Hazel DoyleHazel Doyle

AS Media Studies –AS Media Studies –

Magazine EvaluationMagazine Evaluation

My MagazineMy Magazine

These are images of my front cover, contents page and my double page spread for my music magazine. I chose to call the magazine ROCK UK as I felt it was simple and effective and immediately tells the reader that it is a UK magazine for rock music.

I used a lot of the main key features found in rock and metal mags in my magazine, the bold, dark masthead is typical of the genre, the empowering low angle shots often found in other music magazines of the genre. My house style is quite dark and is quite similar to that of other rock/metal magazines on the market. I found my magazine is quite organised in how the information is displayed and fitted into the classic magazine layout with the cover lines over in the left third of my magazine and the main cover line stretched across the middle of the cover image.

My magazine is original with its u.s.p as it is a magazine that focuses solely on UK rock and metal acts unlike other magazines on the market which also focus on international acts.

Audience

I attracted my audience through my photography and the house style of my magazine. I looked at the house style of other Rock and Metal magazines on the market as inspiration for my own work. My survey results show my audience were attracted mainly by my photography and my magazine layout.

I think my magazine represented the rock and metal fans quite well. My cover image and house style visually represent the groups as quite dark and the cover image is quite aggressive and imposing which fits in quite well with the “metal head” stereotype. I also chose the masthead font specifically as I think it looks quite similar to a font you would find on the cover of a metal CD or as a band logo. My survey I created for feedback on survey monkey showed my audience recognised the type of person well with 100% of people saying the thought the audience would be a metal fan and 5/8 saying they thought a rock fan would buy it as well.

Distribution

I think the institutions that would distribute my product would be places like WHSmith through distribution companies such as IPC and other stores such as HMV and other high street stores, the reason I think they would distribute it is because it is commercial and is quite a mainstream magazine like Kerrang! Or Metal Hammer instead of being a specialist magazine such as the online magazine metal message.

How my survey monkey results How my survey monkey results compare…compare…

Before starting my production of my music magazine I did a survey into my target audience. I found it quite useful to do this to build up a reader profile for my own music magazine and I also found it helped to set out my design.

• I found that genre is important to my target audience when choosing music magazines, I also found that my target audience liked hard aggressive rock and so felt this genre was one I was going to base my magazine on.

•I also found that photography and design was important to my audience so I spent a lot of time making sure that my images were good and my design was well done.

My second set of survey results found that I had successfully attracted my audience through the design and layout and found they could easily recognise the genre of music.

I found it useful to do a survey for my first set of results as it gave me a real insight into what my target audience looked for in magazines and gave me some major focus points for ways to make my magazine attractive and give it major saleability.

What I’ve learnt…

• There are easier document links to the internet, through sites such as blogger, survey monkey and slideshare.

• There is faster more widely available software for photo editing and production work.

• I have improved my photo shop skills since my preliminary work.

• I now have learnt more about house styles and key concepts of magazines and have learnt about audience research and reader profiles of magazines.