Thursday 5 December 2013

 
I am using this front cover as a style model. I like the bright colours and boldness of everything.

Monday 18 November 2013

- interactivity

Interactivity is an important aspect to include within music magazines; this is where readers are able to be included and take part. There is a variety of ways to include readers, from having them take part in the making of the magazine to holding competitions. I think it is necessary to include interactivity because it makes the reader feel more involved, therefore making them more likely to buy and enjoy the magazine. I am creating questionnaires which involve target audience which is allowing them to have say in the making. This is a good thing to do as it then shows me that the audience will actually enjoy the magazine since it will be based by their choices. Magazines normally always have links to social networking sites now such as Facebook and Twitter;it isher huge popular way to interact with the audience.(e.g twitter- letting people tweet a question to ask an artist, then the mag will ask some in one of the interviews), competitions, voting and many more options. Due to the technology today, lots of readers can easily stream videos of gigs they have attended and such very quickly for other people to see and comment on.

Some music magazine websites such as NME.com allow users to reate accounts and get a larger access to the insight of the magazine. The users are allowed to do things such as leave comments/opinions on posts and photos, join forums and debate about certain topics and have potential to decide on which is posted each week (due to popular demand, etc). This sort of allowance is what keeps a magazine being successful as everything will always be what the reader wants.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Uses and Gratifications




I will try and incoporate these points into my making of my magazine, I think it's important to think of these things while creating so the readers are content with what they are reading.

Thursday 7 November 2013

ArticleFlatPlan


I based this layout from looking at various Kerrang! articles since that magazine is the one I get a lot of my ideas from. I just quickly thought up that pose for the models so I am not entirely sure if it will stay like that in the end. I think for the actual text part I will do a small article before an interview. I think an interview is appropriate for this new band as readers get to know opinions and views from the actual members.

ArticleIntroductionFlatPlan




I decided to place a double page introduction to the article, this is so there is more room to introduce the band since in this case they are quite new. The text section will tell the readers more about them and start the actual the article which will then continue on the next page. I made up that casual group pose for the band, it should fill up at least that side of the page so people get a look on who they are. However, since these are just rough drafts, the outcome could end up looking different; It all depends on the models I use, if it works, or if I change my mind.

ContentsPageFlatPlan


 
I want the contents page to look quite busy since that is a common thing to see on the other magazines I studied. There will be various pictures across the page, that of which I will take myself, to make the page more interesting and appealing. I added a subscribe advertisment at the bottom since that was also something i regularly saw.

FrontCoverFlatPlan

 
 
This is a very rough draft just so i can get my first general ideas for the layout of the magazine, I will create more accurate detailed versions of these flat plans once I develop my ideas further.
 
From my research, questionnaire and own ideas, I have further developed plans for my magazine. I have figured that the target audience for my magazine will be people around the ages of 16-20. My secondary audience will be people of around 21-28. Although I am not sure on details such as title name.. I have decided the genre of my magazine will be rock as it was the most popular choice of music in my first questionnaire and I prefer it too. I think I will base the article on a band so I will also add a band on the front cover consisting of around 4 members. I am going to create a few flat plans for my front cover, contents page and article so I can get a basic idea of how it will end up looking like. After that, I will start details on title name, article, etc.

Monday 4 November 2013

I decided to hand out my questionnaire to a variety of 30 people, this is so I'm not being too ranged within one age, i.e if i just handed it to a class of students. I collected all the results and presented them into Pie Charts which I will post shortly. The reason I created this questionnaire was to get a better idea on the basic wants for my magazine, I may create another questionnaire soon focused only on my target audience asking more in depth questions.

Questionnaire for Magazine and Audience


Please tick each that applies.

Gender:
Male ( ) Female ( ) Other ( )

Age:
12 and under ( )  13 - 15 ( )  16 - 18 ( ) 19 - 21 ( ) 22+ ( ) 30 + ( ) 40+ ( )

What is your working status?
Education ( ) Job ( ) Unemployed ( ) Other (please state ) ____________

How often do you generally buy music magazines?
Once a week ( ) Once a fortnight ( ) Once a month ( ) Every few months ( ) Never ( ) Other (Please state)_________

How much do you usually spend on them?
Less than £1 ( ) £1.01 - £2.50 ( ) £2.51- £3.50 ( ) £3.51+ ( )

What is your favourite genre of music?
Pop ( ) Rock ( ) Classical ( ) Metal ( ) Jazz ( ) Other (Please state) _________

What do you use to listen to music?
Phone ( ) Radio ( ) CD player ( ) Computer ( ) Ipod ( ) Other (Please state) ___________

Do you prefer to download music or buy a CD?
Download ( ) CD ( ) Other (Please state) __________

Do you regularly use social networking sites?
Yes ( ) No ( )




What would make this new magazine stand out to you?
Storylines( ) Price ( ) Colour scheme ( ) People on the cover ( ) Other (please state)

How often would you like it to be released?
Once a week ( ) Once a fortnight ( ) Once a month ( )

What's the most you would spend on this magazine?
Less than £1 ( ) £1.01 - £2.50 ( ) £2.51- £3.50 ( ) £3.51+ ( )


Friday 4 October 2013

Research

For my next project, I am in need to do lots of research about the genre of music magazine i am going to be producing which will be Rock. This is so I can get a general idea of the conventions used within that type of genre. First off I am going to analyse 4 covers, 4 content pages and 4 articles online and perhaps even look at some actual magazines which i find.


For my preliminary work, my task was to create both a front cover and a contents page for a school magazine. This is preparation for the upcoming music magazine we are each going to create which will be our main AS project.



Front Cover

Firstly, me and a group of friends went around school with a camera to take pictures to place onto both our covers and content pages, these included things like students and teachers using the general facilities of the school. I decided that i didn't want too many pictures on the front cover because otherwise it may look too crowded. 

For my front cover i tried to keep it within an appropriate colour scheme mixed around yellows and blues since these are colours of the school. I decided to try and keep the front cover bright and appealing to the audience in which are students of the school; they're more likely to be attracted to something that looks bold and bright rather than somehing that's dull and boring. A background image of the school has been added since it looks more interesting rather than a plain block colour background, this is so the audience has a good impression straight away. I made sure to put a model of a student on the cover so it feels like the students of the school are involved with the magazine. She also represents the  story line about sixth form by wearing a sixth form outfit.

I chose a bold simple font so it is easy to read and notice and I used different sizes to emphasis certain words (this is also a usual convention of a magazine). I also added social network icons showing that students have the ability to quickly find out more information with them. Since it is aimed for teenagers, I thought this was the appropriate thing to do since most will be on social networking sites daily. I didn't add lots of cover lines because people can just look at the contents page for more information.

Small pictures have been added with some of the cover lines since this is a usual convention of a magazine, the pictures give an extra insight of that particular story line and make the viewers notice it more and possibly more interested. I decided not to type up 'Heworth Grange' since it is already involved in the background image so i thought it would look confusing to have them twice. I used the school logo at the top so that there's something for people to recognize the magazine by, this is next to both the issue number and date so readers can keep up to date with both aspects.


 
                                                                           


Contents Page

For my contents page I tried to keep it continued with the same house style of colours. I decided to make it look more interesting than a average list since again, this is aimed for young people and since it's a free magazine it has to have the ability to make people actually want to read it.

Since this is a school magazine rather than any other i decided to keep the wording of whats on each page limited because lost of students probably wouldn't have the patience to read lots of drawn out sentences while trying to see what's inside that certain issue. By keeping it to simple words, the students themselves can find out more by actually flicking through the magazine. I have only added pages in which are to do with school so it stays appropriate, most pages will be useful for  students as they update certain information and show important things for students.

I added pictures as this is a usual connotation for a contents page and shows an extra insight of the magazine, These pictures are always to be pictures of the school, teachers or students. Again, by adding pictures of students within the magazine it makes them feel more involved. The reason i did not add words with the pictures is because i think most of the time the picture can speak for itself and it would also look too crammed.

The Heworth Grange logo has been added to add an extra bit of brightness to the page. Since it is indeed the school's logo, I think it's appropriate to make sure it's shown throughout the magazine. The text is mixed up both vertical and horizontally; big font and small but still bold enough to read, I think this gives a more interesting view to the page. The colours stand out against the white block background which is important as they need to be bold enough for people to notice them. To improve i could have made the text more inline with each other and perhaps used a brighter colour for text; Perhaps even used a mixture of colours.

Thursday 3 October 2013

Who am I?

I am Danielle Oliver and  i am a student at Heworth Grange Sixth Form.

 This is my blog dedicated to the A-level media course I am taking in which i will post all finished projects and works in progress.