Target Audience

After studying three magazines I have decided that now I should think about my target audience. The magazines I have studied seem to be for intellectual people as most of the words in the magazine have more than one syllable in them.
I would like the genre of my magazine to be mostly rock as most music magazines are because there are no big selling mainstream magazines that I have found. Also this is because I would have more to speak about and include in my magazine. This genre is one of the most sold genres for a magazine.
I have targeted my audience to be of the age of 16-25 and the price would be £2+ because they would be students or in a job so they would have the money to buy it.

Q Magazine

This magazine is one of the best selling music magazines. Inside this magazine they show more information on CD's DVD's and interviews with bands.

Image

The image is of the famous Madonna. The image is different to the Karrang! magazine because there is only one main image without more little images filling up the space.This image shows Madonna looking straight into the camera, inviting the audience into the magazine.

Text

The headlines for the sover stories are the same colour as the logo which is really well formatted. Also the font is quite simplistic but effective as it doesn't confuse the reader, or distract them. There is more description in the text than there is in the Kerrang! magazine so it symbolises that this magazine will have more information inside than inside the Kerrang! magazine.

Colour

Again I see that this magazine has chosen to stick with a simple colour scheme of red and white. The white and red writing sticks out on the background of the black top that Madonna is wearing.

Layout

The layout for this cover is quite simple but packed, they have used a medium close up of Madonna and ued that as the the background. They have also put the masthead in the usual place of the top left hand corner underneath everything else. The main cover story is just over the image of Madonna in red writin to make it stand out.

Textual analysis: NME

NME Magazine:

NME magazine is a well known magazine that promotes rock/alternative music. They also have a music channel and are known for their interviews and knowledge of alternative music and up-coming bands.

Image
This magazine is quite different to the Kerrang! magazine because the image is a close-up shot however Kerrang! mostly show medium shots or long shots to establish what the individual bands look like. This magazine cover in particular shows a close-up of Dave Grohl, the lead singer of Foo Fighters. The image fills the whole page and he looks frustrated. This goes well with the title"I'm not dead".

Text
The text on this cover is very bold and bright. The title Foo Fighters seems to be embossed, I think that they meant to make it look like this as it draws attention to the magazine. The rest of the text on this magazine isn't a bold but is still in bright colours, it doesn't draw much attention form the main story as if to show that the other stories are important but not as much as the main story.

Colour
The colour scheme for this magazine isn't like it is for Kerrang!. There seems to be more bright colours in ratio to dark I think that this is to dram more attention to the magazine.There seems to be a lot of red,white and yellow.

Layout
this magazine the layout seems fairly simple so the reader doesn't feel intimidated by the mass amounts of content shown on the front cover. However even though the layout is simple there is no negative space so the front cover doesn't look empty. I think that the idea of having no negative space is a good idea because if there is too much negative space then the magazine looks empty and boring.

Kerrang! deconstruction of a front cover

Kerrang! Magazine

The Kerrang! magazine is commonly known for being a rock genre magazine, they sell information about bands, gigs, interviews and reviews. Also they advertise companies that deal with fashion, music, band merchandise and much more. Also Kerrang! have their own music channel and a comic strip in the magazine, I can see that this magazine has a range of features.

Image

The main image that the magazine uses is of the band Avenged Sevenfold. This follows the conventions of a music magazine because the main image is dominant in comparison to the rest of the information on the cover. The image is of the band looking very dangerous but inviting as they are looking straight into the camera lense. The image is connected to the title which says 'Sex, drugs, violence. Avenged Sevenfold. The worlds most dangerous band.' . The band then represent themselves as bad boys as they are wearing sunglasses, usings chains and metal bars, also they are looking very intimidating as they are wearing mostly black and have some spikes on their clothes.

Text

The text for this image seems to stand-out as if embossed, also it is in BOLD CAPITALS to make the title look like it is coming off the page, this draws attention to the magazine so that it sells. The rest of the text is spread over the front cover and is in a variety of different colours to draw attention to the seperate pieces of information.

Colour

The colour scheme of this particular magazine cover seems mostly to be dark dull colours, such as black and grey contrasted with bright colours, such as yellow and red, surprisingly these colours go really well together on this magazine. This colour scheme seems to represent danger and anger, this seems to go exceedingly well with the title "worlds most dangerous band".

Layout

The layout of this magazine is very busy yet seems organised. There is no negative space as all of the front cover is covered with images and writing.

Mind Map

Magazine conventions(music and normal)

The magazines I have researched have had these in them, I don't think that these are in every magazine however they are in the magazines I have researched.

Cover Page

• Main image
• Colour scheme
• Barcode
• Masthead
• Main coverline
• Price
• Selling line
• Date
• Issue number
  

Contents Page

• Page Numbers
• Heading/Subheadings
• Cover stories
• Regular section
• Features Section
• Editors letter
• Contact Information
• Review section
• Simple colour schemes(Black writing on white paper)

Music Magazines Specific

• Music Reviews
• General Media Reviews(DVD's etc)
• Gig listings and Reviews
• Music News
• Music Posters
• Artist Interviews
• Posters

Double-Page Spread

• Short description of Article
• Drop cap to begin the Article
• Large Title
• Full Page image With caption in bottom corner
• Other images with captions and quotes
• At the end of the article the magazine is credited and a website is posted for further reading
  
  

stuff for music magazine

Brief
To create a front page, contents page and a double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text used must be original and produced by you- minimum of four images.
Research
LIIAR
Language is the use of media language and terminology.For example, using Mojo, the masthead is large and spread across the top of the page. This is to ake the magazine stand out to get the readers attention. In language we use media language and terminology to deconstruct media such as magazines and TV drama. The types of media texts we can deconstruct are mastheads, coverlines, and the main image.
Ideology is the study of ideas that are put in the magazine that shows why they've used it in the magazine and how it relates to what they are showing. Also it shows what is important to their readers and conveys that in the magazine.
Institution is the companie that creates the magazine and the media text. It controls the language, representation and ideology of the media text.
Audience is the readers of the magazine, who the magazine is aimed at. Their are many classes of audience, e.g. gender, age, social class, and many more.
Representation is how the different groups or individuals are portrayed in the magazine.

here is my contents page

here is my plan of what is going to be on my front cover

This moodboard is of magazine covers and mastheads.

Layout

The layout for magazine will be a typical magazine layout, I will have the masthead at the top of the page spreading over the top to cover it all. I'll have the selling line ust underneathat the left hand side. The main image covering the whole page with the main story line over the image.

draft

i shall be scanning in my written draft sometime in the next few days, also my IT draft shall be following this in another post.

Planning-Models

The model I have chosen to use for my front cover is my friend Lizzy, she will be sat in the Rose Garden having a cigarette to go with my cover story, Rose Garden why have it? I will use a medium close-up shot for this because that is shown in the brief. The props i would use in this piece is a cigarette and m bag, to show she is at college.

Software

The software choices i have thought of for this project are as follows:
Microsoft Office Word
Photoshop
Microsoft Publisher

I think that for my magazine I'll be using Microsoft Publisher because I know how to use this software and it already has a simple and easy to follow layout available.

The main target audience for this magazine would probably be males form the age of 15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MAPu_9oyLY


I found this video on youtube and thought it would come in useful to my task

Ideas for cover stories

In one of my media lessons I have thought about what stories I would have in a college magazine. The ideas i have come up with are:

• Red Nose Day, how are we helping?
• Dreaming of a Wyke Christmas
• Student Gossip Page
• Wyke Musical... Battle of the sexes
• Dodgeball, The champs
• Rose Garden, Why have it?
• Health and wellbeing
• feedback on new psychology teaching styles

these are only a few ideas, I may update when I have more ideas as I only have about 7-8 stories now.

I found this front cover of a college magazine on the internet and decided to compare it to my other front cover I wrote about earlier.

I found this at:

http://www.jacobtyler.com/portfolio_images/CMag-covers.jpg

This magazines masthead is a very simple one, it has simple font and is clearly at the top of the page. Also the masthead is spread out to fit the whole page.

Unlike normal magazines this college magazine doesn't have a barcode or a price on it so I'm assuming that it is free and used to deal with issues from the college or just general issues college students have. A main similarity between normal magazines and this college magazine is the main image, on both magazines the image is very dominant and fits the whole page to draw the readers attention to it. From what i can see, I don't think that this magazine has an issue number however it may be at the bottom of the page.

Research for a front cover

http://johnnie.blows.co.uk/portfolio/files/gimgs/3_shattered-christmas.jpg




Browsing the internet I found this cover for a magazine called SHATTERED. I thought I could deconstruct the image and find out a few things that are neccessary for a magazine front cover.



The masthead
The masthead is most often found at the top of the cover and this displays the name of the magazine and is very important. The masthead is the visual branding of the title. The masthead usually has a certain font, so it is easily recognisable for the readers of the magazine itself.



The barcode and selling
This part of the magazine shows the year, month and day that the magazine is published.
The barcode is a standard barcode used by retailers to tell them how much the magazine costs, usually the price of the magazine is either by the side of or underneath the barcode, this is so the consumer knows how much the magazine is.



The Issue number
putting the Issue number on the magazine helps people to go back to any issue if they have to.
The issue number is there so that the consumer knows what issue it is. Also it is there so that the consumer knows if they have missed one of the magazines or not, it could also be used by the creator of the magazine to post feed-back on a certain issue of the magazine.



Main Image
In the case of this magazine cover, the main image is of the band Irony is Dead. Two of the three band members have tinsel wrapped around their neck to show that it is a christmas issue and they are showing christmas spirit. All three band members are making eye contact to draw you into the magazine, also they are all stood casually to show that this magazine isn't about serious news.

conventions of a contents page

1. Page numbers
2. sub-headings
3. pictures to describe topic
4. contact information
5. Cover stories
6. adverts
7. information about the magazine
8. stories
9. welcome paragraph
10. competition information

codes and conventions of a college magazine

1. the masthead must be clear
2. cant be a tabloid, must be a broadsheet
3. clear images, relevant to the stories in the mag
4. has to have a name
5. issue number
6. date
7. website
8. e-mail, way of getting in contact to share your views on stories in mag
9. main image for main story and smaller images for other stories in mag
10. the cost of magazine, unless its free
11. show free-bees on cover of mag
12. have an advert on the back

the brief

Preliminary Exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Main Task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text used must be original, produced by you - minimum of four images.

Presentation of your work
The presentaion of the research, planning and evaluation may take the form of any one, or combination of two or more, of the following:

• a presentation using slideshow software such as PowerPoint;
• a blog;
• a podcast;

Don't worry if you havn't ever produced a blog before as we will investigate a range of techniques to present your work electronically in your production sessions. If you would like to make a head start then visit www.blogger.com and take the guided tour of what the site has to offer.