Tuesday 28 February 2012

Evaluation

My music magazine uses forms of conventions you would expect to find on a music magazine. For the front cover I used an image of the artist who is going to be featured inside the magazine in an interview.  I have seen quite a few magazines which do this I feel that this is done to allow the reader to immediately gain an insight as to what the main aspect of the magazine is going to be based on. This is effective in a way as it is the first thing the reader looks at when they pick up the magazine instead of the text first. Also because the white contrasts with the black and makes the model stand out more as well as the gold fancy writing going with the theme. I also did this with the main story lines and the words such as ‘Katrina Lenett’, I made this bigger to emphasise the main information on the page. This is useful because it is a quick way to look at what is the most important information on the page.

I challenged forms and conventions of a real music magazines on both my front cover and contents page. The front cover of my music magazine challenges conventions because you would aspect to find the main model in the magazine giving direct eye contact to the audience, whereas in my front cover the model is looking down as if she is playing the piano. I choose to use a shot like this for my front cover to make it seem as if the artist took a picture of her during a performance, rather then a 'posey' picture, I wanted to show the real side of my artist that she portrays in the magazine a hardworking musician. I got the idea from a magazine by Classic FM, which shows the artist working and he isn't necessarily making eye contact (example under contents page)
For my contents page I used a violin as the main image in the background. I did this to subvert the idea of always having the main artist or other pictures as everything in the magazine such as the front cover, contents and double page spread. (example contents page-top). I used a a white exposer to give it an authentic look to so it looks more like a classical music magazine. I think my double page spread follows and challenges conventions. I feel that the general layout of the writing (in columns) is what you would aspect to find in a music magazine as well as a clever feature such as a 'fact file'which is sometimes featured in the magazine to make it look different.On the other hand, I didn't have lots of quotes and images scattered around the two pages, I would say my double page spread was quite organised. Although I challenged some of the conventions because I used a rectangular picture on the on the first page to emphasis it's prominence and I didn't want one picture to be the whole focus because I was going to have three smaller pictures on the second page, so it would look to cluttered having the writing and lots pictures on on double page spread.

My music magazine represents social groups by using certain colour scheme for my magazine. The colours mostly used are black, white and gold (to go with the theme). Although these colours are dark they can be seen as uni-sex colours; this is useful as my target audience are both genders. After doing some research on other classical music magazine's, I have found out most of them use dark colour scheme or a complete opposite and use white, so I combined the two together for my magazine. I choose this colour scheme in particular because the black colour connotes maturity (as my target audience is mostly adults) and looks classy. The gold font connotes wealth and glamour in a way as well as elegance. Lastly the white font stands out from the black background and connotes 'innocence' and 'elegance' as well as the italic font, something I would like to be linked to the artist. Font's are another way of representing social groups as the elegant style goes with the theme of the music and delivers a message in a clam and I catching manor to the target audience.

I would like an international popular media intuition to sell my music magazine as it looks at classical music magazine's around the world. I would distribute my music magazine in news agents, supermarkets and stationers, as well as it being available to order online/subscription. Finally I  want my music magazine to be advertised on TV on channels such as cookery channels and classical music channels especially. I chose these particular channels as it's channels grown-ups in there mid 20's onwards may watch. I would also have it advertised on Classical FM radio.

The target audience of my music magazine is 25 onwards for both genders. They would also be into  classical music, and very interested in classical music festivals, concerts and other artists. Through the questionnaire I had produced I was certain that I would be able to cater for my target audience and take into consideration their opinion's and views to put into my final magazine. After I got feedback from my target audience, I feel like I made the right decisions in making a classical music magazine.
I addressed my audience by carrying out questionnaires, making sure I handed them out to age rage over 25 both males and females. I made sure that everything from the font of my magazine to the way my was model dressed was fitted what my target audience would want to see and therefore attract their attention when they read it. The most important way of attracting my target was my model. I dressed her in a sophisticated white top and balck skirt ti go with the theme of classical music, my target audience agreed that the fress code worked wel with the magazine's theme. Since my magazine is for 25 and over, which is quite a young audience, I thought that it would be a good idea to use a young looking model like 'a fresh face' in music. Although from my audience feedback 1 or 2 of them said that the target audience ranged from 16-30 or 18+, they said that her piercings made her look younger and so said that the target audience would be younger than 25. but the majority said 25+.

Using programmes like Adobe Photo Shop has increased my creative skills as I have been able to use it to construct my front cover and contents page. Using phototshop has given me the advantage of making my magazine and contents page look up to a professional standard as some magazine companies use this at some stage when they are constructing their own magazine. The main techniques I learned from using Photoshop was how to professionally layer my front cover and contents page. As well as this, I also learnt how to brighten and contrast most or my pictures as well as using exposure and colour effects for my contents page to make it look authentic. I also learned how to use the eraser tool to cut out my model from the background and put her onto the front cover, as well as learning how I can edit the shape and font size of my front cover. So I could double click on the layer of the font and it would let me add effect to the writing including 'bevel' and 'shadow'.

Looking back at my preliminary task making my  school magazine, I have learnt learnt what typical conventions I should include in my music magazine including the main picture barcode title etc. Firstly, it prepared me to fully address my target audience by understanding what they want and what attracts them.  As my target audience were year elevens I had to think about what sort of information would be relevent for the magazine which was talking about the school graduation party as they have finished their exams etc. This helped me when making my music magazine as I had to include information that would be relevernt to my target audience which was information like 'wining tickets to Proms' and other news. I also learnt that you had to have a specific colour theme running throught the magazine like real magazines so it looks more professional, this is why I choose to have the dark colour theme running through my music magazine. I also learnt that the process of making a music magazine was very time consuming and there was a lot of pre-planning to be done with drafting, photographs and other decisions. This is why I made sure that I print screened all my work and wrote about it to explain the process. Lastly, I realised that it would be benificial if I took my own pictures instead of cutting out another photo and putting it in the background becasue that was the best way to experiment with camera angles and be creative. 

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