Sunday 10 April 2011

Unused Photo's

These are my own photo's I took when I went to a concert, These are the unused photo's that I was going to use for my magazine but have decided not to instead. I have used some of the other photo's in my contents page and one on the front cover but not on the actual front cover.


Friday 1 April 2011

Questionnaire

I have created a questionnaire to get some audience feedback and this is the questionnaire I made. I asked questions relating to my magazine to get real figures about what the Target audience like to listen to and I asked if they like the magazine I created.

I also didnt just write down answers, I asked them formally too to get a bigger and broader answer.

These are the questions I asked, and the answers I got from people.
I asked...

1.Out of these artists, which would you like to see in concert the most?
- Rihanna
- Katy Perry
- Jessie J
- Lady Gaga
The results was...
Rihanna = 10/20people
Katy Perry = 5/20people
Jessie J = 1/20people
Lady Gaga = 4/20people

After doing this reasearch I made sure that the competition was to see Rihanna as she is the most popular female artist that would attract people to buy the magazine.

2.Does My Magazine Look Different To Other Magazines?
- Yes 14/20
- No 6/20
This shows that people think the magazine would stand out because if they think its different then they will buy it, no ones wants to buy a magazine that's already out there.

3.Do You Like The Colour Scheme & Font Choice?
- Yes 10/20
- No 10/20
Some details included that they liked the colour scheme within the front but didn't think that there was enough colour of the magazine its self, it mainly had colour on the contents page and even then it wasn't enough

4.Do you have either a Facebook or Twitter account?
- Yes 19/20
- No 1/20
This shows that nearly everyone accept from one person has access to the Internet, either on there computer or their phone, so they can access the magazine website.

5.Do the pictures work well with the magazine genre (Pop/Indie)
This was made an open question so people could just answer
4 out of the 20 people simply just gave the one word answer yes, someone else said that it was lacking in photo's as there was only one photo and a few brushes on the front cover, also the same in the double page spread. 7 people said that they knew instantly it was a indie magazine due to the guitar in the picture. Also because of the clothes that the model was wearing, they lnew what genre it was.

6.Do you like the handwirtten effect on the magazine?
14 People said yes they do like it,
5 People said no and 1 person said its okay.

This means that the majority of people do like this effect, this is why I stook to it, and did it throughout.

7.Is the price reasonable? Would you buy it on a monthly basis?
- Yes 17
- No 3
When I talked to the people in person they said that they could afford it because its monthly but they couldnt if it was weekly, as £3.50 is expensive, but a month its fine, they also thought that music magazines now are over priced, and when you go into stores like WHSmith that they dont have any cheap ones.

8.Would you buy this magazine?
I thought that id ask a really broud question then this way I can get some qualatative reasearch, and get different opinions.

Most People did say Yes, one girl said that the magazine was something she'd never seen before and she would love to see something like this on an app or on a website, as there are aspects of the magazine that can be brodend out like to be made into other things like a web magazine.

A lot of the people asked just said Yes, a couple said no, I was expecting a lot better answers die to asking a broad question but in the end I never really got them.

Another person said that they wouldnt buy the magazine because they dont like the genre of music, which is understandable, and this was only one person, I did this magazine to certain people, and the person asked wasnt a female of the age 16-25, so I did this just to test if different people would buy the magazine.

9.Would this magazine stand out to you on a shelf in a shop?
"This magazine would stand out to me because other music magazines are different to this one and because its new of course it would stand out and make you want to flick through the pages" said one girl I asked in my questionaire.

Somebody said no because there wasnt enough colour on the front page, but I thought what about Kerrang which usually has sterotypical colours of black, white & red? These colours are dark and dont really stand out.

10. Have you seen a magazine like this in the shops or on shelves before?
All of the people asked said that they have never seen a magazine like this before, which I thought was really good, means that my magazine must stand out to people, if my magazine looked the same as everyone elses, no one would want to buy it.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Evaluation

The brief was to make a new music magazine and a new artist, including a double page spread, contents page and front cover, it had to relate to a certain audience and make a new artist stand out. We had to use our own images, and new fonts. Choose colour schemes and lay it all out similar to another music magazine.

When I produced my music magazine I tried to think of the conventions that real music magazines have, I analysed a music magazine (Q Magazine) and looked at what they put on their front cover, double page spread and contents page and tried to incorporate them into my magazine.

On the front cover I made sure I put a price, this is because if it doesn’t have a price on the front cover then people wont want to buy it, it could be more expensive then they think or cheaper, but because they don’t know, they wont buy it. All magazines also have a main image on all pages, an image that is the main focus point, so I Incorporated this into my own magazine, by making sure that the main image on the front page was clear and stood out, I put a main image into the double page spread too, the contents page doesn't have a main image though, as it has more than one story, so I made sure that it had more than one image. I put the same font on throughout, to make it look like it has had more than one issue, and that it could change just even something little like the colour scheme, each month. I also have most conventions of a real music magazine like the header and the barcode, these are on all music magazines, and without them it just wouldn’t look realistic unless it was a web magazine. The magazine also has parts of it that look really realistic like the way things are laid out, they are laid out in a way that most magazines are laid out like the header is at the top and the way the article is laid out in the double page spread, this is of something that a normal music magazine would have.

I also analysed other magazines, not just music, I analysed a fashion magazine too, because the fashion in a music magazine also has to suit the genre and target audience. When I analysed the fashion magazine I saw that they had an ‘On The Cover’ section, so I put this into my music magazine contents page, this is so people know what the cover star is wearing, and might buy it themselves. Because my music magazine is for girls aged 16-25, I thought that I would add this in, because there isn’t a music magazine out there already for girls that involves music and fashion, so I still added in a few conventions of a real magazine but just not a music magazine.

The way I designed my music magazine is also the same way a professional music magazine would design there’s too, as they use Photoshop top put effects on images and create the actual magazine, they also use the internet like I did to do certain research. I tried to make my photo's also look really professional and I dressed my model into clothes that I thought would suit the magazine, this is what real music magazines do, they style the model to what ever photo's they are doing. I also chose the model I wanted to do my magazine photo's as this also is what real magazines do, I picked her because she really did go well with my genre of magazine and represented the target audience really well. I thought about everything I did really well and made sure that everything I did was something that would be in a real music magazine that is already on the shelf. Of course every magazine has to be original and that’s why people buy it, so I made sure that I didn’t use all the same conventions as other music magazines and If I did I tried to make them look different, so that my magazine stood out from the crowd.
In real magazines too they always have things like websites that you can visit for further info or facebook and twitter pages in which you can add the cover star or any of the actual magazine on twitter where they add updates of what’s happening on situations to do with the magazine. I also wrote the article so that teenagers could understand it, if you wrote really long words and language that teenagers couldn't understand then they would buy it again, so I made sure to stick to language they knew.

My music magazine does represent a certain social group, this social group is teenagers. My magazine represents them because it involves things they do and use. For example, in my double page spread I have a little section of the magazine that has the cover stars twitter and facebook address, this relates to this certain social group because teens are always on these websites and are always using the internet. Another thing is the competition, I did some questionnaires and researched a certain group of teenagers and 50% said they would like to see Rihanna the most out of these female solo celebrities; Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jessie J and of course Rihanna, so I did a competition where you could see her in concert, this was targeting the needs of this specific social group, making them want to buy the magazine to find out more. If you picked someone like Rod Stewart, people are not going to buy the magazine, because teenagers rarely listen to him and its not the genre for the music magazine. The clothes that my model is wearing on the double page spread and on the front cover are really up to date and relate to the magazine genre, they also relate to what teenagers wear now, so a teenager will pick up this magazine and want to know more. If the model was wearing really out of date clothes then people think that the magazine was out of date and that it doesn’t have any new music or news in it, the model portrays more than you think. The model is also the target audiences age, so she represents teenagers today in a really good way, as she has made a life for herself.


The price also is really good for the magazine, as when you look into what teenagers buy on a weekly basis, especially female teenagers, its usually clothes, bus tickets, food, cinema tickets and magazines, so £3.50 a month doesn’t seem expensive to this particular social group/ the target audience.
If I could have any institution distribute my magazine it would be Bauer Media, this is because they only have men’s music magazines, and music magazine for genres like Indie and Rock, they need a new music magazine that reaches out to females and this would work really well. This magazine still has conventions that Q magazine has but they are a little bit different, if you let a magazine company distribute your magazine that already has a magazine similar to it, that magazine is going to do better than this new magazine, and no one would want to buy it if they was really similar so going with a institution that doesn’t have a magazine like this already would be really good, they could finally reach out to different audiences. They also do really popular fashion magazines for females so I don’t see why a music magazine for females wouldn’t do really well too.

The audience for my music magazine would be females 16-25, this is because there isn’t a music magazine out there for females, most music magazines are for males and involve rock or indie music so I thought id do a new pop/indie music magazine that targets women, I did a little fashion section on the contents page to make women when they flick through see that it is a women’s magazine and isn’t for men. When I did some audience feedback I asked 20 people who they thought the magazine was for and 14 out of the 20 said that they thought it was for females, so I think that I have given the right impression on my magazine.

I attracted my audience by making the magazine different, I did the effect of it looking like it had being drawn, not done on the computer. I also made colourful fonts and did good pictures that made it obvious that it was for a music magazine, when I asked people in my audience feedback questionairre, I also found out that 10 of the 20 people liked the colour scheme but the other 10 thought that it was lacking in colour and needed a bit more, I also then asked 20 people if they liked the handwritten affect on the magazine and 17 people said yes, only 3 out of the 20 said no, so this must have attracted people to the magazine, if something is really different is stands out to people. I tried to address the audience by showing a new artist too, if the artist is old people wont care and wont even look at the magazine

When creating this magazine, I though that using Photoshop was really easy, sometimes it would be hard to construct and blend things together but it did seem really easy to do. I used brushes for things like the stars and microphones and had to download fonts onto it and it wasn’t made complicated, but I did find it hard to cut around images and have empathy for the people who have to do this on magazines and who have to edit images. I have learnt that if I did do it again then I would cut around the images a lot better and take more time, to make sure that it was cut out more perfectly, I would also experiment with more brushes and types of blends and fonts. I also leant that technology can crash, so making sure that everything was saved constantly was key.
When doing the preliminary task I learned that in this new music magazine, I had to experiment with fonts more, as on the college magazine I stuck to the fonts that Photoshop provided but found out that professional magazines don’t do this, they use original fonts to make it stand out more so I did this myself. I also leant that I have to take more photo’s to get the right shot, in the preliminary task I only took around 10 photo’s and thought I got a perfect shot, so on this music magazine a lot lot more to make sure I got a variety of shots and took them in different locations so that I could use them in different parts of the magazine too. I also took a lot more time doing this magazine then I did the college magazine, making sure that it looked more realistic, and something you would defiantly see on the shelves in a shop.

When doing the questionnaires I found out that my magazine got a really positive response, there wasn’t a lot of bad comments, I am really proud of the end result. I think that my music magazine does have the same conventions of a real music magazine and would be really good in shop on the shelfs.

Monday 7 March 2011

Drafts

Both of these contents page drafts were done on publisher

This is a contents page that I did on publisher, this is just to help me design mine when it comes to the real thing. I want my contents page to be similar to this but more detailed and a lot better. This is just a rough draft. I like the numbers at the side as it makes it easy for the audience to navigate their way through the magazine. I like where the pictures are located as they show an image with a number next to them also making it easy for the audience to know what page to go to, and thats what a contents page is all about, knowing what page to go to, to see the article you want to read. I made the 'Article' writing big as this will be the title of an article and the description in a bright pink as it stands out and tells a little detail of what would be on that page. There is also a contact us section as it is easy to see and in lots of magazine they have this on the contents page. I think when it comes to deisgning my real contents page, I will make it more colourfull, but the layout to me is fine and will definantly do something like this.



I like this contents page, and am definantly going to produce something similar to this in my final one. I think its edgy and easy to see, its modern and will catch the eye of the audience which is 16-25 year olds. I like the pattern and the colours that match it, the only problem being that the colour scheme is mainly targetted for girls. Im not keen on the layout of the contents page, I think that its too formal and needs to be jazzed up abit. It also doesnt contain much wiritng or information so it just looks to simple. If it was much more complex and had more writing then this would look much more professional but because it doesnt, It needs more work.


Monday 28 February 2011

Final Piece Drafts

These are my final pieces (Contents Page, Double Page Spread and Front Cover), but these are only drafts, they are not the actual final pieces, I intended them to be in the first place but I needed to make a few improvements to them.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

My Magazine Idea's

Fonts Already Used On Magazines
I want the name of my magazine to be very simple, but yet still catch the attention of the target audience. I also want thee font to be modern and match my magazine and what music is in the magazine.

This is the font for billboard magazine, its simple but still very eye catching with the colours in the dots, it also matches the colour scheme.

This font is for NME magazine, its Red, White and Black, its eye catching and also runs through out the colour scheme. As soon as you see this font and logo, you know what magazine its for and its instantly recognisable.


This is probably my favourite logo, this is because its so simple yet so eye catching, it can be seen anywhere and it again, instantly recognizable. Its small and doesn't spread or ruin any magazine covers, its easy to say and read, and the colours make it stand out more.
Font Ideas For My Magazine
All fonts are from (http://www.dafont.com/)

LL Rubber Grotesque
                                                                  I really like this don't, this is because its very edgy yet simple, it still stands out without it being too fussy and it can be easily read. I think it matches the target audience and it goes well with the choice of genre.


This font to me looks like a dance font, something that would be in a new dance music magazine. Its too modern and way too simple for the genre of magazine I'm doing.

This font works well for other magazines in genres like Dance or Alternative music magazines. Its too jazy and it doesnt really look suitable for a music magazine.


Charlie Brown
This font does what the title of the magazine says, its loud, bold and really does stand out, Its really easy to read and kind of goes well with my genre being new music (pop/indie).

This is a scibbled effect and I like this font but again it doesnt work well with the genre of my music magazine, this would work well with a acoustic genre or a more unqiue sound of magazine.


Name Ideas

Loud -The reason I thought of choosing a name like Loud is because its very edgy and short, it would catch the attention of people and would sound like an easy thing to say when mentioning the magazine. Its also got to do alot with the magazine, saying that the magazine is trying to make a loud statement, and that music is also loud, so the name of the magazine is very relevant.
TNMusic-This means 'The new music', I do like this name for the magazine and it does look good when written down, its not too hard to remember and it represents the magazine. Just like Q it means something other than just the name of the magazine.
Songz- This name is very boring and has no real relevance to the magazine, im not keen on this name as it doesnt really mean anything and has nothing to do with the magazine as it doesnt just involve songs it involves new artists and information about music.
Beatz- I like the name beatz, there are some headphones called this and I think that they represent new music as all the artists wear them, this would be good to call a magazine this, but the only problem is that it sound too dance, and my music genre is new music (pop/indie) so it doesnt really work well.
Audio- This is another word for the sound of music, I like this name, its catchy, it stands out and its very easy to remember.

FONT NAMES
Qubix
Rubberstamp
Back to heavy coat fat ground
Birth of a Hero
Ghetto Marquee
Clementine Sketch
JB Fil Std
Maksukehoitus

Artist and Photo Ideas
When thinking on the genre I was going to do, I thought of artists that are relevant to it, so I can maybe do something very similar. I wanted to use artists like Marina & The Diamonds and Ellie Goulding, this is because they are both Pop/Indie artists.

They both use acoustic sets and when doing my own pictures I would like to involve a guitar. I would also like you to be able to see what genre the magazine is straight away, Which is a Indie/Pop modern new music magazine.