The document describes the process of creating a music magazine. It discusses conventions used from existing magazines, unconventional design elements, representing the target audience of "scene kids", distributing the magazine through Bauer Media due to their expertise in similar magazines, and learning photo editing and magazine design skills throughout the process.
2. 1.) In what ways does your music magazine use, develop
or challenge forms and conventions of existing music
magazines?
• I feel that my magazine is conventional by the way it
uses similar colours and fonts as other existing music
magazines. For example, the fonts and colours used on
my front cover are also like those used on the front cover
of ‘Kerrang!’ magazine.
• However, my magazine has some unconventional
features, such as borders on my front cover. Many existing
magazines do not usually have borders.
I also have some unconventional photos that I have used
on my double page spread – the ones which have 3
images surrounded by one border.
These are all
unconventional
photos.
3. 2.) How does your music magazine represent particular social
groups?
My music magazine has been aimed at a particular social
group. These are known as ‘scene kids.’
My magazine represents this social group as:
• People who enjoy music and celebrity gossip – used
features are about music and ‘rock star’ celebrities.
• People who go on social networking sites i.e. ‘Facebook’ –
mentioned on my front cover.
• People who are fashion conscious and interested in the
way they look – models used are wearing the typical clothing
for the social group.
I think my music magazine has a realistic
portrait of this social group and
therefore I think this will help
in attracting them into buying the
magazine. Another magazine known for
attracting this social group is
‘Bubblegum Slut’ magazine.
There may also be some negative representation as not all
teenagers act and dress in the ways my magazine portrays
them.
4. 3.) Who would be the audience for your music magazine?
The target audience for my product is 16-25 year old males
and females who are interested in alternative music and are
part of the social group mentioned in the last question. This
is because some articles in my magazine may not be
suitable or interesting for younger or older people.
The target audience would also most likely be interested in
such magazines as:
5. 4.) How did you attract/address your target audience?
•The audience are first attracted by the magazine’s
appearance. The red title with the white background, jumps out
at the audience and the fonts used suggest the genre of the
magazine.
•The audience is then •Once the audience has
attracted to the photographs been caught by the
used on the front cover. With magazines features, they
a big photo of the main are drawn in to the
article the reader will know articles. The cover acts
whether to pick up the as a teaser with only a
magazine and read it or put few articles and the
it back on the shelf. audience is then
attracted by the
competition opportunity.
6. 5.) What kind of media institution might distribute your
music magazine and why?
I think that my magazine would sell best with Bauer Media
because:
• This company is a publishing company
which operates in 15 countries worldwide.
• It produces and distributes many popular
magazines and has stakes in television and
radio.
• The worldwide circulation of Bauer Media Group's
magazine titles amount to 38 million magazines a
week.
• They own ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’ which means that they
have expertise in selling to the target market of my
magazine.
• The company also own many TV music channels,
such as 4Music. Therefore this would be a great
opportunity to advertise my magazine or even create a
new music channel for it, like ‘Kerrang! TV.’
7. 6.) What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing your music magazine?
Throughout the process of making my magazine, I have
used many software programs:
• Desktop Publisher: I used this to create the layout for
my magazine front cover, double page spread and
contents page.
• Photoshop: I used this program to edit photographs to
be placed into my magazine. It had features such as;
crop and resize and I was also able to delete the
background of photos so they would fit well within the
magazine.
• Paint: this was also used in the process of editing my
photographs for the magazine.
• The Internet: This was very useful when doing the
research into magazines and the magazine industry.
With the use of sites such as Google and Wikipedia, it
was simple to find information which was needed in my
research.
Luckily I had used most of these programs before and so
the features were all familiar. Although I hadn’t used
Photoshop before, but soon got to grips with the
facilities of the software.
8. 7.) What do you feel you have learnt in the progression
from creating the school magazine (preliminary task),
to creating your music magazine?
In the progression from creating my school magazine to
creating my music magazine, I have learnt:
• More about the magazine industry and the ways in
which they are represented.
• About the conventions of existing music magazines
and what my target audience are wanting from the
genre of magazine I have created.
• About the technologies used to create the media
behind the magazine i.e. Photo editing.
• The conventional language used in producing a music
magazine.
• About the ways in which a front cover, double page
spread and a contents page can be represented with
various fonts, colours and sizes.