EVALUATION

forms + conventionsas a music magazine -

muso doesn’t fit the codes

and conventions

visually

front cover

deliberately overcrowded

to get attention and be informative - many cover

lines

strong colour codes and contrasts

clear 3rd’s

very simplistic and bare

still has similar structure

masthead across top

3rd’s

very busy and eye catching

challenges many

conventions

eye flow

gap in the market

forms + conventions

wanted it to be a music magazine

styled like a fashion/design magazine

instead of having a cluttered,

overcomplicated cover i wanted my magazine to catch

your eye by not being over complicated

to replace the overload of text

have a really good main image

forms + conventions

most music magazine toc are crowded like the

front cover

challenged this convention by

following simpler design of dazed and confused toc

more design and fashion

orientated magazine style

did this because wanted to

represent a different side to

music which incorporated

design as important part

contemporary music, design

and fashion seem to cross over in their content, meaning their style merge

i wanted to allow my music

magazine to have design and

fashion cross overs and not just have to be

one thing

contents page

forms + conventions

double page spread the simple interview

structure of the article means it is easy to read

and gives a possible more

truthful representation of the artist

the reader could easily skip to the questions that more suit what they want to know about

the band

as it is an interview the article doesn’t address the

audience but instead allows the reader to take their own interpretation from what has been said

articles in music magazine can be either interviews or a more descriptive report - so in this way my article

follows the norms

however i think visually it doesn’t

follow the conventions so

closely

the photos are more natural and not

posed, in particular the polaroid series on the right. this is

done to get the artist personality

across to the reader

i used a coffee stain brush tool

in photoshop. the coffee rings give a relaxed, informal feel

target audience

AGE 18-30

student/young adult

CLA

SS m

ainly

middle classes (c1

+b)

independent businesses +

music/film

/design industry and

more creative people

GEN

DER

male +

female

GEN

RE

indie

wid

e inte

rest

in m

usic

and

sty

le b

ut

main

ly indie

LIF

ESTY

LE

crea

tive

man

y cr

eative

inte

rest

s

does

n’t h

ave to

work

in

mus

ic jus

t hav

e ge

ner

al

inte

rest

in things

that

go

wel

l with m

usic s

uch a

s

styl

e/des

ign

media institution distributor

i-d is published by level print ltd which is an

independent publisher whose only client is i-d.

i-D is a style magazine, circulated globally, focussing on leading edge designer fashion, music, clubs, films, books, interviews and ideas.

iD Magazine is published by Level Print Ltd.

iD Magazine is published Monthly.

iD Magazine costs £ 3.80.

dazed is a british style magazine which covers topics such as music, film, art, fashion and literature.

iD Magazine is published by dazed group

iD Magazine is published Monthly.

iD Magazine costs £ 3.95.

dazed is also independently published by dazed group

which is set up specifically for the magazine.

these two magazines have very similar audiences to my magazine and also price ranges. so one way to distribute muso could to do it independently.

however, these two magazine were very breakthrough when they came out and have been around a long time, gaining popularity. with technology in media

excelling so much and both with their own websites and dazed group getting involved in tv, radio and film it wouldn’t make sense to try and compete with them in this way. although muso is music based and different, there are too many similarities and with dazed and i-d’s prestige, it would be difficult for

muso to succeed

media institution distributor

so instead i think it would be better to find an already existing media institution that doesn’t have a very similar magazine, and

especially not a music magazine

natmag does some weekly lifestyle magazines but ad mine is monthly i wasn’t

really interested in them

esquire and harper’s bazaar are two magazines with similar

themes as muso which means natmag will know how to market

this type of magazine.

also there is no music specific magazine which means it would not have to compete with any other magazine in the company

ipc has a much wider range of magazines. it

has some more technical music magazines that

don’t particularly focus on music culture.

however, they do publish nme which is a very successful music

magazine that i think muso would find hard to

compete with. even though muso has other focuses such as design,

it is predominantly a music magazine so it

wouldn’t make sense to produce it alongside an already distinguished

publication.

media institution distributor

The National Magazine Company is one of the foremost luxury consumer magazine publishers in the UK, reaching  14.9 million adults every year. NatMag currently publish 20 magazines and 63% of all ABC1 magazine reading women aged 15-55 engage with a NatMag brand.

ABC1 is the main social target audience for muso

my target age group of 18-30 fits within the audience natmags reaches and although this is women the fashion and style aspect of muso with mainly be aimed towards women

NatMag publish some of the most admired and well established magazines in the UK including Good Housekeeping, Country Living, Harper's Bazaar, Esquire and Cosmopolitan.

attracting + addressing audience

attracted by the quirky, big colour contrast on the

front cover

simple, doesn’t look like most other music magazines

won’t catch eye in same way as most

music magazines as

not overcrowded

but may stand out as doesn’t look average to

type of magazine

audience addressed quite informally as interview has

chatty tone (realistic)

however, not that direct as all questions asked to

artist and not drawing reader in

suited to audience who just want to know information about band.

not as interested in article style of writing

explains...and then says “or something like that”

“yeah I guess we are pretty young”

technologies usedphotoshop

learned to use gaussian blur to give appearance of sharp focus on model

used dodge and burn tool to adjust contrast in areas of image

also learnt how to select one layer and overlap on another layer. i wanted the head to come over the masthead to make the image less flat

technologies used

blogger

really useful as you can put up drafts and get feedback on them so you know what to improve

excel

could make graphs of our results from questionnaire so knew where to go with magazine

slideshare

this meant that we could put all our presentations and analysis up to be marked and to refer back to on our blog

issuu.com

meant we could see our magazine as i final product

improvements from first task

i think i have improved a lot from my first task. especially with designing and using photoshop. my skills improved and this meant i could do more interesting things in the design and as it was a music magazine it was a bit more of a free project as with the school magazine it was more restricted as you couldn’t choose your audience.

with the music magazine i used the blog a lot more and got more feedback so i made many more little tweeks and improvements giving me a better design in the end