1. Music magazines are things of subtlety and perfection, which takes a lot more finesse than one might think. Much like anything else involved in the media industry music magazines have to follow conventional codes that are commonly recognised in most music magazines. These conventional aspects all equate to the overall house style of music magazines and you’ll rarely see a big company sway away from the industries meta. Also the title mast head is positioned at the top left of my front cover, is common in most magazines as it is crucial for people to establish and recognise the title and name of the magazine they are buying and maintain continuity throughout the whole magazine which we’ll come back to soon. As well as the magazine title block, I also have included the date and issue number just below the title block. This informs the reader as to when the magazine is released and again is conventional for these magazines while also later contributing to the continuity. Another conventional code of my magazine is the iconic central image on a front cover which has a direct mode of address as the artist looks straight into the camera, which creates the effect that they are looking straight at the audience. This is seen a lot in music magazines as the magazine publishers want to make a connection with the reader, increasing the chance they will buy it and therefore increasing profitability. As mentioned before continuity is a crucial part of making a successful, professional and appealing magazine product. I accomplished this continuity by using the same fonts throughout my magazine while also keeping my colour scheme constant. It also comes down to the little things such as making sure your model is wearing the same clothes and making sure that the page numbers match the contents page. I feel as though I challenged the forms and conventions also, going against the grain with some traits in my work such as the shortened header at the top of my front cover. Usually we see this feature across the entirety of the page where as I felt it was just as accomplished in the format I chose.
2. Stereotypes are something we come across almost every single day, something we see, hear, and create ourselves. Because of this it is important to the industry to acknowledge this and act towards it. We see this done in every magazine to further sustain the magazines desired projection to its audience. Conventionally its executed with the mise-en-scene within the main feature image and fonts and colours. To give a specific example my magazine is aimed mainly at a male audience of which the age range would ideally be around 16-21 who listen to electronic music. Due to this I made several conscious decisions while choosing my model, font and colours. I chose an artist and manipulated the mise-en-scene that just itself represents the genre with anybody having to look any further. T-Shirt, jeans medium build, is something conventional average electronic music fanatic along with the text which is very clean cut and square. In addition my product is priced at £2.99 which is a decision I came to after asking various focus groups ‘How much would you be willing to pay?’ and I was able to get results which were helpful to my decision due to the fact the people I asked being aged between 16-17. The particular characteristics I specifically focused on was inspired by my focus group which remember had ages ranging from 16-17. So by crafting my products from that information my magazine was representing their particular social group and stereotypes. My model is wearing a t-shirt and jeans and this was intentional. From my research I found that it was evident that this was stereotypical of what the artists were wearing in professional EDM magazines. Researching about what different ages read these types of magazines really moulded the representation of social groups you see in my final products. Without my research I would not be able to use any accurate representations within my work. To a certain extent I stereotyped my audience, for example by creating a story on my front cover about Martin Garrix I stereotyped my audience into liking big room house and the artist himself. Also by the peer of mise-en-scene I created my model to be a stereotype of my audience essentially.
3. The magazine institution I have chosen to publish my magazine is Mixmags. The reason for this is that they are known as one of the bigger publishers for this particular genre, publishing very successful music magazines of all different genres house and drum and bass. The benefits I feel of going with them is that I feel that my magazine would really appeal to their typical target audience. It would be stupid to be published by somebody like Bauer when they publish a completely different genre as it would not sell as well with their audience as it would with the one I have chosen.
4. My intended target audience for my music magazine would be preferably a male audience however this magazine will certainly appeal to a lot females who are interested in this genre, aged around 16-21 years old who would generally be students, and are into house, dubstep, drum and bass along with many more. The costumes used especially appeal to younger audiences as teenagers who are into what is trending i.e. t-shirts and jeans. My focus group is a good example in how I distinguished my target audience. Not only that it helped me get an understanding of my target audience and essentially making it easier for me to 'target' them.
5. My magazine includes the colours that my audience said they wanted (bright, vivid). It also includes the artists and stories that they're interest in. Throughout my magazine I have used typical codes and conventions to achieve the most attractive magazine for them in particular. The plug was for tickets and let's be honest what student interested in dance music doesn't want to go to a show, it's part of their stereotype to crave shows etc... By clothing my model in that particular way I feel as though it makes the audience feel pet of the scene as not everybody can afford what most models wear nowadays, by using a t-shirt and jeans it also increases how much the audience can relate with the product.
6. Throughout my process I have used technology a lot! Photoshop has been a big prt of this process and also Sony Vegas video editing software. A tool I have used a lot while editing my product in particular is the spot healing brush tool. The spot healing brush tool quickly removes blemishes and other imperfections in your photos. To me this tool is essential for achieving a fully developed, professional look product and this applies to every genre of magazine. Another tool I used a lot was the magic wand tool. The magic wand tool is a perfect and fast way of selecting a certain area which is similar and fairly consistent. The amount of leeway it has is adjustable from 0-100 which is helpful. This helped me when selecting my model so that I could manipulate him and the background separately. Sony Vegas I used to edit my videos and is something I've been familiar with for many years. Something maybe overlooked is my blog, my blog essentially represents the importance of the Internet and Web 2.0 for these magazine companies. Without sharing, liking and commenting these magazines would not be able to reach half of their audience therefore showing its importance. To me it was a way of easily creating a portfolio of my research and final products while also being open to the features that Web 2.0 has to offer.
7. Learning these new skills such as photo manipulation and adjustments in all the stages of my magazine production has helped my magazine look the way it is as in my preliminary task I used very simple fonts, very basic and plain colour schemes, used boring layouts and never edited my photos. The stage that I am at now I am pleased with as my magazine has a professional look to itas my images look much better, I used very appealing colour schemes, fonts and brushes and experimented with some original layouts which worked for my magazine production. In aid of this I also did quite a bit of planning and research to help me produce my magazine which was a massive contributor to the way in which my magazine looks as I learnt how magazines appeal to their audiences and so on so when creating my magazine I had a more enhanced knowledge of how to portray themes and appeal to my audience.
