2.  For the front cover of any magazines, there is a main
masthead which is usually the name of the magazine. In
this case it is “GiveMeMusic”. A typical magazine would
also include a main background image on the front
cover which tends to be the focus of the first page, as it
instantly shows the style of the magazine, therefore
enticing the correct target audience to buy it. There are
some cover lines which are the main features included
inside, and the basic conventions such as date, issue
number and price. I have included all of these in my
music magazine in order to make it as realistic as
possible.

3.  A typical contents page of a music magazine will
consist of a editors letter possibly, maybe a few
small pictures, and most importantly the page
numbers and features included in the magazine to
match. I have also included a competition to make
my contents page a bit different from others. The
background of my contents page, unlike the other
two pages doesn’t have one of my own images as
the background, just a cream colour. I am aware that
this may not look as effective next to the others, but
realistically, most contents pages in everyday
magazines have a plain background, as the colours
of the font make the page bright enough.
 A traditional double page is generally an exclusive
interview with a certain celebrity, in this case Beth
Miller, winner of the X-Factor. There is another main
picture of them, as they are usually the ones that
are on the front cover as well. I have used the whole
picture of Beth in the forest as part of the
background as well, to make it look more
professional. I have then used white, blue and pink
text, the same three colours that I have stuck to
throughout my whole 3 pages.

4.  Hopefully, I have included all of the necessary conventions in my own
magazine, and as said before, I have done few things differently. On all
three pages, I have put a lot of focus on Beth, because she’s the exclusive
interview that the magazine has got and I think it is effective to make her
the priority of the first issue to really show how the magazine is one that
relates to young girls, as Beth makes the point that she is from a small
town and will never turn into a diva, as that’s what fame does to s lot of
young singers. That is why I have included a part of Beth in each page: the
front cover picture and double page spread interview most obviously, then
the small picture of her in the contents, with a caption and page number;
as shown below, to remind readers that she is the main topic of the very
first issue.

5.  I have represented young, female teenagers, who listen to mainstream
music in my magazine. This is because mainstream music is very much
popular with younger generations today, so by targeting mainstream fans,
it gives me a wider target audience, despite the fact that it’s only aimed at
females.
 I have shown a representation of this particular social group by the colour
scheme I have used. In order to prevent the pages looking too busy and
disorganised, I have stuck mainly to three colours: hot pink, turquoise and
white. I chose these colours, originally to math Beth’s turquoise gloves on
the front cover. The pink is an obvious girly colour and the white brings
some basicness to the colour scheme, so I thought these three colours
worked well together. I have only used four images overall, and three of
them are of Beth, due to the reasons stated in the previous slide. I haven’t
used any photos of male celebrities because the photos are mainly of
female singers, as the young readers aspire to be like them. It is also clear
that there would be posters of male singers from the information in the
contents page.

6.  The language I have used is very colloquial, to represent the informal way
in which teenagers speak. To a certain extent, GiveMeMusic is very
stereotypical of young girls, but that’s because it symbolises the type of
people they are, which will appeal to them. It is overall, a positive
representation of them, because the magazine has a very innocent style
to it, with problem pages and generally lots of girly themes which
emphasises their youth- (see below). Ethnicity is not an issue in this
magazine, there is no indication of race or religion, so it is representative
of any female teenager.

7.  The institutions that deal with mainstream music magazine are a
likely distributor of my media product, because they would deal
with magazine such as NME and Q, which are the magazines that
I researched in the beginning and have since based my one on
them. However, maybe a slightly different institution could be
more effective, as there is less competition. If they had a gap in
the market then I could offer them an alternative music magazine
which is targeted at a very specific gender and age group. As you
can see from the comparisons below, GiveMeMusic is clearly
targeted at a fairly younger audition, by the use of vibrant
colours.

8.  The magazine is targeted at female teens who’s favourite genre of music
is mainstream pop. The target age of the magazine is 14-17 year olds as
this is the generation that are most influenced by pop and mainstream
music appeals most to them. A lot of the readers are likely to have part
time jobs so they can afford to purchase the magazine as it is only
monthly. However, a lot of the parents will buy them the magazine and
will be in the C1/C2 socioeconomic grouping so I'm aiming to give it an
affordable price so the low economic groupings are able to enjoy it too.
 Some of the readers will be aspirers so will look up to the celebrities
features in it. That's why the Beth’s pictures are young and fresh, setting
a good example to readers. However, the majority of readers are
mainstreamers who enjoy media content that isn't challenging and is
familiar to them. Young girls are focused on keeping up with fashion
trends and buying the most recent gadgets so GiveMeMusic will supply
them with tips and tricks on topics such as beauty.

9.  They will also of course, have a large interest in music, playing
instruments, singing themselves or even dancing. The desire to sing is
one of the most popular, so the female readers will look up to X factor
winners for instance as role models, as they went from having normal
lives to being rich and famous. GiveMeMusic readers are the typical
teenage girls, who are confident and only want to have fun, but will need
advice in some areas such as achieving their dreams, which is where
GiveMeMusic comes in, by providing advice and information on how
other young people like them have reached their goals in life.

10.  Due to the fact that 70% of magazines are bought on the spur of the
moment, I put a lot of focus into the front cover as it is generally the
deciding factor in whether someone will buy the magazine or not. That’s
why I wanted to use bright, eye catching colours in order to attract my
target audience, as they are likely to be enticed by this style. By using
Beth as the main image and showing clearly that the magazine includes
an exclusive interview with her, it will encourage female teens to read it
as it is someone young like them, who they recognise to be newly
famous. They will therefore feel that they can relate to her, especially
from the caption: “I’m an out-doorsy girl; I’ll never turn into a diva.”
The image on the right shows the way in which I planned before
hand the layout of the front cover, in order to make it as appealing
as possible.

11.  The style of the front cover attracts a young audience because of the
contrasting colours and slight disorganisation of the page. However, when
making the front cover, I made sure that I kept a degree of organisation
so the target market wouldn’t be put off by a cramped, busy page. I
edited the front cover image of Beth slightly, on Photoshop, in order to
brighten up the page a bit. However, when I actually took the picture, the
sun was in front of her, shining on her face so it gave it a bright image
anyway, making her eyes more prominent and so on. This is why I didn’t
edit her too much as it would look too fake and I wanted it to look
realistic so the readers can see that she’s just like them. That’s the reason
also, for the fact that I took all of my pictures outside, for not jus t the
front cover but all three pages. If the photo shoot took place inside or in
a studio with artificial lighting, the style of it would look less real. The
whole purpose of GiveMeMusic is to be a magazine that relates to all
readers of all kinds, so the outdoor photo shoot shows to look more fresh
and vibrant when put on the pages of the magazine, which will appeal to
the target audience.

12.  The mode of address of GiveMeMusic will entice young females because
the language used is informal .The majority of teenagers nowadays
communicate in a very colloquial way, so I kept that in mind when writing
text on my pages, such as the editors letter on the contents page. As you
can see below, I’ve used chatty language and refrained from using large
words to prevent boring the audience. It is vital for them to recognise
that the magazine is very laid back, meaning that it is something they can
enjoy without being challenged. By adding in smiley faces, it enables the
magazine to come across as welcoming and friendly.

13.  The double page spread shows instantly that it’s relatable to the
audience because even though they don’t have Beth’s fame, which is
naturally the main topic of discussion, the quote taken from her
interview and put as a heading is very down to earth:
It shows how she was in the position of thousands of other readers, who
would be turning to GiveMeMusic to provide them with advice on
dilemmas with factors to do with school for instance. It puts emphasis on
how Beth can relate to them as she can share their worries, because
she’s been though what a lot of other girls are struggling with.
 People would therefore definitely feel inclined to buy the because it’s at
the low price of £2.50 and comes out monthly, so there is a lot covered in
one issue.

14.  Ensuring I had adequate audience feedback when in the process of
making my magazine was vital to know what they prefer in layout designs
and features etc. Because my classmates are within the age group of my
target audience, it was suitable to see what they would want in this style
of magazine. As you can see below, I’ve had various bits of feedback,
from comments on posts and votes in polls. It was even helpful when it
came from boys, because every suggestion is helpful and it’s beneficial to
get a wide range of opinions. This enabled me to create the best
magazine I could, in order to fulfil the expectations of the targeted
readers.

15.  I have used a wide variety of technologies when creating my music
magazine, including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Blogger, digital
camera, Microsoft Publisher and of course Microsoft PowerPoint.
 Photoshop: I’ve had some experience with this before, when doing
photography last year. However during the process of making
GiveMeMusic I have learnt a lot more skills on it, in order to edit my
pictures and fonts. I’ve used tools such as magnetic lasso tool, magic
wand, paint bucket, horizontal and vertical type tool and experimented
with colours such as hue and saturation.

16.  InDesign: I enjoyed using this for the first time, because its given me a far
better understanding of other ways in which you can design with
technology. I used InDesign to help me create my double page spread and
it turned out to work really well. I struggled with it at first but then learnt
how to use the tools in order to move text boxes to be equal to others,
edit the double page spread picture as a background and create two
effective pages that worked well together.

17.  Blogger: This is obviously a vital resource in order to create the music
magazine, and it proved to be really useful in order to gain audience
feedback, record our progress, compare it to others and keep us
organised. This is a new skill that I’ve learnt and have thoroughly enjoyed
using blogger and hope to use it again in the future as I feel confident
with what I’m doing. It was fun to be able to customise our own page and
make it our own, and I learnt how to use other tools within it, such as
polls. These were helpful in order to obtain feedback from my peers on
how to improve my pages. It was useful to be able to post my pages as
JPEG pictures and write comments to track my progress and look back to
what I have done in previous weeks to see how I improved.

18.  Digital Camera: I used the school’s digital camera numerous times on
various photo shoots. I used a Nikon 550D and gradually understood the
different tools on the camera as I progressed. It was interesting to
experiment with it without any limits. I used zoom, flash and a number of
other different elements on the camera in order to capture the best
picture I could. I also made use of the natural lighting. Below are some
pictures of my first photo shoot with Beth; ones that I didn’t use in
GiveMeMusic.

19.  Publisher: I’ve had a lot of experience with Publisher in the past so
already have a lot of understanding of it. I used it to make up my contents
page as the majority of it is text, even though I did use Photoshop for
some of the graphics. I also used Publisher to crop anything that I
needed, so it was useful especially when choosing fonts for GiveMeMusic
at the start of the task.

20.  PowerPoint: PowerPoint is of course what I’m doing my evaluation on. I
have used it regularly in the past so have had a lot of experience with it.
It is simple to use and effective to display pictures and texts in a
professional manner, but the use of colour schemes liven it up a bit. I’ve
enjoyed experimenting with animations and giving each slide different
movements. Using this for my evaluation has helped me to gain a further
understanding of it and I feel more confident using it in the future.

21.  I think I have improved a lot since the preliminary task of making a
student magazine, because there was less limits on the images that can
be used for instance. I have hopefully made my work look more
professional compared to before and you can see the comparison on the
next slide. I have really made GiveMeMusic appeal to my target audience
as I have spent a lot of time picking out colour schemes and layout
designs, and of course what features I’d but in and the mode of address.
With the help of a great deal of feedback I’ve made the best possible
music magazine I could.
 I’ve developed more practical skills and have a greater understanding of
technology after using all the different forms of it, which I can hopefully
use again in the future. My understanding of the music industry has also
widened through my research at the beginning of the task.

22. Preliminary Task
Front cover and
contents…
Music Magazine
front cover and
contents…