Monday, 2 February 2009


26th January – 30th January


This week we began the evaluation of our music magazine. To begin I created an “evaluation” section in my PowerPoint. To show that I had followed the codes and conventions of a music magazine I annotated my front cover, contents page and double page spread.

19th January – 23rd January


This week I began creating questionnaires for my audience research. Once I had compiled the questionnaires I began handing them out and retrieving feedback on my magazine. I handed out 10 of the following questionnaires:

Questionnaire
Please could you fill out this short questionnaire in order to give me feedback for AS media coursework, thank you.
Does my front cover appeal to you? IF so what parts of it?
Do the colour schemes I have used appeal to you?
Please circle Yes No
Do you think the images on the contents page portray metal music?
Please circle Yes No
Do you think the language I have used in my article is appropriate? If not, what could I change?
Do you find the featured and regular content appealing? (see contents page)
Please circle Yes No
What improvements do you think I could make to my music magazine?
12th January – 16th January

This week I created my contents page in Quark Express. I used my previous designs and filled in my regular, featured and “on the cover” content. I then edited my images in Photoshop and imported them into Quark. I took time to work out appropriate positioning for my images and decided on the final design. I finished my magazine this week and handed it in to meet the deadline.

5th January – 9th January


This week I created my double page spread in Quark Express. I created my title and added in my stand first. I then continued to change the planning of my sketches and re-position the image so that it was on the right hand side of the article. After positioning my image I imported my text and cut my article to fit in.

15th December – 19th December


This week I began to create my magazine front cover using Photoshop. I imported my front cover image and edited the opacity to change the lighting and mood of the picture. I continued by adding in my title, “amplify” I embossed the title, changed the resolution and gave it a red outline to link in with the blue and purple colour scheme of my cover lines. TO finish the front cover I added in my positioning statement, “Can YOU handle the noise?” issue date and bar code.
8th December - 12th December



This week I made a final decision on the images I would use for my music magazine. I began taking the pictures and gathered the following:












I decided to use the first image for my front cover; I edited the opacity of the picture in Photoshop to make the contents of the image cle
arer. I used this picture because the person is looking directly at the camera, and the image portrays that of the metal music genre.






I took the above images of a drum kit for my double page spread. I decided to use the first image because of the lighting and the effect the picture has.


I took the following images for my contents page; I decided to use the first image as it uses direct address and therefore targets my audience.






















The above images were taken
as ideas for my contents page, I used
two of the images because they related
to articles in my featured content.

1st December – 5th December


This week we began drawing up sketches and ideas for our music magazines, we had to draw sketches for our front cover, contents page and double page spread, this included deciding on the pictures we were going to take.






24th November – 28th November


This week we began our publication plan, to begin setting ideas on our music magazines.
Publication plan
Title: “ AMPLIFY ”
Positioning Statement: “Can YOU handle the noise?”
Frequency of publication: Monthly
Price: £3.20
Distribution: Newsagents, Supermarkets, Music stores, gigs, festivals, online, subscription.
Rationale: The magazine will consist of music from the metal genre only, including unsigned bands as well as well known bands. The magazine will be original, releasing exclusive information from big record label companies. All the latest news will be included and it will consist of unseen photographs.

Style: The magazine will be informal with use of colloquial language. It will be dominated by images and the majority of text will be to inform or get fans involved. Simple syntax and vocabulary will be used as the target audience is fairly young.
Regular content
Fan page (fan’s letters)
Album reviews
What do YOU think?
Editor’s letter
Free band and artist posters
- Competitions
- Gig reviews
- News
- Unsigned band of the month
- Crazy Bass man column
- Gig updates
Feature articles
Exclusive line-up for Download festival ‘09
The Devil wears Prada
Interview with Ferret Music
Carcass – How we made it
Lacuna Coil band review over the years
- This or the Apocalypse
How Funeral for a friend became famous
Chimaira
A blast from the past with the Damned
Behind the scenes at MEN
Be a part of the unsigned bands campaign
Vote on years best drummer
Shades of Dusk
Linkin Park in the making
House Style
Cover lines: Tahoma
Headlines: Rockwell Extra Bold
Stand first: Rockwell 14pt (By-line included)
Captions: Arial 8pt
Features first paragraph: Drop capital Rockwell Extra Bold all in CAPITALS 4 lines deep.
Body text: Times New Roman 11pt
Colour scheme: Black, Blue and Purple.
17th November – 21st November

This week we used our results to create graphs using Microsoft word; we then put these into our PowerPoint’s as research for our own magazine.

12th November – 14th November


Today we continued to get our questionnaires filled in, and began collating results and drawing conclusions on the answer I received. On the 14th I completed drawing my conclusions up about my results.

11th November 2008


Today we constructed our questionnaires on the computers; we then printed them out and began getting them filled in by our target audience, in order to gather information for our own music magazines. I handed out 20 of the following questionnaires:
Questionnaire
This is a short questionnaire in order to help me conduct some AS media research I would appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it in.
Are you:
Male □ Female □
How old are you?
14 – 18 □ 19 – 23 □ 24-28 □
What band(s) or solo artist(s) is your favourite?
How often do you buy a music magazine?
Daily □ Weekly □ Monthly □ Never □
Other □ (If so please specify)
How much would you pay for a music magazine?
£1 □ £2 □ £3 □ £4 □ other □ (Please specify)
Which three words come to mind when thinking of the metal genre of
Music?
On a scale of 1-5 would you rate the following components of a music
Magazine? 1 being worthless and 5 being very important.
Interviews 1 2 3 4 5
Letters 1 2 3 4 5
Freebies 1 2 3 4 5
Competitions 1 2 3 4 5
Reviews 1 2 3 4 5
Photographs 1 2 3 4 5
Concert
Updates 1 2 3 4 5
What are your favourite colour(s)?

10th November 2008


Today in class we went over how to construct a questionnaire so that we could research into what we would include in our own music magazines.

7th November 2008


Today we completed research into other magazines for our Power Point presentations. I looked at magazines such as “metal hammer” and “Kerrang!” mags, as these were appropriate style models for my genre of music magazine (metal)

6th November 2008


Today we continued research into other music magazines and had to gather images of the front cover and contents pages.

5th November


Today we continued our PowerPoint presentations we had to choose at least two other music magazines which may rival ours and include prices, issue sizes and dates, and frequency of publication.

4th November 2008


Today we began our PowerPoint presentations on other music magazines which may rival our music magazines.
3rd November 2008

As we begun to work on the main task we had to know the codes and conventions of a music magazine.
These included:
Front cover
Main image overlaps main title – only well established magazines.
Title is one word
Strip across bottom of cover
Main image is a band or singer – more frequent magazines use more than one main image
Monthly magazines often have poster and CD give aways
Body language is important as it conveys attitude
Main image is a medium close-up or a close-up
Contempory fonts – sans serif fonts
Contents page
Monthly contents pages tend to be two page spreads
Typography reflects the genre of the music magazine e.g. indie magazines are straight forward
Large picture dominates

24th October 2008
Today we completed the evaluation of our front cover and contents pages and handed them in.
Evaluation
My magazine front cover and contents page follow the codes and conventions of a magazine in many different ways. The main ways in which I did this was by using a unique font for my title and positioning it in the top left corner of the front cover; I used one main image on the front cover of my magazine, with direct address, the image related to the magazine because it was of a girl acting as head girl which linked to the main cover line of the magazine
Another main way I followed the codes and conventions was by being consistent with the typeface of my magazine front cover, however I did not use the same font type for the title and cover lines on my magazine because if I did I would be deviating from the codes and conventions.
I also positioned my cover lines in significant areas of my magazine front cover, this is because the cover lines were not able to be across the face of the model in the main image, and also the main cover line had to be of a larger font than the rest on the front cover. On the contents page
We were set homework to read music magazines over the half term and also to decide the genre and target audience of our music magazine.

23rd October 2008


Today we continued the evaluation of our front cover and contents pages.
22nd October 2008

Today we continued the evaluation of our front cover and contents pages.

21st October 2008


Today we continued the evaluation of our front cover and contents pages.

20th October 2008


Today we began the evaluation of our front cover and contents pages.
17th October 2008

Today we completed the final touches on our magazine front covers and contents pages of the preliminary exercise.