Task Evaluation

My magazine (the product) uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real magazines in a number of ways. The first way I used the forms and conventions for my magazine was when I was planning. I needed to view enough magazines so that I had a strong understanding of what covers, contents pages and DPS's all involved, and what they needed to appeal to different audiences.
My magazine cover develops the usual 'perfect' images you see on magazine covers, into something much more innocent and girly. Instead of my model dressing provocatably which a lot of magazines have these days, I chose to follow the younger conventions for girly magazines, and have her wearing something admirable, rather than nothing at all! The cover has the typical form of a usual magazine - masthead, cover lines, bar code, price, date, photograph, logo and unique selling points. All of these are put together to create a colour theme across my page, and make my cover look like it's one for a magazine, rather than a poster of some kind! I chose my colour theme carefully; the conventions of magazines for teenage girls (or younger) tended to have a lot of pink and purple. I used pink, blue, yellow and black. I'm challenging the conventions slightly with my colour choice because blue is a colour often associated with boys, but I felt it would definately not only look a bit more contrasting, it might just bring in a wider audience. The typical covers I looked at all had a model dressed (occasionally anyway) with clothes on that represent either their own persona or one rivalling theirs. They usually are in a studio for the main photo so that the lighting can be controlled, but I decided to go against this usual convention and have my model outside. I challenged Ellie's (my model's) persona by getting her to wear a coat and holld it close to her. She is a 'WILDFLIES' member, but by closing her coat, appearing to the audience to be reserved. I only wanted her to hold the coat ever so slightly, so that it didn't draw attention to it, but it was still nticeable enough to contrast with the name. I didn't however use clothes or surroundings to contrast with the name, I used them to have a part of the magazine which is very obvious and easy for onlookers to pick up on. They were that the shoot was outside, and 'wild' flies are out there in nature. Also, the leopard print is associated with living in the wild, which is a) why Ellie is in a tree) b) connected to the idea of 'wildflies.'
For my contents page, I followed a lot of the usual magazine conventions for young teens. The heading 'contents page' is bigger than any other text on the page, there are plenty of pictures to break up the text, and I included an editor's note. The background I chose wasn't too harsh on the eyes, and allowed the text on the page to be clear enough. I made sure I put page numbers, logo, website references, date and magazine name somewhere on the page, simply because that is what is expected before anything else on contents pages today. I didn't really challenge any conventions on my contents page, other than my choice of colours; in a lot of magazines, (for young girls) the background would be pink and text white. I'm glad I chose the more original route for my contents page.
For my DPS, I again did follow the usual conventions for the majority. Key things included an article (obviously) page numbers, headings, set format, pictures to break up the text and a USP for the magazine. On my dps I used a question and answer format, 4 pictures and a photo of a CD cover, and had 'win a brand new WILDFLIES album' as my unique selling point. Challenging the conventions on the DPS was quite difficult because there is a huge variety of ways you can design and therefore interpret a double page spread. I decided to go for the relaxed approach due to my younger target market, and had made sure that the whole page was filled with something really interesting for readers! You don't want to leave any space on a DPS. (or a cover or contents page for that matter!)
Finally, my album cover is the last section of my media product I created. It uses typical album cover conventions in that it has a photograph of the artist, title, album name and is shaped like a cd case. On my album cover, I did a lot more developing the conventions than I did using them! The ways I developed the album cover conventions were that instead of making my artists show their faces and be instantly recogniseable, I made them have their backs to the camera. This firstly leaves a lot of imagination and anticipation for the onlooker, but also allows them to make their own decision on the interpretation they get from the positioning of the image's contents.

My magazine represents the social group ABC1. The reason why I have chosen this group is because these people will have time to sit and read a magazine. Ones who are manual workers perhaps won't get a lot of money, and certainly not any they would be willing to spend on a music magazine. My age group is girls aged 9-16 years, and of course the vast majority of this group won't have even considered the prospect of getting a job just yet! This means that any money they are likely to recieve will come from parents or grandparents whom have enough money to be generous with it. It represents that group because it shows all the priveleges money can give you, (because of fame) and things you can do, like travelling to another country to watch a show, or being able to afford tickets to the latest concert.
The media institution I would like to distribute my media product (magazine) is IPC media. My reasoning for this choice is that it has five titles within it's instituition. Connect, inspire, ignite, south bank, and TX. 2 out of these, connect and south bank, are for women's lifestyle and home, as well as celebrity gossip! The third one, 'inspire' is for leisure and specialist. The other two are for men! I felt that the 3 women's and inspirational magazines would be well matched to my younger generation magazine, and that it would also be another section for IPC to develop. The reason why it is relevant for music magazines is because it owns two music magazines already; NME and Guitar and Bass, Even though these are male magazines, I still feel that because the company does own some women's magazines, that they would be able to provide a younger product. This company is the strongest standing -companies like emap aren't very stable, and so I want my magazine to go to a company with a high profile, which IPC matches well.
The audience I have chosen for my magazine is 9-16 year old girls. Even though this audience is very confined, younger and older girls can still read it if it appeals to them, but my language choice is aimed at this group of youngsters. This group of girls will want to be up - to - date with the latest music and also need role models. My magazine provides both of these things, and fufils their wants at their ages.

I attracted my audience by using conventional strong, girly colours, as well as making a fashion statement on my front cover. This meant that my age group would most definately know it was aimed at them, but also be drawn to it due to it having the conventional colours! It was important that I used pink a lot throughout my cover, contents page and dps because all of the magazines I looked at that were aimed at teen girls all had pink as their majoring colour. It is the colour that signals to onlookers who it is for. Girls are associated with pink internationally from birth, because you see 'baby girl' items in pale pink! (boys in pale blue). When the girls grow older, some of the innocence is gone, therefore making the colour go deeper (closer to red) and become a strong pink. Strong pink is the colour used widely for teenage girls (also known as fuschia). My fashion statement of a leopard print jacket is making the girl readers aspire to be more outgoing and individual, just by seeing someone 'famous' doing the same! It was good to have such a vibrant item on the cover as it really made the magazine stand out more, in turn attracting my audience.
I addressed my audience by using the appropriate language. A lot of punctuation and simple explaining really made my audience obvious. Without using punctuation (!,?,!!) my audience would perhaps have been a lot harder to reach! It is unusual for younger generations to not respond to punctuation because it's what makes the item sound exciting, young and vibrant! (Just like they tend to be at their age!)

Double Page Spread

So that I had a rough idea of what kind of things a double page spread for teens contained, I looked at one from TOP OF THE POPS magazine. It was all about a disney channel film called Camp Rock, which starred the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. I simply went through the DPS and noted all of the things that jumped out immediately that should be present on my DPS too. I wrote about what I liked, what I didn't, and what I want to take from it into my magazine.

I then did a brainstorm of ideas that my DPS could have in it, and managed to come up with enough to fill the two pages! (check my blue book for more details!)

Because no person, 9-16 years of age or older, will want to look at a page filled with writing, I decided to choose some pictures that would be appropriate for my double page spread.

Before I began my DPS I did do a photoshoot of Wildflies to use. There were three photos from the shoot that really stood out as ones I'd want to use. They were one of Emma with a guitar, one of the three of them, and one of Charlie playing drums in a tree. Because Ellie features on the front cover, and I want them (as I said about my album) to appear as an equal persona, I needed to share out the limelight on the page. This meant that Ellie didn't have an individual photograph to make it fair.

I analysed each photo in depth in my book, and explained what they mean and why I want to use them!!

After I had worked out what pictures I wanted, I needed to make the contents and layout final. I brainstormed again what ideas I had, but this time delved really deep to see what I could come up with!

For finalising my layout, I cut out two magazine DPS's and took out bits of the layout I liked. I then combined them into two versions, and stemmed from those created my final layout design in my book.

I made my double page spread on Microsoft word because it's very familiar. I edited the photographs in photoshop, but didn't use the program to create the whole dps.

I used century gothic for my text, like I did with the contents page because I really liked the way the text appeared really girly! I made the title into a really simple font because I wanted a lot of the attention on the photograph next to it of Wildflies.

In my big blue book, I talk through why I have chosen certain phrases, colours and questions to be part of my dps. I printed it out and analysed around it - Check it out!

ALBUM COVER (to feature on DPS)

To begin creating my album cover, I did some background research into the kinds of covers that were around at the moment. To make sure my research was subject to my band as oppose to a single artist, I looked into band's album covers.

Because I wanted to make my research as broad as possible, but still focusing on my girl audience, I did R&b and pop.

My analysis (in my book) showed me how the foreman on the cover is always the lead, and if the band is equal, the people tend to be very similar in distance away from the camera. I wanted my cover to be equal - even though Ellie features on my magazine, I don't want the band to be based around her. The text and font used on the covers (obviously) are all linked to the colour scheme and fit in nicely with the photograph's colours, rather than deterring the eye from it's point of focus (the artist).

I did an in depth analysis of each of the album covers so that I could work out what I wanted to achieve on my final album cover.

I decided before that I would like to use the photo of my 3 bandmates all together, with their backs turned.

This choice shows that they are all equal, with their own hidden identity (due to their faces not being visible) and also that there is more to them than meets the eye with the complicated interpretations there are for the way there is contact between the 3 in the photograph.

In my book I did a process analysis so that you can see exactly how I achieved my final cover.

I decided to put the cover in sepia after viewing The Killers' album cover which was in black and white. I did in fact first put my cover in black and white but it didn't look very effective. I then decided that I would change the colour to sepia because then it puts forward the idea that there is history between the trio. Sepia is a colour often associated with the past and old photographs, which is how I got to my previous interpretation. The history incinuation also leads to confusing people with the title even more!

I did an analysis of my final cover also in my book, so that all my reasoning for each of the different sections of the photograph get explained.

Here it is!

WILDFLIES ALBUM COVER

WILDFLIES are the band that I have created to feature in my magazine! I did a photoshoot with them in natural surroundings to match the 'wild' name!

Here are the photographs:

This photo is of Emma.

She looks natural, content, and girly (with the flower in her hair, inspiration from Rhianna's cover with flowers as a headband) and clearly loves music due to the guitar.

Her rings add a touch of orientalism which is something coming into fashion right now - she could represent that side of the band.

Her simple white shirt denotes purity.

Charlie is playing the drums in a tree here in this photo!

It makes it appear as though he has 'natural' talent, but also that wherever he goes, he takes music with him.

I like this suggestion that the photo gives, and I'd like to use that perhaps in my DPS.

Because Wildflies are my main feature of the magazine this month, I decided that I would need to design an album cover so that I could put it on either my contents page or DPS to make the band seem more realistic.

These are two other images I also did in the photoshoot above.

I wanted to use one of these for the Album Cover!

This photo is one of my favourite pictures - out of the whole project! The reason for this is that there are two ways it can be viewed. The first way is simply that the three are great friends and spend a lot of time together.

The second way, is a lot less simple. The girls are best friends, the male is in a relationship with the middle female, but having an affair with the outside one, the '3rd wheel'

Do you see how the second suggestion can be portrayed in that way? Because this was an assumption that a lot of people made when they saw the photograph, it means I can use it and it would only cause necessary confusion if I labelled the album "it's complicated."

I really like this photograph too. It shows the three bandmates as a close, friendly team, rather than decieving each other like the other one.

This photo also shows each of their individual talents, with Ellie as the singer with a microphone, Emma with her head right next to the guitar, and Charlie with his drumsticks.

One of the best things about this photo is because the three of them aren't obviously holding their instruments, it comes to mind that it is simply natural for them to be able to play them well, and the natural surroundings enhance this.

In the end, I decided to have the first photo as my album cover because that way the more friendly one would feature large in my magazine. It is more innocent and therefore would appeal to my target market a lot easier! Another reason why it would appeal to them easier is simply because it is obvious. All of it's contents show that they are a band with their instruments, and who plays which ones. In the above one, it doesn't suggest anything The anonymity of their turned backs also can be confusing for younger ones, as the fear of the unknown is strong at their age.

I analysed all of the photographs within the parts of my magazine they were to feature in my big blue book.

Music Contents Page!

For my music contents page, I needed to make sure that I followed all the conventions, but also the theme of the magazine I had created. Because we aren't making the whole magazine, I needed to come up with all the contents I thought would go in my magazine and why!
Before I started thinking of any designs, I thought of some girly and music associated stories that could be in SUGARPOP!

• 'So you think you can dance' introduction: It's related to performance and music! It's also popular and something girls would most likely enjoy.


• 'The Runaways': A pretend echo of the glee series - my audience would most definately appreciate glee! It's a musically surrounded show.
  
• 'Autumn activities': Alliteration is a form of persuasion! I thought it would be good for youngsters to get ideas about how to improve their musical skills in the autumn.
  
• 'want to be a star' follow on from the cover, helping girls to perform on stage at their best!
  
• Disney Channel Stars Interview - follow on from cover - Disney is popular among youngsters, so it's better in the magazine than out!
  
• X factor gossip page - my magazine is set for release around the time when the x factor competition is at it's peal (november/december)
  
• 'Herts School Musical' I thought it would be really cool to add in the idea of a high school musical locally! It could be something the girls could really feel they can join and it's not out of their reach.


• 'Behind the scenes at PHLIX's photoshoot!' another made up band - just to make things more exciting and allow the readers to feel priveleged, having bought the magazine.

I wanted the style of font I chose for the text 'CONTENTS PAGE' to be carried through to the smaller text, 'cover features' and 'even more features' because it helps to develop a theme, and makes it all much easier to read. I needed to pick a font I thought would appeal to younger audiences!
To decide on a layout, I simply moved everything around on the page a number of times. I was using microsoft word because it was the simplest one for me to understand - I knew how to achieve the look I wanted.

My two main theme colours were bright pink and pale blue, because they are girly! They are contrasting colours but don't clash and look good together. I was originally going to do pink and purple, but I felt that was too typical of girly nature, and I wanted to go a different route to the usual.

In my book I analysed two girl magazine contents pages for different audiences so I knew what suited my age group better, and then analysed a music magazine contents page so I knew what key parts were essential to have on mine.

Some of the most important aspects of a magazine contents page include:

• Logo of the magazine


• date


• magazine name somewhere on the page


• website for the magazine


• pictures (to add to interest)


• page numbers


• sections and headings

Once I had figured out what I needed to achieve, I began making prototypes for my own contents page!

I then analysed each layout, and put two prototypes for the contents page with them.

Once I had worked out my layout, I began doing my contents page.

Century Gothic was the font I used for the page explanations, rockwell extra bold for the headings 'cover features' and 'even more features' bradley FC for the page numbers and page titles, and 'Arial Bold' for my title font.

The best part about my contents page I feel is my title. It's really original, yet still manages to keep with the colour and text themes of the page really well!

Finally, I finished my contents page. I analysed the different areas in my book for you to check out if you want to know more of how I made it!

This is my contents page for 'SUGARPOP!' magazine:

The first stages of the editing involved me coming up with a colour and font for the main title text, and making sure I maintained the font for any other text I might want throughout the cover.
Because I had decided to name my magazine SUGARPOP, I needed to work out how I wanted the text to be portrayed. I felt that a bubbly, eye catching text would reach my audience really well, and also stand out well on the cover page. Because the background of my photo is quite difficult for many colours to show up well on, black was the best choice for me to use. On photoshop, I selected a text I thought was really bubbly and girly! There was a tool on there that I could use to make the text have a slight outline which was barely noticeable but made a big difference. It was grey and almost misty but helped to create a 3D effect on the text and make it much more easy to read. Also, the text stood out from any other text I have seen on magazines, so it's really good I can be original in my designs.

I wanted to make Ellie look even more flawless than she already did, so I used a tool called Spray Tan. It made her skin look much more tanned, like the typical hollywood magazines we see today, but also really smooth. It made everything in the image stand out really well and the colours to come through stronger, but still appear real. When I tried to increase the colour concentration by heightening the contrast, it didn't create the same effect. It made it harder to see Ellie's features precisely and therefore lost it's impact.

On my cover design, I had a USP at the top, a bar slanted centrally across the page, and a big 'bang' containing the text either to 'win' or recieve a 'free' something. When I put an autoshape on my photo, and slanted it, I felt that I didn't actually like the design at all. I changed to straight, and it made much more of an effect. It makes the text on it stand out from the rest but doesn't distract from the impact Ellie needs to have on the reader. The USP at the top I wanted in the same colour as the autoshape because that way it connects the cover and holds it more together! The text colour on them will be the same also.
The big bang needed to be in a colour that will typically draw attention to it. Naturally, I chose yellow, but to make it connect with the rest of the cover, I made another bang underneath the main one and coloured it in a similar yellow to that of the microphone. This meant that they eye could move around the cover by being attracted to the same colours and the person not even realise.
I decided to put the autoshape and USP in a gentle fuschia, because that way it worked with Ellie's hair and didn't clash with it, not to mention fits in with my audience profile!

The text I chose to put on my USP and autoshape is black. The font is the same as the title masthead, and will be consistent across the cover.

Every magazine I analysed had a colour theme. Whether it be 2, 3 or 4 colours, there was always one there! I decided that in order for me to keep to the magazine conventions, I would need to have a colour theme too. As I had already decided on fuschia for the background boxes and black for the texts, they were to be the first colours. Because I had put the 'bang' in a bright yellow, I felt that yellow should be within the theme too. Lastly, I needed one more colour - I wanted to use 4 colours. I couldn't use green because it clashed with the trees and leaves in the photo. I couldn't use red or orange because they clashed with fuschia! I had to find a colour that was opposite to any of the colours on the page, and managed to find a really strong, light cobalt blue! When all of my text was placed upon my edited photograph, the cover looked complete. All of the links in the colours really pulled it together! When I asked various girls between the ages of 9-16 about the cover and colour scheme, they all said they would definately buy it! That was really good news.


The cover stories I had decided on were all ones that were exciting, positive and girly - just what girls (and their parents) would be happy about seeing on a young magazine;

• 'Want to be... A STAR?'


• 'Perform like never before!'


• 'BRITNEY: Her best and worst singles to date!'


• 'Music Channel Awards'


• 'Poster Competition Results' (to incinuate regular readers and the idea of the magazine being monthly)


• 'Disney Channel Stars Interview'


• 'What's your band of the year?'


• 'The dream festival: what's yours?'


• 'How to look cool and rock out to YOUR fave tunes!'


• 'New album reviews'


• 'WILDFLIES: how they keep under control!'

One of the main things I wanted to carry out across all the cover lines was the use of punctuation. As it is a common technique done when targeting younger audiences and is proved to be successful, I chose to use it also.

Because WILDFLIES are my main 'attribute' to the magazine this month, I chose to add a twist to their caption! The very youngreaders may not catch on, but the older ones should see the contradiction! 'WILD'flies makes them wild, but the caption 'how they keep under control' questions that name!

In my blue book, I did a process analysis from photo to cover, and also how I achieved the cover photograph in it's original form. I also did a cover analysis and went into more detail about why I selected certain features.

This is my final music magazine cover!

As you can see, one very important feature is missing - the bar code. The reason for this is that the editing software I was using (adobe photoshop CS3) didn't have correct compatibility with all of the bar code images I tried to put on my cover. Because of this fault, I had to exchange computers and in turn programs (to adobe photoshop CS5) so that I could achieve the completion of my cover. However, one disadvantage I discovered when using this other program is that it changed the colours of my cover. My pink boxes were changed to a deep red, and the text I felt were difficult to see (although now outlined using the outglow tool) also went a lot darker in colour. This meant that despite now having the bar code, my cover changed into a very different cover.

Even though my cover has had to undergo some changes due to making sure I follow the needed coventions, I still stick by my original design. I have stuck both designs in my book, the original cover is still the one I feel reaches my audience accordingly.

When I asked for preference between the two, 8/10 chose my original design. Because I know for sure that 80% of my audience (approximately) would choose this design, I can make it the final one.

some feedback I recieved!

'The colours flow really well together'

'I love the logo'

'the girl is really pretty, I wish I was her!'

These comments show that I have managed to reach my audience in the right way! I have used both quantative and qualitive data to find out what people think of the cover, and both have proved come back with positive feedback.

My Music Magazine Cover!

The first thing I did before I started to work on my real cover, was to make a big note of all the ideas I wanted it to have. In my book I wrote them all down and drew a sketch of what I wanted my overall cover to appear similar to.

This was really useful because it helped all the ideas in my head come together! I used the 3 covers I had annotated before to contribute to my ideas, and even used some of their layouts that I thought worked really well! Because I had done such in depth research, I was able to see what worked well and what didn't work as well - especially for my specific audience!





The first part of creating my cover was to come up with a cover photograph, model and slight contradiction it could behold.


The first thing I thought of was the contradiction. Wildflies are wild, so I could have my model in a leopard print coat, which easily makes it's connection with the wild, and then have my model clutching the coat in and holding it tightly towards her neck which could resemble vulnerability and conservation, which goes against the normal ideas put across of 'wild'.


Once I had my costume sorted, I needed to find a model. I needed a girl who could be a really good role model for teens and young girls, but not be too old to increase the age of the target audience. I immediately thought of the model I had used for my school photographs, Ellie, because she was really well presented and looked really inspirational.


Now I had my costume and my model, I needed to find somewhere to photograph her! I could do what I had seen a lot of magazine covers do and take photographs of her in a studio with the fan blowing her hair and so on, but I wanted to do something different. Because my theme was wild, I thought it would make perfect sense to photograph Ellie by a tree, or even in one! I searched around me for places I could put her, and eventually found a really good spot. It was in a tree, but there was a place for her to sit so that she wouldn't feel too uncomfortable or be unsafe!


These are the photos I took;

Out of these 6 photogrraphs, the last one stands out for me. It's definately showing her making a connection with the audience, looking relaxed, but also conforming to the 'wild' contradictions I wanted.

I decided to use this one and so I began to edit it in adobe photoshop.

POP MUSIC BRAINSTORM

So that I could have a little clearer a view of the kind of features I wanted for my magazine cover and contents page, I decided to do a brainstorm of all the different sections!

I came up with:

COVER:

• Photograph must be attractive and relevant
• colours bright and eye catching
• enough information on it to inform but not overwhelm the reader
• varied information so that a wider audience can be reached
• be able to persuade readers to buy

CONVENTIONS:

• Bar code on cover
• no swear words
• about 100 pages
• appropriate adverts
• sensible/affordable price for young teens

LANGUAGE:

• Young but not patronising language
• use of colloquial language, eg use of girly terms: 'cute'

CONTENT (FOR CONTENTS PAGE):

• articles on admirable celebs eg Cheryl Cole, Beyonce. (ones without bad reputations and ones that mums would approve of their daughters reading about)
• music tips/singing tips
• page on a boyband/girlband
• page on cover band/artist
• page on upcoming festivals
• reviews on music
• celebrity news
• new bands page and reviews
• page on history of an artist
• facts or tips on each or every other page of the magazine

PHOTOS:

• Need to include something musical, eg guitar, microphone, drumsticks, piano, etc
• must look professional, so good quality camera is needed
• need to be girly, so have girly colours and ideas interpreted in. (pink, purple, bubbles, flowers)

MAGAZINE NAME:

• People of pop
• sugar pop
• love pop
• startime
• startune
• popalicious
• spicypop
• QT (cutie)
• pop party
• pop world

COVER BAND NAME:

• Contentment
• Dreamers
• flyaways
• runaways
• wildflies
• wilderness
• birdies

The brainstorm has really helped me come to a conclusion about the features I would like.

Two of the main decisions I have made are that I would like to call the magazine 'SUGARPOP' and the cover band name 'WILDFLIES'. The reason behind my decision to name the magazine sugarpop is that it is something that hasn't been used before, yet it's girly, clearly related to music due to 'pop' being in the name, and it's easy to read which means that younger audiences will like it. My choice of the name wildflies to be the band name is due to it sounding really fresh, innocent and free, which is what I feel the young girls would naturally be inspired by at their ages.

Girls Magazine Analysis

In order for me to create my own girls magazine cover, I needed to home in on the different music magazines for teenage girls existing right now! By doing this research, I was able to see how different shapes, punctuation and camera angles could make a really big difference to the response the magazine recieves!


The three covers I chose were 2 from 'smash hits!' magazine and one from 'top of the pops.' These are the ones I chose because they all have different colour themes, picture types, shapes, layouts and unique selling points.

I analysed each cover in detail in my book, and discussed what made each cover sell to it's audience.

The first magazine cover ('smash hits!') has a photograph taken from a high angle which makes Britney look vulnerable, and in turn young like her target audience.
In the second cover, (Britney is on it again) she is looking straight on into the camera, but has her arms touching her hair and at the same time covering her ears. This seems to be saying that she isn't listening to the people around her giving advice when she's 'Partying till dawn, pub crawls and pampering' and being told to 'BEHAVE.'
The third cover is also one from 'smash hits!' but it doesn't have a picture of Britney on it this time! It has two separate pictures edited onto one page, which is very unusual. They are aggressive photographs of Pink! and Avril Lavigne. Even though they look fairly rebellious on the cover, the tag line 'Who'll win the battle of the rock chicks?' makes it more innocent and therefore reaches it's target audience of teenage girls due to the girly language.

Music Magazine Survey

To find out more about the music industry today and what girls aged 9-16 tended to like and dislike about music, I decided to do a music magazine survey.

I have put a paper copy in my blue book which is a copy of the ones I gave out, so that you can see the questionnaire like my answerees did.
The questions I asked were as follows:

• 'How important is music in your everyday life?' Which i did in a very unusual layout in surveys - I put the words 'Never Listen To It' 5 circles and then Music Is My Life' because then they could give their own opinion, but it also adds a modern twist and makes it a litte more interesting than just ticking every box.
• 'How do you access music to download?' I asked this question because I felt it was important to see how my target audience got hold of music. The reason being that in my magazine I can refer to the most popular way, and keep a wider majority of my audience able to relate.
• 'How do you listen to your music?' This was so I could see if CD's were still something the girls buy now that Itunes and Radio are available so easily!
• 'How much would you be prepared to pay for a music magazine?' This question was simply so I could see how much money my audience tended to have, and how much they would be willing to spend to help me work out what price to put my own magazine at.
• 'What's your dream job in music?' This was so that I could see what kind of careers girls dreamt of having at that age. It's really important that the magazine can help them reach for their dreams - magazines are there to inspire readers!
• 'What do you like and dislike about reading a magazine? Do you prefer reading online?' Obviously, this question is just so I could see how much people actually read magazines nowadays.
• 'Approximately how old were you when you started appreciating music?' I was sure that I wanted to aim my magazine at girls 9+, but I needed to make sure that the age was suitable and that the age was correctly matched with the intended magazine ideas.
• 'Have you ever attended a music festival?' I wanted to see how much impact festivals had on children these days because they are getting bigger and bigger each year! By finding out what festivals these girls had either heard of or been to, I knew whether to include anything about festivals in my magazine or not.
• 'What makes a dream festival?' As I said before, I wanted to know what girls were inspired by, and I thought after a really succesful festival season in summer 2010, it would be a really good time to find out seeing as it would all still be fresh in their minds!

I recorded all my results on Microsoft Excel and made them into pie and bar charts.

As you can see, I wrote about each graph and what they contributed to my magazine research.

By doing this survey, it has opened my eyes to the things girls do in regards to listening to music, buying magazines and enjoying festivals. I could have just written down my opinion for each and used those to build my magazine on, but if I use research, I have primary evidence that their selections are valid and worth putting into my magazine!

Audience Profile

I have decided to do my music magazine on the POP genre, and aim my magazine at girls aged 8-16.

I did a mood board in my book of all the artists and interests my audience would most likely have. It included typical girly things! The main things I put on my mood board were:

famous girly artists for girls to aspire to be

attractive male artists for girls to long for

make up - conventional of teenage girls

high school musical franchise - the biggest hit among teens over the last 3 years

friends - a social, comic and loveable series (girls tend to love it)

girly sleepovers (again, conventional of teenage girls)

The reason why I have chosen to do my music magazine on POP music rather than hiphop, R&B, classical or rock is because it's something that is really surrounding the music world right now, and I felt it would be a really good idea to make my magazine current.

It's getting harder to attract younger audiences these days in magazines because of the internet, television and mobile phones! Children tend to be able to watch music channels nowadays, find out gossip online and even on their phones! I thought it would be ideal now seeing as all of these gadgets are killing the magaizne industry, to make my magazine appeal to the age where even though they might have access to the internet and so on, they still may shop with their parents and more often than not will want to buy a magazine!



This photograph resembles the audience I'd most like to target. They are young, but still can understand a lot of the more developed english language. However, to make sure I still appeal to my younger audiences, I will use a lot of punctuation and simple explanations to make them feel comfortable in their ability to read the magazine and understand the concepts within it fully.







Cheryl Cole is one of the biggest stars of Britain and even the world right now, meaning she has become a household name. She has been a judge on the most watched reality show in the country, the X factor, and not to mention performed! She is surely someone who parents and children are familiar with, and therefore they (most likely) would not hesitate to allow their children to be associated with her music.
I think a lot of young girls would aspire to be her - she is the kind of artist I would definately be promoting in the magazine!



































Cheryl Cole:
On the left 2010's 'Messy Little Raindrops'
on the right, 2009's '3 Words'

Other examples of familiar and respectful artists to younger generations include The Saturdays and Rihanna.







This picture is feminine, girly and admirable - what girl wouldn't want to be relaxing on the beach in lovely clothes with her best friends?


































This is my favourite example of a girly cover - she has white all around her so even though youngsters won't recgonise it, it does mean purity, and they are normally very innocent at their age! Rihanna has a gentle expression on her face which creates a sense of happpiness and contentment, and of course the girly bright red, eye catching curls in her hair are nicely finished off with an expensive looking, beautiful headband. It has flowers on, making it very much a girly accessory. She also looks approachable and friendly, which makes it even easier for her to be within my target market. I think we all want to be like her!

Music Magazine Conventions

Before I create my very own music magazine, I need to know the conventions of magazines in general, but also the conventions of music magazines. As I have done all my initial research on magazines, I can use what I know to analyse the music genre, and build on my knowledge.

In my big blue book I analysed 6 different music magazines, with a very wide range of target audiences.

I realised that in a lot of cases, the age of the person on the front cover is around the age group the magazine is targeted at. It's really important that the cover appeals to the audiences they are aimed at, and don't attract the wrong ones!

For example, I looked at a 'top of the pops' magazine, which featured the two disney channel stars, Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron. This magazine cover features a lot of pink, blue and white. Pink is very girly, the royal blue stands out really well and the white represents purity. If this magazine cover was designed for older women rather than young teenage girls, it wouldn't reach it's audience specification very well at all. If it was to be for older women, the background would perhaps go to a very deep, elegant blue or a very pale blue. The pink would change to

perhaps a deep rose and the white text would stay white or change to black, depending on the colour of the background. Bright colours are sometimes seen as 'young' and 'vibrant' colours, which mean that they don't tend to appeal to the older aged audiences.

A lot of the music magazine covers I viewed seemed to be making the audience see an ideal being that they would initially want to become or 'be with'. The very promiscuous image of Britney on the front of Blender makes a female say: 'I wish I was that pretty' and a male say 'I wish I could have her' so it appeals to both female and male audiences.

The Rolling Stones magazine is using very much the same imagery as Blender. Only one brunette is pictured in all of these, which makes it seem as though blondes are thought to be more attractive in music to men.

It seems that men's magazines whether they are music/lifestyle/fitness all are able to feature a woman half dressed on the front cover in order to attract their audience.

In female music magazines, they had either girls, a girl and a guy or a guy, which are 3 scenarios that girls tend to live by.

My research has really helped me see the different styles there are already out there for music magazines, and let me see what kind of imagery attracted different audiences and why!

I can't wait to begin working on my very own music magazine!

Contents Page

The second part of our preliminary task was the Contents Page.
We needed to make one and design pages that would feature typically in a school magazine.
The first things I felt were crucial to a school contents page were:

• the school logo
• the title 'contents page'
• pictures to break up the text and appeal to all audiences - too much text would overwhelm the younger ones
• page contents descriptions

I felt that these things were very simple, and would appeal to all of my chosen audience.

The majority of the pages I chose to put on relate to improving the students' ability to learn and the enjoyment they get out of school.

I wanted to design my contents page in microsoft publisher, because it has a lot of tools that could assist me in making sure my outcome looked professional! As this is the preliminary task, it's okay for me to get things wrong, but for the real contents page, I'll need to make sure I get it all right!

By having a blackboard as a background, and the CONTENTS title in white chalk text, it made it all very much related to school. I wanted people to be making the connection all the while reading the magazine!

I put one picture of ellie on it and one of a group of schoolgirls and leaves, because everything is keeping in the autumn theme! Slanting them using the rotation tool on publication made them seem a lot more interesting and modern. I used 4 images to be labelled as the art gallery instead of say one because it really does spice up the page and make it a lot more interesting!

I think the contents page does work well as a school magazine's but I don't think it would bode well in a similar style for any other type! It works well because it's for such a wide audience, whereas other magazines tend to have a more direct target audience.

School Magazine Cover

For our preliminary task, we needed to design a school magazine cover, importing the magazine conventions we have learnt so far, and aim it at pupils, teachers, govenors and parents. Using publisher, I did a quick and easy design layout to see what kind of positions and font ideas I wanted on my real cover. I named my magazine school life, because that was the first name that came to me. It's simple, but allows you to understand the key point: It's all about your life at school!

I found that I really liked the idea of having 'SCHOOL' in bold letters, and then 'Life' in a white chalk on blackboard type text, which is traditionally linked to school. These ideas meant that I already had the masthead sorted, but I needed to work out what I wanted the cover to feature.
I brainstormed ideas, and came up with these cover lines:

• 'UNIFORM CARDS: YES OR NO?'
• 'Who's the form of the month?'
• 'Lunch Time Clubs!'
• 'Quote Of The Month'
• 'School Horoscopes: What's Yours?'
• 'Teachers Tips!'
• 'Club Watch: What are the top clubs right now?'
• 'Geography Field Trip!'
• 'Get organised this autumn!'

As you can see, 8 out of 9 cover lines have punctuation - it's key to making your cover seem more exciting. Because a lot of school pupils these days aren't too keen on school, I thought I would make it seem a lot more enthusiastic and in turn attractive to my audience. As my audience consists of pupils, teachers, parents and govenors, I couldn't aim it at a direct section of those 4 groups. For example, I couldn't have an article based on 'cheating your teacher into thinking you are ill' because of course teachers read it! That would be very discouraging and unsuitable for a school magazine anyhow!

In order for me to come up with an idea for my cover picture, I brainstormed the conventional school items and associations to help me on my way. Typically, I came up with:

• DETENTION!
• stationary (eg pencils, rulers, rubbers)
• Maths
• blackboard
• teachers
• friends
• homework
• organisation
• uniform
• waking up!
• being busy!

All of these will mostly remind someone who is currently in education or some others of school!

For my cover, I wanted to use some of the Autumn inspiration I had around me. The leaves were falling off the trees, and the autumn term of school was well under way. I felt that I should use this traditional connection with autumn to make the SEPTEMBER 2010 issue of my magazine.
When you first go back to school in september, you know that you must have all your books, your pencilcase, your uniform and your brain ready to go when that dreaded day calls the end to your summer. Unfortunately, we all know too well that if we aren't organised, we won't make it succesfully through our first day! I felt that organisation would be something really important at the beginning of term if ever, and so I should put it into my cover.

When you are unorganised, things are out of place, they are sprawled everywhere, and simply just not where you need them. In order for me to interpret that kind of imagery into my cover with the autumn theme, I needed to come up with an idea to pull the two together. When I combined the two things, it meant that I had things piled on top of leaves looking really unorganised. Of course, I wanted to keep my cover simple, and so decided that papers in a pile wouldn't be very simple, but also not very appealing either. I chose the very obvious connection with school, stationary, to be lying around in the leaves. It means that with items such as protractors, rulers, rubbers and pencils, your mind automatically wonders to school days. To combine this idea with autumn, it seemed to make the most sense to have the stationary spread out on top of a pile of leaves! It connects the two perfectly, but simply, which is exactly what I wanted.

In order to follow typical magazine conventions, I needed to have a picture of a person on the front. By choosing a female, I continue the theme of organisation as women are generally said to be more organised. I want to appeal to both female and male audiences, but because men never feature on women's magazine, yet women feature on men, it is more likely my audience will be broader if I have a woman on the front cover.

The person I chose to feature is called Ellie. She is 16 years old and has deep red hair (which matches the leaves perfectly!) and is very pretty! Even though it is a school magazine, and it shouldn't matter about looks, I still felt that having an attractive female on the front would increase the chances of it doing well. I asked her to not wear school uniform, and to wear a black or red top. She then comes ready with a black top covered in red roses. The red roses fit in really nicely with the leaves, which makes the top work really well.

I made a pile of leaves and Ellie laid down on them (I only made them around her head as we were only having a close up shot) and then made sure they were even on both sides of her head before adding the stationary. I chose to have my brighter pieces as they wouldn't get lost in the red leaves, but also wouldn't distract too much from Ellie and the cover lines. Having a shot of the cover person laying down is something I haven't seen be done on any magazine covers, so I thought it would attract more people due to it's originality.

I took a number of shots, because I needed to make sure that Ellie was directly connecting with the audience. A slightly low/high angle would cease to do that. I asked her to do a big smile for me, because it will make the onlooker smile and in turn make them feel happier about coming to school, which is what I want. After quite a few clicks of the camera, I managed to get the light, angle, leaves and smile right!

Here is the picture I will use on my cover:

To make sure all the text I needed to put on stood out clearly I had to work out what text would show up and what wouldn't! I felt that a bright orange would blend in too much with the leaves, but a bright yellow would stand out really well! I wanted the main school heading to be white because that was the only colour that would stand out without exception against the leaves. I increased the contrast slightly to make everything in the image stronger. This also made Ellie's eyes look a lot stronger which helped to engage her and the audience. Using photoshop, I added the text - I kept it the same throughout because it looked a lot neater and presentable, just like you should be at school!

Because the shot only needed to be really simple, there wasn't a lot I needed to change about it. The only things I needed to add were the text, barcode, price and date.

I chose my magazine to be free because then it will appeal to students. Remebering that the younger pupils won't have a lot of money, and so they would lose out on the privilege of the magazine if it was costly.

My Final Cover:

Magazine Conventions

The first thing I needed to do before I started working on any magazine ideas, was to analyse as many magazines as I could to understand the conventions and purposes of them.

To understand the differences between men's and women's magazines, I needed to analyse them separately. This is exactly what did, and it worked really well! It made me see how contrasting the two are, and how expectations for magazines aimed at the two sexes really differ.

The main conventions of a magazine are the layout (masthead, coverlines, left hand side holds majority due to stacking system in shops, main image, connecting colours), an image representing an idealised version of what the audience want to be like or have, price and barcode. When first seeing what holds a magazine together, you can easily think it is very simple and easy. But through all my analysis, I've found that there are a lot of ways you can be persuaded into buying the magazine without even realising! Sometimes it's as simple as a rhetorical question, eg "do you want to get rid of fat?" of course the majority of the world could answer that with a 'YES' and they buy the magazine. Sometimes they can put an ideal person for the age group on the front cover and immediately, you want to read the magazine in order to feel closer to that being; a lot of the covers I looked at had an attractive person on the front, which is exactly for that purpose.

The main points I found for men and women's magazines that are extremely contrasting were:

• Women's magazines tended to have a woman on the front fully clothed, smiling, and pulling a respectable pose. Men's on the other hand, sometimes had good looking, healthy men on the front, (for example in Men's Health magazine) or a very provocatively presented female who pulls a pose rather than smiles naturally.
• Men's magazines used capital letters a lot more than female magazine's did. Perhaps this is trying to represent STRENGTH for the men and gentle, feminity for the women.
• Women's magazines are a way for the female to escape, become a better person and improve themselves (in most cases). For men, they are usually revolved around funny stories, sex and outrageous behaviour (appealing to young men) and otherwise focused on fitness.