Music Magazine Evaluation

Anais Mehta
In What Ways Does Your
Media Product Use,
Develop or Challenge
Forms and Conventions of
Real Media Products?
 Mast Head
The chose the title ‘Beat’ for my magazine as it appealed to me for my
magazine as it applies to all genres of music. My magazine is not based on
one particular genre but a range of many different ones. I thought this
would bring my magazine to an advantage as it would appeal a range of
different readers. I selected the mast head design by choosing a very basic
but appeal font. It stands out and is very clear to be noticed but is not too
busy as many music magazines that I researched had very busy mastheads
distracting the main focus. Red and light beige were my chosen colours for
my front cover and house style. Red is commonly used within music
magazines as it stands out against neutral colours like the beige I chose to
use.
Mise en scene
The focus for my magazine was the audience being female orientated and this
made me want the audience to be attracted to the magazine as soon as they
came across it. The costumes of the girls were clothes they would usually
wear on a night out and their make up is to match. I chose to keep the
background simple as I wanted the girls to stand out and I did not want any
distraction behind them to take the focus away from them and their overall
look I wanted to create. The girls were not supposed to be forcing poses but
to be photographed naturally as they are not models but fresh new artists
that the reader can relate to. This is what I hope would create the initial
interest and make the target audience purchase the magazine. The simple
background was continued onto the contents page as part of the house style
and I wanted to create a balance and continuity between the two which could
then be identified as the magazines style in future issues. I wanted to portray
a style that represent ‘Beat’ as a sleek and stylish magazine for today’s young
adults.
Title, font and style - what is the style and
font, how will it appeal to your target
audience and how does it follow the
conventions of a music magazine.
 Written content
What questions did you ask the band? Did you
follow the standard interview conventions of
introducing the band at the beginning? What
kind of language was used? Is there and
editor's letter featured in the contents page
and if so, what is the kind of language used in
this.
 Genre
The music genre for my magazine was not one in particular but a range a of
many. It features a combination of the most popular artists from a mixture
of genres. Therefore, widening the potential audience. This is suggested
throughout my front cover and contents page and artists known for their
individual genres are featured in the magazine. The red and beige colours i
used combined, gave the magazine the feminine quality desired. However
other music magazines I researched used colours such as black or blue to
accompany the red to gain a more masculine or harsh impression to the
reader regarding the genre of music targeted. The girls on the front cover
do not indicate a specific genre of music within their appearance so again
widening my target audience.
 Layout
My front cover was required to have the main image as the main focal point of the page. This is
why the cover lines were places at both sides and bottom of the page, so that no text is
overlapping the image and distracting the focus of the artists. The text was also varied in size
on purpose to create interest and catch the eye of the reader and entice them to read further.
However the masthead was quite large so that readers can acknowledge the magazines title
and can be picked out from a sea of other publications. Catchy cover lines are used to give a
brief explanation but leave the reader wanting to know more. The contents contains one image
as I wanted to inform the reader of the contents rather than fill the page with images and
possibly detracting from the detail. Sections were used on the contents as it made the page
more easier to understand. The sections included ‘Features’ which were the current issues’
articles and features and ‘In Every Issue’ which are articles that are featured in the magazine
every month. Therefore regular readers are able to find details on the monthly columns and
reports that interest them. The images on the double page spread were organised but did not
look too orderly as the images were of the artists and the overall picture was to portray the
girls in a relaxed friendly environment. The text was placed to fit around the images in the
spaces left so that it all combined to create continuity and make the reader feel involved with
the article. This layout would create a good flow across the page and would be easy on the
readers eye.
 Contents page
what does it feature that follows the
conventions of existing music magazines? How
will it appeal to your audience?
How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups? (one paragraph
with photo from your magazine and comparison with real music magazine)
Choose a couple of examples from your main
images and discuss the posture, facial
expression, costumes etc with the angle and
framing of your shot and the lighting to
describe what social group you are reflecting
throughout your magazine. Also, compare
with image(s) from a real music magazine.
What Kind of Media Institution
Might Distribute Your Media
Product and Why?
IPC could be the chosen media institution that would distribute my magazine as they
produce over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK
women and 42% of UK men. While their websites collectively reach over 14 million users
every month. This would be a very good way for my magazine to gain a head start against
other competitors and reach a wide range of customers.

Conde Nast is also an option as they distribute many of the best selling fashion magazines
known which ties into the music & fashion theme to my magazine. They currently
distribute magazines such as VOGUE, GQ, Glamour & Wired therefore have known links
within the magazine distribution area. Their established marketing experience would
benefit my magazine as their history within this area would help raise the profile of my
publication.
Who Would Be The Audience For
Your Media Product?
 Readership Profile
The reader of my magazine would be a young female adult, she likes all aspects of music
including the songs, artist, gossip fashion and fame that it all brings. She likes listening
to a range of music from rnb to indie to house which is why she enjoys reading ‘Beat’
as it contains a variety of music genres not just one in particular. Her ideal playlist
would consist of Artist such as King of Leon & Muse to Drake & Jamie T. She spends
most of her well earned money on things such as music and clothes as she loves
fashion just as much as much as music. Which is also one of the reason she enjoys
‘Beat’ as it has a mixture of the two combined. She also really enjoys attending
festivals so she will purchase tickets whenever she is able to which is also featured in
this
magazine which is one of the main reasons it grabbed
her attention.
How Did You Attract/Address Your
Audience?
Display your final cover, contents, double page spread,
annotate these either in flickr with tags or in ppt boxes,
you could also film yourself doing a demonstration
showing how the language, fonts, layouts and use of
colour attracted/addressed the audience. Show what
questions you asked your audience with pictures about
your production, or interview your audience. Include a
summary of your audience feedback - what do you think
of the front cover, contents page, double page spread?
What Have You Learnt About
Technologies From The Process
of Constructing This Product?
Although most of my work was done on a
school computer, any other work I needed
to do at home was done on my dell
laptop. It was where I completed some of
my planning and my evaluation.

I used my Samsung camera to capture all of

my images, which were all easily accessed
on my laptop or the school computer
using a USB lead or the memory card
Most of my magazine was edited and created
using Macromedia Fireworks. It enabled me to
create my magazine pages just how I would like
them to look .

Microsoft PowerPoint was used in order to create

PowerPoint slides for various tasks within this
project. Once the slides were completed I was
able to upload them onto my blog to be
viewed via Slideshare.

Blogger is where all of the planning and work of

my media coursework has been displayed.
The technologies I have shown have made the planning and
making of my media coursework very easy to handle. Before
starting this course I was unaware of blogger or slideshare but
I am now very familiar with the two as I have been frequently
using them throughout my coursework. Although I was aware
of fireworks beforehand I was not at all confident to use it,
but now i feel that i will be able to use these programs in the
future without struggle due to this piece of work.
Looking Back At Your Preliminary
Task (The School Magazine Task),
What Do You Feel You Have
Learnt In The Progression From It
To Full Product ?
The two front covers are immediately visibly different, the main reason
behind this is the abilities I now have to use Fireworks to a greater extent
to what I could when I was creating my school magazine. I was able to edit
and crop the main image to look much more professional and many more
other features. My main dislike to my school magazine front cover was
the fact of that it seemed a bit too busy and there was nothing that solely
attracted your attention and from recognising this i ensure my latest front
cover was very simple and had one or two stand out features to gain
readers attention. I also carried out a lot more research regarding the
music magazine by looking at many popular magazines that millions of
people purchase for ideas of layout etc which has helped me to create my
music magazine to the highest standard.
The difference is also very visible within my two contents pages also. I chose
to make my music magazine much more organised and i thought the
contents page of the school magazine was also very busy. I done this by
sectioned the features of the magazine rather than just list everything in
one block on the page.