MAGAZINE EVALUATION-KIRSTY

When I was making my magazine front cover, I thought about the different ways I could make It original and make it stand out from other music magazines on sale. After looking at different front covers such as MOJO and Q magazine, I had an idea of the different things that make them stand out. I think my magazine uses some of the conventions of music magazines in general such as, the title being it the very top left hand corner so that it can be seen on a shop shelf, the classic things such as the price, bar code, and the "Autumn Edition". The use of the main strap line "featuring HOLA" is also a classic convention of music magazines, to entice the readers to buy it.

My magazine challenges the convention of real music magazines because of the following:

• The bright pink background- real music magazines generally use quite dull colours such as black, red and white. Using the bright colour for the background is definitely going to make it stand out on a shelf.
• Also the way I have placed the cover lines is very unconventional to real music magazines. I placed the cover lines on each of the people on my front cover as well as to the side. The idea I had for this was to make it seem like each of the people has a specific area in which they specialised, as well as being in the band ""HOLA".

My magazine cover represents a mixture of social groups. The fact that the majority of people on the cover are of black origin can show that mainly people of black origin are interested in RnB music and RnB magazines. However, the ratio of 5:1 being girls to boys, shows that girls are also largely interested in RnB and it is not just boys who are into it. The age group of my magazine was to appeal to teenagers, 15-18, and this shows on my front cover. We are all aged 16/17 and therefore we fall in the middle of the age range.

As I said before, the target audience for my magazine would be both sexes, aged between 15-18. This is because teenagers are more likely to spend their money on a magazine like this than anybody younger or older. Also, the magazine is likely to make a good amount of money, and have a loyal audience, who are going to want to buy it 4 times a year, and they may not mind if the price needs to go up slightly every now and again, because they are loyal and want the magazine.

I tried to attract my target audience by, firstly, making it an RnB magazine, which is the most popular genre of music that is listened to by my target age group (15-18). Also I made Ola the main attraction with a group of girls behind him which is going to make boys and girls want to bye it. The many different things my magazine offers, appeals to teenagers in my age range, such as, music, fashion, and gossip. The price is very affordable for college students £1.99 which includes free gifts with each issue. With my issue they get a free CD.

The things I have learnt about the different technologies we have used in the time we were making the magazines, is how much quicker the whole process is, using Photoshop to make the front cover. All the different ways you can make it seem real, and sometimes 3D as apposed to always 2D and computerised. Using a blog to keep track and note down everything we did step by step and every time we learnt something, instead of forgetting it, we wrote it in our blog and could refer to it later. Also, it is really good if you make a mistake or need to change something, because you can just go to the blog and edit it until your happy. Another good thing is that you can insert pictures as well, so that everybody can see your magazines and all the pictures and covers you had to look at to get inspiration for your cover. The only bad thing about using technology, is that it can be unpredictable sometimes and therefore you don't have complete control over what your doing, it can sometimes make things a bit more complicated than it has to be, but it's all worth it in the end.

If I had to make the magazine cover again, there are a few things that I would change and do differently:

• I would make the background colour different and more fitting to a music magazine.
• I would make the overall colour scheme more fitting to the fact that it's the autumn edition. i.e more neutral colours.
• I would use a natural background, such as a picture of us outside, instead of just block colour.
• I would also take a group picture instead of individual pictures out together.

This is because when I look at other peoples magazines who have done the things listed above, I feel that their covers are much more suited to the task.

Lastly, the distribution of my magazine. I think I would like my magazine to be sold in a big store such as WH SMITH, and big retailers like that, this is because they are popular and well known and therefore my magazine will be seen by thousands of people. Also, music stores should stock it aswelll, obviously because it is a music magazine people will be interested in it who shop in that store. I don't think it would be practical for ordinary corner shops to stock it. This is because, as my magazine it quarterly, it would get lost in all the weekly magazines that everybody is used to buying, and therefore no sales.