Mini case study

Name ideas for my music magazine

Target audeince

For my music magazine i intend for my target audience to be between the age of 16 and 25. i want to primarily target females audience because from my research i have found out that most hip hop and R&B music magazines mostly target male audience. The reason i chose this age group is because my magazine will mostly feature new artist and this age group is most likely keen on discovering new artists and support them on social media. From my research i have found out that music magazines are not the most purchased, taking this into an account i will try to include things that are on other magazine such as 'Gossip' in my magazine. This will help me to attract the young female audience as they are more interested to find out  about the artist and celebrities they love even though its likely to be untrue.


Interest- instagram, iphones, dressing p, twitter, shopping, having fun, music , instruments, clothing, piercings, tattoos, fashion and so on.

Dress Sense- urban, sometimes wears designer clothes, jeans, shorts, baggy jeans, leather jacket, jewellery.

target audience profile.

This is kelly, she is 18 and is in her last year of college. she is a full time student in london leyton sixth form college. she enjoys listening to female rappers such us nicki minaj, iggy azalea, tink and more. she likes listening to female rappers because she wants to be more like them as they are very inspiring and show variety of things from a female's points of view and tell their story. she also likes to go out on saturdays and have fun with her friends as well as going on social media in her free time. her favorite TV shows are bad girls club and Love & Hip Hop. 

GENRE

The genre of music i have aimed my music magaine towards is Hip Hop and R&B. The reason i have chosen these genres is because i enjoy these type of music which i believe will help me with my magazine as i am already aware of the conventions of these genres. I also chose these genres because through my research i have found out that these genres are very popular in the magazine world, this is very useful as its more likely people will read my magazine when they see the type genre i am presenting. In my research i also found out that hip hop and R&B are very popular within the social media with teenagers and young adults,so therefore my music magazine would become more pouplar than say a magazine based on classical music. Just to make sure i have went up to several people in college and have asked what type of genre they would lke to see in a magazine,  60% have said Hip Hop and R&B, 20% have said pop and dubstep and the rest have said Rock/ Indie. this servay has helped me a lot to decide what type of genre i should do aswell as what type of audience to target.

Newsstand and distribution

Newsstand and distribution

 This is the magazine newsstand in WHSmith

It contains a large variety of music magazine covering most genres. The way it is displayed is very important as they are stacked on top of each other but yet the most popular magazines are at the front so the consumers do not have to search for them. However, the less known magazines can dis-benefit from this as they are placed at the back with only the masthead and teaser visible sometimes only masthead. Although this doesn’t mean the reader won’t pick it up, it does mean there is less chance of it being sold than the magazines at the front.

Another thing I have noticed is the placement of the cover lines varies from the left third to the right third, and sometimes even in the middle of the cover. The placement depends on the main image, which is different in every cover.

Role of the Distributor 

A Distributor works on behalf of a magazine publisher whereby a newspaper tends to both publisher and manages its distribution to reach the market.

Each distributor has many publishers and the key role of a distributor is to provide their publisher clients, the publishers a route to market for their magazines and through economies of scale is able to do this at a cost that is far lower than should a publisher want to undertake the task for them.

There are 4 primary distributors in the UK: Comag, Frontline, Market force and Seymour in addition there are a number of smaller ones who tend to look after smaller circulation titles.

In the main, the 3 primary distributors have dedicated publisher clients that in essence own the distributors.

The distribution method is used in most shop, newsagents and supermarkets such as WH smith. The distributer is giving a set number of magazines to retail outlets (e.g. 20 copies). If less than the set number (e.g. 15) the rest of the magazine (5) is returned. This is very wasteful expensive for the distributor, because many copies are going to wasteful, without profit for the distributor.                                                                                   

Pactice using Illustrator

Today's lesson was all about making out music magazine masthead. This is my first attempt making  the masthead for my music magazine using illustrator. i have't decided what i'm going to call my magazine yet, which is why i practiced using illustrator with the title 'masthead'. our teacher showed us different ways of making our title appealing and suitable for our magazine. for example using colours that we can't find on illustrator from abode color. This site allows you to choose different colors and apply it on the letter we wanted to put it in,. it also tell you what colors go well together and what colours don't, this prevents you from making a mistake. The teacher also showed us other creative things we can do to our title to make it look appealing to our audience, using this knowledge i will be making my masthead on Illustrator.

college magazine evaluation

The task was to make our own college magazine using our research and find outs of other magazines and what made them successful. I created a front magazine cover and contents page for my college magazine and i would say it was successful. However there were certain things i would have changed if i had to do it again.

Process

front cover
After practicing using photoshop by creating a quick front cover, i went on to make my own front cover for my college magazine starting with the main image. Using my Iphone i took several pictures of two possible cover stars sepetately.I then chose the best four, two for each cover star and went on to get feedback from other students to help me choose one image as i only needed one image for my front cover. Even though  i had many options of pictures for my front magazine, the image i used stood out for me and others the most because it was very suitable as it was fit enough to be in the center as much as it was perfect to show off the college in a positive way. Using the image as an inspiration for my text color, i used dark green for my masthead which perfectly matched the trees behind the model and also stood out very well as it was the only color used in the entire front cover. . The fact it was big and bold also helpd the masthead to stand out a lot more and fit the front cover really well.


Contents page
Before making my contents page i also practised using indesign by recreating double page spread (DPS) article from XXL magazine.This has helped learn how to use Indesign creatively and effectively. Using this skills i went on to create mine, starting with taking pictures. since it is college magazine i had to find good locations in college to take my pictures, and the pictures that i have used on my final contnts page shows the college in a positive light and perfectly relates to the cover lines that i have created.I then put my masthead in big and bold letters yet a simple font, this gives it a more serious tone but yet very simple to read.After making my masthead i added the two pictures to show a preview of what they will be reading about and also added text that goes well with the pictures.

what went well? 

frontcover and contents page
I think  a lot of things went well with both my front cover and contents page, this includes the photography, page layout and the colour scheme. Although all the pictures were taken on a mobile phone i think all of them are very suitable pictures for my magazine. I didn't need to edit and manipulate none of these pictures to make them look magazine worthy, they had good quality with good lighting and nice background.
The main colors that i used for my front cover are green, black and gray,  which i think works well together. All of these three colors that i have used on my masthead and cover lines are purposely created to match the main image on my front cover and the colors init, which is a perfect way to draw audience. I used this same colour scheme for my contents page so it wouldn't look like the front cover and the contents page are from two different magazines.
I believe the layout of my magazine also came together well. It isn't too spaced out and isn't too crowded either, this can help the readers organize their head on what to read next with out getting confused.

Improvements.

Front cover
In the process of making my front cover i faced some difficulties such as, making the texts appealing to the audience eyes and eye catching enough for them to purchase it.Therefore i had to rewrite my cover lines to make them interesting and relatable for the targeted audience. I also have made many improvements to my front cover and corrected mistakes such as, adding gutters after i already edited the image and added the masthead which was a bit difficult as i had to rearrange everything that i already did. I also added more appealing coverlines and also changed the colors for the cover lines many times until i found the right one.

Contents page
When starting to create my contents page on indesign i started with double page spread, however as i went along i realised that there was too much negative space so therefore i had to change it to just one page. Another improvement that i did on my contents page was the text's color, after releasing the color black is plain and boring i decide to change it by making more exciting and making it match to my front cover.

peer evaluation

Front Cover

Fatsss E- I like how your masthead is behind my head, and I also like where you have placed your cover lines. In addition, your use of puff/flash is really good.

Kefentse SELAH-Your front cover is very good. I like the way that the information is laid out as makes the front cover look very professional. Also, I like the fact that your image goes with the colour scheme of your front cover.

Contents Page

Mark Rivas-The images used for the contents page are good quality and reflect the magazine well, however the contents page is very empty because there is no colour and it looks like there is a lot of empty space. Also the layout of the pictures could be more organised

Fatsss E-I really like how you added a green glow to your text because it makes it stand out and it matches the colour scheme. To improve you could have had your page numbers in order.

final contents page

This is the improved and final version of my final contents page. As i said previously i have made it just one page because it looks more suitable for my magazine.

progress of contents page

i am still in the process of making my contents page.this was meant to be my final contents page, however after getting feed back from my class mates i am thinking of changing the color of the coverlines to green to match my front cover and make it a bit more exciting.

I am currently designing my contents page, so far it looks good, however to improve it i am thinking to do just one page as there would be a lot of negative space if don't.

In today's lesson i went out and took pictures for my contents page. I have chosen these images as they are very suitable for the page and also will show how the college is effectively.

Final college magazine front cover

I am currently fixing the mistakes i made yesterday, like not adding the gutters and not putting everything inside the lines (gutters). i am also thinking to zoom in the main picture so i can have my main model in the center and have more space for my cover lines.

working progress

In today's lesson i have edited the main image of the front cover and added the masthead. I have chosen an effective colour for the masthead so it can match the image. in the next lesson i will be adding gutters, which i was meant to do when i started it, and i will be adding cover lines, subhead and barcode

College magazine plan.

This is a plan for my college magazine front cover so it can help me keep everything in check. However the main image and some of the layouts will be changing as i go along.

potential front cover images

In today's lesson i went out to take pictures for the front cover of my magazine. These are the pictures that i have taken , however i haven't yet chosen which one would be suitable for my college magazine front cover.

Magazine front cover practice.

Magazine front cover practice using photoshop.

I have used photoshop to create this front cover, this has helped me learn how to use photoshop effectively  as i will be using photoshop a lot more in future.