Magazine Inspirations

Magazine Inspirations

When I eventually create my magazine, I will be using front covers like these (i.e. any front cover from Q and NME magazine) as inspiration. I have chosen to use these magazines as inspiration because, they cover similar genres of music to the genres that I will be covering in my magazine. These genres of music are britpop, rock, indie, R&B.

Like with these front covers, I intend to locate the masthead at the top left hand of the page because, it enables more focus on the rest of the front cover. Also, I intend to use the colour of red frequently including for my masthead. However, I will be content if I have to change the colour to suit the background and the image.

When I come to create the contents page, again, I will be using these magazines as inspiration. For my contents page, I intend to use one enlarged image and to make the text bold and reasonably big, just like the following contents pages above. The image will provide the target audience with a visual clue as to what the main article is all about.

To be honest, I am not sure which magazine this double page spread comes from but I chose this image because, it features multiple images. For my double page spread, I intend to use multiple images because, they make the article look more lively and interesting. However, if taking the images doesn't work out, I may end up using only one enlarged image. If that is the case, my double page spread may look something like the image below.

A common theme in both of these double page spreads is that a pull quote is used as the title. This is something I intend to do with my double page spread. It is a way of immeadiately catching the readers attention because, the reader would want to know what the interviewee was talking about.

Survey Analysis and Audience Focus Group

www.surveymonkey.com

This is the web link to a website called Survey Monkey, which allows you to create surveys for free. I had used this website as part of my target audience research task, in which I had to find out who my target audience was and what qualities they think makes a good magazine.

I am undertaking this task, so that I will be able to establish what my magazine is going to look like. However, I have a very good idea of what I am going to do with my magazine anyway. Whatever the result, it will just be mere feedback. So far, I have had no responses so I will have to undertake another method to get information.

On Survey Monkey, I had created a survey which contained 10 questions. These ten questions were;

1. How old are you?

2. What genre of music do you listen to?

3. Do you read any music magazines?

4. If so, what music magazines do you read?

5. Do you regularly attend live concerts?

6. How much would you buy a magazine for?

7. What colours, do you think, are appropriate for a music magazine?

8. What would you like to see on a music magazine front cover?

9. How often would you want to buy a magazine?

10. What would make a magazine contents page look interesting?

These are questions that require more than an answer of yes or no. I am hoping to gain an insight as to what my ideal target audience (16-25 year olds, who have a strong interest in rock/indie/r&b/britpop, of both gender) likes and dislikes. I will be using the results as helpful advice. It might be useful, but ultimately, I have a very good idea of how I am going to develop my magazine.

I gave my survey to ten people, who were aged between 16-25 (the age range of my ideal target audience). I am going to focus on questions 2-10. For Question 2,  2 out of 10 said pop, 5 said rock and 3 said indie. Subsequently, I am going to focus on covering the rock/indie music genre. For Question 3, 3 out of 10 said no, whilst the other 7 said yes. Within the 7, NME, Q, TOTP and Kerrang were magazines that were mentioned. This means that I am going to do extensive research into the magazines of NME and Q because, they were more responses for those magazines and I want to appeal to the target audience as much as I can. The general response I got for Question 5 was that they would attend a live concert depending on when they were and which artist would be performing. This enables me to feature any artist I choose on my magazine front cover. For Question 6, all 10 participants are said 99p and I have decided that 99p will be the price of my magazine. For the next question, the general ideas I got were red, grey, black, yellow and white. This response is ideal for me because, I was intending to use those colours anyway. For the final three questions, I was told that information about what to expect in the magazine and the image of an artist were things that they wanted to see on a front cover. For Question 9, 3 said once a month, 1 said every weekend and the other 6 said once per week. Therefore, if my magazine was real, it would be distributed once a week. The participants said that they thought lots of colour, text and images would make a contents page look interesting.

Overall, I have found this survey incredibly useful and it has given me loads of ideas as to how I would undertake the three drafts of this vital part of my AS Media coursework. I now have a more clear idea as to how I am going to design my final product as a result of this survey.

Audience Focus Group

Following the construction of the product, I joined the social networking site, Facebook to join undertake an Audience Focus Group. There, I joined the class' group chat and I posted my magazine on the page, where I received comments about my magazine. Below is a print screen of the audience focus group on Facebook and the responses I got. This has been very beneficial to me because, it enables me to make a clear judgement as to whether I have achieved my goal in appealing to my ideal target audience. I believe I have because, of the responses I have got.

Institution Research

EMap is an industry based brand, which specializes in the retail, health, construction, architecture and fashion.
Their aim is to bring professional companies together through social media.
Examples of magazines that are distributed by EMap are SPORT, Smash Hits and Nintendo Official.

                                                                                         
GQ, Glamour and Vogue (all fashion magazines) are among the prime example of magazines that are distributed by Conde Nast. It was founded in 1909 by a man named Conde Nast and it is a mass media company that is based in New York City. They normally produce magazines and this is how their company are distributed.

Natmags are a British magazine publishing company that is based in London. It was founded in 1910 by William Randolph Hearst and they mainly distribute lifestyle magazines. Examples of magazines distributed by Natmags include Coast, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Men's Health.






IPC Media was founded in 1958 in London. Examples of magazines distributed by IPC are Look and Woman, both gossip magazines that are predominantly read by middle aged women.

Future Publishing is a media company that was founded in 1985 by Chris Anderson in Somerton, Somerset. Future Publishing is responsible for the distribution of games magazines including Game and GamesMaster.










The Bauer Media Group is a large European based media company that was founded in 1875 by Bauer Verlagsgruppe in Germany. They are a multi media company that specialize in TV, Radio and Magazine. Examples of magazines distributed by the Bauer Media Group include Take A Break, Q and Kerrang. They also distribute a music TV channel, Box TV. They also own the following radio stations; Kiss FM, Magic and Absolute.



I think that the Bauer Media Group would be the most suitable institution for my magazine because, it doesn't just specialize in magazines, it is a multi media company. It also specializes in TV and Radio, which could be very beneficial for my magazine. For example, there is a music magazine and a music channel that both go by the name of Kerrang. As a result, Kerrang is going to attract masses of public attention on a daily basis.

Mark Scheme Task

For this task, we were put into four groups of four and we had to analyze a former students work (i.e. front cover, contents page and double page spreads). We had to look for the positive and negative aspects of the piece and we had to discuss what grade we would have given it.

My personal opinion on the piece I looked at was that overall, it was very good but there were a lot of improvements that could have been made to it.

The student used the same image on the three sections. On the other hand, the image was manipulated very well and it almost looked original. The front cover looked very professional and it looked like something you would find in a shop. However, there was perhaps too much information and the front cover looked very busy. Despite that, it still looked professional.

The contents page was the strongest section of the magazine. It looked virtually identical to a contents page from Kerrang magazine but it was creative and there was a lot happening. However, the contents page only advertised 24 pages and the magazine's cost was £1.99 which is a slight rip off. Nether less, the contents page was extremely professional.

For the double page spread, the image from the front cover and the contents page was used. One half of the page looked very professional. It contained the image and a pull quote which was designed in a way that blended well with other magazines. However, the other half of the double page spread contained little text with the same font size. Also, the language resembled language you would hear in a television interview and the page numbers were larger than the article text itself.

We graded the piece a B because, overall, it looked professional and it looked like something you find   in a shop.

Photoshop Evaluation

This is a magazine front cover that I developed on a program called Photoshop.

This isn't my final design; this is just a practice. My finished front cover may look nothing like this and I hope that my front cover will look slightly better than this one. As a design, I think this front cover is very good but there are some improvements that I could make to it if I had the chance to undertake this task again.

First of all, I would use different colours for the text because, a lot of the text is very difficult to read. On the other hand, I think that this is due to the colour of the background. It doesn't really blend in well with the colour of the text and I don't really understand why that is. I thought it would have done.

For the actual magazine, I would use a different background colour. A colour, which would be slightly brighter so that the darker colours of the text look more visible to the target audience. I wouldn't change the colours of the text because, they are bright and lively.

On the other hand, I will be using this product as inspiration for the finished result. For example, my magazine will be called 'Top Spot' and I want the layout to look similar to this one. I also want the main image to dominate the front cover. I wouldn't use an original background colour but I would ensure that the background colour of the main image is bright so that the text colour is visible.

I also didn't include a date, a price or an issue number. The only essential information I included was a barcode. Other than that, the magazine merely looks like a publisher presentation. I think that the addition of some more essential information would make the overall product look like a magazine front cover. This is something that I will be taking into consideration when I get onto the main task.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Evaluation

This is my completed preliminary task that I had to undertake as part of my coursework.

In order to complete this task, I had to develop a front cover and a contents page of a magazine that was based around the college.

In preparation for the task, I had to take a series of photographs around the college and I would use these as images for my

magazine. I decided to take photographs of the exterior of the college and other students reading books from the library. However, I encountered a few problems during this process. The main problem was that I initially wasn't sure of how the professional camera operated and when I started taking photographs, they turned out to be videos which had to be deleted. Other photographs I took were too blurry to use and I had to take most of them again. My second attempt was more successful, as proved in the images above.

As you can see, my magazine is called 'college central'. I decided to use that as the masthead for my magazine because, the magazine is about the college and the college is the central focus of the magazine.

I didn't really encounter many problems, whilst developing the front cover. It went fairly well and I was satisfied with the finished result. However, I did face problems with developing the contents page. The problem, was that I only downloaded the image above and I had no access to the memory card of the camera I used. I came up with the solution to use the same image I used for the front cover. If I was given the opportunity to complete this task again, I would download more images. If I was to use another image for the contents page, I would use the photograph I took of the exterior of the college because, it would make the contents page look more appealing to the target audience (an image of a modern building).

In conclusion, I wouldn't really change anything about the front cover. However, I would change several aspects of the contents page. I would use a different image because, it broadens the quality of the magazine. Using the same images on both the front cover and contents page make the magazine look unprofessional and rather unexciting. I would also develop the background as well. I would make it look more colorful because, a plain background doesn't make the magazine look very exciting. It makes the magazine look very basic and unprofessional.

Photoshop Magazine and Contents Page

This is the front cover for the magazine for my preliminary task. It is a task that I must complete as part of my coursework. In preparation for this task, I took a series of photographs which I could potentially use for my magazine.

We had to develop a magazine that was based around the college. My photographs consisted of images of the exterior of the college and other students reading books from the library.

In the end, I decided to use this image as the central image for my front cover because, it represents what a lot of the college students are working towards. That is, the highest grade possible in their A Levels. In order to achieve high grades, you need to revise.

I decided to use a range of colours for the text and I did that in order to make the front cover look more interesting.

This is the contents page. As you can see, I have used a similar colour scheme to the one I used for the front cover because it ties in with the theme of the magazine. However, I only used one image for the contents page because that was the only image I had downloaded. I also included information below the coloured text to provide the target audience with a little more information about what the article is all about.

Flat Plan and Rationale

This is my flat plan and rationale for my preliminary task. The image above is the layout of the front cover. I have decided to locate the masthead at the top left hand corner of the page because, the reader will still be able to see the masthead but there is more focus on the rest of the front cover (i.e. the central image). For my main image, I am going to use another student and I will take a few photographs of that student reading a book. I will choose the one that will look the best for my magazine. The main image will be located at the centre of my front cover and it will dominate the rest of my front cover. The date and price of the magazine will be located below the masthead so that the target audience know exactly what they are going to buy and how much they are going to buy it for. I will advertise the supporting articles in the right hand section of the front cover because, it would enable the target audience to know what to expect whilst looking at the main image.















For my contents page, I am only going to use one image and I will probably use an image of the exterior of the college because, it gives the target audience more information as to what the college is like. I will only use one image on my contents page because, realistically, I am not going to have all the time in the world to take loads of different images.