The main task for our AS Media Coursework was to design a four page music magazine on the genre of our choice. I chose the ‘Rock’ genre as it resonated with my style of music and it was
one genre of music to which I was familiar with. I focused my magazine on
popular rock magazines like Kerrang! and Rocksound.
The magazine I have created follows most of the conventions of a typical magazine which fits the criteria of creating a rock magazine. The reason for this was to enable me to have a simple base structure for my magazine to build around and it helped to enforce a certain house style throughout the rest of the magazine pages. The house style of the magazine was that the front cover colour scheme would carry on through all the pages however the feature articles would have their own colour schemes because it provides a change in art style along with giving more emphasis and focus to the main article story. As well as colour the text font would be the same through out and the positioning of my stories would be aligned to the left or right to show a flow.
The magazine I designed has generated its colour scheme through the anchor model which follows the magazine convention of the rule of three. The colour scheme continues on from the front cover to the contents page however it changes on the feature page as this has a different style to the model in addition it would not be good to have a repetitive flow of the colour scheme and thus the feature page is different to the front cover and the contents page. The contents page is divided into categories to make it easier for the target audience to select specific pages under different categories. The magazine represents the social group E which is unemployed people and this makes sense as my target audience are 14 – 19 year olds. I managed to target this group by mentioning popular bands.
I conducted an audience questionnaire to ask what kind of genre of rock music people listen to. The genre that was most popular was the popular genre. I went ahead and searched popular rock bands to give me an idea on the sort of content to provide my audience with. On my front cover and contents page, I mentioned popular bands like Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low, Bring Me The Horizon etc. These bands show that I am aware of the culture of 14 – 19 year olds and thus would attract a greater audience. The bands are famous worldwide and are featured on magazines whenever they release new material. As well as having an awareness for youth culture, I also kept the price to £0.99 because it would be cheap and an easily affordable price something that 14-19 year olds could afford.
The magazine I have created follows most of the conventions of a typical magazine which fits the criteria of creating a rock magazine. The reason for this was to enable me to have a simple base structure for my magazine to build around and it helped to enforce a certain house style throughout the rest of the magazine pages. The house style of the magazine was that the front cover colour scheme would carry on through all the pages however the feature articles would have their own colour schemes because it provides a change in art style along with giving more emphasis and focus to the main article story. As well as colour the text font would be the same through out and the positioning of my stories would be aligned to the left or right to show a flow.
The magazine I designed has generated its colour scheme through the anchor model which follows the magazine convention of the rule of three. The colour scheme continues on from the front cover to the contents page however it changes on the feature page as this has a different style to the model in addition it would not be good to have a repetitive flow of the colour scheme and thus the feature page is different to the front cover and the contents page. The contents page is divided into categories to make it easier for the target audience to select specific pages under different categories. The magazine represents the social group E which is unemployed people and this makes sense as my target audience are 14 – 19 year olds. I managed to target this group by mentioning popular bands.
I conducted an audience questionnaire to ask what kind of genre of rock music people listen to. The genre that was most popular was the popular genre. I went ahead and searched popular rock bands to give me an idea on the sort of content to provide my audience with. On my front cover and contents page, I mentioned popular bands like Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low, Bring Me The Horizon etc. These bands show that I am aware of the culture of 14 – 19 year olds and thus would attract a greater audience. The bands are famous worldwide and are featured on magazines whenever they release new material. As well as having an awareness for youth culture, I also kept the price to £0.99 because it would be cheap and an easily affordable price something that 14-19 year olds could afford.
An independent niche media institution will distribute my
magazine as the magazine has only just started and if my magazine were to be
distributed by giant oligopoly like Bauer Media, it would depend on the
circulation of the magazine: If the magazine circulation is low then this could
cost a loss for Bauer Media and thus they can shelve the magazine whereas a
niche independent institution for example ‘Axom
Publishing Ltd.’ Or ‘Atom Publishing
Ltd.’ Can carry on distributing the magazine even if it has a low magazine
circulation. Thus an independent niche media institution would distribute my
magazine.
Each technology taught me
many different things during the creation process. In order to design my media
magazine, I used Photoshop because it allowed me to digitally manipulate images
in order to fit the conventions of a magazine. Within Photoshop there were many
tools that allowed me to do many things with my magazine:
The Move Tool and
Transform Tool allowed me to move images to place them properly on the page
as well as change the images’ size, rotation and angle.
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The Eraser and the Magic
Wand Tool enabled me to get rid of the background on some images to help
neaten the image as well as allow easy shaping to the pages in the magazine.
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The Fill Tool and the
Paintbrush helped me to change colours on certain parts of the images and I
was able to give certain parts of the image different strokes of colour to
allow blending.
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As well as Photoshop tools I was able to use Google to search for ideas and themes in regard with my magazine. I searched for ideas about how to structure my magazine and I mostly researched Kerrang, which is a rock magazine. I was used advanced searches in order to give me limit the search amount and to bring the most relevant searches to me. I was able to do a lot of things within Blogger for example I was able to embed a Prezi presentation within my blog as well as images and YouTube videos. All the media technologies I have used, have taught me many shortcuts to make my use of the technology simplified, quick and efficient.
My preliminary task shows a massive
change in design and layout as my preliminary task was a display of my basic
understanding of what a magazine is whereas the magazine I have created now has
shown significant change in the use of colour, target audience and design placement. I have gained an understanding of magazine conventions for example magazines
have barcodes, dates, issue numbers and prices on the front cover of the
magazine as well as most magazines gifting readers with freebies. My preliminary magazine had a
simplistic understanding as it follows the same ‘C’ layout. Not only that but
my magazine shows a range of tools used to create the most professional and
design effective while my preliminary magazine shows a rudimentary use of
Photoshop Tools.
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