Evaluation

For my product I was asked to create a front cover and a contents page for a magazine. We got to choose everything about the magazine including the name. The name we decided to go for was sketch. this is because we wanted to go for something slightly indie and not mainstream. The font we decided to go for, (for the masthead) was one off the website http://www.dafont.com/ and it was one called '28 weeks later'. The colour of the font is a bright green. We chose this colour because it was the same type of green that we used for the background. I believe that the idea of using one colour throughout the whole magazine will attract the audience because they will find it easier on their eyes.

For the main sell we had to take a photo in a mid close up style. We took a photograph of our friend. We chose this person because we liked his style because it suited the theme of the magazine and he was the type of target audience that we were trying to reach out to.

We decided that for the cover lines we would try to use topics that our target audience would be interested in. We chose to talk about topics such as winter fashion and music. For the music topic we decided that we would do 'Arctic Monkeys'. This is because their type of music that they play is what we would consider the right type of genre that would be suitable for our target audience.



The target audience for our magazine would probably be around the age group of 16-19 year olds. This is because we have been asked to do a college magazine and this is the age catagory that goes to college. The style for our target audience would mainly be of the indie style. We believe that this has a good style that is actually rather neutral so people will not find weird or offensive. Their intrests would probably be in a lot of music and fashion. They would probably like their music so this is why we have incorperated a significant amount of the topic of music in our magazine. We also have chosen to include fashion. This is mainly because we feel that this would encourage the female audience to buy the magazine as we will not be focusing entirely on the male gender.

Title - NME

Genre - again the genre for this magazine is indie. You can tell this from the two characters on the front cover. I know that 'The Last Shadow Puppets' are in the indie genre.

Audience profile - I believe that this magazine will appeal to its audience. This is because the layout of the initial front cover has a good structure to it. It is essential to a music magazine to look busy because then it looks like the buyer has more to read. This will in turn entice the person to buy the magazine.

I can not get a picture of the contents page but i have read it. Again it looks as though it has a professional style to it. The contents page is one of the most important features in the magazine. This is because this is the first page that the reader looks at when they open the magazine. The contents page has to look good and have a good variety of contents because this is what will entice the reader to carry on scanning through the magazine. So it has to look well presented and have some interesting features. The NME magazine has a good, clear layout on its contents.

Looking through the magazine, I can see that all of the pages are filled with stories and information. This shows that the magazine is taken very seriously because the producers have obviously gone to a lot of effort to put the whole of each magazine together.

Each page of the magazine has a glossy feel to it. This also makes it feel as though the magazine has a professional style.

Music Magazine Initial Research

.Title - Q Magazine. They have chosen to use this title because it is short and catchy. The title is also in a very bold style which I believe is an essential for a magazine. It needs to have a bold, clear title and this magazines is probably the best around because it just has one letter as the title and this is an original and inventive idea which has obviously paid off for them.
.Genre - Indie/Rock
.Audience Profile - Male and female (Indie) aged between 16-25 (Hedonists)
.Front cover - The front cover of this magazine would appeal to its audience because more often than not the image on the front cover will be of a band member. The fans of the band will buy the magazine because it will include a exclusive interview or story about them.
Just people who like this type of music would also buy this magazine.
Content - The sort of features that would expect to find in this type of magazine would probably be something like a free CD with the magazine every month. I would also expect to see things like a special story on one of today's top bands. Another thing that I would expect to see inside the magazine, would just be stuff on old and new music. A lot of people who listen to indie music also enjoy the older type of music and bands such as 'Led Zeppelin'. If I were reading a magazine like this then I think I would like to read about older bands making a comeback. If this was included in the magazine I would find it interesting and I would buy it to read that sort of article.
Q do actually do stories on the older generation magazine. I believe that this type of thing reaches out to the older generation and it is quite clever in the way it is done.
Mainly, the type of photographs that are taken to go on the front cover are ones of the band or artist that there is a story on inside the magazine. Other photos are things like things related to a story in the magazine.

Front cover and Contents page

this is the front cover and contents page of our magazine.