EVALUATION QUESTION 7: LOOKING BACK AT THE PRELIMINARY TASK WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO A FULL PRODUCT?

At the beginning of the course, my preliminary task was too create a college magazine to help me progress to the full main task product. During this preliminary task I had too create a magazine Front cover and contents page just like my main task but as it was my first task and I haven’t done anything like this before. My magazine didn’t fit any criteria. But as I have done this, I will look back and I can see where I went wrong therefore it will help me with the main task to make my magazine target a more specific audience. I have done this with my main task by using certain fonts and certain layouts. I still followed some of the conventions of a magazine such as adding a masthead and coverlines but it seemed like my one fitted a poster criteria more than a magazine.

For the preliminary task, I used certain people too for my college magazine which could have went better therefore for my music magazine I used different people to give it a different look. This worked out very well as it seemed like it attracted the right audience as they can relate to the subjects in the images. Also helping me from the preliminary task as well was the use of Photoshop as not only it helped me create the college magazine but it also helped me create my music magazine as well. This helped me make it look more professional as I could manipulate images to my advantage. Unlike in my preliminary task, I was an amateur at using Photoshop so I could use the software to its potential.

For both preliminary and main task I had to use the Canon EOS 400D camera and use a photo-editing software to create the magazine. From prilimanary to main task I have improved a lot in technical and physical techniques eithier through using the ccamera or doing different things on Photoshop. I did still have trouble with the cameras Flash system which was new to me but after afew tries and flashes I got use to it and took really good pictures. I produce decent images for both college and music magazine.

Time wise, I believe that my organisation of time was OK but could have been more efficient. I tried to stick with deadlines but with a few issues of being behind a few weeks in lessons meant that I had to do extra work outside the lesson.  I tried to keep with the deadlines and get the work done with the high standard that I would be please with was really demanding at the time as I had other subjects to concentrate on at the same time. But the final outcome I was really please with. I still some how found time to get really good photos taken which would have made the difference in grades for the magazines.

The preliminary task really prepared me for the main task as I had to also create a front and contents page as well. But the main task needed me to create a double page spread and with the knowledge and skills I have developed from the preliminary task, I produce a really eye catching and professional double page spread which I was really please with it. As if you compared the two task with each other now, you will be able to see the improvements of the magazines.

During my preliminary task, the management of props and costume was really poor and from this mistake, I have planned out the props and costume for my main task much more professionally. I have used no props for my main image of the main task as it will allow attracting a wider audience where as if for example the model was holding a mic, it could have only targeted audiences who can sing. The costume was also planned out as through my audience research, I went for the look that my genre was into at the time.

Overall I was really please with what I came out with for my music magazine using faults from the preliminary task and developing and improving on them. Also using techniques and skills I have learnt from the preliminary task to help me with the main task. 

EVALUATION QUESTION 6: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

In this project I have learnt and experience masses of different types and forms of technology either through software or physically. In the time of my project, I have learnt how to use these technologies to create my coursework and use them successfully.

Firstly, through the process of creating the magazine I have learnt how to use the Canon EOS 400D. I also used it when I was doing my college magazine task but I didn’t use it to its full potential but in this project I hooked it up to a Bowens Gemini Esprit GM 500 Flash which allowed me to give the image a higher quality and make it look more professional. The flash was linked to the camera through Bowens Radio trigger which allowed me to free roam with the camera until I felt like I got the right position and let me take the picture.  There was a problem with having no tripod as it was very hard to achieve a steady image and focus. To get round this problem, I just rested my arm on a chair or a little stall which sorted the problem easily.

Most of my photos I have taken are all taken from the same location which is in a room with a black screen behind it to avoid having any unwanted scene in the background.  This allowed me to add or remove anything to the background easily using a software called Photoshop. This was another technology I used and I improved in a lot. Before Photoshop was a software which I use once in a while and if I did use it I was really limited in what to do. Now I am much more experience and can achieve a lot more with the software such as manipulating the image I used to get a certain effect. I used a mixed of Photoshop CS3 and CS5 as CS5 had some brushes that was much easier too which allowed me to make that brush effect I done on the double page. Another thing I used Photoshop for was turning Photoshop files into JPEG which was the file type you needed the format to be in order to post it on your blog. So I found Photoshop useful several ways to help me with my project.   

Other ways I used Photoshop is adding a Stroke effect to certain coverlines and text. I found this tool very useful as it helped the text/coverlines stand out. This helped me make particular coverlines stand out from other coverlines. This gave my magazine a professional look and it was really simple to use as well.

From the very beginning of the course, Blogger was introduced to me as the new place where all my work is going to go. This meant I had to get too use to it and make it decent too look at. This my first ever experience of Blogger which meant I had trouble at first but then after getting use too it, posting work on it started getting easier. From the experience of using Blogger, I have learnt it is a really good way of letting others view your work /product which is a really good way of promotion and could be class as marketing if you wanted it to be.

Other technologies I used were networking ones such as Facebook, WhatsApp and MSN which I have used for part of my research that I have included in my blog as evidence. Overall, I have experienced loads of different types of technologies in this project either hardware or software which has benefited me really well.

EVALUATION QUESTION 5: HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

How well your front cover is and how eye catching it is will determine whether your target audience will pick up your magazine or not. Therefore I spent longest on developing the front cover combining my own knowledge and advice from my audience research.  The first way I made it attract to my target audience is by choosing my model to have a similar age of 16 which gives the audience the chance to relate to her. Another advantage of the model I use was she is attractive which also helps in attracting the target audience.  I also made my model wear a costume that represented the HipHop/RnB genre which my target audience can relate to as well. As before I stated the costume she is wearing was inspired from a picture of Rihanna also wearing a baseball jacket.

 

Throughout the front page I kept to the HipHop/Rnb genre and I have done this by using certain fonts. Most of my coverlines are fonts that have been downloaded from dafont.com to suit the genre of music.  Also in my coverlines I used certain Artist which are well known for the genre of music and above that I also used new artist that are also doing well in the HipHop/RnB industry for the real music listeners. On the front cover, I have also included some of the most recent news of the HipHop/RnB sector as two very well known artist are having a little problem with each other and the real music listeners will know about this. So I included ‘DRAKE VS LUDACRIS: Bada-Boom – Ludas Come Back’ and this will attract the right audience as they would want to know whats going on.

Another way I attracted the target audience is I used a different font which I also downloaded from dafont.com for the main feature of the magazine too make it stand out from the other coverlines to show individuality and importance of the main feature. The size comparison is really noticeable as well as eye catching. This will let the reader know the importance of the main feature to the other coverlines. 

The colour scheme was another way I attracted the audience as to much bright colours could represent a dance magazine and too much dark colours could represent heavy metal. So I decided to use abit of both as I got the navy colour from the baseball jacket that the model was wearing and the bright pink was to make certain components stand out.  An example of this is the puff I used which was a competition to win Tinie Tempah tickets which would definitely draw in my target audience as Tinie Tempah is known to the HipHop/RnB genre.

Another way was the type of language I used and on the front cover I used formal language for the majority of the article so I can attract people outside the target group as well and not just young people.  Also on my contents page, I decided to calm it down a bit after I made my front cover a bit of an eye full so making the contents page organise will let the reader understand what is going on. I still made the main feature stand out to show its importance but still made the page easy to the eye.

For the double page I made it look unique compared to the front and contents page. I have done this by making the second half of the page have a grey background and the left half a dark background which is different to the other two pages. I also added brushes which I made on Photoshop onto the left page where the quote and image is to make it more eye catching and less plain. This will keep the reader interested and prevent them from getting board.

EVALUATION QUESTION 4: WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

UrbanSoul is targeting teenagers and young adults as HipHop/RnB is starting to widen the audience size as it is starting to become a universal thing as music artist are becoming known worldwide for their music. My product will mainly attract those people who live in the UK or America as the music industry is considered very big in theres to areas. Also most of the known artist live in these countries. 

I have decided to make my magazine target a younger audience as it includes artist who are not as known as other artist such as Tyga but the younger audience will still appreciate this artist as they are really good. These artist also start of as normal people such as the audience from nothing to everything and these stories will be read most by the younger generation.

In terms of ethnicity, HipHop/RnB music has become a really universal genre therefore you find a mixed variety of race listening to this music. The genre also allows people from different faith to listen to it as it is such a universal genre the music is about almost anything. It is also for both genders male and female. Refering back to my audience research, I made a mood board featuring a wide range of subjects and interest that my target audience are into.

EVALUATION QUESTION 3: WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

One of my tasks was the Publishing House case study which was part of my planning and researching stage of my project. In this task I have decided to do IPC Media (http://www.ipcmedia.com/ ) which is a consumer magazine and a digital publisher in UK as I think IPC will publish my magazine as it will be beneficial in many ways for the company and for my magazine as well. IPC Media  has not yet publish a magainze that concentrates on only the music genre of HipHop/RnB and only has one music related magazine which is NME. If IPC publishes this magazine not only will it widen the music audience but it will be universal like fashion where it’s a trend that the world follows. It will also be an advantage as other magazines that IPC publishes such as Nuts, TVTimes and other magazines will benefit as well as HipHop/RnB listeners are into their TV shows and gossip. 

Secondly, they will gain a new audience besides from their main which are men, upmarket woman and market woman which are mainly adults. This will bring in the younger generation which are more into the gossip and TV shows as they have more spare time. This will benefit a lot as they are entering into a mass audience which none of their other magazines have at the moment. As they are hitting a new and much wider audience it will gain much more interest for all their other magazine and from other sponsors as well will the mass audience my music magazine will bring. Which obviously will kick of a domino effect which will increase profits and make the company more known and worldwide as HipHop/RnB music is a universal thing.

Also, as the world is getting more advanced in technology, people are now subscribing more as I found out through my research. Therefore I will definitely encourage my audience to subscription to my magazine and this will be an advantage for the audience as well as they will no longer need to go to the store and buy the magazine every time it has a new issue but it will be delivered to your door step instead.

For those people who aren’t really up to date with the technology, I would distribute my magazine to WHSmith as it is one of the most known store and it is famous for selling items such as utilities, books and stationeries. Also HMV as well as it best known for its media link as it sells music, games, magazines and all sorts of entertainment. My magazine will benefit a lot here as you will find lots dedicated music listeners shopping here often. Also youth clubs as well as the younger generation will be more interested in my magazine as it is linked to HipHop/RnB.

EVALUATION QUESTION 2: HOW DOES YOUR MUSIC MAGAZINE REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

My music magazine is targeted at a teenage audience who are enthusiastic music listeners. The magazine is made for both sex who are into HipHop/RnB. The way I have represented my target audience is through the theme, layout and images I have used through the magazine. Firstly, the image of the subject used in the front cover represents a particular social group several ways.

The first way is through her costume, the costume she is wearing would link with most of the HipHop/RnB listeners as that’s a general stereotype of what they would wear. The costume the subject is wearing is a navy/white baseball jacket with the number 23 in white on it. This look represents most HipHop/RnB singers as I have used an image of Rihanna wearing a baseball jacket as Rihanna is a good example of an female artist from the HipHop/Rnb gerne. I have chosen to use her as an example as she is one of the most repected artist in the HipHop/RnB genre with people using her as role models. She is also good with her sense of fashion as she is always looking good and up to date with her style like the baseball jacket she was wearing.

The pose she’s doing goes well with the genre as RiHanna had this style of hair with one side of her head really short and leaving one side long as normal. This style of hair was mainly picked up from Rihanna when she had it with red hair as well. So having my subject with a short is really good as the trend is catching with a lot of other artist in the genre as well such as a well known one would be Cassie. Also my subject is pushing her hair up from the side which gives it a more interesting look and I common pose that artist and celebrities do when their posing which gives it a more eye catching look.  I felt the way the my subject on the front page represented the particular social group very well.

 The image I used of my subject for the double page spread is of her looking away of the camera and having a straight face. This is because the images I used of the main subject have eye contact and are smiling already so having to much repetition too the subject can be considered bad. Having too much repetition might bore the reader and make it too typical where as having a variety of images will give the magazine a different fill to it each time. Also the images I used for the double pages are of people of different race which will represent that the HipHop/RnB is a worldwide genre. The images also shows the prop they are using is linked to music with one holding headphones and the other one a mic. This is important as it shows the particular social group I am going for are people are really dedicated to their music and are real music listeners.

EVALUATION QUESTION 1: IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

To start of my project, one of my main task was to analyse an existing magazine to see how the conventions of a music magazine were presented on this cover through its denotations and connotations. This will show me how the magazine used the conventions of a music magazine to target particular audiences. Doing this will allow me too see how people followed the conventions of a music magazine. In my music magazine I used the conventions to make my music magazine attract audiences and make it more or less like a professional music magazine.

One of the most important conventions I use was the big masthead that was placed on top of the magazine as it emulates real magazine and follows the conventions of a music magazine. The purpose of doing this is to let it stand out from everything else that was on the magazine as it is the masthead. I did this by downloading a font from ‘dafont.com’. By doing this my magazine will seem less boring as you are not using fonts that are given too you already. This will reach out further to your target audience as it is eye-catching. Even though I have changed the font already I also did a bit of my own editing to the masthead for it to attract my target audience as much as possible. I have done this by adding white brushes as a background for the masthead which gives it an urban look and make the dark colours of the text stand out even more. Also I have replace to ‘O’ of ‘URBANSOUL’ with a speaker which is linked to the music magazine. In this masthead I used 2 types of font which were both downloaded of the website ‘dafont.org’. Except for the ‘R’ in the masthead, the rest of the text is the same font. Another convention I decided to use is placing the main image in front of the masthead which gave the main image a stand out effect almost like its coming out the magazine. This is really good as it will catch people’s eyes and makes it look very professional. The colour scheme I used for my masthead is mainly navy and blue as it matched with the costume she was wearing which gave the front page a colour scheme which I eye catching.

Another convention that is important for creating a music magazine is a selling line. This convention is used on almost every music magazine to promote it as much as possible. It is commonly a line that is used to persuade the audience to buy the magazine. A phrase to either sum up the magazine or something to draw in the audiences attention. A selling line is another way of showing off the magazine if it got a good review from something you can write it as a selling line so everyone would know This is another way of promoting your magazine is. My selling line was ‘The Exclusive & Best Of HipHop/RnB’, this not only let the audience knew what music genre the music was based on but it also mention how good he magazine was.

In my magazine I included a barcode and a dateline all compressed into a section. This is important as it is part of the convention of a music magazine to add these in. Not only that but I also added the website and price of the magazine there as well. This looked more like a professional as all the information about the magazine is positioned in one place. This makes it stand out on the self of the shop from all the other magazines as all the important detail you need to know about the magazine is placed in one position.

One of the most important conventions I used for the front page is coverlines. This plays a really big role in catching your audiences eyes as it will tell your audience what is eatured in the magazine. The positioning, layout and choice of words play a big role in making the coverlines actually catching the audiences eyes.  My coverlines used a variety of fonts which were downloaded of ‘dafont.com’. All the fonts I used went well with the genre of music I have chosen as it doesn’t look as formal and boring. I mainly based the coverline of the right third of the page so it didn’t overlap the main image as much. I mainly used 2 colours which was inspired from the masthead which went with the theme. The opposing colours made certain coverlines stick out which catches the audiences eye. The main coverline I used a pink, white and blue which goes very well as the blue and white was consistent throughout the front page and the pink just made it pop out which is really good to catch the readers’ eye. I also added a little tilting affect to part of the main masthead which gave it a more eye catching affect.

 

On my front page I also have included a puff which was also one of the conventions of a music magazine. This made a big difference as it is one of the first things the buyer would see as it is in bright pink and it’s a competition as well. Competition is known to draw the audience as they know they have a chance of winning something. The puff was designed myself using Photoshop.

On the front cover the colour scheme I used was inspired by the costume the subject was wearing. The subject was wearing a navy and white baseball jacket so it gave me the idea to use a blue, navy and white colour scheme for the masthead as using this colour scheme with give it almost like a theme for the front page. Using too much colours will give the reader to much colour to take in so keeping it simple is always the best. I also used a bright pink for some parts of the front page where I needed certain things to stick out. This is effective as I have used a bright neon colour which stands out the most and is different to the colour scheme which could be represented as different.

The most important convention of a music magazine is too use a medium close up of the subject as the dominant image.  I decided to use a medium close as it shows the main concentration of the magazine. I have used this type of image as I was inspired from a ‘T.I Vibe Magazine’ as it makes the subject stand out and almost has a coming out the magazine effect. The pose my subject was doing as well suits the music genre of HipHop/RnB as it is not formal at all. This was also inspired from the ‘T.I Vibe magazine’ as in that magazine TI was not posing formerly at all which gave it the ‘ghetto’ sense.

For my contents page I also followed the conventions for a contents page which will help me to see the difference from amateur to a professional magazine. One of the first things that I had to do was include other pictures which will have something to do with other contents featured in the magazine. This will avoid boredom from reading to many texts as images will make it more interesting too look at.  I also added an image of the main subject from the front cover but it has to be different slightly as repetition of the same image is not professional where as a picture of the same subject is good. This will represent continuity which is good for the magazine as the reader knows what is going on.

Also I have a print screen of the front page on the top right of the page to show readers to deal you can get when you subscribe to the magazine which is a good idea as you are persuading people to buy your magazine. I also have included a column on the left hand side where I have put what is featured in the magazine to keep the readers updated with what is going to be in the magazine. By arranging the features on the left it gives the contents page a simple look which is a convention that is used by a lot of music magazines as it is simple and effective too. I mainly followed most conventions including adding a editors note and other small stuff like adding a symbol which represents your masthead in a way. The colour scheme I used is always linked to the front cover as I used the same colour but just used it in a different way. I used a ‘MixMag contents page’ as an example of a professional.

For my double page spread I followed the conventions of a magazine but also added a few tweaks of my own to it in order to make it more eye catching to my target audiences. I used a similar colour scheme but with a few more added colours to suit the target audience. It also makes the double page spread seem more eye catching as well. I added a brush effect on top of the image of the main subject where the quote is. This made the double page spread look more eye catching to the eye which makes it less boring.  I have stuck with most of the conventions such as two columns of text and having a stand first. Once again I looked at professional double pages and tried to use certain conventions that made the difference of an amateur’s magazine and a professionals magazine.