Front Cover

This is the front cover of our music magazine.








The most important thing  here is the use of the house colours for my magazine. The entire magazine is in black, purple and white. We want our magazine to look classy yet femenine, and this explains the use of the colours further; the target audience of our magazine is teenage girls, and the most obvious colour to use here is pink. However, we wanted to bring some sophistication and room for different tastes within a community to our magazine, hence the use of the colour purple.





We initially decided that we wanted the photo on the front of our magazine to be in black and white, with the tie of the model pulled through in purple so as to create some brand identity for our magazine. However, after we thought about this more, we realised that this would not make the image stand out enough. When the audience are deciding which magazine to buy in the shop, there is a 10-20 second considering period, and realistically our magazine would probably be overlooked if there was a simple black and white image on the front.





We wanted the model on our magazine cover to look smart yet edgy; and this therefore explains the costume of the model. He is wearing a smart shirt and tie, with a zipped bomber jacket over the top. We hoped that this would make him look more fresh and cool, as well as making him look younger and more relevant to the music industry today, with similar artists such as Justin Bieber being popular today.





We carefully considered the conventions of covers of music magazines. We imitated the stand out masthead of similar magazine NME, putting the slogan of our magazine 'Music is what life sounds like' underneath it, so as to create some brand identity for the magazine. Our use of coverlines and lures, combined with our idea to have a skyline and line at the bottom of the page in order to show more features within the magazine also shows regular conventions of other magazines. In order to create some originality, we also featured an image of my features page on the cover, so as to make the page more visually interesting - though we did not want too many images on the front cover, as we wanted the main focus to be on the central image - and to inform the reader about the magazine.

Image research for our front cover

When deciding how we wanted our pictures taken for the front cover we had to do some additional research on images of popular male celebrities, and how they posed in photoshoots.

Image research for our front cover

View more presentations from Riah Amelle Andrews.

Photos of my front cover

This presentation discusses the images taken for the front cover of our music magazine.

Photos for our_front_cover[1]

View more presentations from Riah Amelle Andrews.

Front cover flat plan

Below is the flat plan for the front cover of my music magazine. I have included some forms and conventions of music magazines, such as a masthead and barcode. I have also developed these conventions; on one magazine that I have seen, there was a small lyric next to the barcode which was written by the artist featured on the front cover. I think this is an original idea, and therefore intend to do it in my own music magazine. On my front cover, I intend to have just one main image which will be the main focus of the page. My image will feature a young male, as I feel that this would appeal more to me as a teenage girl, and therefore am trying to consider what my ideal reader would prefer.

Ideology of my Music Magazine

Whose interests does the magazine serve? Who or what does it represent?


The magazine is intended for teenage girls, and so it represents them and their interests, such as celebrity gossip and other insights into celebrities personal lives. I will use my reader profile to consider the content of my magazine properly, so that I can interest my target audience with as much impact as possible.



Who is present and absent in the magazine?

As my magazine is a music magazine, the vast majority of the people featured are going to be music artists, including soloists and band members. I may also include talk of music moguls in my articles, as well as other celebrities when discussing featured artists' personal lives. Apart from these instances, there will be no talk of anyone else in the public eye, such as politicians or actors. I may also include some unsigned artists, but otherwise I will not really feature any other 'everyday' people.

Photos for Contents page

Photos for our_contents_page[1]

View more presentations from Riah Amelle Andrews.

Contents page

The picture above shows the contents page of our music magazine. Previously, we had researched the conventions of other music magazines before creating our own so we couuld gain inspiration and knowledge about the conventions used. We saw that there are obvious features such as a list of contents, folio and image. However, we also gained inspiration from some unconventional features in some music magazines. For example, we decided to include a band index on the bottom of our contents page, as well as images of examples of pages in our magazine. We did this because we want our magazine to be as original and informative as possible for the audience; we want our magazine to be unconventional.

In terms of the image on our contents page, we took inspiration from the contents page of another music magazine" Vibe" which we found on the internet when researching for inspiration. This image is also an explanation for the layout of our contents page, as we wanted to fit the text featured around the image as much as possible.





We edited the image; putting it in black and white and highlighting the model's purple shoes. We wanted to do this in order to create some originality and brand identity for our music magazine; we decided that we wanted to have every photo in our music magazine in black and white with something purple pulled through so as to create individuality for our magazine. By doing this we are conveying our house colours, as well as creating a very classy and glamourous look for our magazine.

Contents page flat plan

Below is the flat plan for our contents page. We have tried to include various conventions, and are going to have one main image on our page, so that the focal point is obvious. Some of the conventions we have included are pull quotes, anchoring and an editors' note. The house colours of the magazine will be set here, as white, black and purple; we plan for the photo to be in black and white with an item of purple colour accentuated, as a trademark of our magazine, setting brand identity.

The first photo featured is an image of a contents page which we found on the internet, while researching for our own project. We were immediately drawn to this example because of it's simplicity yet edge, and the fact that it looks classy but striking. Therefore, we aim to recreate this shot on our own contents page,adapting it as detailed above.

Conventions of a Front cover

As a post production process in the creation of the front cover of our music magazine, we first looked at other conventions of the front covers of music magazines. We did this so as to get a feel for not only the conventions used but also the correct terminology for the different conventions, so that we could talk about and think about them when creating our own music magazines. I have annotated two front covers with appropriate labels, as can be seen above.

 

 

 

Features page

PowerPoint Presentation on my features page

As part of a peer marking scheme in order to enable us to accept constructive criticism about our features pages, I created a presentation of my features page so as to explain the decisions I made while creating my features page. This can be viewed below.

Presentation1

View more presentations from Riah Amelle Andrews.

Photo's for my feature page

As part of a peer marking scheme in order to enable us to accept constructive criticism about our features pages, I created a presentation of my features page so as to explain the decisions I made while creating my features page. This can be viewed below;

Presentation for photos for features page

View more presentations from Riah Amelle Andrews.

The contents of my Feature Page - Mindmap

I have created a small mindmap of what I intend to include of my features page for my music magazine. By doing this I have organised my ideas and now have a clear idea of what will be included. we decided to do some research into what sort of conventions contents pages follow.

Research for Main task- Feature page Layout ideas

For my feature page, I decided to chose a boy to focus my feature on because my target audience is teenage girls, and I thought that although they might like to see a Girl on the feature page, at this age their emotions run high, so in order to capture my target audience and get them interested a Boy would be a good idea.

Another decision I chose to make was to base the article around his fan base, and his success as an artist because following my survey on what exactly my target audience would like to see, over 50% said that a male figure who was very successful.

The feature page I have chosen to do is going to be based only on the artist himself, so on one page there will be photo's of him, possibly playing the guitar- his main instrument, playing the keyboard, and genuinely just posing. I decided not to go with a spontaneous photograph, I thought that staged photos would work better for the article this is because the article was introducing him as a person as well as his music and not just his music- and on the other page there will be an article written about him including information like; his popular fan base, his new album, what songs are featured, possible collaborations with other famous artists. This interests my target audience because, they read about celebrities to get an insight into their lives and what their future plans are. So because my article tells them exactly what the artist plans to do and how he is living, the target audience are getting what they want.

I have decided to take pictures of him playing his main instrument to let the audience know what exactly his music entails but also I have taken pictures of him that show what sort of a person he is.

My inspiration for the layout of my feature pages was Q magazine, this is because they write about whatever is big at the time. Which is what I wanted for my magazine, I do not want the magazine to be on a specific genre of music because then it's audience is a niche audience. The magazine would sell better if it had a broader audience.

I looked at a recent feature page in Q magazine to get ideas for my feature page- as shown below;

Survey Monkey Response

This is the response for my survey, created on SurveyMonkey. In this questionnaire, I tried to target specifically those who I wanted to include in my target audience; teenage girls. I tried to include questions which I had not had answered in my previous questionnaire. I have analysed the questions below. As my target audience is teenage girls, I have deliberately asked questions that only girls would have an answer to.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_Responses.aspx?sm=2YO3YLIiv5766TbbNBvMZQEiww7n9KSjzPJlQp8eToI%3d

1. 83% of my target audience have a job, showing that they earn their own money regularly. This is important to me, especially considering a price for my music magazine and ensuring that customers get their value for money.


2. Half of my target audience get paid monthly, the other half gets paid weekly and one person gets paid every fortnight.This shows that I will need to be careful when pricing my music magazine, and once again will ensure I consider value for money.


3.66.7% of the girls answering my survey stated that their favourite genre of film was Romantic comedy,33.3% chose horror and 50% chose comedy. This shows that most girls watch films that are light-hearted or sad; more feminine films such as 'The Notebook' and 'The Ugly Truth'.

4. 16.7% answered my survey question " where do you usually shop for clothes" as River Island, 50% said that they shop for clothes in Topshop, 16.7% said that they use Miss Selfridge for retail shopping and another 50 % said they shop in New Look. One person said that they shopped using the internet.
From my understanding, TopShop is a very expensive clothes shop which may indicate that my target audience are willing to spend money on things they really enjoy or want.

5. This question asked the audience to specifically name what they would like to see in a music magazine. The answers are shown below;

1. pictures of fit boys :)
2. backstage interviews and giveaways
3. all different genres
4. pictures and interviews with famous people
5. Reviews, interviews

This shows that my audience would like to see exclusive interviews with popular artists but also photos of them. This is important as it shows what kind of feature will attract them to a music magazine. Obviously I will not be able to include an original photograph of a famous man in my magazine, but this has helped me to decide that a man should be included in order to appeal the most to my target audience.


6. This question was specifically asking what it is teenage girls spend their money on, a vast majority chose clothes and spend up to £90 a month.This could show that they buy a new outfit weekly, and so fashion is important to them.


7. I needed an idea for what house colours i could use for my main task - a music magazine, so i decided to ask what favourite colours my target audience had.

1. purple, black, green

2. dark red, yellow and purple
3. green, purple, grey
4. GREEEN, purple, and red
5. orange, pink, blue
6. black red pink

As you can see, Purple was a very popular colour. From testing out the various colours given in this survey i have come to the conclusion that Black goes very well with purple so therefore i shall be using those as house colours for my magazine.

8. The next question was inquiring on how much people spend on music, This shows again that I will need to carefully consider price and value for money, in order to cater for all of my target audience because the answers were that they do not spend hardly any money on music, the most they spend is 10 - 15 pound a month.

9. 16.7% of my target audience stated that they would be most attracted to a magazine with a man on the front cover, and 83.3% said that they would like to see both men and women on the cover. This has been very useful to me, as it has helped me to decide that a female will be on the cover of my own magazine in order to provide maximum appeal to the audience.

10. Favourite male and female artist?


1. ellie goulding, travis mccoy.
2. jamie t and ellie goulding
3. CHERYL COLE
4. katy perry and olly murs
5. depends on if they are good or the genre of music they listen to

I asked what favourite male and female artists my audience had to get a feel of what sort of genre of music people were listening to. This will help me to establish what music my magazine promotes.

Reader profile research- Target Audience

Target Audiences explore ; Adults, Teens, Children, Mid Teens and Pre-schoolers. When looking at a target audience I need to think about my specific target audience. In additional research for my AS media- creating a music magazine- I have looked at two reader profiles which have a similiar target audience to the one I am aiming for my AS task, Uncut and NME using ipcadvertising. The links for these two reader profiles can be seen below;

http://www.ipcadvertising.com/resource/ie8ggqzju8kgqdditq67k9hj.pdf - Uncut

http://www.ipcadvertising.com/resource/hvcjivb3x8p8oqk9bw285ffu.pdf - NME


 In doing so I have learnt how to establish my target audience, I understand that when creating a reader profile they need to think about what their audience would like to see. For example, on the reader profile of Uncut I have seen statistics identifying how popular the magazine is and how much it costs to make the magazine. The statistics include; The gender of the majority of readers, their average income, relationship status, median age and whether or not they are a student or an adult.
The reader profiles have helped me to understand the way in which the magazine companies establish their target audience and therefore to include features that their target audience would like to see within the magazine.

In order to establish my target audience I have analysed the two reader profiles previously discussed and created my own reader profile as seen below;

My magazine's target audience is a teenage girl, and therefore I have included a lot of feminine things on my profile, such as makeup and jewellery. I have also included a film that are popular among teenage girls, such as the third Twilight book, Eclipse. As well as considering popular figures such as Audrey Hepburn and Jensen Ackles who also interest teenagers.

Feature Page analysis 2

As part of our research for our main task we had to annotate two features pages from music magazines. In our annotation we should be able to identify the key features of each page by analysing so that we could understand and explain how the editors of  the magazine aim to appeal to the target audience.

Images  There is one single image on this page, this is of the featured band Muse. They are all wearing the same suit to emphasise that they are in a band together; and within them lie individuals. All the images on this feature page are posed images. It gives the impression that "Q" magazine is very professional and formal, The audience then remebers that they are reading a magazine rather than it appearing more like a diary or a scrapbook. We can see from the background that this picture is not taken when the band is performing - it is taken from an additional photo shoot possibly back stage. Each photo is posed which doesn't give the reader a chance to understand the band members as normal people rather than celebrities because it is almost as if they are playing a character in the photo. Two of the band members are looking into the camera which is direct address to the audience, this familiarises them with the reader. The image is at the top of the page which directly draws your eyeline to it, this is because the rest of the page is all text.

Features page analysis

As a research process for the creation of my music magazine, I looked at other features pages and looked at the conventions used, as well as the mode of address. This particular magazine is Kerrang!, specialising in rock and metal music. My annotations can be seen below.

The images are spontaneous, and mainly performcance shots. This is because the readers of the magazine are interested in the fundamental foundations of the artists - music- and wish to see them in their 'natural' environments. In addition to this the images are often low angled shots, and this gives the artists a sense of superiority, authority and general importance, idolising them to it's target audience. They also aim to create the atmosphere of the scene. There is a shot of the crowd, displaying the chaos of the venue and therefore reliving the event. The shot of the audience also shows how important fan support is, not only to the band, but also to the magazine.They're randomly scattered around the page, showing the chaos of the gig as well as the kind of music the band makes. This brings the audience into the scene itself, making them feel like they were there. Usually in Kerrang they have a white border, looking almost like a polaroid picture, again bringing a very natural and spontaneous feel, as well as creating an almost nostalgic atmosphere, however in this specific feature page they have decided not to show the border to merge the pictures together. 

The photos do not generally show people looking into the camera and therefore portray the band in their natural environment. The heading of the article is the name of the band featured, therefore clearly showing the reader what to expect from it and who it is they are reading about. The singer in the main image is depicting not only the sort of music that the band create, but also the genre of music that the magazine and the music represents. He has a cropped haircut and heavy tattoos, possibly implying aggression and authority.
The main article is much more ordered than the rest of the page, it is arranged in columns which shows that the magazine, when informing it's readers about music, and the band takes on a more professional outlook. The sans-serif font shows masculinity and again being professional yet also depicting the kind of music featured.

Flat Plans - Music magazine

For our main task in AS Media - a music magazine front cover and double page spread - it is important to consider the basic layout and organisation of original ideas. Therefore, I have used Microsoft Word to create two flat plans showing my first ideas about the layout of my front cover and double page spread in my music magazine, and these are shown below.

Results of The Music Questionnaire

After completing and having 15 people including myself answer my questionnaire on music magazines, I then had to look at my results to see what sort of things i would need to achieve my target audience. This is part of the process which enables me to create relevant material in a music magazine for my target audience. I have analysed my results question-by-question, which is displayed below. Some people answered more than once on some questions, explaining why not all of the votes add up to 15.


Circle the answer that most applies to you


1) How often do you listen to music?

a. everyday                                 15 votes
b. at the weekends
c. sometimes
d. never

This shows that everyone listens to music everyday, in addition to this it shows that music is very popular within the people i asked to complete the questionnaire.


2) When do you listen to music?

a. whenever                  14 votes
b. when i'm happy
c. when i'm sad             1 vote

The most popular answer to this was whenever, which shows that you don't have to be in a certain mood to listen to music. some people listen to music when they are sad because it builds there spirits up. Music may make people happy
3) How do you usually purchase music?

a. iTunes                       3 votes

b. CD                          3 votes
c. Illegal download      14 votes
e. File share                 1 vote

f. Other                       1 vote

The most popular answer in this section was 'Illegal download', closely followed by 'iTunes'. These answers both show that the age of 'hard copies' of music is long gone, and the digital download is now the most common way to listen to and purchase music. The fact that most people in my survey selected 'Illegal download' as their answer shows what is happening in the music industry today; artists are not making much money from their music as people are, in effect, stealing their music by using file sharing and illegal downloading in order to purchase music.




4) How often do you buy music magazines?

a. Never       12 votes
b. 1-3 times a month    3 votes
c. 4-6 times a month
d. every issue possible
e. Other

The answers to this question indicate that very few people actually purchase music magazines, let alone on a regular basis. This could be because few people are interested in music to the point that they would spend money reading about certain bands and artists, or because there are no music magazines that cater for their interests.



5) What's your favourite genre of music?

a. R 'n' B      8 votes
b. Drum and Bass
c. Rock       1 vote
d. Funky house     3 votes
e. Dance   4 votes
f. Other    7 votes

The most popular answer to this question was 'R n B` closely followed by Other. At the moment some of the most listened to `R n B` artists include Kanye West, Rihanna. This shows that, although some more rock-y bands such as Kings of Leon are becoming more and more popular and successful in the mainstream market, R n B is still the genre of music that most people listen to. The types of music specified in the 'Other' category included acoustic and dubstep, an increasingly popular genre descending from garage, and concentrating on syncopated rhythms and emphasis on the bassline.




6) How do you listen to music?

a. Ipod/ Mp3              6 votes
b. Computer/Laptop  4 Votes
c. Phone                   2  votes
d. Radio                   1 votes
e. All of the above    5 votes
f. Other

The most popular answer to this question was iPod/MP3 player, by a majority. This shows the increasing amount of people owning personal music players, presumably due to their convenience. This survey has shown me that very few people purchase music on CDs any more, most people use downloads in order to listen to music.




7) The last song you downloaded was....?

There were no repeated songs answered in this part of the questionnaire, therefore it is difficult to make a comment, especially seeing as the songs featured were very varied in terms of genre and artist.



8) Favourite Band, Solo Artist, Duo?

The most commmon answers to this question were , Rihanna and Beyonce. Rihanna is a R n B artist, and is very popular particularly amongst girls as she is seen as a role model; she also recently released a new album and so is very current.  In addition to this beyonce is very successful and also seen as a role model. She has been in a few films within the last two years which shows that she cannot only sing, but act too.
9) Do you attend concerts regularly?

a. Yes  2 votes
b. No  13 votes

The most common answer was "NO" simply because most of the recent and popular artists are american so it is difficult to aprehend when they are to put concerts on that do not cost hundreds of pounds.



10) Top Three things you would like to see in a new music magazine?

  he majority of people thought that the most important feature in a music magazine is exclusive interviews with bands/artists. This, therefore, will be featured in my music magazine, as it shows that this is what my target audience want to see in a music magazine. Another of the features that people voted as important was support for unsigned bands; therefore I will combine these features by creating an interview with an unsigned band, in order to appeal to my target audience.

Preliminary Task (specific questions) - Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


My product uses some forms and conventions of a school magazine. For example, I have included features such as an insight into what's happening in upcoming weeks. These often feature in a school magazine. However, I have also tried to challenge these conventions; I have included different articles which may not necessarily be included in a school magazine. For example, I have included two features entitled ‘Have your say’, in which there challenges for the students to speak out against each other for what should feature in nexts weeks magazine. I did this because I want my magazine to be informative, interesting, and above all popular- as well as being individual. I wanted to achiece some kind of brand identity in doing these added features.


How does your media product represent paticular social groups?


My magazine represents sixth form students that attend the Priory School. I tried to convey this in particular way on my front cover,where I have included a picture of a few students that attend the sixth form . I wanted to do this so that the audience would straightaway be able to identify with the magazine. I also tried to do this by including features which I hoped would help sixth form students, by considering what they could possibly struggle with or need information on when attending the sixth form.


What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


My magazine is intended to be distributed by a school, as it is for students that attend the Priory school itself. So it should be distributed by the Priory School. The magazine informs students of events, information and any other topics regarding what is going on inside the school.

How did you attract/address your audience?


I believe that the biggest way to attract my audience straight away was to put a very effective picture on the front cover of my magazine because it gets the readers guessing about what they can expect within the magazine and whether it's meant to be serious or just a joke. In order  to achieve this i included a photograph of a select few of the sixth form students which could help to achieve a serious effect to my magazine. I wanted to give the audience something to identify with- other sizth form students in particular. I also informed the audience on the front cover of what type of magazine ‘The Priory’ is. I did this by putting three pictures on the bottom of the page, as I hoped that this would make it clear to the reader about what sorts of things would feature in the magazine. I hoped that my intended audience would recognise some of the faces featured on the front cover and would possibly be more inclined to read it.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?



By creating this magazine and being able to apply my own ideas, I have learnt a lot about how to use the PagePlus and PhotoPlus programs and what sorts of technology is needed to create a magazine. I have learned how to edit photographs and put certain effects on them to make them stand out more than the background and the words. In addition to this I have learnt how to create different coloured backgrounds and how to make different typographic effects. This can be seen on my contents page, where I have faded the word ‘What's new’ and "Features". This preliminary task has enabled me to experiment with the software available to me, which inturn will help me to produce the main task; a music magazine.
Moreover, I have learnt that space, colours, pictures, writing all fit together to give an overall effect- although this isn't related to the technology. I have learnt a great deal on what is important for a magazine cover, and why things are used in order to attract their targeted audience.

Target Audience- Rolling Stones Magazine

As part of our main task for our AS Media, we are going to be creating a music magazine. As part of our research, we looked at different music magazines and studied their target audience.

The magazine that I used was The Rolling Stones magazine, and I used the October issue. I had to answer two questions based on a specific article - I chose an article on " Jeremy Kravitz - Just like starting over" - the answers of which are below.

1. How does the double page spread you have looked at use a layout (text and image) to suit it's target audience and style?

This particular double-paged spread breaks convention as it doesn't have most of the features of a double paged spread. Such as; the By line, white space, a gutter etc.
The background of the picture is the artist, so the main focus is on the artist. As a reader you look directly at the artist first because in the readers eyeline.The colour of the background is not gender specific, yet it is bold and playful, making connotations about the kind of artist that Jeremy is. The title of the article is 'Just like Starting over', a suggestion that the artist and article is more serious. The fact that there is half of the page taken up by image makes the article look smaller, and therefore this would suit the target audience- rock fans - who may not have the concentration, interest or time to read a really long article.


2. What type of mode of address is used by this magazine to appeal to its target audience? Pick out words and phrases as examples.

By looking at the double paged spread in this magazine, you can immediately come to the conclusion that the target audience is rock fans. Rock fans like to party and jeremy talks about " partying the night away" all the time. There is reference to "rocking out" once again showing the intended audience's preferences. This, combined with reference appeal to people who listen to rock music.
 

Preliminary Task Front Cover

The image below shows the front cover page of my preliminary task; a school magazine with target audience of Sixth Form Students at the Priory School in Hitchin.

I decided that i wanted the name of my magazine to be original so i called my magazine 'The Priory'. This therefore is appropriate for my magazine, as it is intended for students attending the Priory School. I also thought that the name of the magazine would appeal to my intended audience, as often in schools students at a higher age are more likely to read what the school produces than that of the younger years.
I have used a simple colour scheme, that was relevant to the school - Black, Red, white and Grey are the school colours and therefore i thought that it would be beneficial to have those colours for my house colours. I thought that these colours complemented each other, and neither are particularly gender specific. This reflects the fact that my magazine is not aimed at any particular gender, and the use of these inexplicit colours will hopefully mean that neither boys nor girls will be uninterested due to the colours used. I decided to use

Red because it is one of the colours featured on the school crest, and some of the school jumpers. I therefore thought that this would give my magazine some sort of brand identity, as people would recognise that it was aimed at students from the Priory School. I also tried to do this by putting the school crest on the front cover but also naming my magazine " The Priory".
The crests and school name all help to give some information about the intention of the magazine. I thought that it was important to include this information on the front cover not only because the magazine itself is new, but also so that any potential readers will know what they are about to read. I hope that, by including this information, more people will want to read the magazine, as they will know what it is about before they pick it up- it would be a problem to my target audience if they misinterpreted the magazine's overall intention.

I tried to make the front cover draw the reader in by including  a range of different pictures. The pictures that I included are all of school students, and I also tried to be informative with the shots that I used because I wanted readers to know what they were potentially going to read. As I needed to include a medium close-up of a student, I used the main focus of the page as the photo of students that attend the Priory sixth form; I thought sixth form students would be able to identify with this image as the students modelling in the picture can be seen in and around school. I put this picture in the middle of the page so that it was in the readers' eye line, and took hold of their attention. I also included three pictures underneath the main photograph, all set in a working school environment. I put them underneath the main photo as I thought they were less important and eye-catching as the main picture but gave enough insight for the reader to apprehend what would feature within the magazine.
I also included a snippet of what to expect in the rest of the magazine on my front page. I picked three of the most contrasting and interesting features from my magazine, and advertised them on the front page. I did this because I wanted to once again inform the reader of what they could see in the rest of the magazine. I positioned this writing underneath the smaller photo's as they had relevence to the pictures themselves. I decided to put this in white which is what the Masthead is in. I did this because it contrasted with the dark colour of the gate, and as a result it stands out from the photograph and will hopefully attract the reader's attention even though it is in small print.

Preliminary Task Contents Page

For part of my Preliminary Task I produced a electronic mock-up of what I wanted my contents page to look like for my school magazine. When deciding how to include the contents of my magazine, I knew I wanted to do something original. I also wanted to continue with the theme of a school. Considering these ideas I chose to create a school banner as part of my Brand Identity, if I were to produce more contents pages "the Priory School" banner would be persistent throughout. I labelled my page as a contents page by putting the word 'Contents' across the left hand side of the page. I did this because I already had the banner of the magazine going along the top of the page, and so I did not think it would look particularly effective if I was to have too much of the text in one place.Saying this, I wanted to keep the contents page fairly simple, especially seeing as I had the school banner detail as the main focus at the top of the page. Therefore, I did not want to include too many photos, but just enough so that the readers would know what to expect within the magazine.I had two photo's which I decided would look good in particular, a fashion show picture, and a picture where students were working. This created a more relaxed and familiar effect to the readers, and also this created an interesting and playful effect, yet was not too much detail that would distract from the main focus of the page - the contents. The house colours relate specifically to the uniform that the students are obligated to wear in the Priory School. I chose to use Black as the background because any colour can go on top of it, which makes that specific colour, for example on this contents page the Red, stand out because of the matt Black background. The White is also easily recognisable and readable against the black background, and goes with the uniform at the Priory School.
Another decision I chose to make, was the shapes with the numbers in them, this not only appealed to my targeted audience, but also made the contents page more visually interesting. In addition to this, the images in the top right and bottom left hand corner relate to the features within the magazine which gives the reader an insight into what they would expect to see in the magazine. I chose to do the "The usual" and the " So what's new?" in a different colour to the rest of the writing because the Grey colour also links to the school uniform. The writing has an effect on it, to again not only appeal to my targeted audience but to look more visually interesting.I also chose to stick to the rule from Paul Felton's book on Typeography that "Thou shalt not apply more than three typefaces in a document". The decision to use a Serif font on the contents page meant that my magazine was more approachable to the students because it looked less formal. Students are more than likely to dismiss something that looks above their age. The font is fun and frisky, which gives the impression to the audience that the magazine is going to be fun to read, and more importantly beneficial and educational. When deciding what would feature in my magazine i had to think very hard about what i would like to see within a school magazine and what interests suit everyone; i myself am a big fan of the fashion shows and the talents shows, and i was positively sure i wasn't alone on that. However, the arts isn't for everyone- certain boys appreciate more sporting activities so the decision for this to feature was not hard.
In addition to this, i included a " have your say" which basically enables the students to invoice ideas for the magazine and what they would like to see.

Typeography

For our Preliminary task to design a front cover and an electronic mock up of a contents for a school magazine. We needed to think about what sort of lettering we were going to have. In addition to this we needed to create a masthead for the front cover of our magazines. I experimented with different fonts, drawing three contrasting styles in order to try and find one which I thought would best fit the theme and ideology of my magazine. The reason for this was that if i had just design one masthead with one font, it would not have given me much choice and i could've jepordized my magazine's success.

Preliminary Task Ideas

As our preliminary task for AS Media, we are going to be creating the front page spread and a mock-up of the contents page for a school magazine. My idea is to create a school magazine for sixth form students, who attend the Priory school, so my target audience is year groups 12 and 13. I am planning to call this magazine 'The Priory', as this relates completely to the school and does not avoid any confusion, and I believe it is a catchy and unforgettable. At this stage of my preliminary task I have a few ideas on what pictures i would like to feature for my magazine. I'm going to try not to use too much text in order to clutter the page and potentially ruin the overall affect of the main image. I wanted to create a minimalistic front cover that looked interesting and intriguing. In order to provide more interest for the audience, I'm going to use the colours of the uniform as the house colours for my magazine to give that sense of well-being but also to relate to the school itself. In addition to this the colours all clash against each other which will help me to attract the audience's attention. I'm going to defy the convention of putting the mast head at the top of the page and put it at the bottom as I think this is effective in catching the audience's attention moreover, the fact that i'm going to use a black background and put "the Priory" in white serif font will help to achieve the 'school' setting.

This is an idea for the front cover main image for my magazine. This picture might work very effectively as it represents some of the students that attend the Priory sixth form- which is who my target audience are.



This is another idea that may feature on the front page as to what my magazine may include- for example in one of the features it could be sport. An idea for this was that it may include what's going on with the school team, how to apply for the school team, what they will learn etc.

This picture will work effectively should i chose to use it for my magazine. The idea behind this photo was that there could be a double page spread within the magazine based on stress, which may students are likely to suffer from. In addition to this, it could possibly include tips on how to become less stressed, how to manage time effectively and possibly what help the school has to offer.

Lastly, this picture was based around exam pressure. Exams are a big thing for Sixth form students, and a page featuring how to revise, how not get too stressed, seek help could possibly be in the magazine.

Preliminary Task Research 2

I decided it would be highly beneficial to research a school magazine that could possibly have the same target audience as the magazine i'm going to produce for my preliminary task i could apply these ideas to my front cover and contents page.

The layout of this school magazine front cover is quite simple - yet striking. The background is black and white so that the main features of the front cover (the subheadings) stand out and catch the readers eye. Also the masthead stands out more with the use of black and white. At a first glance, it is obvious that the magazine is intended for school students, we can see this as the model is posing outside what looks to be the side of her school a problem witht this is that the model is not in school uniform which could create confusion to readers possibly misinterpreting what the magazine is actually for. Parents might be able to pick the magazine up and find out a bit about what's going on around the school that they are not already informed about, so there could be another targeted audience. The magazine is therefore aimed at  the relatively mass audience of school students, presumably in the age bracket of approximately 12-18 years of age, this can be said because the model looks like a teenager, but also there is an agony aunt featured in the magazine. When teenagers get to a certain age- mainly secondary school, they tend to have more problems then say children under the age of 12.The latter feature would be more useful to older pupils as they tend to experience alot more problems and situations that they may not neccessarily feel comfortable discussin with their parents.
The colour scheme used on the front cover is also indicative of the target audience; as the colours used are vibrant and are possibly attached to both genders (like some colours represent sexes stereotypically, such as blue being a 'masculine colour' and pink representing females), this shows that the magazine can appeal to both males and females because it features blue and pink.
It can also cater for an active audience, as games and puzzles are advertised. This enables the reader to get involved in the magazine, and engage their brains, which is also indicative of a school setting.

Preliminary Task Research

The preliminary task that we have been set for our AS Level Media is to create part of a school magazine. As a research exercise we had to look at some other school magazines , and think about the ideology of the magazine. I did so for the magazine 'High Profile'; a school magazine. My annotations can be seen below.



The magazine promotes to people who are interested in expeditions that are avaliable in schools- for example The Duke of Edinburgh award. The magazine represents students taking part in activities together and learning to work in groups and build on team work. Students that are interested in outdoor activities are present within the magazine this is because the magazine is promoting that hobby. I wouldn't expect to see students that are interested in music and drama. In addition to this High Profile is a school for girls so i would not expect to see boys featured in the magazine. The main image features girls which tells us that it is a girls school, added to that, I can infer that the school is quite independent. People may say that the school is quite academic and cares alot about the welfare of their students. The magazine shows that the school offers extra curricular activities indirectly. The magazine is not neccesarily specific to an individual school, and so it can cater for a relatively mass audience. It represents these young people, as it has advice and opportunities aimed specifically at them, and was created by school pupils. The magazine may also appeal to parents of children who are still at school, because they could see exactly what the school has to offer their children, and what additional information they should be informed about.The magazine's general effect is to provide information and advice for fellow students, and to provide helpful hints to peers.Others may say that the magazine is boring and does not provide enough information as to what may feature in the magazine.It seems to focus mainly what is happening outside of school rather than what's happening inside the school.

Ideology

Ideology- The belief ideas and values which the magazine holds to be important.
When discussing Ideology we have to look at the key questions :

- Who's interests does the magazine serve? Who or what does it represent?
- Who is present and who is absent in the magazine?

- What does the magazine tell us about the institution who made it?

- What judgements can you make about the truth, accuracy or effect of the magazine?

- What judgements might other people or groups make about the magazine?

- What values are offered, either directly or indirectly, by the magazine?

- What issues does the magazine raise?

Research into Ideology:

This edition of NME specifically targets fans of Rihanna but also any other music fans.

The colours, to a fan, may represent life, colour, and the "state of music today".

In the top right hand corner of the magazine it says " Introducing the new NME 4 out of 10 special edition covers" which suggests that they are trying to target people interested in different music because Rihanna might not usually fit into the targeted audience and NME usual music choice.

 The House colours have changed for this particular edition which may suggest that this could possibly be a one off thing. The brand identity is in a sans serif font which could mean that NME are appealing to a mass audience rather than a niche audience. It is also in a bright colour which clashes with the colours that the chosen celebrity is wearing. Usually the masthead for NME is covered, and yet still recognisable, however, i think because they have changed the colour for this edition they could not risk the masthead being covered up and not recognised.

This particular edition of Uncut is particularly aimed at adults who are interested in punk rock - this is because the clash is a rock band from 1976. I would expect that other rock bands from around that era, and maybe new rock bands would be featured in this magazine because it appeals to it's targeted audience- so i wouldn't expect to see artists such as Justin Bieber.

The interviews with successful musicians suggest that the magazine is succesful in satisfying it's targeted audience. The magazine also gives away CD's free with it's editions which helps promote new music. The house colours appeal to both genders, which helps broaden their targeted audience, the colours clash well which means that they are easily recognisable.

Brand Identity

Our task was to annotate a music magazine cover in order to establish the brand identity and relating factors. The task was designed to help us to be able to recognise what parts on a magazine cover show the brand identity, and what effects this has on the readers. The skills demonstrated in this task and understanding will be useful when creating our own music magazine covers for coursework. This will be required to come up with a brand identity in order to make it realistic and effective.


The magazine I decided to annotate was an edition of the Rolling Stones which was released July 2010. It featured the latest teenage heart throbs " The Jonas Brothers". I have included my annotations of this magazine.

Forms and Conventions

Our task was to pick a magazine cover of our choice from the Internet, and to label it with the forms and conventions we had learned about in the lesson. These included comments on the house style, brand identity and mode of address. This exercise allowed me to further practise my ability to identify the use of these terms and to continue to recognise the effects they have on the magazine as a whole. This will be useful when I am creating parts of my own music magazine later on in the course, as I will be able to use these forms and conventions to create a realistic representation of the appropriate media article; and to make it succesful.

Brand Identity

" Why is it important to create a Brand Identity in a music magazine?"

With a Brand identity you automatically begin to build up a reputation. Added to that, there is an expectation as a company from your targeted audience to be recognised. Another reason why the brand identity of a magazine is important that it reassures the audience that they know what to expect, if they didnt then the magazine as a company would suffer.

Music Magazine Institutions

Some examples of music institutions are;
BBC: Television media who aim to offer entertainment and information.

AXAR: Part of the Disney co-operation for films who offer entertainment

AARDMAN: Owned by Nick Park. This company specialises in Stop-Frame Animation

SKY: A conglomorate, T.V, Films, Internet Service Provider (isp)

TIME WARNER: A conglomorate- Music, Films. A subsidery of Warner Brothers

GINGER: Making television and Radio  programmes.

SONY: Electronic & Digital Media- creates music, film, t.v , cameras, laptops, phones, mp3's.

02: Phones, Music (events)

Here are some music magazine, with additional research into the companies, what their target audiences are, when they were founded, why they are so successful.

Alternative Press: This is an American magazine founded in 1985 by Mike Shea which provides the readers with band interviews, photos, information on upcoming releases and so on.
The target audience for this magazine is teenagers and young male adults aged 18 to 30 years.
The Genre of this magazine is alternative, Rock/Pop. Magazines use a range of different forms and conventions to appeal to it's targeted audience, for example the house colours for this magazine appeal to the male audience as they are quite plain and usually, and stereotypically apply to men.

Billboard: This is a weekly american magazine devoted to the music industry since 1894. This particular magazine is very popular, around 4 million people visit their website.
There are many different audiences for this magazine ranging between 15 to 30 year olds this is so there is'nt a niche or a mass audience. The magazine covers advertise a wide variety of music so anyone can read it. The audiences can be either passive or active depending on how they collect the magazine.

Q:  This is the UK's best selling music magazine monthly, originally it was named "cue" as in "cue a record" however a single letter made the masthead far more recognisable and prominent.
In June 2007 it had a circulation of around 130,179. Q was first published in 1986 by it's founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth for it's high quality photos and printing. The targeted audience for this magazine is for the older generation and features artists from around their era. Q offers a range of different resources for people to keep up to date with what the magazine has to offer, for example, A radio station, T.v programme, youtube, awards show and hosts this at it's own venue.

NME: This stands for New Musical Express which is a UK magazine weekly since march 1952. In 1970's it was the best selling magazine around, and in 1978 it gained a political voice - Neil Spencer. This magazine has a mass audience, and appeals to everyone, it does this by selling the magazine at a reasonable price, but also having it's own award show, radio station and t.v show.
In 2004, Conor Nicholas became the editor of NME which meant that magazine because glossy again, which may have been the cause of a 5% boost later on that year, with around 73,640 sales per week. However, in 2007 sales fell by 12.3 % to 64,033 but in 2008 they held the largest awards gig at the 02 arena which put them straight back on top.

Kerrang: This is a Rock magazine published Bauer consumer media, this was first published on the 7th june 1981, on this particular AC/DC featured on the front cover. Kerrang is published weekly and in 2007 it reached to around 43, 253 sales and is aimed at 16-25 year olds, specifically rock fans.

Case Study : Smash Hits Magazine

Our task was to represent one media institution connected with music magazines. We needed to do some intensive and detailed research and present our findings to the rest of the class. Within our research, we needed to include : The history and success of the magazine.
                              Who it's target audience is and how you know.
                              What it can offer to media consumers.
                              What are it's plans for the future.

Not only did this help us to understand how the media industry works, but also it gaves us an insight into how popular music magazines really are.
We presented our findings using a powerpoint presentation,  because we were in different groups it helped us to analyse a number of different magazines rather than just one.

Why the Blog?

The reason for this blog is to post my research for AS level Media. For our first piece of coursework, we are going to create a cover page and a double page spread of a Music magazine. Therefore, this blog is going to contain all of my research and any other work I do in preparation for this project.