Evaluation
My media product closely relates to the forms and conventions
found in real media products firstly through the interpretation of
a music magazine. I analysed magazines similar to the style of
magazine that I wanted to represent and create so I looked at
magazines like NME as well as VIBE and a few more to inspire me
with my front cover design. The conventions within any music
magazine are a masthead, title, sub-heading or selection of other
text on the page, a large cover photo and a theme. I reflected this
in my magazine with all of the above and kept a theme of red,
black, grey and yellow as my recognisable magazine design colours.
This worked well with my product as it reflected the aims other
music magazines set out to achieve however I had to make sure the
colours I used were exactly the same across my magazine to gain a
professional outlook. I was pleased with how I planned my front
cover in relation to other music magazines however next time I will
focus more on the photo perhaps capturing the shadow of the
modelled artist so it doesn't look photoshopped and a bit
unrealistic in areas.
Evaluation
In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
How does your media product represent particular social
groups?
A social group is a collection of people who interact with each
other and share similarcharacteristics and a sense of unity. A
social category is a collection of people who do notinteract but
who share similar characteristics.
I took this into consideration when I created my product, I
wanted to interact with an audience who shared the same interests
in music who would then identify key features another would like
and recommend it. This method would result in a main social group
that interact with the media product who then pass off the product
to smaller social groups who will then do the same. My social group
was based on young people aged 16 to mid twenties. I found this a
relatively good category to work with as I could involve not only
the thoughts of my interviewed artist but what would appeal to the
younger eye. I found that a big photograph would attract attention,
a big title that would be significant to the genre but also
expressing the magazine's aims to show to the audience. With
artists like Rihanna and Florence + the Machine being Soul and Rn'B
artists, they as artists need to make themselves powerful in a
sense tostand out, this is seen by Rihanna's bold red hair,
something symbolic and memorable.
This influenced my colour scheme, red is associated with STOP or
LOOK so with such a colour bold on my magazine it will show to my
social group what is being advertised. As well, I included a
photograph of a female artist meaning my magazine is more aimed
towards the female gender. This to me looks effective as it shows
immediately who you're trying to interest, what would appeal to
them and how you can get them to read your magazine.
What kind of media institution might distribute your
product?
Bauer magazines features many types of genre magazines and a lot
of them are music based. I would expect this institution to
distribute my product as it fits into the music category offering
over 300 magazines in 15 different countries. With my magazine
focusing on the genre of Soul and Rn'B I would expect it to
categorise as artists within such as Usher or Rihanna are big
worldwide so if social groups see specific artists named on the
cover it will interact with them and be passed on to other social
groups with that interest in a particular artist(s).
Audience for your product?
Pretty much the same as social groups, a social group are people
who share interests who further share with others who like
something that is linked in some manner.
My product is relatively both male and female adapted through
the colours, despite me not showing this through the cover photo if
a specific artist attracts a member of a social group and they pick
up the magazine they won't hesitate the brand if the theme of the
front is Unisex and the colours are relatable. I'm focusing on the
younger audience as they have a lot more interaction with the music
genre of my magazine based on specific artist's ages so it's common
if someone of a similar age to the audience does something those
younger will be inspired. I chose such a young audience as of my
own age, it would've been challenging to create a magazine for an
elder categorised audience as many do not have this daily
interaction with Rn'B or Soul music wherever the younger groups
do.
This was especially supported by both my artist photographs as
my interviewed artist is 18 years old whereas the band range
between 18 and 21 so can appeal to those within the audience
criteria.
Attracting and addressing
COLOUR My theme of colour is red, black, grey and yellow. Why? I
chose these colours as they aren't too overpowering, with the red
having a pink touch to it and the yellow being quite glossy and
florescent it overlays well on the black and grey backgrounds being
much more eye catching and powerful. It was also a good way to show
to the audience what would interest them by using colour to
highlight areas of text that would appeal to those reading so the
pages of my magazine were a lot more audience interactive.
FONT I used fonts such as SoulMission, Blackleafs, AlphaSeven
and DIN Alternate on my front cover as well as on the rest of my
media product pages. What I found beneficial is the range of fonts
became a lot more interesting than the same font and although these
fonts are near similar to each other in some way it was effective
as it set out an expectation to the theme and made it obvious to
the audience what to look for. I managed to use them within my DPS
which was especially hard as it is a lot of block text but with
bold titles, drop caps and pull quotes. It engages what is
happening and some of the main features the reader should be
interested by when turning the page.
SIZE Font size is crucial in magazine work, the bigger the font
the more childish it becomes and the audience downsizes to those
much younger. I varied my fonts in titles from around a 14 to 28. I
made sure to limit this as in children's magazines they are less
factual and morecolour expressive and associated. Music magazines
are informative so you expect a lot of text, interviews and
professional photos so I recreated this within my work. This
benefited me allowing me to focus on specifically who my audience
are and what their interests are.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing your product?
From constructing my product I have learn that you need to have
everything drafted and know what you want everything to look like
before you start. Detail is crucial so you have to allow a lot of
time for each part of the product to get it to a professional
standard. I learnt that instead of relying on technology to reform
your work it's much easier to prepare and take a good photograph or
use a correct font as it does save a lot of time and it's easier to
get it right the first time than have to waste time repeating
processes you could've made a lot simpler earlier in
production.
When I conducted my music research and analysis I had to create
a blog to record all of my information and findings within. I used
Blogger as that is where I secured the rest of my product
research.
I used slideshare to present my powerpointsenabling my
coursework to be clearly seen,it was also a good way to show
developmentof technologies other than my editingprogrammes.
I used photoshop and indesign to create my front cover, contents
and double page spread. I used it on a Mac computer which allowed
me to clearly see my work in detail and it was made much simpler to
use on a bigger computer.
I used a memory stick to store my information and work documents
enablingme to access them quickly and so I could work from
home.
Additionally I used OneDrive to store my work and back it up
incase I lost any work files and also to access from home.
Progression
This is my preliminary task of the college magazine. I feel I
have really progressed since doing this task. This is because of
how quick I picked up using programmes like Indesign and Photoshop
when doing my work. Looking back on this I can see I chose very
feminine colours and was quite biased, despite this the shades of
pink I used in my front cover look very off and a bit grey making
my magazine look a bit dull. As for my contents page I feel it's
unnecessarily packed with information, it may be a college magazine
but there is so much going on for a contents page I feel I could've
just included one big image as opposed to two little ones which
don't do the contents page of the magazine any justice and it looks
a bit tacky and childish.
Music magazine
This is my final product of my music magazine; front cover,
contents and double page spread. Just at a first glance you can see
immediately the difference between the level of skill within the
programmes used. I really focused on a colour theme and who my
audience were to make my product relate well. I had a repeated
background of a cool grey which worked well as it wasnt
overpowering on my product and allowed me to combine other colours
with it for an initial theme. I used red, grey, black and yellow.
The yellow was quite limited as I needed certain areas on my
contents page to stand out and be bold but other than that I think
my scheme of colour worked really well and it meant that my product
wasnt overloaded with unnecessary text likewise on the contents
page similar to what youd find on an actual music magazine.
I think my skills increased quite rapidly as I drafted all of my
work beforehand making sure everything fitted on the page that I
wanted as well as the image on the front cover to be a good size
with good lighting and positioning. The thing that lacked in my
preliminary task was the fact I took some quick photos this meant
that they were rushed and the lighting was terrible to work with. I
learnt from this mistake and did a photoshoot with a proper camera
with good lighting allowing me to gain the professional look to my
magazine that I had aspired to create.
As for my contents page I used many smaller images from another
band I went to see rehearse however the studio wasnt too appealing
for photos so I was limited to what photos I could use in my
product. Following this I focused on the professional side to my
product allowing me to rework my theme of colour back into my
product, have images and a proper informative contents page. I
needed it to appeal to not only my specific social group but to
others so had to really think about what content I put in, what
artist names that I used and the type of music I used to set the
genre of my magazine off.
My double page spread required a lot of attention due to the
fact I needed to put a lot of critical information onto it to make
it look realistic and similar to other music magazines that had
interviewed artists and displayed it in such way in a magazine. I
firstly focused on my photograph, I wanted something big that would
cover a lot of space as my interview wasnt exceedingly long
compared to other interviews. I reworked a photo from the
photoshoot with one of my artists putting it into black and white
to fit the theme of my magazine. I then adjusted it to cover three
quarters of the page so it stood out well. Then I added in a pull
out quote; as my interview was quite short it meant to position it
within the text would make my work look a bit unrealistic and that
the plan of my work hadnt been referred to or thought out well.
I used a bold font for my main title so the audience know
exactly who the artist is and singled out key points with red text
too to add to this effect. When writing my interview I used this
same red font again to cover my questions that I had asked my
artist. This worked well as yet again it made my magazine look
professional and showed I had done a lot of magazine analysis
before creating my own product.
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master subtitle style
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text stylesSecond level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text stylesSecond level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master text stylesSecond level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master text stylesSecond level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master text stylesSecond level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text stylesSecond level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
