sugar rush evaluation

8/14/2019 sugar rush evaluation

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Evaluating My Music Magazine


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Introducing you to Sugar Rush

On the stands in shops Sugar Rush will attract young girls aged between 11and 15 . At this age girls havent got a favourite of genre they like the musicthat is the most popular, usually those higher up in the charts. This music isusually pop music, so when deciding what genre and audience for themagazine, I decided on the age group 11-15 as I saw, their was only oneother music magazine for this age group, Top of the Pops.

However, pop music and the 11-15 age group was not my first choice for themagazine, when I started this project I wanted to create a magazine for aniche market. This niche market was Christian, as I had discovered some ofthe artists I liked where primarily from this genre, when researching what Icould do within this genre I came across issues that I felt I could not workround or through.


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When deciding how to approach the creation of Sugar Rush I decided that Ishould not only look at other music magazines, but teenage lifestyle

magazines as this would help me to create the right mode of address,format, style and what to include. The teenage lifestyle magazines I lookedat were Sugar and Bliss.When researching I found a magazine that ceased publication in 2006,called Smash Hits, this was aimed at young teenagers (both girls and boys)and was a pop magazine, with elements of a lifestyle and entertainmentmagazines.


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The Competition

Top of the Pops, published by BBC Worldwide.Published monthly, base price of 2.25 an issue, with a circulation of 130,174.Has been produced for 14 years, however the demand for this magazine, aswith all magazines, has been decreasing over the past few years. Thismagazine is very hard to find in shops and inaccessible online unless you area member.

Other competition for this magazine would be teenage lifestyle magazines asthey also include music and entertainment news and information.

Sugar, published by Hachette Filipacci (UK) Ltd.Published monthly, base price of 2.30 an issue, with a circulation of 158,835.Sugars aim is to make their readers feel good about themselves.


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Bliss, published by Panini UK.Published monthly, base price of 2.30 an issue, with a circulation of 117,112.Popular with younger teenagers as seems mature, which young teenage

girls are always striving for.

All of these magazines usually give a free gift with every issue, usuallysome type of make-up, bag, some times in summer flip flops or even abikini.


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Researching the Competition

Top of the Pops Magazine,popular teen music magazine,a basis for Sugar Rush

Sugar Magazine ateenage lifestylemagazine, a basis forthe lifestyle side ofSugar Rush.


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Bliss a popularteenage lifestylemagazine

Smash Hits nowceased publicationbut used to be very

popular amongteenagers.


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The Reader

As earlier mentioned the reader of this magazine would be girls agedbetween 11 and 15, at this age girls want to be as independent as possible,they will try and spend the majority of their time out of the house. When outof the house they enjoy hanging out with friends (round a friends house or

just in the local park), shopping. While out at some point agthey will listen to

music and usually this music will be pop, although by the e of 15 some girlswill prefer a particular genre.In order to play their music the girls will need to have the latest technology,as they will not want to be out done by their friends, however, they may alsowant to be unique, so although they may have the same gadgets the colourswill be different, e.g. iPod purple, blue, green, yellow etc.


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When out shopping, the clothes, accessories and make-up they will buy willbe similar and in keeping with the latest fashions, however due to theirfinancial situations the majority of girls would be unable to afford designerlabels and trying to be independent they will want to buy their own (even ifit was given to them by their parents), so their favourite shops will be H&M,New Look and Primark, especially Primark as the prices are cheap, but thegarments constantly change, so they are based on the latest fashions.


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After deciding on the audience I did research into what theyliked.


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Addressing and Attracting the Reader

When researching other magazines I discovered that teenage lifestylemagazines take on the role of being a best friend or older sister to the reader,where as male orientated magazines address the reader as a mate.It is important to speak to the reader in a way that will appeal to them

otherwise they will not purchase the magazine, girls want advice and lifeskills as well as the jokes. So when engaging the reader, the magazine needsto come across as if they know the reader well.When it comes to attracting girls to read the magazine all other teenage girlmagazines include free gifts relevant to their readers lifestyle and I believethis is something that should occur with this magazine, for example I used afree CD on the front cover of this issue.

The colours and layout will also affect whether the magazine will be chosenabove the rest.


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How does your magazine represent a particular social group?

It represents a young group of girls who would like to be as mature and

sophisticated as the women who read the adult women magazines, howeverthey still want and are immature. They still love the bright colours and thesilliness of games and actions. They believe they are passionate about musicand try to convince themselves that they understand the true meaningbehind each song, although they are not quite experienced enough to have afull understanding or passion.


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Designing my Magazine

After deciding on the focus of the magazine and its target audience the nextthin I need to do was to come up with a name, there were several names Iconsidered, Minx, Bubblegum, Sugar Rush and Hear This. I felt that Minx andBubblegum were to childish for the readers as they wanted to seem matureand sophisticated and these didnt reflect this. Hear This I liked as girls talkto each other about everything, however I thought this was too adult for the

readers. Sugar Rush felt like the right choice as it suggests immaturity in animmature way.

Then there was the decision about the colour scheme for the magazine, againit needed to be girly with a touch of maturity and pink was just too childish forthe image I wanted the magazine to project. Purple gives a sense offemininity, while being a more sophisticated colour.

The font I chose to use consistently throughout the magazine is Courier as ithad a formal look to it but as the letters are rounded of it gives a slightlyinformal flare to it.


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What Media Institution might distribute Sugar Rush?

I believe that Bauer would be the best institution to distribute Sugar Rush asthey already distribute Q and Kerrang two other young/adult musicmagazines. If they were to publish my magazine as well they would be able tocover another segment of the market.Also with their experience in the music magazine industry they would knowthe best way to distribute my magazine.

Bauer is the largest privately owned publisher in Europe, publishing inGermany, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom.Over 26 million adults read a Bauer title.9 Bauer magazines are sold every second in the UK.
http://www.bauer.co.uk/


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Front Cover

I analysed several different magazine front covers (includingTop of the Pops, Bliss, Kerrang, Sugar) in order to generate

different ideas for my magazine.


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Front Cover

My final design for my front cover, turned out better than I thought it would. Iwanted to keep the front cover eye catching but simple. The background ofthe main image meant that I managed to do this as, if there was much moreon the front cover it would look to busy. #

The title of the magazine is in a different colour and font to everything else onthe page which means it stands out. The other articles are all different fonts, Idid this so that it would draw the readers eye to each one and the mainarticle being in a different colour and larger means the reader knows thebiggest article.

The two other images in the bottom right hand corner allow the reader toknow what else is going to be included in the issue.I wanted to have the price, barcode and date so that it did not interfere with

the front cover, so I put it in a box that allowed it to look good withoutdrawing much attention away from the rest of the magazine cover. I used thecolour purple so it was in keeping with the rest of the magazine.


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Contents Page

I again analysed several different magazine contents pages .


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Contents page

My final design for my contents page, was the first idea that I came up with,this was the only page that I had a clear vision of what I wanted for it to looklike.I wanted this page to be minimalistic, with a mature look to it, because even

if girls of this age wouldnt want the magazine to read as mature as thecontents page suggests it would, they like the idea that it could be.I used the font Courier for the whole page and the majority of the text ispurple which I felt it is important to keep the magazines signature colourvery much visible throughout the magazine.

The prominent image looks very classy, where as the inset image which has amore immature pose, this enables the reader to see that the magazine ismature with elements of immaturity that entice the readers.


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The separation between the articles makes the contents clear and easy toread, so the readers dont get bored trying to find the article they want toread.

With other magazines the Whos Who tends to appear on the contentspage and when designing this page it looked to be the right thing to beadding on the contents page.On every page of the magazine I thought the website address should be inthe bottom corner and I felt the contents page shouldnt be an exception.


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Double Page Spread

Analysis of other magazines double page spreads.


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Double Page Spread

My final design for my double page spread, was completely differently fromthe what I envisioned it being at the beginning of this project.When I started to design this I didnt know where to start, but as soon as theidea of the star shooting across the two pages was formed, everything fellinto place from there it just seem to come together.

I knew that I didnt want two pages of writing or even alot of text spread overtwo pages as I realised that the readers would not want to read that amountof text. The fact file was a way to give the readers the information they wouldwant to know about the artist clearly and quickly.As this is the main article for this issue it needed to stand out from the othersin the magazine this is why I used several different colours in order to keepthe readers attention, although I used different colours the fonts I kept fairly

similar so they didnt make the pages look overly busy.


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The pictures on the second page I placed them slightly slanted so thatthey didnt make the page look boring with lots of edges.

The title and sub-headings in the left hand corner were the last things Iadded, so that I could get the proportions right for the rest of the page.

I decided to use stars on this page, rather than hearts or anything else, asthe artist is a star and they have are more mature compared to heartsand I kept these to the colour of purple so the magazines signature iscontinually running throughout themagazine.


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Images Used


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How would I change my magazine and the preparation leading up to it?

If I had the chance to do this task again I would have spent more timeconcentrating on planning my pages especially my front cover as I felt itwasnt the best it could have been. I would have liked to have organized andstructured my progress in a more productive way.

If I had more time I would have liked to have gained more experience onPhotoshop in order to improve my skills, as I believe this would have enabledme to create a higher quality magazine. Photoshop has been the hardestthing for me, throughout this whole project.Overall I am pleased with the way the front cover, contents and double pagespread has turned out, as at the beginning of this task didnt think I would behappy or able to carry out the task with the results I managed to achieve.

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