Music Magazine Evaluation

Our development of a music magazine relates to real music magazines as we have included different aspects, which is involved in covers of real music magazines. We called our magazine ‘the MIX’, as our magazine applies a variety of music genres, such as Urban, Rock, Nu Rave, Pop and Dance, which expands our audience. Our main cover photo relates to this as it shows my group dressed in different styles relating to the type of music genre we are trying to portray. This image of different types of styles influenced by a type of music in one-group shows many teen social groups from different ethnic backgrounds. Our cover shows that different social groups can join as one by music. Our logo of the magazine title ‘the MIX’ is very bold and playful as it stands out. We tilted the word ‘the’ to make it appear sideward’s and aligned it next to the word ‘MIX’, so that it looked unique rather than just keeping the title on one line. Our cover contains other aspects to make it appear like a real music magazine like cover lines (Exclusive…); box text (WIN TICKETS TO THE 2008), and bar code, price and issue date. Also, to make it appear more like a music magazine, we included a picture of an artist called Estelle and her logo and the logo of the official ‘Mobo Award’, so that people could be able to win tickets to an actual music event. We obtained these images from the internet and edited these images to fit in an area in our front cover, so that it does not overlap or distract the main cover picture.
Media institutions like local newsagents and music outlet stores such as HMV could distribute our music magazine because these are places where music magazines are most likely to be sold and bought. These Media institutes sell products that are related to music where people will go to find these specific music products.

We address our audience from our front cover. Our front cover shows my group dressed in different styles all together as one. The photo looks as if we are a band and shows relation to a music magazine. The title itself helps to show who the audience is, as ‘the MIX’ means a mix of different styles of music, showing a variety of audiences that like a variety of music styles.

Constructing this music magazine cover has made me understand how much is contributed into creating it. I have learned that most or entirely all of the editing is done on Photoshop, as the program enables you to use many functions that allow photography and typography editing. I found it easy to use Photoshop as use it a lot to edit photos. I found constructing the cover quiet enjoyable as I knew some basic knowledge of some tool and learned new techniques by playing around with the tools and effects.

If I were going to create another magazine cover I would add more aspects that a real music magazine cover has to mine, like a banner, more cover lines, box text and perhaps a strap line or a graphic. Also I would edit the Masthead and make it more graphical so that it looks more original and unique rather than it appearing as a normal font. I would do the same thing to the cover line ‘The Unkowns’ because that is the name of our band of our front cover picture and by editing that cover line, it will show it is our unique band logo. Jus like the ‘Estelle’ logo we obtained from the internet.

Magazine Evaluation

In many ways, our music magazine portrays the typical conventions of a real magazine. Its main cover image is a famous music group. The Masthead is bold and original, and the banner gives details of what can be found in the magazine. We also have used graphics, in the case to advertise the most well known faces that will make the reader more likely to buy it. Although we have used these key features, this is where the similarities end. We did not use any boxed text or a main cover line. This is clear to see, as there is not enough writing on the front cover and in some places looks empty. In many ways, the magazine challenges the typical conventions of what a music magazine should be. This is because of two things; our magazine includes all types of music and does not have lot of graphics. It is simple and gets the main information across. Many music magazines have a lot of information on the cover and when you buy it, it is never what you expected.
Everyone has a different social group. This is made up of a number of things like how they dress, what music they listen to and where their coming from. This is where our cover image starts to challenge typical conventions. This music group is made up of types of person, punk, Nu rave and better-known hip-hop loves. I would say that this social group is brought together because of their love of music. There is know set group you can place them in. Many people would say that this image represents young people as yobs and anti social. This image also shows how ridge society has made our stereotypes. On first glance, many would think that this group does not belong together. A real music magazine would never put a group of people together who didn’t look similar because they think it would not sell. Our magazine has developed an idea that the media are not willing to explore at this time, which also makes us begin to question how much the media influence how we feel about different groups of people.
Our magazine would be sold in newsagents and smaller independent music stores. This is because the main music industry would not get the idea behind our magazine. They like magazines with a simple message and a clear target audience. This is where our magazine would not fit in. Smaller independent stores would be a better place because they have a broader mind and are more willing to explore new things.
Our music magazine cover is for everyone, as the name says ‘The mix’. On the cover we had 5 people who looked very different. This was done to represent the different types of music. Our group wanted to show that all types of music can be united as one, and doesn’t have to be divided. The picture is taken outside in a neutral environment. This makes the reader feel more at ease as its know particular social group’s territory. On the magazine cover we also had a competition. Like in a real music magazine it’s designed to attract people, so that’s what ours does. There are also interviews with famous musicians.
Making this magazine cover has made me realize how much work goes into magazines in general. I found out that most magazines covers are made on Photoshop. This is useful because it has so many different functions, which include photo editing and interesting fonts. I found it hard using Photoshop. The most basic feature of a magazine cover like text was difficult. This is because there are many layers and you need to make sure that you are working on the correct layer or you could risk moving and deleting something else. The main thing I have learned is that making a good magazine cover takes time and you have to be patient. All the problems that I faced could have been prevented if I was familiar with using Photoshop.
If I were going to make another magazine cover I would practice using Photoshop before hand so that I wouldn’t find it so difficult to use. I would also look at more real magazines and analysis the cover more. I underestimated how much a magazine cover sells the magazine and how much work goes into the texts and graphics. I would add more texts to the magazine cover and I add another special offers such as competitions and freebies. Another thing I would do is re-think the positioning of some of the text to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

music magazine evalution

Magazine evaluation


Our music magazine uses different ways in which develops and challenges forms and conventions of a real music magazine.
To begin with, we have our masthead at the top of the magazine, which says ‘THE MIX’. This name reflects the name of our magazine written in colourful bold and clear text. We have decided to rotate the word ‘the’ to 180۫ in order to give our magazine a funky look. As a strap across the top of the page, we have decided to insert a banner that says, ‘WIN TICKETS TO SEE…’ We did this in order to attract our audience into purchasing the magazine, to show a competition that gives them an opportunity to see celebrities. At the end of the sentence within the banner, we have used mode of address involving and exclamation mark in order to exaggerate the competition and make it appear important. The banner is also our cover line as it is ‘selling’ our magazine to a certain extent. As well as this, we have a main cover image of our group as music artists. We did not do anything to the background of our main cover image as we felt that everything fits into proportion visually on the image for instance, the background is a block of flats and some trees. This highlights ordinary everyday life indicating that music is everywhere. Another cover line that is on our magazine cover is ‘Interview with Rihanna’ with an image of her on the side right hand side. We are informing the reader about what is inside our magazine in order to persuade them to purchase it. At the bottom right corner of our magazine, we have inserted a barcode however; the price of the magazine is at the top of the magazine with the issue date. To a certain extent, this may challenge the forms of a real music magazine as the price and issue date would usually be with the barcode at the bottom right corner of the page.

Our music magazines represent to variety social groups. This is indicated as we tend to have a mixture of style, interest in different music yet we all love music. These features are shown in our magazine cover as; the main cover image involves a band with members from different music genres and style backgrounds such as rock, hip-hop, RnB, Nu Rave and dance. This straight away puts the message forward that our magazine will involve many music categories from rock to dance. It is also clear to judge that the band in the main cover image have different music and style backgrounds by judging by their clothes and their facial expression. For instance, Ben (Nu Rave) is dressed in funky colours with sunglasses whereas Daniella (Rock) is dressed is dark clothes and her facial expressions appear quite serious. The kind of media institution that might distribute our music magazine cover may be newsagents as well as music outlets such as HMV. We address our audience by inserting many bright colours on our magazine cover, as it would be very eye catching for young people to look at. In addition, the main cover image is of teenagers in a band, which would straight away catch the audience’s eye, as they would be mainly teenagers themselves. We aim to attract teenage boys and girls as our audience, which is why we have decided to have both boys and girls in the band on the main cover image.

Altogether, I have learnt more about technologies from the process of constructing this magazine front cover. For instance, I learnt how to overlap layers in Photoshop as well as cutting out an image’s background using the ‘magic wand’. Furthermore, if I had a chance to make another front cover there would be a few areas in which I would change things and do differently next time. For instance, I would some effect on the main cover image and make it appear more attractive and funky. I would also change the texts of which I have used and have them in a more stylish font in order to make it look original. Including this, I would have a more uniformed layout by choosing the same type of text or same colours for the writing. As well as this, I would place the text ‘D-SELECTION’ which is the name of the band on the main cover image lower so that it doesn’t really hide the image itself. In addition to this, I would move the price and issue of the magazine down to where the barcode is in order to make the magazine layout appear neater and more organised. Involving this, I would also like insert more freebies such as a free McDonald’s voucher for instance in order to sell the magazine more.

Music magazine pratical

Last lesson me and fozia selected the pictures we wanted to use on our magazine from out previous photo shoot. We were shown how to use photoshop which can help edit pictures and add special effects. We learned how to cut and pictures and edit the contrast.

Music Magazine Practical

Last lesson we and other students spent time taking photos for our music magazine. With the photos, this lesson we were able to start creating our music magazine front cover by using the photos. We used different tools on photoshop to edit the main cover by making the colours more bold and eye catching. We chose to call the magazine "The Mix" because the music genre of our magazine covers a variety of music.

magazine analysis

This morning we learned about media within magazines. The magazine we was given was Kerrang. kerrang was written in large letter that were slashed.This catches the eye of the reader as it makes the magazine look more edgy. There are graphics all over the front cover. This highlights special offers in the magazine. For example '' free giant poster''. Readers are always attracted to free gifts so this also makes the magazine more attractive. There is a strip at the top of the magazine with lots of diffrent names of people who will be in the magazine. This is called the banner. The main cover image is very important because this is what sales the magazine. On the cover there are 5 men who all have long hair and are dressed in black. The man in the middle has red nail varnish on and is carrying a coffin. This directly draws in the audience which are young people who are into rock music and like wearing black clothes. This exericse has helped me realise how important it is for the front cover to portray the right images and appeal to the right audience.

Magazine Analysis

This morning I was asked to analyse a music magazine and suggest it's target audience. The publication I was asked to analyse 'Q' magazine. I concluded that the targeted readers are people who are interested in rock/indie music, possibly likely to be white or caucasian males in their early 20's. The cover image shows a close up black and white photograph of a member of the band Oasis, when he had started with the band, showing the Oasis history. The main cover line is 'OASIS ARE BACK!' and below the the main cover line is cover lines and boxed text. Also, there more cover lines on the bottom left corner (Kings of Leon...). Furthermore, there is a bar code, price and issue date on the bottom right corner.

Magazine Analysis

The magazine we were asked to analyse was 'Q' Magazine, we had to look at the technical elements such as Masthead, cover lines etc. also the main image and to try to guess their possible target audience. The cover featured a giant 'Q', with the slogan 'Britain's Biggest Music Magazine', this in total is called the masthead but it is also a logo. The main cover line is 'OASIS ARE BACK', the cover line is the line that sells the magazine, in this case to attract fans or admirers of 'Oasis'. There are also smaller cover lines 'KINGS OF LEON Vs KAISERCHEIFS', these are to help attract and sell the magazine too. The main image is an old photo of Liam Gallagher, its very black & white, grungy, reminiscing of the old days. The target audience is a caucasian male, aged 22-35, who are fans of soft rock and indie music     

magazine analysis

This morning we learnt about media within magazines such as mastheads, strapline, cover lines etc. The magazine given to us was 'kerrang', in order to analyse this magazine, we had to observe the images used within the magazine cover as well as the fonts used on the page. We noticed that the masthead used 'Kerrang' reflects the actual type of music itself. The music played on this music channel is very loud which represents the sound effect 'kerrang'.  We predict that the audience for this magazine would be young adults and teenagers white males interested in punk and rock. The graphics within the magazine cover involves a 'free poster' offer which we believe would attract young adults or teenagers to purchase the magazine. this is due to the idea that, ia poster would be more likely to be hung up in someone's bedroom wall rather than somebody who owns a house or a flat.