final work

Comparison of Prelim task to final task

As you can see my preliminary task is very simplistic and blocky, whereas my final piece is much more busy and professional looking. I tried to be more confident with my second piece and thought about what i would actually see on a shop shelf while looking for a music magazine. I looked at several professional magazines, both music and general and looked at the techniques used and worked out ones would work best for my style of magazine.

Magazine evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Well, comparing my final piece to Kerrang! magazine I tried to use similar techniques such as business, grunginess and simplistic/casual information. Because my target audience is the same as Kerrang! Magazine's i think the techniques made mine relate to the audience just like Kerrang! does.
How does your media represent a particular social group?
The fonts I used throughout linked to the steriotypical 'metal-head' teenager using broken and messy fonts to link to the genre of music. I also used simple but obvious colours such ans black white and red, and red is often linked to aggression, the genre of music is quite an agressive genre so i feel this linked well. I also used  photos of people who may fit into the target audience's steriotype, for example the cover model has long hair, is wearing casual clothes ( hoody, band teeshirt) and is pulling an angry seeming face.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Young people aged 14-20 who fit into the steriotypes of 'emo/metal-head'
How did you attract/address your audience?
I used similar steriotypes in the photos and used fonts that relate to the music genre. I also used a similar style to popular magazine in the audience 'Kerrang!'
Looking back at your preliminary task (College magazine) What have you learnt in terms of progression from that to the full product?
I learnt alot about concictancy and layout. Most professional magazines use synergy throughout and I tried to keep this theme in my own music magazine. My music magazine also has alot more going on on the cover and contents page in comparison to my college magazine, this is because when looking at professional magazines it was much more common. Where my college magazine was neat and tidy, there was alot more going on in my music magazine because of the genre used. Although I did use basic neat ideas such as collumns and keeping things blocked.
Items were alot more randomly placed in my college magazine but I put alot more thought into the layout of my music magazine.

edited contents page

 I decided to fill the dead space at the top of the page and add pictures into the gaps in the text so the page looks full but not cluttered. I tried to keep the synergy from the cover by using the same fonts and colours. I also mentioned using other media by talking about Facebook Twitter and the magazine website but still involved the grungey theme by using a play on words with 'FOLLOW US' in a creepy looking font.

double page spread altered

Comparing even more to the Kerrang double page spread I altered my own further.

edited double page spread

Having looked at the Kerrang double page spread I decided to alter my own, adding various pictures and adding collumns to help structure my article. I also spread the article out to fill dead space. I put photo's on an angle to help look more casual and grungy. I tried to keep the double page spread simple so that readers will enjoy reading it.

Example double page spread

The colour scheme matches the photographs used, the important or significant pieces of the article are bold and in a brighter colour, the photo's around the edge are more arty. the text is written in collumns and fits around the photographs. I will try to apply sopme of these techniques to my double page spread.
This magazine uses collumns to keep the article neat, I will also use this idea. Lots of images are used and are overlapping, text fits around these images, the colours are consistant and match the images and everything seems to sit in the correct place.

double page spread

This is an example of before and after of my double page spread, the second is neater and I prefer the chosen pictures. I decided to use different photos because they look more professional and fit the pages much better. I looked at an example of Kerrang magazine's double page spread and used similar ideas of the photos over lapping and contrasting eachether.

Audience Research

I asked my facebook friends some questions about my work.

Synergy

In most magazines we see a synergy between the cover and contents page, something consistent be it font/colour scheme. I tried to include synergy with font and colour scheme, and it eing quite hectic. I did this to try and make it look more realistic and prfessional.

contents pages

this was my first attempt at a contents page. I realised it looked scattered and messy so decided to add structure

Style Model

To help me with inspiration and to get a professional looking magazine i based my magazine on Kerrang! magazine, as they have a similar genre and style.

I feel the busyness of the cover helps to show the busy, hectic style of music they write about. I went for a similar idea, but keeping its simple so the main articles are obvious.

Buyer profile

Because my target audience is young steriotyped 'rocker' people I made this buyer profile. The girl in the middle represents my target audience and the things around her relate to her steriotype. certain bands such as 'youmeatsix' and 'blessthefall' come under their music genre, and magazines such as kerrang! and Q will be relateable. Clothing lines are also a large part of the steriotype including artist's own lines as well as high end high street stores such as topshop. I also included the logo for Skullcandy headphones because music is a large part of the steriotype, often being accused of listening to loud music, so high capacity headphones are vital.

second draft

first draft

Pencil mock up

Publication Plan

Publication Plan

Name- AVANTGARDE

Positioning statement- Your monthly music mash-up

Frequency- Monthly

Price-£2.50

Distribution- Convenience shops, newsagents, music stores, tube/train stations

Rationale- The idea of my magazine is to advertise and promote new, upcoming music of a new generation, ‘AVANTGARDE’ translates to ‘forefront’ and the term is used in English as a noun or adjective to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics. I think this works well for my magazine because a new generation of music is uprising and my magazine’s aim is to promote that and make people aware of a new era of music.

Style- My style of writing will be quite personal, almost friendly, so the readers can relate to the writers as they read the articles.

Contents-ON THE COVER

Sam

04 Our acoustic classic Sam wows us with his new (randomly named) EP ‘bear hasn’t got anything on that devil’

Luc

08 Nightfall frontwoman Luc tells us all about touring with five blokes, farting contests and all..nice.

Tour dates

18 All the tour dates YOU need to know for 2012.

MAIN FEATURE

Silence Before Dawn

14-17 A new generation of metalcore is coming. We are here to prepare you.

YOUR PAGE

Letters

20 All of your little scribblings and thoughs don’t go un-noticed! See if your letter made it to the page

Photos

22 Gig photos! See if your lovely chops made it to the avantgarde gig-wall-of-fame (or shame depending on how sweaty you are)

NEWS

24 BMTH, ADTR, YMAS and every other abbreviated band name you can think of! All the latest news from the lot of ‘emright here!

FUN

Sticky goodness

26 We play the after eight game and ’Lace Race’ with the boys of twin atlantic, sticky beards all round.

Q+A

30 30secondstomars answer YOUR emiled-in question

Photoshoot one

Production plan for Music Magazine.

Now I have chosen a name (AvantGarde) and genre (rock/indie/new music) I'm ready to begin the process of y music magazine.
I have already completed one photo shoot for my main article, but a cover photo still needs to be taken.
many photos will be needed to fill the whole cover, contents and double page, so over the time i have i will betaking lots of photos and work on placing them in the correct pages.
fonts and colours will need to be consistant so thought will be put into choosing one or two fonts to use throughout
a genereal relaxed theme will need to be kept so the target audience is met
 Secondary images have been taken to represent other articles in the magazine.
I need to decide on a colour scheme and a font through out, although i have decided on the masthead font.
The process will be logged on my blog.

Magazine details

people make connections between different colours and certain things and emotions, so colour is used to draw attention of a certain target audience. Colour can also be used to imply a certain theme.

a pug us a graphic in the top corner or 'ear' of the magazine. this may be the price or a promotion

a puff is a shape used for text to make it stand out from the main images. It also makes the magazine look more attractive

mode of address refers to how magazines communicate with their readers, maybe used by model, or titles, using the third person and involving the reader (YOU, YOUR, OUR)

coverlines, like secondary images are used on the front cover to attract the attention of other readers, with other interests. They draw the attention away from the main cover line if the readers interest is not centered there.

smaller images used, often on the cover of magazines to help promote other articles and draw the attention of other fans. Buyers may not have an interest in the main cover star but other secondary images may draw in those people.

In magazines images will be anchored with small captions which explain why the image is used in relation to the article