EVALUATION

Following from my preliminary task;  for my main task I had to create the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine, using photographs only I had taken and text I had produced myself.

IN WHICH WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND COVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

During my planning and research I looked at various music magazines, particularly R&B for example 'Vibe', to gain an understanding of layout and the mise-en-scene of the pages.

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FRONT COVER

When I researched different music magazines of the same genre, I realised that the magazine title had to standout to attract attention off the shelves. I think that my magazine would immediately capture the attention of the audience because the name I had chosen, ‘BEAT’ is a clear short and memorable name. As my genre is R&B the name of the magazine had to illustrate this, as beat connotes rhythm and a relaxed attitude I thought that this would work well. I chose a strong red bold font with a glow so that it looked as if it stood off the page a bit.

I also recognized that the choice of model was very important as this would be the first thing that the audience would look at. My model is young to fit in with the target audience/ age range of the magazine (16-25’s). My model has a strong pose and stance, I wanted her to look dominant so I chose to have her hands on her hips. I wanted the models dress code to be fairly simple so that it blended with the rest of the magazine and didn’t clash or take attention away from the title. The red lips work well as they also tie in with the colour scheme of the magazine. The model is facing the audience with strong eye contact to entice the reader in and catch the audience’s attention, this is a convention.

I have named popular celebrities in the magazine in a separate font to the other words to make them stand out. This was to attract a certain type of audience to my magazine(R&B).

Teasing contents – “All the exclusives on Saint Claire and her new single ‘Time Will Tell”. I have advertised this on the front of my magazine as this celebrity is in my magazine. It is basically to just draw the reader in.

I advertised the website for ‘BEAT’ on the bottom left hand-side of the page as when I researched other existing magazines they sometimes did this also. It is just to add extra quality to the magazine. The price and barcode of the magazine is conventionally placed at the bottom let hand side of the page this is why I chose to place it there on my magazine. I didn’t choose to place the exact date when the magazine was issued as my magazine is only issued monthly so I simply used ‘March’ next to the price of the magazine, only in a small font as it is not classed as that important because the reader will look at this when purchasing the magazine. I used a skyline across the top of the magazine as this is a convention. “The UK’s Hottest Music Magazine”. This is an opinion that my magazine is the “hottest” however it is illustrated as if it is factual. This is to claim dominance over other existing music magazines and influences the buyer to choose it specifically over any other magazine.
Even though a splash/puff is a convention in music magazines I didn't want to use one on my front cover as I thought that sometimes this can dim the quality of the magazine or gave the magazine a slightly 'tacky' overview and I wanted my magazine to be of a high quality to attract a specific target audience.
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CONTENTS

My contents page is quite similar in terms of aesthetics to 'Vibe' magazine. A convention and usually featured in other music magazines is that there are many images illustrated on the contents page howver, as a running theme throughout my magazine I wanted it to look clear, simple and straight to the point. I think Vibe Magazine also gives off this quality. My magazine and Vibe both have quite a similar colour scheme for the contents page and also a 'features' and 'fashion' section. I have used a white title across the top of  the page as this conrasts with the background. The original image I used (shown below) was quite light around the edges however I used the 'burn' tool on Photoshop to darken the edges so that the text could be seen more clearly. 

Originally I placed the title 'BEAT' and 'CONTENTS' at the bottom left hand side of the page. However, I realised that this was not conventionally accurate and would have made it more difficult to place text around the image. I liked the red on the 'B' of the title however I than decided that it wasn't necessary to have the magazine's name on the contents page. After researching other existing magazines I realised that the layout of the title was also quite similar to Vibe Magzine's contents page and I wanted my magazine to be different so I changed the layout. I kept the white bar space for text down the right hand side of the page.

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DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

I wanted the layout of my magazine to look fairly simple; I think that my double page spread fits in well with the other pages and looks like it is from the same magazine. On the first page of the spread focuses on images rather than text. I have used two strong large images which both have no direct eye contact with the reader so that not too much attention is drawn away from the text and artist’s name. I have used a close up shot for the first image and changed the opacity on Photoshop so that the image blends into the background on the page so that there is room for writing over the top, i.e. the title. The artist is looking to the right in the image were the text is placed, I have done this to create direction in the page as the reader will look at the images first and then look towards the text on the second page. The second image is a bottom of the page medium close-up of the artist I have overlapped this with the first image and spread it across slightly so that it extends to the next page, I did this to create a link between the two pages. The second page focuses on text mainly however I also have another main image down the right hand side of the page. As this artist is new as I have stated in the text, I thought that it would be important to use as many photographs as possible so that she would stand out and be noticed easily by the reader.

This photograph of the artist shows almost her full body however she is framed in the page and her legs are slightly cut off, this is to illustrate that the text carries on to the next page.

Because the title of the page is the artist’s name and in such a large font it really stands out as soon as the page is turned. The font ‘Edwardian script’ is simple however attractive and is used on the cover of the magazine for other artists names, ‘Rihanna’ and ‘Beyoncé’.

When I researched other existing music magazines I noticed that at the beginning of an article or spread there would be nearly always a drop cap, so I decided to do this as it was a convention and then coloured the letter red as it would fit in with the colour scheme of my magazine. I used font size 10 for the double page spread as this is most music magazines use small fonts size 10/11 to fit more information into the magazine. The article itself is written in the same font as my front cover and contents page ‘Franklin Gothic’ but the medium size, this is a clear font and gives the magazine a continuous style.

My magazine has no by line or photo credit on the double page spread as this would be featured at the end of the article; however this is a convention in most magazines of my genre.  I have used a pull quote in my magazine as they are a convention and featured in most existing music magazines. I have used a quote from the artist which is featured in the article, ‘You only live once…’ I have used the same font as the headline and in red to fit in with the colour scheme of the magazine.

HOW DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

The genre of my magazine, R&B is stereotypically represented as an urban themed culture. This means that my magazine will attract this type of audience.

I think that my media product represents R&B as a modern ‘young’ culture. Because of the colour scheme including red I think that my magazine provokes emotions which contrast each other as such as love/romance, sex, fashion, anger, dominance and betrayal; these are all representations of R&B. Also because I use the colours black and white in my magazine to contrast, this could represent the coming together of black and white in social groups as R&B originally comes from ‘Rhythm and Blues’ which originated as a genre of popular African American music in the 1940’s. The term was used by recording companies to describe recordings predominantly marketed to urban African Americans, this style of music gradually became more and more popular.
Also the black and white contrast throughout the magazine may represent that everyone who reads this magazine doesn’t have to be the same or dress the same but are all similar as they are interested in the genre R&B. A relaxed attitude could be represented throughout the magazine as a theme because of the simplicity of the layout. Overall, I think that my media product represents the social group/ genre R&B in a care-free, relaxed attitude. The style of the text throughout my magazine and in the double page spread is fairly informal therefore would put the reader at ease so they feel like they can relate to the magazine.

WHICH MEDIA INSTITUTIONS MAY DISTRIBUTE MY MEDIA PRODUCT?

Existing music magazines:

VIBE Music Magazine


Frequency: Monthly


Publisher: Miller


Total Circulation: 817,825


COUNTRY: USA (N.Y.C)

Q Music Magazine


Frequency: Monthly


Publisher: Bauer Media Group


Total Circulation: 80,418


COUNTRY: UK

 

My magazine would be published by Bauer Media Group this is because, the well-known music magazine ‘Q’ have used them for a steady number of years, which illustrates their reliability. They are also one of the leading music magazine publishers in the world. Like my magazine Q magazine is also for the genre R&B and is published monthly.  I liked the idea of my magazine to be published by Vibe Magazine’s publishers as I took a lot of inspiration from this magazine whilst creating my media product. The title, style and layout of Vibe is similar to my magazine so this may have been a good choice however, Q magazine is English unlike the American publishers Miller. As my magazine is English I wouldn’t want it to be published in America, this may create some controversy for the R&B genre in music magazines and also a rivalry between the two magazines. However, I think choosing the English magazine publishers ‘Bauer Media’ is a good choice.

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR MY MEDIA PRODUCT?

The genre of my magazine is R&B; stereotypically this genre connotes a hip hop/urban culture. So my magazine needs to attract this specific audience.

I thought about the affordability of the magazine. When I researched existing music magazines I saw that popular magazines like ‘Vibe’ and ‘Q’ were price ranged between 4 and 5 pounds/dollars. I priced my magazine at £3.59 which may seem fairly expensive; however looking at other music magazines this is quite reasonable also my magazine is to be only issued monthly. This is to cover publishing costs and make a fair profit margin. This price range will attract a selective audience that are interested in the music genre R&B therefore they will be willing to pay this cost. The magazine’s target audience could be male or female and aimed at 18-25 year olds, but specifically people interested in this specific music genre.



WHAT FEAUTURES OF MY MAGAZINE ATTRACT/ADDRESS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?
On the front page of the magazine I have stated well known singer/songwriters which are recognised as R&B artists, this is so that the audience feel as though they can relate themselves to the magazine. The images in my magazine look strong and modern, I think they represent the genre R&B well.
As my target audience is 18-25’s I have used models around this age so that the magazine will appeal to this audience. Because I am aiming my magazine at a young audience, I have used a yound model for the cover and inside the magazine, I have also dressed the model fashionably so that the audience can relate to this and are more likely to buy my magazine.  Without addressing which type of audience will be reading my magazine, as a whole they would all be interested in R&B as this is the genre of my magazine, I think the title of my magazine ‘BEAT’ represents this genre well. The font and colour of the title may also represent this
genre to attract my audience as the red could connotate passion or power, as in most songs with the genre R&B the lyrics tend to represent or be based upon the emotions such as love, passion, anger and betrayel. The lyrics in R&B are usually quite powerful or meaningful, so the target audience will be attracted to my magazine because of the strong references and representations through colour and imagery.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

I created a Questionnaire for my magazine and gave it to 5 different people from different age ranges who I did not know.

Music Magazine QUESTIONNAIRE

YOU MUST ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS ON SCALE OF 1-10 (1 BEING VERY BAD AND 10 BEING VERY GOOD)

FRONT COVER

1.)      What do you think of the overall layout?

1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

2.)      What do you think of the colour scheme?

1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

3.)      What do you think of the text on the page? Does it interest you and make you want to carry on reading?

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4.)      What do you think to the title of the page?

1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

5.)      What do you think  to the photographs used on the page?

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                      CONTENTS PAGE

1.)      What do you think of the overall layout?

1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

2.)      What do you think of the colour scheme?

1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

3.)      What do you think of the text on the page? Does it interest you and make you want to carry on reading?

                      1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

4.)      What do you think to the title of the page?

1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

5.)      What do you think  to the photographs used on the page?
1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

1.)      What do you think of the overall layout?

1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

2.)      What do you think of the colour scheme?

1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

3.)      What do you think of the text on the page? Does it interest you and make you want to carry on reading?

                                    1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

4.)      What do you think to the title of the page?

1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

5.)      What do you think  to the photographs used on the page?
1     2      3      4      5      6      7      8       9      10

Conclusion of Questionnaire:

For each question I added up all of the scores together and devided them by 5 (as this is how many people took part in the questionnaire) ,to average the score.
After this I divised an average for each section to give an evaluation on what the public thought per page of my magazine.

For the Front Cover:
1.) Layout- 9
2.) Colour Scheme- 9
3.) Text- 8.2
4.) Title- 9.6
5.) Photographs-10

 Overall when the scores were added together the audience rated the Front cover of the magazine a 9/10.

For the Contents Page:
1.) Layout- 8
2.) Colour Scheme- 8.6
3.) Text-8
4.) Title- 8
5.) Photographs-8.6

Overall when the scores were added together the audience rated the Contents page of the magazine a 8/10

For the Double Page Spread:
1.) Layout- 9.6
2.) Colour Scheme- 8
3.) Text- 8
4.) Title- 7.6
5.) Photographs-10

Overall when the scores were added together the audience rated the Double page spread of the magazine a 8/10

I was pleased with the final results of the questionnaire, I think the audience feed back was positive and they all seemed to like the aesthetics of the magazine.
The front cover scored the highest out of all of the pages, however there was a continuous high score on the questionnaires from the photographs. The persons taking part also seemed to think that the colour scheme of the magazine was to a high standard.
The lowest scores were on the contents page and the title for the double page spread. I think this is because the contents page may have seemed a bit bland compared to the other pages of the magazine as it was mostly all black and white. Maybe I could have added more red text on this page.

WHAT HAVE I LEARN'T ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

LOOKING BACK AT MY PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO I FEEL I HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

At the beginning of the course we were asked to create a College Magazine as a preliminary task. I created this using Photoshop (an image manipulation program) as I also did during the main task. Looking back, I feel that the outcome of the main task looks far more professional and has a lot more qualities and conventions than the College magazine. For the main task I had researched a lot of existing music magazines to understand what was important and conventional for my music genre. When creating the preliminary task I hardly understood how to work Photoshop, I have learnt so much more creating the Music magazine.  Not only on Photoshop but my understanding of layout has also changed as I have researched a lot of other existing music magazines also. For my music magazine I have thought a lot about colour schemes and what would actually interest the public reading the magazine. I released that for the public to buy my magazine I had to make it stand out on the shelves of the supermarkets.

PRELIMINARY TASK

MAIN TASK

At the time I thought that the magazine title ‘wykeye’ for the College magazine was fairly clever and fitted in well on the page, after researching existing magazine’s and creating my own Music Magazine I now realise that this is not the case. The colour scheme for Beat is clearly red, black and white and this theme is continuous throughout the magazine.  The college magazine doesn’t seem to have a colour scheme at all! The cover looks bland and the writing is all different shapes and sizes and only written down one side of the page, I think it was a mistake doing this and not placing the models in the centre. With the music magazine, the models stance is eye-catching and the large red font ‘BEAT’ stands out. The layout looks accurate and even as the writing is split up down both sides of the model.

When I created the college magazine I had accidently changed the photograph to landscape on Photoshop, obviously magazines are not landscape therefore I had to change this and add 2 blocks above and below the photograph. This made the magazine look unprofessional and cheap. The barcode is far too small on the college magazine, whereas it is an average size on the music magazine. I used the magnetic tool for both magazines to cut out the models however you can see for the college magazine that this was not done correctly. The edges are not smooth and one of the models has part of her foot missing. I removed all uneven edges for the music magazine using the eraser tool.  All together the music magazine is definitely a huge improvement on the preliminary task which hardly uses any conventions.

I think that the positive aspects of my Music magazine are the quality of imagery/photographs and headings. However, if I were to re-do the magazine I think that I would spend more time on the text on the front cover and making it look more aesthetically pleasing, also I may have added more pictures on the contents page. I wanted my magazine to have its own style and I think I illustrated this well. The magazine itself has a theme of simplicity which continued throughout the magazine. Nothing on the pages was too cramped and everything was spaced out clearly.

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Front Cover

Draft of Front Cover

Planning and Development of Music Magazine

Prezzi.com

I went on prezzi.com and developed a page on Music Genre.

http://prezi.com/ugbyy5thgomr/music-genre/

Different Fonts and Titles which I may use for the Front cover and Contents page.

I would like a unique Title for my Front cover as my image for the cover is quite plain. I need a bold font so that it is easy to edit onto the front cover on photoshop.

I like shadow effects on Fonts and would like to keep the colour scheme to black and white as I might add a coloured background or coloured writing.

I need a strong font, probably in capitals and bold as this will stand out on the cover. I found all of these fonts on http://www.dafont.com/, however, I could create other fonts on photoshop, word, or publisher.

I like this font, as it looks strong and bold, probably easy to crop and cutout on photoshop also. However, the name 'Loud' doesn't seem to promote the idea or produce thoughts of R'n'b.

I chose this strong distressed font because it stood out to me and the letters are in capital bold, which I was looking for. However, it would be hard to cut the shapes of the letters out on photoshop because of the gaps and cracks in the letters. Also, this type of font would look better in a music magazine with the music genre being 'rock' or something similar.

This font is very basic but modern and aesthetically pleasing at the sane time. I ike the structure of the 'S'.
The font may be hard to cut out on photoshop and wouldnt be easily noticed on the front cover.

I like the structure of the 'L' on this font, it is quite glamorous, also in capital letters to stand out, but because the font isnt in bold, or highlighted it wouldnt be a strong enough title to use on the front cover.

I like the font of this as it stands out, also it would be easy to crop on photoshop. I also like how 'Beat' is adressed with 'The'.

I think this font would be a bit to glamorous for my magazine, I like the idea of the french writing however, it would have to be more music based.

I like the French style again, however it would not be a powerful or strong enough title. Also I would prefer capital letters.

I thought about using a celebrities name as the title of my magazine, and I wanted something which was different. However 'Mika' doesn't really reflect R'n'b strong enough. I also love how different this font is.

Add caption

I like the distressed pattern in this font. I also like how it is in capitals and bold so it would be easy to crop on photoshop. However, the gaps in the letters may create a problem.

I like the textured edges of this font and how its in bold however, the fuzzy parts on the letters again may make it harder to crop on photoshop.

I like this font and how plain it is, it would be easy to cut out on photoshop unlike some of the others. Also small enough to fit at the top of the page.

2nd Photographic Shoot

All of these Photographs have been taken under studio lighing and edited on photoshop. I have used the levels and curves to control light and darkness in the photos and contrasted the blacks with the models skin tone. As my music magazine genre is R'n'B I have dressed the model in plain fashionable clothing, I used celebrities influence for the costume and hair and make-up was changed to give a celebrity look, i.e Jessie J.
I prefer this shoot to the previous one because it has a plain background, which means it is much easier to work from on photoshop. The camera I photographed these images with was a Canon 1100D. I photographed them in Raw so the quality of the pixels were strong and they could be easily uploaded to photoshop.

I like the strong pose on this image, however I think too much of the body is cropped for the front cover.

This image is slighly to dark for the front cover but may come in useful for the double page spread.

I like how the model is looking directly at the camera on this image. I think this would be a strong image for the front cover.

I have cropped this photo so that the model is slightly off centre. This could leave more room for writing down the edge of the cover.

I love the radiance of the models skintone on this photo and the stance she is in. This could be my front cover image.

I am not as keen on this photo as the floor and border of the room is shown, however this could easily be changed by cropping out the bottom of the photo using photoshop.  I have also experimented with tones in the bckground by slighly changing the gradient colour to blue.

I have toned this picture so it is in black and white, removing all colour from the model. This may be more appropriate for contents page or the double page spread.



I tried to get the model to frame her face on this photograph. Just to experiment with different poses and stances.



I like the shadow effect created in each of the photographs because of the lighting used.

I asked the model to stand tall and look strong to reflect the vibrance and promote a dominance as it is for the front cover of the magazine. I have darkened and toned some of the photos to make the model stand out more. I like how the images are so plain so that there will be more room for writing and the title.