Final Double Page Spread

Finally, I added a red rectangle around the 'This Month's Playlist' Section and added a black edge to the left hand side of it. I also made specific words the pull quotes from the article bigger than the others, to show importance and made the outside 'Stroke' red, to compliment my house theme. I did the same to my 'Exclusive interview' text and then made the 'Josie' headline text red. I purposely dressed my model in a black tshirt with a red and white image on it so she would fit in with my general house theme of red, white, black and light grey. Also, the t-shirt is purposely a Reading festival one to make her seem like a 'normal' person and also because the festival fits in with my magazine's genre. I also changed the page number to the font 'Adler' also to compliment the house theme. I made my the picture of my model slightly smaller so that it would not take up too much space in the article and distract the reader from the text.

Double Page Spread - Version 2

First I added two pull quotes from my interview that I thought would stand out; "It's not untrue that there's a lot my fans don't know about me" and "They were really bitter at how I became famous... when nobody even knows their names" in the font Adler. I also added 'Exclusive Interview" in capital letters in the font Trashed. I also changed the font on the "Hear the playlist, see the videos and more on Arena.com!" from Dirt2 death to 28 days later to compliment my house theme and for continuity reasons, as the previous font wasn't used anywhere else. I also added a photograph of my model. I made it large so it would be like a typical music magazine and also so that the article stood out. I text merged my photo, so the text would flow around it rather than just having square edges.

Photo for my Double page spread

This is the photo I will use for my double page spread. As you can see, I have cut her from the original background in the second photo and in the third photo, I have adjusted the contract and brightness and added a slight drop shadow.

Double Page Spread First Version

First, I added "Josie Reveals all in an exclusive interview!" in the font 28 Days Later. the word "Josie" is a lot bigger than the rest to emphasise the importance and also to show the audience clearly what the article is about. Then I added my main body text in size 12 Arial font. Then, I added a rectangle to show where my photo would be, as I hadn't taken one I liked yet. Then I added a 'This Month's Playlist' section, to make my magazine look like it contained a lot of content. The headin of this was in 'Impact Label' font which i purposely used as I hadn't used the font anywhere else. This was to show that my magazine has a particlar style for each type of article. The song and artist names were written in Adler font and were purposely quite a lot bigger than the main body text. I also added page numbers alongside the "Arena" logo to signify a house style. The font at the bottom of the downloads column saying "Hear the playlist, see the videos and more at Arena.com!" is in the font dirt2 death and was put in this font to make it stand out. The reason I mentioned the website was also to make my magazine seem like a real magazine which would have multi-platform elements, such as Kerrang! and NME.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Seven

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

Looking back at my preliminary task (School magazine) I feel that I have learnt a lot in the progression from making that and making my music magazine. For example, for the preliminary task we used fonts that were already stored on the system. However, when we did our music magazine we used dafont.com to carefully select which fonts we would like to use in our magazine ourselves, meaning more thought was put into picking the 'right' font. Also, we had more experience with using Photoshop so all of the editing looks much better and more professional. Another thing we learnt was that the photos had to be perfect to be featured, not at all blurred or pixellated amongst other things. I also learnt how to use the blogging website 'Blogger' to post my work online, which took some getting used to as I had never used a blog before.
In my First magazine's front cover, all I really did was use my photo as the whole front cover background and added writing and the school logo on the top. Also, as I did not cut my models out of the background, the only real editing I did to the picture was to change the brightness and contrast of the photo. Also, I may have used light blue and maroon as my house theme as they are the school colours, but this should have been changed as the blue fonts just blended in to the background. I also added hardly any cover lines, just a competition and some information on an article about school stress.

In my first contents page, I didn't really know how to lay it out and it wasn't even rectangular. The text was in a standard, boring font and took up far too much of the page. The photograph was just put in the middle of the page and there was no reason behind it. Also, it looked like it could have been made on Microsoft paint, rather than Photoshop. For the title I just used the same font as my front cover and it was far too large. I also added the school logo for continuity.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Six

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The process of creating this music magazine has shown me that constructing such products involves spending a lot of time and effort using technology such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe In Design to create the finished end product. The preliminary task was the first time I had ever used Photoshop and In Design, so it took a while to get used to.
I have learnt how complex Adobe Photoshop is and that every single effect must be in a separate layer and that cutting out a person from the background of a photo (whether using the magic wand tool, or other tools) is incredibly complicated and hard to get right. The tasks we were set to help us get to know Photoshop were very helpful and showed us what tools did what and how to completely transform images. Once I got the hang of how to use Photoshop, I was able to do whatever I wanted to my magazine's front cover and contents page to make them look as professional as possible. After using Photoshop I can see why it is the ''standard' and possible even most popular photo-editing program.


I have also learnt that there is a lot more to using a publishing program like Adobe In Design, than meets the eye. For example, I did not know you could merge your text around your photograph or carry on text that didn't fit into one text box into another. I was suprised how different it was to Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher, which were the only similar programs I had used beforehand. I was also surprised that for two completely different programs, Photoshop and In Design had quite a few similarities, for example they both had common tools including the text and selection tools.



I also learnt how to use an Apple Macintosh computer. Before starting the preliminary task, I had never used a Mac before and getting used to the differences between Mac computers and Windows computers took time, as even the keyboard shortcuts that I thought were standard were completely different on the Mac. However, the two softwares did turn out to share some similarities, so the Macintosh operating system was not too difficult to get used to.


Also, I have learnt how to take professional-looking photos, as before this year I had never owned my own camera, let alone taken pictures for a particular purpose- to look like an authentic music magazine front cover. I also learnt that you have to painstakingly pick what your model has to wear (genre-specific clothing etc) or to select which photos to include, making sure that they have no faults whatsoever (blurring, out-of-place props, the wrong body language/facial expression).

I have also learnt how to use the blogging website, Blogger which was totally different to any school-work I had ever done before, as the only other schoolwork I had done using a computer was just Microsoft Word, Publisher, Excel or Access documents, but never anything web-based (besides emailing documents to teachers). I had also never used a blogging website for anything before, let alone Blogger in particular. I did not know how to post anything, let alone edit or add attachments so it took quite a while to get used to.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted the audience by making the Front cover eye-catching and similar to current music magazines of the same genre (for example, Rocksound and Kerrang). I also used a front cover featuring someone playing an instrument, making it obvious that it is a music magazine with cover lines in bold font, making them stand out. I also carefully chose the artists to be featured on the cover lines, so it would appeal to people who like certain artists, and made sure they were a variety of styles of rock music making it appeal to the majority of rock fans. I feel having a young model on the cover would appeal to young readers who may feel as if they would be able to 'relate' or empathise with a young person rather than an older artist, who may be 'before their time' or 'old'. I also made sure to feature competitions featuring a 'popular' up-to-date young band (Bring me the Horizon), which would appeal to quite a young audience as it gives them the oppurtunity to meet band members who may be their idols or just their favourite celebrity. I also chose the colours of my house theme to be bright and eye-catching. My contents page is eye-catching as it features photos and lots of large brightly coloured text. My double page spread is also supposed to appeal to audiences as the pull quotes are large and interesting (I chose the most interesting excerpts of the article to use as quotes) and are also bright. My photograph is also appealing to the audience and eye-catching as it is large and the model is within the magazine's target audience age range so the readers would be able to relate to someone of a similar age.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that the audience for my media product would be 16-24 year olds who are into the genre of rock music. It will not matter what sub-genre of rock music they like because, like most music magazines it will feature a lot of different artists who play different types of music. I don't think it would appeal to a specific gender, but i do think it would appeal to certain types of people, for example, not everybody wants to regularly buy a magazine just because it features the genre of music they like. The audience would hopefully be brand-loyal to my magazine, and therefore buy it regularly, which would mean keeping the content standardised to keep them interested. I think it appeals to young people in general rather than any specific age group. The majority of the readers will be male, as the music magazine market is very male-dominated and therefore male-orientated too. However, it is not aimed at any specific gender so would hopefully appeal to both genders equally. The audience may not be the same as the target audience and there may be some older or younger readers too, but hopefully most readers would be aged between 16 and 24. I suppose the model featured in my magazine represents my target audience very well, as she is aged between 16 and 24 and listens to many sub-genres of rock music.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Three

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Some examples of media companies who may be interested in distributing my media product are Bauer Consumer Media (publisher of Kerrang!, Mojo and Q), IPC Media (publisher of NME) and Sonic Publishing (publisher of Rocksound).
However, as Bauer media is "Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group" and already publishes "over 300 magazines in 15 countries", it may not want to publish another rock music magazine as well as Kerrang!, Q and Mojo.
IPC however, only publishes one music magazine, NME, which is more "indie" than rock, so they might be interested in my media product as well. Sonic Publishing publishes five music magazines, including Rocksound and 4 web-based online magazines. This suggests that maybe Sonic Publishing already publishes enough music magazines or that they may want to publish my media product online rather than in print. However, it may also mean that they would be interested in another print-based music magazine. Seeing as Rocksound is printed monthly, they may want to publish a weekly music magazine as well.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Some social groups presented in my media product. These are young people aged between 16 and 24 who like the genre of rock music. This may include such social groups as the "Young Alts", "Metalheads" and "Skaters" amongst other social groups mentioned on the website 'UK Tribes'. I also think that music magazines of this particular genre represent a male audience rather than females, even though some statistics say the reading figures of music magazines are that 60% are male readers and the other 40% being female. This is surprising as there are more female readers than you would expect, so therefore I think my media product represents both genders equally and that the genre of music featured is more important than specifically gender-aimed content. I do not think my product represents any particular socio-economic group, however, as most readers would be aged 16-24 and would not even register on a socio-economic scale.

Magazine Evaluation- Question One

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product uses some conventional themes often used by music magazines. For example, music Magazines in the 'Rock' genre often use distorted or distressed fonts for their titles. Their titles are also more often than not written in capital letters. Black and white are the two most common colours for music magazine titles, closely followed by red. I use colours and fonts similar to many music magazines.

My own magazine title is similar to the Rocksound and Kerrang titles in particular.



Also, all three titles have connotations of being about music. For example, straight away from the title 'Rock sound' we can tell it is about Rock music. Kerrang on the other hand is onomatapoeic and "refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar". My music magazine, 'Arena' is titled because an arena is a popular venue for rock concerts and festivals and is also a one-worded easily memorable word to use as a title. Other ways in which my magazine is 'conventional' include the layout of the front cover, contents and double-page spread, the 'Laid back' mode of address in my article and the fact that my contents page includes two live photographs taken from a concert I attended recently. The fact I have a large photograph in almost the middle of my double page spread is also conventional.

However, my music magazine also contains some unconventional features too such as having a girl on the front, whereas most 'rock stars' featured on covers are men, as 'rock' magazines are male-orientated. It is also slightly unconventional that the model is holding an instrument as usually the front cover consists of photos of the model posing and the photos of them playing instruments are either featured later on alongside the article about them or not at all.

Magazine Feedback

I have had a lot of feedback for my front cover and contents. Most of the feedback is positive but there was also some criticism.
For example, people have said:

"I like the font- it highlights the magazine's Genre"

"The barcode (On the front cover) is too big"

"There is a lot of free space- needs more cover lines"

"I like the pose of the model on the front cover and her hair colour (red) compliments the colours of the house theme."

"I like the colours used"

"The two fonts mainly used go well together"

"I like the house theme in general- the fonts really go well with the colours featured"

Double page spread example- Kerrang!

Final Contents Page

In my final editing, I made the background grey, instead of white so it would compliment my house theme. Then I changed the size of my cover lines so they would not take up too much space and moved my 'subscribe' rectangle right. Next, I added two photographs that I took at a recent concert. After this step, I added text to compliment my photos, including 'headline' text which was in the font '28 Days Later' for both the My Chemical Romance and Sean Smith items. Then I added some background information on the articles and gave the writing for the Sean Smith articles a drop shadow, an outer glow and a stroke effect. I also rotated it so that it would stand out. For the My Chemical Romance text, I added a drop shadow and outer glow. I also added an outer glow and a drop shadow to my photograph of the My Chemical Romance frontman. I also edited the word 'Contents' by adding an outer glow and a stroke effect to make it stand out to the reader. Obviously the brightness and contrast of the live photographs had to be edited and the edges had to be cropped. Here are the original photos.

Final Front Cover

For my final version of my front cover, I added a black banner at the bottom of the page to make 'Plus! Sonisphere Lineup Revealed!' stand out more and so it was clearer than before, where it was quite hard to read due to the photo of my model being directly behind it. Next, I changed my main cover-lines so that the text was right-aligned, which made the text fit the page better. I also moved my model to the right slightly so I could fit text to the left of her head, as I felt the empty space should have been filled in. The text I inserted says 'Sean Smith + Young Guns + Green Day' to make the issue seem like it contains a lot of content. The writing is in the font 'Adler' and is red. The reason I used plus signs was because they are a very common feature on magazines, including Kerrang and NME. I also added a photograph that I took at a recent My Chemical Romance concert and flipped it so that it would face to same way as my model. I added a slight border and drop shadow to make it seem like a picture that would be featured on a real music magazine. I also added text over of the picture, also in red, stating 'My Chemical Romance Return!'.

Contents Page- stage 3

For the third draft, I added the word 'Contents' in the font 'Adler' and the colour red to the right of the word 'Arena'. I also moved the 'Also in this issue:' section upwards and added smaller text in the same font underneath the artist names to show what the articles were about. Another thing I added was text saying 'And More!' in black 'Adler' font to show that there are other things included in the issue.

Contents Page- stage two

For my second draft, I changed the writing in the top left-hand corner from 'Contents' to 'Arena'. I also added 'Issue 100, December 2010' underneath it but towards the right. Another thing I included was a red rectangle with 'Also in this issue:' written in it in the font 'trashed'. I added a black rectangle behind the 'competition' section to make it stand out and changed the writing to capital letters and made 'Meet BMTH' red. Another red rectangle was added to put behind a text box which mentions how to subscribe to the magazine. This text was in the font 'Adler' and was white, apart from 'Over 30%' which is black and also 2 font sizes bigger to be eye-catching. The word 'subscribe' is in the font 'trashed' and is all in capitals.

Contents Page- stage one

This was my first draft of my contents page. I added black text in the top left-hand corner in the font 'Trashed' which is the same font as the magazine logo on the front cover. This is to show a 'house style'.
I also added a list of the bands mentioned in this issue which was black and in the font 'Adler' however, the page numbers are red and in the font 'Trashed'.
Another thing I added was a competition at the bottom of the page, 'Competition!- Meet BMTH!' also in the font 'Trashed' which is all black except for the word 'meet' which is red.