Preliminary Task: School/College Magazine

To prepare myself for the music magazine and to get an idea of the timescale and the amount of preparation I need to construct a magazine, I did a small, preliminary task of designing a school magazine.

First of all, I looked at several other school magazines to analyse some similiarities and differences between the magazines of this particular type. By looking at several school magazine, I came up with a list of codes and conventions:

Image from:
http://havocduckducksplat.blogspot.com/
2009/10/college-magazine-analysis.html

• Clear, readable text

• Specific and relevant colour scheme

• Logo of school or college

• Clear, structured layout

• Sophisticated style

• Informative and motivational

• Formal/respectful

• Good, high quality images

• Interesting/eye-catching images – visually appealing

• Interesting writing style

• Relevant topics appropriate for audience

• Inviting and engaging

• Contributions from all ages so that it appeals to all years

• Engaging achorage and cover lines

• Information on dates/events

• Career/homework/coursework advice and tips

• GCSE, A-Level, University options

• Simple, clear font with appropriate font sizes

• Not discriminative of any type of student

I then carried out an audience research questionnaire which I asked several people in my target age range to complete. Here are the results:

 

So, after having done the research into code and conventions and the audience research, I decided to starting planning and drafting my own front cover for the school magazine. After doing pencil sketches and several drafts, here is the final version:

 

I also did a rough draft of a contents page:

 

After carrying out the research and constructing some pages, for the preliminary task, I think I'm more confident and ready to start on the music magazine :) 

Further Analysis

I also looked at individual magazines in more detail. Although I am a music fan, I am personally not much of a consumer of music magazines, therefore, in order to have a better understanding of music magazines, I looked Kerrang! - one the most popular and well-known music magazine in the UK. 

Image from: http://www.aloud.com/genres/kerrang

Kerrang! is a rock music magazine that is published by Bauer Media Group and is the world's largest weekly music magazine. The name refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar. Over the years, Kerrang! has managed to secure their place in the music magazine industry and has even ventured into other media forms such as TV and radio - even host their own award shows now.

This is an example of how popular Kerrang! really is: 

Image from: http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Global/mediapacks/Kerrang.pdf

Kerrang! has stated their target audience to be:

'Individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty.'

Image from: http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Global/mediapacks/Kerrang.pdf

This is one of the Kerrang! issues that I have researched into and analysed:

Image: Scanned image of my own copy.

It seems that the typical Kerrang! magazine has approximately 60-65 pages and normally starts with a 'Feedback' page in which some readers' e-mails get published and replied to by Kerrang!. It then goes into the 'News' section, followed by a competition section, 'Live Reviews', 'Features', 'Album Reviews', 'Gig guide' and then finally, 'The K! Quiz' in which Kerrang! invites one artist to try the quiz. There are also some pages throughout the magazine dedicated to advertisements. 

Looking through the Kerrang!, it is easy to tell who the magazine is targeted at. It combines the use of colours, language, images, content, etc, to cater to their specific audience - such as the use of dark, strong colours to connote a male audience and the use of several music terms which clearly show that the reader has more than average knowledge of music and the music industry. 


I also chose to analyse the articles themselves. Here is an example of one of the Kerrang! articles I chose to analyse:

Image from: http://zoehamilton7.blogspot.com/2010/11/double-page-spread-analysis.html

  

I found that the article has a good balance in the language used as most of it is sophisticated with a wide range of vocabulary, however, they do have some comments that have a more casual and friendly tone that engage the reader. This suggests that it is targeted at a slightly older age group but still young enough to be appreciative of the little quirky comments. The level of language is quite high as the journalism is very engaging and gives a unique angle on the review of the tracks in the album. The feature does not address the reader directly as it is only an interview with the band focused on some information on the thoughts and processes during the recording and reviews of the tracks. The lengths of the paragraphs aren’t very long as they only have one or two sentences in each paragraph. Throughout the interview, there are several references to elements of the music industry such as the producer of the album, the recording studio, references to other artists, etc. The questions asked and the information covered in the interview is very much focused solely on the up-coming album and their career – it has very little reference to their personal lives which is what celebrity magazines tend to do. The article is very insightful and gives audiences an edge over others as the information available is information that would not otherwise be available anywhere else as it’s a world exclusive. Also, since the article has not included the questions that were asked to the band by the journalist, it makes it seems as if the band could be carrying out a conversation with the reader themselves, making it seem more personal and engaging for the readers rather than just reading the conversation between the writer and the band. 

Analysis of Similar Media Texts

OK, so my first task is to look at various music magazines and work out what similarities and differences they have and then draw up codes and conventions of a music magazine so that when I get to planning my magazine, I know what elements I need to add to my magazine. 

So, after having looked at several music magazines such as Kerrang!, Q, NME, etc, I have come up with a list of codes & conventions that apply to the front cover, the contents page and the double page spread. Here it is:

Front Cover: 

• Use of different colours and sizes of font to direct the focus of audiences to specific parts.
• Specific colour scheme.
• Generally tend to have a lot of sell-lines.
• High-quality images that have relevance to either the artist or the article content and often tells what genre of music the magazine is about.

• Bar code with price, date of issue, issue no., and often the address of the website - price information can be either included inside the bar code area or outside. 
• Sell-lines often in capitals.
• Some thumbnail images.
• For well-known brands, part of the masthead, may be covered by the main image. 
• Clear, readable text.
• Interesting/eye-catching images, layout, etc – visually appealing.
• Language used for sell-lines is more fun than formal for most music magazines.    

Contents Page:

• Lots of images/thumbnail images.

• The image:text ratio is often much bigger in favour of images.

• The contents list may have a few sentences under each feature explaining a little bit about it to capture interest.
• On the images, there is a page reference on the bottom corner with a few words about what the feature includes. 
• Clear colour scheme that corresponds with the front cover.
• Use of 2-3 different fonts and font sizes.
• Includes names of the photographers of the cover photo and the contents photo in small print at the side.
• May have an advertisement (often about subscribing to the magazine).
• Some have an editor's letter - friendly, inviting tone to language.
• Language can be quite informal/friendly.
• Often has a lot of iconography (thumbnail images of famous artists)  
  

Double Page Spread:

• Quotes to break up the text and capture attention - the quote is often in capital, in a different font and in a bigger size than the main body. 
• Lots of images - different sizes. 
• Font of the main text is small with the first letter of the first word in a bigger font and in a different colour.
• The text is in columns.
• May have 2-3 different font styles but the main text is all in one style. 

• 

• The title is often big, in capitals, and in a different colour.

• Lots of small paragraphs.
• The language is engaging and varies in terms of tone according to the magazine but are generally quite formal. 
• It has lots of references to the music industry.
• Lots of mention of other artists.
• Interviews with artists normally consist of only the music aspect - nothing to do with their personal lives.
• Often give audiences access to information not attainable anywhere else - this can range from information on albums, tours, etc to the artist's personal opinions and take on things.

(Images from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/may/18/maggoty-lamb
                      http://gemma-at-wyke.blogspot.com/2009/11/double-page-spreads.html
                      http://lisarogers92.blogspot.com/2009/11/conventions-of-music-magazine-and.html
                      http://furnelle1.blogspot.com/2009/11/preliminary-exercise-as-practice-for.html
       https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Iv-q2-nMZZmEwWu0wlrsdwddtGoTrAFmBvq-uccNTjbivMzz-AMgJmm_t9UcqqJWfCo-nojjciX0Kl5cpp7H4yo7MFqbdePQdfK53BZ3I1JP32qCXlfUZVXi1tDzCDwjAohl7DPNjfIN/s1600/karang+contents.png 
                     http://dianasarkova.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/research-of-nme/
                     http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/how-to/pages/journalist_02.shtml)