Evaluation of My Project
Whilst creating my magazine, I looked at a range of other existing magazines to make sure that it followed the conventions and principal standards of music magazines today. The conventions that I found through my research gave me valid rules and regulations that I followed whilst making my very own magazine. For example, on the cover of every magazine I noticed that the title of the magazine was at the top of the page and in a bold, noticeable font and colour. I also noted the position of the cover image, puffs, anchorage text and buzzwords etc, all of which I have on my very own front cover. In particular I looked at music magazines such as vibe and RWD. Along with gossip magazines such as closer, heat and glamour to add an edge to my own magazine, to make it unique on the market as well as for magazine conventions.
As you can see I incorporated the layout of this issue of ‘Vibe’ magazine into my own front cover in terms of the title positioning, puffs, central image and colour.
I did look at a wide range of different magazines while doing research and followed standard music magazine conventions. However, I tried to make my magazine as unique as possible and I think the end result reflects this. I attempted to make my front cover seem edgy and unique by using graphic features and editing the typeface and cover image using Photoshop to give add a unique feel. I also came up with the idea that each issue will have a different colour scheme. In this particular issue the colour scheme is pink, as it goes with the colour of the nails and makeup of the cover person. This is something that I hope will help readers in distinguishing my magazine from month to month and from other rival magazines on the market.
My magazine represents a narrow range of social groups. It represents young people of the age 16-24. The type of people that listen to mainstream music such as Pop, R n B and Hip Hop. The target audience could also be described as quite sleek and glamorous as there is a lot to do with fashion and the latest trends in the magazine. I believe my magazine portrays this group in a positive light. This is because there is no violence mentioned at all in the magazine and the gang, gun culture of today is not mentioned or endorsed in any way at all in the magazine. Rather it shows successful people in the music industry and public eye, and celebrates their achievements whilst encouraging readers to do the same and achieve their full potential. I believe it also represents them as a quite culturally diverse and multicultural group of young people. This is because many different groups and artists are featured in the magazine in terms of race, culture and lifestyle. The artists highlighted are not only from London but the whole of the UK and the US. Artists from different parts of the world are sometimes features, which give my target audience the access to music and artists, who are not mainstream.
The audience I have aimed my magazine at are the 16-14 age group. I created a questionnaire to find out which type of people would be interested in my magazine in terms of age and sex, I also did some research online to explore this further. I found that the 16-25 age group are big fans of mainstream music and the genres that my product promotes, thus the reason I decided to make them my target audience. I also found that because of the different ways of living and music etc, making my magazine available in other countries would not be sensible; so I’m only looking to attract people from the UK. My product is aimed at people who live in London in particular, people who live in the city as they are more likely to be interested in the articles, artists etc, and because I am from London and I am part of the 16-15 age group I will know exactly what is suitable for the magazines contents.
I attempted to attract my chosen target audience by including things in the magazine that related to young people and might be of interest to them such as UK unsigned artists, fashion, celebrities, music reviews, competitions, upcoming parties/events. I got the idea for UK ‘Unsigned Acts’ from my initial research into RWD magazine that promotes UK acts immensely. They seemed very successful in doing this so I integrated this into my own product. The fashion section of RWD which I again included into my own magazine and re-titled it as ‘Music=Fashion’ also inspired me. I decided to include interviews with musicians/celebrities from abroad such as America because even though it is a magazine aimed at a British audience American culture is worldwide and is a big part of our own music and entertainment culture here in the UK. I thought very carefully when deciding whom to be the main feature of this issue and deciding which image to use on the cover once I had made my decision. I not only had to consider the person, type of shot, setting location but I also had to think what article would go with this and if it was suitable for attracting my target audience. In the contents of this issue I have featured “Alessandra” from up and coming girl group “The Pinkettes”. This group are a British band and are only known in Europe, mainly the UK. This is an example of how I have catered my magazine for my ‘Young and living in London’ target audience. I made US music video star “Melita” the cover girl of my first issue. I thought that this would be appropriate as these are the types of articles that my target audience want to read which I discovered through my research. I also decided that the mis-en-scene should be quite edgy, unique and quite rugged which is why it was taken near a brick wall near graffiti.
Media institutions that I think are best suited to distribute my magazine are IPC Media and Bauer. However, after doing further research I have decided that IPC Media is best suited rather than Bauer who are responsible for the distribution of magazines such as Kerrang, Q and Mojo. It appears that they cater for more Indie, Rock type magazines whereas IPC Media distribute a broader range of titles, such as Marie Claire, TV Times, Nuts and Loaded. I think that having IPC Media responsible for the distribution of my magazine would be very beneficial seeing as it is quite clear that IPC Media along with Bauer dominate the magazines market in Britain. This is something that will help my magazine immensely because of the fact that it is a new magazine and it is the premier issue. Being helped by such a well-known and successful distributor could help the sales and popularity of my magazine massively.
From creating this magazine I have gained valid insight into how complex and time/cost consuming it is to create a magazine. I have learnt that many things need be considered when creating a magazine and making it available to the public. This includes getting the right artists featured, having to find locations and photographers, finding suitable distributors as well as the actual contents of the magazine. I have a lot about the key conventions of music magazines. These include making sure that the magazine has suitable topics for the niche genre, high standard cover images, suitable cover stars, promotion of the magazine via word of mouth, TV, other in magazines and radio. I now understand how effectively catering for a target audience is crucial in creating a successful magazine.
The preliminary task helped me tremendously when creating my magazine. At first I was not sure about the conventions of magazines in general. I was not sure about where or how the title should be, what images to put on the cover and if they were appropriate, what articles to write about and I wasn’t familiar with Photoshop either. When attempting to create a college magazine I improved my knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator and gained insight into the basics of making a magazine. I persisted with this and attempted to target the magazine towards a college audience. I did this by taking images that college students could relate to and including things that they would want to read about involving different aspects of college life. By doing all of this as a sort of starter helped me a great deal when creating my very own music magazine.
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