1. In what ways does your media product develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My front cover (on the right) has a few similar characteristics to NME’s front cover (left). They both have a large masthead situated at the top of the page so they can be visibly seen and identified on the shelf in the shop. I decided to use the colour white as it boldly stands out on the front cover and has a clear contrast to the grey image I have used. NME have used black, although they regularly alternate which colour the masthead is depending on the edition. Above the masthead is a skyline, this gives a short understandable introduction into what the magazine is about an its ideology, the skyline I decided to go for is “The inspiration of today’s greatest artists..”. The reason I chose this is because it entices people as it’s an interesting and intriguing. NME have also decided to place theirs above the masthead its visible and easy to read. At the bottom of my front cover I have discreetly put a barcode that is because it’s necessary to have this on the page however conventionally the barcode does not dominate the page as it does not give any indication as to what is in the magazine which is what’s important for the front page of a magazine. NME have also placed their barcode in a place that is not dominant and like mine in a bottom corner. Conventionally located near the barcode is the price, this is essential to any magazine as customers need to know the price. ‘Indie’ music magazine such as my own and similar to “NME” and “Kerrang” are usually priced around £2-£2.50, therefore I have placed mine at this price. Unconventionally I haven’t placed the date on the front cover, I have decided to put it clearly and visibly on the contents page, I chose to do that because I didn’t want too many small pieces of text on the cover as I believe it draws attention away from the main dominant image. NME have put the date on their front cover, they have placed it above the masthead therefore they’re using it as their skyline. Sell lines are essential to any magazine as they tell the reader exactly what is inside the magazine and therefore help to sell the magazine. Conventionally a magazine has one dominant image and then smaller thumbnail images with sell lines on their front covers. However I chose to have one dominant image to show that it’s the main article in this edition and then I have included a ‘plus’ section showing what else is to be featured in my magazine. The sell lines on my cover are “the secrets behind the album” and the quote “Art is both life and death and it doesn’t matter which”. NME have placed the ‘NME’ logo on the left third, just as I have done. It’s visible from a shop shelf.
was due to it not being put on the front cover and the need for a magazine to have a date so you can easily identify which edition it is. Unlike the front cover a contents page doesn’t need dominant images therefore I have several images to make the contents of the magazine appealing however gave the less important articles a smaller picture. I placed the page number underneath the photos so that it’s easy to navigate around the magazine and simple to understand where the articles will be. Also underneath the thumbnails are quotes or a short piece of anchorage signifying what the article entails, it entices the customer into wanting to read that particular story. All these things are very conventional of a music magazine; I decided to take the conventional route due to the need for simplicity on a contents page. I aimed to make the photographs tie in with the articles and look like those that would be in a music magazine of the ‘Indie genre’ as that is my target audience. A convention of the Indie genre is to have instruments in the images therefore I included four images with instruments in. The images reinforce what the ideology of this magazine is. Placed at the bottom right corner of my contents page is a puff advertisement, this is again traditional of a magazine, especially as mine is advertising for an Indie music festival, it all links in together. Just like the NME contents page mine has a ‘Plus’ section. This lists the other articles in the magazine, however they’re ‘regulars’ that are featured most weeks, and smaller less significant or interesting articles, therefore they are merely a title and clear bold page number, rather than a quote and thumbnail. Regulars include things like reviews and festival + gig guides.
My double page spread is conventional in that it has a large headline situated at the very top of page, just like NME mine is the name of the band/artist that is featured in the article. Therefore mine reads ‘Alison Mosshart’, she was the most dominant image on both the contents and the front cover, this is because this particular edition of the magazine is about her, and she’s the main focus point. NME have chosen for their article about ‘The Chapman Family’ to have the dominant image of the band on only one page and then placed the article alongside it on the opposite page, I however decided to have my image spread across two, this is because I believe it to be more appealing to look at, however it is unconventional as usually it’s only on one page and the other side is blank making the article easier to read. At the lead of my article the writing is in a bold font, as a result the audience can quickly scan over this and find out exactly what the story on the band or artist entails, this is called a strapline. Conventionally I chose the make the writing bold rather than large, which is what NME have done in this edition featuring The Chapman Family. On the article itself I have put a pull quote, this is an interesting piece of the text made larger and visible to read when just glancing over the page, therefore you’ve read a bit of the article unintentionally and it acts as a tease device into wanting to read the rest of that article. I have also followed the tradition of a magazine and included a drop cap on the beginning of the article; this is incorporating conventional aspects in my magazine. On the bottom of my dominant main photograph I have put a caption describing what is in the photograph, this is again conventional. I wrote the word ‘exclusive’ on the image this shows that this particular story/interview is special and particular to my magazine only, this makes my magazine sound better, it’s another tease device as you want to buy it.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is conventional with its stereotypes of the audience who would read my magazine. My magazine is aimed at the indie rock genre; therefore it has a lot of black and white images. The black has connotations of rock. Therefore I decided to have my main image on the front cover in black and white. She is wearing a denim jacket with connotations of ‘coolness’ however underneath she is visibly wearing black clothing connoting rebellion and rock music. The use of a black and white image also reinforces the idea that my magazine is about ‘icons’ as icons stereotypically are from past generations and that ties in with a black and white image. My magazine is for both genders therefore I haven’t represented my magazine as being for a certain gender only. I have done this through not picking a colour scheme that would traditionally be for only one gender. If I had used colours such as pink it may have looked as though my magazine is aimed at females. Artists of the indie genre generally are more bothered about their music rather than their image, which is why I chose the artist in the photograph on my cover to be wearing casual clothing rather than glitzy clothes which is how models in fashion magazines are represented. The casualness of her jumper and jeans signifies she doesn’t care. It also means that the ‘indie’ audience can relate to the girl in the image. She is smoking a cigarette; this again represents the indie social group and the readers of my magazine. On the Socio economic scale I think the audience of my magazine falls under D-C2, this is because my magazine like NME’s is aimed at teenagers, they generally are not in professions and also are stereotypically at the age of ‘rebellion’ and ‘festivals’ etc. It is evident from the type of advertisement’s I have placed on my contents page exactly who my magazine is aimed at. The bands featured in my magazine wouldn’t appeal just to the teenage readers of my magazine; however the actual magazine is clearly for teenagers due to the informal language and pictures on my contents page.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Although my magazine is revolved around ‘individuality’ and ‘independent’ bands I think when it comes to publishers my magazine would be published by one of the major publishers rather than an independent one. The reason for this is that my competitors would be a magazine like NME, due to its similarity with artists and kinds of stories featured; therefore it has already been proven that magazines of that style are popular amongst teenagers and to reach them I think my magazine would need to the help of a major publisher. NME are with a different major label (IPC Media). I don’t think that they would publish mine due to its likeliness to NME. I feel as though it would have a better chance of gaining credibility and success if it were to be published by a larger company as they have the means to push it forward into the public eye resulting in higher sales and an easy spread across several other media platforms. Due to this the one I would most like to publish it would be ‘Bauer Media’ because of their widespread choices of magazines to publish. They publish magazines such as “Kerrang” and “Q”, these magazines are similar to mine in that they’re musically alternative and therefore I know that they are willing to publish such magazines. However my magazine isn’t too similar to “Kerrang” as my magazine focuses more on the general ‘indie’ genre which is widespread rather than Kerrang which mainly focuses on the heavier side of the alternative genre. They have spread the brand “Kerrang” across many platforms due to its popularity and I’d hope they’d do the same to mine as it would boost sales. My magazine is different to Kerrang in that it isn’t specific to one gender only, it will appeal to both.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
When I first started researching existing successful music magazines I had a clear view on what I wanted to create. An alternative indie music magazine that would feature iconic artists that have inspired today’s artists. I throughout the process stuck to that brief however when researching existing magazines found that mine needed to be more widespread as I found that magazines such as “Kerrang” are very niche and I didn’t want mine to be that way. I think that through expanding the audience so that it’s less specific and niche that I would open up my magazine to a lot larger audience however still remaining ‘indie’. My target audience is teenagers who enjoy the alternative genre of music. For this reason I tried to include a lot of ‘rebellious’ acts in my music magazine such as smoking which connotes coolness and black clothing connoting rock. Traditionally teenagers are at the age of rebellion and aiming to be controversial, therefore I used a unusual quote on my front cover “Art is both life and death and it doesn’t matter which” alongside the dominant image of a girl smoking, this instantly would entice my target audience of a rebellious teenager. My magazine is for both genders, therefore I have not used a colour scheme that would prevent either gender from reading it. It’s neutral as it’s black and white. Due to the age of my audience they would be from the D to C-2 category on the social demographic, this is due to their age, they would not have a profession. I aimed for my music magazine to be like NME, however mine to have the unique selling point in that it not only focuses on new bands but a lot more on older bands and how they’ve influenced the new. It’s the same target audience though, when researching I found out that their target is teenagers, this reinforced my idea to aim for teenage readers. It is even clear who my target audience is from the advertisements I have used, I placed one for the alternative music festival “Coachella” on the contents page. Coachella’s target audience is teenagers and people in their early twenties, the same niche audience that would be reading my magazine.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
As the majority of my target audience are teenagers, I opted for a price that would suit them. Generally speaking teenagers don’t have jobs as they are still in school or attending sixth form, it is for that reason that I priced my magazine at an affordable price of £2.40. It is a reasonable price for what you get inside and I think that pricing it so fairly would be a great deciding factor in whether or not teenagers would buy it. If it were priced too high they may only buy it occasionally or not at all. As I would only release an issue every 2 weeks, it makes the price even better as they do not regularly have to pay that out. On my contents page I placed a competition/advertisement for a music festival of which is aimed at teenagers, therefore it would attract them towards my magazine to get involved in the competition. Unlike a glitzy fashion magazine, mine has a casual artist on the front smoking. It represents her as casual and relatable however at the same time cool and rebellious. The readers of the magazine would aspire to be her as she’s not glamorised and wearing a dress and heels but she’s individual, cool and she’s in a band therefore ‘living the dream’. If the teenagers can aspire to be like her but at the same time not be intimidated by her it means that they can feel a part of the magazine. They would feel part of the ‘scene’ if they can relate and see aspects of themselves in the artist. The clothing (black = rock and roll) is similar to that of which the audience will stereotypically be wearing as ‘indie’ individuals. If she were to be dressed formally it wouldn’t appeal to my target audience.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?Through the process of creating my magazine I had to use a whole range of different technologies. At the beginning I started by using Google to research into existing magazines and find out which out I had the biggest interest in. After much researching using the internet I discovered that the magazine I most enjoyed was NME and therefore set out to create a similar magazine within the ‘Indie’ genre. I used the internet to find out what the conventional layout of the music magazines were. Once I’d set about creating hand drawn mocks ups I used publisher to create more using images that I found off Google (these are on my blog). I took my pictures using a digital camera and added them to my digital mock ups without editing them; I then got some audience feedback on them that gave me help on how I could improve them. Here is one of my very first drafts of the front cover of my magazine..
Using photoshop I edited the picture for my final front cover. Using the blur tool I blurred the edges around the girl so that she stood out against the background and used levels to create a glow around her, this connotes that she's an Icon and all the focus is on her literally as this edition is about her. Using photoshop I turned the image 'black and white' this gives the image more of a look of importance. Here is my final front cover to see the edits..
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
^^ Here is the college magazine I created at the start of the year when I first began creating and researching magazines. I knew that my magazine must conventionally include a masthead, skyline, barcode, date, price and sell and cover lines. This was from researching existing college magazines. I however didn't use photo shop at all to get a professional looking dominant image which I really feel let my magazine down. Not only this but the sell lines and teasers aren't easily visible to read from the shelf. I discovered along the process that language also plays and important role within the creation of a magazine as it needs to appeal to the audience and therefore using interesting and enticing language is vital. My sell lines aren't catchy or interesting enough so wouldn't appeal to readers, this was something I kept in mind when I started making my music magazine. Something I didn't understand in the preliminary task is that if the masthead of the magazine is the logo of that brand then it can be put onto several other media platforms. All in all I think that a lot more time, effort and research went into my music magazine as my understanding of magazines and their layout, conventions and structure had greatly improved thanks to the internet and the buying of magazines.
