Final Completed Work

Front Cover of 'Classical':

Final Contents Page:

 
Final Double Page Spread:

Overall, I am very pleased with the sample magazine I have created. If I was to change anything in the presentation of my work, I would have a lot more colour in my double page spread as it seems very bland to me. I think that would have been the icing on the cake.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For the preliminary task we were put into pairs to work rather than it being an individual project, as well as this we only had to produce the front cover and contents page. This greatly reduced the workload as we had less work to do with 2 people doing that. I feel that less research and planning was necessary for my preliminary task as there was no double page spread to create so we did not need to find out what type of article would feature in a college magazine. The subject of the magazine also meant that we did not have to research so much, we were targetting people our own age, who were college students like ourselves. We already knew a lot about what we needed to include and who we needed to design for. I think that preparation the 'Grades N Babes' magazine was minimal and we designed the front cover as we made it, the coverlines were off the top of our heads. For my classical music magazine I thought about every aspect of the production in great detail, just creating random work was not enough for a more sophisticated magazine. So I have learnt that preparation and planning is a very useful thing to do, I believe my front cover and contents page would not look nearly as good as they do without sufficient research. Also, when editing photos and playing about with different colour schemes to see which worked the best, I feel I had more freedom in my final project as I was working to what I felt was good rather than trying to accomodate for two peoples ideas and thoughts. The timeframe to complete the preliminary task was much shorter as well so there was not much time for editing pictures.


Creating a detailed time plan and organising the time spent working in this project is something I have learnt to do from my experience with the preliminary task where I ended up trying to complete the contents page in the last few hours of my deadline. I found that creating a time plan for my work and trying to stick to it closely gave me a much better idea of where I should be in terms of work progression.


When taking the photos for my college magazine I did not take a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to have and how I wanted the model to be looking. It was simply a case of walking round college with a camera and hoping to find the right person with the right pose. Luckily for me I think that the main image has come out very positively and looks very good, but to try and work by this philosophy for my main project would be foolish. I took a lot of time deciding where I wanted to take the photos, who I wanted to take a photo of and when I should do this to have the right level of natural light. I definately think this has paid off as my main sell looks very fresh and natural, exactly the connotations I was looking for.

In terms of familiarity with programs I think I have improved dramatically using Quark and Photoshop especially. I was very reluctant to use Quark in the preliminary task because I was not able to do any good work on it simply because I didn't know how to use it. Through practice and regular use I like to think that I can use Quark quite well. When using Photoshop for my college magazine I would often get confused by the layers and how to use them to my advantage, i have now become accustomed to photoshop and think in the future I will be able to create some more good work from this experience.

In my preliminary task I did not take a lot of consideration into my target audience research. Once again, this did not matter too much as I was a member of my own target audience so I knew exactly what should be on the front cover and how to attract the right audience. For my main project I was quite close to, but was not in the target audience I was aiming at. Had I been more of a classical music fan I would have been in the area again, but because I wasn't, I had to do a lot of research into what classical music fans want to see in a magazine and what would make them buy a magazine. I continually referred to my research when creating the work, had I not created such a detailed profile, I would not have been able to focus my magazine to the specific area of society. When choosing fonts, colours, images and layouts I was looking back to examples of popular magazines all the time, taking ideas and checking that I was still working within the genre. Considering all the areas of my target audience was a big help for me throughout the process. 

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

For contructing my magazine front cover I used Adobe Photoshop CS2, for my contents page and double page spread I used QuarkXpress. I had very little previous experience with both programs before starting this project.

QuarkXpress:

 

I used Quark to create my contents page and Double Page Spread. The program is used by professionals all over the world and has all the tools necessary to create very attractive documents. Upon starting to use this program I soon found out how to include images, text, different fonts etc at great ease. I found it very helpful that you can create columns very easily and the text will flow smoothly through the layout you have created. I have been very impressed with what you can do on Quark and would definately use it again rather than move to another program such as Photoshop to make my contents and double page spread.

Adobe Photoshop:

Before starting this project I had not used photoshop at all, it seemed quite alien to me but it soon became an incredibly useful tool for me.

 

 It was quite a hard program to get used to mainly because there is so much you can do with it. Once I had grasped the basics I started to edit photos with the greatest of ease. I specifically found the Stamp Tool to be a great function. Creating professional looking photos was definately a big part of my magazine creation. I created my front cover with Photoshop, using fonts, colours and layering images throughout. Being able to manipulate images and text endlessly creates a very good user-friendly system. It was easy to create exactly what I wanted with not a lot of hassle. I learnt a lot about the layering on Photoshop throughout my learning, they can be used to help in a variety of ways. Linking some together and rasterizing them helped me greatly. To be able to use the photo editing functions of Photoshop I had to learn how to use a Digital single lens reflex DSLR camera, I had used similar cameras before so this was not too hard for me to use. I did pick up some tips though on how to take a good picture that will go well in a magazine. I think I have used some good images throughout.

Blogger:

I have used Blogger all the way through my coursework to keep track of and manage all my work and learning. It is a very easy to use website and has been very useful for me when looking back and work and storing images etc.

Changing the appearance of my blog has been very easy and looks very attractive. Throughout blogging my work I have been including screenshots, videos and slideshows very easily. This has helped me to show my work in quite unconventional ways and makes the blog a lot more 'readable'.

Windows Movie Maker and Digital Video Camera:

I decided to gain some feedback on my magazine from a few people who agreed to be interviewed for their opinions. For this is used a Sony Digital video camera, I had used this before so had knowledge of how to work it as well as use a tripod.

A program I was unfamiliar with was Windows Movie Maker which I have on my laptop at home. This program was very helpful to me and was very simple to use. It enabled me to edit the videos I had of the interviews and add a soundtrack to make the videos a lot more interesting. I decided to make one of my videos black and white rather than colour, this was very simple and gave a good effect. Learning how to edit videos on this program will be helpful throughout my time at college and hopefully further into life.


YouTube:

Once I had filmed the interviews on a digital camera and edited them appropriately for my blog I had to find a way to embed them for simple viewing. The best way to do this was to use YouTube, I have uploaded videos to YouTube before this project so this wasn't a hard task for me, I did have to learn how to embed the video to my blog though. This is a very simple process that involves using the HTML code editor in Blogger. Having these videos on my blog has been very useful as I can evaluate the answers given in the interviews and refer back to the answers with great ease.

Question 5: How did I attract my audience to the magazine?

I have created a video to show the different ways I attracted attention from my audience in the magazine. This includes, fonts, colour schemes, smart layout etc. please watch the video below for more information.





I used a quite formal Mode of Address throughout the front cover and contents page which changed into an informal one once into the interview on the double page spread. I think people who listen to classical music like to have a certain amount of class in the things they read so i tried to keep in line with this in both the actual content and the appearance.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience I have targetted in the production of my Classical Music magazine has changed slightly from the audience I chose in my Research and Planning. I originally wanted to aim my magazine at all ages and incorporate all areas of life, this was very hard to create and seemed to not be the best idea as old and young people want different things in a magazine to attract them. I decided to choose a younger audience and cut out my target of over 30's. This gave me more freedom with the image I used and the layout of my front cover.
I think that classical music is a widely listened to genre of music so this gave me a good area to work in. My target audience is male or female, any social class, quite possibly a creator of music. I would say my audience are in the A, B and C1 area of the Jicnar scale, I don't think they are the type to be protesting and fighting for independence, they are probably very happy to work hard and listen to their classical music in peace. I think they would probably dress very smartly and be aware of their appearance at all times, this is why the smart and fresh look of my front cover would attract their attention. Smart and creative people do very often reflect this in their appearance, I have used a model dressed smartly to try and create a relationship between then reader and the magazine. Hopefully this will make them think that they could be in the place of the young composer I am portraying.
I am going to show a group of people my work and gain some feedback on it, some will be in my target audience and some will not be. This will give me a good chance to gain information on how my magazine looks to people who would not normally look at classical music magazines and also those who would.

These are the responses I had from my friends and classmates after uploading my work to the social networking site, Facebook. The people were only asked what there general opinion of the work was, so the answers are not very informative at this stage.

- "Yeah really good mate, definately think you would see this in a shop or something"

- "Very well presented and layed out, its obvious you put alot of time into the placement of your coverlines etc. The page is very minimalist but i think it encapsulates your audience well, i'm guessing the audience is sophisticated teens/young adults?
maybe you could have used a bleeding effect causing the main image to overlap the masthead, but to be honest it looks great as it is :)"

- "It's good, very realistic for the classical music genre." 

- "Looks like a professional one! Loll x"

- "Really like the layout and colours used, would definately think about buying this Mike"

- " The image used is really good, gives a nice fresh feeling and the colours used compliment this very well. Could have included more pictures in the contents and double page spread to use more space up and make it seem like the magazine has lots to offer."

- "Really good images used, more would be good. Fonts are good and look smart, very professional look, impressive. Could have had another model to give it more variety."

From this feedback I can see that the general opinion of my magazine is good and that it is attractive to look at and I have achieved a professional look which is paramount to a magazines credibility. The negative points i can look at and take into consideration are that I could have included more images to make the magazine seem fuller and more exciting, also that I could have used more than one model for my pictures, these are useful points and most probably correct, I could improve these aspects if I was to do it again.

This is an image of someone who could be in my target audience.

These opinions and comments are very useful to me, but they are very simple and do not give me a very good impression of what people think of my magazine. I am going to be interviewing a few more people about my magazine and recording the feedback to analyse. This will give me a much better idea of how my magazine appeals to different people. I will talk to people who like classical music but have not bought the magazines before. This will be good to see if my magazine would appeal to first time buyers. Hopefully I will find out if I have targetted my audience successfully or not.


1st interview: Loz
Loz is a friend of mine who has never bought classical music magazines but does like the musical genre and would be open to reading one if he liked the look of it. He fits into my target audience.




From this interview I know that the magazine cover is pleasing to look at and could be a major part of attracting readers. Loz has picked up on my target audience being younger than expected for classical music listeners, hopefully this means I have targetted well and have included features that show this clearly. Loz has mentioned that the picture used in my double page spread could have been clearer and more focused, this is true as quality has been lost through different programs used.


2nd Interview: David

My next interview is with another friend of mine who is slightly out of the target audience. He is a regular listener of classical music. David buys a lot of music magazines regularly but has never bought one specifically aimed at the classical music genre.





From this interview I have found out that my simplistic and uncluttered approach to the magazine was received very well on first glance, this part of my research was time well spent. The target audience David thought I was going for was a much larger range from what I have actually aimed at, this could show that I have not aimed it too specifically and could be a good thing as to not alienate other groups from my primary focus. David has said he cannot think of anything that would improve my magazine which is definately a very good point for me, this shows that in his opinion I have created a professional looking piece of work which he would consider buying.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Media Q3

View more presentations from Mike Paul.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

On my front cover I have represented a classical music composer stereotypically in the sense that he looks smart, respectable and well dressed. But the fact that he is a young, smart-casual man and not an old, suit wearing man is going against the strong stereotype that all composers are dressed in Victorian clothing, e.g. Beethoven, Mozart etc.


The specific group I am representing is young adult males in the classical music genre. I have chosen to show them in a respectable fashion, as is stereotypically expected. The clear, bright sky background connotes vitality and naturalness. Having the model dressed in a shirt and jumper with no tie connotes a friendly and open approach to the music, going against the idea that composers are part of an elite group of people and creating a feeling of togetherness between audience and creator.

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In general, Classical music magazines are very simplistic and have only a few different colours used on the front cover. This is because the simplicity creates a sophistication that cannot be gained through the use of neon colours and hundreds of strap lines.

As you can see from the examples above, the magazine below will gain a lot more credibility because of the uncluttered, light, professional look. The upper 'OK' magazine is crammed full of articles and bright lights trying to attract readers, the model is in a bikini showing a desirable body for woman with a correlating coverline telling them that they can gain the body shown. Displaying the price, so that people can see how cheap it is from far away, is also a way of drawing readers in, 'Listen' have not done this as it is a specialist magazine and the audience will seek out the magazine.


On my magazine front cover I have not put too much information on it to try and keep the sophistication, this is working with the usual conventions of Classical magazines in general. The masthead for 'Listen' is a thin, plain, sans serif font which has connotations of sophistication, I have used a similar style for my own magazine which conforms to conventions. The stereotype that classical music listeners are smart, educated and respectable is one that I wanted to reflect in my magazine. Professional magazines manage to do this, I think that going against this convention would be harmful to my audience matching, from my research I have not come across anyone who is a fan of this genre and is against the stereotype. It is widely agreed on so seems right to reflect this. I have tried to show a smart looking mode, looking in no way confrontational but at the same time strong and powerful. I think this connotes professional nature.

The way I have developed the generic design of a Classical music magazine is to include a few more cover lines and another image on the front cover. I liked the way that the front cover looked smart and not too cramped with information, but I also wanted to show that the magazine contained a lot of articles to interest the reader.


I have decided to go against usual convention of classical magazines by showing a rather young model on the front cover, popular belief is that classical music composers and artists are very old, grand looking men. Because I am aiming my magazine at a slightly younger than normal audience, I have decided to create a character the readers can relate to and even aspire to be like. Most of the classical magazines I have researched have older gentlemen and women on the front covers, very established and famous composers.

Front Cover Final

This is my final front cover. I think I have managed to keep the simplicity and sophistication while keeping the front entertaining and scenic. I have changed my audience profile slightly, I have decided to aim the magazine at a predominantly younger audience, I found it hard to include the older ages while keeping it entertaining and attractive for the lower ages. The simplest and most effective way of conquering these points was to narrow the age group I am aiming at.

Production Log 2

This is my double page spread as a 'work in progress', the article and heading are going to be different once it is completed. The idea of having one side filled with a picture was taken from another classical music magazine which I thought looked good, the article is going to be an interview between 'Claudio Monteverdi' and the Editor of the magazine.

Production Log

For my front cover I have decided to use the image below as the main sell. I thought that the empty sky gave a good canvas to create straplines, coverlines and a masthead without interruptions. The image is also a strong one of the model. 

Time Plan

I have thought about the times I want to finish different stages of my coursework and have shown these below:

22/01/10 = I will have found a model to take photos of by this point and will arrange to meet in a photography room for MCU shots at some point.

27/01/10 = At this stage I will be taking the pictures myself most probably using a college camera, booking a photography room to use for my MCU.

01/02/10 = By this time I will have taken all the photos I need to use and will have edited them to reduce blemishes, lighting and effects etc.

05/02/10 = My magazine front cover will be arranged and I will be starting on the Contents page and the double spread arrangements.

08/02/10 = By this date I am hoping to have completed my production so that I have the rest of the week to make amendments based on audience feedback.

12/02/10 = This is the deadline for the magazine production. I will have arranged all pages, gained feedback on them and uploaded them to my blog for analysis. Magazine will be finalised.

13/02/10 = Start work on evaluation with help from evaluation lessons in slots given each week. Will use set questions to help with evaluation.

21/02/10 = Use free time after college on Wednesday to work on Evaluation.

01/03/10 = Magazine Evaluation Draft. Will have created a draft of my Evaluation to be checked by Tristan in lesson.

05/03/10 = Magazine Evaluation Final Copy.

If I stick to this plan throughout the work I should have plenty of time to make sure all my work is to the standard I am looking for.

Initial Planning

In this post I have uploaded some plans I have sketched out and will be making decisions based on the feedback given from my previous post.

When I was thinking of my front cover and how I wanted it to look, I looked back at my research into existing magazines and wanted to create a very simplistic and sophisticated look that would attract all ages of audience to my magazine. I have tried to make this happen by keeping the information to a minimal amount and having a plain white background. The colours I have chosen for the fonts are dark red and black as I think having too many colours lowers the credibility and quality of the front cover. Dark red and black go well on a light background as they are easy to read and clear. These colours used with a thin, sans serif font will hopefully create the feel I am trying for. For the main sell I will hopefully be using a smart looking, quite young male, giving the connotation that he is involved in classical music and showing this genre is not only for the older generations in society. My one coverline/strapline will be involving a famous composer having an interview inside the magazine, this should attract readers.

For my contents page I planned the page numbers and contents down the left hand side of the page and have planned for a few images down the right, divided with smaller boxes of colour, probably sticking to the dark red and black theme I have on the front cover.
I asked a few people about this contents page and the general feedback was that it seems nice and simple with a layout that will be easy to understand.

For my double page spread I have arranged the text around a large image of an orchestra of group of musicians etc., hopefully this will show the reader that the text is primarily focused on the image and will give them something to looks at while creating a good layout that is aesthetically pleasing to the reader.
When I asked a potential reader about the layout of this double page spread he said that he thought it was a good look which will be easy to read when created. Breaking up the long blocks of speech will create a more casual approach to classical music.

Audience Research

I have uploaded my 'Mood Board' to the social networking site, 'Facebook', for feedback on what I have come up with, below is some of the feedback I have been given:

"I think you're right in that the teen audience for classical music do spend a lot of time on education, and i think that this audience also has a fondness for 'snappy' dressing (suits) maybe include an advert for suits?"

- Dan Biddle

"Mike i think you've nailed it, and captured the idea of class and classical music."

 - Jade Smith

"I think these all link really well together. I agree if you do this style of music you can easily have adverts for formal dresses for the gals, and suits for the boys, ready for when they do performances or what not. The champagne also works well because of "class" and could represent "reward" for their hard work? I think this magazine can work really well."

- Emily-Jane Griffin

From this feedback I can see that I have successfully used images to portray a youthful approach to classical music whilst still providing the class it has always been known for.

Audience Profile

The kind of person I will be aiming my magazine at is a Male or Female and from the age of about 16 onwards, and I am not going to cap the upper age limit as I think classical music is enjoyed throughout all ages. Looking at the younger ages reading the magazine, I will be aiming the magazine at Students as I don't think young adults who have left education to start work will have the time or right mindset to listen to this genre. They will typically be quite educated and not 'sports-buffs'. This isn't to say that you have to be well educated to listen to this music, just to say that stereotypes do not ascend from lies they are mere exaggerations. They will be Aspirers, post-materialists and probably an 'E' on the Jicnar scale but working towards level 'A' or 'B' as a student. I would expect them to shop at places such as 'Burton's', 'Next' and 'The Officer's Club' for casual wear. I wouldn't expect them to have extrovert hairstyles, most probably quite conservative styles with natural hair colour.



The older audience I will be aiming at will be full time workers or retired people, possibly with a lot of time on their hands. I would expect them to have quite a lot of money and to shop at Marks & Spencers or Waitrose to enjoy the finer things in life. Possibly spending holidays on cruises and skiing trips. I would expect them to be Succeeders, aspirers or achievers and to have the social values of a Traditionalist or post-materialist. On the Jicnar Scale they would come at 'A' or 'B' level. I think they would be Conservative voters in the general elections with large houses in the countryside.

Initial Ideas w/Mood Board

After looking through a few front covers from my chosen genre of Classical Music I have come up with a few ideas and features I want to advertise on the front of my magazine. These include:

• Well known performer as the Main sell with interview/article concerning them.
  
• Reviews of latest performances.
• List and reviews of up-and-coming artists/performers.
  
• Pictures and comments from recent performances. 
• Offers to buy the newest music at better offers on pre-order etc.

I want to show a side of classical music that goes against the stereotype of tuxedo wearing, champagne drinking listeners, and works with the more contemporary view that this style of music should be available to the masses not just the few elite groups in society.

Summary of Research into Existing Magazines

From my research into different magazines in the market today I have been able to work out an idea of how I want mine to look when I create it. I like the connotation of sophistication through a simple colour scheme, I don't think this detracts anything from the look of the front cover but adds a certain underlying intelligence somehow. I always feel that the cheap magazines with hundreds of neon colours on the front, coated in coverlines and puffs are only aimed at people with either very little time to choose something to read, people who will maybe not quite know what they want to read and choose the most brightly lit, attention grabbing one, or simply people who cannot afford a decent reading magazine so pick the one which claims to have the most to read.

I will try and create a classical music magazine that is not only aimed at the older generations but will try to incorporate the new classical movement, using bands such as 'Il Divo', as a doorway into much more classical orchestral pieces for the younger ages in our communities. I will try not to dampen the integrity and class of the genre by exposing younger age groups.

Institution/Publisher Research

Publishing is a process of producing a conglomeration of information and making it available to the public in a certain way, e.g. a magazine. Publishers can sometimes be the creaters of the media they are producing/publishing or otherwise are being commissioned to create the magazines/books by another company who do not have the resources needed to do it themselves.

Publishing companies are usually responsible for the despatch and distribution of the material they have created as well. The developments within the Internet and digital information world have made publishing firms area of expertise broaden sharply. Now it is not a case of just making a magazine and shipping it out to different parts of the world, the magazines and books created are now often made available to the masses through a simple click of the mouse online. This has created a bigger profit margin from a much bigger audience exposure area.


There are many stages of development that have been growing ever since the world wide web has come into fruitition, these include:

• Development
• Acquisition
• Copy Editing
• Graphic Design
• Production
• Printing
• Marketing and Distribution

Media Ownership is concentrated. This means that even though there may be hundreds of mainstream publishers and distribution companies currently working, these compaines are all owned by about 4-5 parent companies who create an element of rivalry between these smaller publishers to boost their own profits and fame. To put this into a simple example we could think about the top 10 selling magazines in England today, it is almost guaranteed that these top selling magazines will be owned by only about 3 parent companies. So as you may buy a lesser known magazine rather than a mass advertised one to try and act individually and to 'rebel' against a capitalist society, you are still ultimately giving money to the top companies as these are the only comanies that can afford to get their magazines on to most shops shelves and available to the masses. For example, 'IPC Media' currently own and run the publishing of about 80 magazines nationwide. These range from ultra-mainstream products such as 'Look', to the lesser known, rather niche audienced products such as, 'Wallpaper*' magazine. 

NME (New Musical Express) create a magazine and credit this magazine to be the 'longest published and most respected music weekly in the world'. The magazine is published by IPC Media and is available in almost every magazine selling shop you can find. NME try to convey the idea that they are in love with the music they write about and have made the magazine purely as a vehicle for their own musical interests and to spread the word of new music to the masses. This idea can be questioned when put together with their association with multi-million pound companies and publishers. Globalised, immensely rich and powerful companies have only got to have a 'big company' reputation by knowing how to make money. When a music magazine claiming to be in it for the music are associated with these big companies, the morals and ideas will be brought to question. The integrity of the company can be challenged as it seems like the completely musically focused company image they are trying to feed us, is only really in place to hide the morals of money-grabbing power-hungry company running the market.

This is not only relevant to 'NME' magazine, this can be said about almost any market in any country. It can also be traced back to forms of Gramsci's ideology concerning challenging ideas. Magazines that are made to rebel against the money making society of today, are often quickly bought out by one of the big companies to turn this new ideology into profit for themselves. Thus quickly eliminating the 'rebel company' and almost tricking the audience into buying their products.

The implications of this system could end up being very damaging to the music industry, as well as many different industries. The companies that own all the media concerning music industry will be able to advertise and expose their own bands to a mass audience, creating almost endless profit margins for them and creating a generation pseudo-individualistic bands because the smaller bands who have not already been bought out by major companies, who actually have individual music styles and almost always better morals, simply cannot earn enough revenue to continue producing music because the only music people can listen to on demand are bands that have been created to sound, look, talk and act in a specific way by their label. This passes onto music magazines and closes out all competition. 

So by giving the public a choice of 5 different magazines created by 1 parent company, they are effectively creating a society unknowingly ruled by Adorno's theory of de-politicised, formulaic and ultimately boring bands and artists.

Research Into Forms and Conventions

The music genre I have chosen to study and replicate a magazine for is 'Classical Music', I think there are many types of magazine that can come out of this genre and by choosing this, feel I have widened my area of research. I am going to look at a few magazines from the genre and analyse the designs, taking ideas for my own design I will be creating shortly.

The first magazine is simply titled, 'Listen', this connotes a simplistic style of music associated with this lifestyle where the music comes first, it is there to be listened to and that is what the readers will do. 
The design is very plain in black and white with the only colour coming from the Masthead, which is in a thin yellow font, as well as the thin information bar on the left hand side, which is also coloured yellow. This style of design is connoting simplicity once again and let's the audience focus solely on the main sell. 


The black and white design is connoting a more 'old fashioned' approach to classical music as opposed to the new, younger audience focus that is being pushed by the media to create more revenue from wider audience sales. 
The cover only has 4 coverlines and straplines which is relatively few in number compared to other magazines in this genre, this tells us that these articles are going to be very detailed and informative to fill a magazine. This also focuses our attention on the main sell once again and carries the air of simplicity further throughout the design.


The main icon is a picture of a rather grand looking man sat in a full suit, smoking a cigar with his legs crossed. The room he is sat in has a window looking into an adjacent room with a grand piano in the centre. Smoking a cigar connotes that he is a high class gentleman, the suit and way he is sat (legs crossed) promotes this idea of a high class member of society. The piano in the background clearly gives the reader the impression that this man is the owner/player of the piano. This icon plays up to the traditional way of thinking about classical music, that is is the music for the higher classes and not for working class people. Working class public would not have worn suits or sat smoking a cigar, sat in this way.


I like the simplistic design of this magazine and will hopefully be taking a similar approach to my magazine. I will not, however, be portraying classical music in this fashion, I do not believe it is only the music for higher classes so will be trying to create a wider audience profile when designing my own front cover.

This magazine is named 'Music' and is a BBC magazine. The very broad title suggests that the magazine is not fully directed on classical music but upon reading the coverlines and straplines it is clear to the reader that classical music is the agenda targeted by the BBC in this magazine. The main image of a man wearing a tuxedo with a conductors baton posing in an animated fashion also connotes that he is standing in front of a full orchestra which is commonly associated to classical music. 


The colour scheme is quite plain and mainly black and white, this connotes sophistication and a 'no-frills' approach to the music. The black and white theme also says something about the age group they are trying to get the attention of, if they were trying to integrate a much younger age group into classical music they would have made the front very flamboyant and attractive to look at with many different colours, by not doing this they have sent a message to an older age group connoting that the type of person who would read this magazine doesn't need to have bright colours all over the page to be able to read it. This also connotes an expected higher average intelligence of reader, making the magazine more exclusive and aimed at a higher class in society.



This magazine has more coverlines and straplines than the one above, I like the idea of keeping a level of sophistication with a simple colour scheme whilst also having a lot of content information shown to the reader. I think perhaps the magazine above looks slightly too bland and would not attract enough readers to be successful. Both the magazines have a very simple colour scheme in common and I think I will use this feature to create a sophisticated look but will be using more coverlines than 'Listen', probably about the same amount as 'Music' have used.

Initial Analysis of a range of Music Magazines...

In this entry I will be analysing a few magazine front covers that I have found on the internet that attracted my attention. These magazines are ranging through different musical genre's, mostly of which I am not familiar with.

The first magazine front cover I looked at was this one from 'Classic Rock' magazine. The target audience for this magazine would be a Traditionalist, Hedonist/Post-Modernist Male/Female aged 28-60 with also a small focus on the younger music fans beginning to listen to classic rock and would fit in any category of the Jicnar scale. The magazine is about Classic Rock, as the title tells us, and focuses on the style of Rock music that was most prevalent during the 1970's - late 1980's, the magazine also publishes articles from newly produced bands who have the same mindset and style as the older and more achieved bands.

The front cover has a masthead in a thick, white, upper-case, Serif font with stars either side of the 'Classic' sign, a main image of two 'AC/DC' band members in black and white, there are four coverlines down the right hand side of the page and a freebie CD covering about a third of the page.

The Masthead being in upper-case, serif font connotes dominance and simplicity so it is not to detract from the music. The serif font with stars either side of 'Classic' could be connoting that classic rock fans are important and worth an almost prestigious or exclusive title, this is also a parody of a set list for a gig. The colour choice of white with no outline connotes that classic rock is a pure form of rock and is a respectable music genre. The main icon being in black and white connotes a classic and vintage style of magazine. The four coverlines are promoting the material and articles inside the magazine. They are all very famous classic rock bands/performers e.g. Van Halen, Slash etc. This connotes that the magazine is of good quality and has the reputation and funds to include four famous performers in just one issue of 'Classic Rock' magazine. The 'freebie' CD is in a substantial, full bodied CD case rather than a small CD sleeve and is of the '15 High-Voltage New Bands', this also connotes that the magazine is of a high quality and has an extensive knowledge of the genre of music they portray, excercising this knowledge by creating a compilation of the best new bands in that genre.

I think that this magazine has a very large focus on quality and conveys the idea that the audience is paying for a great deal of information and entertainment when buying the magazine. The amount of high profile artists that are included on the front cover is a good example of the high quality image that the magazine attempts to portray. 

The next magazine I am looking at is this front cover from 'Classical Music' magazine. The target audience for this magazine are aspirers, achievers and succeeder traditionalists in the A and B section of the Jicnar scale. The gender would be female or male and from an age group of 35-70. The subject of the magazine is classical music as, once again, the title tells us. The focus of the magazine is to report the news from all areas of the classical music profession and make it available to the masses.

The front cover has a white masthead, the font used for 'Classical' is a thin, curved, serif font without an outline. The font used for 'Music' is a straight, thin, serif font, also without an outline. The main icon is a respectable looking man wearing a suit, shirt and no tie, sat on a wooden bench in front of a plain brick wall. He is sat with his legs crossed looking off screen at something to his right hand side. At the top right hand side of the front cover there is a small 'reversed out' coverline, this is promoting an article inside the magazine and is written in a white, rounded font with a red background.
The serif, curved font used for 'Classical', in the masthead, connotes a level of sophistication and a feeling of high class that is related to this genre of music. The serif, straight font used for 'Music' in the masthead connotes a level on simplicity in the magazine as well, showing that the music genre itself is complex and sophisticated, but the magazine is simply about the music without any distractions. The main icon connotes that the magazine is tailored for the middle-upper class citizens who would wear a suit and shirt as leisure wear, once again promoting the idea that the music is for sophisticated and educated people to listen to and enjoy. This icon is playing with the old fashioned belief that individuals involved in classical music are always wearing a tuxedo and looking stern, and changing this into a slang version of a man sat, open collared in a leisure suit, smiling with his head over to one side. The reversed out coverline connotes that the magazine has a lighter side as it is a slightly comedic feature. The rounded white sans serif font creates the idea that the magazine is friendly and on the same level as the audience, creating a better customer - seller relationship. 

I think that this magazine has focused mainly on creating a sophisticated and intelligent feel to the content, this leads to a certain psychographic/demographic audience who would stereotypically be associated with listening to classical music and being interested in the news that surrounds classical music.

Contents Page

Magazine Front Cover Evaluation

This is the final front cover, See above, that Jack and I worked on. All the photos were taken by ourselves and were edited using Photoshop. Here is my Evaluation of the Magazine Front Cover.
Before I started to plan out my final front cover, there was a lot of research done by Jack and myself. We looked at an array of college magazines and you can see a few of our choices further down on this Blog. After looking at other magazines and seeing which looked the most professional and eye-catching, we started to have a look at what we could bring into our own magazine and what would increase the overall look of the front cover. As you can see, the Masthead has been split into three fonts. 'Grades' is in a thick and bold font, with a thick black outline. This is a Serif font and which denotes a college theme as often in American, college based media you will see this style of font. The 'Babes' is in a love heart, graffiti font and denotes the youthful love scene as the shape reminds the reader of the sweets 'Love Hearts' which are primarily eaten by children/teenagers. The 'Grades' font was on one of the magazines we used for research and seemed like a very strong and easy to read font that would go well with our magazine. We had a look at one magazine where the whole page was packed with information and was really full of coverlines and showed just how full the magazine was. I thought that this was perharps a little too over the top so decided to take the idea of a packed magazine and calm it down a little. I think I have achieved this by filling up a lot of the page with information and coverlines of what the reader can expect in the magazine. This is an example of choosing a convention on another magazine and developing the idea into my own. I think this cover challenges usual college magazines because it is not boring or focused around college primarily, it has articles on girls, a large part of a male teenagers life, and also things like Gym memberships and good clothes to wear to look 'cool' in school. These are all large parts of college life and do not centre around the work as many would.
When I was planning i also had to choose a target audience for my magazine. We had been specified that the mag' was to be aimed at college students, the rest was up to us. I decided that I would like to do one for mainly a Male market as I don't think this has been done much before in college magazines. The age range I decided on was a range of 15-21 year olds, I chose such a broad age range as i wanted this magazine to be read by many more people than the college students as i expect it to be open to more people. If a 16 year old takes this magazine home I want it to appeal to the slightly younger and slightly older market. e.g. Brothers, cousins who are maybe not students.
I made this magazine specifically for the age range i chose by thinking about the type of Fonts to be used, colours included, content of the magazine, coverlines, pictures etc. I think i have achieved the youthful look as when you glance at the front cover, you can immediately tell it is designed for a younger audience as all the models on the front cover look like they are teenagers, the colours are very vibrant and the font used is quite a smooth and fun looking font which you would not expect in an adult magazine dealing with politics etc. 
The colours used on the front cover are almost fluorescant ranging from Lime Green to Bright Pink. I chose this style because most of the successful college magazines have bright colours and attractive writing, the designs that i considered to be quite boring were the ones that only stuck to Black, White and Navy sometimes. I wanted the coverlines and masthead to really stand out from the page and make people look twice. I have also included a 'free gym session' offer on the front cover which would make a lot of people buy and read the magazine, i think that looking good and being healthy is a big bit of college life as this will help with getting the girls and also sports clubs. Some magazines in my research offered an insentive to buy but most were to do with the cinema and things to help you study. I didn't find one offering a free gym session.
To create this front cover I used Photoshop predominantly. Whilst planning I used the internet and also a few magazines that my media teacher had in the classroom, I have progressed in my ability to successfully research as i have picked up tips on how to get good results from search engines such as Google. The biggest progression in technology for me was learning how to use Adobe Photoshop on a basic level. Once i had taken a few pictures using a full size lensed camera and decided which ones I wanted to be on the front cover of the magazine it was only a matter of editing these and arranging them in the places they were to be in corresponding with the plans below. I would say that the two most useful tools for me in Photoshop were the change lighting tool and also the Stamp tool. The lighting helped to create the bright and youthful feeling which wasnt captured with natural lighting and the Stamp tool was useful to make the models skin smooth and unblemished. The lassoo tool on Photoshop was useful as it let me take parts out of pictures and move them around as single layers, this allowed an overlap of images and made the whole front page look much better. I have also learnt more about creating a blog using Blogspot (Blogger). I have some past experience with a personal blog but this has helped me in understanding how to layout a blog and upload images successfully.

College Magazine Planning

Me and my partner started the work by putting all our ideas down on a sheet of paper and thinking about which stuck and which were not very good. We decided to target a young male audience who are currently going through college. The magazine name we chose was 'Grades 'N' Babes', we though this was quite catchy and would appeal to the market we were aiming for. A lot of the magazines we looked at for research seemed to come across as quite 'nerdy' and not at all cool. We wanted to change this image whilst still including valuable information for students. We conquered this by saying that we would include good tips for getting girls and looking good in college. When asking people what they thought about these ideas, the response was generally a good one.
Once we had decided on the name and focus of the magazine, we started thinking about how to get out MCU and coverline photos included in the layout. This resulted in off-setting the main image slightly to the left and filling up the page with writing and coverlines to show that the magazine is worth the price of £1.50 and is full of great ideas for college! (See pictures on left.) I think we fulfilled our hopes with the plans and are ready to start photographing and editing the front page.