Evaluation
For my project I choose to follow the prink brief, my task was to create a front cover of a music magazine, a contents page and then a double page spread. For the magazine I choose to work around the Myspace music scene, I closely follow this music scene and choose to work with this area of music because I felt it would challenge the conventions of other music magazines. Many music magazines on the shelves at the minute tend to more about the high status music ‘Pop’ scene. The specific genre is hard to specify, but the magazine is aimed to cover mostly the rock/pop, pop/punk styles. The magazine is based around a music area, not genre therefore giving me more of an area to work with. My main reason for why I thought this would be a challenging and successful market area was because many of the people into this area of music are big fans and follow closely, so even if there is a smaller market I think the majority of that market would be interested. In my mind raising the potential audience I can aim to. Obviously I followed out some research on particular magazines around that would be in competition with a magazine like mine.
My research started out with a broad look at music magazines, I looked at many from rock/metal genres to hip hop/rap. There was one clear thing I noticed with most music magazines and that was that most of the Mast heads and logo’s where mostly red. I personally think that red is associated with music magazines, this way it becomes an iconic colour, a symbol/ sign to represent a music magazine. In a way it’s a code to attract an audience even before they know what the magazine is specifically about. The reader will see the red and know that, this magazine will have something to do with music. I then looked deeper into the magazine media texts; looking closer and genres related more to mine. I looked at kerrang, NME, Q and a few others; I studied the layouts codes and conventions of the magazines. I also looked into the distributors and institutions of the magazines. The Bauer Media Group and the publisher for Kerrnag and Q and the NME are published by a major company called ‘IPC Media’. I found this very interesting because I had long thought that Q and NME were published by the same institution. Know seeing that it isn’t I can now understand why these 2 magazines look very similar, both are in rivalry for the audience, but I do think that the audiences for the 2 magazines are slightly different. I carried out a few questionnaires to see which music magazine people read the most and to see if my music magazine would appeal to their interests. This questionnaire was useful and I did get some supporting comments but do have to admit I defiantly did not ask a substantial amount of people to gain results that are reliable. I had realised that in terms of my target audience it will be very close to Kerrangs target audience, obviously with a few differences. Although my magazine is challenging Kerrangs conventions by using bands that people will not know to introduce new music, I still think the audiences will be very close. When researching because of this I used information on kerrang to base my target audience around. I’m satisfied with this research and think it’s very realistic to who I would be aiming my magazine towards. I discovered that based around kerrangs audience readership, my audience would be in the Grade E bracket and of the ration 60:40 male: female. The average audience age will be around 14-24. Seen as my audience bracket is low the magazine will have to be cheap so students and younger people on a low wage will be able to afford it, I took this all into consideration when making the decision of what price my magazine should be.
All of the previous things had encouraged me in the decision I would have to make when creating my media text. I’d like to think that my finished products have a good verisimilitude, and will appeal professional to the reader/ viewer. I personally feel that is definitely some of the best design work I have done and have taken a great deal from the creating process. I know understand how a magazine should look and the key things to create the right representation. As most media texts are polysemic, much like mine certain people will create there own representation they think it creates due to background, culture and lifestyle. But I would like to think that most people will take the representation I have aimed to create. The main thing I learnt was about layout and colour, and how these things can create the iconic representation of your magazine and make it recognisable straight away. When seeing these codes with colour and layout my natural instinct was to go against them, my view is that if all music magazines have similar layouts and logo designs and colours, how will you tell them apart? I really wanted to challenge these conventions and decided to not use red or follow the layouts that they use. I personally think to have a unique style is a great USP, especially when the music genre and area is something that goes against of the trends of the main stream music scene. The toughest decision I think I had to make through the whole process of creating my front cover was the choosing the front. The one thing I can say that I have definitely learnt is the importance of a font. Before doing this task I never realised how much influence a font has over the representation of the whole magazine, a font can change the way we see the main subject in the primary image and the whole perception of the magazine. As you can see from the first to drafts they are both different fonts, for the font on my font cover I’m still not pleased with it, I still don’t think its right just yet. I used a font for my double page spread which I think really works; it’s definitely a style I would have liked to have tried on my front cover. I found constructing the contents and dp spread fairly easy, I enjoyed designing these. The main reason I think this may have been was because I was thinking practically, I know as a reader myself the front cover needs to be good enough to attracter the reader, once you’ve done that the rest can be as simple or as hectic as you want, you already have the readers attention. One decision I had made even before the construction process was that I wanted it to look clean, I can’t stand hectic front covers, I personally feel that the primary image should be able to have the potential to sell the magazine alone.
I am very pleased with my completed product, I think there is a good theme with the 3 parts and good continuity, so the readers would recognise the themes that follow throughout the magazine. I made many decision when making the media text and changed my mind on most of them, as you can see from the front cover and the previous drafts, they differ quite a lot. My product creates meaning for the audience by the representation of my primary image. I wanted to use a male because I personally think the females will be the hardest gender to attract. This wasn’t the only reason, I wanted the photograph to represent the music its self. I held a few focus groups to help me choose between the front cover drafts, the first I was told was to direct, the mode of address was very direct and represented the music and the audience I wanted to attract in the wrong way. It also had too many things going on, the style its self I didn’t personally fell worked; It didn’t fit the genre I was aiming at. The second draft was the same but at the other end of the scale, the colours appeared to boring and no one was excited or interested by the whole front page. When it came to the final draft I took these point into consideration and realised I had to find an equal balance between the two, I think I have achieved this. With my image I had planned it from the start I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve, I knew I had to make the music related but didn’t want to place an electric guitar in the picture. I felt that might look a little cliché and obscure, also I felt it might create the wrong representation. My plan with the primary image was to create a respectful and accurate representation of the social group that would read my magazine. I decided to use an acoustic guitar in the picture because I felt the sound of this instrument represents the social group I’m attracting. The soft, mellow relaxed attitude of this social group shows in the music scene they are into, speaking as a fan of this me and having friends of this area. I know that this particular social group don’t follow trends with music, it tends to be what they like and what they want. I think that this social group is full of individuals with there own ways of doing things but individually they find comfort with others. To me this is exactly the same as the acoustic guitar, alone it will sound amazing and stand out from anything with its sound, and together with a group of instruments it will work with them to sound good together. This was a long decision I had to make when planning the images, I thought this out thoroughly so when I constructed them I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve. With the layout of my magazine I had the decision to use a tag line, in my first draft I did use a tag line but as my designs changed I felt that the positioning would not suit the final drafts layout. I had tried many different places and in the end made the decision to leave it out. My subject was also my mode of addressing the audience; I wanted to use someone who they could relate to, someone they could familiarise with. The one thing aside from the pictures them self is the constructing; I’ve surprised my self in the amount I’ve learnt about Photoshop since I’ve started this task. For example the image featured on the contents page was edited using an action which I had created my self. Before I started this task I didn’t even know what an action was, let alone how to make my own. I can definitely say I’ve learnt a lot about the technologies I used to create my media text. The double page spread was something I can’t say I went against conventions with; most double page spreads have a very similar layout. I used a large image covering about one side of a4 which then continued onto the next. Where to place the text wasn’t really much of a decision mainly down to in depth planning. In comparison to my last project I defiantly fell that my planning has improved a lot and I can see how much better the results are when you do plan properly.
I’ve learnt a great deal through the process of making this task, I haven’t just learnt about things I now understand a lot about institutions and how they work. I’ve learnt an unbelievable amount about Photoshop and how to create and do certain things. For example placing the subjects head in front of the mast head was something I wouldn’t even have thought about doing. But then after researching and seeing that this was nice look for layout and design, I decided to look into how to doing it. To compare my magazine to another in a way defeats the whole object of challenging conventions. I’ve tried to make my magazine look like a music magazine but with out using the particular conventions and codes all the other music magazines use. I guess the products that mine would be in close competition with would be ‘Rock Sound’ and ‘Kerrang’, I don’t see my magazine attracting and appealing to the same audiences as Q and NME. The only similarities are the Genres, In terms of layout I think mine varies a lot from Kerrang, rock sound doesn’t seem to have a theme, and the title is most of the time white but may change in certain issues. The front cover pictures are usually shot on a white screen and the font cover tends to be quite colourless. In terms of the institution I think Rock Sound LTD, the independent company would be the most likely publisher to accept my magazine, the main reason being that there are certain elements of the media text they publish which my magazine focuses on. So I think the 2 would link well in sales. Another way of looking at it is that they could publish my magazine as a small insert of ‘Freebie’ to the Rock sound Magazine. I don’t think mine would be accepted by the larger institutions such as IPC Media and the Bauer Media Group, mainly because I don’t that they would see much of a profit return to make it worth while. The one thing I’ve discovered with the Kerrang magazine is that it’s not only a magazine; it’s also a social group. There’s a lot more to kerrang than just a magazine, the social group side of Kerrang is the one thing that I think these magazines share in common; the social group I am aiming at is along the same line as kerrangs, there’s not much between the two. IPC Media are one of the largest magazine publishers in the UK; they cover all areas of magazines from fishing to women’s magazines. I think this institution would take on my magazine but I personally don’t think my magazine would benefit and be the same as what I had planned. Its seems to me that IPC tend to have very sameish magazines that don’t sell that well, but because they have lots that don’t sell and some that do they still get a good money return. I think my magazine would be received well by audiences due to the comments I got from my questionnaire and feed back I received in my focus group. I do personally think that this is not enough to make a sure guess, one mistake I made when doing the research was not seeing how the audiences would receive my magazine enough. Although I gained some good feed back, there’s no way this would be enough evidence. I think my magazine would be received well but with many things around in the media today it would have to be marketed right, focusing on the main key selling points and choose the right strategies to get my particular audience to see this marketing. The main way I think would be the best to make sure that my audience receive this marketing would be myspace. To create a profile and then try to get an advertising space on the font page, this would be the main way to make sure my audience receive my product. The way they receive it is also something I’m fairly confident with, being part of this audience I know its something that would defiantly interest me, seen as I’m not all the audience its hard to be completely sure, but I can use my knowledge to take a good guess. One main target audience which I have failed to mention is the bands and promoters, they will be desperate to get a page in the magazine and the promoters will be eager to see what new talent is being focused on in the week’s issue. These aren’t exactly primary audiences more secondary, but still a strong part that will make up my audience. These secondary parts of my audience I think would receive my magazine well, bands will be looking to get there music into this magazine and get some good publicity, Which could end up giving these bands a good kick start in their music career. Obviously I’m speaking optimistically everything has to work out such as marketing, creation and the right institution. On my magazine design I have placed ‘The Bauer Media Group’ in part of the contents page, this is not the institution I think would be involved with my magazine, I used this name because of layout and how it fitted my page.
To conclude I think that my magazine looks good and will be received well by my target audience, I do admit that I had not done enough research to justify this but I feel being part of this audience it is something I would see as a good source of entertainment. I’ve learnt more that I could have imagined about Photoshop in these past few weeks, a gained a lot more confidence to be more experimental and challenge the way things work. I learnt from the preliminary task that I need to challenge conventions and do things my way and I think I have done this with this task. I have learnt a lot from the research and now can confidently say I understand the institutions and the way the media works a lot better. I think I have achieved in creating a representation that my audience will receive and relate to and familiarise with. I am pleased with my final drafts and the main thing I am most happy with is the photographs, I have keen interest in photography and I’m pleased with the results of my action I created and the pictures themselves, they fit exactly to my planning and work in the way I wanted them to.
Elliott Steel
3,032 words