Evaluation

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QYXFXPB

My Magazine follows the strict form of punk/emo rock genre. The text that my masthead is written in looks to be a punk genre. It is clearly distinct from other genres such as dubstep and pop. Despite the fact that magazines are becoming more hybrid I decided to stick to a particular genre because it was one which I knew lots about. I also knew that I would be able to write alot for my contents page and double page spread.

Publishers like IPC are now saying how genres of music are merging into one. This means that magazines now cover alot wider range of music. This is mainly because of systems like iTunes and amazon music (digital downloads). These systems enable listeners to only download and buy the individual tracks that they would like to download rather than having to purchase the whole album. It is because of this that album sales have continued to drop for the last three years at an alarming rate.  

This system has meant that people can now listen to different genres of music from a much wider selection. Before this system you either listened to one genre or the other. Now people can be part of all types of genres of music.

This was something that I had to think about when choosing what genre to make my magazine. I wanted to have a clear genre for it and I wanted to make it so it had a clear identity. It is often viewed that metal is one of the more isolated genres of music. This is why I decided to do my magazine in that style so it was able to have a clear brand image. 

My magazine represented a clear genre of music and this means it has a clear fan base. This particular fan base is famous for its dedication to its music. The model clearly looks like an artist from the genre and it also has lots of well known bands and up and coming bands on the front cover. This would make people want to read the magazine.

When I was designing my magazine I asked different people who listen to the genre of music what they are most interested in when they read a magazine of the same genre.

This graph shows that people want to hear about new artists the most and that they also want to read the new interviews. The regular features result surprised me because I thought that people would want to read familiar articles and usual sections within the magazine.  

 

When I asked a participant about why she thought it was low she said:-

 "Because they are in the magazine so often people take them for granted, it may not seem important but it is essential to the magazines identity"

When creating my magazine I needed to make sure that I had a balance between new artists and old ones. I also needed to make sure that I had regular features similar to magazines such as Kerrang and Uncut. 

I hoped that I had achieved this by having a particular box saying "regulars" this would add familiarity to my magazine and would give it an identity, making people want to buy my magazine. This would feature on the contents page.

 

Front Cover

When deciding what to call my magazine I gave a group of people a list of names and asked them to choose which one they liked the most.

My first magazine was aimed at the dance genre. This magazine was full of mistakes and didn't look very authentic. However, it was important because I learnt how to use indesign and the mistakes I made on this magazine I would know how to avoid when I made my final magazine.

The magazine was named "Pulse". This was a very dance sounding name. I was basing the design template on Clash magazine. However, when I analysed Clash and other dance magazines I realised that I had magazine that looked nothing like a dance magazine. Clash is a pop magazine featuring artists like James Blake and Justin Bieber. It was the wrong format and it didn't fit the dance genre.

The photos that I had used were from the same shoot and they made the magazine have a slightly boring and repetitive quality.  Despite this, I was happy with the layout of the contents page and I now know that it is important to make sure that the genre I had chosen suited the house style of my magazine.

After totally redesigning my magazine to fit the rock genre I first called it Rock Smith. I thought it was a good name but it was quite long compared to other names like "Q" and "NME". I thought of a list of names and asked people what they thought were the best names. The results are on the table below.

These were the results. It was clear that the target audience would want a good name and Ripped was by far the best choice.

Making sure that the name was effective was crucial because people would only want to buy the magazine if the name suited the genre. If it was a name that did not embrace the genre then people would not be attracted to pick it up from the shelf.

When creating my magazine I thought about the way that technology is affecting the way that we read magazines. It is now possible to download magazines as ebooks and read them on an iPad or other tablets and ereaders. This has meant a drop in actual magazine sales but sales of ebooks on tablets is continuing to rise

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Below is a representation of how my magazine could look like on an iPad.

The way the magazine looked also influenced my decisions on what design features I could incorporate. When I looked at digital versions of magazines like "Q" I found they often placed the barcode on the front cover. This surprised me as I thought that there wouldn't be much point in this as the barcode isn't actually used on ebooks. After some research I found that the barcode was left on the front cover because the cover is not changed when it is converted to digital form.

The male model I used clearly represented a hardcore rocker because of the mood lighting and the dark coloured clothes he was wearing. This represents the clothing which most bands from this particular genre would wear. I think the main problem with this model was his hair. This is because artists typically have long spiky hair. If I was to redo this particular shoot I would chose someone whose hair could be put into a more appropriate style.   

 

Contents Page

I wanted the contents page to be as informative as possible but not cluttered. I had studied magazines with many pictures on their contents page and found it worked well but it was sometimes just too much. I also looked at magazines where there was only one picture on the contents page. I really liked the simplicity of this and I thought it worked much better. This is why I chose my design.

After considering whether to use the same model or a different one I used a different one so it added variety to the magazine. I wanted the image to look slightly dark but not on the verge of being too emo. I eventually created what I was looking for and the image I produced I was very happy with. However, I was disappointed with how young the model looks in the photo. I think that this possibly could lower the quality of the magazine and would have been something that I wish I could have changed.

Apart from this though, I was happy with the contents page I had produced. I used the same font as I had done for the masthead on the front cover. This gave the magazine greater continuity and made it look more authentic. It also really suits the genre and worked well. I thought that the content of the contents page was good. It was short and to the point. This made it look effective and didn't clutter the page. This was something that I had learnt when I was making the school magazine in the preliminary task.

There are also continuity features such as "regulars" and "reviews" which would be featured in every single magazine and in the same place in each contents page.  

I also put the page number in the same font as the masthead because it looked appropriate to the particular genre. I also only put page numbers on the left hand pages as is similar to other magazines in other genres. 

 

Double Page

This was possibly the most challenging part of my magazine. This was because I had to get the text to image ratio correct and  I also  had to get an image that fitted the particular genre and suited the house theme.

Eventually I was able to take an image that suited the genre of music and also suited the house theme and the front cover. I decided to have the image and the text divided by a page so it looked about 50/50 split. I thought that this was a good decision because it meant that there was neither too much text or too many pictures.

The text was about a particular artist that I had created. The article talked about all aspects of the artists life and I thought it sounded like a real interview. However, not being a direct interview meant that it wasn't as smooth as it could have been and this would have been something that I would liked to have changed.

I also used a lot of black in my double page spread This means it would be expensive to print. This would be something that I would have to consider if my magazine was to be printed and I would possibly have to lighten the colour to make the printing cheaper.

I thought having the text of "Dan Lazar" in its own font was good because it became his logo and gave him identity. People like to associate logos with people and this made him stand out. I also used it on the front cover as people would recognise it as him.

Technologies

Throughout this project I have learnt alot about how to use products like indesign and photo shop. My first magazine was very blocky and the images were of a poor quality. I learnt how to make the images more dense so they became less pixelated as they were put into display mode.

 

Indesign also has lots of useful features that I could use such as alignment and order. These made positioning the text around the page much easier and I feel that I made good use of these features and this showed clearly.

 

Audience Response

 

 

Do you think my magazine fits the genre I chose 

10 out of the 12 people I asked said the magazine fitted the genre I had chosen. While it was not 100% I was still pleased with this result. I think that in the future I would like to maybe work on the layout on the front page.

 

Do you think that my magazine would stand out on a shelf in a shop?

 

I was very pleased with this result. I think that I could improve if I possibly made the masthead larger.

 

I also feel that there were several areas of my magazine that needed improving. However, I did feel that overall the project went very well and I am pleased with the end result that I did achieve.