Design Work; Preliminary and Main Task

Main Task; Front Cover


Contents Page


Double Page Spread



Preliminary Task; Front Cover


Contents Page

Evaluation

Question 1)




The codes and conventions are followed as all magazine looked at had followed the codes and conventions of music magazines. All the magazines that i had looked at where successful so i thought that i was best following the codes and conventions in order for my magazine to be successful. Also i thought it would be easier for my target audience to recognise that my magazine was an indie magazine. Following the codes and conventions i think that my magazine will be successful as it looks and fits in with all of the other music magazines but still looks different to magazines already existant, so my magazine should still stand out and attract my target audience.

Question 2)

Question 3)

Question 4)

Name: Charlotte Edwards
Age: 16
Occupation: school
Interests: i have many interests i love to go to music festivals i previously attained Leeds festival last year and this year i am attending Wakestock. My friends are one of my main priorities i love them there always there for me so i like to spend time them. i like to go and watch movies and like to keep up to date with all the current charts. i am really into reading gig reviews and i watch mates perform as bands and help them with their music.

Name: Charley Kenyon
Age: 16
Occupation: school
Interests: i like to listen to a variety of indie artists/ bands my favourite though is the Arctic Monkeys. I like going to gigs the feeling and the atmosphere when your at one is amazing! i like going to the festivals i have been to a few over the years and i liked them all thats why i am continueing my presence at them and this year i am attending Wakestock with friends. Other interests are clothes, my hair, bags and FRIENDS i love hanging about with my friends having girly nights and just being with them.

Question 5)
I attracted my audience by looking back at my questionnaire results as that told me exactly what my target audience wanted. I used those answers to develop ideas which i thought would attract my target audience. I attracted my target audince through different ways-
• Colour- I used colours that reflected my genre and that my target audience wanted so that i knew it would attract them.
• Main image- I used an unsigned indie band as the main image as my target audience wanted to see bands on the front cover rather than artists. the band looked serious but fun giving them an edge which would attract my target audience and set the tine for my media product.
• Layout- It is serious but eye-catching which makes my target audience want to pick it up and read it.
• Content- My media products content is different from any of its kind as not only does my media product include gig reviews, gig dates, gossip, music updates, festival dates and information about them which is everything that my target audience wanted to feature in my media product but i have something extra i have information on unsigned bands and artists. My market research helped me a lot to attract my target answers as it contained all the answers to what they wanted.
• My focus- I have attracted my target audience because my focus is different to other music magazines, the established music magazines focus on bands and artists that are signed and are big but my media product mainly focuses on unsigned bands but also signed bands. This makes my media product stand out to the rest attracting my target audience.

I mainly attracted my target audience by looking back at my market research which contained the answers for my magazine to be successful and attract my target audience all i had to do was make mine stand out from the others which was why my focus was different to others.


Question 6)
From producing my preliminary task to my main task i have found that the more i use the technologies and programs the easier they get to use but they are stil hard to use. During producing my preliminary exercise i found it very hard to understand how to use all the media programs such as Quark and Photoshop but i then found it easier as i started to construct my main task. I think that shows in my final piece. The more i used the programs i developed my skills on them and asking questions on how to do things certainly helped. As i started to produce my main task i found that the programs got easier to use and my photography skills got better too as i looked for what was already infront of me making sure that i had the correct mis-en-scene and that the lighting was alright for the camera. I found that Quark was an easier program to use rather than Photoshop i found it more straight froward and i progressed it that well. Once looking at other media proucts and than at my own in Quark i found the guide lines a lot of help to show me guidence of where to place my photographs to make it look more realistic.

Question 7)

Front Cover

contents page

double page spread

screen grabs of front cover in progress

modified front cover

front cover image in changed format

pictures in original format for indie magazine

Double Page Spread; First Draft

The unsigned Night Collars is an indie band of four lads. They formed in the North West and are desperate to try and win your hearts to vote for them to become signed by the White Label record label in Manchester. Many people know of the North West from the famous band The Beatles, the Night Collars may not yet be as big as The Beatles but they sure can be in time.

The Night Collars formed their band a few years ago in school, after messing around in their music lessons producing sounds of their own, they had realised that together they were quite good so they came together and formed there band. Not all the original members still feature in the band but two of them do! Niall Farrington and Jake Wright. They have picked up a few new members along the way and dropped a few, but now featuring the Night Collars are Lee Rafferty and Daniel Scully. Together they make mind-blowing music compositions. They started of as a band as just a fun thing to keep them occupied doing covers instead of hanging around the streets like all of there other mates did but the phase of it being just for fun soon dropped and they were inspired to try and make it big by The Editors. After seeing The Editors and a few other bands at gigs, the Night Collars wanted a taste of what it was like to be up in front of people performing. Of cause they started of performing only covers but then on drunken nights Niall and Jake started to create lyrics that although weren’t good, were actually rather good. After seeing themselves on the mornings after their drunken nights on their friend’s phones singing, they decided that they would sing their own songs that they had created and give them a few little changes to make them more serious and creative. After realising that they could produce some good lyrics and backing tracks behind it they started to create them more often and sing them in front of their mates to get their opinions. So when they started gigging the only songs they sung were covers and eventually started to sing their own songs. ‘We get this amazing buzz when were onstage! Now we crave the attention and that feeling we get when were up there. If we had it our way we would be signed now and performing our songs to the world everyday, touring, and gigging. We love our fans that we have and we love to perform to them and give them a performance never to forget! We never ever know what is going to happen at any of our performances because anything can happen; we don’t plan them we don’t even plan the songs to sing. It depends on the mood of our fans on what we sing. It would mean everything to us if we could be signed by a record label that’s why

we have come to show you, us, the Night Collars. It sounds big headed but we have been told it that we have an extra-ordinary talent I think that one day we could be as big as The Beatles but only time can tell. We don’t think that we will have a chance like this again not for a long time. So for us this is our chance. Our only chance!’

You can experience their mind blowing songs by visiting their blog and listening to their playlists. You can also vote for them to be signed by White Label at our website www.therise.co.uk.

sketch front cover

sketch contents page

Sketch of double page spread

Research-Q Magazine

Research
Q is a music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom, with a circulation of 130,179 as of June 2007.[1]
Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology. Q was first published in 1986, setting itself apart from much of the other music press with monthly production and higher standards of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called Cue (as in the sense of cueing a record, ready to play), but the name was changed so that it wouldn't be mistaken for a snooker magazine. Another reason, cited in Q's 200th edition, is that a single-letter title would be more prominent on newsstands. The magazine has an extensive review section, featuring: new releases (music), reissues (music), music compilations, film and live concert reviews, as well as radio and television reviews. It uses a star rating system from one to five stars; indeed, the rating an album receives in Q is often added to print and television advertising for the album in the UK and Ireland. It also compiles a list of approximately eight albums, which it classes as the best new releases of the last three months. Much of the magazine is devoted to interviews with popular musical artists.

Research; NME

The New Musical Express (better known as the NME) is a popular music magazine in the United Kingdom which has been published weekly since March 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, which first appeared in the 14 November 1952 edition. The magazine's commercial heyday was during the 1970s when it became the best-selling British music magazine. During the period 1972 to 1976 it was particularly associated with gonzo journalism, then became closely associated with punk rock through the writing of Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill.
The magazine is now associated with indie rock. The paper's first issue was published on 7 March 1952 after the Musical Express and Accordion Weekly was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn, and relaunched as the New Musical Express. It was initially published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint. On 14 November 1952, taking its cue from the U.S. magazine Billboard, it created the first UK Singles Chart. The first of these was, in contrast to more recent charts, a top twelve sourced by the magazine itself from sales in regional stores around the UK. The first number one was "Here In My Heart" by Al Martino.

the front covers of NME all reflect the mood an genre of magazine. They make it clear who they are targeting their magazine at





Cover featuring Patti Smith for the week of 21st February 1976




Blur vs. Oasis issue 12 August 1995.




Cover featuring Pete Doherty for the week of 26 July 2006.