Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

My original aim was for my magazine to appeal to people who listened to indie/pop rock music but after some audience research, I discovered this was too small of a demographic to focus on. For this reason I decided I would also have stories about popular musicians. To ensure I did not divert too far from my original thought process, I would only have musicians who are famous enough that indie fans would be likely to like them too. I chose to have an X Factor winner as the story on my cover and double page spread as the X Factor is a show that a large amount of people are interested in. Although in most cases these people are not the same people in my target audience, this would be a good way of establishing a foothold in the market before going after stories of smaller artists that would not necessarily be as successful. Again to make sure it was still diverted to my target audience, I made reference to the fact that this artist was different to the people who usually appear on the show which would mean that people who don’t usually watch it, may have just to see her, which has been the case in the past.

The image on the front cover would appeal to many social groups as it is a young person who is wearing clothes that most normal teenagers would identify with. If she had been wearing an evening dress that was worth a lot of money, the readers would feel disconnected from her and may be put off buying the issue. Keeping the main person being addressed as someone most people can relate to means that more people will be willing to read about her to see what she will be doing in the future. I also achieved this by not putting a lot of effects on the image or cutting it down to make her seem slimmer. There has been a large push recently on using “normal” people on magazine covers so people may have respect for the magazine.

As I had planned before completing my magazine, I aimed my magazine at the type of people who enjoy knowing about artists before they appear in mainstream charts. As well as this being my preferred reader, these people are often very involved with social media. This has been proven to be a powerful resource so if people are proud of purchasing my magazine and post about it online, this will reach an even larger audience meaning further free advertising. The particular social groups who are interested in this will be the ones who use websites such as Tumblr which can reach thousands of notes and go around the world instantly. Since the magazine was changed to a more neutral representation of younger people, different social groups would be able to purchase it without believing it appeals to one more than the other. These other types of people are likely to use websites such as Facebook or Twitter where they are in contact with a different range of people.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 

Portfolio Contents

Key Features of a Magazine Cover

Inspirational Texts

Magazine Cover Deconstructions x3

Preliminary Task Flat Plans

Preliminary Task-Front Cover and Contents

Photoshop Skills Development

Contents Page Deconstructions x3

Coursework Stage 1 Proposal

Audience Research and Analysis of Data

Institution Research

Double Page Spread Deconstructions x3

Analysing Previous Student's Work

Coursework Stage 2 Planning

Photoshoot Planning

Possible Photo Choices

Potential Magazine Mastheads
The conventions, producer and target audience of my text

Masthead Fonts with Commentary

Photograph Choices

Main Task Flat Plans

Draft Article for Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread Progress

Contents Page Progress

Front Cover Progress

Front Cover Progress

I placed my chosen main image in the centre of the cover since this is where it is almost always put in other magazines. I then cut it out from the background and added effects to make the image look more professional.

 

As I have found from researching other magazines, the coverline is often put in the bottom right corner. I decided to have the last name in large, bold lettering so it would stand out from the image. I then had the first name in a more cursive font in a lighter colour to seem more effeminate and fragile. I placed a drop shadow effect on both pieces of text to make them stand out further. I decided to just use the name of the person as the coverline to emphasise how well known she is as people will assume everyone will recognise her name.

I changed the colour of the last name to fit the colour scheme and because orange clashed with the background colour. I also added a subheading under the coverline which I have found is often done on magazine covers. In this case it is used to explain who the person is for anyone who does not follow the TV show she has found fame from. I added the masthead to the top of the page as this is the first place people would look so before knowing anything about the magazine, they will see what it is called meaning more people will have heard of it over time even if they have never read it.

I added more effects to the masthead because it looked too simple and would not stand out to people when they walked by who weren't necessarily looking for it. I thought the colour was slightly too bright that could be thought of as trying too hard to catch someone's eye. I feel that having darker colours that are more subtle will attract more customers otherwise they would think the creators were trying too hard. My original plan was to include more images on the cover to attract people who weren't necessarily convinced by the main story. However I thought this would not fit with the subtle/slightly darker image that had been created so I decided to have a newspaper style layout for the other coverlines. As well as appealing more to an older audience for this, the font choices were more professional looking to fit with the newspaper theme with easy to understand language so that younger people would not be intimidated.

After adding the final coverline, I decided that the colour of the coverline was too similar to the colour of the background so I changed it to a lighter pink. This meant that the use of yellow and pink would appeal more to a female audience whereas the bold font and dark colours would make it neutral enough so that males would not be put off buying it. I also added the barcode, date of issue and price as these are essential conventions for a magazine. I had to have the date and price under the masthead as there was not enough room above it without making the masthead look less symmetrical. This also allowed some spare space to be filled without making the cover look overcrowded. I then moved the top left story down slightly as it was too close to the masthead and therefore drew attention away from it.

After making the contents page, I came back to the front cover and decided that the red background was slightly too 'in your face' and so changed it to a lighter red/ pink. I also changed the colour of the masthead slightly as I thought it stood out too much on the new background. I also changed the colour of the other coverlines slightly for that same reason. I had to delete the main image and start editing from scratch as I realised I had cut too much from between her neck and hair. I also put less effects on it this time so she looked more natural. I put a drop shadow on the image so that it had a light border that also filled in the gap between her hair and neck as it looked slightly unrealistic without that part filled in.