Evaluation of the finished magazine

This is my finished magazine;
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxS1If16SbtVNTc4NGQ5OWQtN2M3YS00NzM0LWJlMDEtNDkzNjgxY2MxYzdj&hl=en this link takes you to Google documents so my finished magazine can be viewed.


Here is a powerpoint version of my evaluation of my magazine;
http://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxS1If16SbtVN2E3MDg3NmQtNGQzYy00ZjI1LWIzZjEtNTkyMjE1ZjRhYWIw&hl=en

Planning and evaluation of the article

Below are two articles from different magazines; Top of the pops and Smash Hits, I am going to examine how they use language, what tone they are writing the article in and what type of article it is, for example an interview or review etc.

Top of the pops;


This article is written in the form of an interview, asking questions to the band and the answering them, this is a fairly common form for articles either because its a new and upcoming band or the band have been 'away' or out of the media for a while and are coming back, which is what the interview in this magazine is for.
The tone of this article is quite informal, chatty and humorous as its written for the younger generation so therefore it tends to be cheesy in pop magazines for example, "Ouch! Danny, did you manage to get a tan?"

The use of language is very flowing as if it was a casual conversation between two people, this is a positive for this genre of magazine because it will be engaging to the target audience. They have also asked questions about the bands time away in Australia, this means that the readers will be able to get in an insight into what they don't know, which will encourage people to by the magazine and increase sales. I have used this in my own magazine by stating in the article that this is the first official interview that the band have given.

Another pop magazine article I looked at was;

This magazine article is in the form of an interview also, the author is interviewing the Jonas Brothers on their new film Camp Rock. It uses language such as 'Hello campers' to create a friendly tone and engage the reader into the article. And also alliterations to add interest to the article. The target audience of this magazine is 11-15 years old, the language used fits this target audience because its not complex and is engaging the readers (mainly females) by asking the right questions, and questions the readers will want to know the answers to.

Finally here is the draft of my interview for my magazine, I edit anything when I typed it up for my finished magazine; http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ARS1If16SbtVZGM0ajh3Z3ZfMGN4Zzc4bmo0&hl=en

Photo editing

I chose to edit my photos that I had taken as I would prefer them to have plain white backgrounds, instead of the original background, this is because it improves the appearance of the pictures and also adds the effect of the girl band being in a photo shoot, with a white backdrop. I edited the photos in Adobe Photoshop.

I did this by using the magnetic lasso tool to draw round each main character in the picture, then selected inverse, to allow me to colour in the background white rather then colouring in the drawn around image. I coloured the backgrounds all white, I chose white because the background of my magazine, including the front cover, contents page and the double page spread will be all white, therefore I thought that it would look more appealing if it was white rather than black or any other coloured background so I don't have a 'box like' image.

I also then changed the red eye in all pictures, by adding blue colour to the eyes, I did this simply by using the brush tool.

Below is a photo before I started editing;

And below is during editing, changing the original background into a white background and before I removed the red eye;

And below is a finished edit of one of the photos, with a white background and blue eyes rather than red;

Photos

This is the first photo I took, I had planned for the shot to be a mid air jump as my front cover is of the new band 'on cloud nine'. However I won't be using this image as all 3 girls are not mid air and also it has come out smeared.



Whereas this one above is the photo I am using for my front cover as all the girls are in mid air and pulling happy faces that interact with the readers and connect with the main sell on my magazine front cover. In all my photos there is the background of my living room, however I will edit these by cropping out the background and replacing it with either a background of colour which matches one colour from the top of one of the girls in the photo, or a plain white background.

This is another photo that I plan to use in the article for the interview, however I prefer the one below, as its more fun and interesting to look at and will appeal to the target audience. I chose this pose to symbolise that the girl band are close and have a good time together, it also adds humour into the magazine.

Below are the other images I am using in my double page spread article. I wanted the girls to have individual photos. As the interview is going to be about them together as a group, but also they're individual personalities will be questioned too.

These are mid shots as I believe if I shot them lower towards the ground or higher than they were jumping, then the photos and the girls in the photos wouldn't look as welcoming and appeal to the target audience as much. This is because if I shot from beneath them, the girls would look very large and overpowering which I believe no pop artist should give the impression of having these characteristics, on the other hand I also believe if I had shot the image from above the girls, then they would look small and insecure which can also look like a bad photo in a pop magazine.

I chose their make up to be bold and colourful as I think most pop stars share this when in photo shoots or performing, I chose the blue eyeshadow as it was bright and stood out, and I also chose the floral tops and the blazer as these items of clothing are very in fashion at this time, and are in the public eye alot, therefore producing a pop magazine, pop standing for popular culture, I believed the floral tops and bright make up was important to appeal to my readers and target audience.

Fonts

I have chosen two different fonts for each page of my magazine; front cover, contents and double page spread.

Above is the font I have chosen for the title of my magazine, I wanted it as similar looking to a balloon-type font to illustrate the onomatopoeia of the word 'pop!' and to add effect that a balloon makes this sound when its burst.In my flat plan I had drawn the second 'p' of the word 'pop' to look like a balloon that had just been popped, but that is a difficult task to interpret on a computer so therefore I will have to change it to 'pop!'.I chose this font over the other font as this looked more balloon-like and in the other font it wasn't possible to have an exclamation mark.

This is the font I have chosen for my contents page, however this is only going to be used for the main headings as it could be hard to read and look clustered in a paragraph or a smaller size.

I chose this as I believed the other font wasn't girly enough, although it was still a curly font, it looks rough and it looks like it belongs to a rock genre magazine rather than pop. I will use a modern bold font for the list of contents and for the note from the author.

This font will be used for the title of my double page spread article, however once again like the contents page I will use a different, clearer font to write the article and any captions that are needed with images. This font is very similar to the other one I had chosen for these pages, however this one is the outline of the words so therefore its only the edges of the letters that change colour but on the other font the whole word changes colour, for this article I want the title to stand out, so I would prefer to leave the words white but the outside a bright colour. I also picked this font because of the stars that appear over the 'i's, as they tie in with the article of new found stardom for the band.

All the fonts I have chosen because they're modern, bold and different which I believe will appear to my target audience and are similar to the fonts used in the previous magazines I have analysed, however they have not used the a curly/girly font I am using for my contents page but I believe this will appeal to my target audience of girls aged 13-17.

Flatplans

Above is the flat plan of the front cover of my magazine.

The title of the magazine will be at the top of the page slightly to the left, this is normal for pop magazines as I have noticed in my previous analysis of pop magazines. I will also have the main flash the dominant story on the front cover, which is also normal for the genre of magazine I am producing, the image that goes with the main flash article will be the largest image on the page and also the background of the front cover. The main sells will overlap this image, smaller images will also be overlapping. My front cover will also include a tag line -"Blowing your mind with the latest pop news", this will be placed underneath the title. Tag lines appeal to readers by drawing them into the personality of the magazine. I will also include a bar code, price, date and the volume number to the side of the magazine, however this will not distract the readers attention from the rest of the magazine.

Here is the flat plan of my contents page.
To the right of the page there will be the list of contents which is split into groups, such as music, usual and gossip. This is simple and easy to read for my target audience. This is different to the magazines I analysed before as they didn't focus on pop music in the magazines, whereas in mine I am including a specific section to music and others to gossip and other features like competitions, star scopes, film reviews etc.

Also on the left at the top of the page, I will include a note from the author, this is very common in most pop magazines, as it allows interaction between the author and readers, this will especially appeal to my target audience. Underneath there will also be other images that are from stories featured in the magazine and also a competition to catch readers attention.

Above are the flat plans for my double page spread.

Along the top is the title of the article 'An interview with... AUDIO!', I chose this as I wanted to produce an interview with a new upcoming band rather than a story. It will include a large dominating image on the left side of the page, along with other smaller images. As well as this, along the bottom of both pages there will be a timeline of the bands career so far, e.g. how they met, what they looked like when they were younger. I think this will appear to the readers as it will allow them to see the path of the band members and will increase interaction with the magazine and the readers.

Analysis of existing magazines

Above are the two front covers of two different magazines that are within the pop genre. For this part of the blog I will be looking at the second example Smash Hits! magazine, I think they chose this title for their magazine because they may of thought their magazine is about 'smashing' the hits, informing readers about the latest hits etc. The main flash is written in a large traditional serif font, this may be for a contrast from the title of the magazine as it is written in a sans serif font. There is a pattern of colour used throughout the front cover, the yellow that is used as the main flash is the same colour as the title of the magazine, along with the borders of some images. There is no particular colour scheme with the artists and the background which is unusual for a pop magazine. The language used is persuasive yet not too complicated as the target audience is from young girls to teenagers, it is also very informal, it also includes an alliteration 'get girl band glam', it doesn't however assume knowledge of the pop genre, more along the lines of gossip and news.

The target audience could be obvious when the magazine is first viewed, it is aimed for British/English teenage girls, from 13-16 this is clear from the images/language and colours used, I believe any girls that would like a gossip/popular magazine above the age of 16 there are more mature ones on the market that's why I classed it between the ages of 13 and 16. I also think they aim it to the C2DE socio economic class as its not too expensive and the adverts included in the magazine are not too 'up market'. Readers also enjoy listening to pop music, could possibly own some of these gadgets MP3 player, games console, TV, desktop computer, laptop computer, mobile phones or a laptop, and are the kind of people that sit back, and 'go with the flow'. The main images used suggests that the man overpowering the rest of his band members is the lead singer of the band or the interview/article included in the magazine is based on him. I believe they have chosen that band as they are a new pop group with a band member that used to be in another pop band called 'Busted'. It is a posed shot, rather than a live shot, I can tell this as the band members in the background are pulling faces, this could be to add humour to the cover.

Their clothing is very similar to each others just being plain, different coloured t-shirts and jeans. The usual artist on the front cover of this magazine is either male or female, so 'Son of dork' is not out of the ordinary, the band is only known in Britain rather than internationally as they are a new band have haven't reached their potential stardom yet. The main sells in the issue of this magazine is an interview with 'Son of dork' and also gossip/insight into the habits of 'Mcfly'. There is also a chance to look at celebrities makeovers, and some other main sells are competitions that are on the front cover I believe to draw/persuade readers to buy it. The information presented is a bar code on the bottom right of the magazine, along with the price being £1.99, the date and the issue number.

Above is a contents page from Mizz magazine which is also from the pop genre. The structure of the contents is split into categories such as 'celeb, real life, style, fun, you and plus', these categories show the magazine isn't totally based around the pop music genre, but that it also includes gossip, news and other features. There is no band index included, neither is there just one main image, however there is one dominating image, but there are smaller images included on the page. It fits well with the colour with the use of colours, but other than that it doesn't tie in with the main flash, or the layout of the front cover. The fonts are also different, as all the fonts used are sans serif whereas the main flash on the front cover was written in serif.

Here is a double page spread from Top of the Pops magazine, the language used is very informal and modern, there is also an alliteration used 'dolls drama!' and also a pun being 'men utd' rather than 'Man Utd' the football team. The tone of the articles included are laid back, comical, and not so serious, which is perfect for the age of the target audience, as anything too serious or formal will not appeal to them. There are a total of 9 images used, and 6 of them being on the band which the article is about, the article and images dominate the double page spread. The other images are used to the right of the page. On the main image speech bubbles have been used which add humour to the article and there are also captions beneath or aside the image. The first picture on the page isn't presented differently than the others to make it bold and stand out, however it does include more people and a different pose is used to attract readers attention.