My key concepts - (Magazine ideas)

I have had many different key concepts or ideas on what I would like my magazine to be. Thinking of a good idea, on what to base a music magazine is difficult, as the idea has to be flexible and easy to manipulate. I have had many initial ideas on what too base my magazine on:

·        An alternative rock magazine.

·        House music magazine.

·        Charts magazine.

·        A ‘Top of the pops’ type, gossip – music magazine.

·        An R&B/ Hip hop magazine.

These were the ideas that have come to mind. I have chosen some of the genre magazine ideas, simply because I like that type of music. I think that my most productive and inventive idea is the ‘top of the pops’ type magazine, as it covers music, as well as other issues like; bulling advice, current affairs, etc.

I want my magazine to be different to other music magazines. I want to produce a type of music magazine that hasn’t been produced. I will use the ‘top of the pops’ music magazine idea and expand on it. The way I am looking to expand on the idea is to make my music magazine into an all round magazine that covers mainly the music industry, but also features other aspects such as; current affairs, competitions, adverts etc.

I think that if I apply this to my music magazine then it will cover a wide range of my target audience. I will include a wide range of music from rock to classical music. This enhances my target audience. 

I am going to use a medium shot on the front cover of my magazine. I am going to use the idea of a famous two man band visiting a primary school for charity. I will also include other stories on the front cover as subheadings. I have not decided on a suitable catchy masthead yet. I will develop my ideas on the masthead later, when I come to produce the front cover of the magazine.  

However many problems may arise, with the above ideas. People may say I am stealing an idea from top of the pops magazine. I will have to adapt or make my magazine different from top of the pops. It may be hard to think of suitable stories to put on the front page. I will take advice and suggestions from anyone who is willing to help. 

 

This is what my music magazine will look like. I will have a main masthead, a main head line, a main picture, which covers a part of the masthead and various other sub-headings. I will also include other stories as well as music stories.

NME - Content analysis

NME Rate Card

NME is a magazine manufacturer that has been running for a very long time, 1952 in fact. As NME has been around for so long, it is well respected as a music magazine and has a lot of customers that are dedicated to buying the magazine each time an issue comes out. NME is the largest commercial magazine in Europe.

I want to research how NME advertise their magazines because they have a lot of success and are respected as a music magazine manufacturer. NME’s circulation is high but the readership is nearly 5 times more. This means that for every 1 NME magazine that is bought it is read by several others. If I research and analyse NME’s rate cards then I can find out there target audience and other vital stats and information, which I will need to adapt to my music magazine.

The price at which NME sell their magazine is relatively low (£2.20). They have a low price because they have a large audience, which ranges from teenagers to the middle aged. They produce their magazine on a weekly basis.

33,875 is currently NME’s circulation. The circulation is how many copies of the magazine it produces, every time a new issue is out. This is an average. The readership on average is 325,000. This means the number of people that will read NME magazine. NME have stated that 74% of their customers and readers are male and the other 26% is female. NME say that their readers are ‘Techno savvy’.

NME try to relate to other companies through their advertising. They have stated a fact on their website: 72% of NME readers have a broadband connection, which can access the internet at home. This will make companies that specialise in computing and internet such as AOL Broadband. This is one of NME’s main revenue incomes.

Audit of Magazines (all types)

What are in magazines that make them attract their target audiences?

·        Colourful fonts on pages.

·        Free items and competitions.

·        Gossip about celebrities

·        The layout of the pages.

·        The front cover.

·        Sub-headings.

·        Information about what’s in the magazine on the front cover.

·        The pictures used in the magazine.

·        The masthead – whether it is a catchy masthead or not.

·        Appropriate content – if it is a children’s magazine, it should not adult content.

·        Contents page.

·        Children’s magazine – is it authorised?

What I am looking to include in my Music Magazine:

·        Colourful.

·        Pictures in the daylight – unedited. All my pictures will be medium shot. High quality.

·        Gossip.

·        Polls about something in the music industry.

·        I will make it fun, so I can relate to my target audience and beyond.

·        The layout of my magazine will be impeccable. I will structure the pages so certain information stands out.

·        Sub-headings on the front cover to make it stand out to the reader.

·        Contents page – to show the reader what will be coming up in the magazine.

·        Long and short articles.

Content Analysis - Match Of The Day Magazine.

Content analysis - top of the pops.

NME Rate Card

NME is a magazine manufacturer that has been running for a very long time, 1952 in fact. As NME has been around for so long, it is well respected as a music magazine and has a lot of customers that are dedicated to buying the magazine each time an issue comes out. NME is the largest commercial magazine in Europe.

I want to research how NME advertise there magazines because they have a lot of success and are respected as a music magazine manufacturer. NME’s circulation is high but the readership is nearly 5 times more. This means that for every 1 NME magazine that is bought it is read by several others. If I research and analyse NME’s rate cards then I can find out there target audience and other vital stats and information, which I will need to adapt to my music magazine.  

Evaluation

My magazine is a media product that is very similar to that of real magazines. I have studied two other magazines briefly (as you can see in the content analysis), and my magazine is rather similar in the layout of the front covers. However I have not fully studied the text within the magazine so I cannot fully compare it to my magazine as of yet. I wanted to make my magazine multi-cultural. This is because I wanted every reader to enjoy my magazine. However I could not include any cultural information as I did not have to write and pages further then the contents. I also wanted to make the magazine available online, this makes it more interactive. I have used my own choice of pictures, fonts etc. I took note of what my audience wanted the front cover to look like and I then constructed my ideas around it. I took all of my photos that I used on the front cover and on the contents page. This makes the magazine 100% my work. I used various images to enhance the attraction of the magazine.

The magazine attracts too many various individuals, and social groups. In my magazine I have content for every reader. I have puzzles, games and competitions for the younger students and news updates, interviews with the teachers and an agony aunt section for the 6^th formers and staff. 

The good points to my magazine that I created were the layout, colours font and pictures that I chose to apply to the magazine. I also created the first few pages to my magazine in a short period of time. If I had more time to complete the whole magazine, it would be a better magazine. I used the Pages on the Apple Macs. This gave me a huge boost when making and designing my magazine, because by having advanced technology available for use, it enhances the quality and structure of the magazine.

There were many good points to making my magazine; however there are some bad points to. I struggled to use the Pages programme when I was first set the task of making a school magazine. I am not used to using Apple Macs, so I struggled to use the software. I didn’t plan my school magazine as well as I could. If my planning was more precise then my magazine would have looked better, the content would also have been more detailed and suitable. 

This was my first attempt of making a music magazine and due to that there were many faults that now consist in the magazine that I produced. I made many mistakes and errors. The first crucial mistake that I found about my magazine was that I didn’t follow the brief properly. I was supposed to include a medium shot of a student. I did not include this simply because I did not see it on the brief, I saw it after. I will make sure that I read the brief properly when I do any future projects. Another mistake I found was that I overlapped writing with writing. I thought that having the school welcome board as the background picture to my front cover was a good idea, but I then forgot to put a coloured text box under the writing I done on the front cover. This made it hard for the reader to understand what the writing said. I will improve this by choosing a different layout on my next magazine. Another mistake I found was that my masthead was too long and irregularly placed. I can avoid this in my next magazine by choosing a one word masthead, this way it is also straight to the point. The masthead should also be a quarter of the page; my masthead was not a quarter of the page. My front cover was not informative enough; this was due to my magazine being rushed. I had to complete my magazine before a certain deadline, so I could not include as much as I wanted in it. Finally the last mistake I think I could have improved on is the quality of my photos. I took my photos when it was cloudy. This made the pictures look dull and boring. I also took 3 pictures of the same thing and included them in my magazine; this was a lack of planning. In my next magazine I will carefully plan the structure and I will take my photos in decent weather so they don’t look dull.

Overall I think my school magazine was a success. I met the deadline of handing in my school magazine. I think the magazine itself looks good, but as always some improvements could have been made. I am impressed at what I have produced; this project also helps me get used to Apple software. This will help me in my course for Media over 2 years.