Main Task - Research

Detailed analysis of 5 genre specific music magazine front covers

Detailed analysis of 5 genre specific music magazine contents pages



Detailed analysis of 5 genre specific music magazine double page spreads

Flat plan for existing music magazine

'Rocksound' flat plan

View more presentations from alicegrimshaw.

Flat plan kerrang

View more presentations from alicegrimshaw.

Research into magazine institustions/companies

IPC Media:

IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost 26 million UK adults, while their websites collectively reach over 20 million users every month. IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio and offer something to everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women.

IPC Media publishes a huge range of magazines and websites across many different sectors. This includes Marie Claire, Now, Nuts, and the music magazines NME and Uncut.



Emap:

Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but is now owned by Apax and Guardian Media Group. EMAP has 20 magazines in its business-to-business portfolio including Architects Journal, Architectural Review, Broadcast and Construction News. Music magazine 'Smash Hits' was a pop music magazine aimed at teenagers which was published by EMAP and ran from 1978-2006.

Bauer Media

The Bauer Publishing Group has grown into a worldwide publishing and media company. The Bauer Publishing Group comprises 282 magazines worldwide in 15 countries, as well as TV and radio stations. Bauer started in the UK with the launch of Bella magazine in 1987 and as H Bauer Publishing became Britain's third largest publisher. Bauer further expanded in the UK with the purchase of Emap Consumer Media and Emap Radio in 2008 to become the UK's biggest publishing group. The companies continue to trade as H Bauer Publishing. Some of the world wide magazines produced by Bauer include:



 

 

Audience research questionnaire

View more presentations from alicegrimshaw.


From our audience research questionnaire we found that from the people we asked, the majority of them bought NME magazine. Kerrang, Q and Vibe were all second popular. This clearly shows us what look, style and music the majority of our audience look for when buying music magazines. We found that the majority of the people asked preferred RnB music, closely followed by Indie music. This tells us the genres of music that would be most popular to advertise and attract a larger audience. Our questionnaire showed us that the majority of the people asked spend between £4 and £7 on magazines per month, which will give us an indication as to how much we can sell our magazine for. Reading festival is the festival/gig that most of the people asked in our questionnaire go to. This tells us what gigs and festivals we could advertise or offer tickets/discounts for in order to attract as wide an audience as possible. The majority of people we asked in our questionnaire said they access their music via illegally downloading it. This may be as they think buying music can be too expensive. This shows us that if we offer some discounts or money off buying music (eg Itunes) this may attract more people to buy our magazine. Lastly, we found that including offers in clothes/music stores would attract more people to buying our magazine over the other extras that could be included. 

Research- Find your tribe

View more presentations from alicegrimshaw.

Magazine reader profile

View more presentations from alicegrimshaw.

Personal learning and reflection

View more presentations from alicegrimshaw.

Preliminary Task - Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


In my research I found that most of the college magazine front covers included a medium close up of someone, usually a student. Therefore for my college magazine front cover I used a medium close up of a student Jordan Beasley. In the image she is smiling, which would imply that she is happy being at the college. I found that other college magazines 'happy looking' students in their images, to portray how well-liked the college may be. My college magazine also includes many aspects that the majority of magazines i researched had. For example I placed a bold, block colour mast head at the top of the front cover. I kept the colour scheme simple and basic throughout the front cover, using white and other light colours for the background and the text. I placed the subheadings and the other pieces of text over the image of the student. Some of the magazines I researched did not do this, instead they placed the image over the text, or kept the text far away enough from the image. I did this as i felt the image was colourful and bold enough to be able to allow some text to be placed over the top without detracting from the image. I included a bar code, date and price on my front cover to keep it looking as realistic as possible. I did not really challenge the conventions of real media products as I tried to keep my front cover looking as realistic as possible, and in doing this copied a number of different aspects from various magazine covers. I also did the same with my contents page. I kept the layout simple and basic, with a similar colour scheme as the front page. I included images of the same student to show the link and relation between the two pieces, and also because most contents pages I had research included images of students either working, or looking happy and excited.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?


My media product would largely be aimed at college students, and therefore the general group I am representing would be students. However, from my research I found that the image and colours used in the front cover will determine who will have more of an interest in the product. I decided use an image of a female, and use rather feminine colours. This would most likely mean that females would buy and read this magazine over males. My media product, therefore would be representing young, female students who are in higher education and interested in improving their time at college and want to make the most of their education. The subheading included in my front cover '10 ways to keep up with work' will appeal to those who want to do well and achieve good grades in college, reinforcing the social group being represented in one of my media products. The contents page also will appeal to those who want to do well and are interested in the college, for example 'up and coming trips' would be of interest to those who want to go over and above the basic curriculum and want to make the most of what the college has to offer.


What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


My media product is a college magazine, and therefore would be aimed at students and possibly student's parents. This would mean that the media product would be distributed at the college, for example on campus and possibly in a social shop on site if there is one available. More popular shops such as WHSmith may be interested in distributing this college magazine as they are a main provider of stationary and equipment for those at school or college. Other media institutions most likely to distribute my media product could also be organisations such as HMV, this is because as well as CD's and DVD's they also sell print media such as books and posters. HMV is a company aimed mostly at a younger audience, therefore people attending college and 6th forms would be more likely to shop in here, resulting in them being more likely to buy the media product. However, media institutions such as BBC could also be interested in distributing the media product as they could advertise the product online or on TV. This would benefit BBC as they would then be seen to be taking a keen interest in student's college life and education.


Who would be the audience for your media product? (Refer to your research)


My main target audience for my media product would be students attending the college. However another audience could be the parents of the students at the college as they could also take a keen interest in the college or additional information. In my research, I found that some of the subheadings for titles of included articles were about stories other than to do with college life. For example in one magazine there was an article about a student being pregnant. I didn't want to stray too much from the idea of it being a 'college' magazine, so I included an article about trips away. Although they are organised by the college, the trips would appeal to those interested in visiting different places, possible abroad. This would mean that my magazine would appeal to those students who are more interested in this side of college, and visiting a wide variety of different places. This would be another specific target audience for my magazine as I have made it clear that it is an important part of my magazine, as I included it on the front page. 


How did you attract/address your audience?


My front cover would be the main media product that would attract my audience as this is what they would initially see. I included a large image, taking up the majority of the page in order to attract their attention. I also used a bold, block colour mast head along the top of the front cover, this would catch someone's eye passing by. I used a plain white background in order to make sure that the image, mast head and additional text stood out on the page. The text 'A new year - a new you' could ultimately be referring to a number of things, therefore this subheading would appeal to a wide variety of the students at the college as they may be interested in what this article is going to be about. The image of the female student, dressed in casual clothing would also be more likely to attract the attention of the female students as they may feel the magazine may be more relevant to them. The bold text about foreign exchanges, which takes up the bottom right hand corner of the front cover would attract those interested in broadening their learning and learning about new languages and cultures. I used bold white text, placed over the top of the image for this, as the white stands out over the darker colours of the image, and the bold text is eye catching on its own. I have used a little amount of text on the front page, in order to make the front cover stand out more as people are less likely to stop and read a massive amount of text in passing.


What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


While constructing this product, I have learnt that they layout and structure of a magazine's front cover is the most important part of a magazine. This is the only page your audience will be able to see, and therefore it has to be as bold and eye catching as possible. The page should not be too crowded with too much text as this can be off putting, and the text should also be easy to read (not dark on a dark background, or light on a light background.) Constructing this media product has shown me that I need to make sure the images and text and over all look of the front cover and contents page needs to be as realistic as possible in order for it to be effective. Making this media product has also shown me how to edit photos in photoshop and construct front pages and contents pages in publisher. It has also shown me how to bring photos and text together to make it look as realistic as possible.

Preliminary Task - Production

Front page of a school/college magazine

Mock up of a school/college contents page

Preliminary Task - Research and Planning

Research into 2 college magazine front covers



This "college" magazine has used a college student as the main image in the middle of the page. She is dressed in a bold red t-shirt, smiling, with geenery behind her. As the student is smiling, a positive message is being sent out to the audience, implying that it is a good thing to be in college and that the students there are happy. The colour scheme of green and red sends out this positive message too, as these are bold, optimistic colours. The mast head across the top of the front cover is red and in bold, capitalised text. The image of the girl covers some of the writing however, showing her importance over the rest of the text, implying that the students there are the top priority. Another implication of the student being the most important aspect of the college is that the medium close-up of the student is clear, and the background is out of focus, which draws the audience's attention to the girl.

The subheadings around the edges of the front cover are in a smaller, but darker font. This doesn't detract from the image of the student, but the dark colours still stands out, making them more likely to be read. The titles of the included stories are all relevant to teenagers/students and would be stories that are highly likely to be of interest to this specific target audience. For example, "Smoking salvia?" This college magazine would be aimed at the students of the college, or students of nearby colleges, however I think the image, story titles and colours used shows that this would be more likely to be aimed at females rather than males. For example, "She's 15 & pregnant" would be a story that female teenagers would be more likely to read.

This "college lifestyle" magazine has taken a very different approach. Firstly the background is a plain grey/black colour, making the greeny-yellow and white text boldly stand out over the top. The main, medium close-up shot of a male student is in the centre of the front cover. The student is holding some text books which the audience can clearly see read 'Law, business and society." This shows that the student is intelligent, and we can also see that as he is smiling, he is enjoying being at college. Similiarly to the first front cover, the image has been placed slightly over the top of the mast head, again showing the importance of the student over other aspects of the college. This also puts the college in a positive light.
The subheadings around the edge of the front cover are in smaller, but bold writing, written in the white, and the same greeny-yellow colour as the mast head. This links the whole front cover together as the colour scheme is simillar throughout. This college magazine has been aimed at male college students. The titles of the stories included in the magazine would, stereotypically, be much more likely to appeal to males, for example "make money on campus" and "why we love blackberry." Also the use of a male on the front cover would attract males to buy the magazine as they would assume it would include information they would like to read. The darker colours used would also be less likely to appeal to girls.

Research into 2 college magazine contents pages

This is a very simple, basic but effective contents page. The three images at the top of the page all show different aspects of the college. The top left image shows the actualy building of the college. It shows the audience that it is a very big building a big amount of land around it. This implies that a vast number of students attend here as the building is as big as it is, which then implies that it must be a good college as so many people attend. The bottom left image shows a girl laying down on a pile of books. This shows the more relaxed side to college, but as she is laying on her books it also shows that studying is still a main priority in the student's life. The image on the right shows the sports side to the college. The image is of a girls team of some sort of sport. In the image they are all laughing and smiling, showing that they are all happy and enjoying their time at the college. This image shows that the college are keen in sports, which sends out very positive messages of the college as they are keeping their students fit and healthy. The image also shows that the college welcomes a wide variety of students from different ethnic backgrounds.

The background of the contents page is just plain white, which shows the importance of the text and the images as there is nothing to detract from these things on the page. The text is kept in plain black writing, making the contents of the magazine very easy to read and very accesible.



 This contents page is much more busy, with a lot more contents included. The colour scheme is still relatively simple, with a plain white background and plain blue and black text. The use of the plain white background shows the importance of the darker text and the darker image used. There is a greyscale shadow of a male in the background, listening to music and dancing. This shows that he is happy and enjoying himself, which implies that he is also having fun being at college. The page has been seperated into the different pieces of information on the different pages, making this easily accesible and easy to use.

The margin on the left hand side of the contents page also gives addional information for the reader of the magazine (most likely to be students) making the magazine very useful and practical for the students.

2x Drafts/mock up of college magazine

1st mock 

2nd mock

2x Drafts/mock up for contents page


1st mock

2nd mock