Magazine evaluation by Katherine Oakley

My Front cover, Contents page and Double page spread.

My target audience is 16-25 years old. I fit into this category so I found it a lot easier to figure out what was need to attract the right target audience, but to help me further I did some audience research (that is also uploaded onto my blog).

As well as my target audience being 16-25 year olds, I was also aiming the magazine at a very specific social group, this group is ‘Indie’.

Challenging codes and conventions of real music magazine..

My media product challenges the codes and conventions of real media products in the sense that it’s more minimalistic that most other music magazine’s. The front cover doesn’t contain a  

 

In terms of developing the codes and conventions of a real magazine, started with ideas in my flat plan sketches that held a lot of the general things you would see in a real magazine, such as a flash for a Free CD, and cover lines for the other pages of the magazine besides the main singer’s double page spread. I then did research into ‘indie’ culture and decided to develop my ideas into more simplistic outcomes.  

Skyline, Flashes or a Pull quote, although it does contain a slight left third simple because with out it, if it was being sold on a magazine stand it wouldn't stand out, decreasing potential sales. On the front cover I mainly focused on the main image and making sure it was bold and fitted to all the codes and conventions i had allocated to the ‘indie’ theme. It breaks the codes and conventions throughout the magazine by keeping it minimalistic and bold, but because I carried this through the magazine, it keeps to some convention in the sense that it has house style, so I also used the codes and conventions.

Social groups..

After doing extensive research into ‘indie’ culture I feel it represented social groups in the sense that it may draw in the target audience that I was aiming the magazine at; 16-25 year old people who followed the indie style. I tried to make it as appealing as possible to this particular category, although I think I could have made the dps brighter to keep attention focused on that page, I think that because I, myself fit into this category I found it was a lot of help in making it easier to relate to the target audience and produce something that would appeal to them. I think my magazine represents a specific social group and luckily it’s the one I had aimed it to be; indie.  

Music distribution..

I think that my music magazine could be distributed in places such as music shops like HMV or book shops like WHSmith. I think because the ‘Indie’ genre of music and style is such a wide one, HMV being a high street store that sells physical music, may choose to sell this magazine to invite people to buy the indie music that they supply in the store, because they are always looking for ways in which they can improve the numbers of physical sales, so selling magazine’s about the genre may promote this selling. The second place I suggested is WHSmith, I suggested this book shop simply because they supply almost every genre of music, but the most they supply is probably rock and pop, so adding to other genre’s such as indie, may bring them in more money. They also sell CD’s, not many but a few, and if they were to get the CD in to match the magazine, this would improve sales even more. I also think in a smaller scale that my music magazine could be distributed in a small high street magazine stand, I feel that the magazine would do well being sold in one of these because it’s bold colours would stand out of the shelf.  

 

 In terms of how I addressed /attracted the audience for my music magazine, I focused on the statement that my teacher made, that when you buy a magazine it reflects what/who you are or what you would idealise as something you want, so instead of including things like ‘freebies’, had a things like a moderate prices to draw people in, I used a very pretty model for the main musician, and I focused on where to take the photo’s, (a wooded, natural area), I think this would draw people into buying the magazine and not necessarily consciously making the decision to buy the magazine because they are seeing it as a mirror or an ideal look that they want.  

Addressing and attracting the audience..

Typical music magazine..

Skyline

Flash

Cover lines

None of these typical music magazine conventions appear in my music magazine, I felt as thought I didn’t need to include these to achieve the affect I wanted for my magazine..

Feedback.. I made a list of questions to include in a questionnaire that I will use as audience research after the production of the magazine. The results will show the opinions and comments of my music magazine from the public..

Question one: What genre do you think the magazine is?

Rock - 0% Emo - 0%

R&B - 0%

Indie - 100%

Question two: Who do you think the magazine is aimed at?

Under 16 - 0%

16-25 - 89%

25+ - 11%

Question three: What words best describe the magazine?

Stylish - 15%

Edgy - 0%

Natural - 35%

Simplistic - 15%

Indie - 35%

Boring - 0%

Would this magazine appeal to you on a shop shelf?

Yes - 80%

No - 20%

Question five: Which part of the magazine stands out to you the most?

Image - 60%

Layout - 10%

Text - 0%

Design - 30%

Nothing - 0%

Question six: Which part would you improve?

Image - 0%

Layout - 20%

Text - 20%

Design - 0%

Nothing - 60%

Question seven: Where do you think the magazine would be sold?

Newsagents - 70%

Book Shops - 10%

Online - 20%

Nowhere - 0%

Question eight: would you say that £2.20 is a reasonable rate for my music magazine?

Yes - 100%

No - 0%

When I first started the Media course I could only use the most basic functions of a PC, such as internet, Microsoft office programmes, and small amounts of other things, like sorting resolution of screens and simple things like that. Since September 2010 I have improved my computer skills massively I am very confidant with more complicated programmes such as Photoshop and a lot of it’s functions. I have always known the basic and more common websites such as Google search and Facebook, whereas now, I have been introduced to various other websites that have both widened my knowledge of the web and helped me make my media work get to it’s full potential. These include websites like ‘DaFont’, ‘Blogger’ and ‘issuu.com’. 

Considering I had never used Photoshop before I started the course, my College Magazine turned out OK. At the time I thought my College magazine was quite alright, but now I’ve leaned so much more about the likes of Photoshop and how to develop my magazines, I feel that looking from my College magazine to my music magazine it is obvious that I have progressed a large amount. 

What I’ve leant..