My evaluation.

My Evaluation on my music magazine

This is an evaluation of my music magazine. Before I created my music magazine I had to complete a preliminary task which was to create a college magazine using desktop publisher and photoshop. And compare other college magazines and research them to influence and make us understand how a college magazine is set up.


We had to do some research for our music magazine before we started it, we had to analyse 3 music magazine front covers, double page spreads and contents pages i chose to look at Q Magazine and NME Magazine as they both target a similar audience and age group to my Music Magazine "TUNED" as an indie rock audience with an age group targeting 16 year old teenagers to more mature 25 year olds.

I called my music magazine "TUNED" as i did alot of research into other music magazines names and they had a relation to music or could be easily linked to music so the word tuned has a connotation to live music and tuning of bands which audiences may find catchy and be interested in.

For my front cover i chose a close up of my friend Curt Thompson who is holding a guitar so the audience know he plays music and that the magazine is about him, Curt is wearing clothes which will appeal to an indie audience and they may immediately relate the clothes he wears to indie genre music. The main story which was my mast head was "V-FEST 2010" which i also focus on in my double page spread. I made a graffiti like affect of the mast head to seem as if i had sprayed it on to the wall behind him. The two main colours i used was red and black as they work really well and are used efficeltively in other music magazines which i researched such as "Q Magazine". I put a blue spray round Curt who is the main focus of the front cover to catch the audiences eye and i think it makes the image stand out more aswell.

For my double page spread i focused on "V-FEST 2010" which was also what i had as my masthead on my front cover. For the image i put an original image of a bush and some rocks around it to make it appear that curt was playing his guitar outside in a forest like environment to reflect an urban modern indie culture which will make the audience understand that Curt as an artist is urban and modern which reflects his personallity.
I asked curt a series of questions about his music life so far which is a common feature in other magazines i researched such as "NME" and i believe the audience will find this interesting. I used a close up of curt Thompson sat with his guitar again to create continuity within the magazine but he is sat down this time to create a chilled out image of Curt this is to show a relaxed attitude and represnt his cool and relaxed image, he is answering questions to the audience and i didn't want the audience to look at the image of Curt and think that he has been forced into a pose just his normal pose.

My contents page had an urban look to it which i did to try make it look as if Curt the artist i focused on throughout, i faded the image of him to appear as if he has being sprayed on the wall. I laid the contents numbers out at the bottom of the page which i thought of as i have looked at 3 other contents pages and 2 of them had the numbers on the left hand side but Q Magazine had them at the bottom which i thought looked very professional and well organised so i thought of doing the same in my music magazine. I used an image of a brick wall which i took as i believe it fits in well with the urban indie theme i was trying to go for. I believe my music magazine does show similar characteristics to normal contents page magazine but does challenge them for example I've put a black boarder around the text and made the font white to make the text readable as with out the black background it clashes with the background.

I would first make sure that the audience was aware that the magazine actually existed. To do this, I would advertise my magazine on Internet websites such as facebook, myspace and bebo which my target audience will be able to find easily and effectively reaching a wide range of teenagers. I would also rely on word-of-mouth and the shop in which it is available from to promote it. Tuned magazine would be sold in similar shops to Q Magazine and Vibe and NME places such as newsagents and supermarkets. To get my music distributed i would use a well known company such as IPC Media; one of the UK’s leading consumer magazine and digital publishers. IPC also publishes NME which is a similar magazine to myne , so this would help me distribute my magazine easily and efficiently.

I had to do some research to find how other music magazines which aimed at the same audience priced there magazine such as Q Magazine and NME they both cost £3.00 each so i made the clear choice to make my music magazine similar.

I used DA FONT which is a free text website which i could use to put on Photoshop and manipulate the image to put in my magazine which i found very useful and added to the quality of my work

When both looking at my preliminary task college magazine i believe my media terminology has improved and my creativity has become better whilst working on the music magazine as in the preliminary task my skills where very poor in using the software available which made for a poorer affect on the audience compared to my music magazine now i believe has shown my improvement within the course over the last year. My front cover has improved dramtically from the college magazine due to my use of photoshop skills improving so i could belnd and change layers easier which was extremely beneficial. I believe my skills in using Photoshop have improved since I finished my college magazine.

To improve my double page spread I researched other indie music magazines. When researching, I found out that most double page spreads included a background. So in order to follow that convention I decided to take a picture for my background of my double page spread. As my main story is about V fest, and the fact V fest is staged in a rural area traditionally, I decided to use a picture of grass land in order to give my double page spread a sense of a rural feel to it. I took a picture of the grass area located within my college grounds in order to use the picture as my background for my double page spread. I accomplished this by layering my images on photoshop and placing the picture of the grass land as the first layer so that it would become my background.

My media magazine represents the group of young people who are interested in the indie music genre. This can be seen through the clothes Curt wears as they appeal to an indie audience and the age is similar to the audience. The font and logo used a urban with a modern effect which yet agains appeals to my target audience and people will be intrested reading on as curt siginfies everything about urban indie culture as he has not signed with a major record label organsation.

I believe overall i have improved my photoshop skills whilst doing this task and overall believe my work has improved due to me becoming more aware of photoshop and the tools it offers. If i had to do something better next time i would like to take different location pictures of my model as i only took pictures around college grounds.

This is a contents page from Q Magazine

Language
The text is standard contents page colour which is black with a white background to make sure the audience can understand the page numbers and be able to find what they are looking for easily.

Institution
The institution of this magazine is a commercial institute. We know this as it is a shop bought magazine and alos, printed in the bottom corner is the line www.Qmagazine.com which is leading readers to visit this website where they may be able to buy more products involved with the music magazine.

Ideology
The ideology of this music magazine is based around indie rock . This is shown through the artist being used as the main image - James Blunt - a well known artist from the pop and industry.

Audience
The audience for this magazine is roughly 16-25 as it is a lot like FHM magazine, but is a more serious, and a little more formal.

Representation
The main image is a close-up shot to show James Blunt face . Here, James Blunt . is dressed smart and waering clothes which would appeal to the audience of Q which will atract them to read on in the magazine. It also shows how he has a simmilarity with the artist which may make the audience feel more connected to the artist.

This is a double page spread from Q Magazine.

Language
Firstly, the text is in red and white with a black background which could emphasise the maturity of the singer as white and black are very organised suttle colours which may reflect on Madonna as an artist today. The red font is used to immediately grip the attention of the audience what it does and then follows the main chunk of the double page spread the sub text

Institution
The institution of this magazine is a commercial institute. As the information and the magazine can be bought from the Internet or from high street newspaper retailers.

Ideology
The ideology of this music magazine is based around indie and rock .But there is a slight little contrast as Madonna is a pop artist but is a main stream artist which appeals to a mass audience.

Audience
The audience for this magazine is roughly 16-25 as most teenagers will read the magazine but older audiences might be interested to.

Representation
The main image is a close-up shot to show emotion from the cover artist. Here, Madonna is dressed in Gym/Dance wear to promote her new music video which features in a boxing ring, this appeals to the audience as the will immediately know that the article is focused on her new music video which it does.

This front cover is from Q Magazine which feature Lily Allen.

Language

The text is in red which could emphasise the red hot attitude of lilt alen as red is the colour of heat and is sharp and hits the readers eye straight away. Also there is the cover line 'wicked and witched', stating that there is a focus on calling other music celebrities out for poor music performances in the last year and praising music artist for wicked music performance which can hint to the attitude of Q Magazine.

Institution
The institution of this magazine is a commercial institute. We know this as it is a shop bought magazine and alos, printed in the bottom corner is the line www.QMagazine.com which is leading readers to visit this website where they may be able to buy more products involved with the music magazine.

Ideology
The ideology of this music magazine is based around indie rock. This is shown through the artist being used as the main image - Lily Allen - a well known artist from the Indie music industry but has recently merged into the pop industry, and also other bands as coverlines ie Oasis and Stones Roses

Audience
The audience for this magazine is roughly 15-25 as it is a lot like NME magazine, but relates to teenage lifestly as well as older more serious audiences.

Representation
The main image is a Medium- shot to capture the full pose of Lily Allen . Here, Lily Allen is dressed smart and whats looks to be edgey rock outfit which realtes the the audience this is to relate to audience members who may see Lily Allen as a role model and want to see her wearing clothes which they like and want to own.

This is a contents page for Q Magazine which is featuring the band "The Courteeners". The Courteeners are an indie rock band whos main audience are teenagers which suits Q Magazines mainly male dominant market of teenage indie rock. It shows the band in the top right corner of the page which is the main focus of the page which will mean the audience will mainly focus on them when looking at the page.

There is also the main contents feature of page numbers of the magazine in the left side of the magazine which is there for the audience to know what pages to look at for certain pages e.g interview with a specfic band like The Courteeners.

The contents page also features an exclusive Q review which rates new albums and bands which is located in the bottom right of the page which follows the same colour scheme as the rest of the contents page of red and black.

This my mock up of my double page spread

This is a mock up of my contents page