Evaluation of my magazine pages

I am very pleased with the final outcome of my magazine pages. I really enjoyed this task and have learnt so much from doing it.



TARGET AUDIENCE

My magazine is aimed at girls between the ages 9-14 who enjoy Pop music and celebrity gossip. I chose to aim it at females because of the high number of females (compared to males) that buy Top Of The Pops magazine. So pop music and celebrity culture obviously appeals more to females. My chosen age range represents children who are in there last two years of primary school and the first 3 years of secondary school. This is an age where children are likely to have pocket money and are able to but the magazine themselves.



FRONT COVER



I entitled my magazine 'POP Flava'. The word 'POP' shows relevance to the music genre and is also short for word 'popular'. The word 'Flava' is a slang interpretation on the word 'flavour' and is an example of text language used by my target audience. This makes the title 'cool' as it relates to their generation. I needed to find a suitable font for my title, so the brand can always be recognised. I looked at many fonts on 'www.dafonts.com'.




These were my final three favourites, as I thought they would be most suitable for my logo. They are all curved which gives a sense of femininity. Also, they are informal and would be used on a teen magazine rather than a broadsheet newspaper. The first font has hearts and is in a grafitti like style, the second font has a shaddow beneath the text which creates a 3D effect and the third font is in bubble writing similar to the Top Of The Pops brand logo.









But I chose the first one because it's more feminine looking than the other two and the most legible, which is very important.


Strap lines are usually near the brand logo and are repeated with each issue. For example; The strap line of Shout magazine is 'Award winning teen mag!' Although not all magazines have a strap line, I wanted to include it as it supports the personality of my magazine.


Underneath 'POP Flavour' I have added a strap line.. 'Britain's Best Guide 4 Girly Goss!' I purposley used alliteration to enhance it's appeal of fun. Again, I also used text language to appeal to my target audience. The number 4 instead of four and 'Goss' shortened from Gossip.


The main image on the front cover is of my creation 'Lula Rose' who has just won 'The Pop Accademy'. Lula Rose is young, pretty, talented and trendy and my target audience would aspire to her. The fact that I've decided for her to win a very popular tv singing competition increases her popularity amongst readers.







I chose this image of Lula Rose for the front cover becasue she has eye contact with the audience and she is smiling. She is face on to the audience, her shoulders are back and she is showing relaxed and positive body language which is important. She is wearing a plain white top with simple glitter detail, it's a fashionable look and can contrast nicely with many background and surrounding colours.






This is another photo I took but decided to choose the other one because in this photo Lula's head is slightly tilted and facing sideways. Also, although she has eye contact with the audience her facial expression is not as friendly and happy as it is in the other photo. It is a pose which is suited for older readers such as 'Look' magazine.



The main cells surround the main image giving a busy looking effect which makes the magazine look packed full of information. The main cells are about; a boyband talking romance, the truth about a member leaving a girl band, behind the scences of a girl bands new music video, a poster special of a 'hot' male singer and an advertisement for the free lip gloss set the reader gets when buying the magazine. The context of these appeal to my target audience because I've included boys that girls think are attractive, girl bands and gossip that girls love to talk about and an advertisement which enhances the sale of the magazine.



I have used lots of bright clashing colours to attract attention add interest eg; bright pinks and yellow. These were the colours that were used the most on the cover of Smash Hits and Top Of The Pops.



I only used different fonts on the front cover of my magazine, but I made them look unique by changing the colours and size. This makes it legible and slowly rememerable to the reader. All of the fonts are sans serif in bright colours against clashing colours, this makes the text immediatley eye catching.



Other information presented on the cover includes; bar code, date, price and issue number. It is always seen on a magazine cover, often placed differently on covers of different genres. For example; 'Shout' magazine the price is on the bottom left hand corner of the brand logo. However, on the covers of Top Of The Pops magazine all the required information is secreted to the bottom left hand corner, I decided have mine in the same place because although it is relevant and required it doesn't push the sale.





DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

I have chosen to do an interview for my double page spread. The interview is with 'Lula Rose' who features on my front cover.

The title of the article is called 'Halla-Lula' which is a play on words of 'Hallelujah', magazines and newspapers often do this, paticularly incorprating the subjects name as it adds a sense of humour and fun. In childrens/teenager magazines 'play on words' phrases are used frequently.



I have kept the colours for texts and background simple, as I've noticed most teenager magazines do this in interviews. The background is a basic cream like colour, so bright text colours and images are legible. I chose the colours blue, black and white because blue is a colour thats really attention grabbing, partuclarly against white and also the three colours are the colours that appear on the logo for 'Pop Accademy' so they reflect the theme.



I have seperated the double page spread in to collumns, this is a popular layout text used in double page spread, particularly layouts.

The three images of Lula are full body shot poses and are seperated by being place in every other collumn. I've tried to make her look natural and having fun by taking shots of her laughing and posing. This gives the readers a sense of her personality aswell as making her look relaxed and friendly as if the reader is going to talk to her.



I read alot of interviews in teenage mags such as Top Of The Pops for inspiration aswell as researching the type of language used by the interviewer. The questions asked are related to the show, her love life, her style and other. There is usually an event which is talked about the most in an interview eg; a release of a new album, a bands come back etc. In this case, Lula has just won a reality tv singing competiton. The interview asks questions aswell as making comments, eg; 'We can see that! So What are the judges really like?' This shows that the interviewer is interested aswell as making a comment that a reader is probably thinking of too. Also, Lula's answers lead to the next question being related to what she has just said. This makes the interview flow like a casual conversation.



The collumn on the far end is Lula giving her Top 5 beauty tips. Often, in double page spreads, aswell as the main article they include a little bit of extra information. For example; In the Top Of The Pops double page spread, there was a collumn to the left of the article with the songs from the film.



I have included the brand logo of the television show in the top left corner, as that is how she is associated.





CONTENTS PAGE

I really liked the layout of the 'Shout' magazine contents page, however, I thought it was limited in bright colours. The page numbers are in bright pink, spaced away from the text and are against a white background. Which makes them very legible and immediatley noticable as they are they key function of a contents page. It is the most eye catching colour on the page and it is only used for this purpose, there for the number stna dout instantly. Yellow and green are the colours of the subheadings, these are also very attention attrcating colours, particularly against the white background. The main text is in black, as it needs to be very clear to read.



I used language to appeal to my target audience by using puns, alliteration and short snappy phrases for the page titles. eg; Fun Free Frenzy!



I used subheadings to catergorise my pages, this allows the reader to find their desired page choice quickly aswell as looking neat and appealing.



Two of the images chosen are different photos of Lula and Nick who appear on my front cover, both show facial expressions that link to their personality. The other image is of a celebrity who is linked to an exclusive feature. By each image I have place the page number in a large font aswell as a fun caption.





PUBLISHERS AND STOCK

My magazine would be sold in WHSmiths as it has a wide veriety of media stock, including a section of magazines aimed at my tagret audience. Eg; Top Of The Pops, Shout, Mizz, Sugar etc. Most newsagents or supermarkets (particularly small ones) do not contain a wide variety of magazines, but only the most popular selling ones. I hope that newsagents would sell my magazine as there is a big market for pop music magazines, as Top of The Pops is the only one. Eventhough Smash Hits was axed and there have been unsucessful pop magazine attempts sinse, there have been no attempts recently and with the right publicity I think there is a chance it could be sucessful. I think the publishers would be Dc Thompson the publisher of Shout magazine because the produce many magazines for females.



PERSONALITY OF MEDIA PRODUCT

My magazine 'POPFlava' has many similarities to other magazines in terms of colours, layout, font styles etc. However, my magazine is unique because it includes features never seen before in magazines. For example; celebrity gossip aswell as focusing on the music scene.





ADOBE INDESIGN
At first I found it hard to use Adobe indesign as I'd never used it before. But I slowly got used to the tools and ejoyed experimenting with it.





PROGRESSION FROM PRELIMINARY TASK
In terms of software, I have learnt how to do alot more things with Adobe sinse the preliminary task. Eg; different colour outline on the text, creating rectangles and how to edit images using photoshop. With these skills, if I were to do the preliminary task again it could be alot better visually.

FEEDBACK

I asked for feedback during the project, which helped me to improve my magazine pages.

E.g 'Include page numbers and add page number too images on contents page.'

My Double Page Spread Design

The flat plans below are an indication of the design for my double page spread...




The pencil indicates where white text will be. In the image collums I am going to have full body shot pictures.

I have not flat planned my contents page as it was hard to find contents pages of magazines with in my genre and target audience. Eg; Top Of The Pops don't have one and others too. So I am going to create my contents page as I go along.

My Front Cover Design

Above is the flat plan for my front cover, this gives me an indication of how I'm going to design my magazine. I have taken lots of inspiration from Top Of The Pops and other magazines.

Evaluating a Contents page of Shout Magazine

Top Of The Pops magazine doesn't have a contents page and as I have established, it's the only music magazine for it's audience. So I researched some magaazines that have the same target audience, I chose 'Shout' magazine. I went on http://www.marketing.dcthomson.co.uk/marketing_description.asp the publishers of shout magazine to find the audience range... 'Aimed at 11-14 year old girls, Shout is ideal for girls who love celebrities and fashion!'

http://www.abc.org.uk/ catergorises both magazines as 'teenage'.

The contents page is quite simplistic compared to how I'd imagine a Top Of The Pops magazine to look like. This because Top Of the Pops uses bright clashing colours to attract attention, where as the contents page and front cover of Shout magazine use a more limited pallette of colours and the images provide most of the colour on the page. Shout suggests different connotations to Top Of The Pops and perhaps attratcs to an older auidence.

The main title of the page is 'what's insdie?' this is a more informal way of putting 'contents page' which is in most adult magazines. There are three large images neatly surrounding the title. The first is of a model wearing fashioable clothes, this represents the fashion/beauty elements in the magazine. The model is pouting and looking away from the camera this makes her appearance look cool and casual and draws more attention to her outfit rather than her face. The next image is of 'Mitch Hewer' an attractive actor who stars in 'Britania High'. Which is a popular English TV show based on High School Musical. It is a close up shot of Mitch and he has direct eye contact with the audience, so the reader can connect with him and want to find out more. He has a serious facial expression which can be percieved as 'sexy'. This image represents the attractive men which can be found in the magazine. The third image is of 'Britney Spears', Britney is smiling and looking very glamorous and polished, the background suggests she is at an awards ceremony. This image represents celebrities and gossip.

Smaller images scattered below the Britney images are of beauty products, which is another popular interest of the audience.By each image is a page number, suggesting that these are the key features and the reader is able to find that page very quickly.

The page information is catergorised in sections related to context. The page numbers in the sections are in cronilogical order. The page numbers are a bright pink which is very clear to read against the white background. The titles of the pages are very suited to the target audience. Eg; 'Life's a Mitch', 'Shoppin' Till They're Droppin'!, '100% Hot!' etc. The play on words add interest and share a sense of fun. Most of the titles end in ! or ? or ... this punctuation emphasises and creates excitement.

There is information at the bottom of the page about subscriptions and mobile phone services, which is in very small font and doesn't distract form the main features of the page.

Evaluating A Smash Hits Front Cover

Currently, the only pop magazine aimed at a young age group is Top Of The Pops. I have carried out some research in to why there is a limited market.


'The move follows the closure of Smash Hits magazine in 2006 after 28 years. Its publishers said teenagers were increasingly turning to new platforms like the internet to satisfy their interest in music.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6571291.stm

This extract is from an article about dramatically low sales for a new pop magazine, the magazine was axed after one week. It had an initial print run of 130,000 copies but only sold 9,000.


'First, there were fewer mediums available when the magazine came out in 1977. There was no internet, digital TV etc. So the main sources of pop music were radio, the chart show on Radio 1 and Top of the Pops.'

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070507081135AAEciFm


This extract is do to with technology changes being a reason for why the once very popular 'Smash Hits' magazine got axed. One of the reasons is that the internet has a massive impact, I agree because teenagers and children enjoy looking at music on the internet. Popular socialising networks such as Bebo and MySpace have their own official pages for music artists. Also, it's very common to download music on the internet and browse websites or watch digital music channels to get information on music gossip such as the charts, pictures and changes.

I am going to analyse and compare an old Smash Hits cover...





The fonts used on the front cover are bold in sans serif. A majority of the fonts are squared/blocked, compared to Top Of The Pops cover fonts which are mostly curved. The suitability is more masculine, but because the font colour is pink, it's more aimed at females. The suitability gives a slight sense of maturity, therefore I think Smash Hits was aimed at teenage girls, compared to Top Of The Pops which was for before teens as well as teenagers.


The Smash Hits cover also uses pink and yellow as it's main sources of colours. The main cells and main flashes are different shades of pinks, therefore the main cell in the yellow boxing is particularly eye catching. The colours also have a connection to the target audience. But do not have a mixture of eyecaching colours together like Top Of The Pops, this also supports my belief that Smash Hits had an older target audience range. As Magazines aimed at adults are kept simple, so it's a step colser.


The week the closure was announced, a copy of the first issue sold on Ebay for £30. The seller, Ruth, said: 'I bought it. Smash Hits! was the best pop magazine of its time. I'm 35 now and I used to buy it regularly from about the age of 8 to 13. I remember tearing out the posters to cover my walls and singing along really girlie to the songs.'
http://www.magforum.com/glossies/music_magazines.htm#sma

This gives a little more indication to the target audience, it's hard to determine the exact age groups as the magazine was axed.


The main image is on the left side of the page is of 'Preston' who was a house mate on the popular reality television show 'Big Brother'. The programme increased Preston's popularity in the media. He is in a band called 'The Ordinary Boys' and he is also famous for his good looks, style and celebrity girlfriend 'Chantelle', who he met on BigBrother. The image is a midshot and Preston has direct eyecontact with the audience. There is a white background behind Preston and the main flash, which combines with the image, is in the largest font. So you can tell Preston is the main feature on the cover. However, the image of the 'Jonas Borthers' on the cover of Top Of The Pops has more impact because it's larger and in the middle of the page.

Evaluating a TOTP Double Page Spread

This is a double page spread from Top Of The Pops magazine which I have chosen to analyse. The article is about the upcoming film 'High School Musical 3'. The first two High School Musicals were screened on the Disney Channel and they became a massive success world wide with a huge fan base. High School Musical 3 is going to be coming to the cinema soon and this article has vital information for fans. It shares the on and off set secrets of the main stars, a list of the songs from the film to download and exciting features in the film. High School Musical is extremely popular amongst many age groups, in particular the target audience of this magazine. Top Of The Pops features many articles on High School Musical and the actors in the film, so it definatley sells as there is a huge market.

The same colour scheme is used, the majority blue and green, and other details are in yellow and white. Green is the most eye catching colour on the page and most of the important information is conveyed via this colour. For example; the background of the word 'secrets' in the title, the border of the images of the characters, the background of every other column containing character info and the background of every other box of info at the bottom of the pages. The rest of the background is in blue which is another attention grabbing colour. The background of the bottom of the pages is white, this looks like it's been divided from the rest of the page and gives the effect that they are providing alot of extra information. White is the font colour used for the texts, apart from on the white backgrounds. White looks very clear against the blue and green, so it's legible for the reader. Yellow is used on important parts of text, like sub headings. For example; The outlines of the characters names, the titles of the boxes of text at the bottom of the pages and key words in the title such as 'secrets' 'revealed' and 'official'. Every page feature on the double spread has an element of yellow text on the green background. The bright colours combined are extremely eye catching, so the readers drawn to all the features on the page, this makes the double page spread look packed with information.

On a double page spread for the specific target audience, alot of images are present. Mid shots are used in the images of every character and they all have direct eye contact with the reader, they're also smiling or showing positive facial expressions. The reader shares a connection with the images from the first glance and the fact that they are smiling creates a sense of them inviting the reader to learn more about them. A fun image had been placed next to some of the characters. They confirm character traits and give connotations eg; 'brainy' 'sporty'. The image of Zac Effron, who plays the lead male role in the film, is slightly larger than the other characters. This emphasises his importance as many young girls are crazy about him. The images in the boxes at the bottom of the pages are roughly the same size and are screen shots taken from the film.

The smallest font is a simple legible style and is used for the text in articles through out the magazine. The characters names are in sans serif and have a feminine suitability, this font is only used for that purpose on this double page spread. The sub headings are in bold, capitals and are larger than the smaller text. This makes it very clear and allows the reader to read it quickly. The fonts schemes are repeated on this double page and through out the magazine.

The language used appeals to the target audience. Although the text is quite formal and informative, there are puns used for sub headings. For example, underneath the characters names; 'Beauty & Braniac' 'Drama queen' 'Wild Cats star player'. This gives the association of the characters, but words such as 'brainiac and drama queen' are typically descriptive words said by the target audience. Also, there is a feature at the top; 'WARNING! PLOT LINES REVEALED' This makes it more exciting for the reader as it's secretive information.

Top Of The Pops Music Magazine and Evaluating the fron cover

The genre I have chosen is pop music. The most popular pop music magazine is Top Of The Pops. The fonts used on the front cover are mostly modern and sans serif in large font sizes and bright colours. The suitability of the type face creates a sense of femininity as the font is curved, compared to a masculine font which would be blocked or square. The main sources of colour used for the fonts are pink and yellow, these are very eye catching colours and draw in interest. This suggests it's informality, the context and the audience it appeals to.


I predict the target audience is young girls, roughly between the ages of 9 and 13. I think this because all the features on the front cover are linked to girls interests. For example; all the images are of boys that girls of that age group like. Also, the use of pink, as this is a popular colour associated with young girls. I carried out some research to ascertain the gender of the readers, statistics show that the number of females that buy the magazine is 116,000 compared to 66,000 males.

The brand logo 'Top Of The Pops' is in a 'funky' curved bubble writing font. The logo is so established that an image can cover some of it and it's still easily identified.

The text is kept to a minimum but because the fonts are large it creates a big impact. The language used is also aimed at that age group. For example; 'OMG' 'Eeew' 'CUTE!' wouldn't be used on the front cover of a magazine aimed at older teens or adults.


The main image on the front cover is of the 'Jonas Brothers' who are very popular internationally and appeal to a young audience. They have released music in the charts and starred in the majorly talked about Disney movie 'Camp Rock'. This is why it is a very appropriate image for the front cover and will have no trouble in selling. The image of the Jonas Brothers is a medium shot, they are face on and have direct eye contact with the audience. This is important as the reader shares an immediate connection with the image from the first glance.


The main cells are by each side of the focus image and underneath it. The images and text used on the main cells are enticing but not very revealing, therefore the reader wants to find out more. Also, the colours and fonts are similar in each main cell but have obvious differences, this gives a busy impact which creates the effect of thinking there is lots of information inside the magazine. They are the second thing the reader looks at after the main flash.


The main flash stretches across the middle of the page. The words 'Jonas Brothers' are the largest font size on the page and particularly stand out because it's bright yellow text on a pink background. The use of hearts almost imitates a young girls diary or doodles. The main flash is the most eye catching feature on the front page and this because the Jonas Brothers have a huge fan base who will immediately pick up the magazine.


Other information present:

- In a small font above the title is the website for the magazine.

- There is a white strip along the bottom of the page, underneath the main cells, it shows the bar code, issue number, date and price. These are must have features on a magazine, even though the readers attention is drawn to them last because of where they're placed and the font size.

- In the top left hand corner is the BBC logo, which is immediately recognisable and associated with Top Of The Pops.

- The magazine contains 42 pages in total.