Evaluation: Question 7

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

 

On the left is my premilinary task, which was to create a school magazine. On the right is my music magazine.

 

What I have learnt from doing the preliminary task...

I think that my photography skills have improved. Before I used a background that had a tree in it but I know now that it is more professional to use a white background, it also makes the text on the page easier to read.

I had more confidence with my second model and I could tell her exactly how I wanted her to be positioned which made the outcome how I wanted it to be. I also learnt how to give a direct mode of address when photographing my model, in the first task the models were sideways on to the camera, but the second time the model is facing straight on to the camera.

The layout of the second magazine is much better than the first.

In the school magazine the articles are jumbled on the left hand side and there is only one article on the right hand side. I think that the music magazine is better because there two articles on each side which makes the whole page look more even.

I have learnt to use other features on a magazine such as anchorage text, a skyline, a puff and the issue number and date.

 

On the left is my school magazine and on the right is my music magazine.

 

What I have learnt from the preliminary task.

I have learnt that it is important to have the page number at the bottom of the page, this makes sure the reader can identify the pages and their articles.

It is important to have the magazines name on the page somewhere so that the audience can identify it.

I now know that having all of the articles on the contents page looks too jumbled and unprofessional so in the music magazine I chose the most interseting ones. I also had a features box which shows everything that is on the cover with a brief description of it.

In my second task I had images that related to articles in the magazine and I numbered them so that readers could go to those pages with ease and not have to read all the articles on the contents page.

In my music magazine I included a subsription box which I used to attract cusomers and further promote my magazine.

I also learnt to stick to three or four colours within the magazine to keep continuity within it.

On my second task I used fonts that were very clear to read which is one of the most important things to remember and what I did not do in my first task.

Evaluation: Question 6

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

Evaluation:Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Media audience attraction from MarieDunkin

Evaluation: Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Taking inspiration from Q Magazine I decided that I wanted my target audience to have a broad interest in music, they are interested in new releases, upcoming artists and interviews with their favourite artists.
I wanted however, to have a rocky edge to my magazine.
My target audience ages 16+ but mainly in their 20's and it is predominantly male.
 
A typical reader of my magazine would be interested in popular rock bands such as Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Killers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys e.t.c.
They would wear skinny jeans and band tees with a leather jacket, their look would be very low maintenance as if they haven't even tried.
Their hair would be messy and the females would be quite fond of eyeliner.
They enjoy going out with friends, socialising and going out to concerts and discovering new music.

Evaluation: Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?

Bauer Media Group
Bauer Media Group is a multinational media company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany which operates in 15 countries worldwide. Since the company was founded in 1875, it has been privately owned and under management by the Bauer family. It was formerly called Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG, abbreviated to HBV and usually shortened to H. Bauer.

I think that this company would be good to distribute to my music magazine because they own over eighty media brands which cover a broad spectrum of interests, such as heat, GRAZIA, closer, FHM, MATCH and 4music.

They also cover music magazines with similar genres to mine including Q Magazine and Kerrang!

Bauer Media Group are hugely successful with a worldwide magazine circulation amounts to 38 million magazines per week.

Evaluation: Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social
groups?

To the left is an image of Florence Welch on the cover of Q Magazine and to the right is an image that I took of my model.

Florence Welch is a popular music artist (Florence and The Machine) who doesn't like to fit in and be like usual musical acts, she stands out from the crowd.
I feel that both of these acts have similar personalities, I wanted my cover artist to be an indipendant woman who does not like to follow rules and expectations by society. These are all characteristics that Florence also posesses.

I think that these images are similar are portray their personalities.
They are both looking straight towards the camera giving the audience a direct mode of address and showing their confidence.
Both images are close-ups, which make them the centre of the page and the audience cannot focus on anything else.
The cameras are also at slight low angles, making the artists look like they are important and more superior, giving them authority.
In both of the images the musician has their hands on their face, which gives the image a unique twist, showing that the artist themselves are strange and different.
Both of the images also have the artists with blue make-up or blue nails, which is a predominantly male colour, this conotes that the women do not follow rules and norms, they want to show that they do not need to wear stereotypically "girl" colours such as pink. They are in charge and are rebelious.

Evaluation: Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?

Title:

When creating my title I took into consideration: The colour scheme of my magaazine, the genre, magazine conventions and the customers needs.
I had previously created a questionnaire with one of the questions asking my audience what colour scheme they think would best represent my magazine and their response was red, white and black. Taking this into consideration I decided to have the masthead red as I wanted the title to be the most eye catching piece of text on the page. It would have been less effective if the title was black because then the red text would dominate the page and strip away the boldness of the title.
The title of the magazine is 'Shout!' which connotes loudness and attitude which is what I wanted to portray, the exclamation mark in the title also empahasised this. The genre of my magazine is popular rock and I feel that noise is a huge part of it, which is where the name stemed from.
I placed my masthead at the very top of the page and slightly to the left which follows the usual conventions of a magazine cover. It also means that this is the first thing seen on the cover, which is good as you want this to be the most memorable thing.
The title being placed right at the top is also more convenient for the customers as they look at other magazines and it is in the same place they know where exactly to find it. The font of it is very bold and spaced out which I chose because I wanted to make sure the audience could see it clearly and not struggle to know what the title was. I also think that this boldness matches the name, because when you shout your words are pronounced more clearly so I wanted to duplicate the exact effect that this had. Although I wanted it to be clear I still wanted it to have some edge which i think it has.
Usually the issue number and date of the magazine is placed at the bottom of the page along with the barcode, however I decided to go against this convention and place it at the top left just underneath the title. I did this because it looked too jumbled at the bottom of the page and there was a white place where it would go perfectly on top of. I also think placing it at the top of the page is more beneficial for customer as they are able to know if they have got the correct issue and if they have missed any.

Models:

 

 

I chose three models to appear in my magazine.
The first was my friend Molly who was the cover artist for my music magazine. Although she does not fit the stereotype of a typical rock artist, I gave her a makeover so I could give her the image that I pictured my cover artist to have.
The second was my brother, as he is a DJ himself I felt that he would be a good model as he is already familiar with the music world.
The third model was my dad, although he does not look like a music artist I felt that he would be good to feature as a band manager on the cover and contents page.

Costumes:

I wanted to give my images a range of mese-en-scene so that is why I chose three models and different oufits (costumes) to go with them.
My cover artist had a few oufit changes but I chose to style her in casual clothing that a normal artist would wear as I wanted to the audience to be able to relate to her and see certain similarities within them. The colours used within her oufits were mainly grey and black with a leather jacket in a few shots and lots of jewellery worn, this follows usual trends in what this type of artist would wear. I also changed her hair and makeup in different photos so that the photos didn't look similar and I could have a range of shots to choose from.
I styled 'Damon' the other musical act in a t-shirt and headphones around his neck, which shows his love and passion for music. I didn't pay as much attention to the mese-en-scene in this photoshoot as I knew that only one image would be included on the contents page.
I wanted the band manager to look smart and professional which is why I styled him in a white shirt and suit and in some images he was wearing glasses. I looked at photographs of other band managers for inspiration.

Written Content:

The writing on the cover is very straight to the point, using colloquial language, this engages the audience more as they do not want to struggle when reading what articles are inside, they just want to be quickly informed otherwise they will not bother to read it.
The writing on the contents page was also fairly informal as I wanted all of the detail to be within the actual articles.
For the double page spread I chose to have an interview with the cover artist as I feel that this is one of the most interesting types of articles for fans to read as they can get to know the artist and see what they are like as a person. Within the article I used certain quotes that I thought would engage the audience when they are seperate becuase it shows a statement and gives the audience a rough idea of what the interview is about.

Layout:

I chose to stick to as many magazine conventions as I could with the cover because I wanted to make it look as proffessional as possible:
The masthead is at the top of the page.
The image of the cover artist takes up the whole of the background.
The articles are either side of the model.
The anchorage text is near the middle to the bottom of the page.
The barcode is at the bottom of the page.
I have included a puff and a skyline.
I did however use more than one image on the cover which I found wasn't done very often which challenged a usual convention of a real media product.


I followed usual conventions of real music magazines when creating my contents page:
The title,'contents', was kept at the top of the page.
The features were kept sepearte to the normal contents.
A few images were used, with numbers corresponding to the page number it's on.
A subscription box was used at the bottom to further promote the magazine.
The page number was included at the bottom along with the title of the magazine.
I did however use the letter 'S' instead of writing 'Shout!' which rebels against usal magazine conventions.


The double page spread followed usual conventions:
The masthead was placed at the top along with the artists name.
A brief description of the article/interview was underneath the title.
One image was placed on the right, covering the whole entire page.
The interview was on the entire left page.
The artists album was included after the interview to promote her music.
Certain quotes were highlighted to draw attention to specific statements.
The page numbers were written at the bottom along with the magazine name.

Extras:

I decided to give my cover artist an album cover.

Her story is that she has been out of the music business for a year and she is back, in the interview she talks about returning with new music so I thought that I would include a picture of the album cover at the bottom of the page to promote her music to her fans.

Finished Product...

 

 

Creating My Double Page Spread...

I have followed the basic template but have added my main image of my cover star, a title, page numbers and the artists upcoming album.

 

I have added little bits of text including the artists name, a short introduction to the interview and information on the sale of the album.

I also had to tweak the title as some of it it was falling into the gutter in the middle of the page.

 

Here I have inserted the interview with the cover star.

 

I chose certain quotations that I liked and enlarged them and added speech marks to seperate them from the rest of the text. This draws the readers attention to them and gives them an insight to the interview and the artist as a person.

 

This is a print preview of my double page spread.

 

Finished Double Page Spread...

I am very pleased with th outcome of this as I feel that it looks quite professional. I like that image that I used because it is a close-up and it suits the title, 'Up close and peronal', I wanted it to imply a gripping interview but also it is humerous with the image.

I also like how the quotations stand out because it intrigues the audience.

Album Cover..

This is my artists album cover which I created on pic monkey.

I added an inner shadow around the page to emphasise the album name. I also added the text down the right hand side.

I chose the name 'No Light' because I felt that it went with the image. The musician is sitting in front of lots of candles so 'No Light' seemed very fitting.

Mock Double Page Spread...

This is the template that I will be using to create my double page spread.

Creating My Contents Page...

 I have used the template to create my contents page, I have added a background colour and the letter 'S'. I have also made the title white so that it is visible to read.

 

 I have added the images along with the page number of their article.

 

 

I have included the subcription box and the articles. I decided to move the features to the top because it made more sense to read. 

 

This is the print preview of my contents page.

 

This was my original contents page, but the next image is the actual version.

All I changed was the background colour slightly as I wanted to keep continuity within the magazine, as the new contents page matches my double page spread.

This is my finished contents page...

 

 

 

 

Mock Contents Page...

This is the template that I will follow when creating my contents page.

Creating My Magazine Cover...

This is when I have added the background image to the cover and have made the masthead red as this is part of my colour scheme but also so it can be read.

 

This is where I inserted my masthead in the font that I have chosen.

I have also added in an image and text to go along with it.

 

This print screen shows that I have added skyline text, a puff, anchorage text and sell lines.

 

I decided that I wanted to make the puff a slightly darker grey as this stands out more, which is important because it is an offer so needs to catch people's eye.

I have added more sell lines and the date of this week's issue.

I also decided that I wanted the anchorage text to be more in the middle, as this is the most important feature on the page. Because of this movement I needed to move the image more to the bottom left corner and make slight size adjustements to the text next to it.

 

This is the print preview of my magazine cover.

This is my finished magazine cover...

Flatplan...

A flatplan helps the magazine editors organise their articles and decide where they want to place each article.

I found that making this flatplan has helped me a lot to create my magazine, especially my contents page as I knew what articles to include and on what page to put them on.

Choosing My (Masthead) Font...

I had previously asked in my questionnaire what font to use and 'Broadway' was the most popular.

However, I decided that I did not like this font for my magazine so I searched for more fonts on http://www.fontspace.com/ and picked four that I liked.

I asked ten people which font they liked the best and here are the results:

Font 1: 6 votes

Font 2: 3 votes

Font 3: 1 vote

Font 4: 0 votes 

Therefore I will be using font 1 as this is the most popular with my audience.

Mock Cover...

This is the template that I will follow to create my magazine cover.

Photo To Include Of Upcoming Artist...

*This artist will be included in the contents page*
 

 I liked this photo as my model is wearing headphones so it shows that he has a great interest in music, his tattoo gives the photo a rock edge and he is looking away from the camera so it gives his character a sense of mystery.

Possible Photos Of Band Manager...

I will include both of these images in my magazine. The top one will be for the cover and the second will be for the contents page.

I like both of these images as he has a serious face in both of them, suggesting his is very professional. In the top image he has his arms crossed showing that he has attitude and he is a very serious person.