rosiehofe’s Blog

The music magazine which I have created contains a front page, a contents page and a double page spread. My initial ideas helped me a lot with the layout and style of my magazine. I looked at many music magazines before creating my own to make sure that I made my magazine look professional and realistic. The colour palette was chosen very carefully to fit the target audience which is 16 – 20 girls, this magazine used very feminine fonts, colours and photos and from one glance at the magazine you can immediately tell who it is aimed at. My research beforehand helped me pick the right colour schemes and layout because I created a questionnaire aimed at 16- 20 year olds and asked for their preferences in a magazine type. 

My media product uses the forms of real media products by following the same codes and conventions and following certain patterns. For example on my contents page, the bottom corner of the magazine having ‘regulars’ which all magazines do and the different and interesting pages on the left side of the page in a noticeable place. The positioning of my front page follows the same conventions as a traditional music magazine by placing the image as the centre and keeping to a limited colour palette so the colours do not take over the whole front page. It follows the forms and conventions of a real media products by having a slogan ‘be your own star’ and many puffs around the outside of the magazine. My magazine challenge forms of the traditional music magazine by the target audience being teenaged girls and the music magazine genre aiming at a female, young audience. This is not very common in the music magazine industry because the target audience is predominantly male for example NME, Kerrang and Q. I have developed the forms of real media products by making my magazine a bit more alternative than others by using graphic features and play on words which only the target audience would understand for example “up is where we go from here” is from a song by The Saturdays and if you did not know who the Saturdays were or did not listen to that genre of music you would not understand.

My media product represents particular social groups by differentiating males and females and targeting ‘girly’ teenaged females who like pop and very interested in all things feminine. For example ‘fittest boy bands’ and concentrating primarily on popstars, who are popular with female teenaged girls.  It represents this social group by using an iconic young female popstar as the central image and using pink, black and white colour palette. It also represents a particular social group by portraying an ‘independent woman’ feel, for example ‘the truth about Beyonce’s single ladies’ and ‘so what? I’ve lost my husband’. I have also used a punch line because this is taken from Pink’s song ‘So what?’ this represents a female teenaged stereotypical ‘girly’ social group by showing females to be capable without men and they are not dependant on men.

The music industry would distribute my product to promote certain singers and encourage a new target audience to buy magazines. The music industry do not have many female teenaged magazines, this magazine is targeting a different audience and because of this it might make the music magazine industry much more popular amongst young people and there would be a wider audience who bought music magazines. I think that the magazine institution who produce ‘blender’ would also want to distribute my magazine because it follows some of the same codes and conventions and the target audience is very similar.

The audience for my media product would be teenaged girls who were interested in the genre of pop and liked gossip, facts about famous artists and evidently interested in music. The age range would be between 16-20, the magazine is not stereotypical for a music magazine in the way that it could be just a teenaged girls magazine rather than specifically about music, however with the puffs, all the information on the front cover is about music and the contents page is all to do with music as a whole and specifically pop.

I have addressed my audience by using a relaxed pose for the central image and a direct mode of address, the central image is an iconic popstar who is roughly in the same age range as the target audience, the colour palette also helps to address the target audience by using pink, white and black as its’ main colours and keeping to the scheme consistently. This would help to attract the target audience too because the colours and the central image needs to stand out otherwise the audience will not want to pick it up and read it.

My Photoshop skills have developed significantly and I have learnt how to use many of the tools in Photoshop to add effect to the magazine, for example the magnetic lasso and how to super impose and airbrush faces and bodies to make the image perfect. I have also learnt that to create a satisfactory magazine, it is vital to look at as many magazines as you can to get an idea of the traditional codes and conventions and then to develop these ideas and make a magazine that suits your target audience and to make it appealing to this audience. My technology skills as a whole have improved drastically over the course of producing my magazine and I now feel very confident to use Photoshop and this will be very useful in the future.

If my magazine were to be published I would choose IPC media as they publish a large range of magazines and my music magazine genre would fit into the types of magazines that they publish. I think that IPC media is the best fitted because not many publishers would be willing to a publish a music magazine for teenaged girls because it is an abnormal category however they publish NME and other women’s magazines so I feel that they may be inclined to publish ‘Sparkle’.

I feel that since my preliminary task, my contents page has improved notably and the layout of my whole magazine has definitely changed. For example the consistently in the title of the magazine on the front cover and the contents page, the background is consistent throughout the magazine also. I have also made sure that the target audience will understand the punch lines and humour in the magazine so that it is specific to them for example ‘up is where we go from here’ and the ‘truth about Beyonce’s  single ladies’, they will only understand these punch lines if they know their music and they recognise it. The magazine style and has changed too, for example where puffs are placed and on the contents page, it is not a list of what the magazine consists of, instead the design is much more traditional to a real music magazine. If I were to do this magazine again I would make sure that the fact that it was a music magazine was very clear because it can be mistaken for a teenaged magazine rather than it being focussed on music.

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The target audience of the school magazine ranges between 16 – 18 years old. It is an informal magazine designed for the sixth form students. The magazines’ main focus is to inform new students to the sixth form of new issues and information they will need in the sixth form, for example some of the topics I have chosen are; organisational skills, student nights and driving skills.

The title ‘Freeze’ was chosen because it is short, catchy and it is used to make the reader stop and look at the magazine. ‘Freeze’ and ‘free’ are play on words, so before seeing that it is free, it may have been a passing thought. White and black were the two chosen colours because they are contrasting and striking. The bold black around the white is easier on the eye and stands out.

The slogan ‘Freeze’ was chosen because the best way to attract the reader’s attention is to use a catchy, memorable name that people will remember. Using ‘Free’ as a buzz word makes the magazine more appealing. ‘Free’ being place below ‘freeze’ is useful because it makes the magazine more attractive and more people will be tempted to take it.

The puffs around the edge are aimed at sixth form students and topics they may be interested in. The puffs are not linked because the magazine is trying to attract students with different types of interests. ‘Driving Skills’ is relevant because during their time at sixth form the students will be old enough to learn to drive, ‘Organisational skills’ will be useful for all sixth form students and especially for people who struggle with keeping up to date. The puffs are short and captivating, having each puff as a different topic is useful for attracting different types of readers.

The colour palette chosen is mainly green, red, orange and white. These were chosen because they are striking colours which blend together accurately, the black around the edge of ‘freeze’ is eye-catching and the contrast between the white and the black helps to provoke the feelings of harmony and love. Red and orange were chosen because the colours are similar and the colours connote happiness, joy, and season colours. Red and orange are similar to autumn leaves just before they fall; this is relevant because the magazine is an Autumn Issue.

The central image is a sixth form student looking happy and comfortable. I chose not to use direct mode of address because I wanted it to be alternative and different. She is looking at ‘Student Nights’, this is because she is having a good time and it is related to Student Nights. The signifier is that the girl is a student at the sixth form wearing a blue jumper to contrast with the pale green background. The signified is that she is a normal student who is looking content and smiling to portray a happy atmosphere at school.

I chose not to use graphic features because I wanted to keep the magazine simple and did not walk to make the magazine too full. I thought that I should have more puffs and no graphical features because I wanted more information.

I did not use any anchorage text because I did not want it to be related to the central image, she is there to show that people are happy at the Howard of Effingham, the magazine is not related to her. If this was a women’s fashion magazine, it would have been suitable to have an influential woman and have anchorage text next to her. This magazine however did not follow this layout.

I carried out a similar theme to the Content’s page; I used the same colour palette and follow the ‘autumn season’ theme. The leaves in the background are not identical to the background on the front cover but they match and follow the same pale green colour scheme. Pale green with hints of red and orange, were the colours I selected because they do not overpower the foreground but they are strong enough colours to make it distinctive.

In the contents page, I chose a few graphical features to make it more interesting. Each feature was linked to a topic on the content’s page. The title on the content’s page was chosen because I wanted it to match the front cover but be different. Instead of having the black bold edges, I decided to have a white background and the words cut out and filled with the background of leaves. This meant that the colour palette was still consistent but there was more variety and having variation enhances the magazine.

The font was selected from www.dafont.com and I carefully selected the font to suit the target audience, I was looking for an up-to-date font which appeals to both males and females. I kept the same font for the puffs and inside the content’s page. The reason why the two titles had different fonts was to give it a bit more diversity and to make it more exciting.

If I were to do this magazine again, I would have put the central image in colours which matched the magazine background, I would have also put graphical features on the magazine to make it more appealing. Overall, I was pleased with the layout of the magazine and I think the design of the magazine is relevant to the target audience.