MAIN TASK: Magazines, begining my research and planning...

Initial analysis of a range of music magazines...

1st Magazine - "KERRANG" featuring Biffy Clyro...

The title of this magazine is "KERRANG"

The target audience for this particular magazine is most likely to be radical teenagers who are interested in rock/metal genre music.

The main contents of this magazine would be mostly music reviews including reviews on the newest CD's and downloadable music and concerts by artists in the "rock" style. The magazine would also include interviews with particualr musicians, and like most magazines there would be posters included.

The brand identity of "Kerrang" is Teenagers who consider themselves as individuals, even though interestingly this magazine is very popular, meaning lots of people purchase it, giving the impression that it cant have that much of an individual audience! the readers of this magazine would be particuarly interested in rock and metal type music, unlike the magazines that focus of hiphop music etc. The audience would be individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty.

2nd Magazine - "Music" featuring Sarah Chang...

The title of this magazine is "Music".

The audience would most likely be an older audience compared to the KERRANG audience, and they would have a more sophisticated music sense and more of an interest in classical music.

Much like any magazine, the main contents is all the same, it just focuses on a different subject/music type. Therefore "Music" magazine would review songs and CD's on classical musical, but unlike KERRANG it probably wouldn't refer to downloadable music too much, because the audience of this magazine would be older and more likely to simple buy the song in CD form. This magazine would also include interviews, and reviews and posters etc.

This is an upmarket sophisticated publication for people that take classical music seriously.





3rd Magazine - "VIBE" featuring Chris Brown...

The title of this popular hiphop magazine is "VIBE".

The obvious target audience for this magazine is people who are interested in hiphop/rap music and the apparent lifestyle that goes with it. The audience is probably young aspirers who wish that they could be like "Chris Brown" for example.

Once again the main contents of this magazine, would include music reviews, interviews and posters etc. But interestingly this magazine probably also includes fashion reviews and other subjects which actually arent that invloved with the music this magazine focuses on.

Brand identity: I think "VIBE" magazine is aimed at students who consider themselves trendy and cool and reject the mainstream, but could also be a downmarket publication for younger audiences that want a mainstream commercial pop acts.


Other interesting Magazine covers...

MAIN TASK: Magazine

Our task is to create a front cover, contents page and double page spread for a new music magazine.

key dates and deadlines...

8th January - Planning and Research Deadline.

12th February - Production Deadline.

5th March - Evaluation Deadline.

Preliminary Task: Mine and my partners contents page for "Grades N Babes"

Preliminary Task: The final result - Evaluating "Grades and Babes"

This is how our front page finally turned out, after around four to five hours work on Adobe Photoshop. In my opinion it looks very successful, and proffesional. But in some places i can pick out a few faults, that i will learn from and remember not to make in my actual product. An example of one of these mistakes is maybe our front page is a bit too full of images, and the mid close up model has his eyes almost touching another image which looks untidy. But on the other hand, if you look at our planing, you can see our final front cover looks as if it has stuck to our design sketch which i think is a positive thing.

Questions concerning mine and my partners magazine cover...

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

Like almost every real magazine on the market, our magazine uses a large, confident masthead which suprisingly covers our models head, whereas most of the time it is the models that cover the masthead. Our magazine cover uses a few realistic looking straplines, a price, issue number and even a barcode to add to the proffesional effect intended. Just like a real magazine, our front cover has a few inset images and a mid close up photograph which as mentioned previously may be positioned a little too crowded, but in my opinion still looks effective.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As mentioned in the planning section of this blog, our magazine would be aimed at a young male audience, who generally follow the trend and are into nothing more than getting through college with the best results, aswell as the best girl.

How did you attract/address your audience?

We thought we would attract our intended audience by making our magazine cover appear casual and friendly, aswell as new and fresh, unlke real college magazines, which are covered in pictures of unrealistic situations and obviously fake smiles.

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

Overall, the most important thing ive came out with from this is, the general use of Quark express. Because before this project, i didnt even know the program existed, yet now i can produce fairly simple, but effective pieces of work, such as the contents page me and my partner also created for this magazine.

Preliminary Task: Mine and my partner's planning of our college magazine.

Me and my partner began brainstorming on the genre and target audience of our magazine, we decided it would probably be easier for us if we aimed our magazine at young males about our age and in our situation (college etc.)

After we decided our target audience would be aimed at young studying males, we tried to think of a way to make it seem a bit less nerdy, compared to a regular college magazine on how to get the grades. Thats where the babes came in. we decided at this age its typical for boys to be constantly thinking about the opposite sex, with some exceptions of course.

We then started noting down other factors that would need to be considerd, such as font and colour and layout. And importantly, our college magazine name, which after lots of trial and error was chosen to be "grades and babes"

After we had the majority of our plan set out, (see drawings) we started photographing the models for ourmagazing, which would either be used on the front page, or the contents page that we also had to make. When we had taken enough photographs, we scanned them into the computer and began actually creating our front page (using adobe photoshop) and our contents page (using Quark Express).

Preliminary Task: Magazine Research.

This magazine cover connotes a similar atomsphere to the one below portraying the kooks. The main image is in mid close up though unlike "The National Student Magazine". but a similarity they both have is the grey, miserable background and the sad expressions on the models faces. which like mentioned below, connotes a feeling of negativity, which is strange as its a magazine aimed at supposedly young, happy people. the coverlines are reversed out text and use a simple array of colours. personally i think this magazine is fairly miserable, and i dont think i would choose to buy this particular issue due to the negative atmosphere it connotes.

"The National Student Magazine" looks as if its a magazine for mixed gender, because the main cover dennotes the kooks which is a popular band in both women's and men's opinions. strangely, the cover connotes a fairly negative atmosphere, with the grey sky and fairly dissapointing expressions on the band members faces. although on the other hand the masthead and other various pieces of text on the cover are in bright positive colour which kind of counter act the negative imagery with a hint of positivity. this overall creates a suttle and neutral feel to the magazine without being to depressing and too "child like cheerful".

This student magazine cover is most likely to have been aimed at men, the large central image of "officer naughty" dennotes an attractive young lady in a skimpy police outfit. she has handcuffed a man and taking him away. this obviously connotes alot in the subject of sex, and the police lady's sexual availability which would make the magazine more attractive to young men.

This magazine cover is very straight forward and simple ; it doesnt contain any coverlines, straplines, freebies, issue number etc. actually it would be simpler to say what this magazine does contain : a large image and an unconventional positioned masthead. thats it. this level of simplicity and sexyness probably makes this magazine more successful and causes young male students to be drawn to it.

Preliminary Task: college magazine analysis.

1. Do the magazines have any features in common? for example, do they have similar cover images, similar set of language, font, colour and/or layout, similar types of feature?


The three magazines all have a similar layout and stick to the general trend in magazine cover design. Each one has a large masthead at the top of the page, aswell as a large central image. They all try to use bright colours and iamges to connote positivity as they are going to be read by young, happy people.

2. which of the three would you prefer to read and why?

i probably wouldnt like to read any of them if i was to be completely honest, but out of the three i would probably choose "KingEd's" because it has a positive simple layout and the reader isnt overwhelmed with advertisements and a page full of headings.

3. now choose ONE of the magazines:

"current"

a. what kind of person would read this? look back at the handout on audience profiles to help you here.

i would guess that carers or traditionalists would be most likely to read this magazine as the magazines genre is being green and "ways you can save the planet". carers think of themselves as caring individuals and would have interest in the welfare of the planet.

b. what are the connotations of the following features: the main image, the use of colour; the masthead; the use of language?

The main image is three fairly young ladies sharing a shower, they appear very happy...

My first post.

Im Jack and this is my first blog. to be honest ive never done a blog on the web before and im only doing this because it was required for my media studies course, i plan to add more in the future as my work progresses and eventually have a large selection of informative posts guiding you through my two years in the course.