Commentary
Our task was to create a new and original music magazine which follows the typical conventions of a magazine. Creating this magazine wasn’t easy as you dont want to creating a magazine which doesn’t look to similar to the leading music magazines such as Rolling stones NME and Q. My media product follows the typical house style of a magazine, including such things as a colour scheme, masthead, cover lines, strapline, pull quote and a most important thing, a unique selling point. It is important to have a unique selling point (USP). This could be a free item or an ‘Exclusive’ interview with certain Artist. Also if you put the USP or main article on the bottom left of a print product theoretically the audience will be more likely to buy it as we are more drawn towards it. During the process of making I was influenced mainly by two magazines ‘Vibe ‘and ‘NME’. These inspired me by the following, the layout and the fonts are arranged similarly to the 'Vibe' and also the title of my magazine changes colour depending on what or who is in the central image of the magazine. With the contents, the idea of not showing what is on every page, follows the idea from the ‘Vibe’ magazines. They seem to highlight and pick out the best aspects and show them in the contents.
My magazine follows the typical codes and conventions, for example the main central image on the front of a typical music magazine is usally a photo of a solo artist or a group which has been photographed in a studio and the person, or the people included are looking towards the camera (direct mode of address). This make the audience feel more included within the magazine. There clothing relates to the music of the artist/s or the colour scheme of the magazine. The camera angles are important for the main image on your magazine as this affects what the audience think and feel. With my photos they are related to the special edition theme that I am doing for my magazine(illustrated). The images were taken and edited on Photoshop. The images were edited to look like a pop art style. The camera angle on the person in my photo are a high angle, the angle represents that you are looking down at him this artist, this shows that this artist seems to have little power but as you would see the main article he is quite a character. The choice of colours in the magazines is very typical pop art colours and quite masculine. Primary colours like yellows, reds and greens. So they resemble the illustrated style. I did a special edition as other magazines do, such as, Q do Q classics looking at Singers from the 1960s, vibe have had special editions which have included Barack obama and NME, Have collectors issues which include artist like Beatle and rolling stones.
My magazine fits in the market because it has a weekly issues and a it sells at a reasonable price of £2.20 this magazine and it keeps up with the news on new arrival (indie music), popular artists, chart music and also has reviews on music products. So the magazine fits with the ‘Bulmer and Katz theory’ quite well. In my magazine on the contents page it shows that there is a Headphones review and there is information on the latest artists.
My magazine represents particular social groups by including new and recognizable artists in my new magazine for the younger adult. It is important to distinguish what social group your magazine is aim at as this will affect your sales (Not a broad Audience). I picked this particular social group because how the chart music effects this age. E.g. fashion, Language, interests and hobbies. In my photos I've made sure there was a strong relation on what clothing the artist is wearing to the genre they are representing. The clothing that is used in my main photo, is a buttoned v-neck t-shirt and a flat peaked baseball cap. The clothing fits in with what type of Genre he sings (Hip-Hop).
With this particular issue I feel that the ideology will appeal more to a black cultural group as they are seem more likely to listen to that type of music, my magazine my affect the language that use towards friends or the clothing that they wear. (A way of social interaction)
The media Company that would publish my magazine is IPC media as it is a recognizable media institution which started in 1853 publishing a newspaper called ‘The Field’, But now publishes a huge range of magazines and digital media (websites). IPC media publish magazines such as ‘Now’, ‘Look’, ‘Loaded’ and ‘NME’. I chose this company because of its credibility and nationalisation with its media and it will make magazine a success. My magazine would be suitable for this publisher because of its target audience I feel that this publisher needs another music magazine aimed at younger audience.
The age that I aimed my magazine at is 16 – 21. Briefly mentioning the Blumer and Kats theory early my magazine the purpose of my magazine follows this theory. It will educate, the information in the magazine will give you better general knowledge about the music, it entertain, the format of the text (how its written) isn’t a serious matter it has got aspects of comedy, for social interaction, it may change the language you use, if don’t already use it and use it for personal identity, the clothes you wear and gaining an insight to one’s self. Taking a look at NME demographics/ audience profile I’ve found this.
The percentage of readers of NME in Great Britain.
Gender | Male | Female | Age | 3-12 | 13-17 | 18-34 | 35-49 | 50+ |
56% | 44% | 1% | 23% | 40% | 22% | 15% |
Profile of a typical reader is a male, outgoing 19 year old that is in university interests photography sport and playing an instrument (like a guitar) Reads the newspaper occasional, But is more interested in magazines.
The choice of language (formality) I use in my magazine was similar to the NME a high Standard English but not like as such a high standard as Q. The denoted aspects of my magazine are the fonts, colours, photography and effects. The connotations of this represent the genre (hip-hop) the format of the text an arrangement show that this magazine is taken seriously and a masculin formality.
The technologies (DTP) I used to construct this product was adobe Photoshop. The text written on word and then pasted onto Photoshop, resized and a stroke was added (outline). The photos were edited the most as they are in a pop art style. First the background of the image was made white then the image was duplicated, then inverted (to make the opposite colours) a Gaussian blur was added with a range of about seven. After that the blending option of the inverted layer is changed to colour dodge. Then a threshold is added (which the image that is shown on the layer under neath will become black). Then the original image (with the white background) is put onto a layer on top of the rest. Select a dark brown colour and the second colour as white and go into filers, sketch and then halftone pattern. Set the contrast to 50 and the size to about 4, and then set the blending option of that layer to multiply. (Makes the white completely transparent and the Threshold show through) Now you have the basic colourless pop art styled image. You have to colour the skin, hair, clothing, background and eyes yourself (changing the blending option of the layer to multiply but if you add white the blending option needs to be overlay). That’s how I edited each image but the parts of the images that have for example the rainbow effect it was added in using the lasso tools.
Since the progress of making this magazine I feel that I have developed a lot since making my first magazine called ‘Chew-it’. I looked in more depth this time into what makes something look like a magazine. For example with my last magazine it looked slightly like a poster because of the graphics behind the logo ‘Chew it’. But now I think that have made a successful product which could be sold on the market.
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