Evaluation of Music magazine

Bethany Middlecoat

Who would be the audience of your media product?

I aim to target the young adult / late teen years with this Magazine (probably female), who are interested in music and possibly enjoys

seeing live performances from bands at festivals and concerts. I decided to target this audience through personal experience, as I

myself am a young person (at 18 I fit into the young adult category) who is interested in music and enjoys going to festivals and concerts

featuring my favourite bands. I took inspiration for my magazine from another called “Dazed and

Confused” which is a fashion / photography and music based magazine which targets the young adult population and also looked at

“Kerrang” music magazine briefly which is also aimed at a youthful audience too. 

My aim is for an audience to read this magazine while they have time to relax rather than on a commute, as a form of relaxation. I want my

audience to be looking to the magazine as a form of inspiration and hopefully attracting a more literate audience (such as the readers of

Vogue as compared to the readers of Heat).

In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products? (magazines)

My magazine challenges the complexity of most magazines. Lots of magazines such as Kerrang and NME use bold

complicated layouts (and stick with them through everything) whereas I chose to use a much more minimalist layout which I personally thinks makes it cleared and much easier for the reader of said magazine, especially as I found that the more simply designed magazines I found still had

ways of enticing you in. For the final product I based it around a maazine called Dazed

and Confused, which although this is a photography magazine gave me masses of inspiration just from looking

at the cover designs. Dazed and confused itself relies on an audience of late teen/ young adults therefore I thought be taking aspects of it and applying it to my own magazine I

would be able to attract a similar range of audience.

How does your media product represent a particular social group?

My Magazine represents several social groups.• The more youthful generation • people who listen to music

More specifically, people who listen to “indie” music or light rock music, such as bands like “Vampire Weekend” "Sia" and

"Mayday Parade". It also targets the people who enjoy going to the band’s concerts and performances as it features

concert reviews and chances to win festival tickets.I have used quite a high standard of language, avoiding cheesy

colloquial expressions but still with the ability to appeal to people as a magazine rather than an essay. The quotations on

the front cover refer directly to the article which helps the magazine flow rather than jump.

Photography wise I have used simple posed photographs, which seem accessible to the reader rather than a celebrity with piles

of makeup and designer clothes.

What kind of media institution might you distribute your media product to and why?

My music magazine would probably be distributed as a hard copy magazine, an online magazine and maybe even a phone application. I think this would happen

due to the demand of magazines now a-days to be more flexible. For example, now a-days it is not enough for a newspaper to be just a hard copy

and newspapers such as the guardian have had to develop online newspapers to keep up with demand and popularity.

The use of phone “apps” also shows that more and more people are downloading applications to be able to read the paper or magazines on their phones rather

than carrying around “bulky” papers. This is becoming the same for some magazines, e.g. Fashion magazines “Elle” and “Glamour” who have just

launched their new magazine apps.

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

Before starting this project I had not really had any experience with any media technologies, although I had Photoshop on my laptop at home I had rarely used it and I had no clue of how to properly. On the other hand with photography itself I thought I was fairly competent, having acquired my own digital camera when I was younger and from having a passion for taking photographs of everything.For this project I have used a wide range of

technologies:• Adobe In-Design • Adobe Photoshop • Blogger.com • A digital SLR camera (cannon) • My digital camera (Richo) • photography studio exquipment ( lights mainly)

Continued...

I think that from being a complete novice when it comes to design programs I have now become

fairly competent with Adobe Photoshop and In-design, which will become very useful as I

am wishing to study art at university. As I have also had a chance to used a blog site for the first time it has made me realise how useful

these sites are.Personally I can see a dramatic change between

my 1st photo shoot and the 3rd final shoot, which shows that the quality of my

photography has increased. It also has been helped by the proper use of lighting for the photo shoots and the use of better quality

cameras.

Look back and your preliminary task; What have you learnt in the progression from this to the main

product?

Looking back on the preliminary task that we completed back in September, I realised that I have learnt so much more than I initially

realised. In comparison to now, my Photoshop work then was appalling with blotchy edits and using colour effects to try to cover it

up. I have improved my usage of In-design to actually create the magazine itself and I am more confident with using it instead of

making excuses not to try out new tools. I have also learnt how to lay out a magazine to have more of an impact on the reader, mainly due to

appealing to a different type of audience.

In my music magazine compared to my school magazine I have taken reference from current magazines to help me with ideas for creating the magazine, using research to back up my ideas rather than going

on just my imagination.