Newsstand Task

 

This is the music magazine section in WHSmith. You can see various music magazines from a variety of genres.

Here, you can see The Rolling Stones magazine. It has been placed in the second row from the bottom so that only the masthead and part of the cover photo is visible. We can tell that Hammer magazine has free gifts with it because it is written on the top with a bright orange background. This shows that the publisher has taken into account the newsstand display so that that offer would still be visible if the magazine was placed somewhere else.

In this photo, you can see NME magazine, which is a popular weekly music magazine. out of all the magazines in this image, I think that NME stands out quite well because of the bright orange background. So even though it has less on display than the other magazines it is still eyecatching.

A lot of publishers use the left third of the magazine to attract buyers as that is the part of the magazine that is on display in most newsstands, however this newsstand display doesn't always show the left third of the magazines, it’s mainly the upper masthead area that is visible and some publishers have taken that into account and used that area to show special offers and in the image below, you can see Rock Solid magazine would attract people because it has a big yellow sign saying FREE so naturally people will have a look to see what’s free and if they like the offer then they’ll buy the magazine.

Newsstand provide physical distribution, magazines are printed in a factory and then shipped out to regional centres and then they go to shops where their sold, the ones they don’t sell get sent back and they don’t have to pay for them. This method works on a sale or return basis. For example:  if 20 magazines go to a shop; and only 16 are sold, the 4 remaining issues are returned with no cost to the supplier. This method is very expensive and produces a lot of waste as the supplier will only be paid for the amount of magazines sold by the shop and be sent back the ones that weren’t sold.

However, this is not the only method of distribution. Other methods include:

 Direct distribution: This method of distribution is useful as the magazines are handed out to people, free of charge. This way, a lot of people are given the magazine however, this means that it is very expensive as the cost to produce the magazine must be made from adverts appearing in the magazine and also, the people distributing the magazines need to be paid as well. 

Postal subscription:  This method is very effective as only the people interested in the magazine will receive it in the post through subscription. This method is appealing to a lot of people because subscribers often receive free gifts or offers for subscribing.

Online Distribution: this method is very effective as the magazine is emailed to the consumer so they are able to receive it anywhere in the world. This is effective as the magazine will have no postage or printing costs as the magazine will be sent and viewed online.

 

Case Studies

 Q Magazine Front Cover:
By looking at the front cover of this magazine, it is easy to see that one of the main feature of this magazine is Katy Perry. There is a medium long shot of Katy Perry on the cover of this magazine and a pull quote “I can’t be stopped baby” which makes the reader wonder what she is planning to do where she can’t be stopped. The cover is very plain, no background image.
The logo/masthead, Q is placed in the top left hand corner and is covered by a title ‘1001 songs & Katy Perry’ which shows that this is a well known magazine.
There is a barcode on the bottom right hand corner of the front cover which includes other information such as pricing, issue number etc.
 Contents Page: The contents page is a bit ‘in your face’ with a big image that says ‘1001 songs’ almost coming out of the page, this is one of the main features of this magazine as it is also seen on the front cover (covering the logo/masthead) and that feature is on page 65 as you can very clearly tell by the big 65 in a box.
 Another feature of the magazine Katy Perry is located on the bottom right of the contents page (posing) and the page number for anyone interested in reading about her is also very bold and brightly coloured to let the reader know easily.
 There are other features that might interest the reader on the bottom of the page with images and page numbers.
The rest of the contents of this magazine is listed in categories to make it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for.
 Double Page Spread:
The left hand side of the page is an image of Katy Perry, again, with no background image; she is holding a phone in her hands which shows that she is a busy woman.
She is also smiling which could she has received some good news so she “cannot be stopped”.
The second page is an interview that is set out in a Q&A style. The interview is laid out in 3 columns: the first one is mainly introduction etc and the Q&A begins on the second column.
The questions are in bold to make it easy to tell the difference between what the interviewer is saying and what Katy Perry is saying.
There isn’t a pull quote in this DPS however on the page on the left, there is a small box that says ‘Katy Perry: “Mmm…impressive vibrate functions”
 Q Magazine is published my the Bauer Media Group. The Q music brand has expanded to Radio and Television, with Q Radio and Q TV being music entertainment that specialises in indie, rock and alternative. Q also holds annual music awards in the UK, known as Q Awards. Since they began in 1990, the Q Awards have become one of Britain's biggest and best publicized music awards, helped in no small part by the often boisterous behaviour of the celebrities who attend the event. Bauer Media Group has a 50% stake in the British television company Box Television, the other half owned by Channel 4. Box Television acts as the content subsidiary that produces several popular music television channels, which include: Q TV 4Music Kiss TV Kerrang! TV The Box Magic TV Smash Hits TV
 Top of the Pops
Front Cover:
Everything on this front cover is placed around the main image of the magazine which is the cover star Justin Bieber. Apart from the masthead which goes over the head of Justin Bieber, but not so much that you can’t see his face.
There is a pull quote on the cover next to Justin Bieber which says: “I was bullied!” this makes the reader interested and wants to buy the magazine. This quote is also one of the largest fonts on the magazine.
The cover also has the words ‘107 brilliant bargain buys’ this statement used alliteration which makes it sound more catchy and interesting. Also, the 107 is in a large, black and bold font to attract the readers’ attention.
Other special features have been circled or put in a box which attracts attention but not away from the main feature of the magazine.
 The front cover also includes other well known faces and a variety of different features to get people to buy the magazine even if they don’t like the cover star.
 Contents page:
The contents page has an image of the front cover on it and annotations of which page everything featured on the cover is. The rest of it is divided up into sections such as ‘All About You’ and ‘Wins & Offers’. This makes it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for or something that interests them.
The colours scheme is mainly pink and white. However, features which may be of interest to readers have been highlighted in yellow to make it easy for readers to find interesting articles.
The heading of the contents page is ‘Inside the mag’ which makes it sound a bit more exciting or appealing than just contents- which does sound a bit boring because we know that it is the contents page. This appeals to the target audience who are mainly young girls. The abbreviation of magazine to ‘mag’ is typical of a pop magazine aimed at kids and teenagers to make it seem ‘cool’.
 Double Page Spread:
The first thing that the reader would see when they turn to this page is the pull quote “Yes, I was bullied!” this is in a large, bold font, this is not the only pull quote on this DPS, but it is one of the main ones. It relates him to the audience and makes him seem “real”, he goes through the same things as everyone else. This single quote is enough to draw in the reader and make them want to read the entire article. Reading these quotes make the reader want to know why he may have been bullied or how.
It is easy to see that this was a Q&A interview as the questions are seen in a light blue colour and the answers in black.
The introduction of the article says “Even the world’s biggest star isn’t safe from the haters”. This reaches out to anyone who has been bullied as it’s saying you’re not alone; even the world’s biggest star has been bullied. For those readers who haven’t been bullied it says “Justin sadly admits” which makes the reader feel sorry for him and want to read more to find out how he felt being bullied.
There is a box in the top left hand corner of the page which says that it is an ‘exclusive interview’ which emphasizes how lucky the magazine is to have been able to interview such a big star.
At the end of the interview, there is a box giving advice to anyone who might be being bullied to help them get through bulling, again, to relate to the audience.
The images on the DPS show Justin Bieber dressed up as a school student as this is where majority of bullying takes place (and perhaps where he was bullied). He is carrying a bag on one shoulder and carrying books and a basketball, this could be because basketball may have been a hobby of his at school or how he tried to avoid being bullied (by playing basketball).
The colour scheme on the DPS is very different to the front cover which is mainly pink and white but here the colours used are blue and white.
 Top of the pops magazine is published by BBC Magazines and is a supplementary magazine for the tv show Top of the pops. BBC Magazines was the magazine publishing division of BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It is now part of a new venture called Immediate Media which merged the operation with Origin Publishing and Magicalia.

Update

 Today I have started on my house style for my music magazine, looking at different fonts for my  masthead.

Student Magazine

 

 

 



 

For my student magazine I used photoshop for the font cover and for the contents page, I used InDesign.

 

 

 

 

Illegal File Sharing Evaluation

Evaluation

In this assignment I had to do some research on the music industry and file sharing and prepare a piece of feature journalism on the changing face of the music industry for a magazine of my choice which was Glamour who mainly target teenage girls and women up to the age of around 49.

I had to research the positive and negative aspects of file sharing and music piracy and the effects on the audience, the music industry, artists and the sites offering file sharing.  My first source of information was an article from BBC Newsbeat. It talked about how piracy started in the early 2000s and how it has grown to the present day. After gaining an insight into the world of file sharing I decided to research more into the topic getting more facts from sources such as the BBC and BPI and copying them onto a word document. I then shared my ideas with my group and after the class debate, had enough information to cover both sides of the argument. I think researching in favour of the proposition given to us (“illegal file sharing is destroying the music industry”) wasn’t very difficult because there are a lot of facts to support the statement online from valid sources including how file sharing has affected the music industry in the past, and what affect it will have on it in the future. Sharing ideas with the class was also very useful because I was able to gather a wide selection of arguments for both the affirmative and negative sides of the proposition. Finding valid articles in favour of file sharing was a bit difficult as I wasn’t able to find many valuable sources. Most of the articles I found were just what other people had posted as their opinion, there weren’t many facts.

I didn’t find the journalistic part of the project difficult. I found it quite enjoyable as I would say I am quite good at writing. I don’t think my writing is boring and I try to engage the reader by using rhetorical questions to get the reader involved.

I was new to using InDesign but I don’t think it was very difficult. I used rulers to create margins and textboxes so layout my article the way I wanted it. I inserted images and resized them to the size I found appropriate. I used different fonts for my texts and different colours. I also included captions in my article so the reader was aware on what the images were showing. I wrote these captions in brackets but after getting feedback, I got rid of the brackets and decided to put the captions in a different colour so the reader wouldn’t confuse it with the article. I then exported my article to a JPEG file ready to upload in onto Blogger.

I wasn’t able to assess my web Publishing skills because I wasn’t able to publish my article onto my blog as the network wouldn’t allow me.

I then decided to get feedback from some of my peers. I got positive feedback on the colours I used, fonts, and images but I also got constructive criticism on some aspects of my article that I could improve. I was told that I could’ve included an introduction to let the reader know exactly what the article was going to be about. Also, I was told that the second to last paragraph may have forgotten the target audience because as a reader, it wasn’t understood. Also, I was told that the font size didn’t look consistent.

Overall, I think that in this assignment I performed quite well seeing as it was my first time using InDesign and even though I could have improved my layout/text size etc., I believe that my work was of a good standard.

Production Schedule

Wk. 1	Mon	Tues	Weds 26th September	Thurs 27th	Fri 28th	Sat 29th	Sun 30th
			Deadline for task 1. Start production schedule.	Upload productions schedule onto my blog.	Decide on a genre. Research into magazines of this genre.
Wk. 2	Mon 1st October	Tues 2nd	Weds 3rd	Thurs 4th	Fri 5th	Sat 6th	Sun 7th
	Analyse the front cover, contents page and a double page spread feature of 2 magazines.		Create case studies for both. Submit and upload case studies.		Create a front cover for an LSC magazine.
Wk. 3	Mon 8th	Tues 9th	Weds 10th	Thurs 11th	Fri 12th	Sat 13th	Sun 14th
	Create a front cover for an LSC magazine.		Create the contents page for LSC magazine.	Create the contents page for LSC magazine.	Finish and submit the magazine. Get feedback on my magazine
Wk. 4	Mon 15th	Tues 16th	Weds 17th	Thurs 18th	Fri 19th	Sat 20th	Sun 21st
	Create and submit an evaluation.	Go to a newsstand and have a look at music magazines.	Create a blog post about how they have been displayed and magazine layouts etc. including images.		Write a short proposal for my magazine. Create a house style for my magazine and decide on a target audience.	Produce layouts for my magazine.	Create a draft copy of journalism for my DPS
Wk. 5	Mon 22nd	Tues 23rd	Weds 24th	Thurs 25th	Fri 26th	Sat 27th	Sun 28th
	Create a formal pitch.			Upload proposals, house styles, draft copy, layouts and pitches to my blog.	Create an evaluation using audience feedback.
Wk. 6	Mon 29th	Tues 30th	Weds 31st	Thurs 1st November	Fri 2nd	Sat 3rd	Sun 4th
	Blog my evaluation.		Begin to plan photographs for my music magazine
Wk. 7	Mon 5th	Tues 6th	Weds 7th	Thurs 8th	Fri 9th	Sat 10th	Sun 11th
			Make sure all my photography is complete.	Show my drafts to the class and record their feedback on my blog.	Start my final front cover
Wk. 8	Mon 12th	Tues 13th	Weds 14th	Thurs 15th	Fri 16th	Sat 17th	Sun 18th
	Finish front cover and begin my contents page		Complete contents page and begin my double page spread	Carry on with my DPS	Finish and submit my DPS.
Wk. 9	Mon 19th	Tues 20th	Weds 21st	22nd	Fri 23rd	Sat 24th	Sun 25th
	Begin gathering audience comments and feedback on my music magazine	v Start writing up my feedback for my magazine			Make sure my feedback is complete
Wk. 10	Mon 26th	Tues 27th	Weds 28th	Thurs 29th	Fri 30th	Sat 1st December	Sun 2nd
	Begin my evaluation
Wk.11	Mon 3rd	Tues 4th	Weds 5th	Thurs 6th	Fri 7th	Sat 8th	Sun 9th
Wk. 12	Mon 10th	Tues 11th	Weds 12th	Thurs 13th	Fri 14th	Sat 15th	Sun 16th
				Make sure my evaluation is (almost) complete	Upload my finished evaluation to my blog
Wk. 13	Mon 17th	Tues 18th	Weds 19th	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun