Evaluation 5

Images:

I chose to have the image of my cover artsist on the contents page very differnt from the image on the front cover after doing research into female indie artists. The examples above show the diversity of the artists; The images on the top row show aggressive body language whereas the images on the bottom row show are much softer. This symbolises the overall diversity of the indie music genre.

Colours:
The colours i have used throught my magazine are red, white and black. I chose these colours because they are gender nutural, therefore not making my magazine appeal to one sex more than the other. These are also similar colours to those used in successful music magazines such as NME, Q and Uncut.

Layout:
I chose to use a simple layout throughout my magazine. I chose to do this on the front cover to make it simple to read if it was on a shelf in a shop. The contents page is set out in a simple layout so the reader can find the article they want to read quickly. I also chose to make the layout for my double page spread simple as it easy and pleasant to read.

Price:
I researched the price of other monthly magazines and made my magazine fit with the cheaper prices I found as a large majority of my target audience will be in school, sixthform, university or just begining a carreer, therefore would not typically have a large amount of money to spare. I wanted my magazine to be affordable as this would assure that it sells better.

Coverlines:
All of my coverlines include atleast one artist/band's name as this would grab the attention of my target audience if they saw it in a shop. I also looked at successful music magazines to see that each of them included artists or music events in each coverline. After speaking to several people about why they buy magazines, I found out that many of them judge wether or not to buy a magazine by reading the coverlines and looking at the cover image.

Are codes and conventions important?
After speaking to several people about the importance of seeing what you expect in a magazine I found out that many of them prefere a magazine cover to follow the codes and conventions.

For example, when asked people prefered the second of the covers below as it shows more about the contents of the magazine, whereas the first cover only shows the main story.

Things my target audience are interested in:

A huge majority of the people in my target audience I spoke to expressed great interest in attending a festival- most of them had been to the Leeds festival for 2-3 years running. I included an article on my contents page about festivals to suit my target audience.

Through research I found that most indie fashions are in dark colours, therefore the artist on the cover of my magazine is in dark colours. My target audience responded well to this image and I got the feedback that it looked like a convincing cover image.

I discovered what artists and article topics to include through research online, talking to people in my target audience and getting questionnaires filled out.