Scene magazine front cover

After drawing out my flat plans for my magazine and evaluating them, I made it on indesign.

This is my front cover, contents page and double page spread, I have changed some things from my original flat plan to improve it.

I think that my magazine develops forms and conventions of real media products as it does follow the typical indie music magazine conventions. I researches NME and KERRANG which both gave me ideas and inspired me to make my own magazine. Although my magazine chosen music genre is less rock and has a slightly wider range of music shown. For example on the contents page I have a list of artists who aren't all just one genre; one is pop rock whereas one is folk. I did this so that I could appeal to a wider range of people giving a wider audience.

The audience for my media product are young and similar to the band shown on the front cover. I chose a normal, cool and young people to pose as my band so that they will either remind the audience of themselves or they'll want to be like them. The band's style also represents the particular social group that is my audience but they wear black to continue the red and black theme. They enjoy a range of music genres but mainly indie music as that is the genre I have featured on my magazine the most. They will enjoy live music and gigs a lot. They will like the fashion style "scene". I have addressed this type of audience by using the colours red and black throughout the magazine which they'll like but in a trendy way. They are young and I have attracted the young audience by making the price small compared to some monthly magazines but also quite similar to monthly music magazines. Also the free CD and poster will attract the younger audience with a lower income. Within the social grades they will come under the ABC1 social category. My target audience's age is from the ages of 15-35 and with an equal male to female range. To anchor this I have chosen a band with both male and female members so that male readers will want to be like the guys but be with the girl and the female readers will wand to be with the guys but be like the girl. The words of the masthead are slightly wonky and there are white patches over them, this makes it look modern and conventional to the young audience. The band used on the front cover follow this specific style and the audience can relate to them. The camera angle looks up at them to show that they are superior, I got this idea from the NME interview picture of Glasvegas in which they look more superior due to the camera angle. On the double page spread I have chosen the bands' names to be Oscar, Dillan and Indigo. They are quite alternative and modernised names, I chose to do this so that the audience will think they're cool and want to be like them or can see themselves being similar as the band. The font chosen is also quite modern and bold which relates to the audience's style. The language used is again very colloquial and chatty and the type of language the reader themselves will use. I have often chosen to miss out capital letters at the starts of questions and answers which may look cool and colloquial to the reader. The background is black which gives it a modern and contemporary look to relate to the audience. I wanted certain parts of the magazine to stand out more than others, and so put them in different colours so that the readers' eye will be drawn to this part. For example I put the significant word NEW in red and capitals in a wonky line to separate itself from the rest of the writing. T he black outline makes it even more legible. Although the colour goes along with my colour theme, I wanted to use one more colour to make it slightly more interesting, I chose green for the word "festive". the colour relates to the word and stands out even more from the rest of the page. It also relates to the Christmas issue.

Both the magazines that I researched are distributed by big, successful magazine publishing companies. This is one of the main reasons that they are so successful. Therefore I would chose my magazine to be published in a different way with a more independent company. Because I believe that independent monthly magazines can also become successful. This will ensure that the magazine will be more select and original.

The main thing I have learnt about technology by making my magazine is how to use indesign. I am now confident with using the programme even though there is more for me to learn about it. But I could make another magazine and use it on my own without help. I also learnt the layout of a typical magazine and now understand how to do this on indesign. I know more about how to use photoshop as I used this programme with some of my photos, to change them to black and white and/or crop them. Because I used a font for my masthead from dafont.com, I know how to transfer the font into indesign to make it usable. I can now successfully upload photos and blogs onto blogger.com as I had never heard of the sight before.

I have definitely learnt a lot about the music magazine industry and how to construct my own magazine. Before I had no idea as to how a conventional magazine should look. When making my Sussex Downs magazine it was very basic and I have improved greatly on the quality of my work. I think that the process has been successful as has the product.