Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the College magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

When I started this project, I didn't know about the codes and conventions of a music magazine and how magazines follow a house style that makes them easily recognisable. I couldn't use Indesign or Photoshop as they were new programmes for me.  The main skills I have picked up from this project are how to use professional design programmes and organisation. I've learnt that in order for a magazine to be appropriate for a purpose it has to have a relevant target audience which it caters for throughout the publication. I've learnt that all magazines contain a masthead which includes the title and date the magazine was published which is a convention. The conventions of the majority of magazines follow a house style of between 3-4 colours. By creating a readership profile I discovered how different audiences are represented and the stereotypes that go along with this. I learnt that designs look more professional when they are in columns as they are aesthetically appealing. 

Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 6*

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

This refers to any equipment (hardware) and software we used.  How did you use it?  What worked best?  What effects were aimed for and achieved?  This includes: using blogs, online presentation tools like glogster, scribd etc., digital photography, lighting, props, costume, Photoshop, InDesign and the internet as a whole.

The software we used included Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Indesign. To edit photos effectively Photoshop was used as it can be used to do various tasks. Some of these tasks include cutting photos, rotating / flipping photos, changing colour saturation and adding borders. The purpose of Indesign was purely to create a flat plan of the magazine, and then to fill it in with appropriate text or pictures. The photographic technique that I mainly tried to incorporate was composing the frame. This website has a good guide to composing the frame such as balancing your photo. Another aspect we had to bear in mind when taking photos was the lighting. When they were indoor photos did we want high key lighting or to create shadow and mystery with low key lighting. In with lighting came filters, which we developed mainly in the college magazine but to some extent in the music magazine. Costume was vital in reflecting the genre on the magazine for example if I'd of been doing a rock magazine there would of needed to be more edgy photos and less natural looking ones like I used. The variety of outfits worn throughout the photoshoots opened up a range of possible photos but all of a similar genre which was intended to make a possibility of photos accessible. The props included relevant musical objects such as a guitar and microphone, however to make the shoots more interesting we included props such as a table and chair and farmer style hat. One prop that didn't work to well for us was the blonde wig so to overcome this issue we didn't use it.

Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 5

Question 5 Evaluation on Prezi

Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 4*

Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 3

Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 2

·         Describe what your choice of photos tells us about the audience you are creating your magazine for.  What techniques did you use and why?  For what effect?  (You can refer back to your photo shoots and posts on representation and ideology here)

·         Do the same for your choice of language.  What did you write about?  What would your audience be most interested in?

      For my double page spread I choose to write about the Jingle Bell Ball. The Jingle Bell Ball, incase you are unaware, is Capital FM's show at the O2 in London where 7 acts perform various songs. This was due to the fact I had recently returned from Jingle Bell Ball, and was still quite excited about it. I wanted to use language that would be informative whilst interesting. I also wanted it to be positive and convincing so that people would possibly attend next year, or to the Summertime Ball. From my research I decided that the audience I would be most interested in were the 16 - 25 age range. Stereotypically the 16 -25 age range are the most likely to attend festivals and gigs. Therefore, I felt like the Jingle Bell Ball would be appropriate.

·         Describe the overall image (how they want to look) and lifestyle (how they want to be) of your audience and how you put this across in your magazine (you can refer back to your audience research here and link it up).

      The overall image of my my audience is fashionable and up to date with the latest trends. They want to be noticed by there peer groups for there sense of style and to fit in amongst others there age.People develop there own style, based around the trends of there local area at the moment. They want to be communicating with friends through mobile phones and the internet. Music, movies, television and video games are very important to the teenagers of the 21st Century. As you can see from my readership profile, the stereotypical reader of 'Music Weekly' would aspire to own clothes and shoes from brands such as Topshop, River Island, Toms, Vans etc and will own a phone and camera and possibly an ipod or laptop. To put across the idea of communication I have included a website for my magazine and advertisements for 'Music Weekly's' Facebook and Twitter page.

    ·      What sort of things would you see most often in the magazine, what would you also  occasionally see and what would you never see?

             Regular feature of the magazine would include Reviews, Gossip, and Interviews because   from the questionaire results these had 70% or higher of the results suggesting these. Occasionally you would see Compettitions, Photoshoots, News, and Features because they had between 70% and 50% of the questionaire results suggesting these. You would never see Advetisements as they had less than 50% of the questionaire suggesting them.

Music Magazine - Evaluation Question 1