Feature Article
This is my finished Feature Article for my music magazine.

Contents Page
This is my finished Contents Page for my music magazine.

Front Cover
This is my finished Front Cover for my music magazine.

Looking back at your preliminary task (the college magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back and my preliminary task, I learnt a lot in how to layout and design an effect magazine. I didn’t learn much if anything on the technology side of things, but I learn how to create and design a magazine also I learnt a lot on how the magazine industry functions.

I also during my preliminary task I done very little research into how a magazine should look and what would be the best ways in order to attract the desired target audience, but during my main task I learnt how to fully research into a desired target demographic and how each aspect of the magazine is important as how to attract its desired target audience. Aspect such as:

-Colours
-Page Layout
-Fonts
-Images
-Language used
-Photo composition

All these were important aspects that I needed to learn in order to design and create an attractive and effective magazine. Even though I knew how to use Photoshop and knew how to collectively do all of these, I did not know who to effectively implement them until I had done a lot of in depth research as to how each should work and how each should complement each other.

But the layout is not the only think I had to learn how to do effectively, I also had to learn how the feature article should be written and also what it should contain in terms of drop caps, pull out quotes e.c.t. all these are terms and features I learnt in order for my feature article to look and feel professional.

To learn everything I had to in order to produce and effective product, I went back time and time again to look over and re-look over existing magazines for both inspiration and also how they did all of the above e.g. how their feature articles were written, what kind of language they contained e.c.t

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When creating my magazine I used the editing programme “Adobe Photoshop”. As I was fairly well acquainted with this programmer there was nothing new I learnt during my time spent with the programme during my magazines construction. Although thank to Photoshop the process of creating a Magazine is made simple and easy.

With Photoshop allowing for ease of use as well as simple yet effective tool explanation and implementation it allows for, what seems to be, complicated edits to photos and the creation and manipulation of objects and images within Photoshop do be done with remarkable ease.

With Photoshop’s relatively gradual learning curve for beginners, it allows anyone to jump in, quickly grasp important tools and start to create what they want, although other more complicated tools and editing techniques make require extra time spent in the programme in order to know how and when to use them, it still allows for beginners to create something marvellous. With Photoshop also being fairly giving with mistakes, such as allows for mistakes to be un-done with the Ctrl + Z function and for even several steps to be taken out by the user pressing Alt + Ctrl + Z, it allows for mistakes and even items that were thought to be perfect to be removed without hassle. Also with Photoshop allowing editing to individual layers minor details can be edited or added by just selecting the desired layer and making the required edits, this ability mixed with the ability to hide each individual layer makes editing easier and faster.

The only thing I did not have any experience with during the construction of my magazine was the creation and up-keep of a blog, which is something I had never done before. So learning to set-up and use the site “Blogger” in order to upload my work was essential and also enabled my work to be displayed in a simple easy to navigate way. I had heard of and in fact visited several blogs before on “Blogger” but had never needed to set-on up.


With both the use of “Blogger” and “Photoshop” I was able to complete and submit my work in an easy to understand way. Although I may have not increased my knowledge of Photoshop, I did learn something knew by how to create and use a blog in order to place my completed work upon it.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my magazine would be mainly of the social group labelled as “Otaku” , and Otaku is someone who is fixated on Japanese culture (Usually Anime/Manga) although this can be music as well. But as the “Otaku” culture will only take up a small percentage of my audience.

Most of my audience will own in some form or another an collection Anime and or Manga related material, though this is not always the case. My target audience will tend to watch Japanese themed programmes or games based upon Japanese history or Culture e.g. The Up-coming game Total War: Shogun 2 will be a game that will attract my audience.

As my Audience is unlikely to be part of the mainstream scene, they will not conform to any one style, but will be a mix of styles that will related to varies sub-genres within J-Rock that make up the general J-Rock scene. The style of my audience will mostly be relatable to a mix of the indie style + certain but very few aspects of the scene kid style. As J-rock is very broad it does incorporate a variety of style as can be shown by pictures of popular J-Rock bands below.

"Kelun"


















"Abingdon Boys School"








Key Stats:
Male: 60%
Female: 40%
Age: 15 -23
Social Group: BC1C2
Student: 65%

With the wide variety of music that comes under the J-Rock genre, there is no one specific style that can be pin-pointed. As Certain J-Rock artists may include a more pop-like beat and other may follow the idea of western hardcore and metal artists is very broad and hard to staple one sound for J-Rock. But fans of J-Rock will find and appreciate all artists and bands found within J-Rock.

My demographic will also be very tech savvy, with my audience acquiring the newest and best technology available at the time e.g. Playstation 3, Up-to-Date computer hardware and the latest phone such as the iPhone 4.

Which media institution might distribute your media product and why?

When it comes to deciding which media institution would pick up and publish my magazine, it was difficult choice. I did consider Bauer at first, even though there is no other magazine on the UK market like mine. As J-Rock in the UK is a niche market, it still contains various elements and styles such as Rock/Punk/Hardcore e.c.t. and with Bauer also publishing Kerrang magazine which also covers this base it wouldn’t be wise to use Bauer as they already have a product that its very similar and it wouldn’t appeal to a wide enough audience for them to make any kind of profit. So instead, I’ve decided to go with IPC Media in order to publish my magazine, even though they publish NME, NME is mainly indie based and so does not have the same target audience or in fact the same genre as my magazine. With this difference it would allow IPC Media to reach a small niche market and enable a bigger profit than say is Bauer published my magazine.

With NME’s main readership age of 23 years old it’s near the same age range as those of my readership, who would be aged around 15-20. Which means my magazine would attract possible more reader as mid-late teens are where a lot of people settle on their major musical interests, so the magazine has room to expand and reach beyond its original niche market. In order for my magazine to be advertised IPC Media could allow ad’s to be placed in NME as to attract those of NME’s readership who want to try something new and or already are interested in J-Rock but can’t find a magazine to read-up on their latest bands.








as IPC Media’s related media reach around 27 Million people it would enable my magazine to reach far beyond it’s small niche market. Also to entice further readership in TV adverts during programmes that my audience would watch, mainly anime, it would help reach more readers. Also on Channels that would attract my demographic. This along with minor ads in other IPC related media and also my magazine could promote special offers such as contests and or free gift e.g. CD’s/Vouchers e.c.t. All these could be done in order to help increase readership and maximise profits for both my magazine and IPC Media.