EVALUATION QUESTION 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

When creating my magazine, my first initial idea was who will buy it? What group of people are going to be interested in what I put on my front cover?
With the help of my iTunes, I was able to pick out some bands from the same genre and put them together to finally get some suitable bands for my front cover. The most common genre in my iTunes was 'Indie Alternative'.


If you google an indie kid, you get the definition:
Indie Kids are the type of people who listen to non-recogniseable bands, with the occasional mainstream one. Indie boys tend to wear rolled up jeans with vintage jumpers, and style wavy hair with of course a trademark fringe. Indie girls on the other hand usually have natural like hair, with either a bold fringe or no fringe, wear skirts and shorts a lot, with big over-sized tees, vests and jumpers, usually tucked in, with socks and vans, brogues, creepers etc. 


The type of magazine I'd associate with indie kids would be mainly NME. NME includes different bands which aren't as well known as other bands. 


Typical indie kids:

Obviously, I want my media product to be popular, so I want the age range to be between 15-25. So that if you're a teenager, on a bus, or train, or whatever type of public transport you may be on, and you see a 18 year old boy reading 'Iconic' magazine, you think 'yeah I want to read that issue too!' Whereas, if you see an old 50 year old woman reading it, you tend to pretend you haven't heard of the name....Which isn't the outcome I'm looking for.


Typical places for an Indie Kid to shop would be:

• Urban Outfitters
• Beyond Retro
• Topshop (but be careful...because Topshop is too 'mainstream' for some people)
• and basically any cheap charity shop near where you live which sells an old woman or man's unwanted clothing...

TV shows such as skins can be associated with Indie Kids. Their wild lifestyle and unusual behaviour can be seen as rebellious. Their clothing is different and their hair is usually a different colour or style. Indie Kids like to think the parties they go to can be compared to Skins..but let's face it, Skins is a TV show, keep dreaming kids. 

Musical tastes an Indie Kid would listen to could vary from a band you have no idea about, a band who's just coming onto to scene, or a well-known band.

You've got the likes of The Klaxons, Florence + The Machine, The Libertines, Two Door Cinema Club, Arctic Monkeys etc.. on the list of Indie Kid's favourite bands.

Indie Kids also like to listen to old bands, such as Nirvana or Oasis, bands that are still iconic but not about any more. 

The way I want my magazine to be, is basically with including all the stuff Indie Kids will be interested in. With having the likes of Foo Fighters, summer festivals and Arctic Monkeys on my front page, I'm hoping this fits in with the criteria of what they want.

EVALUATION QUESTION 3

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

The magazine industry in the UK is one of the biggest selling industries the UK has. Some circulation figures for music magazines are below:

• The Fly free ( Channelfly Enterprises Ltd ) : 100,574 ; -0.4%
• Mojo ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 87,555 ; -7.5%
• Q ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 77,522 ; -12.1%
• Classic Rock ( Future Publishing Ltd ) : 62,354 ; -7.9%
• Uncut ( IPC Media Ltd ) : 62,305 ; -14.2%
• The Stool Pigeon free ( Junko Partners Publishing ) : 53,676 ; N/A
• Properganda free ( Proper Music Distribution ) : 46,542 ; N/A
• Kerrang! ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 42,077 ; -2.1%
• DIY Magazine free ( RWD Creative Media Limited ) : 36,801 ; N/A
• Metal Hammer ( Future Publishing Ltd ) : 35,259 ; -15.7%
• New Musical Express ( IPC Media Ltd ) : 27,650 ; -14.0%

Two main publishers for music magazines are IPC Media and Bauer Media. IPC Media publishes NME magazine, whereas Bauer publishes Q Magazine, both of which are two of the top selling music magazines. 

Throughout my blog, I have compared my music magazine to mainly NME and Q, but coming down to what institution I would want to publish my blog, I would go for IPC Media.

My magazine compared to NME is different, but bares some similarities. I've used the same basic colours on my magazine, as NME do on theirs, (red white and black). The use of a badge in the corner to advertise something inside the magazine too is similar. I used NME too for font ideas.

However, the increasing number of magazine buyers tend to nowadays use the internet for their musical updates on news, gigs, concerts, festivals etc.. Therefore, the music magazine business is slowly decreasing, but not so much that there would be no business for them.

Front Page Analysis

 

I used NME's cover of Jamie T and Rolling Stone's cover of Amy Winehouse as a sort of guide for my front cover, and took most of my ideas for what to put on my cover from both of these. My favourite out of the two was the Amy Winehouse issue, as the image and colour scheme went well together. Unlike Rolling Stone, NME tends to stick to the same colour scheme of red, black and white.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
























I took two separate photos from two different magazines to achieve my final photo for my magazine. The first photo is of Billie-Joel from Greenday, and the second is of Florence Welch from Florence + The Machine
.
Both bands do have different genres of music, Florence + The Machine are a more alternative indie rock genre, whereas Greenday are a rock band.

From both of the photos I put them together and created one which suited my genre for my magazine, which was indie rock. The pose I chose was considered more carefully and adapted to. The screaming affect in my opinion was a lot different than the original I found for it. 

The posture of both photos are the same, both standing up and have similar hand gestures. I thought the body posture for my magazine represent indie rock more than Florence's, as you can actually see my model's faces and what expressions they are pulling, unlike hers.

The lighting used for all photos is artificial lighting. With the artificial lighting I was able to edit out any blemishes and red eyes from my photo.

The angle shot of my photo compared to the NME  magazine is different. The shot of Billie-Joel is looking down on him, whereas my photo is directly in front of my models.

The costumes of my models represent an indie rock genre, as they are different colours and unusual patterns, which is what a typical British Indie would wear. Bold patterns, light blouses, different materials etc. The clothes Florence Welch is wearing can only be viewed from the shoulders up. But from what I can see, she is wearing an unusual sequin dress made of different colours, which again fits the Indie criteria.

No props for each photo are used, just hand gestures and facial expressions.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1

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

The music industry is probably one of the most largest and ongoing businesses the UK has seen. The different genres and styles gives a variation of magazines to be published. From Kerrang!'s metal rock  to NME's alternative indie genre, the music magazine industry continues to exceed in the marketing business.

The problems music magazines now face is the decreasing number of copies now being bought. The use of internet and websites now give readers a reason to not go out and buy a magazine.
Recent circulation figures of current music magazines state so:

Music (rock) circulation figures for the first half of 2011:
Title; publisher; average sale; change year on year

• The Fly free ( Channelfly Enterprises Ltd ) : 100,574 ; -0.4%
• Mojo ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 87,555 ; -7.5%
• Q ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 77,522 ; -12.1%
• Classic Rock ( Future Publishing Ltd ) : 62,354 ; -7.9%
• Uncut ( IPC Media Ltd ) : 62,305 ; -14.2%
• The Stool Pigeon free ( Junko Partners Publishing ) : 53,676 ; N/A
• Properganda free ( Proper Music Distribution ) : 46,542 ; N/A
• Kerrang! ( Bauer Consumer Media ) : 42,077 ; -2.1%
• DIY Magazine free ( RWD Creative Media Limited ) : 36,801 ; N/A
• Metal Hammer ( Future Publishing Ltd ) : 35,259 ; -15.7%
• New Musical Express ( IPC Media Ltd ) : 27,650 ; -14.0%
• Hot Press ( Osnovina Ltd ) : 17,688 ; -0.2%

 Some elements for my music magazine were ideas taken from magazines such as NME and Q. The use of only 3 colours, including the colour red, was taken from NME magazine front covers. The body gestures and picture however was a slightly adapted idea from one of Q's past front cover. 

The 'Indie' genre of my magazine is presented through the bands included on the magazine, and the fashion of the models.

Link to previous post on front page analysis

The music genre I chose for my magazine was 'alternative indie'.

To achieve the genre, I had to think about what pose I wanted the models to do, and what clothes they had to wear.

My final picture consisted of a different pose, with similar coloured clothes. 

The pose I chose would be considered alternative and different.

Link to

Link to previous blog post on contents analysis

 Link to previous post on Double-Page Spread Analysis

My target audience for my magazine is anyone who is into alternative and indie music. Mainly I want people from the ages of 17-25 to read the magazine, as it would include things which interest them more than anyone else of another age. Although, anyone who is interested in this genre of music is who I am mainly aiming my magazine at.

Contents Page Analysis

The idea for my main article picture on my contents page was taken from the July 2010 issue of Q Magazine. The picture which includes Matt Bellamy and Bono facing each other showed power. I took this idea and adapted to it, being more fun and not so serious.

Whilst analysing Kerrang!'s contents page, I saw at the bottom of the page that there was a little note from the editor. I liked this idea as it gave the magazine a friendly atmosphere, and that the editors and people who work for Kerrang! thought about what their readers wanted. This idea I took for my own magazine. 

From NME magazine, to navigate someone to a certain part of the magazine, they used columns. This not only was a neat way in how to organise it, but looked professional too. I used this idea but changed the font and backdrop colour to suit the consistent style and colours used for my magazine.

The enlarged page numbers on the main picture for my contents also was a good idea. By enhancing the size and using a drop shadow for the number, it immediately gets the readers attention and directs them to that page, which is the idea of the number.

I took the idea of a 'Band Index' from NME contents page. The use of the band names in a small column on the side was not only relatively small but noticeable and gave a navigation for the magazine. The list of bands also gave you an idea of what genre the magazine was, due to what bands were included in the magazine. I used this idea for my own contents page but didn't include page numbers, just names of what bands were included in my magazine.

Double Page Spread Final