Full evaluation of my music magazine task

Music Magazine Task - Evaluation
After completing my music magazine, I analysed and evaluated it like I previously did with the existing magazine products.

Who would be the audience of my magazine?
The target audience for my magazine is 15-20 year olds that are generally interested in music festivals, or are open to be. I aimed my product at this particular age group as I am in this age bracket myself and feel that I could create a product suitable for this type of audience. I recieved feedback from a questionnaire that the majority of music magazine reader's would like a magazine that appeals to both genders, and all music genre's. To create this type of magazine, I felt that I needed an angle or theme, as both genders and all genre's would create quite a generalized magazine. I then decided on creating a festival themed magazine, that would inform readers of the music news in the festival world. Readers of my magazine could be people that have previously been to festival's and are considering going again (or have opinions of why they wouldn't go again) or people who have never been to a festival and are planning on going for the first time this year. Either way, the audience will generally be 15-20 year olds who will be interested in purchasing my magazine.

How does my magazine attract my audience?
For this question I decided it would be better if I asked someone who fit the criteria of my target audience to answer this question for me in the following video:
(I will then elaborate afterwards)

The teen in the video comments mostly on the cover. On the cover there is a recognizable artist that would attract both genders. A popular star on the front of any magazine is more likely to sell copies, compared to a less famous unsigned musical act. The artist is dressed in festival fashion, and the image is of a summer scene giving the festival feel of the magazine. The cover as a whole has bold black text which is very eye catching and colourful images which give the magazine a nice look overall. The stories mentioned on the cover include an interview with the star 'Rosanna', fashion tips, festival line ups, the chance to win tickets and lots more. There are therefore several stories that would appeal to a variety of teen's. As mentioned in the video there is a free CD advertised on the cover, so any readers that wish to take advantage of this offer will also be persuaded to buy the magazine.

The magazine is priced at £2.50 which (due to research) I found out is quite a low price for a magazine, as a lot of the big names ask for around £3.50 for a magazine. However I think the postivies of being cheaper are that my audience (young people) will be able to afford to pick one up each month and the small magazine that has a lot of content will seem worth the money to purchase.

I think my magazine is very successful in attracting the audience I am trying to reach, I think it's a magazine that looks good and is short and to the point; providing teens only with the information they want to know, with no extra pointless articles filling up the magazine.

What institution might distribute my media product?
A publisher/institution that I think would distribute my product and do so successfully would be IPC media (an institution I research and included information in my blue coursework book). IPC is one of the leading media institutions in the UK and already distribute NME which is a magazine I also researched (and included in my coursework book) and that I think my target audience would also read. Therefore if IPC can reach my target audience with NME, they can also do this for YourFest. As IPC is a large well known company, there will also be more advertisement options for the magazine when it is first released.

In what way does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of Real Media products?
I first began designing my own product by looking at currently existing magazines, therefore I think I have based my own product on real media products and it would therefore fit the conventions very well. My product however has developed the convention by becoming a music magazine that is purely about live music and a set of events that happen within one month every year. The magazine form is a monthly lead up to 'festival season' - this does however leave a lot of flexibility in the design of my product as it can represent any artist from any genre performing at any festival. Some genre's are more popular with audiences than others and can therefore be used more often.

What have I learnt from my Audience feedback?

I actually used a lot of feedback before I began designing my magazine, to make sure I could create one that fit the criteria that my audience would set. A lot of the feedback after the magazine was created was generally positive, most teenagers I asked were suggesting further cover stories and articles that could be included in further issues, meaning there wasn't really a critisism of the magazine itself! One critisism I did receieve was that the issue I designed (and put in my blue coursework book) was quite femenine, and didn't infact reach both genders which it was supposed too. A way to overcome this would be to have next month's issue with a well known male artist on the front, as I think the only reason it was slightly femenine was the artist and interview.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have developed a lot of skills whilst producing my music magazine. Most of them were to do with the multimedia comnponents, for example filming short clips, editing them down to size, and uploading them to my blog. Uploading posts/photo's/saved images and films were also a new skill I had to aquire to produce an online blog keeping track of all decisions and highlights of the creation of my magazine. Also photo editing was a skill I had to learn, and to use the program Adobe Photoshop was quite hard at first, however the pictures looked effective in the end. I also became quite dependant on microsoft publisher, as on here I desiged my front page, contents and double page spread. As I had never used any of these softwares before, at first a lot of the tasks were hard, trying to make sure everything looked exactly how I wanted it, however towards the end they became effective and useful tools.

How does my magazine represents different social groups or a social group in particular?
My magazine shows the positive interaction at festival events between young people, the positive impact music has had on young people's lives, and also the social fun that can be had at music festivals. By advertising and encouraging festivals, my magazine is giving attention to the safe social events that possible for young people to attend.
The cover of the magazine also shows an artist 'Rosanna' stating that she used to be a teen that attended festivals and now she is a paid artist performing there. This is showing a positive side to teenagers, those that have worked and achieved their dreams, and contrasts with a lot of other media publicity currently available about teens and young adults. The magazine represents a fun, summer laid back image, applying no pressure on any readers to look or act a certain way. As a music magazine that is for 'generalized genres' it is also important that the magazine reflects a variety of music genres, which it does.

Looking back at my Preliminary Task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression to the full product?

When looking back and comparing my school magazine cover to my music magazine cover; I think there is a very big difference. My music magazine cover is definitely more proffessional looking and actually looks like a magazine that would be worth buying. The school product was good, considering the genre of school magazine's didn't leave much room for designing, however the music magazine is definitely a lot better. My school contents page was very bland, and I said in my evaluation of that product if I were to do it again, I would first of all improve the contents. So on this task I focused on the contents page and tried to keep the page in the same scheme as the others and make it look equally as attractive - still keeping it informative, which I think i succeeded in doing. Below shows a comparison of my two contents pages:

The top image (of my music magazine contents page) shows a progression between the two tasks. The contents page I created second (the music magazine) is a lot more bold, colourful and interesting compared to the school magazine.

Overall, I think both tasks have shown progression and an ability to create two suitable magazines for both coursework briefs, the second is a lot more successful and shows a development in my understanding of the magazine institution; a lot of the success also came from a lot more in depth research. The music magazine is suitable for the audience and is both attractive and appealing to both genders between 15-20 and would be suitable for distribution under the IPC name.