Evaluation

Stephanie Buck - Evaluation

For the final piece I have created and developed a front cover, contents page and double page spread for a new music magazine.

Before I started my magazine I researched different things that were important for a music magazine such as, fonts, pictures the actual layout of a magazine, colour themes, images, text/information and price range and issue range. I developed my magazine by adding interesting effects such as different images that you don’t usually see. I chose an upbeat ‘indie/electro’ theme to my work which consists of bright colours and eye-catching images/logos.
Researched logo's helped me to cretae my own.

My own logo (FTM) was created by developing and adjusting the NME logo for a music magazine.

The magazine is intended for a teenage audience from the age of 16-19+.
This is the audience that NME and other weekly magazines are aimed at. I tried to include many differences in my magazine but I have also tried to keep to the ‘packed’ layout/information that NME has. NME uses many bright colours, so I tried the same and liked the end product. But other magazines such as Q sometimes tend to write over the top sentence and the structure if often more educated. I think my magazine is more ‘laid back’ in its speech and phrases used which i think allows the main target audience to feel comfortable with the interview and the audience could also relate more to the magazine and bands/artists portrayed.

I think my magazine is based on a teenage audience. It represents this audience very well because of its enthusiasm and attention-grabbing layout. It represents the wide-spread variety of teen music and it also helps to portray the wide selection of teen personalities. I think my magazine represents teens as different to each other with individual styles but all having the same ideas of music in general. It’s for girls and boys of an ethical, race or social class to enjoy. It is different to say pop magazines because the social groups they aim for young children. Where was uncut and NME urge for an older response.

The audience for my music magazine would probably be aimed at a teenage audience, who are into music of a large variety from indie to electro to rock. I have based my intended audience from other music magazines such as NME, KERRANG and Q. The audience will be quite widely based and will therefore appeal to the many teens from the age of 15-19 who are in college/university. I think this is a good intended audience as the number of teens who are interested in music is broadening and growing all the time.

I think my music magazine would be published and distributed by the same people who distributed magazines such as NME and Uncut- IPC MEDIA. http://www.ipcmedia.com/

This is because the magazine needs to be widely spread and based weekly or monthly like above magazines. My magazine would probably be sold in all major supermarkets and shops, like corner shops also in many music/book stores such as WHS. The function of a magazine is to deliver audiences advertisers so the print, colour, costume text and fonts need to be carefully planned. I would say that my magazine would probably be out once a month as it would be packed full of features. IPC MEDIA makes its money through a front cover, and the person on it. It gets audiences attracted to the image, which encourages them to buy the magazine.

When I was creating my music magazine I have learnt many things to do with technology. I have learned how to operate digital cameras. I used these when I did my photo shoot.

I learned how to adjust the camera settings to get varied images contrasting with brightness ECT. I also learned how to use Microsoft’s Photoshop when editing images and creating my actual magazine pages. It was really useful because you could delete or rearrange images to get them perfect. I then opened and images on Photoshop by using filters and the adjustment menu.

I adjusted and experimented with fonts from www.dafont.com and used then on my magazine cover, contents page and double page spread. I downloaded the fonts then opened the documents I then opened Photoshop and arranged/experimented with the font so that they became eye-catching and interesting. I could experiment with text layers which was extremely useful. When I was doing my contents page I came across problems with the layout of my background image. I edited the image of Photoshop by using the ‘cut out background tool’ and continued to edit with brightness and contrast methods and I also used hue and saturation. This made the contents page more striking and made the image almost ‘pop’ from the page. When I was creating my double page spread I learned how to develop my skills in Microsoft publisher. I learned how to group text boxes so all my text information could be linked and moved easily. This helped a great deal as I could directly move the text into areas and specific places. I think that these processes and technologies helped me to create my magazine and to deepen my knowledge on the techniques. I think that my music magazine final piece is ten times better then my preliminary task magazine. On the preliminary task my magazine was quite basic with a basic image and colour scheme. I didn’t use Photoshop skills to develop the image and the background was not effective and eye-catching. The contents page of my preliminary task magazine was extremely basic. The detail of circles made the whole page look basic and unfinished. From the preliminary task I have learned how to layout a page and make it to its full credit. I have learned to design the image and background so that it is interesting and I have learned how to link a theme through my front page, contents page and double page spread by colours, fonts and basic layout.

My preliminary task :

The audience feedback I got was generally good. The main opinions that came across were that the magazine was bright and eye-catching which would grab their attention if they were in shop. But they also said that the magazine looks quite busy with very compact information. They said that my final contents page was the best because the layout and use of coloured blocks were different and classy compared to the contents pages of NME magazines. Overall they thought my magazine would grab their attention and the images used were good because they represented the music ideas in the magazine.

These are some quotes of feedback i got from the three sections of my work:

Sam: ‘The contents page is probably the best, it looks quite professional.’
Eleanor: ‘I like the front cover; it literally caught my eye in a second.’
Joe: I like the layout of the double page spread. It busy in some ways but more relaxed in others.’
I was extremely pleased with my end result. I practically like my contents page and i feel that is what most of my feedback commented on.

Overall I am happy with my music magazine and have learned a great deal about media consumption, construction and planning and technology and representation.