My product: Upfront

Evaluation

For my evaluation I used the Internet software prezi. this helped my audience to visualise my product and how I have used conventions and social group pointers to target my magazine at a specific audience.

Evaluation of Upfront, My music magazine. on Prezi

I stuck to typical magazine conventions in terms of the use of buttons, banners, masthead placement, selling line, editors note, columns and stand first. I challenged conventions with my colour scheme as I used four colours instead of three, this was due to looking at a colour wheel and my artist images and noticing that the colour blue works well with red. I used these two colours along with the shades black and white to create a dramatic stand out effect on all three of my products. Another way that I challenged conventions was with the size of my editors note. I made this feature of my contents page quiet large as I used this text to promote what was inside the magazine. Along with reducing the amount of images on my contents page to draw focus of this text.


My target audience was 16-25 year old females who are generally into the lifestyle of a indie/ rock listener. through colour scheme, language, images and fonts. I used market research to find out what my audience wanted under the categories of each of these points. I also found out what bands they generally listen too and incorporated this on my front cover mainly due to sticking with the convention of Kerrang! by adding a band banner to the bottom of the page.

I chose Bauer media as the media institution who would most likely distribute my magazine because they distribute Kerrang!. This means that the company knows the best ways to distribute a rock magazine and this also means that my product would be distributed along with Kerrang! making sure that the audience of Kerrang! is noticing and seeing my product. Bauer media had a turnover of 2.08 billion euros in 2008 and distributes around 300 magazines in 15 different countries. The company is obviously successful and can offer my product to a extremely large audience.

In the duration of this project I have learnt and developed skills in using technologies which has furthered my understanding in how magazine production works. I have learnt new skills such as using prezi and using SLR cameras to take aesthetically pleasing photographs. I have developed my skills in using photo shop as I was able to perform simple tasks on the software before but now I am capable of many different actions. Another piece of software that I have learnt to use is Blogger, this online blog has helped me to keep track of my progress and helped me to understand what the uses of a blog are.

In terms of comparing my music magazine to my preliminary task I think that I have improved a lot in terms of understanding layouts and use of colour within a magazine. I also think that my understanding of conventions as well as social groups has developed a lot within this project.

Once I had finished my product I created another small survey for my target audience to judge the magazine. 95% of my target audience that took part in the survey thought that my colour scheme used was effective. This was good as I took the feedback on colour schemes form my survey before creating my product. 85% of my target audience said that they would pay £2 for my magazine weekly. I chose £2 as that price as it is slightly cheaper than Kerrang!. 55% of my target audience said that the colours of my magazine is what attracts them most to the product, followed by 25% were attracted by the layout of the magazine.

TIME FOR IMPROVEMENT

After putting together my pages for my magazine. I have looked over them and found areas which could do with improvement, For example, My Front Cover has got letters on it which are in lower case. I have now changed them so that they are all in upper case to meet conventions of magazines. On my contents page I have only used two images, the contents pages of other magazines have several images on them so I have decided to add another image. Finally my Double Page Spread was looking too lost, in the sense that you could not distinguish the difference between paragraphs and you could not read the stand first due to the blue on black background as well as lots of spelling and grammatical errors. Here are my magazine pages with the changes that I have made.

<--------CAPITALS

<----A NEW IMAGE

• OUTER GLOW ADDED TO STAND FIRST
• THE BEGINNING OF EACH PARAGRAPH IS MARKED WITH A DIFFERENT COLOUR LETTER AND AN INDENT.
• I HAVE CORRECTED SPELLING AND GRAMMAR MISTAKES.

My double page spread

Here is my double page spread after changing and checking punctuation:

Making of double page spread

Here is a powerpoint which shows the step by step making of my double page spread:

Making of dps

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my contents page

Here is my contents page for my magazine:

Making of contents page

Here is a powerpoint showing my step by step process of outting together my contents page:

Making of contents page

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DPS interview

Here is my double page spread interview:

DPS interview – Georgia Ensor

Stand first: Danni the amazing new scream artist has amazed us all with her talents and flare, but what is the story behind her awesomeness? Upfront finds out.

Pull quotes:

“Rock is what I plan to live until I can barely walk anymore. What the hell- I will still be rocking then!”

“Smashing glasses defiantly shows my fun side and shows I know how to party!”

Main interview: 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe people think that. Sorry to disappoint guys but nothing’s happening between us.” Danni’s reaction to the question on everyone’s lips....what happened backstage at Reading with you and Pete Wentz? “We are really good friends and don’t get me wrong, he’s mega hot but life’s a bitch when you date someone famous.”  Ok, well I guess we are all happy out of the dark and into the light with your relationship front.

So let’s get on to the most important subject of all...your AMAZING music. Three number one’s in your first year of being in the public eye. Seriously! What are you taking to give you such talent, MAXI talent vitamins? “Well no, I wish it was that easy. Personally I think my reason for having such an amazing year is my passion for rock. Rock is my life, Rock is the air I breathe and Rock is what I plan to live until I can barely walk anymore. What the hell I will still be rocking then!”

  Dude that’s insane, surely there must be something you do other than music? Fashion! Your style is amazing- tell Upfront what your style secrets are. “Well in all honesty I’m loving Fearne Cottons style a.t.m she is rocking the leathers like a true heavy metal rocker would which makes it hard to believe she is a TV presenter. I add my own little style to every outfit I buy (a bit of a haberdashery geek I guess). I add lace chains and anything to put the girly flare on to a manly jacket or band hoodie.” You’re definitely the new fashion idol in the Rock world, that’s for sure!

When it comes to your songs where do your ideas and inspiration come from? “I grew up listening to bands like AC DC and Kiss as my mum and dad where rockers in the old days. Then when I got to 18 I experienced my first screamo band called Avenged sevenfold (as I’m sure many of you have heard of them) and fell in love with the style of music. I began writing music when I was 14 and just carried on all the way through my teenage years. I hit 19 and everyone wanted to start making music. I formed a band with my best mates who are the band you know with me today and started writing and playing small gigs”

What would you say is the song that gets to you when you perform on stage? “Misery’s of the un-dead is definitely my most heartfelt song. I wrote it after a really hard time in my life and feel like it represents me and my feelings in that stage of my life, on a not depressing note smashing glasses definitely shows my fun side and shows I know how to party!”

Thank you for coming to talk to Upfront about your amazingly beautiful self and we hope to see you hitting number one with your awesomeness some more this year “it’s been a pleasure thanks upfront for having me your the best!”

Here is a look at my shot list for my magazine

These were just some of the shot I planned to take for my music magazine.

Here are some of the shot I took:

These are some of the shots I took on my shooting day.

Bands that I have featured on my front cover!

Paramore:


Kings Of Leon:
unfortunatly official videos where not available


Fall Out Boy:
official video unavailable


Avenged Sevenfold:
official video unavailable


Animus Sadist:


On my front cover I have also mentioned the music festival Download. Here is a clip from last years festival:

FRONT COVER

PHOTOGRAPHER: Georgia Ensor

EDITOR: Gerogia Ensor

MODELS: Rob Phillips, Joanne Kent and Mollie Howis

font research

Here are some font I found on the Internet which I think would be great in my magazine!

making of my front cover

In this PowerPoint I have put together print screens of each layer of my magazine. This shows you how my front cover has built up and developed through the making process.

Making of front cover

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Interview Questions

What inspires you when both on stage and writing your music?

Are the rumours true about you and Pete Wentz backstage at download?

What is the best and worst experience you have had being famous?

Who is your musical idol?

If you where any Disney character, who would you be and why?

What happened in your past to make you want to live and breathe music?

Celebrity crush?

Who would you say your fashion taste comes from?

What was your favourite song to write and perform?

How did you start performing rock music?

First gig! When and where?

Do you feel like life experiences influence your music?

Flatplan evaluation: UpFront

After analysing my flat plan with a critical eye, I have come up with ideas for what I could do better, as well as picking out points which I like and want to keep.
Looking at my front cover I am unsure about the banner (featuring posters) along the bottom as it will be difficult for me to capture different realistic band images which are not my DPS feature due to time and availability. Instead I will lower the artists name to create this banner effect on the front cover. However I like both the main image and masthead on my flat plan so these would be two elements I would keep when creating my actual magazine front cover.

My contents page was a difficult part of my flat plan for me, this was because the contents page is not usually something I would take notice of when I read a magazine. However after analysing  Kerrang! and Q's contents pages I can see the conventions that are a regularity for this page in the magazine. Something I would like to change about my contents page is adding the masthead to the top right hand corner of the page. This would create a greater sense of continuity and link the contents page with the front cover. I like the use of the blue bar at the bottom of the page which does the same job.

The DPS I am the least happy with. I don't think the layout gives a close up feel towards the artist, so I came up with an idea of having an image of Danni, lying above the article, pointing down towards it. This would not only create a sense of intimacy but it would pull both the pages together also. I would use the same font for the artist name on the DPS as on the front cover this is to show that the artist is the artist and nothing will change that. Columns are a key element for text in any magazine, they must be an equal width and length to meet conventions. I would like to write my interview in question and answer form so that my reader knows exactly what is being said by both the interviewer and interviewee.

Overall I believe that by creating this flat plan I have helped myself to develop my ideas for my magazine and picture my final product. My next step will be to create and carry out the interview for my DPS.

UpFront Flatplan

I have decided to name my music magazine "UpFront". This idea came from the style and personality of an indie rocker. the typical view of an indie rocker is that they don't care; they are not afraid to say what they want to say and there proud of who they are. This means that my magazine title is focusing on the reader entirely as well as giving my readers (who in theory should be mostly female) the confident feminine "be yourself" boost they need.

FRONT COVER:

Details:

 central cut out image is a medium close up of Danni

the cut out image is layered over the masthead

button placed on the right just below the masthead

bar code is positioned in bottom right hand corner

Black background

blue and white text

CONTENTS:

Details:

"contents" header in top left corner

pull quote from DPS story in top right corner

long shot of Danni under the pull quote

Editors not in bottom left hand corner (black writing on white background)

blue bar along bottom of the page to lock in front cover

black background

numbering: blue

text: white

pull quote: white

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD:

Details:

"Danni" large in top left hand corner

stand first (white text) just below Danni

columns for interview on left hand page below stand first

pull quote in top right hand corner (white text)

long shot of Danni with guitar on far right

large image of Danni (medium close up) on inner right page

Analysis Overview

From looking at both Q and Kerrang!, I have picked up on conventions which will help me to create my own music magazine for example the need for continuity with font, colour scheme and layout is a key convention which all magazines follow. As well as looking at elements used in other magazines such as editors letter and buttons. This has been a key part of research as it allows me to see how the "competition" targets the audience I am aiming my magazine at. I have noticed that language is a key element to targeting audience as both magazines talk to the reader with a friendly, informal tone where as initial i thought the language would be formal.

Contents page analysis: Q

For my final magazine analysis I am looking at how Q magazine target their audience by using their contents page. Here we can see the use of continuity and colour scheme clearly as well as how Q push the conventions to give the magazine a sense of individuality.

A good point I picked up on was that the DPS image did not have an eye line directed at thew reader, instead the eye line of the subject was down towards the right hand side (if facing the page) which could connote many things. a few thoughts where it is to represent secrets revealed within the DPS, that the eyeline of the image sugests to look at the rest of the contents page or that the subject is looking at his story on the contents page.

Contents page analysis: Kerrang!

Here I have analysed the contents page of Kerrang! magazine. I plan to use this analysis to get ideas for my own contents page.  Kerrang! use a regular layout for the contents page in each issue of the magazine however the colour scheme on the contents page does not follow the fornt cover or DPS but has the same colourscheme as other issues concerning this page. This could be to create familiarity with the reader around this page so that this page is clear each time the magazine is brought.

Q: double page spread analysis

I also decided to look into Q's double page spread and see how the magazine target their audience. Here they use the typical "answer:Question" format that an interview is usually performed in. This may suggest that the audience they are aiming at like to read and like the experience of almost being there at the interview. The format used suggests an older more sophisticated reader due to its newspaper like look and constant colour scheme. Overall i feel that this DPS is not aesthetically pleasing due to its lack of colour and boldness.

Kerrang!: double page spread analysis

To get and idea of how my opponents target their audience within their magazine, I have analysed Kerrang!s double page spread from the latest issue(1348). My initial reaction to this double page spread was "there is not allot of writing", However when fully looking into the double page spread you can see that its more about the band their image and their message they want to give. There is no "faddy daddy" writing to fill out the page; the story is the story. This suggests the readers want the story upfront and don't want the magazine to beat around the bush, also the impression i got was that the fans are all about the images. This I will keep in mind when i create my magazine.

Target market front cover analysis: Kerrang! and Q

As my target market are most likely to read Kerrang! and Q I have looked into how they present their magazine on the shop shelf, in other words their front covers. This exercise is to help me think what these magazines do successfully in targeting their audience and adapt this to how i can target my own audience.
Here is my Kerrang! analysis: 

 Here is my Q cover analysis:

From this research I can see that my audience like to read more about the bands and artists they like as well as collecting posters of these bands. Keeping things fluent such and colour scheme and fonts brings the cover together and makes it stand out and become noticeable to its readers. Placement and layering is also clearly important as it creates depth to the cover as well as making the story's featured clear for the reader to see.

Market research

 For my market research I created a questionnaire to discover what my target audience would like in a music magazine. Using the information gained from the questionnaire, I can plan and aim my magazine to target and appeal to my audience directly through factors they want and like.  For example I used the questionnaire to find out what colour scheme my target audience would want in a music magazine. To make the results of my questionnaire relevant i aimed to ask people within my target audience to give me there answers.

The first question I asked was "What age group do you fall under?" ; Possible answers are as follows:....12-17,  18-22,  23-28 and 28+. Here are my results in the form of a pie chart:

This shows that my results are relevant to my market research as all the people who took part in the questionnaire fall into my ideal target reader.

The second question I asked was "Which music magazine are you most likely to be interested in reading?". The possible answers to this question are as follows:.....Kerrang!,  Q,  Metal Hammer and Other (meaning the person in question can add another music magazine they read to the list). Here are my results in the form of a pie chart:

This pie chart shows that most of my target audience read music magazines such as Kerrang!. To help me aim my magazine at my target audience correctly, I should analyse Kerrang!'s conventions and methods used in creating there magazine. The results given for other were NME.

The third question was "Do you prefer Reviews or Interviews?". The intention of this question is to find out what my readers would prefer for the story's featured in my music magazine. To display the results from this question, I will use a pie chart. Results are as follows:

This pie chart shows that my target audience would prefer to read an interview rather than a review. This result will help me to decide what i feature in my double page spread.

The fourth question in the questionnaire was "Which colour scheme would attract you to a magazine?", this is a crucial element in deciding how my magazine will look. The results from this particular question are as follows in the form of a pie chart:

The results show that more people prefer a Black, White and Blue colour scheme to the other colour schemes I suggested. Therefor I will use this colour scheme in making my music magazine as it is what my target audience would like to see on the magazine. However the "other" results given where Black, Green and Red as well as Purple, Green and White.

The fifth question was "What would you like to be featured in the magazine?" and the results were as follows:  Fashion  (where to get the latest fashion pieces for bargain prices), Free band and gig posters, promotional CD's, Gig line ups, Gossip on celebs and artist relevant to the magazine type and Other. The results are as follows:

The results show that my target audience would prefer Free Posters to be featured in the music magazine mostly, followed by promotional CD's then Gig line ups. This is a key factor when choosing what to display on my contents page.

The sixth question in my questionnaire was "What artists would you like to see featured in the magazine?". As I left this question for the people to write in answers, I will list the results instead of using a pie chart.

• Paramore
• Green Day
• Kings Of Leon 
• The Killers
• The Kooks
• FallOutBoy
• Avenged Sevenfold
• Muse
• Elliot Minor
• Kaiser Chiefs
• Biffy Clyro
• 3OH!3
• My Chemical Romance
• Blink 182 
• Jonas Brothers 

 These bands will be kept in mind when planning and thinking about what I will feature in my magazine. Also it gives me and idea on what band I should use for my double page spread.

The final question was "Any thoughts on what else you would like to see in a music magazine?". This is for me to see directly what my audience want. This is a crucial element in targeting my audience. the comments/results given are as follows:

• The use and focus of new bands not just existing/successful bands.
• Albums which are soon to be released or have just been released (reviews, band comments)
• FREE STUFF!
• Competitions and prizes to be won.
• Internet exclusive articles and features on particular bands.
• Stickers.
• The latest gossip on artists and what they have been up to outside the world of music.

Market research has helped me to see exactly what my target audience would like from the music magazine I am  going to be creating. This not only means that the people who are likely to but the magazine will be pleased with that magazine, but it also gives me ideas into what they want as well as layout, design and story ideas for my front cover, contents and double page spread.

Reader profile

My name is Chloe-Marie Adams and I am 17 years old. I am a typical teenager who stays in bed until 4 in the afternoon and could quite happily never speak to m y parents. I enjoy listening to loud music as it makes me feel disconnected from the rest of the world. Hanging out in the park with my mates is one way I like to relax and I occasionally dabble in smoking weed with friends. I mostly spend my money on band hoodies and T-shirts as well as Cd's and posters of my favourite bands. I listen to bands such as Kings Of Leon, Avenged Sevenfold, 30 seconds to mars, All Time Low and Funeral for a friends.
 I read music magazines in my spare time because I enjoy reading the interviews of bands I like, what they have to say and finding out more about the artist. generally I wear skinny jeans, converses and a baggy band T-shirt whish i feel reflects my taste in music.  Usually I am the quiet one at college, where I study music technology, but I have a wild side to me. this comes through when I go to gigs and hangout outside of school with people from my own crowd. I enjoy being different from people at school and I thrive on being the only person who wears DC's and band hoodies;
It gives me a sense of individuality.

Research into my target audience

Now that I have decided on who I am targeting as my main audience of my magazine, I will look into the type of magazines out there that my reader may already purchase and indulge in.
 However as there is a gap in the market for my target audience (a rock/indie music magazine aimed at teenage/young adult females), I shall use conventions of the existing rock/indie magazines and twist/mold them to cater and appeal to my target audience as well as supply them with what they expect and want from the magazine.


The following is a presentation showing a little bit on my target audience as well as a few magazine covers from 2 similar magazines to the one I wish to create:

Magazine covers and my target audience

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From looking at both the Kerrang! and the Q cover clear conventions appear. For example, all magazine covers for my target audience use the colour black in the colour scheme. As well as using the same masthead constantly on each front cover. The images on the front cover are similar, however, Q sometimes has an image of a single artist where as Kerrang! uses mostly band images. Both magazines offer perks to buying there magazine such as posters and so on. The magazines use there featured story's, images and colour scheme to attract their target audience.

Research on a music magazine: Kerrang!

My first task is to research into a music magazine with another member of my Media AS group. The magazine we was given to research is Kerrang!; through this research we were given extra knowledge on layout, themes, masthead placement and other key elements which will help me plan and create my own music magazine. As my whole Media AS group performed this initial research task, and presented there research to the class; we were able to see other music magazines and how they target there audience through there layout, design, colour scheme and story's featured.
Magazines covered consisted of:

• Kerreng!
• Q
• Clash
• Top of the Pop's
• NME

and a few others.

Final Kerrang! presentation

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Front Covers
We looked at many different Kerrang! front covers during this research and picked out three different front covers for my PowerPoint presentation. Through these front covers we picked up on the conventions of the magazine. In particular, the placement of the Kerrang! masthead, the font used for masthead, placement of main image on front cover and there usually placement of pull quotes and puffs.


Contents Page
Throughout this research we focused on the conventions of contents pages in music magazines. The Kerrang! contents page  has a constant layout in each magazine using the colours black and yellow. Pull quotes are used in the contents page as well as hook lines and small sneak peaks into the featuring story's. A list of what is in the magazine is generally what the contents page actually is.

Double Page Spread
We were also given our first insight into analysing a double page spread, which we had not previously looked much into. Here we found that a double page spread does not necessarily have to contain two pages of writing or an interview only; the double page spread can also contain a large image on one page which connects or relates to the interview/story.

Overall this research has helped me, as well as the rest of the class in focusing on how music magazines target there audience with there front covers, featured story's and the general conventions which music magazines follow. This will help me and my class when planning developing and creating our music magazines.