Thursday 26 January 2012

Research and Planning - Montage music magazine on sell in UK

This montage illustrates the range of different magazines on sell within the UK market

Research and planning - Institutions

I researched two magazines which i researched their institutions.



1. Name of music magazine: Mojo
Publisher:  Bauer Media

Research the company:
Other magazines they publish:  A variety of different categories of subjects of magazines like;

Women’s: Closer, Grazia, Heat! Etc..
Men’s: Empire, Kerrang,  Q
Other: Gardening, transport, football, golf, pets, angling, motorcycling, outdoors and lifestyle.
                                                                     
This publisher creates a variety of different magazines about different topics so this means it creates its media to a mass audience making it a mainstream for magazines. Not only do they make magazines, but they are creators of radio and TV programs also.



2. Name of music magazine: Vibe
Publisher: Vibe media

Other magazines they publish: Vixen, a women’s health and fitness magazine

Vibe the music magazine has a target demographic, which is specifically aimed at 18-34 year olds.

Thursday 19 January 2012

Action Plan

26th January

  • Compare Magazines & Research the magazine market place
  • Research similar products: 3 X front covers, 2 X contents pages, 2 X double page spread
8th February
  • Initial Ideas
  • Audience research
  • Writing a treatment plan
17th February
  • Layout/masthead ideas
  • Plan photo shoot and take photos
  • Drafting of pages
  • Audience feedback
2nd March
  • Drafting of pages
  • Audience feedback
15th March
  • Evaluation
16th March
  • Final Deadline

Main Task

Produce a front page, a contents page and a double page spread of a new music magazine.
All Images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate and with a minimum of four images.

There are three components, on which you will be accessed:
Research and Planning (20 marks)
Construction (60 marks)
Evaluation (20 marks)

Thursday 12 January 2012

Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Before i started to create my final student magazine front cover and contents page i looked at different magazines aimed at students which helped influence me in creating ideas to include. I wanted to make my magazine suitable for most students so i added general subjects which i think they would enjoy to read like top christmas gifts and game/film reviews. Not only this but i decided to add contents like revision tips for over the Christmas holidays. The magazine is suitable for not just one college but all colleges over the country, this is because i added contents which wasn't related to a specific college. Instead i chose to target subjects which can be read nationally with popular conventions of real media products, such as game/film reviews and the latest gadgets. Because of this these conventions would attract a wider and bigger audience as its what most typical students are interested in. I also decided to make it free which would attract students in a more mass amount as they have less money to spend and included a puff on the front of my front cover which would attract students as they have a chance of winning an ipad 2.


2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? 
My magazine was aimed at students and as im also a student myself i tried to create the magazine as how i would want a student magazine to be like and read myself as well. My questionnaire also helped me determine what people would want my magazine to feature and include and also with the way it looked. I took a variety of different photos to reflex what was expected to find within the magazine. As my task was set near Christmas i wanted to make my magazine Christmas themed, because of this i took a picture of a student wearing a Christmas hat with a Christmas tree behind for my main front cover and included a Christmas colour theme to go with it which was red, black and white. The colours used were simple but really effective for my magazine which reflected Christmas really well and suited well with the images i used.

3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
When i was analyzing and viewing other magazines which was aimed at young adults i noticed alot of them contain similar popular elements which mine has included. I think my magazine would be best suited for college students, however because my magazine has alot of other features included as well like reviews and music it may also be suited to older adults who are also learning and revising, for example university students. This makes my magazine highly distributable to college and can expand elsewhere into other markets. Also as my magazine is free this is another reason why it would do well nationally in colleges and university as it contains a wide selection of different features which general people would want to read which makes my magazine hybrid.

4.Who would be the audience for your media product? 
My magazine would be aimed at anywhere from 16-22 year olds, but it could be older than this, depending on what age they are still in education. But this age bracket is most popular ages in which they are either in college or university. The contents inside my magazine would be suited to any ages of this range because of they are typical information young people are interested to know about and is mostly part of their lifestyle when it comes to music and games etc.

5.How did you attract/address your audience? 
I thought alot about how i can make my magazine have a brand identity and a house style which will become highly attractive and well known to my target audience. My front cover is the main focus of attraction and engaging my audience, it clearly connotes and has a large connotation to christmas due to the colour scheme and the student wearing a santa's hat with a christmas tree behind. Not only this but it also addresses the audience that it is a students magazine as the font i used is very bold and stands out really well within my front cover image which addresses and tells people that this magazine is the 'Student Zone`. This writing is the most vibrant and largest than all the other writing i included to clearly show this. I also made my puff as a bold focus in which students will clearly see that an ipad 2 can be won, this was a way of addressing my audience straight away to pick on the magazine.

6.What have you learn't about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 
From creating this student magazine i have be able to learn new types of softwares. I now have a greater and wide of  understanding of what blogging is all about and how to use it well and make it look good as this was my very first time. Not only this but it was my first time using adobe Indesign and Photoshop which i used in order to create my final student magazine front cover and contents page.

Friday 6 January 2012

Completed Front Cover and Contents Page


These are my finished results from making my own students magazine front cover and contents page. I originally decided from my questionnaire results to use the colour theme orange black and white. However i decided because i was creating a christmas edition the theme would be better suited to the colour theme of red black and white.