Evaluation of my music magazine

Magazine Evaluation

My magazine is a music magazine based on 60s psychedelic rock. The target audience is anyone who is interested in psychedelic rock. However I believe the target audience are most probably older adults as the music is from the 60s and not many children or teenagers will know the music. My magazine appeals to my target audience because the codes and conventions connote the genre of my magazine. The use of bright colours along with bold black text, represent psychedelic rock, as many real psychedelic magazines also used these codes and conventions.

To get an idea of what is needed on my magazine front cover and my double page spread I had to find research methods to help find what codes and conventions fit in with the genre of my magazine. With the use of a questionnaire I found out what codes and conventions are best suited. The main question that needed to be asked was what the name of the magazine was going to be. 13 out of the 20 people I gave this questionnaire to suggested that my magazine should be called kaleidoscope. This really suits the genre of my magazine as the word Kaleidoscope is very much associated with psychedelic rock. This lead to my masthead being Kaleidoscope in bold black font, which is really eye catching and appealing to anyone who wants to buy a psychedelic rock magazine. Results from my magazine also showed me that I should use the font Ravie for any text on my magazine. To draw attention to the target audience I had to use a graphical feature. The questionnaire showed me that people would like to see a star shape graphical feature which states that there is a free CD inside. The questionnaire results also shown that people would like to see the central image of John Lennon taken as a mid shot. This all helped me to inform the content and layout to produce a mock of my magazine front cover, I also did a mock-up of a double page spread.

Before doing a questionnaire I did an initial analysis classic rock and Mojo which are real life examples of rock magazines. This influenced me to create a psychedelic rock magazine because of the bright colours and also because of the stars like John Lennon. The analysis also helped me get an idea of what codes and conventions were needed to suit the genre of my magazine and make it look more legitimate. On typical psychedelic rock magazines there were a lot of bright colours and patterns. There was also bold text for headlines and the masthead. The central image was mostly of psychedelic rock artists and the camera shot would generally be a mid shot. There was always a graphical feature on the magazine which stood out as it did not go with the colour scheme of the magazine. With this information on real music magazines it influenced me to use the codes and conventions for my mock up of a magazine front cover and double page spread. Both magazines influenced me in different ways, however I believe Classic Rock was much more suited to the genre of my magazine as it did many articles on psychedelic rock. One of the issues really influenced me as the central image was John Lennon (like my magazine), and the background was very colourful and full of patterns. After my research into these two magazine publications I felt that Classic rock would be the best institution to publish my magazine because it fits with the codes and conventions of my magazine, and the portfolio that it only look into ‘Classics’ like the 60s, leaves an impression with me that Classic rock is really suited the genre of my magazine. I think my publication accurately shows that it is a rock magazine because of the colours and font. I think it also conforms with the codes and conventions of any magazine so people know what the actual media platform is. The star in the centre of my magazine is being portrayed as very famous because it the biggest image. Also the mid shot of him looking straight at the camera make the star look like he has authority and this fulfils the target audience aspirations as they aspire to be like him. The image is also a typical stereotype of psychedelic rock because of the funky suit and glasses. My magazine offer a poster inside, this could be argued as one of the selling points because it conforms to the reception theory proposed by Dallas. My magazine however, does not conform to the hypodermic needle model because my magazine is very interactive. It has a website address on the bottom and it is also linked up to Facebook and Instagram

With the help of my 2 mock ups I went on to create my final pieces. I made some adjustments to make my magazine look more legitimate. I changed the background of my magazine front cover from simply just pink to a background full of patterns and colours. I used colours that connote psychedelic rock, and this made my magazine feel more like it was fitted to the genre. Another thing that I changed was the central image. Originally on my mock of the double page spread and front cover was just an image of John Lennon; however this was not my own image, Therefore I got an image of someone dressed up as John Lennon. I then cropped the image and made it into a mid shot and put it on my magazine front cover. On my double page spread I used a similar image of the same person, but instead it was a close up. On my double page spread I added in a number on the pages as this was used in many real music magazines when I was analysing them. Overall not much changed from my draft to my final piece, but these minor adjustments really helped my magazine look at a better standard. When I completed my final front cover and double page spread I did a Q and A with a focus group. This helped me to refine and modify my final piece to make it much better.

My front cover and double page spread are linked in the way that on the front cover the headline states there is a tribute about John Lennon. In my double page I wrote a full page tribute which gives further information on the headline on my font cover. The colours of my font cover and double page spread are also linked as I used the same colours linked with psychedelic rock. Also the image in the two are of the same person, the only difference is the camera angles. Both my front cover and double page spread fulfil the codes and conventions of a typical psychedelic rock magazine.

In conclusion I feel that my magazine fulfils the codes and conventions of the psychedelic rock genre. I also feel that my magazine fulfils the target audience expectations and aspirations.