Evaluation Q7

7. Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Evaluation Q6

6. What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Q6 from BenShires555

Evaluation Q5

5. How did I attract/address my audience?

Evaluation Q4

4. Who would be the audience for my media product?

This is a link to my target audience planning:
http://benshiresaslevelmedia.blogspot.com/2015/10/readership-profile.html

I believe that my target audience has changed between when I was in the planning stage and now. This is because my magazine, although aimed at teenagers, is now relevant to young adults as well since the colour scheme and fonts I have chosen appeal to older people as well. I also believe that the content of my magazine and it's cover lines would appeal more to a young adult aged 20-30 demographic because I haven't used much strong or slang language that would be more in tune with what the current majority of teenagers use. This means that it is more likely to stand out on a shelf of magazines to a young adult but I do still believe that my magazine has a lot of appeal to teenagers.

With regard to gender my magazine has stayed where I originally intended it to be, which is in the middle. I think that my magazine appeals to both genders because the font choice is consistent with the more masculine sans serif fonts which have no serif ends to them. Meanwhile I believe that my house style is relatively neutral in that there's no black which is what Kerrang! has that appeals to males, and there's also very little in the way of pinks, purples or yellows which are the colours that females stereotypically prefer.

The main audience for my media product would be males and females from all backgrounds in the 15-30 age category. I believe that this is good thing when compared to my original planned target audience which had a narrower age range because it means that my magazine is going to appeal to a bigger variety of people and also a larger number of people.

Evaluation Q3

3. What kind of media institution (Bauer Publishing Group and Time Inc. UK) might distribute my media product and why?

There are two major publishing institutions in the UK and these are Bauer Publishing Group and Time Inc. UK. From researching them I found out that Time Inc. UK have quite a wide variety of magazines that among other things have genres including lifestyle, homeware, sports and fitness. They seem to direct more of their magazines at an older audience and only have a few magazines that would be stereotypically considered to be directed at young adults or teenagers, such as Mouse Breaker

Bauer meanwhile also has a lot of brands, over 570 worldwide, and is the biggest publishing firm in the UK. However I think that it seems to focus more on the entertainment sector of publishing which covers TV listings, music and film, but it does also go into a wider variety of magazines which includes both men's and women's lifestyle. I think that its target audience covers a big percentage of the available audience because it covers magazines like Empire, which has been described as the biggest movie magazine in the world, and motoring magazines like car and bike which are aimed at a predominantly male audience.

I believe that the closest magazine Time Inc. UK that covers the same target audience is NME because although it has a different main genre it is still a music magazine which isn't that dissimilar to mine. This is because NME covers rock and alternative, as well as its focus of Indie music, while my magazine has a main genre of pop but also covers rock as well.

Bauer on the other hand have several magazine brands such as Kerrang! and Q that come close of covering my target audience of teenagers who like pop and rock. This is because Kerrang!'s target audience is teenagers, and it has a similar target audience to my music magazine (Axis). I think that if my magazine went into publishing then its biggest rival would be the Q music magazine because it has exactly the same genres of pop and rock as my music magazine does. So Bauer already have magazines that cater for my genres as well as my target audience but I believe that they don't have a magazine that is similar in both respects which means that they could potentially still decide that they would publish my magazine.

I do however think that my magazine would benefit more from being published by Time Inc. UK because they don't have a magazine that is similar to mine. Therefore I feel that my magazine would be targeting a different audience for them so it would be worth their money to invest in my magazine because there is a gap in their market for my magazine that I think it could take full advantage of and could potentially become a successful music magazine that could well go on to rival Bauer Publishing Group's Kerrang! and Q, as well as other music magazines that target this target audience such as Rock Sound.

Evaluation Q2

2. How does my media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Q1

1. In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Q1 from BenShires555

Magazine Pages

Magazine Pages Development (26/11/2015)

Front Cover:                                                                     Contents Page:

Double Page Feature Article:

Hand-drawn Sketches of Page Designs

Front Cover

Contents Page

Feature Article

Main Feature Artist and Other Artists

House Style

For my magazine there are various aspects of its design that will need to remain consistent throughout it such as font, colour and visual features. These things make up the house style of my magazine.

Font
The font for my masthead will be Impact, since it's clear to read and I think that it would stand out since I don't know of any other magazines that are using this font. The cover lines for my front cover will be a sans-serif font because this is generally considered to be more masculine which is what I believe the majority of my magazine readership will be. The main body text will be in a natural-looking font such as comic sans, which is a sans-serif font and I believe it will help to promote the tone of my magazine which is quite a casual one, which is in-keeping with what I believe my target readership would prefer.

Colour
The colour of my masthead will probably be blue, or maybe red, and the cover lines will be the colour out of those that I don't pick. The main body text will be yellow, or blue if I feel that it looks more professional. I don't want to make any final decisions on colour since I believe that I may change my mind after having taken my photos. The background colour will either be a off-white (dull) colour so that it doesn't come across as too bright, or black because more text will stand out on top of a black background and it also makes my magazine appear more masculine since black generally appeals to teenage boys more.

Visual Features
My main visual features are going to be consistent throughout my magazine and the first of these is that at the bottom of both the contents page and both pages of the double page feature article I will have the month and year of issue, and the page number, under a separation line which separates this information from the rest of the pages. All of my images will have the same formatting of a small shadow off of the edge of the picture. On both my contents page and both of the pages of my feature article I will have 2 main columns, however on my front cover I will have 3 since I want to have cover lines either side of the cover model who will be in the centre of the image.

Reflection on Research
My research on house style in existing music magazines told me that it's important to have a set of colours that are used consistently throughout my magazine. This is to create a sense of familiarity with my magazine that the audience can relate to.

Masthead Designs

I have decided to go with the Snap ITC font (bottom right) because as I said I think that it has a funky and laid-back feel to it, which is relevant to my target readership. I have also decided to stick with this design in terms of it all being in capital letters because I think that this will make it easier to understand, and would enable it to have the ability to create a iconic sense around it better. 

Name

I have decided to go with Axis as the name of my magazine because it's snappy and easy for the audience to remember. I think that it would be very effective because it is only four letters long and so the connotations of this are that it doesn't need to explain itself, like Q. This is supported by by my target audience research since the majority of them preferred 'Axis' over my other title ideas.

Readership Profile of my Magazine

Identification of my Readership Profile - including demographics and psychographics

My target audience has an age range of 12-30 and it's genre is pop but it will also include some rock. The general lifestyle of my target audience is people who are quite well off so it includes pre-dominantly middle-class consumers but some working-class people may also read it. The majority of my audience is mostly students and people who have just entered work since most of my audience will be in the age brackets of either teenagers or young adults.

The reader of my magazine has a good income, which they use to support their other hobbies which include sport but also devoting a reasonable amount of time to their technology-based life including social media and TV. They consume media through these two and also magazines mainly but most of my target readership do use most of the different media types. They also spend a lot of time listening to their favourite music (pop) and most of the readers have been to at least one big gig, a large proportion of them like to attend at least one gig per month in order to meet their love of music, therefore this links to the fact that a lot of my target audience are very interested in their music hobby, and this magazine's intention is to keep them up to date on all the latest tour/gig dates. Their demographics also include their job, which is to be

Some of the adverts in the magazine will therefore be advertising certain artists' gigs. The magazine is going to be an average price since I think that this is the best way to appeal to my target audience; which is that it's not so expensive that the average reader cannot afford it but not so cheap that a massive proportion of it is filled with adverts that the target audience will get bored of and will therefore not be interested in buying the magazine again. Other products that could feature in adverts in the magazine could be technology such as beats headphones and devices such as phones and music players e.g.Apple iPhone. I don't think that clothes would be a good use of the advertising space since I am targeting both genders for my magazine and so it will be difficult to get clothes to appeal to both audiences.

I intend the magazine to have a casual (but at the same time quite informative) style in order to build up a brand image of it being reliable and a good magazine to get into and enjoy, so that the reader thinks it is a worthwhile which means that they are more likely to lend it to friends, or recommend it to friends to buy themselves. Their disposable income will be quite high, between £25-£80 per week, which they spend on music, games and going to the cinema/into town every other week.

The psychographics of my target audience will be mainly explorers with some aspirers and reformers in there also. This is because my magazine will be quite informative and so won't appeal to aspirers quite as much since they would get something based on what it looks like, without thinking as much about what is in it.

The NRS social grades of my audience would be BC1 since the magazine is not professional-looking which is what the average person who comes into the grade A on the social grade would expect. The magazine will have quite a casual tone but it is intended to still present interesting information about the artists and albums/singles that they are talking about, since it's a music magazine.

Character Profile
Liam is a teenager who is entering higher education. He is 17 years old and worked quite hard at school to get the grades that he needed. He goes out with his friends regularly to nightclubs and gigs at least once a month. He has liked music as a hobby but is also starting to consider it as a more serious passion. He buys music on his phone, he does not use CDs any more since he likes to listen to his music on the go.

Initial Ideas

I have decided to go with Idea 3, because I believe that it is the idea that best fits in with what I would be most likely to read and so I can make it using my own feelings more since they are more relevant. I think that there is a gap in the target market for this magazine because it appeals to to a wide range of ages and I hope for it to be gender neutral however if this is not possible then I may have to make it lean to a male audience more.

Although I believe there is a big market for this magazine I think that it will have competition from magazines such as Q because they cover the same genres, however I think that my magazine will stand out because of its colour scheme/house style, but also its informative yet casual style.

House Style of Existing Music Magazines

A magazine's house style is shown through the use of font, colour, language, layout on the pages and visual features such as images. These are often referred to as the conventions of the magazine in that they are consistent not just in one issue, but over all the issues of the same magazine.

Kerrang!
When looking through this music magazine I found that the background is nearly always black, and the other two main colours are white and yellow. As you can see from the front cover of this Kerrang! issue the cover lines are in yellow while the masthead and the rest of the text is in white. This reflects Kerrang!'s house style because it uses black behind all of the white text just to make sure it is all easy to read.

The feature article has a yellow main cover line, which links to the front cover because that also has a yellow main cover line as well so this shows that it is consistent. The main text body is white, which also links to the front cover. Both the front cover and the feature article have big images of artists which shows that it is very important for Kerrang! to link the article/feature article to a face, because it makes them feel like they know them better.

The front cover of the magazine is very busy, since it has lots of images (eight) on one page, but none of the smaller images take away from the dominance of the main cover model artist who is very centralised on the front cover. The other images have white borders around their edges so that they are more separated from background and easier to notice. The font used in the feature article differs from the font on the front cover because the purpose of the pages are different; the front cover is meant to draw the reader in, while the feature article is meant to keep them interested and informed.


The layout of the pages are in some ways similar. The front cover has columns of sorts, 3 bands of information going down, while across the double page spread of the feature article there are columns of the information. The language of the magazine is casual which appeals to its target audience of teenagers more, the use of punctuation in the name of the magazine and the fact that it looks like it's been smashed since it has lines going through it, gives it some extra presence on the page. This also links in with the genre of the magazine, since it's rock which is quite a aggressive genre.


NME (New Musical Express)

The NME magazine has always had the same distinctive masthead, of red text with a white outline, and then a bold black outline around that. This makes it easily recognisable in a shop because it's such a well-known masthead, and in some ways it acts as a logo for the magazine, in a similar way that the Q in a red box of Q magazine does. The masthead is also always in the same place on the front cover, top left corner, which is because it will nearly always be seen in shops if it's in the top left corner.

NME issues always includes cover models on their front covers, normally groups/bands. It looks like they always try to fill it up as much as possible, as if they never have enough space to fit everything they want to include on the front cover. This has the implication on the reader that there is a lot of information in the magazine, which makes the reader want to buy it.

Another feature is the fact that on the front cover of most issues the cover model(s) are looking directly at the camera lens which is direct address. This makes the reader feel more involved, like they are being involved. The use of the colour red for most of the text shows that this is the dominant colour of the house style. The second colour is white which is what makes up some of the cover lines, and is often the background. White is a good background colour because just about any other colour can go on top of it and stand out, as red and black do on the example front cover.

What do Audiences want from a Music Magazine?

A music magazine is a physical thing that you can go into a shop and buy, but if that was it then no one would buy it. In order for a music magazine to sell copies it has to be interesting for the audience. Most of the audience would want it to provide lots of information that they find interesting which means that they can enjoy reading it. Therefore the information must be presented in an easy-to-read way so that the majority of the readership can understand what it is talking about.

It must maintain the same tone throughout the magazine's issues and in most cases it must be consistent. For example, if a rock magazine such as Rock Sound started talking about classical music then it's going to loose most of its target readership who buy it because the majority of them won't want to read about classical music. The genre of a music magazine must reflect the audience that read it. For example Kerrang! focuses on attracting a teenage and young adult audience who like rock music while NME focuses on wider range of genres (alternative, rock and indie) which shows that it is more generalised, so people who buy NME are likely to music overall, but it focuses on alternative, rock and indie, while Kerrang! goes into a lot more detail in the rock genre.


Magazines can not just appeal to their audiences through their content either, they can also do this through use of incentives such as CDs, posters and competitions. Posters are most likely to appeal to teenagers, but as the graph shows, overall the biggest incentive for a reader to buy a magazine would be a CD accompanying the magazine.

The demand of the audience of a music magazine is constantly changing which reflects the fact that most of the information that they provide to readers is now available online. To counteract this music magazines are being made available online as well to reach the bigger audiences again.

This development is specifically focused around the fact that the current young generation are mostly online, spending a lot of their time on social networking sites. A free magazine such as NME therefore stands to benefit the most from this because it doesn't need to restrict who is copying it as much since it doesn't need to charge for every issue it sells. In fact, this would benefit it because it means that its adverts are reaching more people so it makes more money.

The results of my research will help me to plan my own magazine because I now know that posters have a much bigger draw-in factor than competitions so I need to advertise this on my magazine's front cover.

Target Readership of 3 Existing Magazines

Q Magazine (published by Bauer Consumer Media)
The target readership of the Q magazine is younger adults and it appeals to mostly men, in fact about 66% of Q magazine's readership is male. It's thought that about 84% of the readers of Q are 15-44 years old. Therefore this shows Q’s ability to make the magazine appeal to a wide range of ages and as well as the different social groups, which are often referred to using the National Readership Survey (NRS). 

Q does this by featuring currently popular artists such as Adele as well as classic artists like John Lennon, they even feature artists that are deceased as some issues are dedicated to them. For example John Lennon to celebrate his 70th birthday, and Amy Winehouse featured on an issue after her death. The main readership of Q magazine seem to be those who like either alternative or indie music, since these are the two genres that it seems to focus on most.

Having looked at a Q music magazine I noticed that there seem to be a lot of advertisements for gigs which suggests that a lot of its readership would be interested in going to them, or attend them regularly, so this information is important because it tells them about their favourite artist's tour dates so that they can book the tickets.

Rock Sound
This magazine is different from Q because it has a smaller target audience of pre-dominantly men (they make up 72% of Rock Sounds readership). It also has a smaller age range of 15-24 years which shows how much dominance it has in this sector considering how many people read it.

Teenagers would buy the magazine because it is a great way for them to keep in touch with the latest fashion. Staying connected is a very important part of their lives, teenagers value getting constant updates about everything, and the ways readers connect with Rock Sound is print, the internet and social networking. 82% of their audience use at least two of these ways to stay connected with their favourite artists which shows that they are willing to spend time and money on this hobby, which is reflected in the magazine's £3.99 price tag. 

The circulation of the magazine has been steadily decreasing in recent years, as shown in the figures of 16374 being circulated in 2009 which went down to about 15000 in 2010, and then went down by almost another 800 to 14227 in 2011. This shows that the readership is decreasing as more and more people turn to the internet as an easier source of information rather than going out to a shop and buying a magazine.

When comparing the genres of Rock Sound to Q, I found that Rock sound focuses on Rock and Pop Punk, and barely mentions Indie music at all, whereas one of Q magazine's main genres is Indie.





NME - New Musical Express (published by IPC)
NME is a indie-rock magazine that has been running for a very long time in Britain, far longer than Q and Rock Sound. This means that it has been able to build up a large fan base since it was one of the first music magazines, and is still running.


Like Rock Sound NME is very centralised around men, with them making up 69% of it's total readership. As shown in the pie charts, the majority of the readership are ABC1 which is reflected in the fact that over half of the readership of NME are working full time, however, since NME is now free all social groups can get it. Students make up a big proportion (29%) of the readership also, which shows that they are interested in the magazine.

The magazine targets mainly an audience who are very into music and like to know more about the artists. This shows that music plays a big part in their life, since as with Rock Sound they like to go to lots of gigs. Today, NME is free, which is an effort to increase the circulation of the magazine. Therefore even though this would decrease the money they make the magazine can survive off of advertising.

Analysis of Contents Pages

Analysis of Feature Articles

NME - Royal Blood (September 2014)

Layout and Design (connotations of design) 
This feature article is spread over more than the 4 pages and is also referred to on the front cover. These 2 double page spreads are the main part of the feature article though, and they sum up what it is about. The first pages of the feature article are the ones with 'Reign in blood' on the front in white with a red background. However the two artists both feature on both double page spreads as well which leaves the audience in no doubt that they are important since their image is in the magazine more than once. The white background at the top creates a contrast with the red below which gives it a sort of emptiness surrounding the dominant image of the two artists. This means that it draws the reader of the magazine to the image and the text below.


I think that it's interesting that they included such a wide picture featuring the artists in the centre in the second image of them. NME could have done this to give us some more context of where they are before we even needed to start reading the text. The connotations of this are that there are two different ways it could be interpreted, both with value being placed on the use of the colour red, 'blood' makes me think of violence, however this is in the name of the artists (Royal Blood). Therefore I feel that the 'reign in blood' links to the band's name, but I think that the red signifies passion.

Mode of Address and Tone 
The article speaks to the audience directly from the first word, since the firs word is 'You.' This immediately makes the reader of the article want to continue reading since it is done in a friendly, personal manner. It makes the article all about artists, but also refers to other things that link to the story in different ways, such as one of the artists going to watch another band, Muse.

The tone of the article is very passionate about the artists I feel, it's uses a lot of their own words in the text in order to make it feel all the more about them and linked to them. I don't think that it's got a 'excited' one about it, it doesn't use many if any explanation marks, but it is generally very positive and complimentary of Royal Blood.

Presentation of Royal Blood 
The artists are presented to the audience as being cool because they are wearing black leather jackets. This appeals to the target audience of NME because they are young teenagers who are interested in music and so artists need to appeal to to them in order to be successful. They are presented in this way in order to promote them, the article refers to the artists as 'astonishing' which shows that it supports them.

The article promotes them as a band who's popularity is increasing, and it is trying to keep this shift moving, by referring to fact that they made their début in 2012 and just a couple of years on they have made it into one of the biggest and most well known music magazines in the UK. Royal Blood are therefore shown as a band that's making progress but it also paints a picture of their modesty, they were never aiming for this and were certainly never expecting to get to where they are now. The article itself seems to tell the reader of the magazine about a lot of the band's history and how they begun, which makes the reader feel like they know them more.




Q - Ed Sheeran (September 2011)

Layout and Design 
The magazine feature article links to the front cover because one of the cover lines on the front cover refers to the feature article that I have identified. The use of the colour yellow for the cover line could be linking to the fact that Ed Sheeran is ginger. This means that any reader who knows the artists would immediately link the colour of the text to the artist.

The design of the feature article makes reference to Ed Sheeran's earlier life as a singer on the street, as shown in the picture on the double page spread. He is leaning casually against a wall, a connotation of this could be that he is being supported by everyone who's reading this article. The image surrounds the text box, which looks almost like it was added in last, a connotation of this could be that it signifies that the artist's picture is the central part of the article.

Mode of Address and Tone 
Compared to the NME article, this Q article is a lot more detached and doesn't really use any personal pronouns. The article does have a sense of interviewing at times, like he is responding clearly to a certain question certain points. I think that there is a sense of the magazine having a voice because it often talks about Ed Sheeran in the third person but it does also quote things that he has said. This adds a sense of personality to the article rather than it just being about him, it also reflects what he thinks about things. The tone of the article is quite calm I think, it doesn't have any negativity really, but at the same time it isn't very enthusiastic about the subject.

Presentation of Ed Sheeran 
In the article the artist is presented as being quite casual, which is because of the acoustic guitar in the background of the image. A connotation of this could be that he is on the street singing to earn money and fans of him who would read this article would know that this is what he did in fact do up until a few years ago when he found fame, so this photo of him in London reflects his history. This links to the fact that the target audience are people who are likely to already know him and listen to his music which shows that it is appealing to his fans. The target audience are therefore likely to be ABC1 because they are more likely to be up to date with Britain's culture and modern music. The age range ranges from teenagers to adults but I don't think that it applies to middle-aged adults since the demographic of them is that they prefer rock to pop. The purpose of the article is to inform the reader about the artist and their background, offering 'exclusive' information which draws in people to read it.

Analysis of Front Covers

Impact of the Internet on Music Magazines (NME)

NME

In the late 1970’s NME started lose readers because people wanted to move back to reading about music, not politics which is what NME was writing about. At its peak, it sold 750,000 copies per week. In July, that figure had shrunk to 15,000. As of Sep 2015, NME is now free, using increased advertising to fund it. 

1980’s and 1990’s

New layout of magazines, they became more stylish. Magazines such as The Face and Blitz experimented with style and layout. 

2000’s

Video technology has now come out – launch of MTV is the first TV market for music videos, sometimes more money was spent on the video than the single. In 2005 YouTube launched.

Audiences discover new music online – youtube, streaming and social media. Pop culture is now everywhere.

How/why has the internet affected magazines?

On social media it’s easier to find out what the artists are doing, than finding it out through looking at a magazine. Also, the internet is a free, instant platform so the public can find out information/news instantly but a magazine needs to be published so by the time someone reads the magazine the news won’t be new any more.

Pre-internet

• People could find out more about their favourite artists (eg their fashion)
• Or could be introduced to new artists
• General music news
• Information like release dates, tour dates
• Can find out about music brands
• Exclusives – interviews, images
• Can find out how to find and buy merchandise
•  Free gifts, posters – signed posters, music disks,                competitions to win prizes
• A sense of community (that ppl have found in other places    now)
• The charts

   

     

 Today

•          Could be as a souvenir, if you like an artist in it
•          Magazines provide a change, you can’t get distracted by links
•          Nostalgia, Keeping a tradition alive – collectors
•          Has to offer something that the internet can’t eg exclusives
•          Competitions draw ppl in. These could be online so the magazines are using the internet

UK Music Press 1950's, 1970's and present day

History of the Music Press (in the UK)

General: Music magazines include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews and concert reviews.


1950's

• Popular music magazines played a major part of the creation and promotion of the pop and rock music genres in the mid-1950’s. Music of the United Kingdom began to develop in the 1950s; and the UK very quickly become one of the leading centres of popular music in the modern world. By the 1950's forms of more traditional British music, including folk music, brass and silver bands, music hall and dance bands, were already giving way to the influence of American forms of music including jazz, swing and traditional pop, through film and records.
• The significant change of the mid-1950s was the impact of American rock and roll, which provided a new model for performance and recording, based on a youth market.

1970's

• Punk rock developed at around 1974, originally in the USA. The first punk band is usually thought to be the Ramones from 1976. This was taken up in Britain by bands also influenced by the pub rock scene, like the Sex Pistols and The Clash, (especially in London) who became a new musical/cultural movement, blending simple aggressive sounds and lyrics with clothing styles and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
• Punk rock bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraced a do it yourself ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them informally. 1977 saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major international cultural thing. However, by 1978, punk had split up into the wider new wave and post punk movements.

Present Day

• The music press is constantly changing to adapt to what people want. Recently we have seen a revolution in music listening as the radio has gained popularity everywhere and new media and technology was developed to record, reproduce and distribute music.
• Music performances have become increasingly visual with the broadcast and recording of music videos and concerts. Music of all kinds also became increasingly portable. Headphones allow people sitting right next to each other to listen to different pieces of music.
• Magazines such as NME (New Music Express) were huge in the late 20th century however they have lost sat massively to the rise of the internet. This is because why would the majority of the public buy a magazine with information in it that they could quite easily find out for free online.

Evaluation (Prelim Project)

Evaluation of Preliminary Project

My magazine meets page conventions because it is centred around an image of a person, which is what almost all magazines about people do, since it gives it an element of humanity. It has a masthead at the top of the page, which sits just above the head of the sixth former pictured. I used a house style of blue, since the sixth former was wearing a blue suit at the time; and red. I used century gothic as the font for the masthead and segoe UI semibold for the red information which details what is inside the magazine and the blue cover line which helps to make these clear.

I used explosion shapes for the 'plus' and the offer in the top-left hand corner because it gives them a sense of importance and makes the text that is on them stand out more than the pieces of text which don't have shapes behind them, but while they are important they are also extras to the other information that is already on the page. I thought that my colour scheme of blue and red would be good because they contrast with each other a lot but they also stand out from the background of the photo that I used, that and the blue matches the suit of the sixth former, as I've said before.

I believe that my finished front cover is very good since it has a professional title which draws people in, (since it is at the top and in a shop the top is often the only part of a magazine that someone can see because they are all stacked one behind the other) and then enough information to make them want to read more, but not too much that the page looks overcrowded. Also, I think that the photo looks real (natural) which is great because I don't want it to look like it's obvious that it's staged because then it would look like the magazine editors hadn't put any effort into taking the picture. I'm also very pleased that the mise-en-scene fits in very well with the sixth former, and provides a good background for text since it isn't very busy. I used a mix of upper case only, and upper and lower case phases on my front cover to give it a bit of variety, I didn't want it to look like I had stuck with the same type of text for the whole of the front cover.

I believe that I could have managed my time for this project much better since I didn't finish planning the magazine or properly consulting my target audience before I actually had to start creating the actual front cover however saying this the few people that I did speak to felt that my magazine has a good basic genre, everything, so if they don't like one section they might still find some other sections of the magazine interesting.

In hindsight I should have got focused quicker when I was doing the magazine plan and target audience, I spent way too much time reviewing and annotating other typical magazine covers considering it was worth a low amount of marks compared to the front cover. I do not believe that this had a major negative impact on my front cover though, which I spent a good amount of time on also since it is worth the most marks in the task. 

Front Cover (Prelim Project)

Front Cover Design/Layout

Front Cover:

Magazine Plan (Preliminary Project)

1&2.

3. Target Audience (Readership Profile)

The target audience that I am aiming for for my magazine are 16-18 year old males. This is because they are the people who are most likely to read a sixth form magazine since they are sixth formers themselves. Their occupation is therefore being a student since anyone who reads a sixth form magazine is most likely to still be in education. 

The sort of person that I think will buy this magazine are going to be committed to their education, but have time to socialize as well. They use Facebook occasionally but never use twitter. They are interested in technology and engineering, and want to become an electrician or an electrical engineer when they are older. 

Having asked some people what they think of my magazine concept the overall opinion of it has been positive. Some say that they would like to see useful information in it rather than making it about how successful some schools are. Therefore I don't intend on putting the school or university league tables like I originally considered. Also, taking advice from a few sixth formers who I talked to they suggested that I should aim it at both genders rather than just at a male audience, which means that it will give me a broader audience. Most of my audience will use social media so I think that it would be a good idea to use this platform to promote it. 

4. Magazine Plan -
Name
Example names could be Teen's Survival Handbook/Magazine, this name has a sense humour about it however i think that a disadvantage of it is that it gives of a negative feeling towards education which is not the aim of my magazine. Another name could be OverView, it is short and so easier to remember, I also think that it gives it a sense of professionalism because although it is magazine for sixth formers it still needs to look clean and professional.

Slogan
The slogan for my magazine will be quite short and simple but i hope it will be catchy so that people who see it might remember it. However, I am considering not including a slogan at all since it will only take up more of the page. In addition to this, the photo that I am going to go for will have little space at the top for a masthead and a slogan, and I don't think that it would work if I put a slogan anywhere other than directly below the masthead.

Colour Scheme and Fonts
The font I will use will probably be mix of bold easy-to-read lettering for the title and a simple font for the cover lines and other text. I am definitely looking at blue as the main colour, and red or maybe white as the secondary colour. I don't think green would work in combination with the darkish blue I am going for because they are too similar. This will be my house style that will run throughout the magazine.