Owen Garner

725 words
1. How effective was your research into similar magazines and relevant target audiences.
2. What did you learn from your research into these two areas?
3. In what ways did this shape the creation of your magazine?
4. What creative decisions did you have to make at the different stages of your magazine
production?
5. How did your magazine change as your work progressed?
6. How closely does your magazine follow the forms and conventions of existing magazines? Give
examples of real magazines you reference.
7. How successful is your finished magazine? What are its strengths and weaknesses?

1. I believe that the research I generated during this magazine course was effective as it gave
me inspiration into how to style my magazine and what a general indie-focused music
magazine looked like. I focused on the magazines of NME, CLASH and Q. I used these
magazines to mould my own magazine cover, contents page and double page spread. In
terms of the target audience, seeing what sort of music and interests they dapple in. As well,
I was able to focus on what sort of language to use as this will further engage my audience.

2/3 I learnt that the best way to style my title was in a bold, sans serif font as it is legible and
minimalistic yet stylish. I focused the title round colours of black and whites so the readers
attention was centred more around the image. Also, the information inside the magazine has
to be interesting and engage the audiences interests because without doing this, the sales
of the magazine would drop. This then inspired the way in which I wrote my double page.

4 I always began finding an appropriate image of the artist for the cover and built my magazine
around that. I tended to find professional portraits of the artists so the image would be clear
and in all, make my magazine look more professional. Because I did three front covers, my
title on each, changes colour depending on the overall colour scheme of the whole photo. For
example, if the image background had dark colours such as black or navy I used a white title,
yet if the background was much lighter like white or sky blue, I used a black title, so it was
easier for the audience to see it. As well, I decided how and when my sub text on the
magazine cover would overlap the image or when the image would overlap the text. For
example, in the cover of Lana Del Rey on, I at first have her name overlapping the image but
then her arm overlapping the text. It is more clearly seen when looking at the cover:
As well, on the same cover I added a gradient to the same text to resemble
that of the background.

5 On my double-page spread I at first had the text straight on the image
however it was difficult to read it and I believed that would affect the marks
I would get so I decided to add the text to a white background to make it
clearer and this in turn, generated a more professional magazine. The
decision of choosing which fonts to use was difficult as the title stayed the
same size and fault however to add more diversity in my work, I generally
changed all the fonts from being Bebas Nue into varying ones.

Owen Garner
725 words
6










Both magazines have bold titles and follows the codes and conventions to be the biggest text
on the screen. As well, the name of the artist in the main image is the anchorage text and is
the biggest test to the title. The barcode is in a discreet position so it doesnt take the readers
full attraction.












In reference to my double page spread, the titles of the artist/band are both Sans Serif and
bold, and attract the readers attention. They both also have large images of the band
present to enlighten the reader on what their favourite musicians look like currently.

7 I believe my finished magazine is successful in the fact that I think it will be able to sell in the
marketing world. I also believe it follows the codes and conventions well, offering an insight
into the professionalism that is seen in popular magazines such as Q, CLASH and NME. The
strengths of my magazine are the editing skills which I have used such as duplicating the fore
image of the key image to allow an effect of overlapping to occur. As well, the information
which I included in my double-page spread, I believe it to be intuitive and interesting for the
reader. My weaknesses however, are that I didnt include my own photography in the
creation of my magazine but used professional portraits of famous artists instead. Also, I
believe my contents page to be the only piece of work that may be lacking in creative ideas.