Media Products Evaluation

AS Media Evaluation on Prezi

Double Page Spread Final Draft

This is my final draft of my music magazine contents page, I will evaluate this peice of work, with the rest of finished products, above.

Contents Page Final Draft

This is my final draft of my music magazine contents page, I will evaluate this peice of work, with the rest of finished products, above.

Front Cover Final Draft

This is my final draft of my music magazine front cover, I will evaluate this peice of work, with the rest of finished products, above.

Magazine Institution Research

As I am I designing my own music magazine I have decided to do some research into the main magazine institutions. The aim of me doing this exercise is to find out what type of institution may distribute my media product and why.

International Publishing Company
IPC is the United Kingdom's leading consumer magazine. It has a very large and impressive portfolio selling over 350 million magazines a year. Over 26 million people in the UK read a magazine distributed by IPC. IPC Media is split into five distinct publishing divisions: IPC Connect, IPC Inspire, IPC Ignite, IPC Southbank and IPC TX. Magazine's that IPC own include NME and Guitar & Bass.

Bauer Media Group
A large German publishing companies based in Hamburg, which operates in 15 countries and was founded in 1975. Bauer owns 282 magazines including Kerrang, Mojo and Q. All three of these magazines are advertised as men's magazines on the Bauer Media website.

Emap
Emap is the second largest magazine publisher in the UK. However in 2007 the company split, it was sold to Guardian Media Group and private equity form Apax -which owns incisive-for £1 billion. The new company is now called Incisive-Emap. Magazines they publich include, Kiss and Magic, which also have radio stations and music T.V channles.

Development Hell Ltd.
Based in South London and has a business plan to launch three magazines over six years. It is a new institution which was first launched in March 2003. They bought clubbing magazine "Mixmag" from Emap in November 2003.

Magazine Front Over Inspiration

I have decided to go against the orginal conventions of a music magazine by making the magazine a festival special edition version. I done this to attract a wider audience to my magazine. Although there are many festivals which attrcat different target audiences every year, by having coverage of them all in one magazine it will attract all these audeinces to this one magazine. Also festivals are linked with hot summer weather, therefore my magazine will be produced in time for the festival season.

I highly understand the importance of the image on the front cover of a magazine. There are a number of qualities that sell a music magazine - the font, the aritcles, the layout - however the image remains the most important ascpect of a magazine front cover. The image is the first thing the consumer will see. As I explained earlier voyeurism is highly prominent in music magazine front covers, this is because they are somewhat different to fitness or clothing magazines which can easily advertise their articles and products through a picture. However music magazines cannot do this as sound is aural not visual, therefore they must be more unique in the way they look - they must stand out, voyeurism helps them to do this. Magazines use attractive pictures of bands and singers to make the consumers become visually appealing to the music they represent. As my music magazine is going to be a special edition about music festivals I decided I wanted to get a calm soft picture that represented summer perfectly. Whilist searching the internet I found a number of pictures that represented the summer, the majority of these were taken on beaches and by pools - however I wanted my magazine image to show more of a country summer. Below is an image I found from People Tree's Spring & Summer Photoshoot of Emma Watson:

There are very supple pastle colours used in this image that gives a very warm soft feeling to the image. It is clear that this image inspired my front cover for my music magazine:

The picture above is the image I have chosen to use for my magazine front cover. Of course I did not want to completely duplicate the Emma Watson photoshoot, instead I wanted to retain more of British summer and I felt the People Tree's photoshot reprensted more of a south american theme.

I made sure the weather was correct before taking the photo and opted for a low angle shot to emphasize the long grass and clear skies. The colours of the models dress also highlight the pink flowers and different shades of green and yellow in the grass.

Rock/Indie Music Research

Since I am going to focus on a rock/indie music magazine I have to research these to genres to get a better idea of what type of music magazine I will be designing. Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1980s.Indie rock artists are known for placing a premium on maintaining complete control of their music and careers, releasing albums on independent record labels (sometimes self-owned and operated) and relying on touring, word-of-mouth, airplay on independent or college radio stations and, in recent years, the Internet for promotion. (MGMT is an example of and Indie Rock band.) Musicians classified as indie rock are typically signed to independent record labels, rather than major record labels, although there are many examples of indie musicians switching to major labels mid-career. In recent years, the line between indie and mainstream has become increasingly blurred, with traditionally indie bands like Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie signing major label contracts and enjoying commercial success. Radiohead ended their contract with EMI and self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows, in 2007. Indie rock bands without major label backing increasingly turned to the internet for promotion, as music review web sites that specialize in indie music such as Pitchfork Media saw their influence grow.