The brief for my media coursework was to create a front page, contents page and double page spread which had to include images which I had taken myself. For me to be able do this, I researched various magazine conventions on all of the pages which I had to produce. I identified what I had to do in order to make the conventions of my magazine effective to my target audience. The majority of the music magazines which I researched all included images and text which represented the magazines genre and target audience. To ensure my music magazine productions reflected my target audience, I gathered all of the conventions of a similar music magazine of the same genre as mine and used them as a starting point for my coursework. I attempted to make my magazine effective for my audience by trying to make it look like other magazines in forms of it’s conventions and the ways in which I used my text and images.
I created a set target audience for my music magazine for people between the ages of 16 and 24. I did this because I felt as though it would be ideal for me to make a target audience of a similar age to me because I could relate as to what they would expect to be in a music magazine. I did things to differentiate my magazine from magazines with a higher age target audience, for example, less informal language compared to magazines like ‘Q.’ Another factor which contributes to my target audience was the genre of music represented in the magazine. My genre was ‘Indie/Alternative.’ I found this the ideal genre by doing a poll which was posted on my blog which gave people the opportunity to vote on which genre they would prefer my magazine to be. My front cover, my contents page and double page spread was fairly basic and contained nothing too fancy because fancy would represent someone which an audience of a higher class would purchase. I set a particular colour scheme, and I did this to benefit my target audience because I didn’t want them to find it hard to find their way around my pages but I wanted to use some conventions which made the magazine appeal to them. For my front cover, I got my friend to dress in fairly ‘shabby’ clothes which represents how my ideal target audience would dress due to the current fashion. This allowed the magazine to appeal to my target audience if the model on the front page has a similar or inspirational dress sense to them.
The layout of my magazine represented my overall target audience and the layout fitted in well with the layout and shot of my image. I placed my headline, sub headlines and my puff around my model on the front cover, which prevented my magazine cover from looking too overcrowded. The colour scheme on my front cover fitted in well with the name of the magazine, ‘BMM,’ which stands for ‘British Music Magazine.’ I also used the union jack flag as my background for my masthead, to allow the audience to know it’s a British magazine, with British Music. I found that this convention worked because on my audience feedback, many people stated that they realised the magazine was British due to the colours and flag which was used, before they had chance to look at the full magazine name. I used the colours, navy blue, red and white in order for my conventions to fit together. The background of my image is a brick wall, which allows all text and images to stand out to my audience. As every other magazine, my main focus on the front cover is the image due to the ext being built around her, and also her being the most space taking part of the cover. The camera which I used was only digital, so to improve my images I could have used a professional camera to achieve a better quality image, therefore improving the overall quality and professionalism or my magazine. I used a puff in the top right hand corner of my magazine to attract consumers to buying the product. My puff read ‘ WIN FREE TICKETS TO A GIG OF YOUR CHOICE! WORTH £50!*’ I put the text in capital letters so that when the consumer first looks at the magazine, that is one of the main places in which the attention if drawn too, to encourage purchasing of the magazine, increasing overall sales. The title on my cover also stands out to the target audience because it has been put in a different font from the rest of the cover and is also of a bigger size. My main headline on the front cover has been put in a bigger font than the rest of the text, due to it being the main article within the magazine. The name of the artist in the article has also been placed in a different font, which is again to attract attention as to who the article on. If the artist in the article was who everyone wants to know about or the latest most famous celebrity, they may instantly buy the magazine just because they’ve seen the artist name on the magazine, and this again may increase magazine sales. I found that the different font and larger size of the name of the artist did attract a lot of attention when I collected audience feedback because the majority of the audience stated that the first thing which they noticed was who was featured within the magazine.
My contents page uses popular conventions typically used by other magazine producers. In placed my masthead at the very top left hand corner of my magazine, which is typically the area which many other magazines place their mastheads. The images which I used on my contents page have been used to attract attention to certain articles within the magazine, one is my double page spread. My ‘Recent News’ section is in the bottom left, and this is where the majority of the articles are described and page numbers are stated. I have also used an image as part of one of the sections in the recent news to make my magazine look more attractive, rather than just text. I also made a small section on a ‘Letter from the editor’ which allows the audience to relate to the magazine. My main article in the magazine has not been placed along with the other articles in ‘Recent News’ because I wanted to make it stand out from the rest, which is why I used an image taking up a large part of the page and used very few images on this page. As a area that attention is drawn to, it was want the audience to read that certain article the most. The colour scheme used on this page is the same throughout the whole of my products, so that a particular theme is carried out. I think this worked well because in my audience feedback, a lot of the audience commented on how the colour scheme throughout my magazine works well with the name of my magazine. I think I could have used a couple more images on my contents page because it will have made my page look more full with information, rather than it being perfectly set out.
My double page spread was the page which I think I could have improved the most. I don’t think it follows the typical conventions of a double page spread in a magazine and I think my images could have been better produced than they have been. I used the particular font I did for my headline because it’s a old school style font, which relates to the article. I set out my images down the right hand side, almost like they had just been put there, because it adds to the feel of it being produced by a student, relating to the subject on the article of school. The way I set my actual article out follows the conventions of a typical double page spread because the majority of magazines set out their writing the same style as mine. I found that the layout of my page worked very well, which I found from my audience feedback. A large number of the audience feedback which I collected showed that my layout plays a major role in making my page look like a typical music magazine double page spread.
Overall, I think the way in which I produced my magazine was very effective to my target audience because it follows the typical conventions of magazine which have a similar target audience to mine. I think many things within the production of my magazine could have been done better, for example the background colour of my double page spread. If I had spent more time on this particular page, I think it would have been a very effective page, but due to lack of time this was not possible. I also think if I had used a professional camera, my images would have been a lot better quality and would have made my magazine more professional looking overall.
