A brief to create a music magazine front cover, contents page, double page spread and four photographs we had taken ourselves. With no preference to what sort of music it had to be, it allowed us to use our imaginations. This also meant with today’s decline in magazine sales that we had to find a gap in the music magazine market, to target a particular audience. I decided to focus on students aged 12-16 as I feel this age group are most influential in music sales. My initial idea was to focus on a particular genre of music for example Pop, however I then decided that having a wider range of music would attract a wider audience. The colours and vocabulary represent my target audience. Shortened words and snappy phrase’s were used since this is the language used by my target audience, everyday when talking to friends therefore relates to the readers. The free posters advertised on the front cover helps give a clear indication of the social group chosen. The age selected are when young female first start to lust toward males. In the double page spread language is very "chatty" and fun, making the article easy to read. The vibrant colours and bold fonts give a young feel accompanied by the young tone of language.
To develop the forms and conventions of media products I took into consideration the use of the three colour rule however to make headlines stand out more I used larger font with outlines. Using my experiences with photography I took a midshot of a male and female trying to show a bond between them, I did this by having their bodies close and in a comfortable position. By taking a high contrast photograph I think I have challenged conventions as it gives the photograph a different look. Giving the artists featured a feel different as the photograph has a shallower field of depth making the image stand out as it is sharper. With my double page spread I also challenged the conventions not only of magazines in general but of my own magazine. As I went outside of its music style to help introduce and inform people of a music ‘phenomenon’.
Over the course of this project I have furthered my knowledge into media institution such as IPC, Development Hell lmt and Bauer that publish the magazines. I feel my magazine would fit into and be distributed by would be Bauer as it has a large range of magazine and already publishes a handful of music magazines, making it easier to feature popular artists. By publishing with Bauer the magazine could also be published in other countries many magazine by Bauer.
The front cover of any magazine is a very important feature as this is what draws the readers attention in. I followed a similar concept to Smash Hits! Of bright clear and bold images and text on the front cover as not to complicate anything. I also followed this into my contents page trying to keep it sharp and easy on the eye so that the reader can easily find what they are looking for. I did this by using a white boarder and with different layers to create heading in which topics had been divided. As my target audience is young the photos on the cover are youthful and easily recognisable. To make the magazine interactive with the readers as well as more appealing I added teasers about prizes.
This project has brought awareness to me about the problems that the music magazine industry is facing and the strength put in to keep it afloat. By means of Photo Shop I had to edit my photographs and text. Helping me to understand the program better, how to us it effectively meaning I can now use it on future projects and my general IT skills.
If I were to redo this project I would spend more time on text and learning about how to uses them more efficiently however looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have progressed managing to keep a coherent theme, better editing on my photography and a solid concept for my magazine.
