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.