Music Magazine Front Cover Mockup

Magazines Forms and Conventions

All magazines have forms and conventions. These are techniques used to attract the audience and make the magazine interesting to read. The most obvious form and convention is the Masthead. This is the main title of the magazine, obviosuly this is important so that the reader knows what the magazine is.
Then the other forms and conventions come as follows;
The Main cover Line is the headline of the magazine, this is similar to a newspaper, the most important story or article is displayed partially on the front page to attract the audience's attention.
The Main cover lines is backed up by a photo of the main article. This photo could be of a band or particular artist, or any other thing depending on the genre of the magazine.
Puffs are used to boost the magazine's status, things like "the greatest magazine ever" are often said to make the reader want to buy the magazine.
Plugs are used to hook the audience and catch their attention. This could be a Competition Notice on the front cover or a Special Offer. "FREE Music CD Inside!". This makes the reader or audience want to read on to find out what it is.
Strapline is a secondary headline, usually under the main headline, to further explain what the main article or story is about. This Anchors the meaning of the headline.

Cover Price- This isn't really something that is used to catch the audiences attention, but to show the price of the magazine. However, it does have to be clear otherwise the audience may not see it and buy the magazine for a diffrent price.

Bar Code- the bar code is also next to the Cover Price, which is also accompanied by the issue number. The issue number tells the audience what the magazines number it is. For example, monthly magazine running for 24 months would be Issue 24.

Music Magazine Front Cover Mock Up

This is my mock up for the music magazine front cover.
It is very basic as i am just trying to have an idea of
what the general layout of the front page will be.
I will have the main feature photo covering mostly
all of the page, with some text written over it to caption it.

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

Above is my preliminary task, my school magazine front cover, and my REAL music magazine front cover. As you can see, There is a lot of difference between the two, mainly the fact that I used a lot more codes and conventions on my Main Task. The school mag front cover doesn’t really show much information; it just shows the masthead, date and a full page photo. My Music magazine shows a masthead, puffs, plugs, main headline, main feature photo, including other codes and conventions. Before I began to design my music magazine, I had looked at other music magazines to have an idea of what the reader expects when they are reading the magazine.  

I realised that my Preliminary magazine front cover was far too empty. It had a lot of space which could have been used. The colours were not very eye catching either, for example, the sky was blue and so was the school logo, which means that it did not catch the viewer’s eye. On my music magazine, I used simple colours which stand out such as Black, white and reds.

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

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

The first technology I used when I started the coursework is the internet. I had to research a school magazine, so I used the internet to find a school magazine front cover. I then used Microsoft Word to copy and paste a picture of the front cover in order to add notes and analyse the semiotics.

The next thing I used was a blog to present my coursework so that the teacher could see it online. I used www.blogspot.com which is a free blogging site. It’s good for presenting my work because it allowed me to add labels showing the different sections of the coursework.  The blog allows me show the work as It progresses because each posts is shown after the other.

When I had to do the preliminary task, I had to create a school magazine. For this, I had to use a digital camera to take some photos for the front cover.  I was familiar with the camera functions as i do photography, which helped me to get some good quality photographs.

Then when I had the photos I had taken, we had to edit them a bit to enhance them. To edit the photos I took, I used Adobe Photoshop Elements. This software is good for photo editing because it allows the user to enhance colour and add different effects to the photo.

I used Corel Draw to create my media text. Corel Draw is a graphics software used in the magazine industry. At first I found it difficult to use because it was my first time. But I got used to it eventually. Corel Draw is mainly text based because it is used to create media texts. It allows me to create a page with the dimensions of my choice. In this case I use A4 for my front cover and contents page, and A3 for my double page spread.

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

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

I think that IPC (http://www.ipcmedia.com/) would distribute my magazine because they only publish one other music magazine.  My magazine is also generally aimed at both sexes, which is the same as most of the magazines published by IPC, this would increase the circulation. 

My magazine fits with the overall IPC brand catalogue because there is also another music magazine on there. However, my magazine is different to NME as it looks at solo artists, which shows more in depth news about solo artists than other music magazines.

Magazines make their money not just by selling it, but by advertisers. Companies pay the emagazines to advertise their products, and some of the profit made goes to the magazine producers.  To work out how my magazine would make it’s money, I had to produce a rate card.

Rate Card for music magazine
Age: 16-25
60% male readers, 40% Female readers
Magazine Price: £2.50
Monthly magazine
Circulation: 35,000
Cost per full page ad
£7,500
Total adverts
25


Total circulation profit
£87,000


Total Profit from advertisers
£187,500
My magazine would make £87,000 from the circulation per month, as well as £187,500 from it’s advertisers.

My magazine is not aimed at a very large audience, nor a small one, it is somewhere in the middle. The magazines with most audiences are usually the TV listings magazines, which are published mostly by IPC, which could be a problem when it comes to audience size. 

If I chose a different publisher for my magazine, it could create competition with IPC in the sales of their music magazines, however, IPC is the best distributor for me because the others concentrate on mostly either Mens magazines, or Female magazines. My music magazine is aimed at mostly both sexes.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Representation is the way we communicate using signs and symbols. All representations are always untrue when compared to the real thing. This is because the representation goes through a process of mediation.

My magazine is representing solo musicians aged 16 – 25 in the UK. When encoding my media text. I had to think about my target audience and what they expect to see on the magazine. So I had to thin about what sort of pictures to use, and what sort of language.  I had to do this so that the audience knew that the magazine was about Solo Artists in the UK.

I had to create a positive representation of these Solo artists, so that the audience enjoyed reading the text. To do this, I put in appropriate pictures such as the one on the front cover of the main Feature artists playing the guitar. The clothes he is wearing match the style of music the magazine is about.