AS Magazine Evaluation

By Ben Allington

I had to design a magazine from scratch, developing the style and focus around my target audience, whilst using all my own work from

photographs to designed art work all placed effectively and presentable to hit my target audiences needs.

Introduction

In what ways does your magazine use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My Front Cover

Masthead

Pull Quote

Main Image

Lead Article

Barcode & Issue Number

Cover Lines

(1)

Masthead (1) : For my masthead I felt I would add a personal touch but keep it very stylish and current to my audience, I drew it out and scanned it in adding effects in the way I thought would best suit my magazine.

Lead Article & Pull Quote (2) : The lead article is meant to be the thing that entices the reader to know more about the band situated on the front of the magazine, I felt using the font style adapted very well giving my magazine that professional yet gritty feeling. The pull quote I decided to overlay just in front of the lead article to emphasis to the audience that it’s a real one on one with the band.

Main Image (3) : I decided to use this image and cut out the band and overlay them on the background I designed last year in art, I felt the background helped the whole style and mood I was trying to get across for my magazine and on top of that I feel the lightening on David, the front man of the band helped show that he really is that outrageous and important.

Cover Lines (4) : The cover lines are always used to entice the reader that little bit more and show them what else is inside the magazine, as I felt my magazine was aimed towards casual musicians as well as rock and metal fans, I felt it was a great idea to include some tabs for songs, information about upcoming festivals and if that wasn’t enough a couple of freebies.

(2)

(3)

(4)

My Front Cover

For my contents page I wanted it too be as clean as possible just keeping it simple,

accessible & carrying on the on running theme, I decided too use the same text and style I

used for my cover lines and lead article before. I felt it helped compliment by audience very

well. The image I used for my background was an adaptation I did of another quite powerful image that I saw on someone's photography coursework. I really liked the fact that I was

able to carry on my musical theme using it. The reason I opted for using a simple clean

approach to my contents page as opposed to a more hectic informative one was mainly to do with what I felt my magazine was about, I felt

while reading other music magazines there was a lot of unnecessary information and text all

over the contents page’s so I decided to go for a design that is common in magazines like

MOJO for example.

Contents Page

My double

Contents Page

My double page spread I decided to use a main image of David the front man of Queens of Charlotte along side with the same image in photo negative. I used two pull quote from each

article, as well as carrying on the theme with the heading for each article done in an on running style. I also used a different colour font along side one another to contrast side by side as well

as helping it stand out. On top of all that I added some images of them playing live helping relate to the article incredibly well as well as helping it feel that little bit more authentic.

How Does Your Magazine Represent Particular Social Groups?

Image is key in the music industry and I feel I have helped represent my band and magazine in a way which hits a lot of major targets. I presented my band in a way which my target audience are familiar with, helping cast the front man David of the band as a

true performer. The use of also taking images when I went to see them actually preformed was essential to getting the right message across about the article in question. The image of David and his band members on the front cover I felt helped show a side to each one of them that made David stand out that little bit more just like his personality does in person.

The pull quotes I used enforced the bands and David’s personality even more, showing a darker side too him especially on the double page spread, “I have kid’s now I can’t go

talking about that shit” allows the reader to want to know what it is he is talking about and why he won’t answer. Another pull quote I used related to their live performance’s

allowing the reader to get a taste of just how talented David is as a performer.

Overall I feel I represented not only my target audience but mainly the band in such a way that really showed what they are all about as a group of lads as well as well as a group of

long time friends.

What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Magazine & Why?

As I was thinking about the type of media institution I ended up coming to a dead halt on two companies, IPC Media & Bauer Media after a lot of tossing and turning I decided on

the best company for the audience I want to aim at as well as the style and magazines they produce it had to be Bauer.

There was a few reasons I decided on Bauer, firstly was the magazines they publish things like Q magazine, Kerrang! as well as MOJO link in with the style and target audience I am

aiming mine at wonderfully. Another huge catalyst in the reason I choose them is that they are clearly not worried

about aiming a certain magazine at a small segment of the music market, this is proven my MOJO which is a very

specific magazine with the main genre of music classic rock mainly from the 70’s and 80’s. I feel with the kind of products

Bauer has taken on that my magazine could be target towards them very easily, it ticks all the boxes they seem to look for in design and style, not only that but it seems that there is a slight gap in their work of a magazine targeted

towards the metal / musicians out there.

Who Would Be the Audience of Your Magazine?

The main audience I targeted my magazine towards was Metal / Rock fans as well as musicians offering them tabs each issue for well known songs, I also kept my design e.g. my background of my front cover very appealing to people skate using almost a graffiti style. Also

my audience seem to value their friends and socialising, basically having a good time above all else, I kept true to this showing David just as youthful as he has ever been having stories to tell

but genuinely always being up for a great time. As males aged 16 – 24 where my main audience the magazine had to be affordable but have that clean youthful look to it, this is

another target I feel I achieved tenfold keeping it professional but enticing for a young audience who are constantly on the move.

Audience Feedback

As you can see originally I used survey monkey to get a broad range of results about what sort of music people are in to as well as there general attitude towards other things. Sadly only two people filled in my survey to I had no correlation of what my audience was like. I had to quickly think on my feet and decided no matter what happens my target was aimed towards 16 – 24 year olds due to I have a good knowledge on that audience as I am part of it. I developed a few survey questions and walked around college asking a random sample

of people a set amount of questions to collect the results I needed.

As a lot of people around college tended to be rushing from one place to the next I decided on three very important questions consisting of.

1. Do you buy magazines monthly?2. If you had to listen to either rock or pop music what would you pick?

3. Do you consider yourself in the common trend?

After analysis of the results 16 / 20 people agreed to buying a magazine at least once a month giving a large 80%

Another unexpected 14 / 20 people said they would listen too rock music rather than pop giving another 70%

and finally I asked if you would consider yourself in the common trend and surprisingly only 3 / 20 people agreed giving a completely unexpected

15%This gave me a good base for my magazine targeting it towards the rock genre as well as moving away from the “common trend” for 16 – 24 year olds and develop

something a bit more alternative.

After designing my magazine the collected number of people had to give feedback on the good and bad points.

There where three questions asked with detailed feedback from each person asked.

1) What do you think of the layout and visual design of this work? Each giving feedback for my front cover, contents page and double page spread.

Overall people really liked the use of the white and black tabs for the text as it really helped catch the eye and stand out, although there was very mixed

thoughts on the main image used, some people really like it as it showed each member in their own light but others felt it wasn’t quite as bold as it could be.

Every single person felt that the background used not only for the front cover but the contents page especially was perfect for the context of the magazine as well

as helping the images and text stand out. For the double page spread people seemed to really like the style of text and layout used as well as the use of the

main image and a photo negative of the image, helping it stand out.

2) Who do you think the target audience is for this publication? Do you think that the work does a good job for appealing to this group? How?

Every person categorised my magazine between the 16 – 24 mark which is extremely pleasing. Not only that but everyone but one person felt the magazine was directed towards the male audience. Almost everyone felt that it portrayed a great rock / metal image from the font, images used to what was written on the double page spread. Another thing that people commented on is that it seemed

to be dark and gritty which lead them to believe it was aimed at the male audience, which is another big plus.

3) What do you think are the strongest points of the work are? What things would you suggest as changes or improvements?

Overall everyone thought the layout of the magazine as a whole was a big plus, on top of that the images used got a huge amount of praise as well as the font and text style used throughout. The main two things targeted at to improve on were the lack of images on the contents page as well as the main image used on the front cover, other than that I everyone seemed very happy at what was

presented to them.

Overall I feel my magazine ticked almost every box for my target audience, the layout and images where very powerful and helped show what the magazine was about. On top of that the gritty design and in your face pull quotes helped

show that it was targeted towards a young male audience as well as presenting that typical rock style that’s so easy to distinguish.

What Have you Learnt About Technologies?

During this project I have learnt a lot about certain technologies, mainly Photoshop. Before I even started the magazine design I had a clear vision to create my own masthead for my magazine and Photoshop helped in abundance for that.

Photoshop was an excellent help in designing my project just the way I wanted it and not only did I learn a lot about that from the filters used, the styles and embossing you can do but also something so common to me like Facebook. I was able to upload my survey for all my friends to fill in when they got a chance (if only they did). Another key thing was blogger, I never before realised the possibilities that blogger has and how useful it can be for everyday use, to share your work.

What have you learnt?

Overall I’ve learnt a lot coming from that initial college magazine design too what I have now. Ive learnt a huge amount about the layout and design a magazine has to have to tick certain boxes for your target audience as

well as just how important colour scheme and on running themes through a magazine are. The main thing I’ve

learnt though is how you can implement your own work into something like that and still keep it looking very

professional. I feel these skills will be invaluable for my future in this subject and in many lines of work.