My Final Music Magazine - All 3 Pages

Evaluation - Question 7

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?

This is my preliminary task and my main task, the school magazine's and the music magazine's front covers.

The first thing that I noticed when comparing the 2 front covers, is the difference between the lighting. In my preliminary I did use the history brush tool to only have Claire in colour so I could write my coverlines on clearly, but in my main task I used the contrast/brightness tool to make the picture more illuminated and sharp coloured.

The school magazine does not feature any fonts apart from the ones that are from the Photoshop selection because at that point I did not know about the dafont website so I had to make do with the limited selection that I had. However once I started to download fonts off of the website I could start to choose fonts that were more appropriate for my genre.

I also learnt how to use the magnetic lasso tool for my main task, as I did not know what it did in my preliminary task. I used this new knowledge to make Scarlet's head overlap the masthead (above), like they do on real magazine front covers. This gives the page a 3D effect as it looks like Scarlet is leaning out of the page.

This is my preliminary task and my main task, the school magazine's and the music magazine's contents pages.

As you can see, there is a massive difference between the quality of my preliminary contents page and my main contents page. The school contents looks very plain and bare, whilst the music contents contains many more elements/layers.

The photo on the school contents is not edited at all, there is not even a drop shadow on it, whilst the music contents has a photo in it that has been contrasted, brightened, cut out, tilted and drop shadowed.

Before I took my photos I made sure that I had already picked the location and whether I needed any props or not. I knew that for my front cover photo I definitely wanted a plain coloured background so that it would make it easier for me to add on cover lines that were clear to see, so I just took the photo against a plain white wall. I also knew that I didn't want to use any props in this photo because I didn't want to detract attention away from the cover star, who is the person that will make people want to buy the magazine.

However, I wanted my photos for my contents and double page spread to have props in them, as by now people will already know what the interview is about, so I could start to experiment with different props. I started with an obvious prop, a guitar, which could be helpful to show the readers the music that Scarlet makes. I also used a cushion emblazoned with the Union Jack so that there was a consistent house style from the front cover through to the double page spread, as I used the Union Jack as part of my front cover and I have kept the colour scheme of red, black and white through my 3 pages.

During the preliminary task I spent so much time on my front cover, I had to rush to finish my contents page, and I think you can see this in the quality differences between the 2 pages. Therefore I made sure that with the main task I kept up to date with everything and that I spent almost the same amount of time on each page, so that I had time at the end of the project to see if I had to improve on anything.

Evaluation - Question 6

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

Throughout the entire creative process I have used a variety of different programs, software and tools to put together all the elements of my magazine.

The main piece of software that I used to create my magazine was Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Before I started this course, I had no previous knowledge of Photoshop and had never used it before in my life. However, through watching various tutorials on the internet and practising during the preliminary task, I slowly began to gain more skills and knew how to use the tools in the program properly.

A few of the things that I have learnt whilst designing Frett magazine in Adobe Photoshop:

- How to drop shadow text and images.

This allowed me to create the magazine's masthead, shadow text to make it jump off of the page and shadow my photos on the double page spread.

- How to make and use layers.

This enabled me to move different elements around the page, label these elements and know how to use different tools on these layers.

- How to use the magnetic lasso tool.

This tool was extremely useful to me as it made me able to take a photo, and cut out a specific part of it, then copy and paste that part as a different layer so I could get rid of the waste parts of the photo. This made it much easier and faster than having to manually erase around the part of the image that I wanted.

Another application that I have used in this project is Blogger.com.

I have obviously used this website to record every part of my project. I can use it to post all of the stages of the magazine, the planning, design and final product. Blogger.com is a useful format to post on as it enables me to post images and links to other websites as well as just writing, which makes it a more interesting and interactive format to use.

A few of the things that I have learnt whilst using Blogger.com:

- How to post links and images onto my blog.

- How to label my posts according to what they contain, which makes it easier for other people to find what they are looking for on my blog.

I also used a website called dafont.com, which is a website that allows me to download fonts onto the computer for me to use in Photoshop.

On this site I could search through hundreds of different fonts to find the ones that were appropriate to my music genre.

Evaluation - Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I decided before I started to create my magazine that my target audience was going to be men and women aged 16-24 who liked the indie/alternative music genre, so I then needed to think about how I could make my magazine appeal to this market. Based on the ideal buyer that I talked about in evaluation question 4, I made conscious creative decisions whilst designing the front page, contents and double page spread on how to appeal to this type of person.

Firstly, when I took the photos that appear in the magazine, I was very aware that the model couldn't be happy/smiling too much as the genre dictates that 'indie kids' are generally portrayed as being serious about the music, not necessarily about being the most popular artist. This is why I decided to take photos of Scarlet playing a guitar, as it is the most common instrument for an indie artist to be playing, and it also fits perfectly with the name of my magazine - Frett - which is a term used by guitar players that my target audience would know about.

I also took photos like the one below as it portrays a slightly different rockier, edgier look but still maintains the indie clothing and persona to attract the potential buyers.

Whilst I was writing my double page spread article I made sure to keep it to a tone of address that was appropriate to my age bracket, by using slang that they would understand and wrote in an informal manner that seemed friendly and funny, like the real interview below:

"The interest from the public and the media is immense...

JK - We went back home in the car just now, we dropped us mate off and it came on Radio 2. On 'way back just before our mate got in the car it were on Radio 1, and when he got in the car he goes 'I've just seen you on MTV'... it's too much though man, it's a bit daft.

Has the popularity freaked you out?

JK - Yeah, some things do. I don't normally get recognised so I'm alright, I don't mind it that way, I don't want it ever to get really big."

I kept the interview conversational and tried not to ask to many structured questions and just let the interview flow naturally.

For example:

"Now recently, solo singers have been creating elaborate stage names for themselves, like Marina and the Diamonds and Florence and the Machine, so why did you just decide to stick with your real name?

I don’t know how to break this to you but my name isn’t actually Scarlet!

No way! So what is your name?

My real name is... Wait (Calls to manager) Kev, am I allowed to reveal this yet? Yeah? Okay then, here’s an exclusive for you, I’ve never said it in an interview before. My name is actually Charlotte, but I’ve always thought it was a bit posh; I wanted something a bit more edgy. I’ve got a scar on my head from when I ran into the corner of a wall when I was a kid, so Scarlet just seemed pretty appropriate!"

I think that if I had made the interview into one long piece of prose, then the readers would have lost interest and become bored, but because mine is split into short bite size questions and answers, my younger target audience will be able to read it easily and take it all in. I also did use swearing occasionally in this interview, but not too much so that it became offensive, just casually dropping it into the conversation like this:

"I was so shit scared that I played about 2 songs and made a speedy exit!"

Evaluation - Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I decided before I started to create my magazine that the target market for my magazine was going to be the niche audience of indie/alternative music fans.

Knowing my target audience is very important to the magazine, and especially for any potential advertisers who want to publish adverts in Frett magazine as they need to know who will see the adverts and will the product interest them? For example: a younger, pop music magazine will probably not advertise products like cigarettes and alcohol as it is not appropriate to the age bracket, but a rock magazine aimed at aged 18+ almost definitely would.

My magazine is aimed at males and females aged 16-24, and this age group generally does not have a lot of disposable income. This means I will have to really interest this group in what I am selling so they will like it enough for them to want to buy it. However, sometimes it is not really about how much money you spend, its about your tastes, interests, opinions and values that will make the audience want to but the magazine.

My niche market is indie and this is an accurate description of this social teen group from uktribe.com.

"The Indie Scenester still likes to be ahead of the game when it comes to
discovering new music. They still can’t quite shake off the skinny jeans
though."

I have used this description to make sure that I haven't included many mainstream bands in Frett, and more new and upcoming bands/artists.

"Indies are festival goers – if they can blag it. The real action, though, is in small, sweaty, adrenalised clubs. Scenesters are more bothered about iPods and drinking than phones or conscious materialism. Online communities such as those found on drownedinsound.com are important as they allow visitors to discuss, diss or discover the latest cool bands."

Based on these descriptions, this is what I imagine my target market to look like, and a collage of what products I would expect them to buy.



They would be around the ages of 16-24, and be interested in live music, gigs, and fashion. They could be either male or female as my magazine has been designed to aim at both genders.

The general overview of my ideal buyer would be:

- They would shop at high street brands such as Topshop/Topman, Urban Outfitters, Zara etc. and also maybe charity, retro, vintage shops.
- They would obviously listen to indie/alternative music such as MGMT, Biffy Clyro, Empire of the Sun, Friendly Fires, Kasabian, Mumford and Sons, Ladyhawke etc.
- They would watch television shows such as teen dramas and the music channels (MTV, NME, 4Music etc.)

This type of person would but my magazine as I have made sure that the tone of address in the magazine is appropriate to this age bracket (it isn't too formal and uses slang that this age will understand). I have also made sure that everything about the magazine is suitable for both genders; the colour scheme is fairly neutral and I have constructed my photos so that they appeal to both men and women. Women will probably appreciate the clothes that Scarlet is wearing, men would appreciate how she looks more, and both would appreciate the music she makes and represents.
I have also included reviews of live gigs as part of my contents as this will appeal to the music fans who love live music.

Evaluation - Question 3

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

After searching through the web and various magazines and publishing companies, I have decided that the best publishing company to publish my magazine, Frett, is IPC Media.

IPC Media is one of Britain's leading consumer magazine and digital publishers, who have a large portfolio, selling over 350 million copies of their products every year.
IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands, and their print brands alone reach almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men (almost 27 million UK adults) while their online brands reach 20 million users every month.

I think that this company is perfect for my magazine as they are experienced in dealing with all types of publication, and they only have a few music based magazines, they mainly deal with home and style magazines. This means that my music based magazine could slot into their huge range of brands so they would have a variety of magazines.

These are a few of the publications that IPC Media publishes, with Frett magazines cover to see how it could slot into the existing market and publications at IPC Media:



Due to the popularity of all the above brands at this company, I would be quite sure that Frett magazine would be able to easily sell lots on the shelves if this publishing company was behind it.

Link to IPC Media's website

Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The photo of Lily Allen on the front cover of NME magazine is very similar to my cover photo of 'Scarlet', and represents the type of person that I would want to be buying my magazine.

Both of them are staring directly into the camera, and both have a slightly confused, fazed expression on their faces. They are both wearing heavy eye make up, which outlines and draws focus to their eyes. This make up makes them look quite vacant and pale, which I think is part of the appeal for my target market, and the reader will feel taken in by the bold eyes staring out from the page at them.

They are also wearing very similar clothes (checked shirt/checked coat) which I dressed Scarlet in to make her appeal to my target market of indie/alternative music fans, which is why I specifically chose quirky, different clothes to the norm.

Lily Allen's hair on the NME cover is fairly simple, just jet black and straight, and Scarlet's hair is also simple, short and cropped. Both have fringes that partially cover their eyes, and the hair is slightly messed up, to create the indie music look that will appeal to my readers. If she had long, curly, sleek hair, the effect of the photo on this front page would be very different, and would attract a completely different target market.

Evaluation - Question 1

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

Preliminary Task:

My preliminary task was to design the front page and contents of a new school magazine, and to do this I needed to look at actual school magazines to see what the forms and conventions of them were.

Looking at Newsman school magazine's front cover, I notice that they have included their school logo/badge/motto in the top right hand corner to give the magazine its identity if the masthead is not actually the name of the school, like mine isn't.

The background of the magazine is entirely taken up by the montage of photos, and idea that I have tried to incorporate into my magazine, but I have only used the one photo, and edited it using the history brush tool so that only Claire is in colour. This makes it easier to put on cover lines that can be easily read. The actual school magazine uses a plain coloured bubble over the photos so that the cover lines can be put there, which I have vaguely used when I wrote over the plain paper that Claire is holding "College? Work? Uni?"

Main Task:

Looking at the NME masthead, I have drawn a lot of inspiration for my own magazine masthead.

I saw that the use of the colour red works well in the NME masthead as it is very eye-catching and will work to attract the attention of passing potential buyers. I have also used the drop shadowing so it now has a 3D dimension and jumps off of the page. Looking at the design and colour scheme, my aim is that people would instantly know what magazine it is just by glancing at the page, like people do with NME magazine, so that my magazine has its own brand identity.

Also, NME magazine masthead's typeface is quite smooth and simple, which kind of reflects the type of music the magazine represents (the music which is popular at the time, the magazine changes its focus every so often). Because my music magazine is based entirely on the indie/alternative genre, my typeface for the masthead needed to be slightly edgier to represent the sound of this music scene, something similar to the Kerrang! masthead.

Kerrang! magazine's genre is the rock music scene, and I think the masthead perfectly represents that, by using an edgier typeface which has slashes throughout it. They also only use one colour, black, which is often associated with rock music.

I combined the features from both of these magazines to create my magazines masthead, using the red colouring and drop shadowing from NME, and the idea of a ripped, jagged typeface to represent my music genre from Kerrang!.

This article stamp is taken from Q magazine.

I really did like the use of the Union Jack flag on the Q magazine stamp as it promotes what the article is about 'The 50 Best British Albums' and it acts as a hook, as the reader will already have an idea of what the article will be about before they read the text so will be intrigued to read the rest of the article. The flag also parallels with what the article is about - 'British Albums' - an idea that I have carried over to my magazine with an article about '100 UK Gigs Listed!'.

When I was analysing NME magazine, I noticed that down the side of the front cover, there were song lyrics from a recent pop song, in this case it was Empire State of Mind - Jay Z feat. Alicia Keys, and I thought that this was a really clever idea, as real music fans will recognise and be able to tell what song they were from. My magazine is aimed at real music fans, so I decided take this element and use it on my front cover, by using lyrics from The Captain - Biffy Clyro, the genre of music that my magazine's target market will be interested in.

Now I need to look at the overall layout of real magazine front covers to compare it to mine.

The first thing that I notice about both of these magazine front covers is that they extract colours from the main photo and then transfer them into the text for the cover lines. I have done this on my front cover by taking the blue from Scarlet's eyes and coat, and the red from her t-shirt and transferring them onto my Union Jack flag and the cover lines surrounding the photo.

The theme of using the colours of the Union Jack not only fits perfectly with the article about '100 UK Gigs Listed!', it also slots into my double page spread article about Scarlet, because in the article I mention that she is the 'self proclaimed new front woman of British music'. Even in the main photo on my double page spread I specifically made sure that Scarlet was holding a cushion that is emblazoned with the Union Jack flag. There is a running colour scheme that I have used throughout my 3 pieces of work, to maintain the magazine's house style and follow the British theme.

Next I need to look at comparing my contents page to other real magazine's contents pages.

One of the first things that I noticed when looking at NME magazine and Q magazine's contents pages is that both of them have got the masthead at the top of the page, usually accompanied by something like: In this issue, This week, This month etc.. which I have done on my magazine's contents page.

The NME contents has included a band index down the side of the page, an idea that I find to be extremly useful to the reader as it tells them alphabetically, at a glance, who will be in this issue so they can easily search down the list and see if there favourite artist/band is there.

Both NME and Q magazines' contents have used different headings to separate the articles in terms of news, features, reviews etc. which I have done on my contents page by spearting it into 2 headings: On The Cover and Featured Inside.

On this double page spread that I was looking at I saw that the header, or the biggest bit of text pn the page, is a quote from the interview below. This gives the reader a taste of what is to come in the article, and helps them make up their mind about whether to read the article or not.

I have used this element in my double page spread by having my header as "All publicity's good publicity, isn't it?" I like this quote because it's quite cheeky and sarcastic, and I think that if you were reading it, you would want to read on and know what publicity that they are talking about. It also involves the reader by asking them a question, making the magazine seem friendly and personable.

This double page spread is from NME magazine and when I started to look at it, and other double page spreads, to look at the forms and conventions of them, I noticed that the vast majority of them use quotations from the interview to interject into the article. This gives the reader a sense of what the next part of the interview is going to contain.

This is part of my double page spread article, with interwoven quotations.

Double Page Spread

First Draft:

After creating the main layout of the page I needed to add the text. I made sure that the text fitted around my main image and was kept in neat columns, like in a real magazine. I used red text to write out my interview questions and black text to write out the answers. This makes it easier for the readers to follow the interview and not get confused about who is saying what.

I have also added in the single cover from the first draft of my contents page so that fans of Scarlet know how to buy/download her new single.

I have taken quotations from my interview and blown them up. this acts as another lure for the readers as it is there to interest them in the interview. The quotes that I have chosen are quite mysterious and makes readers want to read on more and find out what they are talking about.

When I had added in all of the text of my interview, I found that I did not have enough room on the page to fit all the text in. This meant I had to design a 3rd page in order for me to include the whole interview. I have made sure that I kept the same typefaces and colours as my first 2 pages. I have also used interwoven quotes in my 3rd interview page.

Final Double Page Spread:

After a few last little changes, I have finished my double page spread.

All I felt that I needed to do from my first draft was to add in the date and page numbers at the bottom of the page. i feel that this added element makes the double page spread look more real and professional, as of course all magazines use page numbers at the bottom of each page.

i have made sure that I have still continued with my house style from the front cover and contents pages, using the same typefaces and colour schemes throughout my work.

Designing The Double Page Spread

To start off with, I needed to put together the general structure of the double page spread. I started off by putting in the main photo of Scarlet, because I knew that the text would have to fit around this image. I obviously did not want it to be centred in the two pages so i decided it would go on the left hand side of the page. I used the rectangular marquee tool to put blocks of black on the side and top of the page to frame the spread, and to give me a space to write the title of the article. When I was researching music magazines that are already on the market, I saw that basically all of the interviews in them had titles that were made up of quotes from the interview. The quote acts as a lure to draw readers into the article as they will want to know what the context of the quote is, especially of the quote is quite ambiguous and mysterious.

I also drop shadowed the main photo to give it a bit more definition and a 3D effect.

Next i started to add part of my interview to see how I had to lay it out. I added another photo to the right hand corner of the page and played about with the idea of a fact file about the artist I am interviewing.