Lauren's Foundation Portfolio

In creating my music magazine ‘OpenMic’, I attempted to conform to various conventions of music magazines but to also challenge them so that my magazine would stand out if it was in a shop.
My front cover is conventional to other music magazines, my central image features a girl with a direct mode of address, but I decided to opt for a more interesting pose. After having a typical central image of my cover girl taking a feminine stance with a hand on her hip, I decided to change it after receiving feedback. The new central image features Gee with a direct mode of address; however she has put her hands in a square over her eye as I wanted an image more unconventional and interesting as the feedback I received made me consider my target audience more. Also, the image goes with the anchorage text ‘How Gee sees it’ and ‘started making music outside of the box’. The front cover also features various puffs framing the central image, again a convention of magazines. I also included the buzz words ‘Stickers Inside!’ to attract my audience as the results from my questionnaire revealed that my target audience responded to freebies in magazines, it is also typical for music magazines to give away free stickers and posters. I followed these conventions for the front cover as I wanted to follow a formula that is proven to work, I also didn’t want to alienate anyone in my target audience by making the cover too unconventional.
However, I challenged other conventions of music magazines by featuring a female artist who hasn’t been sexualised to suit the male audience, just as Q did for their Lily Allen and Lady Gaga covers. My magazines target audience is females, this was to challenge the convention of music magazines being mainly aimed at males, and this is why the predominant colour on the cover is pink. I made an unconventional contents page as the magazine covers indie music so I wanted to reflect this by making an individual contents that features a dominant image of my cover girl. My article focuses on the musical achievements of the star rather than gossip, something that a magazine like NME is guilty of, although I lightly feature some ‘gossip’ towards the end to show Gee’s ‘normal’ side.
I also attempted to develop other music magazine conventions such as using Photoshop to ‘touch up’ my images to improve my magazines overall standard.
My magazine is aimed at teenage girls who listen to indie music, I represented them in a positive light in the magazine as if I didn’t they would feel insulted and discontinue reading it. My feature article contains a higher level of vocabulary than what you see in other teen girl magazines, this is because I wanted to reflect the intelligence of my target audience, like how I have Gee attend Exeter University and learn various instruments. This was because I wanted to convey the message that you have to work hard to achieve big things, just as Gee does in the article. My magazine can be seen as aimed at more intelligent people, possibly that of a higher social class due to the articles content, however music and aspirations are enjoyed by every social class and contrary to popular belief there are intelligent people in the lower and working classes. To offer a sense of belonging to my target audience, I tried to convey a fun image within my magazine. My feature article focuses on how Gee loves what she is doing; she is also down to earth and can’t believe her luck. I also have Gee in a variety of poses with different props, such as the image where she has two penguins ‘kissing’, this was to help convey her fun side and show that the article was light-hearted. Also, the main image on my 3rd and 4th pages is in a photo-booth style, this is because I looked at various peoples images on Facebooks and saw that this type of image was popular with my target audience. My contents page shows all the artists that features in the magazine, my target audience would feel like they belong as they are all artist from the sub-genre of indie music.
The target audience for my magazine is teenage girls between the ages of 16-24 because there are no music magazines aimed particularly at females. I wanted my magazine to be a rival to NME as this is aimed at males and covers the same type of music, however I aimed to make my articles similar to one that would feature in Q. I would like my magazine to be sold as nationwide as possible as there are people from my social group all over the country. However, I would focus marketing the magazine at the major cities such as London, Exeter, Manchester etc as I feature coverage of gigs and festivals, something that someone in a small town might not have access to.
I attracted my target audience by following what they told me in the questionnaires, like giving away freebies and featuring both established and upcoming artists. To address my target audience I featured a female on the cover and conveyed a strong independent image of her throughout the magazine. To keep hold of my audience I will constantly feature freebies such as posters and stickers and also give away a free CD after the major festivals.
I would like to have IPC to distribute my magazine; this is because their magazines mostly fall into the niche market rather than the mainstream – just like my magazine. I decided that IPC would be better than a company such as Development Hell as my magazine is not niche enough for such a small company and is fortnightly rather than monthly. I chose IPC due to the magazines that they make, such as NME, as I want my magazine to be marketed in a similar way. IPC also produce many other niche magazines such as ‘Uncut’ and ‘Rugby World’, so I feel that they would be the best company to distribute my magazine. NME has evolved over the years from just being a magazine, now there is a radio station, music channel, website, award ceremony and also NME stages at various large festivals, this is something that I aspire my magazine to achieve.
Since beginning my music magazine I have learnt a lot about the technologies within the industry. I found taking the images easier than others as I own a 12 megapixel camera which produces quite a high quality picture, however composing the images and getting things like lighting and costume correct was more of a challenge. I also learned how to use Photoshop successfully, it became easier to use once I had learnt the basics. It also showed to me how I could drastically improve alright images to make them suitable for my magazine. I learned how to change my images completely by using cropping, highlights, shadows, glow, contrasting, changing the curves amongst others. To improve my images I also used the magic eraser, magic lasso and refined the edges to take the image and put it on a better background. I learned that the cover was the most important part of the magazine according to the editor of Kerrang! In an interview we watched, this made me realise that I had to get a better grasp of the technologies in constructing the magazine. I also learned about how blogging can add an interactive element to learning and production. From using Blogger, I easily received feedback from classmates and my teacher; it also allowed me to see the quality of work produced by my classmates. This then allowed me to assess myself and know what I needed to do.
Looking back at my preliminary tasks, I feel that I have learnt in progression from then to the finished product. From the early tasks it is now clear that I know how to use Photoshop and take better images, also I learnt of the importance of constructing images such as costume and pose, you have to make the image and layout attractive or the target audience will not be attracted. The background work, such as analysing covers, articles and researching about magazine companies allowed me to have a better insight into producing magazines and also hopefully improve my quality of work.