Magazine Evaluation Task

Evaluation:

How effective was your research into similar magazines and relevant target audiences. What did you learn from your research into these two areas? In what ways did this shape the creation of your magazine?

My research in to similar magazines was very effective in my opinion, when you look at my magazine you can clearly see the resemblance between the grungy, punkie rock Mags that I researched before creating my own. From my research I learnt that the magazine has to be subtle but look rough in its appearance which is what I did. This made me also copy the standard colour pallet for rock magazines as you can see on my magazine and if you compared it to another magazine in the genre such as kerrang! I also learnt that the front of a magazine doesn’t have to have much on it to be appealing to the human eye and mine was kept very simple.  

What creative decisions did you have to make at the different stages of your magazine production? How did your magazine change as your work progressed?

Creative decisions I had to make were adding a grungy boarder to add effect to my magazine. I edited the photo to black and white to give it the simplicity effect to make it look a bit cooler. On my contents page you can see the simplicity that I carried throughout the three parts of the magazine. On the contents page I used the same scheme to make the magazine look more official throughout. Also on the cover I de-cluttered it so it looks more simplistic which is attractive to modern audiences according to some research websites. When I first started designing the cover I originally had the idea it was going to be big bulky and crammed with loads of random quotes from articles that could possibly be in the magazine to make it stand out to other people that go into shops searching for those grungy based magazines. But then I decided to change it to a more alternative rock magazine because they are more popular in modern media. One point that I need to change is that I need to make my double page look more alternative than it is at the moment.

 How closely does your magazine follow the forms and conventions of existing magazines? Gives examples of real magazines you reference.

I would personally say that my magazine doesn’t follow the exact same suite as others in my genre but adds its own effect to the area of magazines mad makes itself unique in its own way which makes it stand out more than others in its respected area. If I compare my magazine to kerrang which I personally think is the lead magazine in this genre I would say that some aspects of my magazine have resemblance but mainly it is one of its own. I would say it does follow the more important ones such as the artists involved and the fonts and colour scheme used.

How successful is your finished magazine? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

I would say my finished magazine was successful; it covers the main conventions which is very important. I would say its strengths are the front covers look and the boarder effect throughout. Strength was the contents page because it was simple but effective and included interesting facts. The main problem with my magazine I would say is that my double page spread is very bland and doesn’t look very attractive to look at its just to plain to attract people to it and I don’t think its overall appealing and I think it lowers the quality of my magazine.