Mgazine Evaluation - Nicole

My magazine uses forms and convections of real music magazines through the way i have layed and presented it. In some ways it similar to other music magazines due to basic layout. If you look at most magazines, their layouts are mostly either the same or similar. The title of the magazine is always placed right at the top of the magazine in a large, bold front, standing out. This is where the similarity comes in between my magazine and other music magazines, as i placed my title right at the top of my front cover, in a big, bold front, so that it can stand out, considering thats what catches my attention when i see a magazine, i felt like it would be appropiate to use it in my magazine as thats the same effect it will have on my target audience. Although my magazine layout was similar to other magazines layout, we chose our magazine title wisely so that the name can stand out itself, giving the overall magazine that effect, making it not just any typical magazine, but a unique magazine.
I think my music magazine cover represents certain social groups such as teenagers and young adults who are interested in RnB music, simply because my magazine contains contents which are based on RnB artists, and stories which relate to RnB. Therefor those who are not intrested in RnB will not buy this magazine as it is not their type of music. Also our magazine covers have young RnB artists on the front cover. This is a positive thing as this will atract and inspire young people to buy the magazine as RnB is a very popular type of music which alot of young adults and teeneagers listen to. Also in addition, our front cover shows images of artists from both sex, therefore, pictures of female artists will attract the male audience, which will also inspire them to but the magazine, and pictures of male artist will attract the female audience which will make them want to buy the magazine.
I personally think that out magazine covers will be part of the RnB institution, simply because the articles are based on nothing but RnB artists.
I have noticed that mucic magazines mostly seem to attract either teenagers or young adults, therefore in relationton to this observation, we decieded that our magazine will be targeted at teenagers and young adults from ages14-21. Reason for this is simply because this music genre seems to be mostly enjoyed by this age group. Other possible reasons are because they can relate to this type of music, as issues which may be song about may be issues which these young adults/teenagers may be going threw and therefore through this music, they are recieving inspiration, and a positive image of life. Also, in this day and age, RnB is seen to be "cool" and so many teenagers/young adults want to come under this image, therefore they tend to listen to it just so that they can come under that catagory. Media also plays a huge role in this. As the media promotes this music genre alot. This then manipulates people into wanting to follow this type of music genre, which is how this type of music is so popular.
Ways in which we attracted our target audience was by suing fonts and strap lines which stand out and catch peoples eyes which stand out on the page and from the images on the page, which attracts the audience to be aware of what the article is about. Another way which we addressed our target audience was by using bright colours, and the right type of clothing.
Based on this project, i have learnt alot about technology. Making a magazine cover is not as easy as we think. it takes alot of hard work and organisation, Ar the start of this project, everything seemed fairly simple and straight foward, however as we got further down the line into the project, things got tough and stressful, which made me realise that making a magazine is not as easy as it looks. I am happy i took part in this project as i learnt a new skill which was knowing how to use Photoshop Adobe. Overall i found that you could use technology to do alot of clever, sly things you would never imagine. however it takes some time in learning how to use different types of sofware.
If i was to make another magazine front cover, i would change the background which i used, and mak it more plain so that it didnt seem asif alot was going on. Another thing i would change is what i wore. In future i would dress up more, and make more of an effort in what i was wearing, in order to get that "super star" look, so that the overall magazine can be more realistic. However i think the overall front cover came out very good considering it was out first time, due to the hard work and determination everyone put in.

Using Photohop - Sevin Kahveci

I wasn't very familiar when using Adobe Photoshop but after being taught and given a tour on how it works and its functions, everything seemed so much easier to create. Today we learnt how to crop, edit colours in text, background and with symbols. I learnt how to enter text, move about features, change colours of features, i experimented with different colours and fonts for my masthead and cover lines until I found the best suiting font and colour. By doing this I believe it is a wise way to find the most appropriate feature to use when constructing a magazine front cover. I also learnt how to place images on one another, deface them and remove them without messing the structure of the other features. the image I have used for my front cover image was taken by a camera which was leant to us by Rebecca, one of our media teachers. I had taken the picture of two girls in my group and decided to use it as my magazine front cover's image as it seemed appropriate to me to use it. After placing the cover image on a A4 spread page I started adding cover lines using the text tool, changed fonts and colours using other tools. I also used box tools.

Music Magazine Front Cover - Sevin Kahveci

Music Magazine Evaluation - Sevin Kahveci

The magazine which I have created using Adobe Photoshop, uses forms and conventions of real music magazines, a few examples of these include; a masthead, banner, cover lines, bar code and boxed text. I have chosen ‘Platinum’ for the name/ masthead of my magazine; this name is appropriate as it relates to the music industry; it gives a rich air to the magazine. Its name also gives off the vibe that this magazine is good quality and worth buying, I have used a plain font for the masthead and a colour which stands out and added a white shadow to catch the audience’s eye. I have placed the masthead at the top of the page so it can be seen and is familiar to other music magazines’ that are on the magazine market. However, we believe that our magazine stands out from all the other music magazines because all our ideas and the forms of how we used the conventions are our own original ideas. We have been careful when structuring and planning our magazine front cover to make sure it does not look so familiar to other magazines.

To attract an audience and convince them into buying the magazine I have included incentives like; posters and CD’s. I have used a banner, the strap across the top of the page which has a red box and text is in white. I have used the colour red because it is one of the colours that attract the most attention.

I have used a range of ‘eye-catching’ colours for my cover lines; have made sure that all my cover lines relate to music and events that will definitely attract the attention of my targeted audience which are 14-21 year olds from both genders. I have used boxed text for the most attracting news on the front page and I found that using a boxed text attracted more attention when it was boxed and spread across the bottom half of the page. I have placed a bar code at the bottom right corner to make it like a complete real music magazine.

By using two teenage girls as a main cover image gives us an idea on what age range our audience may be between and which gender may be reading or show interest in this magazine. Although the image is of two teenage girls, the cover lines and incentives I have used indicate on which certain social groups it is aimed at. As our magazine is targeted at 14-21 year olds we’ve made sure to include information on our front cover which our audience would be interested in.

I think that the RnB institution may be interested in distributing in our magazines as our magazine and cover lines all relate and refer to an audience who are interested in RnB as all our cover lines include RnB artists. Another institution that may be interested in distributing in our magazine could be EMAP.

When writing my cover lines, I have been careful when choosing what to write and which artist to include. This is very important as cover lines are one of the key conventions which are used to attract and address an audience. I believe I have chosen good cover lines because they’re ones which our targeted audience can relate to and are interested in. Using these conventions attracts teenagers’ attention; as these days teenagers are more interested in what is going in the music industry, what is going on where and upcoming events they can take part in. For a  teenager, media plays a big role in their lives as it is media that is the connection between the young teens and their admired celebrities.

From the process of constructing this magazine front cover I have improved on my designing and structuring skills, I have also learnt more about Adobe Photoshop and its amazing features on editing images and how to do it. Before constructing my magazine front cover I hadn’t had much experience or practice with Photoshop which is why at first I was having slight difficulty on where and how to start. However, after being given a quick run through/tour of the program I felt reassured, started exploring it and finally got the hang of it.

If I were to be given the opportunity to create another magazine front cover, I think I would choose a different issue season and include pictures of males instead of just females. I think including more male pictures on the front cover would attract more male’ attention. Another thing I would change is where and how the front cover image is take, as our magazine is a music magazine it would be more appropriate to take an image where it gives the impression that it is for a music magazine that specialises and that the genre of the magazine is RnB music.

Music Mag Evaluation Rebecca Hurst

My Evaluation of My Music Magazine PLATINUM
Our the course of three to four lesson me, Nicole, Sevin and Stephanie constructed ideas to make our RnB magazine. Therefore, we started by choosing its genre which is RnB, the target audience with 16-24 year olds and the name of the magazine.
Our magazine conveys a real magazine by the way its layout. For example, the banner is along the top advertising upcoming tours and free CDs to attract the reader to the free goodies, pictures of girl bands, Rappers and rivalry between bands. the name of our magazine is "Platinum" so we placed the title of the magazine right at the top, just like any other magazine, this is because all magazines have their title aligned on the left hand side so we didn’t want it to be too different in comparison to other magazines that are available. We also did not want our magazine to camouflage with the rest so we used bright colours and bold fonts for the title so our magazine stood out.Our magazine targets to teenagers and young adults interested in RnB music. Many teens would be attracted to our magazine because they are interested in finding out the latest in this worldwide music genre. Most young adults enjoy this music genre as it shows them the real life through music and this gives them a positive image of live.
My magazine title was hard to decide. However, we decided platinum due its association with music e.g. multi-million records sold is platinum and because we wanted the aspect of bling in our magazine.
We had decided as a group that our magazine would be distributed quarterly every year, winter, spring, summer and autumn. My theme was winter so I went for a warm winter because if this magazine is selling worldwide them there are places that have warm winters. I used ivy to represent Christmas in my background. The colours in the title green and red are significant as those colours are mostly associated with the Christmas season.
We decided this because it is an easier way and we would have very established fans would be regular readers and not just the occasion buyer.
In photoshop, we had to decide on a font that the whole group would use. We also had to use the magic wand to cut ourselves out of the background, now that was hard because the day we took the photographs we were all in contrasting colours so we could not find a suitable background.
My magazine cover has a picture of two girls who are x factor winners, an mc to interest boys into this magazine as its targeted to them as well, latest girl group and interview with two other girls who are in the music industry. By the production of my magazine, I have realised that using iMac is very difficult and that photoshop is even more difficult. When we first actually started using photoshop all the icons looked very complex but as we used it more and more often we became use to it.
If I were to design and produce another magazine cover, I would plan the page and have many solid ideas and layout structures.

Music Magazine 3 Rebecca Hurst

On 2nd October we spent a whole lesson taken pictures for our cover of our individual music magazines. We decided to take our pictures in a garden area even though it’s more difficult to cut us out of the background in Photoshop.
Using photoshop was very difficult as i had never used it before so i need to learn the basics. We had to add different layers to the page to make it look as like a magazine as possible.
We started by selecting our pictures then we transferred them to the page which would be the cover of our magazine. We had to adjust the size for our magazine though to internation paper A4.
In photo shop we choose the font that goes will with our theme.

Using Photoshop - Lesson 5 - 9/10/08

This lesson was basically just a follow up/continuation of the previous lesson, as the main aim was to just finish our magazine front cover to the best of our ability. It was in this lesson that a couple of important things were changed as our front covers were almost finish, we were all able to get an over view on what the outcome was going to look like. Based on this we could automatically tell that the front style we did choose priviously was to fancy and not bold enough for our magazine. It was also not suitible for the genre which our magazine was aiming for, so as a group, we all decided to change the front style/text into a more bold, outstanding text which was more appropriate for our magazine, and decided that we will use the fancy writing for sub-titles etc. It was in this lesson that we were expected to finish off our magazine, ready to hand in, unless we attended workshop (which i did). We were all working hard, and was highly concentrating in completing in our magazine.

Using Photoshop - Lesson 4 - 6/10/08

Todays aim was to start making our magazine front cover, which is why we spent this lesson in the Mac room, as the pictures were uploaded, so we had a chance to decide on what pictures we wanted to use, and then start editing and forming our front cover. I must say, i found this lesson fun and also stressful as this was were the hard work started. As we had two weeks to finish our magazine, so every little time was essential. At the beginning of the lesson, we were shown how to open up and use photoshop and also how to open an A4 sheet on photoshop, as we were printing our magazine on an A4 sheet. Although we were all individually making our own magazine front cover, we had to sit in our groups, so that we could communicate easily and efficiently as certain things on our front cover had to be the same such as, the logo, the price, front size and type of front etc. As soon as instructions were given, we then started to put all the planning we did from privious lessons into action. I believe this is when the work officially started. We then began to fiddle around with our pictures, trying to see what looks good (editing, putting articicial backgrounds, cutting and pasting etc). As i planned how i wanted my magazine layout to be, i didnt need to cut and edit as much as others, as i decided to use the background of some pictures, as it fitted my theme of which i planned my magazine front cover to have. In addition to the pictures i had taken, i also went onto the internet, looking at pictures of famous Hip-Hop artists (as everyone was entitled to use one image from the internet), which fitted the type of genre my magazine was aiming for. I eventually decided to take an image of Ti (and Hip-Hop artist) to place on my magazine, as my front cover could not just contain pictures of one sex/gender, it had to contain pictures of both sex, as it was targeted at both males and females. The only main trouble i had was having to place the heading behind the picture. I was unable to do this as i had never done it before therefore i did not no how to do it. It was at this point i asked for Mary's help and assistence, so that she could show and guide me on how to solve my problem.

Photo Taking Day - Lesson 3 - 2/10/08

Todays lesson was mainly based and focused on taking pictures for our magazine front cover. In our groups of 4, from the previous week, we were given a digital camara, and was shown how to use it by our teacher Rebecca, as there was vital information we had to no such as, taking our pictures vertically and on a contrasting plain background from the persons clothing. Mainly because the magazine is printed out vertically, also the reason why the person in the photo needed to be on a plain contrasting background, is so that it makes it much easier to cut out the image in Photoshop. After this point, we then went onto the next stage which was the main aim of the lesson, "taking our pictures". Before this lesson took place, myself and my group had already planned and organised what kind of pictures we wanted to take, and so based on our organisation, we new exactly what we were doing when the lesson then took place. Personally, as my magazine was a summer issue, this meant my pictures had to be based on a summer look. Which is why i wore a dress, and took pictures outside in the college garden, as the sun was out, the overall look came out very summery, which is what i wanted exactly. As our magazine was aimed at target audience male and female, we had to also aske males in our class and around the college if they mind taking a picture for our magazine. We took a variety of different pictures, from many different angles to give many different perspectives, so that when it came to deciding what pictures we wanted to use, we had a wide range to choose from. Once we felt like we had taken enough pictures, we headed back to class, handing in our camaras Rebecca so that they could be uploaded onto the computers for us next lesson.

Stephanie Brand Magazine Cover Evaluation

Our magazine uses forms and convection's or a real magazine by the way that it is set out. For example the name of our magazine is "Platinum" so we placed the title of the magazine right at the top, just like any other magazine, this is so it doesn't seem awkward in comparison to other magazines that are on the market. We didn't want our magazine to seem to similar to other magazines though, so we tried to make it to stand out itself by the name we chose, and the font of the magazine.

Our magazine tries to represent young adults/ teenagers that are attracted to the RnB industry. Most of these teenagers are likely to be attracted to this magazine as many different things in society will make them want to know more about the music industry. Most of these teenagers are from the city and lively areas and the reason for this is because there is a very busy atmosphere and teenagers of this kind are influenced by what they see on television, what their friends do and also what they see and read in magazines. Teenagers that live in this sort of lifestyle want to be like the artists on the magazine covers they see these artists like role models.

My magazine cover has a picture of two bands and one solo artist. The picture of the solo artist may attract mostly girls as the picture is very "wow" but some boys may want to know what the article says about the solo artist and they might want to know what the artist has to offer that is new. The pictures will also mostly attract girls, as girls are more into gossip and knowing about what celebrity and artists are wearing these days, and also who will win the battles in the music charts.

I think that our magazine covers Will be part of the RnB institution because of the fact that most articles are based on RnB artists. Also our magazine covers have young RnB artists on the front covers, this is a good fact because this will attract young people to buy the magazine as RnB is mostly listened to buy young people.

As i have established before, our magazine covers try to attract teenagers from the age of 14-21. I think this is a good audience because when you are at that age you are very interested with celebs and the music industry because it is "cool" and also because you don't want to be left out because of the fact that all you friends and peers know about certain music and artists. Also being at this age you want to be able to know what the artists are wearing, and what the latest trend is and who has had an argument with who and which couples are still together,so this would attract young readers.

The ways we attracted our audience was by using the right clothing in the pictures, the colours this attracts young readers. We used fonts and strap lines that stand out from the pictures and attract the audience to know what the articles are about. Also we kept an affordable pricing on the magazines, not to expensive and not to cheap considering the fact that our magazine is a quarterly magazine. We also tried to make the front covers "bling" but at the same time we kept things simple and not over the top, this is a major point as it would help our magazines to stand out from the others.

By making our magazine covers i learnt that not everything is as easy as it seems. We used the iMac computers to create our magazine covers and it all seemed easy peasy at first but as we started getting on with actually making our magazine covers reality hit us and it wasn't as easy as it seemed. We had to work really hard to cut out some of our pictures from their backgrounds, and this sometimes was hard as some of us didn't choose the best background. Also learning how to organise the layers on the Photoshop Adobe, was hard as sometimes things wouldn't come out the way we were picturing it in our minds. But all in all I've learnt that you can do some clever things with technology but it takes some while to getting used to different programmes and the different methods of using them.

If i was to make another front cover, there would be a couple things that i would change. Firstly i would change the place where we took our pictures as it was quite hard to cut them out from where my group had take them. Also i would have dressed up the "artists"a bit more, make them seem more realistic to the eye.
But in general i think that our magazine covers did come out really good, after all the hard work and effort which was put in to them.

I would definitely make another magazine cover and try and make it look even better than the ones we made this time round.

Platinum Complete Music Mag - Stephanie

We were glad to know that we had finished our music magazine, after editing pictures, cropping them, adding and changin fonts and styles etc. Some of the magazines didnt come out exactly how we pictured it in our minds, they came out even better.

We made the four quatlerly Platinum magazine editions: Spring, Summer, Autum and Winter.

Platinum Magazine.. Stephanie Brand...

In the last couple of lessons, weve worked really hard!



Three lessons ago Rebecca lent us the college's camera and she taught us how to use to use them, she we used the school cameras and we took the pictures for our magazine cover. We went outside to the school garden and took pictures of each other in the sun, trying to catch different shots and angles. We had to take the pictures in a certain way because if not the pictures wouldnt be big enough for the magazin cover, we also took other pictures to use as the advertisements on the front cover.

The following lesson we took a look at the picures we had taken and asi a group we decided which ones had come out the best, and which ones we were going to use for definate as our front covers, we also chose what ones we wanted to use as our advertisements pictures.

We then started working on the iMacs and using the adobe photoshop. It was hard to get used to using the iMacs as most of us in the class use normal windows desktop computers, but as we started uploading all the pictures and learn to use the effects that we could do on the pictures, we started working really hard. We had to work with the right picture and make sure that it was easy to drag out of its background. When this was done, we then started adding the sub titles and lines. We also had to pick the appropiate colours for the font and the writting style and most important of all, make the magazine stand out from all the others.

We had to work hard and work with time, we didnt have time to waste.

29/09/08 Magazine plan.

In todays lesson, we were put into our groups, and we were given sugar paper to start planning our magazine. In my group there was me Nicole, Stephanie, Rebecca, and Sevin, and together we were contemplating on what type of genre and theme our magazine would have. Eventually we decided that our magazine would have a Hip Hop genre with target audience of 16-24 year olds. We also decided that the magazine would be appropriate for both male and female, containing a content which will interest both genders of all ages between 16-24. As part of our magazine, we made four different additions, which were Spring, Summer. Autumn, and  winter, which will contain different contents, and different issues, which will keep our readers interested. In addition to this, we decided we will add free goodies for our readers, which will also influence readers to by our magazine, as they would be gaining somethink for free such as: a mix cd, key ring, t shirt etc. 

Music Magazine.. Sev

In todays session we were taught how to edit images, what kind of background should be used when taking a picture, how to cut, copy and paste an image onto another one, add colours and texts. We decided the name for our magazine, 'Platinum' and it would be priced around £4-£5.  Our target audience is sixteen to twenty four year olds, male and females. Our magazine will have real life stories about celebrities. The genre of music we decided on is R 'n' B.

Our magazine will have seasonly issues, winter, spring, summer and autumn, each member of the group will do a different season.

Incentives will include free posters, CD's, tickets for lucky readers etc.

Media Lesson 25/09/08

We analysised a music magazine which goes by the name of "Hip Hop".  We were looking out for the most important aspects of the cover page, for example, the connotations and the denotations, the graphics,  main title, etc. we analysed every detail of the magazine, which helped us undastand what the magazine was about, and what type of genre it had, also what its target audience was.

Magazine review

We have just analyzed a music magazine called  "NME (New Music Express)". We looked at how different it looked to other magazines, the magazine was set  out in a different way to some others that the class looked at. An example of this was where the title "NME" was placed; in most magazines the title of the magazine is placed in on the top middle of the magazine, but on "NME" it has been placed on the top left hand corner. This could be for the reason that the magazine "NME" wants to stand out from the others, (be different to normal).

The banner is also eye catching as it is telling the person that the magazine is a special edition and that in this edition there is 100 pages.  

NME Magazine Cover

In groups we analyzed a magazine cover called NME "New Music Express" we looked at the master-header, Sub heading, banner and graphics. The master-header is the title of the magazine (NME) its usually justified in the middle or right but on this magazine its on the left hand side. The banner is located on the top of the magazine it's used to advertise features of the magazine or new topics to come out in future issues also the graphics located on the right has a white background its used of bright colours make it stand out. They used graphics on the page is to draw attention to the freebies in the magazine, also people are usually attracted to pictures more than writing, so the they use pictures more often to explain the magazine features.