Magazine Evaluation..

Conventions are specific details that you would generally find on a magazine depending on what type you are dealing with, For example a mast head, a banner, a main cover line and boxed text. Some can be found any type of magazine for example bar code, price, issue number, issue date and mode of address. In this case we have music magazines and my magazine genres are R’n’B, funky house and hip hop. After looking at other music magazines such as Q we realised that music magazines use the same conventions for example; Q magazine which I looked at in my group had a main cover image, a masthead, a banner, the barcode and more. We therefore decided to use the same conventions. This made our music magazine begin to look realistic.

We intended for our magazine to be aimed specifically at people aged 17-21 therefore, we entitled our magazine ‘Young Vybes’. I think that this age group would appreciate the information inside the magazine rather than a factual magazine about international affairs; I think it successfully targets young women and men that like music and like to have a good time at parties because the main front cover image connects with the audience because the person featured on the front looks like someone they can relate to because she is dressed appropriately is smiling and has eye contact. The audience is people that would possibly be in education, have a part time job, has basic reading ability and has a wide variety of music interest. Our banner reads ‘hot spots for young ravers’, which I also think helps target the preferred audience by telling them exactly what to expect from the magazine. Overall, the target audience is 17-21 year old females and males and because our market is so broad it could appeal to so many youths. I think the magazine represents the social group of young people that listen to urban music.

Our magazines could be specially distributed on mail order or at specialist music stores, but I think this wouldn’t maximize sales because the magazine is not targeted at a niche market. instead my magazine is targeting at a wide range of young people therefore the style of distribution that I would prefer to use is news agents and in local shops such as Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s’, so that it can be accessed easily. I think it would sell successfully because the front cover page is bright coloured and would stand out among the other magazines. Other ways in which we attracted the audience was by using celebrity photos on the front cover and inside page to catch their attention, offering a free gift on the front cover so that they feel like they are getting more than their moneys worth, and by using interesting cover lines to make you want to read the content.

Technology has changed in the last few years and using Photoshop on the apple Mac computers is an example of the developments. Photoshop was design to have many easily accessible features at your finger tips. I have realised that once you know what you are doing by learning the basics, it becomes time efficient, which is necessary when working on so many pages of a magazine. I have thoroughly enjoyed working through this topic because it has been fun and has allowed me to develop my personal skills on technologies such as, Adobe Photoshop, for example I can now use the wand tool to take an object from one background and place in another, I can also switch the direction of a photo to make it more appropriate, it is a useful skill because It gave me much more variety of how the magazine cover page could look. My most favorable part of this topic was the photo shoot; I enjoyed taking the photos and directing my partner of how to pose also compromising on ways to make the front cover image most effective.


If I had the chance to do another magazine cover and inside page, I would plan in much more detail because it would allow me to spend less time thinking on the spot and more time perfecting and adding to my work. I would also change the amount of people I photographed because a problem I came across was not having enough variety within the photos, I would have liked to showcase different outfits on different people that represent young ravers. One thing that I would not change would be the step by step method we used to complete the magazine and inside page. Overall, I am pleased with what my partner and I have produced because we put a lot of effort into making our front cover and inside page. It has been a great experience and I loved making Young Vybes every step of the way.

This is my completed magazine cover page and inside page.