Evaluation

My magazine includes traditional conventions of a typical classical music magazine. For example a mixture of serif and sans serif fonts, also page layout for example in the double page spread classic conventions are as follows: large image on right hand page. Clear serif title and sans serif subtitle. How ever I am hoping that this magazine would stand out in the music section of say a newsagent because of the slightly modern twist I have tried to portray. This is evident with the front cover being black and slightly dark, with some use of vivid yellow text to try and make this magazine appeal to the younger followers of classical music, as well as the elder. The content of the magazine is also more technology and Internet related with reviews on new music sites. There is a very important convention to do with the front cover and a lot of the images in this magazine. This is eye contact between the person and the lens of the camera. This instantly gives us a more up close and personal relation with the magazine in our hands.

In doing some initial research to actually produce my magazine I thought about the target audience and kept in mind that the larger percentage of consumers for classical music magazines are 45 years old upwards. I bared this in mind in terms of literature and text used throughout the magazine for example the whole article on the double page spread was worded in a formal and traditional way. I did however include some design features that are in place to attract younger audiences as well as I know classical music is becoming more popular in the late teens to mid twenties category. Along with a mix of ideas I hope to encourage a better magazine that both 'generations' can enjoy.

Looking at several different publishers I have researched, I think that the one most likely to take on board my idea of a mixed social/age group classical music magazine would be the 'Hay market group'. This is because they include a whole range of specialist magazines from ones for the more youthful market and young target audiences to more mature reading such as my research magazine "Gramophone". With their broad range in knowledge for both of my potential target audiences, I want to focus on this publisher rather than other, less general publishers.

I would hope to see my magazine in shop such as WHSmiths, and supermarkets. For example Tesco or Sainsburys. This is because of the amount of different target audiences that walk through the door, this magazine would have more of an opportunity to sell well.

In conducting research for my magazine with the chosen genre of classical music, I found that for two of the nation's best selling magazines "BBC classical music" and "Gramophone" the average socio-economic group is A/B - 48% and C/C2 only 44%. As most younger people are working in the C/C2 category of even the D/E sector in the socio demographic groups. If my target audience turns out to be in the C/C2 category as well as some in the A/B category there would be a good window of opportunity to have maximum success. This would be very interesting to have 2 target audiences at the same time. It would also mean that for any reason on target audience dropped, I could still rely on the other for support in theory. In a realistic scenario this may not be the case

All the images are from my own sources and or taken by me. The encyclopedia was taken up against a white background. I bent a piece of card at the bottom to give it the seamless photo studio look to make the photo look more professionally done. The girl is one of my friends and she is posing to be a young, trendy piano star from America. The portrait of Mozart has also been taken by me out of a music book ( The encyclopedia of music published by Hermes House) and re-mastered in Photoshop. I am sure this does not violate any copy write laws as this image is very old.

Developing through the course I have learnt about using a very good piece of software called 'Adobe Indesign'. This software enables you to make professional looking presentations and publications. It has enabled me to create all the pages for my magazine and along with 3rd party fonts (dafont.com) that other people write themselves, I have been able to more freely customize and make changes to my work more efficiently and with minimal fuss.
I also used a programme called 'Adobe Photoshop' to edit my photos so that they would look suitable to be able to make my magazine look more thoughtfully planned out and to be integrated into my magazine.

Feedback from my peers were generally positive although some counteractive criticism was give: 'Front cover could have used a different images to have more relevance to the main sell about Mozart' I have taken into consideration this quote but unfortunately with my available resources I could not take it into action.