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Research: Audience Profiling

Research: Audience

Research: Distribution of Magazines And Publishers

Publishing is the production of material of various things such as information in the form of written text, which becomes available to the general public. The term usually refers to books, newspapers and magazines but due to the revolution of digital technology, the term has expanded in to a new market of media. The stages of publishing involve development, editing, graphic design, production, printing, marketing and distribution. Below are some images of how publishing has developed over the years.

 In order to fully analyse magazines, researching how they were distributed worldwide and looking at current publishers within the market was key to producing a rock magazine. By researching websites such as http://www.futureplc.com/, http://www.ukmagz.co.uk/ , http://www.musicmags.net/, http://www.bbcworldwide.com/bbc-magazines.aspx and http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/ .

Out of all these websites the ones that appeared most professional when producing music magazines were bauer media and future plc. Both these companies have a wide variety of magazines to do with various categorical markets such as gaming, technology and music.

Future PLC

Future PLC, was founded in 1985, and now is producing in countries such as the United Kingdom, Untied States and Australia and has over 180 publications. Well known magazines they publish in the United Kingdom are Total Film, Classic Rock and T3. Every month they sell around 3.2 million magazines. This shows the experience, professionalism and good reputation that they hold in the publishing market.

Bauer media 

As well as magazines they own other pieces of media such as radio's and television channels. Bauer media is Europe's largest privately owned publishing group. It publishes over 300 magazines in 15 different countries. The company was started in 1953. They own magazines such as FHM,  Closer, Grazia and Kerrang.

Through researching these publishing institutions, i have found that many of them have moved into the digital market. Technology such as television, radios and electronic magazines seem to be the main priority of these companies at the moment, however they all seem experienced as they have been around for years.

Preliminary Task: Editing

Below is a picture showing how i used photoshop to incorporate the crest on to the main image. Using photoshop allowed me to use it's tools in order to do accomplish this task.

Below is an initial design that i used, however i did not use it as the colours used looked child like and unprofessional, so it was not used.

In this second attempt at trying improve the design, i chugged the styles of the font, however the colour of the text did not compliment the photo therefore it was not used.

Below is a design that i was more satisfied with as the text looks more professionally selected as it is clear, simple yet elegant. However i now need to incorporate both this text and the crest into one picture therefore creating a final product.

This process of editing has given me great experience when creating a professional product, therefore i should be able to create an even better final products for my magazine cover, contents and double page spread.

Research: Analysing Another Students Music Magazine Project

Below is an analysis of another AS students magazine. This will help me gain a better insight when developing my final products.

Music Magazine Front Cover

Above is another students AS music magazine from a different centre. Below i will describe my opinion on it's strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

1. The title of the magazine is 'Livewire' and is very clear as the font is bold and the colour makes it stand out against it's background, therefore readers can instantly recognise the title of the magazine.

2. The visual effect of the 'Wire' part of the title is very creative and works very well with the music magazine as it fit's in with the rock themed magazine. 

3. The 'Jetlag' appears to be the main article. This fonts style, colour and size stands out form the background with clarity so the reader can easily understand what the main article is and this may further attract the readers. 

4. The caption below the main article title, is intriguing and engages with the readers mind thus them wanting to further read into this article.

5. The "Brit Nominations" font compliments the rock genre, as the style could be described as creative and eccentric. 

6. The red, black and white colours for the fonts, suit the magazine very well as they are all easy to read, so a reader of many ages would be able to understand it.

7. The section of the guitar in the bottom right hand corner is an effective image as it conveys that this magazine is to do with music and preferably rock due to the extensive use of the electric guitar in rock music.

8. The picture of the speaker in the bottom left hand corner is easy to see as the red background is has along with the text "Must Have Gear", shows it is a cut off section of the magazine showing another important feature included within the magazine thus gaining more interest from readers.

9. The text on the right hand sign of the magazine showing articles contained within the magazine, are shown in a trendy font which shows the cool and modern approach to magazines. The mix of colours also produce a more productive approach as using the same colour would look too simplistic.

10. The main image of the three people, depicts a young generation of musical artists and is the most eye attracting object on the page, increasing the chances that it will catch the readers eye.

Weaknesses

1. Although the main image is effective, it shows no sign of a musical nature but one of fashion. To strengthen this, one of the people in the image could be holding an instrument or be standing a speaker box, showing their musical nature.

2. The "wire" part of the title is very creative as i have stated although it takes more than a glimpse to fully recognise that it is part of the title. If a reader was to quickly scan the front cover in e.g. a newsagents, i believe they would find it hard to figure out the name of the magazine.

3. The "For plugged in music loves" slogan, although it seems appropriate, it is a small font, which endangers it not being seen by the audience.

Contents Page

Strengths

1. The 'Contents' masthead is in the same format as the 'wire' part of the title on the main page, showing how they are relatable. 

2. There is an editors note on the top right, using an image of the editor and a message from her. This is a common technique used in music magazines as it engages with the reader directly from the editor. The background colour of black, enables the red and white font to stand out clearly, so it look's more stylish and it's easier to read. The signature used by the editor also gives the magazine a more personal feel. 

3. The use of images and the way they have been slightly rotated along with the page number on them, makes it easier for the reader to go directly to the page as instead of reading the user is able to visually engage with the picture.

4. The caption "Everything you need to know and where to find it", again shows the reader this is the directory where you can locate the articles that you want to read via page numbers. 

5. The way there is two different half's of the page, one with the brick background and one with the white background, shows a split but as the images overlap this split, it gives the content page a messy and unorganised fill which really compliments the rock theme.

6. A mini picture of the front page is included on the contents page showing how they are related to each other.

7. The page number stands out very well against the picture of the guitar pick and also it compliments the  rock theme yet again as it is a very stylish choice.

8. The red and black font stands out against the white background therefore the reader is able to locate the article they want to see more easily.

Weaknesses

1. Although there is the picture of the front cover on the contents page, relating them to each other, i do not feel that this this is necessary as the front cover is typically on the page before.

2. The guitar picture with the page number does not actually convey what type of article is may be, as where the other two images show two articles on two different bands.

Double Page Spread

Strengths

1. I am Immediately drawn to the title of the article 'JETLAG' which is the same font and colour as it was on the front page therefore being able to relate the two. It also stretches from the white to black background, showing how well it can stand out in both.

2. It appears the two pages are divided in to four segments. The far left and far right of the two pages, share symmetry as they hold the same fonts and the same content.

3. For the page numbers, you are able to relate the style to the contents page as the guitar pick is again used in the background of the page number complimenting the rock theme.

4. The images used on the page are again rotated and left on alternate angles, giving it an unorganised and an untidy feel therefore complimenting the rock genre.

5. A pull quote is used when it says "Hayley waxed his eyebrows". This entices the audience to read on in the article as they are excited by this statement and want to find out what's it's about.
6. In the bottom right hand corner, there is a promotional tactic to briefly mention the bands new album. This brief mention help's the rock industry grow as people will buy more albums of this band.

Weaknesses

1. The font used in the interview, on behalf of the band, is not very clear. This is a problem as if readers are not able to read what it says then, the article is pretty much obsolete and therefore not worth buying. This will also damage the magazines reputation, which will lose them customers.

2. The font used in the interview process is not very large and therefore not easy to read.

After analysing this students work, i found it very useful as the weaknesses within the products can be avoided when creating my products. However there are many more strengths than weaknesses, and some of what has been produced when analysing this magazine has given me great ideas to incorporate into my magazine.

Planning: Software

When creating my project, digital technology will become key part of producing my products. Through using Adobe Photoshop and Indesign software, they will give me the ability to edit the photos so they look more professional thus creating a better product for the audience. This software has various features that let me edit a photo and create templates for magazine covers and posters. I chose Adobe Photoshop and Indesign as they were best suited to the task i needed to accomplish.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is a well known piece of software the enables anyone to edit photos and make many adjustments. Photoshop has many tools that will enable me to enhance the photographs. These include:

- The Crop Tool - This enables me to cut out a selection of a picture and the remaining surrounding part of the picture will be deleted.

- The Lasso Tool - This will let me draw around a selected part of the picture very carefully, thus being able to cut out very fine parts of a picture. This may include cutting a character out of a photo so that he/she can be placed on too a different background.

- The Background Eraser Tool - This will enable me to erase the background of certain image that is not needed when putting it on to another image or template.

- Text Tool - This enables the user to enter text on to the image in a selected area of the users choice, and then they can select the style, colour and size of the fonts used.

Adobe Indesign 

Adobe Indesign has templates that can be used in order to create various items such as flyers, poster and double page spreads. When creating a double page spread with a lot of written content, Indesign is more suited to this task then photoshop as it uses the same word processing engine as many publishing softwares. It also has features which allow it to create magazines and poster for e.g. tablets such as the Ipad. As there has been such an increase of reading from these tablet devices, this function is very useful to many publishers.

IPhoto

IPhoto is a software used on macs that enables the user to load photos on to the software and edit various things. Although not suitable when creating a magazine cover, i used it to edit the exposure, saturation, temperature, brightness and other parts of the picture. This software is very user friendly and easy to use therefore i found it a suitable piece of software to use. It was also freely available to me making it a better option.