Final Music Magazine.

Evaluation.

Media Magazine Evaluation. on Prezi

Photoshop Tools Used

The main software I used to create my final media music magazine was Adobe Photoshop. For my preliminary task I only used Photoshop briefly and did not take full advantage of its tools and because of this I encountered many problems while creating the final music magazine as I did not know how to use certain tools and what many of the tools on Photoshop were used for. However, after mastering a few of the tools I was able to use them throughout my final music magazine on the Front cover, Contents page and Double Spread page.

Process of BEATS Magazine- Front Cover

The image below shows the various stages of how I created my final magazine front cover.

Process of BEATS Magazine- Contents Page

The image below shows the stages of creating the Contents pages for my music magazine.

Edited Magazine Images

I have manipulated the images I took for my model that I was using on my magazine using the software Photo-shop and Picasa.

Double Spread Page Interview.

Stand first: "I am just your average girl next door"


1. First of all, we want to thank you, Naj, for making BEATS the magazine of your choice to have an exclusive interview with! What does being in the music industry feel like to you?
(Laughs)...  No problem guys, I should be thanking you for interviewing me! It’s all new to me, but I am enjoying every bit of it. It’s a little bit weird since I am just a normal girl following her dreams, but I am obviously not complaining; as you can see I am as happy as I can be!

2.  It’s our pleasure! You have just released your new single, ‘Live It Up’, which we must say is absolutely great! It’s topping the charts ever so quickly; we want to know Naj who is your main musical inspirations behind these powerful yet energising songs? Who have you looked up to since the beginning?
Music was all around me since the beginning of my childhood really...my dad used to play the guitar so he was quite musical and I guess the most musical person in the family. Since he always used to play it I grew up considering him as my main inspiration, but I have to be honest...I went to a Christina Aguilera concert when I was about 12 and I could not take my eyes off the stage! That woman can hit some very high notes; I was literally mesmerised. It was magical and from that day on I promised myself that I will stand on stage with Christina Aguilera one day! She is an absolute inspiration to me! Her songs and her voice always have me going in all moods and every situation; she has a song for it!

3. We completely agree with you Naj. Your number one single has been released and we can’t wait to hear more music from you! So how is your album coming along?
Oh why thank you; don’t worry you’ll soon be hearing my album because it’s being released soon...very soon (laughs) I am not giving much away but it’s great; I actually love it and I am not trying to boast or anything like that but I am sincerely proud of myself. I have come this far to release an actual album which I had only dreamed of, it seems like everything is a dream and I’ll wake up any minute now and it’ll all be gone...but I really hope not.

4. Everyone knows and cannot deny that you have a powerful singing voice, BEATS wants to know when you first started singing?
I started singing from a very young age to be honest. I was always singing and dancing at home since I was surrounded by music and grew up to be part of it eventually...I didn’t think I would choose it as a career path but when I joined the choir in secondary school I really felt that I enjoyed it and it showed me that it connects to people in so many ways. From then on I dreamt of being a singer and look at me now, living the dream (laughs).

5. You grew up surrounded by music; does that mean you also play any instruments?
My dad had taught me how to play the guitar at an early age, so that would be the only instrument I know how to play properly along with basic percussions. I took piano lessons when I was in Primary School but gave up on that dream quite quickly; it is way too boring for me (laughs).

6. A lot of your fans have come in touch with us and want to know more about your personal life and if you have a boyfriend at the current time, what do you have to say?
 At the moment I am a single Pringle and keeping my attention towards my career, I don’t want to get a boyfriend just yet since I don’t know how I could cope with so much. So I’ll start looking when the time is right and when my life adjusts to the hectic lifestyle! But you never know when love will knock on your door next (Winks).

7. Now what do you think the future holds for you?
Hopefully the future holds the best for me; I am just taking in and enjoying everything that’s happening around me! I am hoping to collaborate with more artists and I will be producing my second album by the end of next year. So yes a lot of things are going on and I can’t wait to show it all to the world!

Images and Font

Masthead Font
Front Cover

 

The Marple Origins

 

Inked God

Contents Page

Rocketship Town

Double Spread Page

Birth of a Hero

 


Magazine Images
Front cover

Contents Page

Double Spread Page

Flat Plan Evaluation& Shot Plan

Shot Plan
























Flat Plan Evaluation


Front Cover
Colour: I have chosen a bright and neutral colour scheme for my front cover as according to my market reasearch I did, the majority of people wanted such colours and prefered thesde on a front cover. The main colours I have used are Red, Black, Brown and Purple with a little bit of yellow for the button. I have used purple as little as possible only for the bleed on top of the front cover.
Masthead: The masthead of the front cover is called "Beats" it is coloured in a bronze brown colour which reflects on a mature audience that I will be targetting as well as the younger audience due to the font I have used.
Image: The main image on the front cover is of my model who will be posing in a mid shot, where you can only see  her from the waist up. As most people prefer to see pictures on magazine I have decided to make it quite big.
Selling line: The selling line on top of my magazine front cover is "The UK's leading RnB magazine of 2011".This is to attract the reader to buy the magazine as the colour of the selling line stand out quite a bit.
Button: I have used Lady Gaga for the Button to attract the reader. I have placed the button on the left hand corner of the front cover so it does not mix with the rest of content on the front cover. Also as the button is coloured in bright colour, it makes it stand out and therefore more visible for the reader.


Contents Page
Colour: I have used the same colour colour scheme as on the front cover of the magazine, this is because it is conventional to use the same colours and layout so it is clear that both pages are from the same magazine. Also as I have researched the contents page and front cover of various magazines, I have discovered that most magazine contents page match their colour scheme to the front cover of the magazine.
Layout:I have used a simple layout which was inspired by the Rolling Stones magazine contents page. All the text is alligned on the right hand side of the page and the heading Contents is placed right on top of it. This is to make the reader look more at the image on the contents page which will attract them to read more on it as most of the contents page is ignored.
Image: I have taken the inspiration from the Rolling Stones magazine contents page and decided to use only one image and its bacjkground fro the contents page and place the text on top it so it's more effective and also as images are mostly preffered accoridng to my market research the image helps this and also attracts the reader.

Music Magazine Contents Page Analysis

Music Magazine Contents Page Analysis

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Music Magazine Double Spread Page Analysis

Music Magazine Double Spread Page Analysis

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Music Magazine Front Cover Analysis

Below is the presentation where I have analysed various magazine front covers(:

Music Magazine Front Cover Analysis

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Reader Profile

From the data I have collected through my Market Research of creating a Questionnaire and asking a set of people and set of suitable questions to help me understand the task of producing a music magazine and enable me to develop the magazine design to match my target audience. 


Brenda is a 17 year old girl who studies in her first year of A levels. She is a studious girls who likes to spend her time reading books and listening to music. Her A-level subjects include Art, Media studies and English. She is known as fashionably popular and even though her love for books makes her seem like a slightly boring person, it also develops her mental ability of using her studious ways to create the way she lives, she pours out her feelings as musical lyrics. Music plays a big part in her life, Brenda sings with passion and her role models consist of Christina Aguilera and Rihana. She cannot live without her Ipod and never leaves her house without it. While reading, she makes sure to turn on her Ipod as it helps her read and concentrate therefore it develops her creative side as well. She has many friends that just like her love to listen to music, together they love attending concerts that inspire her to one day just be on that stage to perform like role models.


Even though she dreams of the being in the music industry, realistically she wants to become a Music Journalist, because she wants to do something to with music in her later career but also put her academic talent in action therefore becoming a Music Journalist is the best career path for her. 

Market Research

To help me understand the task of producing a Music Magazine and help me figure out my particular target audience I decided to carry out a questionnaire as market research. I included questions which will help me develop my music magazine and also create a suitable Reader Profile for my main target audience. I used opinionated questions as well as qualitative questions where I could see what my target audience wanted and how I could add this to my magazine when I design it. I knew which age group my magazine would be based at so therefore I targeted those people to take my questionnaire who where in that age group which was mainly teenagers. I limited the questions on my questionnaire to Ten as I thought that too many questions would lessen peoples motivation to take my questionnaire seriously and not answer all the questions truthfully.


1. What sort of colours do you prefer on a magazine front cover?

Most of the people that took my questionnaire preferred Bright colours on Magazine covers, while some prefer Cool and Neutral colour tones on Magazine covers. Bright Colours are very attention grabbing and many people prefer to buy magazines which base their colour schemes on bright colours appropriate for their target audience. Bright colours also help the reader find their preferred magazine which obviously also attracts them to it as well. Neutral and Cool colour tones are most likely used for a mature target audience which would attract those with different music taste and also which would feature different content. However, Neutral and Cool tones also help the reader to tell the difference between their magazines as many magazines in various News Agents have Bright coloured magazine covers on them and these different tones would differentiate them from most magazines. Due to this I have decided to keep my colour scheme on my magazine front cover between bright and neutral tones.

2. Do you prefer a lot of writing on your magazine?

A lot of people prefer not to have a lot of writing on their magazine presumably because they do not want it to be like a newspaper as they feature a lot of writing. Whereas the majority of people do not have a preference whether there is a lot of writing in the magazine or not. This may be because they are obviously interested in the content of the magazine which is probably the main reason why they would buy their preferred magazine. Therefore a lot of writing would not bother them as it would be all relevant to them, and so my double spread page would have all the relevant detailed writing on it which relates to the music artist, target audience and also the genre of the magazine.

3. What do you prefer reading or looking at in a magazine?

Most people prefer looking at pictures of celebrities in magazines. Most celebrities are classified as role models and many people aspire to be like them in certain ways, this is probably why they chose to read that magazine. Articles and Interviews also seem to attract people to buy a magazine as they will be able to about their favourite music artist. Therefore choosing an appropriate artist to do an article/interview on them would interest a wide variety of people as they'll get their pictures of their artist and also a suitable pice of writing on them.


4. Would you like your preferred magazine to feature a lot of artists or mainly one?

Most people have stated that they would want a lot of artist to feature in a magazine instead of a one artist. Rolling Stones is known to make special editions of featuring only one artist throughout the magazine. I would use this to probably add more artists that relate to my Magazine as it attracts more people as it is preferred by the majority of people who took this questionnaire. 


5. What attracts you to buy a magazine?

Articles and celebrities are the majority of features that attract a reader to buy a magazine according to this question. This goes well together as Articles featuring celebrities can attract even more readers and also persuade them to buy the magazine even more as it would feature their preferred artist along with a suitable article on double spread page.


6. How much are you willing to pay for a music magazine?

Most of the people that took are teenagers and are not yet in full time work so therefore they would not be earning as much as they could, although some do work part time or receive EMA, it is not enough to spend a lot on magazines. The majority of people have stated that they would be willing to pay at least £0.00 to £1.99 on a magazine. This would be a reasonable price to pay for a magazine although most magazines do not come so cheap. In my own experience I have spent at least more that £2.00 on a magazine. Therefore I would keep the pricing of my magazine around the same price, also because the same amount of people are willing to pay this price and some are even willing to pay more than £2.99, so I would keep my pricing to about £2.00 or £2.50.

7. What genre of music do you listen to?

On my questionnaire I thought it was necessary to ask a personal question which related to their background, and therefore asked a general question which relates to the main task of the project; to create a Music Magazine. The majority of people have stated that they listen to Rnb related music which helps me a lot as I want to base my magazine on this sort of genre included with a slight touch of Pop and Hip Hop as they all link together very well. As shown on the pie chart the people i have questioned do listen to these types of music which the exception of people a minority of people who listen to Rock, Indie and the Other specification which was usually specified as Metal. 

8. When do you usually buy an issue of an magazine?

Usually people buy an issue of a their preferred magazine every month as they are published on a monthly basis. This question has proved this to be correct while the majority of people buy an issue of their magazine once a year which means they hardly buy magazine, However the second most votes has been given to 'every month' Which shows that nowadays not many people buy hard copies of magazines. Although some people do purchase weekly magazines. Therefore I should try to focus my magazine to be presentable and good enough to be bought at least on a monthly basis. 


9. Are you interested by any of the competitions held by the magazines?

Most magazines hold competitions which attract most people, however as shown in this question the majority of people have stated they are not interested by the competitions held by magazine while a some people have stated they are interested by competitions. These people are interested in the competitions if they have anything to do with their favourite artist or anything which relates to them.

10. Would you like anything else to feature in the magazine? If 'Yes' please specify

I thought this was a very significant question to ask to make the questionnaire more personal and about the actual reader. Most people have stated that they wouldn't want anything else which hasn't already been said all throughout the questionnaire to be featured on the magazine. Whereas, a minority of people have stated that they wanted more features in the magazine. The specifications that some people gave were mostly to do with pictures of celebrities such as Justin Bieber, The Jonas Brother, Enrique Iglesias etc, Although some people specified that they would prefer to have more articles on new bands and new artists. 

'Q' Magazine Powerpoint Presentation.

Below is the Powerpoint Presentaion I created on the analysis of the popular music magazine 'Q'

Q magazine Analysis

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Research on 'Q' Magazine

Hello Everyone,
This is my official blog for my AS Media Coursework, I shall blog on here regularly about the porgress on my music magazine. Hope you enjoy (:

For my first task, I was required to research about a popular music magazine, my given magazine was 'Q' magazine. 'Q' magazine is an alternative music magazine which I had quite frankly, not ever heard of. We were assigned to partners and had to create a Powerpoint Presentation about the chosen magazine with detailed analysis of the front cover, contents page and double over spread page. As I researched more into the magazine I discovered that it is a very popular magazine which is available in literally every news agent and supermarket such as Tesco, Co-op and Sainsburys etc. As I did more research outside while going into a few supermarket I found out that shops such as HMV also sell 'Q' magazine on the top shelf of their magazine section. This task required a lot of communication and research as to find reliable and up to date facts on the magazine. Me and my partner had split the task in half and researched about the different aspects of the magazine individually and at the end we concluded our results on to a powerpoint presentation. We presented our research on 21st January in our Media Studies lesson to our teacher and class peers.

To find out more about 'Q' magazine feel free to visit their website:
http://www.qthemusic.com/