Evaluation
After completing my music magazine I am very happy with the overall look and feel that is given off by it. I was hoping for my music magazine to resemble Top of the Pops Magazine, aiming it at younger girls aged 9-14. I achieved this by looking at past issues of Top of the Pops and comparing each of their themes that they continued to follow. The features that I noticed about Top of the Pops is that they have bright colours, varying sizes of fonts and the font that they use is a ‘bubble’ type writing, looking fun and attractive. I also noticed that they use lots of smaller pictures around the main focus on the front cover to attract their audiences’ attention. So I followed these techniques in my own magazine, using the fonts off the website ‘www.dafont.com’ giving a comic feel. The colours I chose to use were all bright and bold all complementing one another, which I feel would attract the younger audiences it is aimed at. I ran these colours and fonts through the front cover, contents and double page spread, to continue the fun young-teen theme.
I decided to call magazine Melody because as it is a teenage music magazine and I felt that it reflected my teenage audience. The word Melody sounds ‘fun’ and ‘funky’ which reflects the type of Magazine it is, easy to read.
Also I noticed that the magazine only photographs males who have a ‘clean-cut’ images (usually found in manufactured boy bands) or females who can be seen as role models to the audience, who show off their glamorous ‘glitzy’ lifestyles. To try and capture this myself the main image I used on my front cover was of girls who I thought would best fit this feature. During the photo shoot I asked them to ‘dress up as if it was a night out.’ So they all wore dresses, high heels and plenty of jewellery, which I believe fit the image requirement perfectly. I thought that now the front cover would appeal to young girls. The males I used for the outside image reflect the conventions of young-teen magazines, as they have the ‘pretty boy’ look. By doing this it also helps to promote the image that the artist wants to achieve as the target audience is able to recognise the product in shops, even if they haven’t heard the music. This is because the music industry likes to think that all listeners fall into one particular category, they stereotype the kinds of people who they think should be listening to the music they sell.
When I first started to use Photoshop when doing my preliminary task I really struggled with the program as it was nothing like I have ever used before. Looking back and comparing my preliminary with my final piece I feel that I have made a lot of progress. The quality of my first piece was of a very low standard and didn’t really use features from the Top of the Pops Magazine and therefore would not appeal to my target audience. It wasn’t very realistic being very simple However, once I started to use Photoshop on the main task, I became familiar with the tools and how it works. This I believe has definitely shown in the progress I have made from each of my attempts. The tools that used when working with Photoshop have been very useful in helping me create the teen-pop look finish. These include cropping, adjusting the image using auto-colours, levels and contrasts to get the best quality out of the pictures I have took. The eraser tool helped me to give a professional finish to my title of my magazine as I was able to rub out the layer, making the title look like it was behind the girls’ heads. I have also learnt how to take professional photographs in a studio, with all the equipment such as lighting, camera and backdrop. This helped me to achieve the professional look of the models for my magazine. Once I had got the hang of Photoshop I much preferred to use this programme than Publisher like when I did my double page spread. I found that I was able to make my front cover and contents page on Photoshop have a more professional finish than my double page spread on Publisher.
On my contents page I decided to use bright bold heart images and different shapes to add business to the page. I felt that this was necessary as ‘teenage pop’ magazines have this convention of being busy with lots of colours to attract the reader. I set it out with the contents in the middle as the main feature on the page, so the reader can find the relevant sections that they want easily. I also used some pictures that I had left over from the front cover that links them with the contents. For example I used a picture of the girls again mentioning their exclusive as this is my main story I though it would be best to include another picture of them. Also I felt that it was a waste to not include the some of the photographs as I was very pleased with them.
With my double page spread as I used publisher, this helped me mirror the image of a typical magazine double page spread. I decided to use a large picture of the girls on the first page and then continue the article on the next page. I felt that this made my magazine a bit different from all of the rest. I also decided to use clusters of different shapes to add a younger feel to my article, as without it looked quite sophisticated as the girls were all dress up. Also it adds a ‘cheesy’ fell to the double page spread which is the look I was going for through my magazine.
I feel that I have used common characteristics of music magazines aimed at my target audience. To back up this I asked my cousin who is 10 years old and one of her friends, who both said that the magazine good because, ‘it was bright attracting our attention’ and, ‘the people used look like they are famous pop stars.’ With this feedback and looking at my piece I am very pleased with the final piece.
After completing my music magazine I am very happy with the overall look and feel that is given off by it. I was hoping for my music magazine to resemble Top of the Pops Magazine, aiming it at younger girls aged 9-14. I achieved this by looking at past issues of Top of the Pops and comparing each of their themes that they continued to follow. The features that I noticed about Top of the Pops is that they have bright colours, varying sizes of fonts and the font that they use is a ‘bubble’ type writing, looking fun and attractive. I also noticed that they use lots of smaller pictures around the main focus on the front cover to attract their audiences’ attention. So I followed these techniques in my own magazine, using the fonts off the website ‘www.dafont.com’ giving a comic feel. The colours I chose to use were all bright and bold all complementing one another, which I feel would attract the younger audiences it is aimed at. I ran these colours and fonts through the front cover, contents and double page spread, to continue the fun young-teen theme.
I decided to call magazine Melody because as it is a teenage music magazine and I felt that it reflected my teenage audience. The word Melody sounds ‘fun’ and ‘funky’ which reflects the type of Magazine it is, easy to read.
Also I noticed that the magazine only photographs males who have a ‘clean-cut’ images (usually found in manufactured boy bands) or females who can be seen as role models to the audience, who show off their glamorous ‘glitzy’ lifestyles. To try and capture this myself the main image I used on my front cover was of girls who I thought would best fit this feature. During the photo shoot I asked them to ‘dress up as if it was a night out.’ So they all wore dresses, high heels and plenty of jewellery, which I believe fit the image requirement perfectly. I thought that now the front cover would appeal to young girls. The males I used for the outside image reflect the conventions of young-teen magazines, as they have the ‘pretty boy’ look. By doing this it also helps to promote the image that the artist wants to achieve as the target audience is able to recognise the product in shops, even if they haven’t heard the music. This is because the music industry likes to think that all listeners fall into one particular category, they stereotype the kinds of people who they think should be listening to the music they sell.
When I first started to use Photoshop when doing my preliminary task I really struggled with the program as it was nothing like I have ever used before. Looking back and comparing my preliminary with my final piece I feel that I have made a lot of progress. The quality of my first piece was of a very low standard and didn’t really use features from the Top of the Pops Magazine and therefore would not appeal to my target audience. It wasn’t very realistic being very simple However, once I started to use Photoshop on the main task, I became familiar with the tools and how it works. This I believe has definitely shown in the progress I have made from each of my attempts. The tools that used when working with Photoshop have been very useful in helping me create the teen-pop look finish. These include cropping, adjusting the image using auto-colours, levels and contrasts to get the best quality out of the pictures I have took. The eraser tool helped me to give a professional finish to my title of my magazine as I was able to rub out the layer, making the title look like it was behind the girls’ heads. I have also learnt how to take professional photographs in a studio, with all the equipment such as lighting, camera and backdrop. This helped me to achieve the professional look of the models for my magazine. Once I had got the hang of Photoshop I much preferred to use this programme than Publisher like when I did my double page spread. I found that I was able to make my front cover and contents page on Photoshop have a more professional finish than my double page spread on Publisher.
On my contents page I decided to use bright bold heart images and different shapes to add business to the page. I felt that this was necessary as ‘teenage pop’ magazines have this convention of being busy with lots of colours to attract the reader. I set it out with the contents in the middle as the main feature on the page, so the reader can find the relevant sections that they want easily. I also used some pictures that I had left over from the front cover that links them with the contents. For example I used a picture of the girls again mentioning their exclusive as this is my main story I though it would be best to include another picture of them. Also I felt that it was a waste to not include the some of the photographs as I was very pleased with them.
With my double page spread as I used publisher, this helped me mirror the image of a typical magazine double page spread. I decided to use a large picture of the girls on the first page and then continue the article on the next page. I felt that this made my magazine a bit different from all of the rest. I also decided to use clusters of different shapes to add a younger feel to my article, as without it looked quite sophisticated as the girls were all dress up. Also it adds a ‘cheesy’ fell to the double page spread which is the look I was going for through my magazine.
I feel that I have used common characteristics of music magazines aimed at my target audience. To back up this I asked my cousin who is 10 years old and one of her friends, who both said that the magazine good because, ‘it was bright attracting our attention’ and, ‘the people used look like they are famous pop stars.’ With this feedback and looking at my piece I am very pleased with the final piece.