Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My product develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products in many ways for instance I researched many other music magazines preferably
R n B, which was my specific music genre. When doing my research I realised that many of the R n B magazines where quite colourful, bright, eye catching and they all had a specific colour scheme such as the ones below. I noticed that most of the magazines used the colour rule of three which made the magazines stand out more to me. With my magazine front cover, I decided to use green, yellow, and black with a hint of white, just like Blender magazine decided to use yellow, black, and blue with a hint of white. I decided to use theses colours because I felt that they worked well together and was not too plain and not too over the top at the same time.
My aim was to try and create my front cover similar to other media products so that the audience knows straight away that my magazine is an R n B magazine and there is no confusion with another genre. By doing this I had to pay close attention at certain aspects from a magazine such as the layout, organisation, contents, cover lines, and images.
The first stage of my magazine was to take a photo for my front cover. Whilst researching R n B magazines I realised that the images were quite sexy poses and the outfits were very minimal in some cases, and in others maybe topless men. Sweat dripping off Trey Songz body on Vibe magazine could connote many different ideas such as, he might have just gone jogging and began to sweat, but the water dripping all over his body signifies a sexual act in this context. Following the typical conventions of this genre I had to make sure that my photo would reach this expectation. First I had to find a model that I thought would best represent my theme. I decided whilst taking pictures for my front cover, that I should also take pictures at the same time for my contents page and double page spread to make it much easier and save time, so I decided to change the outfits around. Here are just some of the photos I took.
I found a website called http://www.dafont.com/ that had many different writing styles and fonts to choose from. Below is a print screen of what the web page looks like. I found this website very useful because it had a wide range of fonts to choose from. After experimenting with different fonts, I finally chose my font which is called Devil Breeze.
I chose this font because it reminded me of the Vibe magazine font which is also an R n B magazine, so I thought that the audience would be able to connect with the product more. I tried to design my product similar to other real music magazines by using similar language such as free downloads, tips, gossips and latest albums and reviews. I thought that if I used this type of language then I would be developing and challenging forms of conventions of real media products.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I tried to design my magazine accordingly to my specific social group. Due to the fact that my genre is R n B I attempted to relate my image on the front cover to fit in with the typical conventions of this genre, so I would say that my media product represents particular social groups by the use of images such as ‘sexy’; ‘attractive’ males or females. I would also say that language is very important when representing social groups, so I made sure that the language was easy to understand for everyone. My magazine represents particular social groups by the use of bright youthful colours on my front cover. Berger’s theory is ‘men look, women appear, and women watch themselves being looked at.’ If I had put an old woman on my front cover then I would be going against the typical conventions and it wouldn’t necessarily represent my particular social group.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The kind of media institution that I feel might distribute my magazine would have to be IPC media because it is a well known company which has a variety of different magazines and genres such as NME and Uncut. Even though R n B magazines are not their focus I do feel that my magazine would fit in with this institution and bring flavour and uniqueness to their company.
“ IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults – while our websites collectively reach over 14 million users every month”
Who would be the audience for your media product?
I would say that my audience would be aimed at anyone who loves the R n B music, but to be more specific I would say that my magazine is aimed at teenagers from 16 upwards to about 35. This is a huge age gap and was very difficult to think of a targeted audience because for example, most teenagers I know wouldn’t necessarily buy music magazines to find out the latest music, or the most popular due to the fact of technology we have today. They would most probably look on their hi- tech phones and on the internet on their computers rather than having a hard copy.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted and addressed my audience by using appropriate colours on my front cover such as, greens, yellows and black which are unisex colours i.e. Not too girly or too manly, so I think that they are suitable and the audience will feel more comfortable and at ease whilst reading it. I also learnt certain techniques to entice the audience such as an eye catching image on the front, interesting cover lines and creative fonts. I attracted my audience by taking a photo of my model on my front cover, so that males and females will like her, and maybe be able to relate to her, or her story which is shown in her interview. I feel I have addressed my audience by giving them certain information such as the web address www.angel.co.uk so that they can subscribe to Angel magazine or even find out more information about it. I also feel that I attracted my audience by adding teasers so the audience can look on that certain page for example gifts on page 45.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a lot about technologies from constructing my magazine. Using Indesign to create my product has helped me complete my magazine to the best of my ability. I have learnt so many techniques such as to create a new layer, to use the magic wand tool, feathering tool, magnetic tool and the polygonal tool. This is a print screen of how orgainsed my layers are which came in handy for me to change and develop certain aspects. As soon as I had finished amending certain areas I made sure that the layers were locked again, otherwise it would have become disorganised. I then made sure that each layer was named.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a great deal and have gained a substantial amount of information during the process. It has also helped me to develop and understand my mistakes. I have especially improved in Indesign. I would say that I have learnt to communicate with the audience to entice them, draw them in and to make them interested by using certain words and pictures.
Contents page
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For help when creating my final draft for my contents page I decided to look at Vibe magazines for inspiration and for me to develop my ideas from this source, so I bought and looked at many examples such as the ones below. I focused on the layout and positioning of the text and images and their purpose in relation to each other. I really liked the way that the images overlapped each other and looked neat at the same time as well as organized. I also liked the way that some of the images where bigger than others and had different effects on them. Another thing that I liked was that the writing was mostly on one side rather than all over the page and the colour scheme worked well with each other and was quite colourful for an R n B contents page.
My media product develops and challenges forms and conventions in many ways, for example, I decided that it was important that my colour background stood out and was colourful due to the fact that I never wanted it to be plain because it may have looked like a gospel magazine; not R n B which are usually very colourful and bright. I also wanted to develop the knowledge that I observed from the Vibe pictures, so I edited some of the pictures that I took for my contents page. The first four pictures are the original; the last four images are the final which I used for my contents page. Some of them are only slight arrangements and others I more or less kept the same.
I used Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 to help me create my photos for my contents page. I decided to add boarders around 3 of my photos that I took. Here are the outcomes.
I decided to add boarders around some of the pictures to make it stand out and lift up from the page. I challenged the layout of the vibe magazine contents page by adding fewer images whilst overlapping them. I designed my layout similar to Vibe contents by also adding most of the texts on the left hand side.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
When creating my contents page I designed it according to my particular social groups. Being that my genre is R n B, I tried to relate my pictures with the theme and fit into the typical conventions by adding males and females to balance out the sex so that it would relate to particular social groups. I decided to use these pictures that I took because I felt that they really described what R n B is about, for instance with Goldie’s picture I feel that it’s sexy without showing off anything just like Leona Lewis.
With R n B music it has a mixture of females and males who are really good artists so I decided to make my models look acceptable.
With my second model, I decided to dress him up looking stylish and like a rapper/singer so I added the glasses, expensive belt and the big jacket for him to look the part. I noticed that T.I. and my models picture are both pointing and are wearing sunglasses so this is where I got the inspiration from.
With my third model, I also got the inspiration from Vibe magazine with Drakes front cover image. I noticed that his clothes match, such as his hat and top, so I decided to do the same with my model and have his clothes matching also, to show that they have style as well as talent.
With my last model, I used this inspiration when taking my photo. I liked the way that the model was not facing the camera straight on, I found it effective because we are used to seeing shots that are taken straight on.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
As I said before the kind of media institution that I feel might distribute my magazine would have to be IPC media because the company deals with a large amount of magazines which has a broad variety to choose from such as NME and UNCUT.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Looking at my contents page and how I have constructed it, I would say that it is mostly aimed at teenagers (16+) due to the fact that they would mostly enjoy it, point being that they will like the gifts inside and the free posters to put on their walls and the free downloads they can put on their ipods or phones. As we know there’s a big move from hard copy to soft copy now meaning that the majority of society would rather not buy cd’s but to download songs from the internet instead, so in this case some people may not want to buy magazines to find out the latest songs or gossip, but instead could find all this information on the internet instead. On the other hand, as I’ve said before, it can be aimed at anyone who enjoys R n B music as well as reading the latest gossip on particular artists.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted and addressed my audience by making my contents page look colourful and welcoming by using unisex colours such as greens, yellows and blacks. I also attracted my audience by adding loads of FREE stuff for them to win and collect. When I read some of the events on the contents page in a Vibe magazine, the ideology that I received was that they were trying to draw you in with certain texts, but at the same time they don’t want to give too much away so they in a way tease you, so the audience would want to read on and find more information about the magazine.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a lot about technologies when constructing my project for example in Indesign I learnt how to create shapes that I needed for my contents page, I also learnt how to add boarders on my pictures and a boarder around my contents page. I also learnt how to research different fonts that I needed from a good website called dafont.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at my preliminary task I feel that I have really improved dramatically. This was my contents page for my school magazine and this is my contents page for my music magazine. As you can see the music magazine looks much more professional than the school magazine. I improved my contents page by the help of my school magazine and realized that I needed to add more images on the page and I needed it not to look like a book contents. My preliminary also helped me with the layout and positioning of the page. I also realized that I needed to have a colour scheme working, and not just blue because it looked boring and not interesting. I learnt that I needed to add information such as the web address, the page number, gifts in bold that were eye catching and noticeable and even a subscribe section at the bottom.
Double page spread
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products in a number of ways. When doing my research in double page spreads I have to say that I found it much harder to create and find specific media products that I found interesting for R n B. I used Google to help me with some of my research but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, so I decided to have a look at other students’ media products for help and inspiration that were in my position. I made sure that I looked at a variety of genres for even more ideas. Here are the ones I looked at. There were certain aspects of each double page spread that I liked, some better than others. I chose to look at this magazine in particular because it stood out to me because it looked simple but effective at the same time. The thing that caught my eye first was the bold writing in white that said ‘The Queen of UK R n B on finding her voice, and feeling exposed’. I decided to add ‘THE QUEEN OF UK R n B’ on my media product to remind the audience what my genre is.
This double page spread was created by a student. I liked the layout and how it was organized. Even though this genre is Bhangra, I was able to get some ideas. I particularly liked the ‘exclusive interview with’ I thought that it was eye catching and bold. I also liked the way that the name Asha stood out and lifted off the page.
I challenged forms and conventions by adding four pictures on a double page spread. Most double page spreads do not normally have that many images on 2 pages. They may just have a couple of pictures, such as one on each page or even one like this one.
This is a preview of my double page spread. As you can see I have added some of the features that I liked from other media products and have developed them in mine.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I feel that my media product shows a positive representation of women without having to show off too much and close to nudism to get a message across. I wanted to show in my pictures that you can still look sexy with casual clothes on, unlike some of the images shown below from Vibe magazine.
Vibe magazine features half naked artist posing in a provocative way. I personally think that Vibe magazines selling technique is to produce pictures like these to entice the readers to buy it. This is why I have created my magazine that challenges the conventions.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I have found a media institution that could distribute my magazine. I would definitely consider IPC Media to publish Angel magazine due to the fact that they are of the leading media institutions in the UK. IPC Media is a very well established company which is very good for advertisement and advertising my product.
IPC Southbank advertisement:
“The portfolio bristles with high quality imagery and high quality editorial – Fashion and Beauty trends and advice, home styling, celebrity, environment, education, business and real world news”
“Delivered to our readers through glossy magazines and exiting websites”
Here is a link to the website:
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Looking at the whole outcome of my magazine, I would say that Angel magazine is targeted at 16-20 year olds who are studying at sixth forms, colleges, and universities. I selected this target audience because students may be studying music as their subjects and might want to find out more information on R n B in particular, or they could go to the library in their free period and pick up a magazine. I chose this target audience because they seem to have a little more time on their hands and have their own individual time tables unlike secondary school.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I knew that I had to attract and address my audience so that I could keep them interested and entertained. My original double page spread looked like this at first, but then I realised that the blue was too bright and a little blinding to the eye; the pink is quite a feminine colour so the males may feel that my media product is not targeted at them and then may not want to purchase Angel magazine again.
This is when I decided to re-think my colour scheme and chose to add more unisex colours such as blacks yellows and greens.
I also realised I needed to address the audience by putting certain information on my product such as the page numbers. I wanted to make the pages numbers stand out, so I decided to add a text box across the page and colour it in green so that it added colour to the page. I then decided to make the page numbers white with a black outline around it so that that it was able to lift off of the green background.
I also gathered that it may have looked like a fashion magazine originally due to the pictures and the layout, so I tried to change this by writing The Queen of UK R n B so my audience would know automatically that it is a music magazine. I also decided to add ‘EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH’ to make it look less of a fashion magazine and more like an interview. I then decided to add a quote saying.
I decided to add the same quote that was on the front page to entice the readers to read on and find out more information. I also realised by doing this it looked less like a fashion magazine and most music magazines use quotes such as the ones below.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For my double page spread I used all the techniques that I learnt in Photoshop and in Indesign to construct my product. I particularly learnt how to create columns in this process. I also learnt the basic stuff like how to create a new page, to lock layers, to name layers, to add colour backgrounds, to change the font style, the move tool and to create a new swatch colour.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
For my preliminary task we never made a double page spread for our school magazine, so we never had as much experience on making the double page, so that meant I had to do loads of research. It was definitely harder to construct than the other media products that I had constructed. I feel I have learnt how to develop in my research on the internet especially because I have spent hours on different sites and programmes to help me. I have also learnt how to develop my skills in Photoshop and Indesign which were essential for me to use in my product.
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