular, they have a very larger audience, as well as very loyal and regular customers who go these shops oftenly.

HMV is the most successful music shop therefore I think its important for a larger amount of magazines to be distributed there, as they have a larger audience visiting the shop. The best time of year to distribute my magazine is at Christmas time, were thousands of people per day visit these shops trying to find Christmas presents.

I have researched different music magazine prices that are sold in the superstores, and they range from £2.00 to £4.00ish. I feel that £2. 00 is very cheap while £4.00 is to expensive for my audience to afford on a weekly bases, therefore I decided for a price that’s in between these 2 figures. I decided to sell my magazine at £2.50 as this is a fair and reasonable price which is affordable to my target audience.

Currently, X-Factor is the biggest music show in the UK and is watched by millions of viewers each week. X factor has a magazine which contains all the latest gossip from the X factor stars, and what song each contestant will be singing. This will be my main magazine competitor as the X factor already has millions of local fans that buy the magazine each week. However my magazine will offer a range of different articles from different POP stars however the X factor magazine can only offer article’s from the contestants on the show.Overall, I hope my magazine will be a national market across the UK as I want a large audience to read my magazine weekly. I will achieve this market as I will be distributing my magazine across the UK. It will also have a small local market as I will be distributing my magazine in local news agent across London to make it easier for my target audience to buy.

As you can see HMV is very large, and hold a large consistency of Different CD’s which are available to buy.

3) Who would be the audience for your music magazine?

My music magazine genre is POP culture. I feel that POP culture has a bigger base of music covering it and is very popular with the younger and older generation. This is important because more people like POP music, therefore this magazine will appeal to them. However My Target audience for my music magazine is teen from 17 to young women to the age of 24. I wanted my music magazine to be targeted at this age group as I feel that this is the age group that is more into a diverse POP culture therefore are more likely to buy the magazine. I am also in this age group therefore I thought it would be easier to aim a Magazine at my age group as I Know what this age group likes, what style of music is new on the music scene and what new artists are about therefore with this knowledge I thought it would be best to aim my magazine at a age group around mine as I can cater for their needs because I know what the needs are for this age group.

This image is from the film called “mean girls”. I watched this film to gain a in depth feel of how teenage girls like there life. This film shows the negative side of teenage girls, as the film often refers to sex and violence and swear words. This is a negative impact of the young generations as they are judged by this time. It also portrays the struggles they go though in school, and they survive this by “bitching” about eachother, which is again stereotypical as not all teenage girls bitches:

I decided to target my magazine at women, because I feel that women are more likely to buy a music magazine then men because women are more into the latest music news and the latest celebrity news. I also researched other magazine (not music magazines such as glamour, vogue, heat ) which prompt celebrity news, music and fashion and these magazines are aimed at women because women are more up to date on the fashion and music. This is a copy of glamour magazine, and as you can see it is promoting teen pop sensation Miley cyrus who is one of the most famous people in the world right now. This proves that glamour magazine also promotes Pop artists such as Miley, therefore my magazine can gain help from glamour as it is already so popular with my target audience. Therefore from this I decided it would be best to target my magazine as women.

I then decided to target my magazine at teens from 17 to the age of 24. I feel that this age are more likely to buy my magazine as these are the age groups that buy magazines, as these age group is mostly into the pop culture. For my magazine, it will not be targeted at any social class, so that everyone who wants my magazine can buy it as I want a diverse audience to buy the magazine. My target audience are also very diverse, as they also listen to other music genres, however Because POP is the biggest music genre, I believe my magazine will make more of an impacted. As my magazine is aimed at students and young adults, there are less likely to earn money however they may have other resources available to them such as EMA, therefore they can afford to buy my music magazine. They spend extra cash on their interest which are beauty and fashion as these are very important to women. During their spare time, the oftenly go shopping and watch television or are socialising with friends.

4)How did you attract/ address the audience for you music publication?As I decided what gender and what age group to target my music magazine at, I wanted to ensure that my magazine was targeted at them and cater their needs in many ways by making sure that my magazine includes what my customers expect from a magazine. I firstly had to ensure that the typography of the magazine was aimed at them. Therefore I had to select colours and a font that would best represent this age group. From this I decided to pick 2 different fonts to represent different types of women that may be reading the magazine. The first font is black very bold and fun and this portrays fun women who are very care fun and who focus on having a good time and living fun to the fullest. The font also could symbolise rebelling and the font is nearly breaking through the boxes which portrays women breaking the rules and I want my magazine to attract these types of women. The second font is very tender and soft and this symbolises women because women are portrayed to by the caring sex as how take on the responsibility to lead a “mothering role” and I feel that this font best represents these types of women. These fonts symbolises the different types of women in the world therefore I believe that the fonts caters to different types of women. I then had to select a colour scheme for my magazine. The colour scheme would run through the magazine therefore I had to ensure that the colours used would attract my target audience. I decided to pick pink and black. I feel that Pink is the best colour to represent women and teens as it a very fun and feminine colour. Also pink is seen to be women’s favourite colour; therefore my target audience will know the magazine is aimed at them just from the colours that are used. By also using a female artist in the main image, this also attracts my target audience, because the artist in the picture represents music, beauty and fashion and these are the things which my target audience are into therefore I felt that it was important for the artist on the front cover to display these interest that all women have.

These are the colours which I used to attract my audience. I chose the colours . The pink is very feminine and the black is very good which makes up a good contrasts.

5)Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have processed increasingly as my skills have developed throughout the preliminary task. This is due to my skills being developed on Photoshop as this is where I created my Preliminary task of my front cover and Contents Page. My skills that I have learned are editing my font and pictures using different Layering Style to change the effects on my photos and Typographies. This skill was developed by me changing the effects regularly to see what effects are best suited for the specific type of photo or font. By changing the effect of each photo/font I got a better understanding on what the software has to offer with the different effects. Also I got a keen skill for understanding and developing my fonts as I used my skills to add colours to each font For my preliminary task I used quite a basic font with a few effects as I made the font glow. This font was fun but it wasn’t appealing and did not attract the audience’s eye. Therefore, while creating my music magazine typography, I used the editing I learnt and inputted this into my font to make it bold and appealing. I believe that my music magazine font is more appealing as it uses 2 different font to appeal to a bigger audience of women, and this appeals to magazine to a larger audience. Also, looking back at my preliminary task images, I feel my images were very basic as I did not take them at good angles. I also didn’t focus on the background which ruins some of my images. While taking my images for my music magazine, I concentrated on the images intensely as I wanted my images to be perfect and I feel that having experience taking photos in my preliminary task helped my music magazine images as I know what angles I wanted as well as what I wanted in the background. On my preliminary magazine, the magazine looks very bland and dull as It does not have a lot of information telling the audience what is inside this week’s issue. By having no additional information on the front cover made the magazine look boring and this doesn’t seem appealing as no-one wants to read a boring magazine. From this, my music magazine has processed as I added additional features of different articles inside this week’s issue, making the magazine seem interesting and appealing. Also on my preliminary task, my magazine gave the audience no information, therefore on my music magazine I added a Barcode telling the audience of a price, the issue number and the date of the magazine. Overall, I believe I have progressed throughout the tasks as my key skills are also growing as I am understanding what the software has to offer, making my fonts and pictures more creative and excitable!.  

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

During the process of creating my magazine front cover, There were many technologies software's that I got the chance to use. These software's helped me developed my skills as I used them alot during the making of the music press magazine. I used this software's along the process of creating my music press magazine and my pre-lin task. I believe that these software's helped me dramatically and each of these software's have features which I used at least one during the creating stage.

Photoshop:As I created my pre-lin task and my music press magazine on Photoshop, I think that photoshop was the main software which I used. I loved using Photoshop as I had not had many experience using it, however over the creating process, I believe my skills increased as I learnt about the different effects which were available. Photoshop helped me a lot as well, as It made it easy to layout my magazine and contents page as the layers are handy as you can change the order of the layers. Skills that I learnt on photoshop were basic however they went into the process of making both my magazines. On photoshop the basic features which I mainly used were mostly the layering feature and the crop feature. The layering feature were a main feature as this is how I created the magazine by overlapping the different images and fonts. I also cropped my pictures oftenly to remove extra background pictures.

From using Photoshop for these task’s I now will use Photoshop in the future as It taught me how to edit and effect photos and typography that appeals to your target audience. Overall I think Photoshop is a great software to create documents on as it has many different features which are available ( see this link of –Photoshop skills).

Slideshare:

Slideshare is a great way to upload presentations onto the web. I used slide share to upload PowerPoint's that I done onto my blog. I found that this was necessary to upload my presenentations onto slideshare as this outputted my work in a different way and made my blog look more interesting

It was very easy to upload my blog onto slideshare, and took a short amount of time to do. This made it easy , and from this used slideshare again to upload a section presentation.

Da font:

Da-font was used in my designing stage. I wanted to create a font that was unique and different, and I felt that Photoshop different offer a variety of fonts as they were quite bland and plain, and these are not the fonts that I wanted. Therefore I went on Da-font as they have a range of different fonts. They have over 1000 fonts with different styles which are available to download.

It took me about 30 minutes to find a font as there were many to chose from. I searched through all the different fonts till I found the perfect font which I thought would best represent my magazine.

Da-font gave me a good selection of chose of typography, and this is why I used this lettering website. I thought this website was very easy as It was very easy to navigate around the page. One feature I also liked about da-font was that I could edit the font of paint which I done. I changed the colours of the font to white, and changed the background to black to add extra effect which I believe is successful to make my font bold and unique.

Microsoft Word:

I used Microsoft word to find the second type of font. I looked on Microsoft word, as these have more basic fonts which I wanted as my first font is very bold. I wanted a soft feminine font, therefore I believed that Microsoft word was best suited for this.

Microsoft word also has many features that are very popular with the users of Microsoft word. Firstly, it can create tables and graphs which I created on Microsoft word. The graphs and table were very easy to create as it was a very fast and quick process. This benefited my blog as it gave me different ways or outputting my information. From this I could also change the colours of my tables and graphs to make each section of the graph different.

Here are the range of different styles of font which are available.