Jordan’s Evaluation

Recently I have produced four music magazine pages including a contents page, double page spread and a front cover. I called my magazine

EDGE because it is simple and catchy and it creates a sense that my magazine is edgy with

controversial subjects within. I chose for my magazine to be to of an indie and alternative genre

and I took pictures of my sister, my friends band and at a festival to feature in my magazine

It took me a long time to complete this task and I constantly changed my colour schemes and fonts. I used the same fonts and colours throughout my magazine so that the style was consistent. The artist which featured on our double page spread had to be original and made up. I created a singer called Lola Little and in my double page spread I talked about her new album. My target audience is of a mixed gender from the ages of sixteen to twenty-five and they are people who enjoy indie and alternative music. The price of the magazine is four pounds and it is released monthly. The reason why my magazine is so expensive is because it is only published once a month, with high quality and it is targeted at the older generation who would be expected to have money. My magazine to be sold in most corner shops and in places such as WHSmith, I will also allow people to buy yearly subscriptions because I would expect my magazine to be very popular. I would imagine that the popularity of my magazine would lead to there being an ‘EDGE’ website and app on the iphone.

I came up with the idea of my magazine after looking at magazines such as ‘Q’ and’ Kerrang’ because they consisted of the same genre as my magazine. However I didn’t want it to be as busy as ‘Kerrang’ so I went for more of a simple background, similar to the music magazine called ‘Source’.

For my contents page I decided to go for an orange and black theme because these colours appeal to both genders and it creates a simplistic and sophisticated look. The title of my contents page was the same font that I used for the front cover and I did this so that the readers could define a certain style of the magazine. I got this font from www.urbanfonts.com. I think that it looks original, which means that my audience will be able to refer to this font with EDGE magazine. It also looks dirty which reflects the indie culture. I used a more basic font for my articles and descriptions of them because I wanted it to be easy for the audience to read, it was called blippo light. For the numbering of the pages I used a font called cairo, the reason why I used a variety of fonts was because I wanted the page to look eye-catching and exciting; if I just used one font then it would have looked bland. I believe that if I used a wider variety of font styles then it would have made my page look too busy and tacky. I cleverly balanced my page out with using a simple text and two different types of exciting texts. I made sure that there was a fair share of images on my page because this broke up the text and made the page look more visual. I put the different article names under certain headings, so that it made it easier for the readers to find what they were looking for. The reason why I had the heading of the articles in orange and then the description in black was because it allowed me to separate the two. Originally I was going to have the background of my contents grey however after trying a few techniques on it I discovered that it was very difficult to work with and form a colour scheme. I was also going to have my title in a smaller font, although this made it lack visual imagery and it didn’t catch the reader’s eye.

Fist ideaFinal idea

I had a lot of issues with this contents page because the text that I used was not on a lot of the computers that I had access to, meaning that I could only work in certain areas and these areas where not always occupied. This meant that I couldn’t work in the class room at all times so I couldn’t get opinions from my teacher and my class mates, although I did get a lot of feedback out of lessons. I am still very pleased with the final piece and I believe that I have used a variety of images and texts making it both visual and interesting.

My double page spread took the longest to complete out of all of the pages. I carried on with my orange and black theme and I used the same fonts that were on my contents page. I used the cairo font for my larger chunks of text and for the detailed pieces I used the simple font, blippo light. This distinguished the introduction from the article its self. The title of my double page spread was called ‘Lola Little’ and the font was another one from www.urbanfonts.com. The font was also used on the front cover, when it said ‘Lola Little’ and this is because I wanted the audience to associate this writing with the artist. I wanted to call it 'Lola little' because I thought that it was short and simple. Lola is also a well-known artist so people will automatically be drawn in. On the page to the right I decided to place an image in my article because I thought that the page lacked visuality and the text was too chunky and had to be broken up. I also broke up the text by having an interesting sentence in a bold, different colour, ‘ive got so many huge American rock artists, and it’s gunna be a blast!’. This also would have caught the reader’s eye. I divided my introduction to the article and the article its self by having a thin black line between the two, this made the page look more structured and easier for the audience to read. Initially I was going to divided the two by having a reflection of the title however I realised that this made the page look too busy and it was best to keep it simplistic. The page to the left was just an image with a small piece of text next to it the reason why I had such little text compared to images is because it was a music magazine so some of my readers may not be intellectually smart. The font is in the cairo text and is in orange, before this text was going to be in black however it made the page look too Gothic and news paper style. I wanted to change my images on this page because they were too similar to my front cover, however my computer deleted the software I needed to change the image and I didn't have enough time to re-do my whole double page spread.

The image I would have liked to have used on my double page spread.

My double page spread was my least favourite bit of work and I really struggled with getting a layout that looks like a music magazine. Again, I also had a lot of issues with the fonts because a lot of the computers didn’t have these fonts. I would have liked to have changed the big ‘L’ to more of a fancy font because I think it looks bland however in the time that I had I found it difficult to find a font that suited the page. I am happy with the images used although I don’t like the idea of one of my pages just being of an image with a small piece of text next to it because I think that it looks like I havent made a lot of effort. Although, I did spend most of time on this page and I was always altering it and moving things around. I would have also liked to have used different images for this page, but I had issues with my computer. I think that I successfully broke up the text and I am very pleased with the page on the right. If I had extra time I would consider changing the page to the left to make it more textual and less simple.

My front cover was the first page that I created and I found it the easiest and most enjoyable to complete. I wanted the front cover to look simple and not tacky this is why I didn’t have a lot of writing around my page. I wanted the text to go behind the image of my model because I wanted the magazine to be well-known, meaning that the readers wouldn’t have to see the whole piece of text, and when I did my research most popular magazines did this too. The text that was used was the same as the title of my contents page and it was from www.urbanfonts.com. I wanted my text to be very large and placed at the top of the page so that it caught the reader’s eye. Originally, I wanted the title to be in more of a basic font, although I thought that it had to be interesting seen as the rest of my page was very simple. The tagline of my magazine is ‘tomorrow’s music today’ because it is simple and catchy however creates the sense that my magazine talks about new music, showing that it is for the younger generation. I placed my tag line just above my title in a basic font in small letters so that it didn’t distract the audience from the title however was still visible. At the bottom of my page I had a list of things which featured in my magazine in blippo text, they were in a small and simple font. I used an image as a background for my front cover because I wanted the front cover to look more visual rather than intellectual and when I was doing my research I saw that most music magazines such as ‘Q’ and ‘Rolling Stones’ had one image on their front cover. Next to the image I had a quote from one of my articles, ‘I live the music I write’ and I did this so that it would create interest and suspicion for the audience. All my text was in black so that the colours from my image stood out and looked more vibrant.

Final ideaOriginal idea

My front cover is my favourite page that I completed and this is because I think that it is powerful and most like a magazine front cover you would see in shops. I like that the page is simple although the objects that are on the page are very bold and powerful. My teachers and I debated on whether I should have some more text around the image, but I thought that if I did this I would make the page look too busy. One of my teachers suggested to have the writing going in the same motion as the wall and I think this would have been very effective and could have made the page look more powerful, although photoshop or adobe would not let me do this.

The reason why I used that image for the front cover because I thought that it was powerful and I liked the way the wall looked and zoomed down, making the image very eye-catching. I decided to dress her in funky clothing to portray the alternative aspect of my magazine and I placed her in an alleyway with graffiti to emphasise the indie aspect. I believe that the people who read my magazine will be able to relate to ‘Lola Little’ because she is dressing in the similar style that I would expect my audience to dress in. I edited the image by making the purple in her skirt brighter and I had to crop her head out then place the title in that position and then crop it back above her neck. I decided to use these specific images on the double page spread because I think that they went well with my colour scheme. they were also different to the image on my front cover, giving my magazine variety. The larger image worked well because I had a lot of text on the other page, so this allowed my page to be more eye catching. I edited the image by making her lipstick brighter so that it matched the orange text. The reason why I used that small image in the middle was because she had a different outfit on so it didn’t look like all my images were similar and the orange in her trousers matched my orange theme. The contents page offered images that were very different to both the other pages and I thought that it would be a good idea to take pictures at a festival because people who like indie and rock culture also enjoy going to festivals. The contents page was meant to be the most inspiring to the audience so I thought that I had to use a variety of images. Unfortunately I did not have enough time to manipulate these photos or edit them, though I am very happy with the quality.

When it came to my article I was very pleased that I only had to complete two drafts. After showing it to my teacher she was very pleased with the style of writing, however it was too long to fit onto my double page spread so I had to shorten it. I shortened it by getting rid of the sections that were not related to music because I thought that these would be less relevant and I needed to keep the parts about her career because it allowed the audience to define what style of music the artist sang. I created a chatty tone with using words like, ‘blast’ and ‘buzzing’ because the people who read my magazine may not be intelligent or sophisticated and it also made the article more interesting and appealing. I would have liked to have written more although I think that the detail that I have put down clearly portrays the style of the artist.

Inclusion I am very happy with my final product and think that I worked hard over a short period of time. I think that I have come a long way after making my school magazine and looking back at that work compared to this there is a huge difference in quality and I think that ‘EDGE’ looks much more like a real magazine. I believe that I worked as best as I could with the limited resources that we had and if I had more time I would have liked to have worked on my double page spread a little bit more. Throughout this project I have learn't the key aspects of most music magazines and how much work is involved in the development process, I also learn't many computer skills on Photoshop and Adobe.