Publishers

Publisher: IPC Media

IPC Media is a leading UK consumer media publisher.

Two in three women and 45% of men read an IPC Media published magazine.

IPC Media publishes over 80 magazines that include; Now, Look, NME, Golf Monthly, Marie Claire, Super Bike and Nuts.

Magazines: NME

NME is a weekly magazine since November, 14 1952 and is the longest published music magazine. Its coverage is of contemporary music.

The magazine has a circulation of 56,284.

Publishers

Publisher: EMAP
EMAP is a British media publisher that now specialises in the production and publication of business-to-business magazines such as MEED, Architects' Journal, Drapers, Health Service Journal and Nursing Times. However, in its past, EMAP has published othe magazines aimed at the consumer such as Smash Hits, SPORT, The One, Nintendo Official Magazine and Sega Saturn Magazine.
Magazine: Smash Hits

Smash Hits was a pop-based magazine that was aimed at children and young teenagers. Since its first published issue in 1978 the magazine had been published fortnightly.
However, due to falling sales it ceased publishing in 2006.

Institution Research - Publishers

Publisher : Bauer Consumer Media
Bauer Consumer Media is a large German publishing company that brought the consumer magazine division from EMAP in January 2008.
It publishes a wide range of magazines of different genres that include Kerrang!, Q and Mojo.
"Bauer Media owns more than eighty influential media brands spanning a wide range of interests, including heat, GRAZIA, Closer, MCN, FHM, Parker's, MATCH, Magic 105.4, Kiss 100, Kerrang!, all-new Q Radio and the Big City Network, our group of twenty local radio stations." http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/
Magazines: Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a weekly music magazine that has based over the years on the rock, emo, thrash, grunge, numeta, glam metal and metalcore music genre. Music acts such as Prince, Bon Jovi, Metallica, My Chemical Romance, and Nirvana have appeared on the frontcover of the magazine since its first issue was published on June 6, 1981.

The magazine has a circulation of 70,000.

Q

Q is published monthly and is aimed at older or middle-aged music buyers with music acts such as Paul Weller, U2, Level 42, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and recent acts like the Kaiser Cheifs featuring on the front cover since its first publish in 1986.

It seperated itself from other magazines when first published by having a monthly production with higher standards of photography and printing.

The magazine has a circulation of over 130,000.

Music Magazine Research

Language- The language of my music magazine must appeal to my readers. So if my magazine is aimed at readers who are upper class the language may be formal.
Many music magazines like NME, Q and Rolling Stone are written informally and address the reader.

Institution- The institution of my music magazine will be the publisher.

Ideology- The ideology of my magazine will be like most music magazines. To entertain and inform the audience.

Audience- The audience of my magazine will be music fans of the particular genre that I choose. (for example Kerrang! is aimed at people who are in to rock music)

Representation- The music artists and bands of the particular genre I select will be represented in my music magazine.

Main Task

The main task is to produce a music magazine consisting of a front page, contents page and a double page spread of an article.
So far I have researched how published magazines are layed out and I have also practised designing a magazine.

My magazine analysis of NME magazine can help me to work out how I'm going to design my music magazine.

Other music magazines that can help me with my task are;

• NME


• Kerrang


• Q


• Rolling Stone


• Mojo


• Top of the Pops


• Smash Hits!

Task Evaluation

· In what ways does your Media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My front page has an eye catching masthead that is distinguishable from the other fonts on the front page and so will stand out and be recognisable.
The headlines and sub headlines are all in the same font with eye catching colours. These both show the ideology of my magazine which is aimed at college students and shows representation of college students.
· How does your Media product represent
particular social groups?

· What kind of Media institution might distribute
your media product and why?
A college or learning established Media institution may distribute my media product as the ideology of my media product is to inform college students.
· Who would be the audience for your Media
product?
The audience of my media product is college students.
· How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted/addressed my audience by using bright coloured fonts and subjects in my headlines and sub headlines that I think will attract them.
· What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?
I've learnt how to use the layout of my magazine effectively to attract my target audience. I have also learnt to use Photoshop to design my front page.
· Looking back at the preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?
I have learnt more about magazine ideology and how they attract their audiences through research.

Final

Front Page - Draft

Accidentally, the images I had taken for the frontcover were deleted so I had to find images from the Internet. However, the headlines, subheadlines and masthead were all going to be on the frontcover with my photos.

The final draft of my frontcover was created on Photoshop.
The background of the photo is blurred so the person stands out more. The photo is of a student who is smiling and holding study books. This suggests she is happy.

The masthead "enlighten" is bright and bold so it is eye catching and recognisable like many magazines that are published.

The subheadlines are also in colours that stand out from the cover image so they don't blend in and become unreadable. They are written to give the reader a taste of what is in the magazine and to make them want to read the articles inside.

I placed the bar code at the bottom of the magazine as this is usually where they are.

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Actual Front Page

Because I had deleted the original photos I had to take some new ones with the ideology of a college. This meant that the layout and colour scheme in the front cover above were rearranged to fit in with the new image.

The conventions of magazine front pages can be seen on my own magazine, for example, the masthead, barcode, main image and headlines and subheadlines are all conventions of magazine front pages. The colour of the text was chosen to stand out against the photo. This is the reason why I chose the pink umbrella as darker and lighter colours would be able to show up over it.

Contents Page
The design for my contents page was based on "heat" magazines design. Simplistic. It also follows many of the standard conventions of a contents page that I discovered whilst researching magazines.

The colours yellow and blue were chosen because they are contrasting colours.

The subheadlines for the contents information has page numbers relevant to the article which is a convention I found in my research. The images are also relevant to the articles listed in the contents which is another convention of contents pages.

Magazine Articles/Topic Ideas

I need to have some basic ideas for headlines and subheadlines on my front page and contents page.
Each idea needs to be something to do with college and/or students as they are my target audience.

Masthead:
I have decided on the name Enlighten. I thought it was a suitable name for my magazine as it suggests that it will tell the reader all the latest news at the college.
The masthead will be a light colour and bright against a darker background.


Main Headline:
Because I haven't chosen my photograph for my front page yet I'm still not sure what this is going to be. Obviously it will be relevent to the photo

Subheadline:
I decided that I would have simple subheadlines like exam information and revision tips.


To attract my audiences eye I'm going to have a plug on my front page. The plug will be relevant to the ideology of the magazine. It will be about how the reader can win a laptop computer by entering a writing competition.

Magazine Name Ideas

I started to think of ideas of what my masthead will say and look like. In many magazines the masthead is either the dominant feature on the front cover or it is cropped behind the photo. I think my masthead will be slightly hidden by my photo.
I've been thinking of what my magazine should be called. I've been researching other school magazines but decided that if I named mine "Wyke" or something like that it would be too obvious.
I used an online thesaurus to get some ideas for names.
First, I typed in college and got institution. This gave me the idea of calling my magazine institute but the disadvantage of this is that it sounds too formal.
I then typed in the word knowledge. Attitude seemed like a good idea but it didn't show the ideology of my magazine.
With the word teach I came across a few other words that may be suitable. The word enlighten or enlightened seemed suitable as it gives the impression that the magazine is informative.

I also toyed with the idea of having an abbreviated name similar to NME which is an abbreviation of New Musical Express. For example I could call my magazine Knowledge Express but abbreviate to KE.

Mastheads should be instantly recognisable and so mine should have a defining feature.