Feedback for my initial draft of front cover

 This is the initial feedback that I got from my first attempt at my front cover. As you can see there was a lot of improvement that I need to do to ale my magazine better. By doing this it will hopefully increase the final grade that I get for the overall magazine. The areas that I needed to improve on were that I needed to improve the use of texts used as there was not enough variety in the texts used. I also needed to adjust the masthead as it did not stand out enough which is one of the main part to the magazine.

Feedback for the perliminary task

This is the feedback that I got back form my teacher in regards to my preliminary task. The reason that I have has the feedback from this is to identify the key areas of where I had gone wrong and where I can improve. The areas that I did well on were the style of writing that I used and the columns were accurate when I out text onto it. On the front of my magazine the feedback that I received was that I had used a good central image and the colors that I used were appropriate for the magazine.

The improvements that I could make are that the image could have been moved up or positioned differently as there was a lot of unused space at the top of the magazine which looked unprofessional. The sell lines could also have been cleaner and closer together.

Magazine front cover first draft

This is my first draft for the front cover of my magazine, the reason that I have done this is because it is part of my coursework that has to be completed along with the contents page and double page spread. I will be getting feedback on this when it is marked and I will be improving on certain areas that have been looked at. The areas I found difficult were finding what colours to put the side lettering   and how to place them so that they all fit in. I found that by following my plan it made it easier to create the cover of my magazine.

Questionnaire

I have created a quiestionaire that I think will help me in my research and planning for my magazine. I have asked questions that I think will help me in making my magazine more accessible for my target audience.

I firstly started off by asking people if they were male or female, I did this to see what type of people would be my target audience whether it would be majority male or female. Here are the results. The red is female and the blue is male.









I secondly asked what age people were, I did this to see who my target audience was and who I would have to aim the contents of my magazine to.As you can see the blue is yes. It was the highest percentage as there was no one that filled in the questionnaire that was not aged between that.









I thirdly asked people what music genre they listened to, the reason I did this was to see if people would like the type of music that the people that are in my magazine is based on. The main genre of music was rock(red) and the second most popular was pop(blue) and the rest were all of the same, the catagories were R&B,Dance,Chart music and British pop.

The next question that I asked was do you read magazines. This was because if the people that I asked did not read them there would not have been much sense to make a music magazine to that particular audience. But the results showed that there are more people that do not buy them but would be willing to start buying them if the magazine was interesting and informative. 

The following question was how much would the people who are reading the magazine would be willing to pay. When I had done research I found the prices that other magazine were charging at the time and that is what i based my pricing around when i asked what the ctoemrs would be willing to pay the options were £1,£2,£3. The results show that the majority of people would pay £2 for a magazine and only 1 person would pay £3. With this I now know how much to charge for my magazine

The next question is if you are at either college,Sixth form, University or Work. The reason I asked this is so that I know who is reading and when they will probably be reading it and also if there is anything I can put in the magazine to help with their studies or work.The majority go to college and only 1 person goes to University and sixth form and non work.

The next question I asked was what social media do people use. The reason I asked this was so that I know other technical devices that I can use to connect with the people who read my magazine. Plus I can create apps and a website that can be used to keep in contact with my customers. As you can see from the results the most popular choice of technology was Twitter and then it went Instagram,Facebook and snapchat. I will use the two most popular which is twitter and Instagram, this will help me interact with my audience.

The next question is what technical devises do you use. The reason that I asked what technical devises people use is so that I can see how I can get in contact with people and what ways people could either use the website or the online app. From the results the one that came back as the most popular is a mobile phone, this is helpful as i now know what is the best method in communicating with my customers. The mobile app will be a good idea as most of my cutovers have a phone and are accessible to a technical devise that can access the app.

The final question that i asked was if the customers/ readers liked the colours red, white and black as these are the colours that I am going to use when I create my magazine. The results were that everyone who has taken the questionnaire came back and said that they liked and agreed on the colours.

Flat plans for magazine.

This is my flat plans for my magazine (M.NOW). I have chosen to do a flat plan for each page so that I can have a clear idea of what I am going to do when I create my magazine. Plus it will save me valuable time when creating the magazine as I will need to create the magazine in a certain amount of time and if I know what I am going to do I can then get on with the magazine  straight away.

Original questionnaire.

This is the plan for my paper questionnaire sheet, I have chosen to do a survey so that I can base my magazine around the feedback that I get from the questions that I ask. The way thatIi will show the results is in pie charts.The questions I have asked are as follows.
The reason I asked the person if they were aged between 16-25 was because I wanted to know who my target audience was and who I had to aim my magazine at and what would be more suited to them. The next question was for the type of music and this was vital as if the results came back as my target audience liked other music than what my magazine was based around I would have to change the concept and music theme of the magazine. When I asked what was the persons favourite band/ artist was it was so that I could then get a feature on that particular person. I wanted to see who actually read/ bought magazines and if how much they would be willing to pay this is so that I know how much to price my magazines at and what not to charge my customers. I asked if they were still in education of if they were working so that I could see what other aspects I could put in my magazine whether that be revision or educational help. The purpose of asking about the social media is so that I can communicate with my audience through different sources of technology i.e. apps, internet, phones. The final question is on if the audience likes the three colours that I am going to use when I create my magazine. I had done this so that I know what people will want and if the colours will work.

Reader profile

This is my reader profile, I have created this to show what the readers of my magazine like and what type of music that they listen to and what influences they have. It also gives me a better idea of how to improve my magazine and how to get to the target audience and see what they like. Plus for new readers of the magazine it allows them to see if they will like it and might persuade them to read it. The reason that I choose to use red,white and black for the colour scheme for the reader profile is because on the survey that I have done I ask if they like them three colours and the overall answer was yes. Plus I asked them what type of music they liked which was rock and pop which is why I have CD covers of bands/artists who fit that criteria.

Cover Influences

For my magazine front cover the influences that I had were from popular magazine such as NME and Q magazine The reason I have chosen to use this example as my cover influence is because I like how the title is behind the persons head yet is still visible to the person that is reading the page. Plus the colours are minimal and well used making it easy for the reader to understand and not get bored when trying to read the key information that they need to know. Plus the image that is used is very simple yet affective, it stands out and still keeps in with the music theme with the record that the person is holding. This is what the front of my magazine will look like as this is my cover influence.


For my contents page I have chosen to use this as my influence page, it is form the popular music magazine Q. I like the way that there is one main image to the right which immediately catches the readers eye and one again shows them clearly where to go to read that article. I also like the simplicity of the page and how it uses very few colours but still has a good effect. Plus it makes it easier for people to navigate around the magazine and be able to go back to where they want to go with ease. Also there is only two images on the contents page which why I like it as it keeps it minimal and informative and straight to the point.




For my double age spread I have chosen to use this article for the magazine NME. It has one main image and then a lot of text on the right which is what I wanted as I want to be able to get a good interview in with enough space. But I also want to make sure that the image has enough of a space to make an effect when you turn to that page. It is very simple the layout but i think it shows a good way of laying my magazine out and what I want it to look like when I create it. Plus the colours I have chosen to use will go well with his look as they are minimalistic.

Time management

When creating my blog and my preliminary task (college magazine) I was very concious of the time I had to create my magazine and the deadlines that had to be met.Throughout the first task and creating the blog my time management was up to time and correct and all my work had been completed. I have struggled lately as there has been a lot of work in the run up to creating our final magazine piece. With the research and planning I have been keeping up to date with all of that and making sure that all is correct. I am now on track again and am on my way to creating my final piece.

Institutions

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EMAP - is an industry brand, which specializes in the retail, health, architecture and fashion. Their aim is to bring professional companies together though social media. The magazines that this institution have are: RetailWeek, NursingTimes.net.

Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, is a mass media company headquartered in the Conde Nast Building in New York City. The company attracts more than 164 million consumers across its 20 print and digital media brands. The magazines that this institution have are: Vogue,Glamour.

Time Inc- is an American New York-based publishing company. It publishes over 90 magazines, most notably its namesake, Time.Time Inc. also owns the rights to life, a well-known magazine that has been published in many different formats. Time Inc. currently owns and runs LIFE.com, a website dedicated to news and photography. The magazines that this institution have are: NME and What's on TV.

Future plc is a media company. In 2006, it was the ranked the sixth-largest media corporation in the United Kingdom. It publishes more than 180 magazines in fields such as video games, technology, automotive, cycling, films and photography.







For my magazine I have chosen to use (TimeIncUK) for my chosen institution as when I have looked into their portfolio and who their clients are, they have a lot of music magazines and I thought that they are similar to my magazine and I think that it would be good for me as they will have a good understanding of how I will want my magazine to be set out as they have previous experiences of creating a music magazine.

There target audience varies from the type of magazines that they are associated with. There target audience is probably ranging from anywhere between 16- 60. The magazines can be for either ale of female as they have a lot of magazines that cover a lot of different genres.

Another reason why I have chosen to use TimesIncUK is that they have the magazine NME, this is a popular music magazine that I am basing my own magazine on. The page on NME is very factual and helpful, showing that the TimeIncUK has been with NME for a long time which shows that they are good to work with, which is what would want for my magazine. Plus they use a lot of social media aspects, ranging from twitter to Facebook. Plus they use technology to communicate with their customers and this is an aspect that I would want so that is another reason why I have chosen to use TimeIncUK.http://www.futureplc.com/

Unused photos

These are the images that I did not use in my college magazine. The reason I have not used these images were because I had chosen to take more than I needed so that if there was any mistakes where people has moved, laughed or the images just did not look quite right. This could have been for many factors whether that be the lighting was not correct or the image had gone blurry. One of the main reasons why I did not use a couple of the images was because there was too much head room on a couple of them, this wastes a lot of valuable room.

Contents page flat plan

This is the flat plan for my contents page on my college magazine. I have chosen to create a flat plan so that I have a good idea of where I want certain things to be placed and how I want my contents page to look.

Evaluating previous magazines and looking at mark schemes.

In class we have had a look at previous magazines that previous students have created in the previous years. We did this so that we could get ideas and see what we should and should not use in our magazine. The key areas that we discussed were the color, layout and images used on the magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. In my magazine I will try and use the same layouts as a popular magazine that is used in the press at the minute and is a popular with customers. I will try and focus on my contents page as that is the area I think can look really good if it is set out appropriately. I will also focus on the color that I use in my magazine as I think this can determine the way the magazine can look and the here the magazine is set around. We also had the mark scheme for the previous magazines that we looked at which was helpful as we then knew if our ideas for our magazine would work or not.

Front cover flat plan and rationale.

This is the flat plan that I had created for my college magazine, the reason I have used this is so that I had a good idea of what I wanted to place where and how I wanted my magazine front cover to look.
The reason that I have placed the masthead in the position it is in is so that the reader can clearly see it and it is visible and easy to see. I have placed the main image to the left so that I can use majority of the page to clearly show the main image. Plus I have the strap-lines overlapping on the right of the image to make the magazine hopefully flow smoothly. Also the barcode is placed at the bottom left as stereotypically that is where majority of barcodes on magazines are placed. The competition is placed by itself to stand out.

College contents page

When I was creating the contents page for the college magazine I chose to use the same colours as the front page which allowed the magazine to flow as the colours used were the same on both house style pages. I have chosen to put other photos in as I think it is a good way of interacting with the reader plus other magazines have used this in theirs. I tried to keep the layout simple and clear so that people can know clearly where to go and can navigate around the magazine with ease. I found doing the contents page easier than the front cover as I has got used to the way photoshop works and that is why I found it easier.

College magazine Preliminary task front page

The brief for the Preliminary task was to create a front cover and contents page for a college magazine. This is the front page of my College magazine that I created on photo shop. As you can see my skills at using photo shop have improved greatly, throughout my time of using it I got to grips with what to put where and where not to put things so that it looks more professional. I learned this by experimenting with different aspects of photoshop. The areas that I improved on were the coloring of the magazine and how to maneuver the images around. I incorporated a lot of the skills that I had learned in the previous attempt I had using photo shop. I used colours that I thought complimented each other well and the blues at the top of the screen worked well with the writing on the side of the magazine. I wanted to keep it quite minimal yet still with a bit of colour to brighten it up. I chose to use the certain type of text as I thought that it is quite an informal text which works well with it being a college magazine. The magazine appeals to the audience as the colors used are keeping in theme with the younger generation and with the actual college.

Fist attempt at photoshop

This is my fist attempt at using Photoshop. As you can see it is not at the quality that I want my actual front cover and contents page to be as I am not yet that advanced at using Photoshop. In the future my skills on Photoshop will improve and hopefully my magazine will look professional. When using Photoshop for the fist time I learned how to navigate the page and how to do the basics of putting a photo in and moving it around and seeing how to use it.I am happy with how the photo looks and where it is positioned but I want to improve on the text and the overall look of the front cover.

M.Now

When I was planning my magazine I had decided to name my magazine MNOW (music now). On reflection I realised that should have put a full stop in the middle to let people know that it is two different words instead of being one word. I also think that when used as the title and main header on my magazine that it will look better and will allow people to know the name of my magazine.

3rd deconstruction of double page spread.

This is my third deconstruction of my double page spread. I have chosen to use this particular magazine as I think it gives a different perspective on the one I had used in my previous deconstruction. It gives the outlook of a younger magazine and the use of different colours.

2nd deconstruction of double page spread

This is my second deconstruction of my double page spread. I have chosen to use this particular magazine as I think it gives a different perspective on the one I had used in my previous deconstruction. It gives the outlook of a younger magazine and the use of different colours.

1st deconstruction of double page spread.

This is my 1st deconsruction of my double page spread. I have chosen to use this article as I think  it gives a good demonstration of what a magazine double page spread should look like. I have mentioned the layout and the images and how they have been used differently to other magazines that may not choose to have one page as a full image.

Practice of article

This is the practice article that I have created for homework. I have done this so that I can get a better idea of how to set my article out when I properly do it in my magazine. As you can see my work has been marked and I have been shown where I can make improvements. For this piece of work I got an A but there is still room for a lot of improvements. the comments that were left will help me when I create my next article piece. I found doing the actual article quite enjoyable as I like to create articles, the aspects that i found challenging were the arrangement of the page and how to set it out correctly. I will look to improve on making it look a bit more professional and having better standards of photos.

3rd deconstruction of a contents page

This is the third deconstruction I have done, the reason I have done this deconstruction is so that I can see what magazines do to make the main features on the context pages stand out, that may be the colour text or the layout in the page. I will use some of the aspects on this page for example the smaller picture on the top left is a good of showing the different aspects on the page as what the magazine has to offer throughout. 

2nd deconstruction of contents page

This is the second deconstruction I have done, the reason I have done this deconstruction is so that I can see what magazines do to make the main features on the context pages stand out, that may be the colour text or the layout in the page. I will not be using this page layout as I don't think I will us this technique in my magazine as it look overcrowded and unprofessional as there is too many different colours on the page and too many different pictures.

1st Deconstruction of contents page

This is the first deconstruction I have done, the reason I have done don't this deconstruction is so that I can see what magazines do to make the main features on the context pages stand out, that may be the colour text or the layout in the page. I will use these techniques in my magazine as I think this particular magazine is set out well.

Colour scheme/ Fonts

I have chosen to use reds and blacks for my fonts and colours as I think that they are good base colours that will flow well in coherence to the overall look of the magazine Especially with the main person on the front of my magazine as I can accessories their make-up and clothes with the overall look of the magazine.
I have chosen to try a range of different font types as I wanted to see what looked better in certain colours and what would suit the overall look of the magazine. This has helped me to see what colours work well and which once don't when placed together. The colours red, white and black work well as they compliment each other well.

Initial idea of magazine layout.

This was my very first thought of what I wanted my magazine to look like, it is very minimal as I was not yet sure on what I wanted to go where and what captions and headline to have on. This gives me a good outline though of what my magazine could look like. I like the general layout of the magazine but the aspects that could be improved are just the main body of the overall magazine like the quality of the image and the text being used plus the masthead and where the other images are placed in according to the text and images.

My initial ideas essay.

These two pages are my 1000 word essay on why I want my magazine to be specifically based and designed on. I looked in detail at what I wanted my magazine to look like. I added the colours and the content that was going to be in my magazine and just the initial ideas on what I wanted it look like. With the sheet that was given it helped give me a clear outline of what I wanted to happen and what I wanted my magazine to look like in the specific areas which helped with the overall planning of the magazine. The feedback that I got helped as it showed me what I could improve on.

Looking at genres

When I started the media course I initially got some enrolment work to do. This was to help me think forwards to what I wanted my magazine to look like and what I wanted it to include. The three boxes above classed as my initial research on music magazines this helped me look through different genres of magazines and to find out which ones I liked/ disliked. This meant that when it comes to me creating the magazine I know have a clear idea of what type of music magazine I want to create.

Design technique for front cover (hairstyles)

The reason that I have gone for curly hair is because I think it looks nice and can either look quit girly or the curls can look quit harsh depending on the ape of curls. This will be good for my front cover as my magazine is based on alternative rock / pop so the person needs to look a bit harsher instead of pop and girlie but still with an element of fashion and style.

Design techniques for front image (style)

For the style that my model will be wearing I have chosen to go with bod red colours and try to keep it minimal with the actual outfit. I think this will make the person stand out and catch the readers eye when looking over other magazine front covers. The other aspects of the outfit I will keep as black meaning the shoes and tights if necessary. This will appeal to my audience as my magazine will hopefully by quite current with the colours that are used and the overall look.

Design techniques for front image (make-up).

I have chosen to find ideas on what I could do my models make-up like for when it comes to deciding on the colours and will use them to see if it matches what I want my magazine front cover to go with. I have chosen quit minimal colours for my main page so I think that the make-up should be based around those colours, meaning they will be a combination of reds. I hope that the colours that I use will give off a mature look and also a look that will be in keeping with the theme of the magazine.