Media

Monday, 2 May 2011

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

I think that my music magazine uses the conventions of a music magazine and also challenges them. I used the normal conventions for my music magazine to make sure that it looked professional. I used conventions such as:
· Masterheads
· Editors letters
· Headlines
· Music Interviews
All of these typical conventions I used in my magazine. Along with these conventions I wanted to make sure that I put my own ideas into my magazine.
Front cover
In the front cover I think I challenged the typical music magazine conventions by having a quote of the artist with a swear word in it on the front page. Although I obviously edited it out the swear word so that you can only see star texts in place of the actual letters, however many music magazines would not have that on their front cover. The reason why they wouldn’t is because many people wouldn’t approve of that being on a magazine, and it may be controversial, which is why is decided to put that specific quote on there. It seems rebellious, controversial and risky but that is what my magazine is about, which is why it fits so well.
I developed the conventions of a music magazine because all music magazines obviously have a Masterhead, however not many music magazine shave slogans. Although I have seen them on other magazines, I think that this magazine is one of the very few that do have a slogan on it also. I choose to do this so that it will improve the ‘R&I’ brand and make it stronger.
Contents
I think that I followed an easy structure and went with the normal conventions of a music magazine with my contents page. I did this because on the first page I was risky and wanted to play it safe. Also I feel that the contents page shouldn’t be too busy or have anything complicated on it because it’s supposed to be a page that the reader can quickly glance at whilst moving through the rest of the magazine.

Double Page
For my double page spread I mainly stuck with the standard conventions of a music magazine, the reason I did this was to mainly focus on the artist. The front cover challenged those conventions so that the readers when picking it up thought that this was something new and fresh therefore I think that once the audience has picked up the magazine I should play it safe, as I’m appealing to the teenage years to late twenties therefore some of their parents/guardians may not approve.
I however did develop the conventions by instead of just having pictures of the artist; I had pictures of the artist with matching quotes beside them. Even though these did not necessarily meant to go with those quotes the pictures portrayed the overall emotion of the interview without the reader having to read the interview.

Evaluation of Final Double Page Spread

When designing my double page spread the main theme I wanted to get across was to represent the artist Dani. The way I wanted to represent Dani was as a fun, edgy, rebellious girl who doesn’t care about what people think of her.
I knew when I was planning that I wanted to sue contrasting pictures in the double page spread. The reason why I wanted contrasting pictures was to show two sides of the artists and to also give the feature more variation in emotions. The images clearly represent the emotions of the quotes which are beside it. This is done in many magazines because sometimes the image may not be about that quote but they complement each other well that’s why they use them. The first image is of her looking annoyed and frustrated; you can tell this by her angry facial expression and pose. The contrasting image is of her blowing a kiss to the camera. These contrast in love and hate. By having the quotes ‘I hate the music industry’ and ‘but love my fans’ it makes the reader think that she is just an ordinary girl who isn’t into the music industry

but loves her fans. This will make the readers who are fans feel special ad more important than her career.
I experimented with colours and styles to make sure that I again represented the artist’s personality and emotions correctly. I edited the word ‘hate’ in the quote ‘I hate the music industry’ to a red colour with an underline. By doing this it created emphasis to the word and the colour red represents anger which I think would show how much the artist hated the music industry. The colour of the border is a dark purple colour, the reason I used this colour was because it matched the colour of Dani’s dress and also the colour purple is an edgy colour. The reason its edgy is because the colour purple is a girly colour but because this is a dark purple it makes it seem less girly and more tomboy. In the border I inserted the text ‘R&I Exclusive Artist Interview’ into it, this makes it more official and show that ‘R&I’ is the only magazine to get this interview with her.
When writing the actual interview I decided to have the headline as a quote from the interview. This will give the reader a sneak peak to the interview and make them want to read more. When I wrote the introduction to the interview I wanted to create a rough overview of the artist. For the actual interview I wanted to differentiate the text between the interviewer and the artist. For the interviewer I had the words in bold and the artist in normal text writing.

Overall I think that I represented the artist well and also made this look professional. This article makes the magazine seem more important because this is an exclusive interview and also represents the rock/indie genre well.

Evaluation of Final Contents Page

When designing my contents page, I made sure that it followed the conventions of a normal contents page. Because the overall point of a contents page is to give the reader a clear indication of where the pages are in the magazine, therefore I made sure that my contents page was set-up clearly. I wanted it to do this so it would look professional but I also made sure that it looked fun and relaxed.
I started the contents page with an editor’s letter becau

se I wanted my magazine to be very personal to the reader and feel as if they’re personally being welcomed into the magazine by the editor. To show that the editor really cares and didn’t just type a letter up on the computer I put the editor’s signature at the bottom which made it seem even more personal. To advertise the magazine subscription scheme at the top of the letter I inserted a small advertisement. By having it the advertisement saying that if they subscribe they receive a free gift, it encourages the reader to buy it because they are getting the subscription and a free gift. To highlight this offer I edited the word ‘free’ into upper case letters to make it seem important.
I used three images at the top of the left side of the page which showed sneak previews of what’s in the magazine. The first image of Dani shows that she is fun and shows that this magazine is a fun and relaxed magazine. The images of the ipod and guitar represent this magazine well as a music magazine as well as giving the reader a peak of what’s inside. The next image of the hand giving a rock hand sign represents the rock genre, so that when the audience first opens the magazine they get the full picture of what this magazine is about. Out of these pictures I wanted to make sure that the photo of Dani was the one that was the largest, this would show that her feature is the main feature and also that she’s dominate.
The Masterhead I placed below the images and above the writing which tells the reader which pages to go to. I made sure that the ‘R&I’ was bolder than ‘This Week’ to show that ‘R&I’ is most important out of the two. With the text of the contents I made the page numbers a different colour to the text to differentiate the two, to make it clearer to the audience. I also put page numbers on the pictures so that if they reader was looking at the pictures and wanted to go straight to the page instead of having to reads through the contents.
Overall I think that my contents page looks the most professional out of my other pages. I think this is because it looks structured and easy to read, but also having the rock/indie genre which makes it look relaxed and fun.

Sunday, 1 May 2011

Evaluation of Final Front Cover

Final Evaluation for Front Cover
When I started thinking of idea’s for my magazine cover I researched into other rock/indie magazines. The reason I did this was to ensure that I had the right layout and theme to my magazine so that the same type of audience would appeal to my magazine.
The image I used on the front cover is an image which I took myself of my friend who modeled for me. I liked this image the most because I think it represented the rock/indie genre of my magazine the best. Danielle looks edgy and because she is looking straight at the camera it makes the reader feel as if she’s looking at them. This could be appealing to the female audience because it shows that she’s confident in who she is, and also appealing to the male audience because they may find this attractive.
The mise en scene in this photo helps give the overall theme of edginess and rock. The costume I picked myself to ensure that I got the look I wanted for this shoot. The clothes she’s wearing is fashionable but doesn’t look expensive. This makes her seem more relatable to the audience because it makes them think that she wears normal clothes like everyone else.
The Masterhead even though I placed it in the right corner it domin

ates this front cover by a large proportion of the magazine cover. Its bold and black which makes it seem like it fits in with the rock/indie genre. The slogan which is right next to it is also black however I edited it to make sure that each word represents what the word means. For the word ‘loud’, I edited it so that it was bold and thick so represent it being loud. For the word ‘Amplified’ I made it seem longer in length than width so it looks amplified compared to the other words. I edited the word ‘Rebellious’ so that it was in italics, I did this to make it so it look different to the other words. This makes it seem as if it’s being rebellious being different to the other words.
For the other titles featured on the page I wanted to make sure that they also represented what they were on. I edited the title ‘First Issue Only 99p! Don’t Miss Out’ so that it stood out to the audience. I edited it so that it was red, the colour red made it seem as if it was an urgent deal that would go away. This would encourage the audience to buy this issue. I used a dirt, dark green colour for the title ‘The Complete Festival Guide 2011 inside’ the reason why I chose this color was because when you think of festivals you think of fields and mud. At the bottom of the page I decided to feature a competition on my front cover because this would encourage the reader to but this magazine. I used the colour yellow for that title because the colour yellow is a happy colour and also when you think of winning you think of gold/yellow for a first place gold medal. The colour yellow also stood out against the purple band background on the bottom of the page. The reason I put that purple band was to give the cover a more structured feel.
For the title which represents Dani’s interview I used different colours to highlight different words. I used the colour purple for the quote because that’s the colour of her dress in the shoot, therefore represents her. For the explicit word I used a different outline colour which highlighted it to the audience. The reason I highlighted it is because it shows that she is rebellious and doesn’t care about what people think of her. In the second part of the title representing the interview I used the colour blue and then the colour red for the word ‘hard’. The reason I did this to represent the word hard and the colours blue and red are contrasting.

Overall I think that my front cover is the element that I’m least proud of. Even though I spent a long time editing it to represent certain elements, I think if I had more time I would improve it. By doing this front cover it made me see how magazine look at every tiny element of a magazine and try to make it represent what they want it to.