Product Evalutation

Magazine Evaluation as Media

Final Product - Feature Article

Final Product - Contents

Final Product - Cover

Planning - Sketching Mock-Ups

Here I have drawn mockups of each page so that I can plan ahead and properly make sense of each page and their layouts and how they should work. Using my research for inspiration, I have created pages that follow the current conventions that are commonly used for magazine covers - conventions that have proven to be effective time and time again and always work to appropriately attract audiences and sustain interest in the magazine by being consistent and pleasant to look at. 

The title page follows conventions as it features the magazine title in a large font that is easy for viewers to read and relate with and spot in future if they ever want to look for the magazine in stores. A popular choice for covers is to have a main portrait direct-address shot of an artist, maybe even slightly covering up the magazine title to make them pop out more than usual. I have also included an artist quote and further information such as feature articles and straplines. 

In addition, the contents page follows conventions by having more popular featured articles highlighted to the viewer using photos, the photos being smaller the less important the article is, finally having any left over feature articles listed to the right. Furthermore, I included on the layout a listing of 'Monthly Articles' - articles that will always be in the magazine for repeat visitors to look at. 

Lastly, the feature article will include a dominant portrait picture or perhaps a band shoot of models to the left to make obvious what the article is about. Other common conventions such as quotes from the article and further imagery are present too in the mockup, which again are what people want to see and expect from magazines. 

Planning - Planning Photo-Shoots

For my photo-shoot I want to photograph a more challenging and different scenario than what is to be expected. I will achieve this by using as a prop a 'ukulele' instrument and I can then use this as a basis around the creation of the rest of my magazine. The sound produced by a ukulele is unique and different to what people are used to and this ties in with my audience who want to experience and read about new things. 


Costuming will probably be your basic hoody/t-shirt that is somewhat presentable but not too challenging that viewers are put off. Seeing as I am targeting my magazine at mainstreamers looking for something new, it is important to not challenge people too much so as to gradually introduce them to something new. 


The most common mode of shooting in Magazines seems to be a straight-on eye-level direct address photo of the model so I will use this as it has been proven to be effective. Lighting used would be 'continuos' lighting which can consist of primarily light being shone straight at the model and then additional lights to fill in any shadows to make them less harsh and presentable so that you can actually see the model in question. 


The location isn't strictly important as I intend to cut the model out of the picture and have a white background photoshopped into the picture. I can, however, take a picture in a studio to make this process considerably easier. 

Planning - Mood Board

My mood board aims to combine different band imagery in an overall effective composition including different colours, fonts and styles such as drop shadows, strokes and brushes. Observing the imagery you notice that most band photos are surprisingly similar, with a direct mode of address being used in them and sometimes the band members being formed in a sort of hierarchy with the lead singer in the front, for example (or in the middle of the photo). 

Planning - Equipment

Equipment I will use for the photo-shoots and for creating the magazine to eventually create an end product. 


Magazine
Photoshop - for editing captured photos (fixing colours and tones with levels/curves/brightness&contrast/colour balance) and putting together more complex elements of the magazine.


Indesign - for creating and editing a layout that follows industry magazine standards such as the sizes of columns, font sizes and such that people expect in a magazine. Indesign allows for consistency in my product and will help create a convincing magazine. 


iMac/PC - machines loaded with the appropriate software as outlined above. 


Photo-shoot
Canon EOS 500D - Camera body which can take high resolution pictures for big printouts on A4 magazine prints with minimal noise and loss of quality. 


50mm f/1.8 lens - Can be used for portraits. Is an effective choice for photographing just the one person as it allows for shallow depth of field (so as to bring attention to the subject) and framing the subject easily (50mm) is a recommended focal length to use for portraits. 


Tripod - For stability if needed in my photos. 


Miscellaneous 
USB cables/SD cards - For transfer of photos and storage of media such as photos.


Web Browser - can be used for research and gathering information for my magazine, searching for tutorials for using Photoshop and InDesign, etc, to further my knowledge to help make my magazine as effective as possible. 

Research Task - Questionnaire Results

From these results it is possible to determine that people's tastes do indeed line up with my Magazine's unique selling point. While the 'pop' genre is a very prominent genre in the charts, the more lesser popular genres such as Rock, R&B and Indie interest many people and this is what I should target with my magazine. 

In addition, people mostly prefer to read interviews and see posters, band images etc of artists in the magazines they read - so I will have overall an equal balance between the two of these elements in my magazine in light of these results. 

Further questions included "What Magazine do you buy?" with the results being: 

Kerrang!(7)

Front(1)

Gamemaster(1)

Vogue(1)

Razzle(1)

Cosmospolitan(1)

Ok(1) 

BlackVector(1) 

Kerrang! comes out on top and this is because they target and interview the bands that follow the indie, rock and r&b genres and they are successful due to this. I intend to mimic this success. 

Planning - Reader Profile

My target audience includes people who wish to consume content that is interesting, gripping and most of all desirable to them. 

As Media Theory suggests, content has to be interesting for my audience and my audience consists of people that are relatively impatient and are with short attention spans, wanting to learn the latest things about bands and wanting privileged information about bands - stuff that is only interesting to them because they feel they have 'exclusivity' to the information. 

Content such as this would help my audience and their 'personal relationships' as the book, 'Sociology of the Mass Media', suggests: there is the idea that people like to be 'in the know' so as to take part in certain social situations where people will read about the same band as well as  expecting their friends to contribute information about other new bands they've heard of - my target market want to consume 'gossip' as it were. 

In addition, I expect my target market of 15-17 year olds to be slightly rebellious and welcoming to rather strange ideas and portrayals of characters in my magazine and this will allow me to write in a way that challenges 'normal' behaviors and conventions that we expect in society, in order to be able to effectively relate to my audience of people who seek new ideas and scenarios. 

Research Task - Media Theory

My media text has to be profitable for the institution that is to be distributing and producing it, and so I have to make sure that it effectively targets an audience and elements in the magazine are constructed so as to appeal to this audience as best possible. 


You can define a target audience by their gender, race, age and 'socio-economic status', and all these factors can alter the buying habits of audiences and I aim to target the mostly male, younger demographic of 15-17 year olds who have some disposable income to spend on magazines and other luxury items. The male population I believe is more lucrative than the female counterpart is due to the fact that males spend more of their disposable income on magazines and items similar to this than females who would more likely spend their money on cosmetics, fashion, etc. 


Due to the fact that the audience is likely to have some spare pocket money, their parents are likely to be in relatively stable and somewhat higher paying jobs, so, the 'C2-B' groups of social class are my main target for my magazine, but if it proves interesting, it would appeal to lower classes also (although my genre is unlikely to appeal to higher classes who will have a varying taste in music). 


In media theory, 'Psychographic Profiling' refers to common consumer characteristics in people. 40% of all consumers are 'mainstreamers' - people who seek security in conformity and going for well-known brands. While this is obviously not the number one audience for my magazine which aims to be successful in actually not using the mainstream alternatives, it is still a viable audience to target because mainstreamers might intend to learn about new and up and coming bands (that my magazine would target) so as to 'pick up the trend' faster and quicker than anyone else so as to be secure in the knowledge that they have found something that everyone likes - and they would buy the magazine to support this belief. 


Since an integral part of marketing a product includes usage of the 'AIDA' model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action), I will have to make sure that my magazine grabs peoples attention with recognisable mastheads and colours, interesting content which sustains audience interest by focusing on what it is that they expect and desire, giving people reason to sustain interest with phrases such as "learn about this band's tour", "learn about how this band did this", "what happens backstage", etc, that provide privileged knowledge to readers and actually gives them reason to buy (action) the magazine.  


In addition, if you observe the 'Uses and Gratifications' theory proposed by 'Blumler, McQuail and brown' in a book entitled 'Sociology of the Mass Media', you notice that people's habits are down to the fact that people must consume so as to:

'Diversion' 
People like to escape into someone else's world and learning about the lives of bands will allow people to do just that. People do this to release themselves from everyday pressures and provide emotional release for a small moment of time. 


Personal Relationships 
In order to function sometimes in social settings, people must be 'in the know' about certain subjects and media texts are what provide knowledge about these subjects and allow people to sustain 'personal relationships' this way. 


Personal Identity
People explore people's personalities and problems in media texts and compare this with their own issues so as to make decisions, changes in their lives, etc based off examples made by the media that seem acceptable. 


Surveillance
People are simply nosy and media texts provide insight into what is happening in the world and people like to keep informed of the world's happenings (or in this case the happenings in music, upcoming gigs, bands, tours etc). 

In general, I have to satisfy the needs of the audience by being informative but too providing realistic situations that people can relate to and understand, and then finally making sure that the content is interesting for people to be used in 'personal relationships'. 

Research Task - Questionnaire

I used Google Docs for my Questionnaire as it allows me to effectively use the internet to gather information quickly and easily off people without much hassle on their part and my part. The forms on Google Docs work by allowing you to create questions and then save them to a link which you can send to people and have them fill it out. When filled out, the results are saved to a spreadsheet that can be altered however you wish. 

Creating the form

To make sharing of the questionnaire easier I used an 'iFrame' to link to the form and put it on a web-page to make for easier viewing so that people could visit my site and do questionnaire much easier. 

Google's iFrame Feature

Adding the iFrame to a web-page

Final Page Ready for Gathering Results

Final Results in a Table

Research Task - Institutions

Different institutions produce and distribute different styles of magazines that target different groups of people and target audiences. The reasoning for this targeted distribution would be due to the fact that some institutions will be better at targeting certain people than others, so it is important for me to research available institutions and consider their target markets, their efficiency of distribution and the types of magazine they cover in their business. 


IPC Media

Claiming "over 60 iconic media brands", IPC Media reach almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men - almost 26 million UK adults. They pride themselves on their ability to offer some form of media for anyone, with a focus on three "core audiences" which are 'men', 'mass market women' and 'upmarket women'. 

From my research of their magazines listed, they seem primarily to provide more lifestyle and fashion orientated magazines, examples being 'Country Life', 'Horse & Hound', 'Rugby World', etc - all examples listed under their men's portfolio named IPC Inspire. Their other two portfolios focus entirely on women and mainly fashion/showbiz news - 'Look' 'Now', 'Chat' and 'What's on TV', etc. While these appear unrelated to my magazine's selling points and genre, they do however target "1 million music fans a week" with their music magazine 'NME'. 

EMAP Limited

Focusing mostly on business-to-business magazines, EMAP sell magazines such as 'Drapers', 'Health Service Journal', 'Screen International' and 'Local Government Chronicle', etc. EMAP, Standing for 'East Midland Allied Press', was formed when the company realised that their printing presses were spending time being unused and useless and they decided to launch and print a magazine on them in these times of disuse, called 'Angling Times' - which was quickly joined by successive magazines and the rest of the companies history consists of constant selling of its divisions, buying up of other companies, etc. 


Seeing as my magazine doesn't have a business focus and is mostly laid back and informal, it would seem that IPC media are more appropriate for my magazine as they specialise in lifestyle magazines that are a far more reasonable category for my magazine than the business counterpart. 

Research Task - Unique Selling Point

As made immediately evident with my research of common music magazines, their album art, featured interviews and their portrayal in media and their own portrayals of themselves in posters and other mediums, it is common in my researched genres of music (indie, rock, prog-rock) that bands and magazines pride themselves in their ability to provide unique music that is unlike other, more mainstream styles and there's clearly a market for this as identified by the selling figures for Kerrang!


I aim to benefit from these findings by creating a magazine similar to this that targets people that are importantly looking for something unique and different and portray my photographed artists in such a fashion that implies that they provide a new musical viewpoint in their work and are "something new" for the magazine's audience to consider reading about. 

Research Task - Imagery Analyis

The nature of the imagery surrounding the album art used for rock bands such as Biffy Clyro is often sort of controversial and questionable and has many separate possible meanings attached, making the art ambiguous, and, most importantly, something different. Rebellious in nature, the difference in the album art style is similar to how the music is separate from the music commonly featured in the charts and that is why these bands are successful in what they do - the audience wants something different from their music and the outer-worldly album art is the first indication of this to them - and the bands deliver in this respect. 

Above is a strangely presented image which features rather implied destruction and violence but is different in that it doesn't feature gore or obvious violence featured in some album art for the more heavy metal bands, which is what makes the album art - and thus the artist - different. The image implies that people should expect to hear something different and this is what people get.

Coincidentally, the art featured above is similarly hard to approach like the previous album art and is abstract in its style, further promoting a sense that people should expect new and challenging music to listen to from the artist. Both album arts are surprisingly minimalist in design and do not have excessive feature of the artist's name or album name - meaning that the albums probably hope to be recognised for their art and visual portrayal rather than their headings. In short, the art intends to make you think just like music does, which is a neat representation to make of your band in album art. 

Further album art may consist of less abstract imagery but instead imagery that is independent in its aim and has no real editing or manipulation involved in its creation. This is simple but still manages not to imply that the band is simplistic in their aim and music. The reason this approach is fresh and appealing is because modern music nowadays is often overwhelmingly processed and tuned and this methodology doesn't really lend itself to or appreciate talented artists that make music with minimal fuss and simply play their instruments!

Common among posters and images featuring band members (commonly medium shot pictures) is the feature of large headings and text that promote the band. In this image, it is difficult to determine the roles of the band members and it is probably intended that there's no apparent hierarchy in the picture (as made evident by the fact that none of them are stood slightly in front of others, all wearing the same colour shirt, etc) to make each band member equal and to portray them as a band/group and not as separate people. 

Research Task - Download Top 40 Chart

Listed below is the Music Chart Top 40:

1	GRENADE BRUNO MARS (ELEKTRA)
2	ROLLING IN THE DEEP ADELE (XL RECORDINGS)
3	DO IT LIKE A DUDE JESSIE J (ISLAND/LAVA)
4	COMING HOME DIDDY DIRTY MONEY FT SKYLAR GREY (INTERSCOPE)
5	HOLD IT AGAINST ME BRITNEY SPEARS (JIVE)
6	TRAKTOR WRETCH 32 FT L (LEVELS/MINISTRY OF SOUND)
7	WHAT'S MY NAME RIHANNA FT DRAKE (DEF JAM)
8	LIGHTS ON KATY B FT MS DYNAMITE (COLUMBIA/RINSE)
9	EYES WIDE SHUT JLS (EPIC)
10	LIKE U LIKE AGGRO SANTOS/KIMBERLEY WALSH (FUTURE RECORDS)
11	WHO'S THAT CHICK DAVID GUETTA FT RIHANNA (POSITIVA/VIRGIN)
12	INVINCIBLE TINIE TEMPAH FT KELLY ROWLAND (PARLOPHONE)
13	YOUR SONG ELLIE GOULDING (POLYDOR)
14	NOW OR NEVER JODIE CONNOR FT WILEY (FASCINATION)
15	THE TIME (DIRTY BIT) BLACK EYED PEAS (INTERSCOPE)
16	LIKE A G6 FAR EAST MOVEMENT/CATARACS/DEV (INTERSCOPE)
17	HELLO MARTIN SOLVEIG & DRAGONETTE (3 BEAT/AATW)
18	JUST THE WAY YOU ARE (AMAZING) BRUNO MARS (ELEKTRA)
19	MAKE YOU FEEL MY LOVE ADELE (XL RECORDINGS)
20	ONLY GIRL (IN THE WORLD) RIHANNA (DEF JAM)
21	FIREWORK KATY PERRY (VIRGIN)
22	ME AND YOU NERO (MTA)
23	LET IT RAIN TINCHY STRYDER/MELANIE FIONA (4TH & BROADWAY)
24	FORGET YOU CEE LO GREEN (WARNER BROS)
25	WHEN WE COLLIDE MATT CARDLE (SYCO MUSIC)
26	RAISE YOUR GLASS PINK (LAFACE)
27	HAPPINESS ALEXIS JORDAN (COLUMBIA/ROCNATION/STARROC)
28	WHIP MY HAIR WILLOW (ROC NATION/COLUMBIA)
29	WHAT THE HELL AVRIL LAVIGNE (RCA)
30	THE FLOOD CHERYL COLE (POLYDOR)
31	MORE USHER (LAFACE)
32	COOLER THAN ME MIKE POSNER (J)
33	IT'S OK CEE LO GREEN (WARNER BROS)
34	THINKING OF ME OLLY MURS (EPIC/SYCO MUSIC)
35	SHINE A LIGHT MCFLY FT TAIO CRUZ (ISLAND/SUPER)
36	HIGHER TAIO CRUZ/MCCOY/MINOGUE (4TH & BROADWAY)
37	THE FLOOD TAKE THAT (POLYDOR)
38	HEY BABY (DROP IT TO THE FLOOR) PITBULL FT T-PAIN (J)
39	JUNGLE PROFESSOR GREEN FT MAVERICK (VIRGIN)
40	TOXIC GLEE CAST (EPIC)

From this chart listing, it is clear that my chosen genre isn't exactly prevalent throughout and this is relevant to one of my unique selling points which is that some people want content and music that is varying from the download charts and is new and fresh and my magazine will be attractive in that it provides that instead of the overdone and commonly recycled music that is listed in this chart.