Welcome to my Media Studies Portfolio

Hello my name is Rachael McInerney and I am a Media Studies student at the Douay Martyrs School.

My portfolio will be based on Music Magazines, and i will be presenting my research and planning, my preliminary task and my final front cover peice with my double page spread including the contents page.

Mission Statement For School Magazine

For my Preliminary task, I had to create a school magazine for Sixth Former's.

I called my school magazine 'Martyrs Mag' and made a mission statement to describe my magazine to show what will be included, and how it will benefit readers within the sixth form.

My magazine is called ‘Martyrs Mag’. Martyrs Mag is aimed for sixth form students who attend The Douay Martyrs School and represents dedicated and hard working students. This magazine will help and benefit these students in many ways whilst they spend their time at sixth form and possibly give them the further confidence they need to push themselves to exceed. There are many goals i have with this magazine some of them are; providing information to students which is relevant to my audience, to entertain its readers, and also to give students any tips they need or are concerned about. This magazine will include many tops such as ‘Top Ten Courses’ this will help and benefit students with choosing the right courses for them and there abilities, a gossip page, where students can find out the latest common room gossip, who’s dating and who’s not, and many more entertaining and beneficial pages. The style of this magazine will be a sophisticated one with a bubbly edge to it. The layout will be well set out and clear so therefore all information will be easy to read and eye catching to the readers. The colour scheme will be suitable to the age group but not too vibrant which is suitable for young adults. This magazine will be released every week to keep students drawn to the product; there will also be special issues at times such as Christmas, Easter, exam seasons and many more. The Martyrs Mag has a promise that it will also maintain to deliver the suitable information students need, to entertain and to provide help and support.

Target Audience Profile For School Magazine

For my Preliminary task, I also created a Target Audience Profile.

The  Target Audience profile gave me a clear understanding of what my audience is like and what they want within a school magazine. It also discusses personality traits as well as hobbies they enjoy.

Target Audience

My Target Audience for my magazine will be aimed at sixth form students; male and female, within the ages of 16-18. The professional status of my target audience are still in school undertaking in full education with maybe a part time job to earn some money. 

There personality traits are outgoing and bubbly, they have lots of friends which they love spending time with, yet they are still dedicated to school making sure all work is done to keep them organised. My target audience has many hobbies and interests such as for the girls, spending time with friends, shopping, doing any sporting activities or outside of school activities like dancing or gymnastics, and for the boys there hobbies may be playing football, hanging out with their mates, and again doing any sporting or out of school activities.  Their attitudes to education are dedicated, organised, persistent to always try, always punctual and very outgoing.

 My target audience will use my magazine for when they are in the common room during their free time, to pick up, sit down relax and have a read through the weekly magazine in which will be offered to all sixth form students. This magazine will cater for to each of my audience’s needs and will refer to any interests they enjoy.

The audience of my magazine will have a variety of personalities, and these may range from an outgoing, bubbly, caring and sweet personality to a humorous, dedicated and intelligent one. Inside my magazine will include various articles and which will include studying tips, job tips if you are looking to seek work how to make the most of your free periods at school, the top ten courses to study and common room gossip to keep students entertained. All these are key things that will help to keep the audience entertained and to help and teach its audience in many different situations. 

School Magazine Mock Ups

Here are my School Magazine Mock Up's, below are the mock ups for my Front Cover, and Contents Page.

School Magazine Front Cover

This is my Final Front Cover for my school magazine. I decided to stick to three colour's for the colour scheme, these being grey, black and a burgundy colour. This is so there is a structured layout throughout the page, keeping it consistent and simple. The sell lines I used are a mixture of fun and educational, as well as some tips on finding jobs outside of school, which shows the overall purpose and feel to the magazine.

I made this front cover using Adobe Photoshop where I had the selection of many tools in order to help make my front cover piece. 

The Main Task - Music Magazine

Once I had finished my school magazine, I then was able to start my main task - creating my own music magazine.

Below are some examples of research I carried out of all different types of genres of music magazines.

Within my own Music Magazine, I will use many conventions like these magazines below have done in order to get my magazine to a professional standard.  

Mission Statement For Music Magazine

Mission Statement

Rythmic is a new and exhilarating magazine that has been created and written to celebrate the successes of women in the music industry. The name of this magazine is not a lifestyle magazine, but yet one that is completely music related with all the contents of it. Nevertheless the magazine still achieves at capturing the idea that this magazine will take notes of how far women have succeeded in the music industry as it was once dominated by men and male artists.

Over the years, there have been a numerous amount of professional, confident, powerful and talented females that have been introduced to the music industry and have succeeded making an impact not just through their talent but through their confidence, brilliance and determination and it is therefore women like this that will feature within the pages of this magazine. 

This magazine will be distributed every month at a cost of £2.50. It will be found in all newsagents and supermarkets, but it will also be available to buy in some fashion stores and music stores. I decided to distribute the music magazine within fashion stores as well as music stores as this is where the readers will be spending most of their free time due to their hobbies being mainly fashion and music. There will also be the option of subscribing to this magazine either by post of via the magazine’s website. 

www.rythmicmagazine.co.uk

Features that will be provided on Rythmic's website are polls to vote so my readers can vote on what they would like to feature within the next issue, Tour dates of some RnB artists, Celebrities that are loyal to the magazine giving readers an update on their daily lives through the uses of twitter, music festivals available in the year, a gallery where readers can go online and see images of their favourite artists and many other features.

Rythmic is mostly a music magazine and this will be portrayed through its content. Inside will be many things to appeal to the readers; new releases, album and concert/gig reviews, interviews, posters and pictures, gossip, fashion and many inspiring female artists. The readers will enjoy reading many interviews of their favourite artists about how they have had their ‘claim to fame’ within the music industry. This magazine will satisfy and meet to the needs/general interests of its target readership and will include many features such as the latest fashion items worn and favoured by female RnB musicians who will be included in the contents of this magazine. These female artists not only succeed professionally in the music industry but also are represented as trend setters who inspire many fashion choices of female fans everywhere. The magazine will display this with a page full of the latest fashion, and fashion tips also featuring accessories, hair and makeup.

Each issue of rythmic magazine will feature some sort of ‘freebie’. As a magazine we will want to reward and treat its readers for buying and reading this magazine, ‘freebie’s’ will  include; free downloads or free CDs featuring new releases of tracks from current and aspiring RnB artists. There will also be chances to win prizes within every issue of rythmic magazine such as; concert or gig tickets and meeting their favourite artists. Readers of this magazine will always have unlimited access to the magazines own website, which they can freely use whenever they wish to do so to keep them updated with any music news.

Included in this magazine will be a variety of successful RnB artists including females and males that appeal to women readers.There will be a special emphasis on the female artists displaying what they have succeeded but also portraying these women as figures of aspiration to our readers, due to their individuality, confidence and successes as performers.

Very much like its readers and the artists that are featured within it, rhythm is a sophisticated yet unique magazine. This will appeal to our readers as it is a sophisticated and modern magazine but with a seductive and friendly edge which will offer an entertaining approach. This will all appeal to young women who have similar qualities so that therefore they will be able to relate to the content of the magazine and enjoy reading it within their spare time.

Target Audience Profile For Music Magazine

Target Audience

The readers of Rythmic magazine are female between the ages of 16-21. She is a young woman, who is well educated, intelligent, seductive and sophisticated. She is a young woman who enjoys playful banter, full of sexy confidence and is never afraid to speak her mind. She is a great listener as well as someone who is always bubbly and up for a chat. She is a woman who is never rude or arrogant; she is in individual who never follows the crowd and always takes responsibilities for her actions, never forcing her opinions on anyone else. She is a very ambitious character with great fashion sense she is always setting trends that suit her slim figure and outgoing personality, she will also use many accessories to help create a more unique appearance.

These young women are at a time where they have had to make big decisions for their further education as well as life decisions, so some may be studying at school or university and some may even have left school to start work. Whatever my young woman has decided to do she enjoys her work as it has allowed her to open her mind, being creative and independent. She still lives with her parents or if at university is living there, whilst having a long-term relationship.

The readers of this magazine all maintain to keep their bodies fit and healthy, also having a healthy balanced diet. She goes to the gym, whilst also going to dance classes to stay in shape but also have fun whilst doing so. However she does like to have an occasionally meal out with her boyfriend, or nice catch up with friends at bars gossiping whilst having some drinks, and also having nice, relaxing evenings in snuggled up on the couch watching TV shows such as ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’. My young woman is very interested in clothes fashion and most of all music, she loves going shopping and buying new outfits especially if she can get some bargains but also loves to listen to her favourite artists.

Music is very much a big craze for her, she listens to music every day without fail, from getting ready in the mornings to during the day using headphones to at home just relaxing listening to music. The songs she listens to change depending on what she’s doing and what mood she’s in but she does most tasks to music. She enjoys listening to many artists and bands and she likes to go to concerts to see them perform live. Her favourite genre of music is RnB and she enjoys listening to many RnB artists such as Alecia keys, Beyonce, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Trey songz, Mary J Blidge, Usher and many others. Many of these artists are all on her IPod as she loves to listen to her music via this, and also loves the strong, powerful silky, smooth sound of their voices where you can listen to them no matter what mood you are in. It is not only their voices that make them appealing to her, but also their success in their careers, their confidence and uniqueness as artists and performers, which this young woman finds inspiring to listen to yet also uplifting.

The readers of Rythmic magazine do not read any other music magazines as she feels that there are no other music related magazines that fully meet to her musical tastes and many of the music magazines that are sold today are very masculine influenced as opposed to a more feminine based magazine. This young female however does read other non related music magazines such as ‘OK’ and ‘Cosmopolitan’. She finds these magazines very enjoyable and pleasurable to read when at home enjoying herself relaxing. Another source of pleasure that she finds enjoyable is watching Films, She loves her chick flicks and romantic comedies, which is enjoys watching either at home all curled up on the sofa or at the cinema which she drags her boyfriend along with her to watch. The young female uses the internet on her Mac which she does work on, but also socialises with her friends, and of course does a bit of online shopping.

My Chosen Genre - RnB

RnB

The genre I have chose to base my music magazine around is the genre of RnB. I chose this genre because RnB is the genre of music I know most about as I listen to RnB myself so I felt as a fan I would be able to relate to other RnB fans, knowing what they would like to see within a music magazine targeted at RnB fans. This genre of music is very popular in todays society so will appeal to many readers as its a popular genre of music. I believe that I can create a perfect representation of RnB music within my three pieces through the use of many typical conventions but also with my chosen model. 

When doing research before choosing the genre of music I was going to pick I found that the majority of people my age and above listen to the genre of RnB or liked listening to RnB related artists, so I thought doing a music magazine on RnB would be very successful.

Rhythm and Blues now kown as RnB originated in he 1940s and since then has devolped with success over the years. There are a variety of different styles of RnB such as soul, motown, hip-hop, and many others in which many listeners have the choice of listening to the different types making this genre successful in its wide choices of variety, which other genre's don't offer so I felt that choosing the genre of RnB would appeal to many listeners as its not just one type of music that the genre offers.

Since RnB was first originated, since then it has been nothing but success so I felt when picking a genre I looked at the history of RnB in order to get a true understanding of what the genre has offered since it first came about.

Below are three examples of artists that are featured within the genre of RnB, such as the Weeknd, Beyonce and Alecia Keys. Three successful and well known RnB related artists who have had huge successes within the industry. These are also some of my favourite RnB artists, so again I chose RnB as I personally feel its the genre I know most about and share a keen interest into the artists.

Below are three examples of artists that are featured within the genre of RnB, such as the Weeknd, Beyonce and Alecia Keys. Three successful and well known RnB related artists who have had huge successes within the industry. These are also some of my favourite RnB artists, so again I chose RnB as I personally feel its the genre I know most about and share a keen interest into the artists.

Codes And Conventions Of RnB

My Questionnaire

I created a Questionnaire as part of my research in order to find out my target audience and what they would like to see within a music magazine. It was a very useful procedure as it helped me to decide on many features to include within the content of my music magazine.

My Questionnaire Feedback

After handing out my Questionnaire, and collected in the results. I analysed and made charts of the numbers of people who answered the same and who didn't. However I came to the conclusion after looking at my Questionnaire results that the majority of people agreed on the same things and liked the same things, such as what artists they like, and what makes a good magazine.
By putting my results into charts, it enabled me to fully understand what my target audience like and dislike, helping me to determine what will feature within my three pieces.
Below are some of the charts that I made from the results I collected back. 

My Questionnaire Results

Focus Group

Case Study

From creating my case study, I was able to gain a much more detailed understanding of the RnB industry through researching about Vibe, But I also learnt more about my target audience. I found out who owns Vibe magazine, I also found out that other they have a range of cross media synergy such as the magazine and the website which offers a great deal of information about artists and any updates of any music/fashion/films.
I learnt about the style and content of the magazine, which will help me a lot when it comes to making my own magazine as I will be able to take what I have learnt and put it into my own three pieces. 

My Front Cover Overview

From doing a front cover overview, I was then able to recognise the similarities the front covers of Vibe share, alongside the symbiotic links allowing their readers to be able to recognise their magazine.

Front Cover Analysis

As part of my research and planning, I had tow analyse two front covers of a music magazine, I chose to analyse Vibe. In the end i analysed three front covers so I could truly identity the conventions used in all three, as well as any other features the front covers offer. I chose these three specific front covers as my music magazine is aimed at females, so I wanted to use front covers that featured female artists on the front. I also chose these front covers as I felt that I was truly able to see how women are represented within the industry of RnB.

Front cover Analysis

Front Cover Analysis'

Contents Page Overview

By creating a Content's Page Overview, It helped me to determine what a contents page should look like and how it should be laid out. I also learnt from looking at a variety of content pages from Vibe how they maintain their brand identity within every content page of each magazine.

Contents Page Analysis - One

Content Page Analysis - Two

Double Page Spread Overview

By creating a Double Page Spread Overview, looking at a variety of Vibe Double Page Spreads, I was able to look at similarities and differences easily. I learnt that the majority of them all share similar layout structures and also share the same conventions.

Double Page Spread Analysis - One

Double Page Spread Analysis - Two

Mise- En- Scene

Costume Analysis

For the Costume Analysis, I looked at some female RnB artists where I analysed their hair, make up and costumes. By doing so it helped me to plan some ideas of what image I wanted my model to create and how I wanted my model to be presented.

Costumes, Hair and Makeup

As part of my research and planning, I had to look at Costume ideas as well as make up ideas and possible hair styles that I wanted my model to display. I found that this helped me a lot when I was thinking of what look to give my model, so through doing research on different hair styles, make up and clothing thoroughly I found it easier to decide.

Reconnaissance And Locations

Font Ideas And Final Fonts

Above are the fonts I decided to use as my final fonts for my music magazine throughout. I chose Obelix Pro to be the font for my masthead as I felt it truly reflected an RnB genre through the use of the boldness and the way in which it doesn't make the font look perfect, its not broken or distorted however it has a sort of curvy effect on the font, which I felt would look professional on the top of my front cover.
I chose 'Tall Dark And Handsome' as the font for the sell lines, but also some areas within my contents page and double page spread as I felt it would give it a sense of professionalism throughout.








When deciding on fonts for my music magazine, I research a variety of different fonts that I could possibly use for my Front Cover, Contents Page and my Double Page Spread. Above are some examples and names of the fonts that I looked at. The fonts within the slideshare I felt that most of these fonts were not appropriate for my magazine as they did not reflect a RnB genre as they should.