Ben’s Blog

 For my AS music magazine, I looked at various types of music magazines (BBC Music, Rap-Up, Kerrang, The Source, NME, Billboard, Smash Hits, King, XXL, The Big Cheese, Smooth, etc…). All of these magazine scans gave me inspiration/knowledge as they showed magazine conventions, ideas, etc…one of which for example was to have the artist or band (I wasn’t sure at the time when first looking at/researching other magazines) as a big image, covering a lot of the magazine as it the image is usually the biggest attraction on music magazine covers opposed to text. So I featured a large image of my fictional rap group HaterProof for my magazine cover. (below are some of the magazine front covers I looked at)

For research I also looked at magazine publisher websites: Kerrang (http://www.kerrang.com/), The Source (http://www.thesource.com/), The Big Cheese (http://www.bigcheesemagazine.com/), XXL (http://www.xxlmag.com/), Billboard (http://www.billboard.com/#/footer/biz), etc…

And as well as looking at and annotating front covers of many magazines and looking at magazine websites, I also found, looked at and annotated contents pages, interviews and other inside features. From looking at the magazines and annotating them, I learnt many conventions that I did not know before. These included knowing that usually the 1st letter on an interview is larger than other text, the magazine’s website is featured in the magazine, pull quotes are featured with interviews, etc…Knowing the page number, magazine name, issue information and magazine website were all featured in interview pages and the reason that there are gaps in contents page numbers is because there are lots of adverts inside magazines. (below is an example of my annotation of a Lil’ Kim interview front cover of magazine The Source)

Also I learnt things/was inspired by inside magazine features that I found, mainly on the inside interview features of female rappers Trina & Jacki-O. Although I did not use their ideas completely because I wanted as much text as possible in my magazine article so that the interview would look/seem real and of good quality. The Trina & Jacki-O articles featured an additional picture (as well as their front cover feature) of them with a pull quote (large quote of what was said in the interview) and although I had seen pull quotes and learnt about them through other features, through seeing these i was inspired to put pull quotes with a new picture as I thought it looked good. (below are examples of Trina & Jacki-O magazine features which gave me this inspiration)

So from studying these real music magazine covers I learnt conventions that were featured in them and used the following from them in my magazine: A title, sub-title, magazine website, barcode, issue number, date of magazine, a price, a free gift, pictures, pull quotes, page numbers, interviews, album reviews, best albums of the year, celebrity news and information on features inside the magazine. Although free gifts are not a very common feature in music magazines, I thought it would be an important selling point to include one. For example, if someone was not sure which magazine to purchase, they would pick the one with the free gift over the one without one (seems better value). Plus the fact that there aren’t many music magazines offering a free CD, it fills a gap in the market which is a good thing as it is a Unique Selling Point.

I decided to choose the genre of rap/hip-hop because I like many artists of the genre and have knowledge about it, which I used in my magazine, especially the interview as I used stereotypical american rapper language. Here are some of the artists I like which inspired me to choose the genre:

My school magazine and music magazine relate to other magazines that I have studied because they all feature what is relevant for the target audience and who it is for (rock magazines have rock bands on the front cover, rap magazines have rappers on the front cover, school magazines have a school student on the front cover, etc…) but do not relate in other ways. One being that school magazines are sold in school so do not need a barcode while my music magazine and other music magazines I have studied will be sold in a store and need one. But the main difference is that the school magazine features a variety in types of features as it needs to appeal to all types of people, whereas my music magazine and other magazines that I have studied focus on 1 type of target audience. This is reflected in my music magazine by having a feature on a rock album (Nickelback),R&B album (Mariah Carey) and a rap album (Remy Ma)- although there are more genres and I would have done more, it gets the point across that the aim is to attract different types of audiences (for the whole school) whereas my music magazine is just to attract rap and hip-hop people (albums featured: Fat Joe, Ak’Sent, Khia, Ludacris, Nelly and Trina).

Music artists/bands are featured on nearly all music magazine front covers, as they would probably look boring without. The music bands/artists often look at the camera- in effect, looking at the audience and therefore grabbing their attention. This is used in my music magazine as on the front cover picture of my fictional rap group “HaterProof”, 2 of them are looking directly at the camera/audience.

I have represented the stereotypical rap/hip-hop social group by showing rap/hip-hop fashion (Jeans, hoodie, baseball cap, jewellery, etc…)

IPC Media may distribute my “Street Beatz” magazine because they are a UK magazine publisher company and my fictional magazine is successful worldwide, but it is a UK edition. But mainly IPC Media would distribute my magazine because they do not already publish a rap & hip-hop magazine and there are no (or none very well known) rap & hip-hop magazines being published in the UK. This means that they would be filling a gap in the market, and since there will be no rivals, it will be likely to be successful which is good for them.

My magazine’s target audience are teenagers and young adults, plus other rap/hip-hop fans (for example: although the magazine is not aiming at children, featuring a free music CD with a parental advisory sticker for example, children may be fans and may be able to purchase)

I addressed and attracted my audience by featuring current (are still active artists releasing music, except for my fictional ones which I made up) rap/hip-hop artists in the magazine features and by my fictional rap group “HaterProof” reflecting rap/hip-hop fashion and conventions.

The ideas I developed about my readers came from music I listen to, videos I watch, interviews I watch and people that I see. They influenced the mode of address and register because in this music magazine I took a stereotypical approach to the task as I thought this would make the product more realistic, so was using typical American rappers language (“Haterproof” are a fictional American group) (eg: Y’all). They influenced the layout because I originally had an orange background but it didn’t suit the urban/street settings of the music but these did not influence the shot composition and framing because they are similar for all music magazines (fairly close-up, looking at audience, etc…)

The feedback through the questionnaires (answered questionnaires can be found in my research and planning) were quite as expected as the artists ticked were almost what I expected and the features wanted were also what I expected and ended up being included. So I did not have to make changes to my product through feedback and they did not generate surprise.

I have learnt how to use the program Microsoft Publisher and learnt that although Microsoft Word is much quicker (print previews take a long time on publisher), it is not as good to use for music magazines, mainly on the article (interview) as Publisher featured better features, eg: outlines for columns, etc…