Feedback

To gather some feedback on the magazine I made some copies of my magazine and showed them to my peers who gave their opinion. This helped me get an idea of how successful it is and whether people liked the look of it.

Here are some comments I recieved:

"Looks very genuine, professional and well made"

"Cover is a bit bland and should include more info on whats inside"

"Its really cool, the colours go well and the layout of the contents and double page look good"

"The double page spread looks like its been made professionally"

"Contents page is a bit empty but the rest is brill"


I do agree with most of the points and am happy that most liked the magazine. Negative feedback was good to get as it helped point out what is not so good about the magazine and this could help me for any similar future projects.

Evaluation of Finished Magazine

When producing my magazine, one of my main objectives was to have it seem authentic and believable when looked upon by my peers. To do this I looked at a lot of current music magazines to see the type of layout used and the type of pictures they featured in relation to the genre of the magazine. From this I had a good idea of what I should use on my magazine and the different conventional features that all magazines on their front page used such as the masthead, tagline, headline band , price, date and main picture. While I took this on board, I didnt want to completely mimick what other similar genre music magazines did with their front page. For my magazine I choose to have one image covering the whole of the page. This varys to many magazines which use one main picture but section off the Masthead with its own block and section off other features such as Kerrang magazine:

http://docs.google.com/fileviewid=0BwzuiViP9r_0YWE3YjgwNDEtN2QzYS00N2Y4LTk2NDgtZGJjNmRlYTQwNTNi&hl=en_GB

With my cover I feel it is different in the way it uses one main image and that the masthead is just added on top of this. I feel this makes the features stand out more alongside the main image of the staring character which in turn, will make the magazine more effective on the shelf.

My magazine is a rock magazine so represents fans from this genre. I feel that my magazine has gone well with this genre and that it fits in well with what rock music is like. For example, my front cover is quite aggressive with the main image filling the majority of the page and the artist staring out towards the audience with a serious pose, conveying the mood of rock music as it is stereotypically aggressive compared to mainstream pop. However the tone of the magazine is not like this throughout with the double page spread featuring pictures of the artist laid back and completely opposite to the front page picture. This gives the reader an insight into the personality of the band but doesn't challenge the fact they make rock music just because they have a laid back attitude out of the limelight. I dont think my magazine makes any suggestions about race or gender but it is recognised that Rock is a genre hugely dominated by male artists and that there is not many black musicians in rock just like there isnt many white musicians in hip hop or rap music.

There is quite a broad selection of shops that would stock the magazine with newsagents offering many different genres of music magazines. Stationery shops like WH Smiths could also stock it along with the various supermarkets that have magazine sections. I think they would choose to stock it because there is quite a gap in the market for upcoming rock magazines. Kerrang is the market leader and others like rocksound struggle to compete with it so I think my magazine could come as a challenger to Kerrangs throne.

I did quite a lot of research when thinking about my target audience as it is important to specify this before producing the magazine because it needs to be made to appeal to them. You can see this research done in my second blog titled 'Target Audience'. However, I will include my view on the average reader of the magazine and the type of the person they are.

"After analysing the information off www.nrs.co.uk it is clear my audience will be the 15-44 age group and dominantly male over female. For the type of magazine I will be doing, I would also say it is quite versatile with the social economic classification not really applying to it because of it appealing to all groups.

My typical reader would be male, around the age of 21 who enjoys to go to gigs regularly. His favourite music genre is Rock. His psychographics will be an individualist as this mindset is normally associated with NME/Kerrang type magazines and the rock genre. He is a student so his demographics will be about mid way on the classification."

When creating the magazine I thought carefully about every aspect like the mode of address as I felt that it needed to appeal specifically to my target audience. I did this by using pictures that appealed to rock fans and connected with them. A good example is my front cover image with its size and aggressive pose towards the camera/audience, conveying the rock attitude. Many magazines try to achieve this and I feel I did more than others as it is unmissable and sure to catch the idea of someone looking at magazines on a shelf. This could be compared to the Kerrang cover I posted above; in my opinion I don't think it will capture someones eye as well as mine does. I also tried to attract the audience with the language used in the article so that they can connect with the band involved and enjoy the article. I did this by talking about topics that will interest them such as festivals and their views on other bands. The colour scheme used throughout the magazine also with attract my audience with black being recognised as a colour associated with rock. The other colours i used stood out well against the black background and made the text and images more eye catching.

I had a good idea of what i wanted to create with my magazine and this mostly came off using the software, InDesign. However, I did struggle at times as it is quite complex and some tools take a while to work out. The software enabled me to place all my pictures and fit them to boxes which helped me with the specific layout I wanted. Downloading fonts was also a big help which I used a lot with the look of the magazine being vital.

I think my progression from the premilinary task has been very big and that the previous experience helped me achieve what i wanted to with my magazine in the main task. I had a better understanding of InDesign once starting and this enabled me to make a considerably better magazine in my opinion. With more time to plan and design my magazine I could shuffle about with the look and contents of the magazine until I was happy with it.

Evaluation of article

The article I used was from a Enter Shikari interview from Kerrang magazine. I chose this article because it is similar to mine in that it is an interview. It is quite informal in places with some off topic chat going on. One example of this is when the interviewer asks the band what they do in their spare time and they talk about irrelevant things. However, this is not always the mood of conversation as Enter Shikari's frontman Rou Reynolds is very politically opinionated and this is shown in the interview. His strong opinion means that he takes on a very serious tone when speaking about this. To help me with mine I looked at the questions the interviewer asked, this gave me a better idea of this aspect and I had this in mind when writing my article. I also looked at other similar articles before writing mine which meant any changes I made were minimal as I had a good idea of the article I wanted to produce.

Planning/Evaluation of Article

Greetings, citizen of Eurasia, resident of colony GBv6.0. Please state serial code and expiry date to any hovering micromonitor and proceed to Aquadome for daily cleansing. The State reminds all citizens to keep their ResUnits appropriately free of contraband; more pertinently, any citizen harbouring the works of the known fugitive gang referred to as Muse will be re-educated. And the State will again reiterate its commitment to the eradication of emotion: in Eurasia, to love is to die.

And that’s just it, dear citizen, that’s the point of Muse’s barmy, overblown, often hilarious, sometimes stunning fifth record. Actually, ‘opus’ is more apt: by now you’ll know about the grand themes of state control, unjust war and marauding Thought Police, maybe you took part in the treasure hunt that stretched from Dubai to New York, and you’ll certainly know there’s something on this record that’s 15 minutes long and called ‘Exogenesis Symphony’. But beneath the bombast lies Muse’s most coherent and focused record yet, a treatise on the ineffable power of love. But it sure takes a while to get there.

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This is the opening extract of a review of Muse's 'Resistance' album from NME magazine. It has quite a humorous opening with the writer playing about with his view of the band while referring to songs featured on the album. Throughout the interview the reader is personally addressed with 'you' which brings out the article to the reader. This is very different from my article with it being a review and mine being an interview. It is very unstructured and could seem strange to people who dont know Muse very well with sly references to some of their tracks.

Final magazine images

Front cover : http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BwzuiViP9r_0YWE3YjgwNDEtN2QzYS00N2Y4LTk2NDgtZGJjNmRlYTQwNTNi&hl=en_GB

Contents Page : http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BwzuiViP9r_0Y2JhYTc3ZWItNTdjZi00NDhlLTlkZTYtM2JkNGM4N2NlOTky&hl=en_GB
Double Page spread : https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BwzuiViP9r_0M2MxMzEzNjgtOTQ2Yi00ZDU4LTgxMjQtZjk2YzhkY2E4YWUy

To view the double page spread fully, click the 'fit two pages to screen button'.

Photos (+Editing)

I used this picture on the double page spread of my magazine to go alongside the interview of the band. I choose the person to wear quite rock style clothing to suit the genre of the magazine and appeal to them. This clothing features in every photo used for the article as i did the shoot on one day. The mis-en-scene is just a normal room which i feel fitted the band well because they are upcoming and havent fully reached fame yet. His pose is quite a serious one which conveys his intent that his band is a serious project and rock music is usually quite aggressive. I chose to have him holding a guitar because it shows his role in the band and gives an idea of what type of music they play.

This picture is used on the contents page to show an image of who the band featured are. I did not go into too much detail arranging the set for the photo as it appears quite small on the page and isnt a main feature of the page.

On my contents page I decided to include a box devoted to the 'Pulse' store. I used this picture for this to show an example of the merchandise on offer which will interest the readers to look at other products of this section. I edited this photo but cropping into a size that would fit the box as i only wanted it to appear small down at the bottom of the page.

This image was used alongside the interview on the double page spread. The mis-en-scene is an Artic Monkeys poster. This links in well with the article because he states them to be one of his favourite bands. His pose is quite neutral with him smiling at the camera to show his positivity and that he likes the poster. The featuring of Artic Monkeys will appeal because readers will be able to relate them and they may feel a similarity been themselves and the band, 'The Electrix'.

This image was also on the double page spread. The mis-en-scene is of some 'Them Crooked Vultures' artwork which ties in with the article as the band supported TCV. Once again, the audience will be able to relate to this as they are well knownaa. His clothing is quite casual but 'cool' with a checkered shirt and jumper similar to what many artists wear in this genre. I edited this photo using iPhoto by blurring round the edges of this photo. This makes the person and the vulture stand out against the background and makes them the main attraction in the picture.

This image is the front cover image. It is quite a close up image so would the page stand out if it was on a shelf alongside other magazines. His pose is quite happy while still quite serious to match the rock genre. His hair style is quite messy which again fits in with the stereotype of rockstars not caring much for their image. I used two different effects when editing this picture. Using iPhoto I made the corners darker. This makes him stand out more in the centre of the image and I think it also tidies it up with all the corners being black. I also boosted the colour of the image so it was sharper and stood out more as the front cover is very important because it is what the viewer will see first and influence them into buying it or not.

All my editing was done on my Macbook using the program, iPhoto.

Main Task - Photos (Part 1)

This photo is of the featured musician in my magazine and it will appear on the double page spread. I used this picture because it goes well alongside the interview as the upcoming star speaks of his experience of working with 'Them Crooked Vultures'. The mise-en-scene features art of the band which are a very well known meaning that the audience will be able to relate to the picture well. His outfit fits in with the 'indie' scene because of the skinny jeans, chequered shirt and unique hat which he holds. The mise-en-scene is mainly red and white so this ties in well with the colour scheme I'm using throughout the magazine which is red, white and black.