Main Coursework - Photos

For my magazine i took a wide range of different photo's . I made lots of differnt choices when deciding the mise-en-scene to create the final imgaes. In the end for the picture on the front cover of my magazine, i chose to go for a more homely feel for the girlband to have the pictures taken, i came to this decision as i feel it connects more to the audience and makes them feel more like the people they idolise. When it came to deciding what they shoudl wear in the images i went for a party, dressed up look with nice clothes, make up and nice hair i feel this works well as young teenage girls are intrested in make up, nice clothes and having there hair done. I think the elements included in the picture connects to the genre of the magazine as it includes girly thinks and lots of bright colours which ties in with the main theme of the magazine. I also used many other pictures throughout my magzine, on the front cover i used a picuture of 'Josh Hillman' i think this works well as young girls are intrested in him and staright away on the front cover you can see he is on it and will make people want to buy the magazine. I then used a picture of some make up and accesories this also attracts the target audience and appeals to them as its what they want to be reading about.

Main Coursework - Flat plans

This post includes the images of my flatplans.

This was my first idea for my front cover. I have used bright and feminine colours which conforms conventions of existing magazines. My masthead uses the font I orgianlly talked about it is bright , bold, and fun which attracts the target audiunce which appeals to a younger group of people.

My main sell is about the 'Candy Girls' which is a girl band I have invented, which is also the main image on the front cover of my magazine. I have used other sells such as top ten beauty secrets and and inside article with ' josh hillman' the the boyband heartrob, these all tie in with the theme of the magazine which appeals to the teenage girl audience.

I have used persuasive language and standout words on my magazine cover to, dramatise the stories and make the audience want to keep on reading.

For my contents page i used a big bold mast head to clearly state it is the contents page and so the audience can clearly find what there looking for without to much reading.My contents page includes a film strip of images which gives it a more fun exciting feel to it. The images in the film strip are labelled with numbers so they reader can easily find what they are looking without to much reading. The contents page of my magazine includes and editorial note from the editor of the magazine, this makes the reader feel more connected to the people writing the magazine. I have used a range of images and bright colours on my contents page to keep the on going theme of pop fun!

My design for the double page spread is all about ' Josh Hillman'. I again use bright colours and images of ' love hearts' to connect to the audience reading the magazine and give it a more personal feel using words like ' you ' this makes a connection to the reader as if 'josh hillman' is personal to them. I have the main masthead which is in large bold text so you see what its about staright away. I have a large range of images surrounding the main body texts. I also use pull quotes surrounding the texts which makes people read that and the go on to read more.

Main Coursework - Fonts

When it came to deciding the fonts for my magazine i researched and looked through a number of different magzine within the same genre of my magazine to look at the writing styles and fonts to see what fonts work and appeal to my target audience. When i got an idea of the style of font i wanted to use for my magazine i went on to the website www.dafont.com i looked through it and gathered a few fonts that would work for my magzine, when i had a few i put them against the images i had, to then decide which one worked the best for my magazine. The font that i finally chose appeals to my target audience in a number of ways; it has a large bubble affect and has a glitter affect which appeals to the audience and links to the idea of 'celbs and glitz & glamour'. The font is in a bright pink colour i chose this colour because when i did my target audience research you could see the number of girls that buy this genre of magazine is alot higher than the number of boys, and pink is genrally a popular coulour for young teenage girls. In comparison to the other magazine's i analysed in my earlier blog which also used bold colours , i chose to go for a more 'girly' look. I think this works well for my magzine especially with the particular issue as it includes alot of stories aimed at girls. Over all the font i chose fits in well with my magzine and hopefully will make the overall look complete.

Main Coursework - Analysis of existing magazines

The two magazines I am analysing are Smash Hits and Top of the Pops. The layout and design of these magazines are both very similar and they are both targeting at the same audience. The use of colour on both covers of the magazines are within a range of many bright bold colours, both of them have a bold colour and repeat it , this is because readers like the repetition and things to be kept the same. There are things that differ between the two covers though, for example Top of the pops magazine has a more girly appeal using pink and purple and a glittery font , from this and the target audience research I did you can tell Top of the pops is aimed more at girls. From the research you can also see more girls read Smash hits magazine but could possibly be aimed more at boys than Top of the Pops and it uses colours like yellow, black, blue and pink.
On the two magazine covers there is many different font styles instead of just one or two, this makes the magazine appear full of stories and makes you look and focus on all the different ad’s and stories instead of just the one.
The use of language in both magazines is quite simple with just short sentences and words to tell you about things, this is because it is aimed at a slightly younger audience, who would be interested more in images and short texts.
Both the magazine covers have a large use of images they both have a main image usually taking up the whole page, which will be of a pop star or celebrity that the target audience would look up to. They both also use smaller images normally one with every other story they include on the cover this it to attract the audience to look at the text and read more inside.
The contents page’s of both magazine are also quite similar using bold texts, bright colours and a large use of images, these all appeal to the reader as it is more about the images and colour than the actual text they want to read.

At the top of the contents page t says, ‘Check all this out!’ It is in a bold, noticeable font and because it is in informal language it appeal to a younger audience. The Editors letter is in the top left hand corner of the page and it consists of what is going on in the issue and artists that feature in the magazine.
There are three images of celebrities surrounding the Editor’s letter and the celebrities pictured are involved in the issue. The page number they are on is shown beside the image to advertise the story. The other stories and features are listed in a smaller font at the bottom in another section. The main colours used in the contents page are pink and orange. These are used because they are popular colours with Smash Hits target market.

The first thing the reader notices when reading the double page spread interview is the bright coloured background. The majority of the first page is covered by a photo of the featured celebrity. There are three other images of the celebrity splashed across the pages. The main title is spread along the centre. It is big and in a bold, clear font. The text is a certain so it matches the background but it is on a bright coloured banner so that it stands out.
Like the two other double page spreads I have analysed, there is smaller text that accompanies the title, that gives a brief introduction and explanation of what is going on in the text. The main text is split into different sections to make it easier to understand. The language used throughout the interview is simple and informal, so that it is easily understood and slang words and phrases are used to appeal to the target market.

Finally by analysing the features of Smash Hits and top of the pops magazine I can see how its denotations, connotations, ideologies, codes and conventions are kept constant throughout the issue because they represent the same image of a music magazine aimed at young teenage females.

Overall the design it tailored to meet the needs of the target audience in many ways. The use of colour, text and images attracts the audience to look at the magazine in the first place, then the use of celebrity images attracts the readers to actually read the magazine as they want to read about the people they look up to.

Main Coursework- Target audience

I researched the target audience for Top of The Pops magazine. The results show:

62 000 people in ABC 1 class read the magazine, 107 000 people in C2DE class read it, 139 000 people aged 15 -44 read it, 30 0o0 of over 45 year olds read the magazine. The total amount of men that read the magazie is 47 000 and the total amount of women that read it is 122 000. The overall total amount of people reading the magazine is 169 000. I found this information from the website www.nrs.co.uk

These results show us a wide range of different people are intrested in Pop music which tells us it has a large target audience.

Smash Hits magazine was published fortnightly by EMAP. When you look at the front cover of the magazine, the viewer can immediately recognise that the magazine is aimed mainly at females. This is due to its denotations and connotations.

The representation of the magazine is that it is made to look fun and interesting by its bright, bold colours, fonts and images. The audience for Smash Hits is quite mainstream because it appeals to most young teenage females. The specific targeting could be identified by the masthead of Smash Hits because it is bright pink which symbolises that is made for females.

These results show us a wide range of different people are intrested in Pop music which tells us it has a large target audience. This information tells us the magazine is predomently a downgraded publication , read by a younger audience who are mostly females.

Main coursework introduction

My task is create a music magazine. The genre o9f magazine i have decided to focus on is pop. In this task i will be able to show a development of skills form the preliminary task.

Evaluation

I think my finished magazine cover has been quite successful, i think i reached the aim i was looking for. I am please with the use of colour and images. However when it completed it, coloured lines appeared over the image, i don't know where they came from but i will make sure this does not happen when completing my music magazine.












I am pleased with the layout of my contents page but i feel i should have used a wider range of colours.

Over all i think it does appeal to my target audience. I asked a few people within the target audience and they said they would pick the magazine , however with maybe more images and colour to attract them to pick it in the first place.