magazine evaluation

The genre of my music magazine is rock and a bit of hip-hop, that is why we called it paradox it is a very catchy title and easy to remember. Both genres conflict with each other, which makes the magazine more interesting and gives the reader the curiosity on how we made both genres work together with the different styles and music in one magazine. My group created each of their own front covers in a different and unique way. We also made up a "band" (purple Pills) instead of using known celebrities because it is a common thing in magazine; we wanted a new celeb on the front cover so we chose ourselves as the new group and also took pictures of us together to show that we are a band. We are the main image (central image) and story on this magazine. Then the second part of the story is about D.T.O a new upcoming band/group. My magazine is only has exclusivity, it is fresh, new and it is one of a kind.

I tried to make my magazine look like a real one as much as possible like for example, the title is in a big font, it is on top of the magazine like typical magazine covers, and there is also the main story in the middle with the image behind it. There is the barcode and price to make it more realistic. There is also the text box on the side and at the right hand corner of the magazine each story linking to the central image e.g. “two bands in a battle to reach no.1”, “one of band mates falls in love”. This magazine is supposed to give the whole story about the main story “each week” e.g. the main story is the purple pills interview so most of the magazine is going to be about them.

All these stories and images on the layout develop into a real magazine. I wanted the back round of my magazine to be different and I wanted it to link up to the genres. Any media institution should distribute my magazine cover because it is everything in one, it has everything you need to know about the most popular styles of music, instead of having two separate magazines for rock and hip-hop, both of them can go into one, which will appeal a lot more to the young adults.

The music magazine represents many different social groups because of the picture of the band. We have all different styles of clothes we have more then one genres so the magazine speaks out to nearly everyone. Each person in our band has a different style e.g. I had a rock kind of look, Hennock had a hip hop look with a bit of rock, Emre had the grunger look and Eni had the cool hip look, we all come from different social groups. We were mostly targeting young teens, rock fanatics, people who are into hip-hop fashion/ music. Our different styles gave us a big advantage because we are able to attract a wider range of people. The main target for this magazine is young teens/adults at the age of 16-25, because the new generation of teenagers/young adults have become more interested with music and the cultural back round of it. We are also able to attract our target audience because the band/group is in the same age group as them.

It is very difficult making a front cover magazine even with the new technologies now; it is still hard to set out your cover on the computer, but I have learnt that by using all this technology you have to have a creative mind. You are the one who is setting everything out not the computer; you have to plan and understand how it works and are able to achieve the magazine cover you want. I did not know how to use Photoshop (IMACS) so I could not make the front cover I set out in my mind Photoshop was difficult to use it was very confusing. If you can use the IMACS good then you will be able to create anything for anyone because there’s so many different designs to choose from, but with the little information I had to create a cover with IMACS I think my magazine cover design is still great and it appeals to people (target age 16-25 yrs). As I was learning a bit by bit how to use IMAC, I was surprised with all the things you could do so each time I would learn something new, which is improving my IT skills a bit; I loved the different back rounds because there were many which connected to the whole theme of the magazine.

If I made another front cover I would definitely plan my magazine cover thoroughly and learn how to use Photoshop/IMAC properly, I would practice making one before making my real one. I would take better pictures and create better stories, and be more creative with the colours, writing, pictures, and layout and use more and different effects, which I did not know how to use properly. As my knowledge of IMAC improves, making another magazine would be much easier to do.