Evaluation

For the layout of my music magazine I have generally followed the typical forms and conventions of many different music magazines and combined them together to create my own music magazine. As the theme of my magazine is electro/techno and there weren’t any magazines in this genre I could use as inspiration, I was able to use forms and conventions from lots of different genres of music magazines but also break them to make mine a completely new style.
For my front cover I have my masthead, which is the name of my magazine Technoglow, displayed clearly in a large font across the top of my page. When looking at other music magazines such as Q and NME I can see they have their own masthead more to the top right of their front cover, however when looking at the magazine Kerrang, I decided to use this as my inspiration and display my masthead at the top and central of my page as I feel this makes more of a statement.
I also followed the general forms and conventions with my photo on the front cover of magazine which is true to almost all other music magazines. This was a medium close up shot of my artist. However, generally the artist or main band member is looking at the camera, but I have broken this rule as my artist is laughing with her eyes close. This is because for my niche electronic genre of magazine, different to all other music magazines, this photo will stand out and attract the audience to the magazine as it is different. Though I have still followed the other rules of photography like other music magazines and made it a medium close up shot not appearing on a cluttered background. Many music magazines have their photo slightly covering their masthead at times such as Kerrang, however I have not done this as this is a first issue as people will not be familiar with the title of my magazine. I have on the other hand laid out the information on my front cover as other music magazines do. I have a banner at the bottom labelled “plus” with the names of other bands in the magazine as well as a banner at the top displaying a feature for free music in the magazine. I have the name of my main artist featured in the main picture in the boldest, most creative text to make it stand out the most with a pull quote underneath. I then have other features in the magazine displayed down the side along with smaller pictures of free posters.
The forms and conventions are then followed further into the contents page of my magazine. I used NME as my main inspiration as they generally display their photos and texts in organised boxes and stick to their own two colours scheme and I felt I could bring my electro genre into this through my own images, text and colour scheme. As NME do, I have displayed a large image of another big issue featured in my magazine. I have also put an image of my double page spread article. I then display all other issues in a list with page numbers underneath my large text saying Contents. At the bottom of my contents page I have a note and picture from the editor of my magazine and, following the forms and conventions of that such as Kerrang, I have a box containing information about subscribing to my magazine.
Although general forms and conventions were followed throughout my double page spread, it also differs as each double page spread is different. Mine, like other magazines, has a large title which stands out in a bold font as well as a large image of my artist. I also put my text in columns and pull quotes standing out. However as each magazine is different I decided to have my large image on the left hand side and three smaller images on the right. I also decided to use two pull quotes as this would grab the readers attention more.
Throughout the whole of my magazine other main forms and conventions I have followed are page numbers, A4 size magazine and a colour scheme of two colours.


The genre of my magazine is electro/techno. I have decided to do this niche genre as in my research there are very little, if any, magazines of this genre out there today. This is a surprise as electro music itself is certainly rising in popularity today within our next generation.
Although my front cover image is not stereotypical to other music magazines as my artist has their eyes shut, it is stereotypical to electro music itself. I have my artist wearing colourful neon, colours and laughing which is showing the fun, bright side of electro music I want to reveal in my magazine. For my magazine I feel the archetype is David Bowie on his album cover for Aladdin Sane and from this I have followed the stereotypical look with art on my artists face. I see this stereotypical look as more of an inspiration as Tessa Perkins(1979) challenged that stereotypes are not always wrong in context.
I have to construct a certain look from my music magazine that represents electro music in the fun, thrown together way which electro appears to be. However, what the audience should not realise is, is that this look has been constructed in a particular way so that the audience should perceive it in that particular way, although some audiences will experience these representations in different ways.
According to Dyer (1985) representation can be looked at in different ways and I feel the most important one for my magazine is that the representation is on my magazine is speaking on behalf of electro music itself. It is educating the niche audience which is interested in this magazine by revealing information on all aspects of this genre. It does this through its bright colours, its fun photos and the actual information about the entire goings on in electro world, from new artists to gigs and festivals, the stereotypical aspects of electro life.


I feel that this magazine at the moment is a niche magazine to be distributed by an independent company rather than a mainstream magazine distributed by a company such as IPC or Bauer. This is because after doing my research on IPC and Bauer, I can see that they distribute magazines which have a wide variety of music genres such as Q or a populist genre magazine such as Kerrang or NME. Although the popularity of electro music and culture is quickly growing today it is still far of from being as popular as that such as Indie or Rock music. However as it is still growing, perhaps one day this magazine could part of a mainstream distributer. Therefore I think it will have a much smaller circulation than populist genre music magazines.
Because of being an independent company and a new style of magazine aimed at a younger target audience, the magazine will be advertised on a website, rather than on television and radio as it is cheaper and more relevant to its specific target audience.


Each magazine has an imaginary typical audience member to who their magazine is aimed at.
My magazine is aimed at both male and females aged 17-25. It is not aimed at an older or younger generation as a particular part of electro genre is the nu rave age and only this age group would attend raves and electro house parties. I know both genders would be interested in my magazine also as received comments from both male and female 17year olds on my original magazine drafts which showed great interest and favour for my electro magazine. My typical audience member would not be afraid to look different in the way they dress from the general public as they would wear extremely bright colours. Most importantly my audience member would love techno/electro music.


I have used different techniques in creating my magazine to make it appeal to my target audience.
Firstly through the elements of mise en scene on my magazine cover. When looking at the star on the magazine cover, which is my main artist Electroqueen, you can see I have used a “star” to attract people to the magazine, by using a popular artist wearing bright, neon clothing and individual clothing such as the feathers in her hair. This shows that she is an iconic electro artist and the connotations of this is that she is seen as an ideal self for my teenage female target audience who aspire to be like her, and perhaps even an ideal partner for teenage boys. Her facial expression shows her laughing, this is a connotation for her being crazy and fun, a stereotypical electro look.Also included in the mise en scene are the graphic types. Here we see large, bold fonts to stand out to the audience, especially the graphics Electroqueen. This text is the use of anchorage along with the image to establish the main issue in the magazine which makes the audience want to read on if they are interested in the artist.The colours used are strictly techno/electro colours such as green, pink and grey. This colour scheme is used to appeal to both a male and female audience and to keep the magazine fun and simple whilst all detail can be focused on the issues which are the music and the artists.The mode of address in the magazine is peer to peer. This is so the magazine is talking to its target teenage/young adult audience on an informal level. It reveals information which young students are attracted too such as free posters and music as well as listing gigs and festivals.
For the contents page and double page spread I have again stuck to the neon colour scheme to attract to my young adult, electro audience. In my contents page, especially my main image, I have shown different aspects of electro music such as iconic girls to serve as ideal selves but also music decks to appeal to boys interested in the creating of electro music.



I have used the following technologies when creating my music magazine:

· Photoshop Element 5
· Quark Express
· Blogger

I had never used any of these programmes before so the prelim task was especially useful in giving me extra practice. I found these programmes quite easy to use once i got going with them and i didn't encoounter any problems.

Photoshop Element 5

By using photoshop I was able to cut round my picture by using either the rubber tool or the magnetic lasso. It was good this way as it helped me cut round curves which I wouldn’t be able to do if I was just cropping it.

I was also able to insert a picture and crop it if it had straight edges to make it fit to size.

Photoshop was also good for text as I could put different effects on them such as emboss.

Quark Express

On Quark I was able to be creative on how I created my text.

Either on a straight line:

A text box:

Or my own pattern:

I could also import images and scale them to fit my box.

Blogger

I used my blogger to create my own account:

On this I was able to create new posts and upload images of all my work.

The blogger was also useful as I could link up to other blogs such as the TRC Media blog and other students so they were able to give me feed back on my ideas. Especially with my original drafts where i was deciding which genre of music magazine to do.

Question 7: