Main Task Analysis two music magazines

First task of the main task is to analysis two music magazines of our choice. My first one I choose to do was Kerrang because I thought it would be an interesting one to do and to see if they laid it out differently to a different music magazine because its music genre is rock so they might lay it out differently and use differently colours to a pop music magazine or a R&B magazine.

Analysis of music magazine (kerrang)

Title of magazine: Kerrang

Publisher: Bauer

Frequency: Weekly

Cost of each issue: £2.20

Sales figures: 41,125

How does Kerrang reach their target audience for their music magazine:

The thing that Kerrang do to get their target audience is firstly make sure that they cover the genre that their target audience is most likely to read about because Kerrang is a rock magazine I don't think their target audience will be very happy if they have pop stars in and on the front cover of the magazine. They also grab the readers attention by putting teasers on the front cover such as they may say many posters inside or read some inclusive interviews for the first time in here so they use these methods to grab the readers attention which I think is the most effective way in getting the readers attention.

Front cover:

Font: The font is a bit weird but is it quite bold so it stand’s out to the reader and its easy to read what’s going to be on the inside of the magazine. Te font also goes well with the background colour so it stands out even more which is a clever way of grabbing the reader’s attention.

Masthead: The layout of the magazine is used very well like most magazines they have the title in big bold writing different to the background so it stands out then it has the main story in bold so it tells the reader this is what you will want to read when you buy this magazine. They use different colours for the background compared to the font so it looks effective and grabs the reader’s attention. The colours on the front cover of the magazine are quite dark which you expect because of the genre of music it is which is rock.

Contents: On the front cover of the magazine there are a lot of teasers on the front cover such as there are a number of posters inside of the magazine which it says on the front cover and then they have the main story and a sub story and then it says at the bottom what else is going to be inside of this edition of the magazine.

Who the magazine is aimed at: This magazine is aimed at any gender but it is a certain genre of music that some people are not in to. The music genre for this magazine is rock you can tell this by the big rock bands on the front cover of the magazine such as Muse and Lost prophets.

Image: On the front cover of this magazine there are a lot of images they have the main one that is a picture of a band in this issue it is bullet for my valentine. This image takes up about three quarters of the page and then they have some smaller images about the posters, which are inside of the magazine. The size of the main images is good because it definitely grabs the reader’s attention even if you don’t like the band or the genre of music. The image is also good because it is a very popular band of which genre of music it is in.

Contents page:

The contents page is different to most other magazines such as they have a image taking up half the page on the contents page of a popular rock group 30 seconds to mars and then underneath it has all the pages of the different information in this edition of the magazine.

Font: The background colour and the font colour is the same as that is used on the front cover of the magazine so they don’t change it’s the same and then they have the page number in a colour that stands out and the sub heading in bold so it stands out to the reader and its easy to see the font on the contents page because they carefully selected the colours so that the colours didn't clash together.

Masthead: The layout of the contents page has also been printed well such as its close together and very brief so you don’t have to read a lot and it doesn’t give away the stories it’s a very good but basic contents page because they have used the space well.

Double page spread:

For the double page spread that I have reviewed which is page 6-7 has a very big image of a band which takes up just over a page the band name is called The Dillinger Escape Plan so with the image being so big it immediately grabs the readers attention because they might like the bands music so they will read the article about them.

They use white and red font on a black background and the heading is in bold so it stands out to the reader as soon as the reader turns the page because it grabs the reader’s attention. They also have in bold about them releasing a new album so if people are a fan of there music then it’s a good way of publishing about having a new album because readers will know about it then they might buy it. The actual article is in small white font so the white stands out but it is quite hard to read the text.

I think the layout of the double page spread is good because its altogether rather than text being spread out all over the page because then you know when to start and finish rather than get lost because there is loads of text everywhere so its easy to follow. I also like the fact they use a big image because sometimes if there is only a small image it makes it hard to establish who the people are in the images.

There's no slang in the magazine article instead its very formal with lots of information about the band and about the release of their new CD. I think the article is very well written and tells a lot of information about the band and how they got inspired to make the new CD and what songs to create like “Gold teeth on a bum” the leader of the band called Greg said “People think it’s a joke title but its from a true story. I was in Hollywood and a homeless guy with a mouthful of legitimate asked me for money” so that’s where Greg got the idea to release the bands new song called that.

Overall I think the double page spread is good because it has a big image that grabs the reader’s attention and then they have a lot of information about the band. The only negative thing about the double page spread is that the text font is quite small so its harder for the readers to read.

Analysis of second magazine Q

Title of magazine: Q

Publisher: Bauer

Frequency: Weekly

Cost of each issue: £3.90

Sales figures: (from December 2008) 103,017

How does Q reach their target audience:

Q uses similiar techniques as Kerrang in order to reach their target audience such as they use music stars in the genre that their target audience is interested in such as on the front cover of this issue is Cheryl Cole. They also have teasers on the front such as they say who they are interviewing in this issue and what the music stars have been up to.

Front cover:

Image: On the front cover of this magazine there is just one main image, which on this issue is Cheryl Cole who most men admire and most women would love to look like so it is a good way for grabbing the reader’s attention and Cheryl Cole has sex appeal about her whereas on the front cover of the Kerrang magazine they have a big rock band so both magazines front cover are trying to attract readers in different ways.

Font: There are a variety of different font sizes used. Such as they have Cheryl Cole in bold white writing so it stands out on the front cover. Just above where it says Cheryl Cole it has the name of her new album which is 3 words which isn’t as bold but it still stands out so she’s also advertising her new album. The title of the magazine is very bold and stands out the most out of all the font used so the readers can associate with the magazine easily when they look at magazines. All of the font stands out on the front cover of the magazine because they use a different font colour compared to the background colour.

Masthead: The layout of the magazine I think is laid out well such as they have the text all around the outside of Cheryl Cole’s face so she is still the main focus of the front cover of the magazine and they use her to grab the readers attention. Also the way they use the font is very effective because they use a different font colour to the background colour so the sub headings will stand out to the reader.

Contents: On the front cover of the magazine there are quite a few teasers, which I think is really effective in a way that it will grab the reader’s attention probably even more if they didn’t have the teasers because it’s a good way of grabbing the reader’s attention because they have stories about bands or artists that some readers might be interested about.

Who the magazine is aimed at: I think this magazine is aimed at anyone who is interested in music because despite having Cheryl Cole as the main image on the front cover which might make some people think it’s a women’s magazine however the bands they have inside include Muse, Snow Patrol and 50 cent so they also have bands that maybe might get men to buy there magazine so they cover a wide target audience.

Contents page:

I think the contents page of this magazine is really good such as I like the way it’s a double page spread because this gives the publisher more room to put in text and images to make it stand out more to the reader.

Font: The colours they use for the font is quite similar to the colours used on the front cover so there isn’t much of a mixture of colours which is good because if they use too many colours then it would look to full. Another thing that is good about the font on the contents page is that they have the page number and who’s the article is about in bold so it stands out to the reader and then a sentence about what the article is about. The use of bold font is good because it stands out to the reader and is very effective.

Masthead: I also think the way the contents page is laid out is good because as well as having all the page numbers and a bit of information about the article they also have an image of the person that the story is about so if you don’t know the name of the person you might recognise them by image so this is another good way of grabbing the readers attention.

Double page spread:

For the double page spread I have decided to analysis pages 88-89 and its about Chris Packhams album watch. The layout is quite similar with the one I analysed from the Kerrang magazine because on one page it has the image and on the other page it has all the information on however with Q were they have text they also have small images the reason for this being is because he's talking about artists or bands and I think that they felt some readers might not recognise the name but if the see an image of the artists or bands then they might know who they are.

However I do like the layout because I rather see a big main image with a page of writing then have two pages with smaller images which are full of writing because I might lose interest in what I'm reading.

I like the font colours that they have used because it stands out on the background and easy to read. They only use two colours which is white and red I think that having two different font colours is good because then you can separate into different categories such as with this article the red is the name of the artist or band and then the name of the album and a bit of information about the album and the release dates.

I think it is clever about how they took the photo because when I first looked at the photo I thought he was in a bit of a random location because the model is in a woodland location but then I read the sentence underneath and saw that it was due to the current season which is Spring so I think that is a really good idea about how they thought of that.

Overall I think that the double page spread is really good and will be very interesting for readers that want to know when the artist or bands album is coming out. I also like the choice of colours and how they don't blend in with the background so it's easy to read off and I like the way the picture goes with the current season which is Spring.

Contents page

The final task i had to do was make a contents page to go with the front cover on the preliminary task. I found this task quite challenging because I wanted to use the same kind of colours that I used on my front cover so there wasn't to much of a variety of colours. I also didn't want to use too many images because its a contents page and I wanted it to be formal so people could tell whats going to be inside of my magazine. After I took into account everything such as the number of images to use and the font size that would stand out to the reader and the font colour it all came together well and I finished the preliminary task. I think when it comes to doing my contents page for my music magazine it would be better because when I done this one I was trying to get use to photoshop and my skills aren't yet very good.

Conclusion of are front cover magazine

After a couple of hours work I finally completed the front cover and I think it looks really good and effective. Some things I had to play around with such as the images on the front cover because at first they looked a bit tilted so I had to play around with it until it looked straight. Another problem I had with the images was that I didn't want to have too many images because then I thought people may not be able to see the background which I want readers to do else there wasn't no point having a background so I had to play around with the layout. I wanted to do something different compared to the original school magazine because I felt there was to many images and not enough text explaining the image which we made sure we did so the people that will read are magazine can clearly understand what's happening in the images. I also decided to put teasers on the front cover of the magazine because most people from the questionnaire said that it would probably make them read the school magazine so I thought it would be essential to add this.

I used different fonts on the front cover of magazine so that people can tell the different subjects rather than having all the same font because it might confuse some people so I thought this would be a good and effective idea so its easier for people to tell the difference and so it doesn't look all the same there's more of a variety of colour and bright colours as well because most people said that the font used for the front cover is to dull and the colours aren't bright enough so I made sure I done that to keep readers happy. One of the font colours that I used was green this connotes fresh so it says I am doing something completely different to what the original school magazine was like so hopefully I will get more readers because they will enjoy reading it more and they are interested.

Another thing that looks good on my front cover was the logo because I decided to make it bigger so it stands out to the reader now and it doesn't clash with the background like the original school magazine did so hopefully now readers will be able to tell were the magazine came from and get are school recognised because most people that I asked outside of the school said they wouldn't know were it came from because it blended in to much with the background and it wasn't big enough so now hopefully the readers will be happy with the new style.

The images came out really well and we were impressed on how well they looked on the front cover of our magazine and I only had to change a few things on the photographs that took but most of them were alright so all I had to do was stick it right on to my front cover so it saved me a lot of time because although I had to edit some of them.

I decided to keep the title the same I tried to come up with a different name to make it sound new and more exciting but I decided to keep it with the original name because we had the picture of the front of the entrance were it says Bodmin college so I used that as our background so it stands out and people can now actually tell that it is Bodmin college's own magazine. I also didn't want to change it because people may not recognise that it is the college's magazine so I thought that it may get less readers so I thought we would just really try and focus on the teasers on the front cover to get readers interested rather than spending a lot of time just trying to come up with a new name for the magazine.

I feel my strengths were strengths were taking the images and being able to put them straight onto the front cover of the magazine with only having to edit a few. I also felt I was good at coming up with what teasers to put on the front cover of the magazine so I can try to attract as many readers as I could such as I thought that it would be a good idea of having the pictures of the new part of the common room because most people are interested in seeing what the common room looks because its new and this could get the attention of both students and parents. I also thought my teaser of the Rosie and cider play was a good idea because on the original school magazine they only really focus on one subject and everybody has different tastes so I decided to add this so I could cover a wide selection of tastes for people and even if the students don't like the sound of the play some parents might like to go and watch it so I feel we advertised it well.

I think my weaknesses was trying to decide on the layout of my magazine because I couldn't think of to ideas but I wanted to put to quite a bit on the front cover of the magazine because I was worried it might look empty and not as advertising so I decided to just have a few main images which people would most likely like to see. However I also didn't want to fill up the front cover because I liked the background picture and I really wanted it to stand out so readers recognises the image. The only other weakness that I really had was trying to find the right font colour because I wanted it to stand out from the background like the publishers of other magazines do so I tried to use a variety of colours that I felt would stand out to the reader.

Overall I think I done well with my magazine front cover and I was impressed with the outcome of the magazines because it took me a lot of time and effort. I really hope that people that see my front cover of the magazine would be impressed as well because most of the things I put on the front cover of my magazine was to do with the feedback I got back from are questionnaires so I based everything on what the readers would like to see.

Producing the front cover of are magazine

For this final piece of work we decided to do have of the front cover each. Jake Pearce applied the background of the front cover and all the other images and I applied the font to go with the images. We looked at each others flat plan and questionnaire analysis so we could come up with a really good idea on mix both of ours together because we liked each other ideas. We both decided that the entrance of the college should be used because the photo that Jake took looked really good and effective. An idea that Jake came up with is to show the new pictures of the common room because not every one has seen them yet so he thought it would be a good idea to use this as a teaser for people because most people are yet to see the new parts of the common room. An idea I came up with was to put a image on the front cover about the latest drama play called Rosie and cider the reason why I thought this idea would be relevant is because it is the most recent play and it will be a good way to advertise the new play for the college and its also a good way to get the college recognised for not only being good at one or two subjects it shows we can do a range of subjects well. The other thing myself and Jake both agreed on was about having a teasers about the academy results because from the feedback we got most people wanted to know more information about the academies because most parents and lower years don't get to hear the results. The final bit that took a bit of time was trying to find the right coloured and sized font because most people from the questionnaire said that they didn't like the colours used because it was to dull so we tried different colours to see what would go best with are background because we didn't want them to clash together because then people wont be able to see the teasers that we used to try and get the attention of the readers.

Pictures taken and analysis

Today I started taking the pictures to go on the front cover of my school magazine. I took the pictures that I thought would be appropriate to go on the front cover so he took pictures that he felt would be appropriate for are front cover such as entrance of the school and the new common room. After I took the pictures I looked at them and analysed them so I could evaluate whether or not they need cropping because maybe the images are to big and what kind of lighting there is on the photo so whether it was natural light or if we wanted to change it and use a different kind of lighting so make it look better. I also explained the connotations so what the picture shows and what effects it gives and the reason why we took the photo in the first place for example we took the photo of the entrance of the school to use as are front cover picture because as well as we have made the logo bigger we also have on the background of are front cover Bodmin college.

I took this image because I thought it would go well as my background of the the front cover this is because its a clear picture of the entrance and the reader will be able to see that it is Bodmin colleges magazine because you can see the Bodmin college on the building.

I took this photo because I wanted to show everyone the new extension on the common room because not many people apart from the current 6th form so I thought it would be a good opportunity for everybody to see the new images of the common room.

Flat Plan

After analysing my questionnaire and finding out what images and information people would like to see I went on to creating my flat plan I had taken into account of what people wanted to see judging by the feedback of my magazine. I decided to do different things to the current magazine such as one of the things I made sure I did was make the logo bigger so it stands out a lot more now. I also decided to add more teasers because people said that it will grab their attention if they can see whats going on inside of the magazine and I also included on my flat plan about the latest academies results. Also this lesson I have decided to team up with Jake Pearce because we both decided we had different strengths and weaknesses so we could support each other and then overall make a better front cover.

Analysis of questionnaire

After I had all my questionnaires completed I went on to analysing it. I also explained why I choose the certain questions that I did and now had a good idea on what to do and add on to the flat plan that I was about to create. From the feedback I got back from my questionnaires it was clear to me that some people were very unhappy and disappointed about the current school magazine and it was made clear to me that I'm going to have to do a lot of different things to the school magazine to make people happy and to grab the readers attention. For example the majority of people said that they didn't like the front cover of the school magazine because they thought the colours were to dull and it doesn't appeal to them however some people said that they like the dull covers because it goes with the season that we was currently in at the time which was Autumn.

The feedback that I got from my second question that I asked about whether or not the school logo was again very negative the majority of people said that the logo doesn't stand out enough and some students even said that some people that read it from the outside amy not know that its Bodmin college's very own magazine. Some people also said that the logo blends in to much with the background. From the feedback from this question it tells me that I need to make sure that the logo stands out much more when I go onto making the front cover.

The next question I asked was about the same amount of answers for both yes and no this question was amount the amount of pictures used. Some people said that they liked the amount of pictures used because they like to see what has been happening around the college and what events having recently taken place. However some people said there was to many pictures and not enough text explaining what was actually taking place in these photo's. The best way I can try to make people want to read my magazine is trying to balance out the amount of pictures and text on my front cover.

The feedback I got from my fourth question which was about the colours used was also a bit of negative feedback. The majority of people that I asked said that the colours were to dull and didn't stand out to them and they would like brighter colours to be used so it stands out to the readers. From this feedback I'm definitely going to make sure that I use brighter colours so people are happy with it and it stands out to a wider range of audience such as people that are not normally reading the school magazine.

The reason why I asked the fifth question was so I get some idea of what people will like to see when I finally create the front cover of my magazine. I got a wide range of feedback from this question which I expected because different people have different tastes. The main things people wanted to see was the latest news and results from the academy and whats going to happen within the next few months.

My sixth question was about whether or not teasers would make people want to read the inside of my magazine. The majority of people said that they would like to see teasers on the front of the magazine because it would give them something to look forward to reading inside the magazine. The other feedback I got was that they can then see if there's any stories in there that they would be interested in reading because some people said that sometimes they cant be bothered to read it because they don't know if there's going to be stories in the magazine that they are actually interested in.

My last question I asked people was do you like the font of the magazine. I asked this question because I wanted to know if they thought the font of the school magazine was effective and whether or not it stood out to them. The feedback I got back with this question is that it doesn't really bother them because it is big enough to read and there isn't that much font on the front cover of the magazine anyway.

After analysing all of the information I have got back from my questionnaires I am going to make sure that I try and add in everything that people want so that my magazine front cover will grab the attention of loads of people. Such as I'm going to make the logo bigger so it stands out to people and they know were the magazine came from. I'm also going to make sure I use bright colours to grab the readers attention and try a different kind of layout to the current one to see if people prefer it.