Music magazine evaluation
Question1
In
order to produce a successful magazine, I realised that the generic magazine
conventions would have to be included. I started By researching similar
magazines in the market to not only what conventions they had, but also how
they were used to appeal to their target audience. The NME masthead for example
is an abbreviation. From this, I decided to produce my own but I wanted it to
connote something about the indie rock genre. I produced the masthead ‘Ind.E’
which means independent express, however the abbreviation is meant to seem like
the word ‘indie’. Other conventions were included and took inspiration from
NME. I decided to develop them in order to create an original house style. For
example, on the front cover, instead of using black and white imagery, I used
simplistic yet contrasting colours in the red font on the blue clothes of the
module.
Question2
From
my research into the audience I wanted to market towards, I made sure that my
price was cheap. Other features of the magazine were made to fit the
demographic. This included my images, which represented the young audience
look. The red font and colours, along with the black and white integration
further enforces the rebellious contemporary tone that my target audience is
drawn to. The language I Used also reflected the target audience. It was made
to be low register to create a friendly social tone towards the demographic and
even the language used, such as words such as “insane” or “”tour” connoted
images of these indie rock bands.
Question3
The
institution that would distribute my magazine would be IPC media. This
publisher is well experienced with other magazines similar to mine e.g????. IPC media would publish my magazine for its
unique aspects eg?????? that have the potential
to be successful are different to those of magazines already existing. The
magazine, although still wide in its age bracket, is more appealing to the
student group of people. It also focuses more new young unsigned artists, which is found to relatable for my young adult
audience who want to find something new3 and fresh.
Question4
From my research examples, I found that their house styles
and pitch mainly orientated towards young males, either students or low paid
jobs. The age range for the indie rock genre however to reach from about 16-25,
so there was availability to appeal to multiple ages. The majority of the
audience, I found, were fairly sociable and preferred less mainstream music.
Therefore I made sure that my magazine connoted casualness and the type of
music they listened to.
Question 5
I attracted my audience by referencing popular bands of the
genre and creating a house style that connoted a lot about the genre. For
example, I used similar Magazines to create a unique brand identity in the
contrasting colours and fonts. The red, black and white colour scheme and the
types of images taken best attracted the audience because the connoted themes
of the loud indie rock genre.
Question 6
During my design process, I found that programme InDesign
was useful in the actual design of the magazine pages itself and Photoshop
proved to help me well with editing my images I took. The digital camera that
was used to take pictures gave me the images appropriate but, at times was
difficult to extract the images off of due to occasional technical errors.
Question 7
Since the preliminary task, I have picked up skills that
have aided me to produce a more successful music magazine. My analytical skills
have been improved by analysing various examples of successful and unsuccessful
magazines. My understanding of the technologies available such as Photoshop is
improved as well, which will help me in future tasks involving these
technologies.
