Analysis of magazine front covers

Vibe and Blender magazine have the mast head in title, as they are in the centre, where as NME has theirs in the left corner, in my opinion, that is the better idea because it's to the side and is not covered up by the picture. However, the masthead colours are all different but the one that sticks out the most is NME's because it is bright red, highlighted in white and placed on a black bqackground.

The images used for Vibe and NME are similar as in the sense they have medium close ups of the music artists whereas Blender has a almost full body image but just the bottom of the knees are missing.

the kind of fonts that are used are similar bas the colours used are black so they stand up against the white backing and the white or gray background.

The story layout on all three magazines are similar because they are all placed at the sides of the magazine cover and so are the artists names.

I am going to take these ideas of these magazine and apply them to my ideas.

Foundation Portfolio-Main Task

This task involves me creating a magazine front cover, a double page spread and a mock contents page of a new music magazine I must create. I have to consider the key media concepts and apply them to my ideas of my music products, I will use the acronym LIIAR:

Language: The language that will be used will be entertauining as magazines are there to entertain and interesting to my audience, who are interested in the music industry. The colours and textures will be relevent to my targeted audience. For example, if the magazine is going to be like NME, the colours will be darker, such as black and red with gray etc, however, if the magazine is a pop magazine such as Smash Hits, then the colours will be ones such as pastle colours, green, pale blue, yellow etc. which will make it eye catching.

Ideology: The overall purpose of my magazine will be to entertain and inform. The kind of content will be things such as new releases of new bands, old bands and anything you imagine to be in a magazine. Depending on which genre I choose, I will promote articles on that genre too.

Institution: The institution is the music magazine publisher. There are lots of different music publishers so I chose to research IPC Media and Emap

Ipc media is the most popular music publishing company in the UK and it offers several different magazines that cater for different genres, the most popular magazine published by them is NME, this is the weekly magazine that gives information on the latest music news, gives gig dates, tracks, reviews and albums. The reviews are given by a varied amount of opinionated writers.

Emap: This is the publisher for Kerrang magazine, this is a multi-platform magazine and it's genre is rock. Emap also publish: Smash Hits, Q and Mojo, along with others.

Audience: Every magazine has their own publishers and different target audiences, my magazine will be aimed at those in late teens to the thitries.

Representation: The representation varies on the music genre, as Kerrang focuses on heavy metal/rock. My magazine will represent a sort of rapping magazine, with a techno feel to it.

College magazine evaluation

In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
First of all, I needed to know and understand the various conventions of a magazine and when I got to grips with them, I was then able to develop and challenge the conventions. My media product uses similar designs to magazines that are already out on the market. However, I did not want to make a replica of existing magazines because I wanted mine to be original so I did try with that aspect. Even though I wanted my college magazine to be unique, I still based it on the likes of the secondary school magazine I analysed, I thought that if my magazine was too different, it would not appeal to the audience.

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is a student magazine so the social group would be Wyke college students, however, parents and teachers would be able to view the magazine also. The magazine represents students because it looks like how you imagine a student magazine to look like. I didn't use a picture of an adult because that in my opinion, would have been inappropriate because we would expect a student or someone who looked like a student t be on the cover, I decided to put a picture of a student reading on the cover.


What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The institution that would be likely to distribute my magazine is Wyke college mainly because the magazine is aimed and designed for that college, however, like said previously, parents may also wish to purchase the magazine because some parents may want to see what goes on in college. Upcoming students and their parents also may want to purchase the magazine to know what kind of things they may need to know when they start. Other colleges also may purchase the magazine to see what goes on and possibly compete against Wyke.

Who would be the audience for your Media product?
The audience would obviously be students, or it could also be students from other places or the parents of students.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I used colours that stood out and I also used an image of a student, this shows that it is a student magazine. Big words were also not used so those planning on going to Wyke could also read it as they would be younger

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have leant how to use Photoshop properly by using it and making mistakes and going back on them

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have become more confident in using Photoshop and publisher

Final design

Draft of college magazine

I decided on trying to make my college magazine not too bold or bright but as simple as possible. To get ideas for my magazine I decided to look at the magazines that I analysed as a started and then develop my ideas from that.

Masthead- My initial idea for my magazine was something to do with moving on from college and then going to University, so I gathered a load of words that related to achieving and moving higher in education: freedom- freedom to choose which path you choose to take part in after college. Accomplish- giving tips and help on how to achieve the best grades. Wyke's the word- How coming to Wyke College can help you get the best student life around, as this is something many students like about college, they like having a social life with other students. I think the name I will go for is Moving Forward, this means that the magazine is for those who are coming up to the end of their college life and are now going to move forward in life, whether it is by taking a gap year, getting a job or going to University

Sub Masthead- Like Love it! magazine, it has a sub masthead above the main masthead, this gives an indication as to what the magazine is about, the many features in or what kind of magazine it is. Ideas that I had for this were ones such as: All there is to know about Wyke- this may not grab the readers attention as they may not know what is in the magazine as it is too vague and does not give details. However, this maybe a good idea as parents of students may want to read about the college. I think I am going to choose Wyke's weekly mag, I am using the word Mag as it is short hand and that is the kind of language that students these days use. The word Weekly is used obviously because the magazine will be weekly, hence the low price I am going to decide on.

Main image focus- I have looked at the front cover that I analysed but decided against the idea to make my image look similar to other images as I think using an image of a student who is sat down and looks like they are concentrating on looking at a book is a good idea because it makes it look like the students at Wyke revise hard to achieve the best results that match their ability, it also will show that students do take college life seriously. I have to use an image that is universal in the sense it is not subject bias because the magazine is a general one where it focuses on many areas, especially University so me using an image that has a picture of a student in a lab coat or wearing sports gear, in my opinion, not realistic. So like I said, the image will be of a student sat reading a book.

Main Headline- As my magazine will be about University, a massive part of applying for University is getting the personal statement correct, so I decided that having my main story about how to write a personal statement would be a good idea to have the main article about how to write a decent one for those who do struggle in getting the context right. Other main stories I had in mind where ones like other University tips as other magazines have a variety, I thought it would be good to have stuck to the same topic.

Misc- To grab readers attention, I decided that at the top of the cover, it would be a good idea to have something that may want students to buy the magazine such as if there was some kind of ‘freebie’ or prizes to be won. At first I thought about putting something along the lines of ‘Free CD for every reader’ But then I thought if this was going to be a realistic magazine, I could not afford to include something like that so I decided on putting something on which may grab attentions of all people, not just music lovers, so I am going to put something like ‘Free discounts for every reader’. This is a better idea because then students who may not like music, may like this better because there would be a range of discounts at various stores available.
I am obviously going put on Wyke’s logo because it is a magazine about Wyke, it would make perfect sense to do such a thing and not put another college’s logo.
The barcode and price will be placed at the bottom, as we would expect to find on any magazine but some magazines do not put their there but I think it would be a good idea to do so.

Magazine analysis- Look

Magazine alaysis- NME

I chose this music magazine because it is popular among teenagers. I noticed that the title of this particular issue, shows all of the magazine title, whilst other issues have a head covering some of the title. This shows that the magazine company presumes that readers will know what the magazine is by just looking at the letters that are visible. However, with those issues which cover the title, the name of the title, that is normally under the title, is visible to make sure readers know what magazine it is. This issue, has 'Event' covered by a photo of Gerard Way, we can see that it is him because the title underneath tells us this.

Morrissey is obviously the main focus of this magazine as his picture practically takes up half of the cover. I do not know much about him but we can tell from the text that he has a 'bigmouth' and that he has striked again. So just by that little piece of text, we can get an vague image of what he is like. Obviously he is known for his 80's music but like some singers, they make comebacks.

Red is obviously a very dominant colour of this front cover as red is seen to stand out more than most other colours. Red is used for the main title, the left side of the magazine in the background of the pictures to make them stand out a bit more and in the top right hand corner.

Basic fonts are used for this cover and most appear to be white with some blue and black fonts. White does go well on a red background and it makes it stand out, not to the extent that other colours like blue would, but it is enough to be eye catching.

This magazine is generally aimed at those in late teens to early twenties who maybe interested in rock or similar kinds of music. Unlike Love it, this magazine does not have it's price highlighted, probably due to the expense.