Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product (your music magazine)?

 I have learned many things since my initial preliminary task, through my drafts until my final magazine pages. In order to assess my targets, and what to improve to make my magazine better I have used mainly audience feedback, and based my improvements around the criticisms given by the audience and maintained the features that they enjoyed. 

One of the main aspects that I improved upon was my use of colour, in the pre-lim I found myself confused as to what colours were appropriate to use, and I wasn't entirely sure which colours would even match the tone of my magazine, thus I opted for a variety which generated a mixed colour palette with a mixed audience reaction. 

The colours seemed to clash, and their positioning on the background image drew some comments because they were somewhat hard to read. Much feedback surrounded the colour of the cover line matching that of the models tie, and the two clashing together. As well as this, part of the text was noted to be positioned on top of a line of the horizon, thus making it quite difficult to read. I have also learned that the way in which text is written is also important. The style of the cover lines has an impact on their effectiveness. 

I also learned that with the colour, not to overwhelm the reader with so much on the page. My draft front cover of my music magazine had far too much happening on it, and this was one of the main aspects of criticism drawn from the test audience. They referred to the colours and the effects being used on the page as "too much" and that here was too much happening making it all look quite difficult to comprehend and read individual parts. Therefore I took this into account and I made sure to change the front cover to actually be more simplistic. 


As well as this, I received feedback from my audience surrounding the positioning of text and how heavy it looks on the page. Audience feedback said that the initial draft versions of the DPS pages were far too text heavy and this thus made them quite difficult to read and they just looked like a large block of text. thus they were less appealing as magazine articles. As well as this, they suggested that an improvement would be to break up this text in order to create more natural entry points throughout. 


With this, my use of pull quotes was commented on, to make them stand out and more obvious. I used different colours and different sizes for each of the pull quotes which made them look initially too confusing and inconsistent, therefore I rectified this by then changing the styles of these pull quotes so that they matched each other more appropriately. 


Another aspect of my music magazine that the audience commented on was the lack of page numbers initially. Without these, it did not particularly look that much like an actual magazine. therefore to actually ensure that my magazine did match the norms of an actual magazine, I used mainly Q as inspiration for the bottom border on each page, saying the page number and date of publish. This way it was more reminiscent to a real music magazine.



As well as this, I received audience feedback surrounding my original flat plans for my music magazine which then influenced me to change them. In the flat plans, there was too much happening one the page and images coming out from the sides as well as text literally all over the place. This is why I changed my final design from that of the flat plans because I receive feedback to suggest that it would be better to have more simple pages and less exaggeration and production surrounding the use of images. The audience recommendation was that the visuals would be enhanced by having less and make it more relative to regular music magazine articles. 


Overall looking all the way back from the preliminary task I feel like I have gathered more and more knowledge throughout the production of my music magazine into how to produce a good looking, genuine magazine, and not just in its presentation but also in the tone it creates. My understanding of how professional magazines are produced has been greatly expanded, and through the construction and subsequent critsicm of different draft versions I have become more and more aware of what the readers want in a magazine, and thus been able to finally bring this all together and ensure my final version incorporates the most common points provided by all those part of the audience. 


Not everyone will be made happy, some criticism was unfair and at times completely irrelevant, and therefore I have learned to use my own knowledge whilst receiving feedback to determine what I believe to actually be correct feedback and what is not, because naturally not everyone in the test audience is going to be a professional magazine critic. However audience feedback was of course integral to making the magazine as good as it possibly could be and without the help accumulated through criticism, it would have been impossible to improve. As it is, I have learned all about the different techniques originally used in the preliminary and been able to change these into being better used in the final version.

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your magazine?

I have learnt a great deal about modern technologies throughout the construction of my music magazine piece, primarily surrounding the implications that surround modern technology and the consumption of media by the audience.However most importantly for me to take away from the construction process were the technical skills that I developed and enhanced, throughout the use of them during my piece. I have developed a greater understanding of how to use them and their significance in the creation of a music magazine, and I feel I have used them to a high standard of quality. 

The video above is about how I refined my skills using the still cameras. Through using these cameras I gained a better understanding of how it is necessary to use a good camera for a magazine photograph, and I also learned how to frame and compose the picture to make sure that it looks good for the purpose it is there to serve. 

How I integrated text around images in my magazine was also a key feature and something I learnt greatly about. I had no experience previously of working text into a Photoshop piece in the same way, therefore I learnt what the conventions of the text was and how technically it should be presented on a page, e.g. the positioning of cover lines, ensuring that the colours did not clash with the background image, and making sure that there was an obvious hierarchy of text apparent and the most important text was demonstrated through different effects.

I learnt a lot of new skills in Photoshop and how to manipulate pictures in a way that makes them look more authentic and connote ideas that I was trying to create in them. I learnt a lot about the more technical features such as the colour balancing and the filters such as Gaussian blurs and others, as well as playing with the layer masks to create different effects on top of the images to make them look a lot more interesting that just plain images. I also learnt how to separate images from a background and this therefore allowed me to place images anywhere on the page and create even better layer effects. 

Downloading fonts was something I was used to as I was aware that custom fonts gave that extra diversification to any piece and made it stand out more, however I had never done so in a way that was so imperative and shaping for the work. My masthead needed to have its own unique font to be identified by, in order to make it more interesting and as did the other main text throughout my magazine. Also I learned the importance of downloading new brushes to give some custom designs to the piece, and again enhance how it looks and make it more unpredictable and hence more interesting to the reader. Along with this I also had to refine my skills of being able to look at something and take inspiration, I gained the ability to find other magazines and base my own designs around them in an original but familiar way. 

I learnt a lot about how technology has effected the magazine world and using this I intergrated some small things into my magazine to give the impression my magazine was up to the times and was part of the technological world. For example the "Resonator Rock Radio Awards" highlighting the use of multiple media platforms in my fictional company, and as well as this using a link to the official website at the end of the article which highlights how my magazine uses the internet as other magazines do.

This video shows a sped up version of the process of constructing the contents page, which was essentially the same process for all of the pages of the music magazine. 

I learned new features about Photoshop I had no previous experience with. Primarily this surrounds the actual editing of a picture itself, using masks and using different colour tools as stated in the video above. 

Editing away the background from an image was the most difficult process when editing the photos. To do this I used the masking tools that I describe in the video, as these allowed me to remove parts of the background without actually destroying the image thus if I made a mistake it could be salvaged.


The image on the right represents how I used a mask to rub around the edges of the model and delete the background. To finalise effects such as these I made heavy use of other effects such as the blur tools and filters that were available to me. In order to succesfully acheive these effects, finding tutorials for the different Photoshop tools became very important to being able to refine my skills. 

 This image on the left is the original version of the contents page image which looks rather different in comparison. The reason is because I used many different new colour effects on it that I had learned from constructing this music magazine and that enhanced my Photoshop abilities. In the edited version, I duplicated the layer itself, and then changed the colour settings of the masked layer before removing aspects of the image I wanted to change, to create a unique effect of having a black and white, cold image use highly contrasted colours that stood out and made the picture look really quite unique. 

The same technique was essentially used for the image of the band, however with this more intricate colour balancing and saturation tools were used, to create an effect that was not black and white but created a somewhat dismal tone to it whilst retaining that rock n roll appeal. Again this was a first and something that I learned especially when using Photoshop for this music magazine. With this there were also the different blur tools and filters that I applied to the image to put extra concentration on the actual band members them selves and less so on the background, this also made the image look more artistic and therefore the presentation of the overall product was made better. 


Overall my photo editing skills were those that were most refined and what I found more technically useful more than anything out of this project, however I was aware of what I learned to do prior to the piece. That being said, it was the technical knowledge I acquired of the aspects of the media world which helped influence what was contained in the magazine and how the presentation would be, but were it not for the different experimentation that I applied on this music magazine I would not have stumbled upon the different effects I managed to create on some of the images, which I am personally really quite proud of and feel they were worth all of the effort and certainly demonstrate that throughout this construction process, I learned a lot about the photo editing industry itself.

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

How Magazine My Addresses My Audience on Prezi

Please allow the Prezi time to load all of the necessary multimedia (mainly the video) before beginning.

Throughout my music magazine I use language which colloquially is representative of the music genre and will be easily read by my audience, I do not use particularly sophisticated language which would subject the audience to a specifically upper class, more intellectual audience of readers, nor do I use language which is unintelligible, instead I use language which is rather generic and again reminiscent of my influences. Quotes from the article such as "I was an asshole", display that somewhat rough, mature and rugged style of the music itself within the text, and displays how the text is uncut to suit the needs of the audience- the audience do not want to see an article filled with plastic words and censored language to sound as politically correct as possible, the audience based on the music type want something more natural, and therefore this is what is delivered through a rather human and relate-able form.

When editing the magazine, I wished to create something which visually looked impressive. I feel that any audience regardless of their musical interest, find something that looks professional, different and well constructed, far more intriguing and interesting than something that looks rudimentary. Therefore, I used many modern techniques that are commonly used by other magazines to increase the aesthetics of their articles and covers, such as over lapping text, or images that seem to appear in front over over laying texts and mastheads, to make the images look more 3D and less plastered onto the magazine. 

In trying to make the pictures look as impressive as possible, I edited these in different ways to make them appear more artistic. Fans of the different bands shown in the magazine, would surely find them more inviting and interesting if different, unique effects are used on their images, and therefore for this reason on the contents page I ensured that the artists had their own individual looks and represented their style and why the segments of my TA would find them individually appealing for their different looks. This mostly involved the colour changing, especially on the darker bands, and therefore was used as a device to tap into the mood and feeling of these subsidiary groups of my target audience. 

With this there was obviously the colour scheme that I used and how it reflected the music type and thus the way in which the audience could acknowledge and appreciate this. Also, the fonts were all aimed at being relative to the musical genre, and thus again fonts which the audience could appreciate, especially when used with different text effects overlayed on top making them look more impressive and stand out more from the page.  

Q4: Who would be the audience for your music magazine?

This is the mood board I created which relates to my magazine and its target audience, with related artists and general images to symbolise this connection.

The Target audience I set who will buy my magazine are those who are interested in rock music, both modern and classic. In my magazine it features the biggest current rock stars, but also looks back on rock bands from the past and this highly influence the design and nature of the magazine. Audiences looking for pop news and gangster rap news or classical music features will not buy this magazine, whilst at the same time audiences interested in music featured in Metal hammer which is more hardcore will not be interested in the music featured in this magazine, it is created for those who like conventional rock n roll music.

People interested in indie music will also buy my magazine, however that is of course not the main genre featured. Whilst it aims to attract listeners of indie bands and records, the magazine is focused on mainstream and therefore only indie bands breaking into widespread fame would be featured- bands such as MGMT etc, thus again this magazine is not ideal for the most hardcore of indie cultured readers. Retro music such as Queen and The Stone Roses and The Who as pictured above would be a main feature of my magazine, and therefore people familiar with the "golden oldens" would be attracted to reading the magazine. again however it is not dedicated to classic rock music, and therefore it is a magazine more aimed towards younger and more modern audiences of whom enjoy reading of both present and past masters to broaden their musical understanding and interests.

Also the people that would my magazine are the current readers of magazines like NME, Q and Mojo, people who can move between magazines depending on what artist is featured. My magazine does not offer a unique specific taste, it is more wide than that and it is not aimed at niche market, it simply targets more modern rock n roll listeners. They would be younger, roughly between 16-30 and would generally be of a more blue collar background, most likely not those who are unemployed or deprived as normally this group would be associated with other music genres such as Hip Hop.

Also those who would buy my magazine would likely be of white ethnic backgrounds, again generalising and stereotyping the music genres other backgrounds listen to. Of course my magazine would not discriminate any racial class, but in terms of what would be the assumed audience white people would most likely fit the category as there is nothing truly exotic in my magazine to entice readers from foreign cultures. Also males may be the greater audience of who would buy the magazine, as the music genre of rock is associated with men more than women and because the colours used are more masculine, however that being said of course the website does not suggest any exclusivity as the "Number one male mag" for example.  

The magazine would definitely not be bought by younger, pre-teen audiences who prefer Top Of The Pops style music etc. The magazine is supposed to be generally acceptable however, and there are no extremes in it, it is aimed towards interesting as big an audience of rock listeners as possible, which is why the general rock music in it is somewhat varied in social position. It is designed to be popular amongst as many as possible, and in general terms, rather conventional.

Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your magazine and why?

The media distributor I would most like to be at the helm of my music magazine would be Bauer media group or Future PLC. The primary reason for wanting both of these institutions preferably to publish my magazine is literally because they are world renowned and huge across the globe, in fact of all publishers they potentially have the biggest and best repertoire of popular music magazines.

Should my magazine be published by either of these institutions along side their already successful collection of related music magazines, it would no doubt achieve high exposure and potential success. It would be drastically more likely to hit the target audience than if it were published by some rare or discreet company.

Bauer Media are a very successful German based media company of whom have a large variety of media products and magazines. They have an impressive selection of some of the best music magazines available, especially here in the UK, with Q, Kerrang and Mojo the biggest highlights of their portfolio.

Due to being the publishers of magazines such as Q which are rock music magazines, my magazine would fit right into their collection, mostly because my own borrows many features of Mojo and Q as it is. It is directed at the same target audience of rock music listeners, and would be a magazine that audiences of Q and Mojo and even Kerrang could easily deviate to reading and adopting. The music style is very familiar with Q in particular, and to an extent the two magazines do fulfill the same purpose and do so in a very similar manner.

As for Future PLC, again my magazine would fit in with their collection due to the similarities they share. Future are a very successful media company who boast an impressive international media empire and who feature music magazines such as Classic Rock, Guitar World and Total Guitar. I would say they would be preferable to a lesser extent than Bauer, because they do not have such high profile magazines like Q or Kerrang, but they do still have a very relevant collection to my own music magazine.

Again, their music magazines are heavily influenced towards rock music, and this is obvious due to the amount of magazines with the word guitar in them. They have magazines aimed at keen guitar players, and therefore this is the audience that I would want to be exposed to, audiences of people who clearly have an interest in the music type that I feature. Another bonus is that unlike Bauer my music magazine would not necessarily have a very popular rival within the group, where as with Bauer Q and Mojo would directly compete with my own for being very similar.

Of course, there is also the factor that because these publishers have many magazines that are similar to that of my own, my magazine would be somewhat eclipsed by them or just another addition to the mix. Therefore another possible choice would be that of IPC Media, as they are not as large however do have importantly the magazine NME under their belt, which is for me one of the inspirations and also follows the same musical and social style as my magazine. For this reason, they would be a good alternative because my magazine could work well alongside that of NME, however, the largest magazines and thus the greatest chance at success are those under the Bauer Media name, but still with this said IPC also have another successful magazine in Uncut, which also again follows the same general style as that of my own. 

Any of the publishers listed above would provide success for my magazine and they all match the tone and musical style of my magazine therefore they would assist my magazine in getting to its audience in the magazine market. They are all successful media franchises and with that in mind considering the reputation that the three of them hold they would be the best possible publishers for my magazine. Certainly, it would make no sense what so ever to use a publisher such as Gramophone, or Wagadon, because their media franchises do not specialize in my musical type. On top of all of this however, Bauer is still the optimum choice. 

Q2: How does your magazine represent particular social groups?

My media magazine represents particular social groups primarily through the use of images, and the subsequent effects added to these photographs. Whilst most of the framing and construction of the images came from when I originally took the pictures, the final touches were added upon editing them in Photo shop, whether this was changing the color or cropping the image down, every stage of the production of the images was vital to ensuring it addressed a certain social group. Of course however, overall, the genre of music for the entire magazine is essentially the same, it is just a case of each artists represented having their own social traits.

To the left here is my original image for the front cover photo. In this image the rock star "Raymond Torres" is displayed, the framing of the image displays him in the middle and the camera is looking up from a low angle, hence positioning him in a dominant frame. His Rolling Stones shirt immediately connotes the rock star look, and due to his youthful appearance he is quite reminiscent on real life artists such as Dave Grohl or others, it is obvious he is not a boy band member or classical singer etc. 

As well as this, the nature of the shirt and the American flag further gives the impression he is a typical American rock star, he is not wearing anything particularly crazy to suggest he is anything other than a classical, rather generic rock star. His age shows that he is most likely going to be more in tune with younger audiences of people. The colour of the image is quite bright as well, which suggests this is also a part of his character and he definitely does not belong to groups such as Goths or Emo's etc.  

This image on the right is from the contents page, and depicts a slightly different social connotation. due to the bright, sunny nature of this image, along with the relatively laid back and indie costumes of the two artists, it can be assumed the two belong to a rather chilled out social grouping. Again, they do not look like they belong to anything hardcore, but the low angle camera positioning and their stance, in particular Matt's hand gesture, show that they are not a pop group or anything child friendly. 

They look like an alternative, skater rock band to an extent, due to there dominant position, but also their obvious young appearance. For this reason they appeal to more poppy, younger audience of alternative rock listeners, probably relative to bands such as The All American Rejects or Sum 41 or MGMT, but not bands such as MCR or Mcfly who are aimed at even younger audiences.

This image to the left is also from the contents page and shows the "rock chick" of the magazine. Here the colours are different from others and are darker, however also have a high vibrancy rate and thus is rather bright despite having dark connotations. The facial expression as well as the comical use of guitar hero props and her in a box connotes a punk rock concept. 

The use of colours around the plastic buttons also adds depth to the playful nature of the image, and gives the impression she is something of a free spirit. Whilst the guitars obviously show she is a musician of that genre, her positioning and actions give the impression she is more radical and indie than the other artists.

This image to the left is one very similar to my own front cover in terms of how it has been taken and what this thus represents the artist as. They are not just similar in the framing and modeling however, both models, admittedly Grolh looking a little better, represent the same type of look and thus social culture. They are both wearing similar clothing and are indicative in a sense of that hard American rock culture. The mise-en-scene of this image clearly represents a famous rock star in a position that displays his demand for respect, as constructed through the low angle framing of the shot as he looks down on the camera. This is what I emulated in my own front cover image as it was integral to creating that superior look for the artist.

As in this image, my model looks quite modern, is wearing clothes iconic of this era of music, really quite casual wear but for this reason able to influence a greater audience of young readers. I also chose the image to have attractive connotations about it, the model is purposely framed in a way to appear not just cool to the audience but also to an extent attractive.

The image to the right shows the final band I used on the contents page, here the colours are more pale and pasted than in other images, and this hence connotes a more grungy feel. Thus the band members look more reminiscent of a trashy social class- dirty rock, they do not have the features of a clean looking band at all. Their disgruntled appearance and costume variety is indicate of their name "Post Party" which really speaks volumes about their social stature in music. They are aimed to appealing rock listeners interested in more hard core, grungy music, and those following a similar rough lifestyle.                                                              

Q1: In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

How does my magazine make use of regular media conventions? My Music Magazine "Resonator" makes a great use of magazine conventions, and does not deviate truly to any heavy extent away from them. I chose not to challenge the conventions simply because they are tried and trusted and it would make little practical sense to attempt to reinvent new ways in which to produce an effective magazine. Whilst there are minor aspects of my magazine that do not follow all conventions, basically everything around the design is based on previous magazine ideas. The colour scheme matches that which has already been fit to my music genre- predominantly red and white. This is the palette I used for my classic rock theme and is based on other magazines such as Q, NME and Rolling Stone, the main inspirations.

My magazine utilizes most if not all key conventions, such as the Z Formation of the front cover, as well as making use of other conventions that are shown in this word cloud to the right. These are the key conventions of a front cover, the aspects that are most prominent in all the most popular music magazines. I create my front cover with these in mind and essentially all of these conventions were used in order to make what I feel would be an effective front cover.

This is the front cover from Rolling Stone magazine. This acted to a degree to influence my own magazine, and there are aspects of it which I borrowed for my own front cover quite significantly. The most influential feature would be that of the font type I used- which is for the same the masthead for Rolling Stone. To prevent just plain copying this magazines style, I used this font, called "Royal Acid", for cover line text and minor text.

The colour scheme of this magazine cover also resembles that of my own, the red and white combination is one which is used frequently by many magazines of the same genre. In order to connote the feeling of a classic rock magazine, I felt that using colours such as Rolling Stone's would make it more identifiable by the audience.

My masthead is also similar in the way it is very important to the look of the page- just as here with Rolling Stone I used different effects on the masthead to make it stand out more and this in example of the hierarchy used when creating my text on the page. As well as this, my key cover line is similar in its style to that on Rolling Stone, although I did challenge to an extent conventions by using multiple colours on the cover which were done to show the American colours and appear more devastating and eye catching.

My cover lines are placed in a similar fashion to this front cover, which was done purposefully as I felt their positioning was key to making sure the primary lead article photo was most noticeable but they could also be read around the sides in keeping with the Z formation. Also my feature article was similar to that shown in this example, placed in the center with a white background, however challenging conventions to a small extent, I opted to add in an artistic background by having ink splatters to connote a sense of anarchy and reiterate the theme of the magazine to a degree.



This is my front cover annotated with all the key features listed on it.

Of course it is not just my front cover where I implemented the industry's conventions, naturally for the rest of my magazine key conventions are made use of and other influences also used to aid me.

Naturally the second page I worked on for the magazine was the contents page. I followed the same production steps as with my front cover, first gathering understanding of the key conventions of a contents page. These are listed to the left in this word cloud. I used the majority if not all of these conventions in my contents page, all to ensure that it would be as close to the real thing as possible. I used different magazines for inspiration, and did so with the intent of creating a contents page that any reader would be able to associate with the music genre based on these influences existence in the real world.

As you can see on the right, this is the contents page from a Q magazine. Q was one of my main influences, and this is very evident from the layout of the contents page. I heavily borrowed aspects of this contents page for my own, however sparing others purely for embedding my own originality in their place. I used the same grid structure that is used in this page, as well as having my main feature article photo in the right with the column based text to the left of it. I also made use of captions which is evident in this image, and my "Contents title" is in essentially the same place. Although this contents uses black, it essentially uses the similar red and white colour scheme of my own which was my house style that I maintained into the contents page from the front cover.

What this contents page does have that I lack is the magazine edition, the month is stated in the top right. Although I list this on the front cover as well as in the DPS, on reflection I would have added it on the top banner of my contents page. As well as this this page does not have an editorial, or at least doesn't have one that can be seen, in my own this is placed in the bottom right box which here is the review section. Another difference is how in Q's contents page every page number has a sub line describing the article. I would most definitely have adopted that onto my own design, the only real reason I did not was to prevent a cluttering of text, as I opted to use a number of images where the page numbers are listed. Other Q contents pages have featured a similar design of "popping out" images that are placed in amongst the columns, and this is what my own designs were based on, though it is not entirely conventional, I felt that it made the contents page look more interesting, to a degree interactive, but overall better looking. I feel it did not look awkward, and instead looks more aesthetically pleasing having images placed around the chronological ordered text. 

As well as this I used a different heading for the regulars section, entitled instead "Fan Features", as I wanted to incorporate articles that weren't necessarily classed as regular articles. This was to enhance the interactive feel of the magazine and again reinforce the idea it is one of the more successful music magazines by having plenty of fan related information on it. Un-conventional to a degree when compared to this contents page by Q magazine which refers to this section as "Monthly" which is basically regular articles.

The image on the left shows a word cloud for the key conventions of the double page spread. My own person DPS was technically a four page spread, but served the same purpose, and with it again I did not deviate that much from the conventional methods used in music magazine DPS'. My article firstly stuck to the house style of my magazine, and obviously made use of columns which really, had I not, would have resulted in an article that wouldn't even look like it came from a magazine. Page numbers, key quotes, a sidebar and a footer are all minor conventions that aren't as obvious that I made use of to add extra conventional detail and present the article as realistic.

On the right is a double page spread from Kerrang, a magazine of which I borrowed some inspiration from despite not being a main influence of mine. Whilst I took most inspiration from Q and NME, these were paper based and this example provides some conventions that I utilised. I chose a white background with a gradient tint because I felt for the reader it would be much easier to read and generally with black on white it would be very difficult to go wrong. I used a drop capital at the start which is a common feature of practically every magazine, and I also used a footer as seen in this image of which displays the edition and page number.

I also used captions of my images as is seen in this DPS, which I used to the same effect of adding that extra bit of information on the artists and hence enhancing the realism of the article. As well as this I used pull quotes, because as a convention that is something the reader almost expects when they look at a DPS. I also used a sidebar which is displayed in this example because I thought that adding one to show the artists discography would also expand the story provided in the article and would provide an interesting insight into the fictional artist. With the images used, I shared a similar design in some ways, for example most of my images were in boxes as seen in this example and to the side of the page, but as well as that I also used images that would stand almost independent on the page and look like they were coming out of it. This is a feature which is almost part of my magazines house style and was borrowed from Rolling Stone and NME predominantly, but also used in most magazines. Also this example shows custom designs such as the two notepads, I used my own custom designs in the ink splatters which are attributed to the artist from the front cover and are used in the background of the DPS to give space for pull quotes.

I did however break some conventions, although not shown in this example I did not use a stand first at the beginning of my DPS article, rather I decided to use an introductory subheading to ease into the start of the article. Whilst I feel even without the stand first the article still looks appropriate due to the use of other text conventions, perhaps it would have been better had I instead just stuck with using a stand first as well. I used the same register that is featured in most music magazines, of not being too formal and still addressing the reader quite casually. Another convention I did not use for the DPS was a byline, which although I feel wasn't necessary because I didn't think it added anything informative, to make it look more convincing I probably would have been better using it. Instead I just used an ending strap line, informing the readers of the artisits' music and advertising the magazine's website. I used this because I think it it added to the credibility of the magazine and is something that again is featured in the majority of music magazines' lead articles.

 



INTRODUCTION

My name is James Hope and I am an AS Media Studies student attending the Fallibroome Academy in Macclesfield. For my coursework, I have completed the Print Brief. This consists of:

A Preliminary exercise to produce the front cover and contents page of a new school/college magazine. 

The main task was to design the front cover, contents page and double page spread of a new music magazine, using a minimum of four original images.

This is my blog evaluation of my work, to give insight into how successfully I completed the task.