Music Magazine Textual Analysis - Double Page Spreads

Magazine - "UNCUT"
Publisher - "IPC Media"
Published Since - May 1997

<---Left Page   Right Page--->

From the top of the left page we see the name of the artist the article is centered around, we know they are and artist as underneath is the article title - "NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR", there is a small use of white space above and below the banner which is just used to help the banner and title of of the article stand out (as the colour used is orange against white, which stands out very well).

following the title of the article is a brief summary of the artist leading up to the artist's name in large letter in the centre of the page. the brief summary highlights many good points about the artist and helps the readers understand that this artist is someone very much worth knowing about (the use of these good points make readers interested in reading more about the artist, especially since the magazine lists a few very well known people, such as "David Crosby" (a famous American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, who is also a double member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) and "Jackson Browne", (another famous American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone and who has also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) showing just how important this artist is.

Below Jonathan Wilson's nickname - "the new King of Laurel Canyon", is a moderate amount of white space, separating the section at the top - the brief introduction to who Jonathan Wilson is, and the section below.

The article towards the bottom of the page is presented as 3 columns of text going down the page, the use of which makes the magazines look professionally presented and saves space as to maximise the amount of text that can be entered onto the page. Something noticeable to do with the article is the use of drop caps to start parts of the article, the effect of this makes the article seem slightly classy but also just looks very nice, and professional when presented in a magazine, something else noticeable is the name of the writer of the article -"Andy Gill" and the photographer who took the picture of Jonathan Wilson - "Aaron Farley" above the middle column of text, the effect of this is just to credit the people who worked on the article and to just tell the readers the names of those that wrote and provided photos for the article, offering slight publicity for Andy Gill and Aaron Farley.

Most of the text on this page is presented in Serif style font which adds a certain charm and idea of the class of the article (that it is not incredibly cheap and shallow), there are only a few instances of Sans-serif style font being "JONATHAN WILSON" at the top of the page and the title of the article "NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR". There is something to be said about the colours of the text, besides the standard black used in the article at the bottom of the page, much of the other text and imagery (the banner around "NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR" and the banner across the top of the page (not a banner in the sense of a front page headline which goes across the full width of the page by the way)) uses the colour orange and brown, matching the feel of the image on the right page of the double page spread, as the feel of the image of Jonathan Wilson is that of a sunny, relaxed outlook, due to the strong sunlight in the image. The text on the left page has one minor use of slang, the word "jams", commonly used in the sense of people relaxing together and "jamming" meaning playing music, the pure use of this word gives a sense that Jonathan Wilson is a relaxed person who enjoys playing music with others in a relaxed environment, telling the readers a little more about what kind of person Jonathan Wilson is, which seems to be very relaxed.

The image on the right page of the double page consumes the entire page and relates to the article (as we can tell by the small amount of white, Sans-serif style text in the small black box located towards the bottom left of the image, which sates that it is an image of "Jonathan Wilson at his home in Silver Lake, LA"). The use of the image is obviously to give a better idea of the sort of person Jonathan Wilson is, the angle of the photo,
mise-en-scene and body language of Jonathan Wilson also help this greatly (as we can see the photo is a mid shot of him and his body language appears very relaxed and "mellow", portraying him to be a very relaxed person and the setting around him, of his home, shows to be a very natural place with lots of plants and fresh air, giving a sense that he is not the "city-type", Jonathan Wilson's clothing also gives a very relaxed feel as he does not seem to be dressed up for the picture, he seems to be relaxed in a loose check shirt, jeans and 2 bracelets.




Magazine - "mixmag"
Publisher - "Development Hell Ltd"
Published Since - 1st February 1983

 <---Left Page   Right Page--->

Straight away we see a very large article title across the top of both pages of the double page spread, titled "ORCHESTRA MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK". From this title we can tell the article is obviously about an orchestra, the actual way the title is shown has been catered to this article as we can see the title is surrounded by the guide lines used for composing notes in music, the effect of this is that it looks very professional and also very beautiful in general.

The text across the entire double page spread is all written in Sans-serif style font and in white colour. the reason for the white colour is to keep with the theme of the article (an orchestra who operate in the dark), as obviously the black background continuing off from the image of the orchestra in motion (in an almost bleed effect, as the darkness continues seamlessly from the image to the magazine e.g. from the image on the right page of the double page spread across the left page) as the black background represents the darkness, so a white text is needed to show up well against the black (the only instance of black text is the page number and issue for which the magazine was published against the small amount of white background on the left page of the double page spread). There is a slight amount of white background on the double page spread, on the left side of the left page, but as it comes to the article and the image of the 3 key members of the orchestra, it changes to black to match the rest of the double page spread and gives an effect of a normal lit environment moving into darkness, which is something different (like the orchestra itself - something different).

The image of the 3 key members of the orchestra on the left page gives readers a sense of the type of people these men are (as it tells readers at the top of the image which member of the orchestra is which). The image is presented as a circle with the men inside of it, circles seem to be a prominent theme in this double page spread as we can see by this image, the black background invading the white on the left side of the left page and the large white bullet point starting the article on the right side of the left page.

The underlined text underneath the image tells the readers that this is in fact no ordinary orchestra and that in fact "They compose and play techno on classical instruments" and the orchestra's name is "The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble" (named after each of the 3 key members second names) and finally that the interview took place within Vienna and the writer of article is "Chris Cottingham" and the photos were taken by "Harry Weber" (the effect of providing the names of the photographer and writer provides them with some publicity and helps them become noticed by readers, it also may tell some readers something about the style of photograph or way the article is written if the writer or photographer are well known and have a consistent style to their work).

The actual article is written in columns and moves from the right side of the left page to wrapping around the large image of the orchestra performing on the right page, the use of this just helps to fit text into the page whilst getting the most out of the image shown. Something noticeable is the slightly bolder text after the article finishes, which advertises that "The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble's album 'Mr Machine' s out now via !K7", the effect of this advertisement, after the article about the artist's new take on techno music, may make readers want to purchase the album because they may be interested after the article that they just read, which possibly means profit for The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble and the independent record label "K7".

Looking at the images, the image on the left page does not say too much about the key members of The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, it simply shows what they look like, as far as mise-en-scene goes it shows them as perhaps quite intelligent individuals thanks to, not only their clothing, shown by the three shot, mid long shot/long shot, but the fact they create techno music through the use of classical instruments, which no-one has done very successfully before, thus making them appear quite intelligent to be able to do this (even though this isn't evident in the mise-en-scene it is something to be thought about along with the clothing (which is part of mise-en-scene)). The location in the picture does not seem real, although it very well may be, as far as effects is perhaps make them look mysterious. The image on the right page is an image of (what seems to be) The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble performing, this image does not tell the readers much about the 3 key members although it does tell them that they do use more than 3 people when performing (as is evident in the picture, and hence why I have been saying how Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer and Paul Frick are the 3 key members, as they created the orchestra).




This sums it up for my double page spreads textual analysis and also completes the textual analysis section of my music magazine coursework, so yeah I'm pretty happy about that :D

Anyway, till next time everyone :)

Music Magazine Textual Analysis - Contents Pages

Magazine - "UNCUT"
Publisher - "IPC Media"
Published Since - May 1997

Straight away this contents page make it evident that it is in fact the contents page (as we can obviously tell by the huge text "CONTENTS" in Serif style font at the top of the page, standing out against the white background thanks to the use of red), this is helpful to readers as it clarifies this is the page where they can find which articles are on what pages.

Across the contents page we can see that most of the text is written in Serif style font, the only text that is in Sans-serif style font is the "TAKE 176" and "JANUARY 2012", also, the brief description of the articles down the column on the left side of the page, the text "COVER STORY" next to the article "PJ HARVEY", all the text in the section labeled "REGULARS" including the section name itself and finally the brief descriptions underneath the titles of the articles in the section labeled "REVIEWS", the section name itself and the text next to the large white plus symbol.

at the top of the left column is the issue number - "TAKE 176" (number 176) and also the month in which this issue is meant for - "JANUARY 2012" , all this does is give the reader a better idea of the issue number and month for which it was published.

the layout is such that most of the contents page is taken up by the large image of Dave Davies on the right side of the contents page along with a column down the left and an organised list of articles, some of which are under 2 sections - "REGULARS" and "REVIEWS", obviously because these articles are articles that are done every issue and articles that are reviews for certain things such as film and albums (as it shows on the contents page), articles not under these 2 sections are obviously articles that are in this issue specifically and are not regular pieces or types of articles that are in each issue. The organised layout of the articles in the column (also the colours, as red and black stand out very well against white) help readers to very easily find what article they want to read about, making this very reader friendly. 

In the upper left hand corner of the image of Dave Davies is large Serif style font text, the largest of all the articles, showing that it is an important article in this issue of the magazine (not only through the larger text but also the use of an image, as no other articles on this contents page have images to accompany them). Even though the article has larger text and an image though, next to the article "PJ HARVEY" there is text highlighted in yellow saying "COVER STORY", meaning the story that would have been on the front cover of the magazine, showing perhaps that while the article on Dave Davies is important, this article is the real main article for this issue of the magazine and the Dave Davies article is just something else that is important and should be looked at by readers.

The use of sections shows that these are obviously things that are done in every issue, meaning in every issue they have an article called "Uncut Meets" (obviously the person/group would change) and a page with a "Crossword" and also that UNCUT magazine always reviews certain things such as "ALBUMS" and "FILM".

As far as use of colour goes on the contents page, the red and black stand out very well against the white background and just make the text easily readable for the viewer, the same goes for the white text against the image of Dave Davies, this is really the only effect it has.

Magazine - "mixmag"

Publisher - "Development Hell Ltd"

Published Since - 1st February 1983

Starting from the top of this contents page we see the name of the magazine written in a stylised Sans-serif font (which just help to identify the magazine), the edition of the magazine - "DECEMBER 2011", and finally, text stating to the viewers that this is the contents page (which just helps readers to establish where they are in the magazine and know that this is the page where they can find the page number for the articles they wish to read about.

Straight away we can see the dominant colour on this page is black, and the use of white and (some) yellow text just makes it easy for the viewers to read the text. We can see the majority of the text on the contents page is in Sans-serif style font with the exception of "DECEMBER 2011" (up the top of the page, not the text at the bottom right of the page), "VIP", "YOUR FREE CD" and "SASHA".

We see that a strong majority of the page is taken up by an image of a male and two females with a page number and the name of the article related to the image, this shows that this is most likely the main article of this issue of the magazine as it seems to have the most importance on the contents page (as it is most noticeable through it's use of imagery and increased font size on the page number for the article. The use of the wild image draws viewers eyes and may make them want to read the article to find out more about the subject of the article, in this case - "Don't Stay In: you club guide"). The other articles are printed in page order down a column on the right side of the contents page under a section labeled "VIP", the neat structure of the articles makes it easy for viewers to find what they are looking for as all they need to do is read downwards until the find the article which they wish to read about. all of the articles in the column contain a small amount of information underneath about the article, giving viewers a better understanding of what the article contains and also perhaps drawing them in to read into articles they weren't initially going to read and allowing readers to get the most out of the magazine, which of course in turn may make them purchase future issues if they already don't plan to (e.g. someone new to the magazine).

At the bottom of the contents page is a section in the form of a row (e.g. rows and columns), dedicated to something specifically in this issue of a magazine, a free CD mix called "Sasha". The section contains information on the DJ/Producer of the CD mix (Sasha) which may make people want to listen to the CD as they may become interested by the artist's background and personal information. Next to this information is a small image of the CD along with a list of the songs on the CD and the artist of those songs. This free CD mix offers publicity for the DJ/Producer of the CD (Sasha) and those artist whose songs are on the CD, this may be advertisement as people who bought the magazine and listened to the CD may find they like some of the artists and then go on to buy more of their music.

Finally underneath this section is the web address for the magazine - "WWW.MIXMAG.NET", the month in which the issue was published for - "DECEMBER 2011", and the page number - "3". The use of putting the magazine's web address at the bottom of the page means that readers who find this magazine enjoyable will be able to go to the magazine's website and read more into the magazine and  find more interesting information about articles and other various things, thus making them more interested in the magazine and perhaps making the want to buy the next issue, thus generating more profit for Development Hell Ltd.





This sums up my contents page textual analysis, till next time everyone :D

Adobe InDesign First Attempt

So today I had a try with Adobe InDesign today, and produced the following image below

I learnt about fitting objects to frames and using columns to present text, I also learnt how to increase the size of the first letter of a piece of text to make the article look more presentable.

To produce the contents page of my student magazine I used Microsoft Publisher (due to time disabling me from learning to use Adobe InDesign) but this time I hope to be able to get enough lessons with Adobe InDesign to be able to use the software confidently and produce the front cover, contents page or double page spread (or multiple pages) for my music magazine. I believe my first attempt turned out well and I hope to learn how to use more features of Adobe Indesign so I may keep producing (what I believe to be) proffesional looking work.

Anyway, that's all for now everyone, till next time :D

Music Magazine Textual Analysis - Front Covers

Magazine - "DJ"
Publisher - "Thrust Publishing"
Published Since - 1991

"DJ" magazine (from the front cover) appears to be aimed towards DJ's specifically, but does mention underneath the masthead "LIVING AND BREATHING DANCE MUSIC" so for the genre of music this magazine would be considered "Dance". In this case "DJ" would compete with magazines such as "XLR8R" (a magazine also aimed towards DJs), "URB" (another magazine aimed specifically towards DJs) and more, (though mainly these as these are very well known magazines like "DJ").

The front cover of this edition aims to attract it's audience through the use of very strong, vibrant clashing colours in the masthead, image, headline and cover lines (the general trend of colour here is red, yellow, blue and white (also a small amount of black and a very small amount of blue in the bottom left cover line) ). The colours on the front cover are most likely catered to the colour of the main wearing the mask in the image as his image seems to fit with the headline "SBTRKT THE MASKED MAN SPEAKS" (it's worth mention all the font across the front cover is Sans-serif (except "SBTRKT" which is written in a stylised font) ), there isn't a lure to accompany the headline only the image of "SBTRKT".

There isn't anything that shows this is particularly aimed at any specific age audience though it's theme (DJ's) might show that it is aimed towards an audience around 16 upwards as around this point onwards is where people start practicing for careers as DJ's, though there is nothing to say younger audiences couldn't read this magazine (probably no younger than around 12 though as below this age viewers may not understand some concepts of the magazines (although from inspection of the headline and cover lines of this issue, nothing seems too complex for their age group) and the use of the word "'DAM" on the front may deter certain parents from their children owning the magazine).This magazine is most likely aimed towards a male audience (thanks to the vast majority of DJ's being male) although there is nothing on the front cover to say women shouldn't and couldn't read this magazine also. 

Along the top of the magazine you will notice it says "*FREE SANTOS MULTIMEDIA CD! MUSIC AND DATA GALORE*" , this is something that will help sell this magazine as obviously the thought of paying for the magazine (what they may have purchased anyway) and getting free music with it,(that the viewer will most likely be interested in as it is bound to match the magazine genre, which is of course the base reason why the viewer is buying the magazine in the first place) sounds like a very good deal. the 'explosion' style effect up the top right of the front cover containing the words "BEST OF BRITISH LAUNCH ISSUE" may help sell the magazine within Britain, as the public will be able to relate to something aimed towards their culture more than if it was, an American special edition for example, as the content of the magazine will be more colloquial to them. 

The general layout of the rest of the front cover is that the headline escorted by the image of "SBTRKT" takes up the top half of the page whilst the still important (though slightly less so) cover lines take up the bottom of the page (though they are not accompanied by any images to help reinforce their articles, as they are less important to the issue, though strangely each of the cover lines is accompanied by a lure, all except "KUEDO'S LUSH SYNTHSCAPES" and "DEETRON GETS PHYSICAL"), it's also worth mentioning that across the front cover is a graffiti style art, perhaps relating in some way to "SBTRKT" as the artwork seems to stem from image of his mask. 

The pricing of the magazine can be seen down the bottom right of the front cover along with the number of the issue, the month for which it was published and the number of "TUNES" reviewed (which may also attract people as they may see what others think of music they like), the price of this issue is £3.95, I consider this very reasonable as it seems this magazine is monthly (so you would not spend much on it if you were to purchase the new issue each month) and this months issue contains a free multimedia CD, (which is an added bonus) so thanks to this magazine being quite a good price, avid readers can keep buying and newcomers can purchase without fear of the magazine costing them too much if they don't like what they read.

Magazine - "NME" (which stands for New Musical Express)

Publisher - "IPC Media", "TIME Inc."

Published Since - March 1952

"NME" magazine (from the front cover) appears to be a music newspaper more than a magazine as it covers various recent stories related to bands (seen through its headline and cover lines) although many of the bands on the front cover are bands that play "Rock" music so if I had to give a genre I would say this magazine is "Rock" (though really it is more of a music newspaper/journalism style of publication).

The font across the front cover is Sans-serif, except for 2  sections of text - "World exclusive" and "Mark Ronson, Nas and Salaam Remi" (I just thought noting this would be helpful).

The masthead on this front cover stands out very well due to the use of red colour against the black colour of the hair from the image of Amy Winehouse, it also stands out due to it's use of bold text, having the masthead stand out is helpful, as it allows readers to identify the magazine upon spotting it. 

The layout of the front cover of "NME" is such that the headline is presented in much larger font (as it is the most important thing about this issue of the magazine) accompanied by a single image of Amy Winehouse spanning the entire front cover (as she is related to the headline), the headline is presented as a "World exclusive" as to draw in viewers as it is presented that nowhere else will this article be found, which is a very strong reason to purchase this magazine if the viewer happens to like Amy Winehouse.

Below the headline is a lure about the article which helps to draw viewers into buying the magazine, as they will want to know more, followed by the names of the journalists that wrote the article.

Cover lines are spread across the front cover, starting from above the masthead, following down the right hand side of the page, most likely due to the headline taking up the entire bottom left of the front cover and the want for Amy Winehouse's face to be visible in the middle of the front cover (it's also worth noting her slightly seductive expression and clothing may help to draw in the straight/bisexual male audience (above the age of 13) more (and also possibly the lesbian/bisexual female audience), not only that but also audiences that are interested in gossip as her facial expression isn't incredibly innocent which hints towards a sense of "bad behavior", which is the base for gossip (also the lure helps too, as it may be taken as partially suggestive) ).

As the cover lines end the viewers eye will also be brought to a very large white plus symbol and the fact they will receive "FREE CLASSIC AMY POSTERS", which is an added bonus of this issue of "NME" and may influence the viewer into buying the magazine more (especially if they are a fan of Amy Winehouse, or find her "attractive").

The colours scheme across the front cover is red and white as all the text (excluding that which surrounds the bar code down the bottom right (for purchasing purposes) ) is written in these two colours. These colours go well together and though they don't clash (which often attracts viewers attention as magazines with clashing colours stand out) they work very well against the image of Amy Winehouse as she is not wearing bright red lipstick or any bright red or white clothing, (excluding the little amount of white on her top at the bottom of the front cover) the red and white stand out against very well against black (which is probably the main reason why they were chosen as the image contains Amy Winehouse wearing a lot of black (including her hair colour) ) and also very well against Amy Winehouse's skin tone.

It's worth noting that all of the cover lines contain lures, which just helps to give the audience a better idea of what the article contains.

The content of the top cover line speaks to readers and offers them the chance to be involved with voting on the five bands competing for the "NME AWARDS", this may help sell the magazine as viewers may like some of the bands presented and will want to show support for their favourite band by voting for them, so obviously to do this they would have to purchase the magazine.

This issue of NME is the 3rd of December 2011 and costs £2.40, this is a mildly affordable price, as the fact that the magazine has stated the day of the issue, reveals it to be a weekly published magazine (this was confirmed with extra research). I say mildly affordable as there are roughly 4 weeks to each month (with some months being more of course) and for an avid viewer to have to pay at least £9.60 a month to get each issue of the magazine, can be considered quite pricey by some (although pricing obviously may change for the magazine each issue, meaning perhaps some issues may cost significantly less, or even significantly more. I will not go into detail about the prices for America, Spain and China, as I am not familiar with general pricing in those countries, though from a rough point of view it seems even harder to afford this magazine every week in those 3 countries).

The general audience for this magazine I believe is both males and females (as there are no obvious gender traits shown on this front cover (the Amy Winehouse image cannot be considered as it relates to the headline of the issue) ) and the age group I would predict is 13 and above (as some of the content may not be understood by younger viewers, such as the cover line regarding phone hacking, (in relation to the phone-hacking scandal on the news) "I THINK NOEL WAS PHONEHACKED", or the cover line to do with David Cameron, "DAVID CAMERON IS SINISTER", although there is nothing to say younger audiences may read this magazine, though I strongly believe the age group is 13 and above.

Magazine - "Q" (which stands for Quieten Richardson - the maker of "Q" magazine)

Publisher - "Bauer Media Group"

Published Since - October 1986

Q magazine (from the front cover) appears to be a music review magazine, I really cannot give this a genre as across the front cover the artists written all play different genres of music, so really its a hybrid.

The masthead stands out very well on the front of this magazine due to the red background against the strong white "Q", it's also worth mentioning the image of the male on the front cover bleeds across the masthead, as we can see his arm is coming out and going through the "Q" giving an almost 3-D style effect to his image, the fact that the masthead stands out helps readers identify the magazine once they have seen the front cover.

The layout of this issue of "Q" is this, it's hard to identify the actual headline as many of the articles are presented in the same size font, but I would say it is "THE SECRETS OF COLDPLAY" as this seems to be the most prominent as comes with information on the writers of the article too, (also the stylised font makes it stand out) but the close second (and clearly one of the most important cover lines) is "2011 REVIEWED", as this also stands out a great deal thanks to the style and size of the font.

The main prominent colours of this issue are yellow and white as they stand out against the image of the male standing against a (what looks to be) graffiti covered black wall (note also that the floors are also black and covered in graffiti). I cannot say red is a main colour as the red square containing the white "Q" is the logo and masthead for "Q" magazine. the yellow and white text is a nice strong contrast to the (mostly) black background, with this contrast viewers eyes are bound to be drawn to the magazine, helping to get the magazine spotted, and thus perhaps sold.

With the headline taking up most of the left side of the front cover, the cover lines circle around the image of the man by going from the center of the top of the front cover, round and down the right side and end along the bottom. This route that the eye follows ends close to the price too, the effect of this is possibly that viewers, after reading the headline and all of the cover lines, and (possibly) finding out they are interested in this magazine, will come to see a quite affordable price and perhaps consider purchasing this issue of "Q". As we can see the magazines issue is January 2012, showing this magazine is published monthly, (as it does not give a specific day, showing it is not weekly) so along with the fact it is monthly, a price of £3.99 can be considered quite affordable in the long run (or even on the one-off occasion) if first time buyers happen to find that they like the magazine, they can know that it will probably cost them around this each month and know they will most likely be able to keep purchasing it.

From the front cover it seems that the audience for this magazine could be either sex and any age group, the reason for this deduction is nothing across the entire layout on the front cover of this issue of "Q" seems to be specifically aimed at either sex, all the artists on the front cover write music for both sexes and there seems to be no specific age group as nothing on the front cover seems to be too complex or too adult for any age, this is probably most likely to this being a music review magazine (one thing I would say about age group is obviously an age that children would be interested in music and an age they can read), I never limit age group o the elderly as many elderly find modern music very attractive nowadays, so i also cannot say that people above a certain age wouldn't find this magazine interesting, so to summarise, its aimed at both sexes, and any age group.

A few miscellaneous things worth mentioning are:

• The font (where not stylised) is Sans-serif style font (except the "of the" from "50 ALBUMS of the YEAR".
• The multicoloured graffiti in the image of the male (what appears to be) dancing may catch a viewers eye thanks to its strange composition of artwork and words.
• The male in the image may be Chris Martin (though it is hard to tell) ,a member of "Coldplay", in which case it will relate to the headline and fans of "Coldplay" will spot this image of him, and may be drawn to find out more, and thus seeing the headline, may be convinced to buy the magazine.
• The random mention of a farmer along with well known artist on the cover line across the bottom of the front cover, may have a slight influence on viewers, as they may want to know why a farmer is being mentioned in a well known music review magazine (though this is just a theory).

This sums it up for my music magazine front cover textual analysis, till next time everyone :D

Comparing Magazines

So today, using a table I made some basic observations on different Music Magazines.

below is my table containing the results :)

As you can see from the table there are a few notable findings that can be mentioned:

• Half of the magazines' names (2/4) were strongly based around what genre of music the magazine was about ("DJ" was R n B based and "METAL HAMMER" was Metal based) whereas the other half of the magazines' titles were more abstract and required further investigation to find out what genre of music the magazine was based on ("Q" was based on mostly compiling lists of things such as "The 100 Greatest Albums" and also contains extensive reviews on the latest music releases and events (so really it is a music review magazine in a sense) and "Mojo" magazine is based on the genre of Classic Rock).

• The prices of the magazines do differ slightly, though the magazines all stayed within the range of £3.95-£4.75, making them affordable for most people (granted it also depends on how regular the magazined is published).
• The number of sections varied and so did the number of pages per section (due to each section being based on different things and the article length varying).
• All the magazines contained advertising, some with well known brands and some with less well known brands, also one magazine ("METAL HAMMER") contained an advertisement for their own merchandise.
• Many magazines (3/4) contained articles based around the time the magazine was published.
• Many magazines (3/4) contained something free with the magazine to help tempt readers into buying the magazine.

These are just some observations, if the table contained more fields I would have been able to collect more data and make more comments on the information I had found.

Anyway guys that's it for now, till next time :)

THE ACTION PLAN

TASKS

• Write Action Plan - DONE!

• Compare Magazines - DONE!

• Textual Analysis (3 Front Covers, 2 Contents Pages, 2 Double Spreads) - DONE!

• Audience Research (Poll, Questionnaire, Theory) - DONE! (except for theory which we are doing on a later date)

• Internet Research (Institutions (companies that publish the magazines), Readership Figures (sales figures ) ) - DONE!

• Plan Photo-shoot - DONE!

• Take Photos - DONE!

• Layout Designs - DONE!

• Masthead Design - DONE!

• Make Pages - COMPLETE BY 19/02/2012

• Drafting (showing the process of making it) - COMPLETE BY 19/02/2012

• Audience Feedback (Drafting may take place after as well ("tweaking") ) - COMPLETE BY 19/02/2012

• Evaluation - COMPLETE BY 26/02/2012

WEEKS


(Week Beginnings (dd/mm/yyyy) ) 

• 05/12/2011

• 12/12/2011

- 14/12/2011  CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY START (last day of school, end at 14:30)

• 19/12/2011

• 26/12/2011

• 02/01/2012

- 05/01/2012 CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY END (first day back at school, start at 09:00)

• 09/01/2012

• 16/01/2012

• 23/01/2012

• 30/01/2012

• 06/02/2012

- 10/02/2012 HALF TERM START (last day of school, end at 16:30)

• 13/02/2012

• 20/02/2012 HALF TERM END (first day back at school, start at 09:00)

• 27/02/2012

- 02/03/2012 DEADLINE FOR MUSIC MAGAZINE (to be completed by 16:30)




THE DEADLINE IS 2nd of March 2012


NOTES

• All photographs in my music magazine must be my own
  

Below you can see an Action Plan I drew up on paper to help me keep track. It also shows a rough idea in which weeks what tasks will be completed, a more precise idea of the times can be seen above, next to each task (the times given are based on speculation of events occurring around the dates and estimated amount of time for each task).

Anyway guys that's all for now, till next time :)

Moving on to the Main Task :)

Hi guys this is just me mentioning how, now I am moving on to the Main Task which of course the Music Magazine :)

I hope everything goes smoothly, I'm feeling pretty confident about it :)

anyway guys, will keep you all updated on my progress via my blog :)

till next time :3

Evaluating My Student Magazine

I will now evaluate my Student Magazine, I will do so via this blog post, please notice the questions answered below as they are me Evaluating My Student Magazine :)

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

- When considering the key ingredients of a magazine I had to really consider who I was writing this magazine for, so to get an idea of what to include for the students around my school I created a questionnaire, the results of the questionnaire can be seen below.

It was thanks to this questionnaire's results that I established a base for what the students around my school wanted to see in a magazine. Considering the age group I was aimed at (which was 16-18 year olds) I needed to design an attractive and eye catching Front Cover, luckily enough I am also included in that age group so for most of my research I played around with many different Fonts, Images and Colours and made something that I found attractive, I also asked the opinions of my fellow media students (who are also between the ages of 16-18) and relating to their feedback made changes where I though appropriate (I also had to consider what was going into the magazine, students around my college seemed to care less for the more gossip side of magazines and looked more towards helpful and trendy topics as you can see in the image of the results, so this was also something to take into account while designing my Front Cover) .

Looking over other Student Magazines such as the ones below.

I found that both of these magazine contained very straight forward and informative Contents Pages, which I guessed was the main point of a Contents Page, to give the reader the knowledge of where to find the articles they were interested in reading. I incorporated these ideals into my magazine by making sure my Contents Page did not have a Layout so abstract that readers wouldn't be able to find what page the article they want is on, I made the design stylish but made sure that the information on, which page contained which article, was the focus and thus gave it what I felt was a stylish and very professional look to it. The only thing I did different to the magazines I examined, was obviously cater the colour, Font and Images to match my magazine but overall I kept the idea of a helpful informative well laid out Contents Page the same.

To summarise, the ways my magazine uses forms and conventions of real media products is that it has a very eye catching Front Cover, information on topics people are interested in, an affordable price, a very well laid out Contents Page and Imaages related to the Articles within that issue of the magazine. The way my magazine develops forms and conventions of real media products is really just through how it is presented, my magazine contains elements such as the ones listed above, but obviously mine are shown diferently e.g. through their colour and Font, so really they are developed and catered to my audience (16-18 year old who attend Saint Edmunds College) through the content of the magazine (the Articles inside) the colours, the Images, the Font and also the Layout on the Front Cover and Contents Page. I wouldn't say my magazine challenged and forms and conventions of real media products, as real media products know how to present themselves to be interesting to audiences and know how to have clear information on, which articles are on what page, so to chalenge these forms and conventions would be to create an unnatractive Front Cover and an overly complex Contents Page.

"How does your media product represent particular social groups"

- First I have to consider which social groups I am representing, in my case it is teenagers between the ages of 16-18 who are students at Saint Edmund's College (as 16-18 was the most popular age group voted on my questionnaire as voted by students who attend Saint Edmund's College). The way I have represented them through my Student Magazine is thanks to my questionnaire, I asked the students to fill out this questionnaire (see below).

Thanks to the students filling out my questionnaire I was aware of what they wanted to see in a Student Magazine, and thanks to this I was able to include the most picked categories in my Student Magazine, so the magazine represents what they like and are interested in finding out about each month (the results also concluded that the Student Magazine should be issued monthly). The choice of Image, Language and Text to Image Ratio was down to what I felt appropriate (as both a 16-18 year old and a member of Saint Edmund's College) and also down to the feedback of my media studies colleagues (as they are also in both the categories I am), I used Images that related to the kind of Information people wanted to know about, for example I made the category people most wanted to know about, the Headline and Image on my Front Cover (which you can see below) so it would attract them into reading the magazine as that is what they wanted to see the most. The language I used was language that I could relate to and understand as a 16-18 year old, most of my age group don't use incredible amounts of slang and so I did not include any, I just used clear English along with the use of exclamation points on the Headline and Cover Lines just to show how important the articles inside the magazine are. For Text to Image Ratio I would say my Front Cover is mostly Image, as it is one Image taking up most of the Front Cover accompanied by some text just detailing the most interesting articles of the magazine but for my Contents Page it is much more strong in text, as text is really the main idea of the Contents Page, it is there to tell people where to find the articles they are interested in reading about, though I did use image to give a better idea of some of the information included in some of the articles and also gave an image of the editor, just so people could get a better idea of the person who edited that issue of the magazine.

(below is my Front Cover and Contents Page just to help give off a better idea of the types of things I just talked about when answering the question)

One final thing to think about is the representation of 16-18 year olds who attend Saint Edmund's College my Student Magazine gives off. I believe it gives off a very good representaion as older audiences tend to look upon 16-18 year olds as irresponsible, party animals that don't care about their education, but my Student Magazine disproves that. It disproves it, as all the articles in my magazine were based off of what 16-18 year olds wanted to read about, and as you can see from my questionnaire results, the top picked category was "GCSE and A-Level Advice" showing obviously that 16-18 year olds clearly care about their grades, other categories included trendy things such as "Latest Films" and "Latest Music" which doesn't give off a bad impression at all, what really showed a good impression was that "Latest Gossip" wasn't even chosen in the end as it had very little votes out of all of the people who took the questionnaire, disproving the stereotype that 16-18 year olds are only into gossip and partying. So in the end, as I mentioned at the beginning I believe my Student Magazine gives a very good representation of those that attend Saint Edmund's College that are between the ages of 16-18, so it shows off a good representation of not only age, but the school at which they attend as well.


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

- From research I cannot find a type of media institution that actually publishes Student Magazines, I found that it is usually inside-school groups that publish the Student Magazines, funded of course by the school, so I suppose you could say individual schools that have a media institution (such as a Student Magazine staff) are the publishers of Student Magazines like mine. My school may want to publish my Student Magazine because it does what some magazines fail to do, which is really address the people on what they want to read (thanks to my questionnaires I was able to know what people wanted to read about and thus could provide them with that information) so therefore if my Student Magazine were to be published, my school would be able to rest easy knowing the money they paid for the paper and ink it requires to print my magazines would not be wasted as people would be reading the magazine, as it contains what they want to know. I would like to mention that Saint Edmund's College recently set up a Student Magazine, I am not saying mine would be better though as their Student Magazine has to address every age group throughout the College (so it addresses 10-18 year olds) and so contains a lot less for each age group as it has to make room for everyone, I do believe mine would be a better magazine directed at the sixth form though (those doing A-Levels) as they are of the ages of 16-18 and thus the magazine would contain much more interesting topics for them to read about, also obviously because it is a Student Magazine vulgar language and adult themes would be avoided, so it would not matter if younger members of the College came into contact with the magazine because the worst that could happen is them not being interested in the articles within the magazine.

"Who would be the audience for your media product"

- Thanks to my questionnaires this has all been narrowed down, The age group my magazine is aimed at is 16-18 year olds, the gender it is aimed at is both and the general profile of my audience is students that attend Saint Edmund's College.

"How did you attract/address your audience?"

- I will spend some time here talking about what on my magazine Front Cover is attractive to readers.

First of all the colours, I chose very strong, vibrant, clashing colours because this would really draw the eye of the possible readers to the magazine, because the magazine sticks out. I chose an exciting type of Font for the Masthead so that it would make people more interested in reading the magazine, if I had provided a boring Masthead saying "SMASH!" written in Times New Roman Font with just black colour I don't think it would stand out or make many people want to read it, as it would appear dull, a magazine that appears enthusiastic, in my opinion, is what attracts people to reading it hence why I used exclamation points in various places, exciting Font and in bright colours. I chose to highlight the cost with an explosion effect in bright colours on the Front Cover as I figured if people know the price and it is low (and considering this was only £1.00 I considered it a very good price) people may want to buy it more as they figure it's very cheap, magazines that cost more tend to hide their prices nearer the top or bottom corners because the people creating them know if people spot a high price before they spot the kind of articles inside they may instantly think it is not worth what they would be paying for it and thus not buy it (hence why I made my price so noticeable, as it is so low). The final thing I discuss is my use of the Image on the Front Cover, it attracts people as it relates to the Main Article and also because it takes up blank space, a magazine that appears to not have much to show makes people think it does not have much to offer and therefore is not worth their time or money. To ask me "why would someone want to buy my magazine" would be met by me explaining how my magazine gives the people it is aimed at what they want to see. My questionnaire provided me with the research on what the readers wanted, I provided what they wanted in my magazine so obviously if I were to have my magazine published, my audience would be provided with a magazine that offers them things they are interested in and accompanied by it's very reasonable price, it would sell. It helps that the age group I am aimed at is only 16-18 year olds as it allows me to fill an entire magazine with things that year group is interested in reading about.

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

The technologies I used for my Student Magazine included, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, Digital Camera, Scanner and Blogger. Below is a list of things I learnt for each technology.

• For Adobe Photoshop I learned about using many different tools, as in the past I have only dabbled in Photoshop work. the main things I learnt about were things such as Cropping Images, Recolouring Images, use of Layers, use of Navigation (inside Photoshop), How to make parts of Images transparent and use of various small artistic tools such as Smudge and Blur (which I actually did use on my Masthead on my Front Cover to give a more stylized feel to it).
• For Microsoft Word it didn't learn anything new, as I only used it to write up my questionnaire.
• For Microsoft Publisher I learnt about formating the page to give Rows and Columns and also that you can actually do basic cropping on Microsoft Publisher (which came in handy when I needed to crop something quickly) and one last thing I learnt is how to instantly turn a colour transparent which was of great help to me when importing images straight onto Microsoft Publisher that had white backgrounds.
• For Digital Camera I did not learn anything new, although I did get a chance to experiment with Camera Shots that I learnt about in my Media Studies, some of which were of great help to me (for example my Front Cover, without the teaching I received I would have not thought of the angle at which to take that photo).
• For A Scanner I did not learn anything new, as I have used scanners before and really all there it to it is scanning an image into the computer, so nothing new was learnt here.
• For Blogger I learnt quite a fair amount, as I have never used Blogger before so everything that I was doing was new to me, creating posts, posting up polls and putting up images on my blog was all new to me, but those were the main things I learnt about, besides that Blogger did not provide me with anything new to learn.

Below, to the Left are photographs I took with a digital camera, just to show what I meant about how I got to experiment with Camera Angles I had learnt about, and their effect. Below to the right is an image I was given the first time I used Adobe Photoshop, then with instructions was told to turn it into something which resembled a cookbook, below that is the result, showing off just a small amount of all that I learnt to do using Adobe Photoshop.
































This finishes my Evaluation of my Student Magazine.

So that's it :) till next time everyone :)