Evaluation – Music magazine

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

Masthead: The masthead is something that all magazines have and is something that stands out on the page and is always very noticeable. The masthead helps to clarify which make each magazine is. My masthead follows the colour schemes I have used in on my front cover which is popular feature of Music Magazines.

Sell line: The sell line takes up the top right side of the magazines front cover and I have done mine reasonably small. Magazines will normally have either a large section of the sell line, I chose to challenge this convention as it felt with the image I have chosen and edited, the sell line fits well with the design.

Puff: The puff is another stand out feature of the magazine front cover and will usually be showing some kind of give away or special offer. The puff I have done stands out due to the recognisable logo of apple however, it also fits in well with size and spacing. I’ve also tried to stick with the colour scheme I have used.

Pull quote: The pull quote I have gone for isn’t similar to the most magazines with the artists name in with largest writing on the page. I chose to integrate my quote with the numerous sell lines. I chose this because I felt big large writing and a quote would fit with everything else I have done on the front cover.

Front cover

Main image: This main image is quite a common image in terms of how magazines have the artist, with them facing straight on at the camera. I haven’t chose to use a prop as the images I had taken with props didn’t allow the layout I wanted for the front cover. I am pleased that the product is directly centre as it allowed me to fit all the sell lines, puff and barcode etc. all around it.

Banner: The banner is in a style which a lot of magazines use, towards the bottom so it is not taking away the attention from the main features of the magazine and the main artist, but it is still easily noticeable. I chose to locate my banner at the top of the page above the masthead, this is because I already had writing at the bottom of the page and I didn’t want to cramp the lower half of the front cover with all the features of a magazine.

Date line/Issue number/Price line/ barcode: I have separated my issue number from the price line and barcode, this again challenges conventions of a music magazine however I put the price next to the barcode as they are related. I put the issue number in the top left as it is not of great interest to the reader, it also subtly fills space making the page look complete. Front cover

Masthead: The masthead is something that all magazines have and is something that stands out on the page and is always very noticeable. I haven’t used the tile of the magazine in the contents as I felt it was unnecessary as the reader will already know what magazine they are reading.

Contents title: in order to make the reader aware that they are on the contents page I have used a ‘contents’ title. This reflects features of a music magazine.

Contents list: The contents list that I am doing is one that is similar to the one that NME use. The sections are in bold writing with the green, red and white theme which matches the ‘colour splash affect I have used on the main image.

Contents page

Images: the first image on this page is the main image. This image is of the artist who is featured in the magazine. This is something that magazines very often do and they will also link it to the front page of the magazine. This will be the main article so they make sure they audience is aware of that by making various pages have them as the main image. The other image I have used refers to an article featured in the magazine. These are also important, that is the reason they have images on the contents page, however they aren't as important. Therefore they do not have images too large or images that might take attention form the main image.

Doublepage spread

Pull quote: The pull quote is something that I have picked up on from most other magazines and is something that nearly always comes up on a featuring double page spread of an artist. To make mine stand out I have used a large section of the left side of the page to have my pull quote making it obvious to the reader as it is the purpose for the article below.

Secondary Image: The secondary image on the left hand page fills space and fits with the article about a YouTube artist. This is something that isn’t often seen on contents pages but I am glad I have included this image as I feel it works well with the page structure.

Heading and article: the heading is a large heading taking up the top left section of the page. This acts as a quick brief explanation of what it is this article is going to be about. The article is in side by side columns which all magazines do.

Main image: this takes up a full page and has only and a few extra featuring images

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Social groups

My genre is an acoustic genre that has a calm vibe unlike rock music, this music style is smooth and respected. My media production represents the younger generation that have more modern interests that aren’t fully focused on knowing every detail on the pop starts lives and what they had for tea last week. This is more involving the student interests and things that are relevant to there lifestyle. Over recent years the fan base for acoustic artist has increased massively as these artists are controlling the charts. However as these artists have got some quite crazy fans I have include some vivid colours and styles to stay relevant to the current status of the acoustic genre. As the genre is quite well respected and seen as calm and smooth, I used some images that weren’t too vivid and contrasting, the colours fit well together.

Here you can see two of the magazines that I have used as and indicator of what age boundaries I should be aiming at. Both of the magazines have three main colours for the house style. The one on the left is just orange, black and white with plain tops to make up the background for two thirds of the page. The CLASH magazine is also a three colour theme of yellow, white and black with a fading background behind the artist. Both of these have strong colours. Showing that it isn't made for younger children. This is something I have tried to show as well. Apart from the puff image, which is chose to be a little bit brighter and stand out, my front cover is also a three colour house style with a slightly faded background behind the artist. This is because I am aiming towards the same target audience.

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

Bauer are a famous distributor that currently distribute magazines such as kerrang and Q. I think these might be a good distributor as they don’t have an acoustic genre and it might be a new area of the market for them to access. This would be wise because acoustic artists such as passenger, ed sheeran, james bay and george ezra are taking the charts by storm and the genre is becoming an extremely popular style of music.

Blaze Publishing inc. Specialises in niche magazines, I think this would be a good distributor for my magazines as they already publish an acoustic magazine called ‘acoustic’. They have a niche market as acoustic is slightly verging over into the pop genre as its becoming more popular and taking it back to its roots of acoustic.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The desired audience for my magazine would be roughly 16-30 as the way I have structured all aspects of my magazine are reference to quite modern features within society such as YouTube and Twitter. Which also is the main fan base age rage for the most popular artists of my genre (acoustic). I included things in my audience profile that would be relevant to the type of person that would be interested in the ‘fusion’ magazine.

Michael loves to listen to music therefore he would probably be interested in winning iTunes vouchers.

One of molly’s favourite artists is George Ezra and I have included him into my contents page. This is a prime example of what may interest people like molly to buy the magazine.

To try and see what type of person, and their interests I created a survey that I put on survey monkey. I told people in my class to complete and also left it available online so I would get random responses. The findings I had got for the acoustic genre was around the 16-19 age, I do think that this data was polluted by the fact that most of my class and people who would use survey monkey would be that age. Despite this I used my findings and then started on my next area of discovering what age range would find the images most interesting. This was a vital part of my research as if not conducted then I wouldn’t be sure what image would be most suitable for the age range for the largest amount of viewers.

How did you attract/address your audience?

By using modern aspects that interest the targeted audience with reference to YouTube and Twitter which something the will be familiar with so the can have a connection to the inside articles unlike something they have no close relation to such as pop stars luxurious lives. , also the competitive price will appeal to the audience. Modern features they can relate too.

A way of attracting an audience would be to include something they can closely relate to, as the surveys revealed that the majority of my audience would be older teens to young adults I included things that stereotypically that age range commonly use and can relate to. I integrated YouTube into my double page spread as YouTube is very common for artists being discovered, Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube and is one of the most famous pop stars in the world. Therefore it would be a good way to merge an article in my double page spread to something that is very current. This makes the reader comfortable and intrigued therefore attracting them to the magazine. With the images, he images were the images I a had narrowed down to try use in my cover page, contents page and double page spread. There reason why I knew that they were the image I would be using is because during lesson I went around the college asking students and staff which images they preferred. Image one had a mixed base of support evenly distributed between the adults and the teenagers this was good because I knew that my audience wouldn’t completely be the 16-19 year olds my survey had discovered so this would attract a wider audience. Image two had approximately a 70(student)/30(adult) split, due to the survey I decided the image would be a good cover image because the majority of the support was from the largest audience I had found, also I had an idea for a cover story that would relate closely to the image which was something I had found was popular from previous surveys I had done on cover pages. Image three again an even split as both ages like the image so I knew this would help entertain all potential readers. Image four was fairly evenly spilt but was leaning more towards the younger age range. Despite it being favoured more by the students I felt that the way the image was taken would be perfect for a contents page because the faded black and the image with an open space beside would give me plenty of room to write without worry of not being able to see the writing because of the image behind, also it fitted similar conventions to existing music magazine contents page. Image five was liked by mainly the adults because of the calmness of the photo, I was unsure on whether to use this image as despite liking it I was sure on what part of the magazine it would be appropriate to put it in. Finally image six was again popular with both age groups so I knew it again would be a sensible idea to include this at some point in the magazine to help interest and entertain the audience.

Another way I attracted an audience was by ‘product dropping’. This means that certain people who have these headphones may relate to the magazine and the artist. Another way I attracted an audience was buy using artists in the contents which they might like therefore read certain articles.

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

The amount of images required to just to find that one photo is far more than I had expected. The testing for taking was I painstakingly long process, this is because there is a fine line between a photo looking unprofessional and professional. Everything should be taken into account when taking a photo, the background needs to be not to detailed as you want the focus to be purely on the characters in the image, also having a reasonably neutral background allows space for editing and writing space. The lighting needs to be correct as the lighting can cause too much irritation with the photo such as unintended lens flare, or the image isn’t bright enough as. As we couldn’t control the weather at times of taking photos we used a reflect, this was a professional method of getting more light onto the models. This method would be more appropriate as it looked more professional than using the flash feature on the cameras we used. In addition the I learnt the clothing was a vital component in taking the correct image. It would be un-realistic if the magazine was a rap genre and the main cover image was someone in a suit holding a guitar. So the props and clothing were crucial in the process.

I had become very familiar with this image editing software developed by Adobe. Photoshop is considered one of the leaders in photo editing software. The software allows users to manipulate, crop, resize, and correct colour on digital photos. The software is particularly popular amongst professional photographers and graphic designers. This is why to create a realistic magazine you needed to be able to manipulate and edit images so the support your magazine. Over the process of creating the magazine I had mastered some features which meant I could integrate these features into my magazine. Due to the research I had previously done on existing magazines I had discovered a recurring convention of images was an overlay. This is where the image is slightly covering some writing or something on the page. This makes the image or writing stand out from the page giving a 3D effect to the magazine to differentiate the writing from the images

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

• I found out over the course of the task that the planning into creating magazine was a lot more in depth than I had initially thought.

• How to use professional camera• A developed understanding on how to use adobe Photoshop• Learnt how to blog- update post, create pages, convert media

files and imbed images.• Learnt the correct way in which to take a photo under certain

lighting and camera modes.• Learnt how to structure a cover page of a music magazine • Creating and having discussions with people whilst taking

advice .• Understanding the importance of planning

• PHOTOGRAPHS - Because it was easy to learn how to use all the different functions on the camera I think that the photos on both my preliminary and main product were of a good quality, and in my preliminary shoot I managed to get clear and focused centred close up shot, despite this I am pleased that I have progressed because if I hadn’t learnt how to use the new features on the camera I wouldn’t have tried to take certain photos which I have used in my magazine.

• LAYOUT - I think there is an enormous difference between the layouts of my preliminary and main product, showing how much progression I had made. Layout was something I found difficult to grasp as with magazines you can have a brilliant photo and a rubbish layout making the overall look of the magazine very tacky and unprofessional. Therefore I chose to do large amounts of research into the layout to make sure my final product wasn’t poorly constructed.

• EDITING – Editing was something I was very hesitant to do however, after I had watched some YouTube tutorials on tips and tricks for Photoshop it was the most enjoyable and rewarding part of the production for me. Especially the contents page, the ‘colour splash’ effect I have put onto the image makes it unique and makes the artist really stand out. Other edits I have done are on the front cover, the background was originally white, I wanted something more interesting and thanks to my progression with editing images I have managed to change to colour without creating a badly photoshoped image.

• ADDRESSING THE AUDIENCE- In order to address the audience I relied heavily on the image, this was something I spent a lot more time and effort working on as through questioners and feedback, the reader bases there decision on the photo and if my photo wasn’t something the reader thought was professional than it would distract their attention. Secondly what the magazine included therefore the sell lines needed to look professional and contain relevant content. Both the image and the sell lines have changed drastically from my practice magazines to me final product, this was down to research and trial and error with images and layout