Preliminary Task. Magazine Front Cover



Before starting our Media Coursework of a music magazine, it was decided that we should make a model magazine front cover so that we could improve on our preliminary work. We had to create the magazine front cover, make it about our school (Acland Burghley), take our own picture for the main image and decide on our own magazine title. I chose to call may magazine The Burghley Bizz, because I thought the slang of 'Bizz' would appeal to the young target audience and the alliteration of the 'B' would make the title more memorable.

We were told to use Adobe Photoshop so that we could develop our skills with the programme and, as a result, make our actual coursework piece better overall. I am not the most experienced with Photoshop, so I liked this idea. Later in the Blog, I will describe the technological skills I learnt throughout this coursework. Our first layer of the page was the masthead, I decided to go for an enhanced shadow behind my green and red striped masthead to make it more bold, so that it would stand out more and catch the audience's eye. I done this with the blending options tool, making the colour of the title two different colours into one which made it look a little like graffiti, which again appeals to the target audience. The next layer is a black background to the title which makes it stand out more, the colours of the title blended well with the background, which made this part of the magazine more unique and memorable. Also, with this layer, I was able to put in a strapline which told the audience what was in the magazine in short form. In the strapline, I included things that I thought would interest the target audience like 'competitions' and 'puzzles' so that they would be more likely to buy the magazine. I created another layer with a background of the same colour as the one behind the title for the bottom of the page, where I added in the web address for the magazine. I thought these two things were probably the most important things to remember for the reader, which was why I used the same background for them both and put in a striking colour and font.

I used a main image of me standing in the playground of our school as I thought that the target audience would be able to relate with the magazine if they saw that the main feature was based in the school. Also, I think the main image is appropriate as I am looking upwards to hint at a positive future, my body language is one of confidence which could inspire readers because the 'ex-student' of their school has made it as a successful music artist. I have written in short form around the front cover so that the reader can get a general view of what's inside from a quick look at the front cover. I think it will also be necessary to put in pictures by the text so that it is easy to tell what the piece is about. I done a similar structure for my contents page, put the headings for the different sections of the magazine across the page and writing details underneath them, aswell as pictures so that the readers can get an easy vision of what the page will look like.

I believe this front cover could be improved by containing more headings around the main image to tell the audience what is in the magazine, because if the headings interest them, they will then be more likely to buy the magazine. It is good that I am learning this now because I can now apply these things into my real magazine front cover. 

Content Analysis and Target Audience



The two magazines I have analysed in class are NME mgazine and Top of the Pops! magazine. Just from looking at the two magazines, I can infer that NME is aimed at a more mature audience than Top of the Pops!
The front cover of NME is quite dark, which could symbolize a rock audience, and I can tell that the features are aimed at young adults as they are reviewing this summer's festivals and talking to bands.

However, for Top of the Pops!, the front cover is bright and colourful which would have caught a young audience's eye, and they would have recognised the famous face of Justin Bieber on the front cover, the main colours used are pink and blue which would hint that they are aiming at a young female audience for their magazine. 
Interestingly, when I looked at both the magazines, it was clear to see that there was a large proportion of the magazines devoted to adverts, and more so in NME than Top of the Pops!.
NME has a majority of the magazine devoted to it's features, however, the rest of the magazine is devoted to adverts, TV/Radio listings and gig dates. I am now going to go through some of the adverts in the magazine and talk about why they make me come to the conclusion of a young adult, mainly male target audience. 

The first advert in the magazine is a 'Halo: Reach' advert, it is a four page advert, with the pages folding out, making the advert look like a poster. I believe this advert hints at a teenage or young adult audience, predominantly male as Halo: Reach is a video game that involves violence. The fact that it has taken up a large part of the magazine could show that Halo realise that their target audience is similar to NME's.

Later in the magazine, there is an advert for the release of Kano's new album 'Method to the Madness'. I believe again that this is aiming at a male audience, teenage to young adult. I think that this advert shows that NME reports on a variety of music genres, as the main focus beforehand was on rock music, but Kano is a grime artist. This could prove that NME has a broad target audience. Having said that, it only took up around half a page towards the back of the magazine so you could infer that NME does not focus too much on grime.

There are also 4 pages taken up by concert and gig dates, which would hint to a young audience again, maybe between the ages of 15 and 30. This shows again that NME has a broad target audience, as the concerts and gigs did not focus on one single genre of music, they focused on many different genres. 

Also, in the last five pages or so of the magazine, there are many small adverts, which I believe will be in there for the benefit of profits, it will be difficult to find some correlation between the adverts and the target audience.  

Proportions of pages in NME



Also, in NME, there are no 'letter pages' which may hint at a older audience, as they may feel that an older audience may not have the time to write in with a letter, so they reached a compromise when introducing polls to the features such as the reviews of festivals. 

Top of the Pops! had a lot of adverts in their magazine, but the main features made up at least three quarters of the pages. The adverts were usually promoting products aimed at young females, this was clear to see as the main colour used in the adverts was pink and purple. 

The first advert was one for 'Always' tampons, which is clearly aiming at a female audience and because they used pink for the packaging you could infer that they wanted to catch the eye of a young audience, maybe between 12 and 15. 

In Top of the Pops, there are also competitions which are aimed at women, so you could say that older women could make up a small percentage of the target audience, the most notable competition was the 'girly night in London for four', you had to be over 18 to enter the competition so it must be aiming at a slightly more mature audience than normal. 

There is a page in the magazine on phone updates and games as well, which is clearly aimed at a young, female, teenage audience, as the background was pink and the wallpapers were quite girly, with pictures of male popstars being the main attraction. 



There is a letter page in Top of the Pops!, which could suggest a young female audience as teenage girls like to have someone to speak to who has another opinion on how to solve their problems.



Proportion of pages in TOTP. A higher proportion of pages devoted to features than NME.



Overall, I think there is a lot in this magazine to suggest that Top of the Pops! aims it's magazine at teenage girls.

Introduction

I am Raif Howley and I'm studying Media AS at La Swap sixth form. I have been asked to create a blog to show the stages of creating my first Media coursework, which is to create not only the front cover of a music magazine, but also the contents page and a two-page feature. I don't have a particular preference in terms of style of music, as I like a lot of different types, including hip hop/r'n'b, pop, classic rock, grime, alternative, soul, dubstep, drum 'n' bass and some dance. My favourite song at the moment is found in the video below: