My media product uses the typical conventions of a media product, in this case a music magazine. In my analysis of other music magazine front covers such as Hip-Hop weekly, I knew that the title block should stand out and be at the top of the page, that mode of address for the central image should be looking straight at the audience so that they feel a connection and that there should be puffs also on the front cover to give the reader more information about what’s in the issue and that makes them more likely to buy it. As you can see with my magazine front cover I have followed all of these conventions. Also I included a bar code and a price tag on the front cover. These are both essential on any media product such as a magazine so that the audience knows how much the magazine cost and shopkeepers can scan the bar code and sell the magazine.

When producing the contents page I also followed the typical music magazine conventions. For example, I separated the images and the text to make sure it is not too confusing for the audience to understand and so it is clearly distinguishable between the text and images. Next, I made sure that all pieces of content had corresponding page numbers while creating dedicated sections such as features so that the readers can easily find particular sections. There is quite a lot of text used on the contents page which may be seen as challenging typical conventions as many other magazines prefer to use a small amount of text compared to amount of images.

The feature article starts with a large background image of the artist who is interviewed and a small Introduction to the artist. I saturated the image to make it appear more black and white. I did this to make the artist appear more old-fashioned and contrast him to modern day musicians, to show he is different to them. The following three pages contain the interview along with more pictures of the artist. I also placed different quotes from the interview in various locations because I thought those quotes were important and best showed the artists personality. All pages of the article are numbered. So, overall my article does feature the typical conventions of a real media product.

The age group my media product represents are people aged between and near the ages of 16 to 26. I believe my magazine represents that age group positively. This is because the main artist on the front cover and who is the focus of my article falls in to the same category of my target audience. He is shown to be very successful, hardworking and have good morals. As he is representing the people of his age group who will read the magazine he is a positive representation of people of that age as it shows that they are not all lazy and negative to society as other media outlets like newspapers represent younger audiences, and that they can be successful and a positive influence to society.

My magazine also represents people who are in the rock culture as my magazine features articles, interview reviews and news of rock musicians. Again, I believe my magazine represents this sub- culture positively because many other rock magazines such as NME represents rock artists negatively as drug-takers and alcoholics. This makes everyone in the rock sub-culture look bad to the rest of society and rock may become less popular as people don’t want to be associated with these negative things. This would mean that less rock magazines like mine would be sold and would be unsuccessful as the audience and potential new customers would deteriorate. So, I have used my magazine to represent the sub-culture positively by including positive articles about successful rock artist and my main interview is with a young, successful rock artist who doesn’t drink or take drugs. This could in turn, increase my audience as more people would like the way my magazine represents rock artist and rock as a sub-culture.

As my magazine represents a main-stream genre, I would like a main stream publisher to distribute my magazine. The publisher I would like to distribute my magazine is IPC Media. This is my choice because they are a trusted publisher and they distribute many successful magazines, this means that if they distributed my magazine I believe there is a very good chance that it will be successful. IPC Media publish a variety of different magazines such as LOOK, Marie Claire and NME. NME is also a rock magazine and it is very successful and has a large audience. It also has a similar target audience of mostly males aged 16 to19 who like many different styles of rock music. This give’s me confidence as IPC Media have a lot of experience of selling magazines like mine.

Finally IPC MEDIA are well known for linking their magazine brands with other forms of media like; websites, radio stations and TV channels, again all of which would be beneficial to promoting my magazine. For example NME have their own website, online radio station, TV station and mobile phone ring tone service. So I would be extremely confident in IPC media if I wanted to branch out with my magazine if it is successful and also have a radio station etc. as IPC have history and experience of other magazines successfully enabling other forms of media.

The target audience for my magazine is young males aged 16 to 26. The reason why this is my target audience is because the Genre of music my magazine represents, rock, appeals more to males rather than females. I know this because most rock stars who feature on the front cover of magazines such as NME and Q are males so they would appeal more to other males as they feel more connected to them and they appeal to them more. Also, although some females do enjoy rock, they are in the minority so this is why I decided to aim my magazine more at males. The reason why my target audience is males of a young age is because I know through my research of other rock magazines and through my own experience that modern rock music only really appeals to younger people rather than people over the age of 26.

I also set out for my rock magazine to be inspirational to readers. My target audience is people of a young age who are thinking of careers and may want to make it in the music industry. As you can see in my first issue and I plan to do the same on future issues I have chosen some one of a young age who started at the bottom and is becoming successful so readers can aspire to be like him.

My magazine is aimed at people in the social grade D which is working class people living in cities such as London and Birmingham. This is because my magazine features music artists and role models that appeal more to people in a working class background as they are inspirational and these people could aspire to one day is like them and have a better, more successful life like their favourite musicians. The price of my magazine, £1.50, is an affordable price for many people in a working class background as I aim to release new issues every month. I am also releasing my magazines in cities because there is a very large populous of people, meaning my magazine would have a better chance to succeed as more people could buy it rather than launching it in less populated towns where rock music isn’t popular.

I tried to attract the audience through my front cover in different ways. Firstly the central image, as you can see there is a direct mode of address. I chose to do this on the front cover because there would be more of a connection between the artist and the reader and that makes it more likely they would relate to him more and in turn purchase the magazine. Moreover, he is holding out a guitar like he is handing it over to the reader. This will attract the audience as it catches their attention gives them the feeling he is inviting them to join him and read the magazine.

The title block is used also to attract the audience. I chose to use a simple colour scheme of black font on a white background. This is because I didn’t want to use too many colours and over-elaborate it to much so that the actual magazine title ‘LOUD’ is not clear for the reader to see. I chose the title ‘LOUD’ as people who like rock like loud music so it is easily associated with that style of music. It is also simple and to the point which through my research of other music magazines like NME and Q I know the audience prefers it. The effect of the title block where it looks like the letters have been smashed symbolises the rebellious nature of rock and makes the title block stand out and is unique to other magazine title blocks which are simple and don’t have any special effects. The colour scheme is also used to attract the audience. The colour scheme used is very simple as the only colours used are red white and black. Again, I didn’t want to use to many colours on the front cover as it would make it look too unprofessional and the audience may not want to buy the magazine as it would look poorly made and the over use of different colours could confuse the audience on the information given in the front cover.

I also used puffs on the front cover with just the artists name and a hint of a story behind them to entice the reader to find out more about the story by buying the magazine.

Finally, to address my audience I knew through my survey that the participants thought that the pricing for my magazine should be between £1-£2. So to appeal to, and address the audience needs I priced my magazine at £1.50 as this seemed like a fair price for a new magazine on the market.

During my time creating my music magazines I learned a great amount of new skills through different technologies. I was able to learn new skills used for capturing images, editing images and creating different thing needed when making a new music magazines. I was an overwhelming beginner with using these technologies at the start of this project and felt unconfident, now I am confident with these technologies and I believe I have learnt a lot of new skills and techniques.

Firstly, when I had to capture the images I was going to use for my magazine I had to think about many different aspects such as the shot type I needed to use, the lighting, setting costumes and props were all important factors I had to keep in mind when capturing my images. To manipulate and edit the photos I took I used the Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CS5 software. Whilst doing so I learned many new photo editing skills such as; removing red-eye, accurate cropping/scaling, spot healing, contrast balancing, and colour enhancement.

The design of the page layouts for all the different elements of my magazine including the front cover and so on of my magazine was done using software called Adobe Illustrator CS3 and CS5. This software was very important in the production of my magazine as it was simple to use and was essential in completing many important tasks such as text creation/shaping/colouring/positioning and image positioning to be carried out hassle free and very efficiently. I was able to play about with my layouts and make design choices very easily.

The production of the college magazine preliminary task gave me a taste in what skills would be needed for when I would have to create my music magazine. The design of my college magazine front cover was very poor and simplistic and the images I used were of a poor quality, especially in the editing of it. The preliminary task allowed me though to try out different camera angles and lighting effects which helped me decide what camera angles to use in my final music magazine. After taking some experimental images I had the opportunity to start using Photoshop and Illustrator to edit my images. This was the starting blocks to my development in using these different pieces of software's. My college magazine lacked obvious creativity and any professional qualities. My final magazine I believe does have creativity and has a sense of professional quality.

After a lot of practice and a lot of time spent using these technologies, my final music magazine was vastly more successful, had much more professional quality and creativity. I was able to use a new blend of colours and shapes, new effects on my images such as changing the contrast etc. and cropping my images successfully to make the images look more professional. I was now able to use my newly obtained knowledge of typical music magazine conventions with the layout of my music magazine pages and included things like; stand out headlines & anchorage text, attractive short puffs & a menu strip, a big bold central image and a section for magazine info and the bar code. All of these things helped me achieve a look of style and professionalism.

The contrast of professionalism between my two magazines is obvious. I am happy with the outcome of my final music publication and am very happy looking back at my preliminary task, how far I have come and how much I have learnt during my progression during the producing the full product.

Media studies evaluation 2

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Media studies evaluation 2

View more presentations from jamzie93.

Link to my survey

Take our Online'>http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=HLDKHM_97bec981">Online Survey

Feature article final Draft

This is the final draft of my feature article.

Feature article final Draft

 

This is the first page of my final draft feature article

Contents page Final draft

Front cover Final draft

Draft Article



Draft contents page



DRAFT FRONT COVER

This my draft front cover.

Evidence of editing in photoshop

Red eye removal

Step 1. This is the original image with obvious red eye.

Step 2. Next, I’ll zoom into the picture to see the eyes more clearly



Step 3. I will now select the red eye removal tool on the left hand side of the page.

Step 4. I have now clicked on both pupils with the red eye tool and you can now see her eyes have turned black.

Original images for music magazine

These are the original images I took for my magazine. I manage to achieve different camera angles including high angle and low angle shots, long, medium, and close up shots. I got my two models to do a variety of poses I thought were apropriate for a rock magazine. Costume was also important, and because my magazine is rock I got my models to wear a variety of clothes like leather jackets, hats, jeans, combat trousers and t-shirts. I chose to use different props such as a 'NO BALL GAMES' sign, a guitar, a microphone and earphones

evidence of sending link to students

This is evidence of the link I sent out to students of the ages of 16-19 of both sexes. I received 23 responses to my questionnaire in total.

College preliminary contents page

This is the prelimininary college contents page.

Contents page layout plan

This is the planned layout for my magazines contents page.

This is the layout for my magazines feature interview. I have chosen to use a number of images as my research and analysis has shown that many magazine readers do enjoy looking at images of musicians. I have tried to make the amount of text and images I used as equal as possible for my readers to enjoy both the text and images.

Front Cover layout Plan

This is my initial plan for the front cover of my music magazine.

Contents page analysis

NME CONTENTS PAGE

This magazine's contents page features a number of different images; these images each have a notable quote associated with them and some interesting information about the person or group. This gives the reader a little taste of what’s in this edition and makes them want to read the rest of the magazine.

The fact that images overshadow the text shows that this magazine is relying on imagery to entice the reader rather than the text, and it also shows that the editors believe that the readers prefer images rather than a large amount of text on the contents page. However, there is also quite a bit of descriptive text featured on the page considering that the contents is a single page, so overall I think there is a fair amount of text for the size of the page.

The main colours used are black and white. This symbolises the fact that this magazine is not over elaborate; it is simply a rock magazine which their target audience wants. The fonts used are mostly serif fonts (Times New Roman etc.). These fonts make the magazine seem more sophisticated and professional, making it appeal more to the reader.

The layout of this page intentionally puts more emphasis on the main features articles and interviews, by accompanying larger font with large image. The purpose of this is to help the audience know where to locate the main articles which they would want to read. All of the other content in the magazine is located an index with page numbers at the bottom of the page so that the audience know where to locate that content.

The contents of this page are separated by black lines. The purpose of this is to make it more organised and easier for the reader to distinguish between the different articles. The contents page also has a promotional offer in the bottom right corner of the page offering the audience a 36% saving on the full price of the magazine by giving NME £74.99 for the year. These promotional offers are important because it helps gain the magazine money and a larger audience. Also, the promotional offer is in a pink box which is unique on this page. This draws the reader’s eyes to it and makes it likely that they will read it.

The NME logo does not feature anywhere on the contents page suggesting that they are already a well-known brand that they don't need to show their logo again on the contents page.

Ideal reader profile

My ideal readers name is Justin Cole. He is an 18 year old male living in north London. He is currently doing his A levels and is studying music, photography and art. Justin's favourite hobbies are playing his guitar in his band, playing video games and listening to his favourite rock music. His mother is a receptionist in a doctor's surgery and his father is a builder. He also has an older sister, Rebbecca, who is 24 and shares her brothers taste for rock music but also likes R 'n' B. Justin does struggle with reading but is capable enough to read more easier texts. My magazine's interviews and articles will contain text which will be easy enough for Justin to read but still be enjoyable and captivating, making sure it is still of a high standard. I will make sure my magazine contains everything a rock music lover wants, like interviews with popular rock musicians and images that are interesting.

Title Blocks

TITLE BLOCK A

TITLE BLOCK B

TITLE BLOCK C
TITLE BLOCK D

TITLE BLOCK E

These are my title blocks, in which I believe are ideal for my magazine cover. I have created a poll for people to vote for which title block they believe are the best/ideal one for my magazine cover.

Magazine questionare analysis

Analysis of Questionnaire Results

I received 23 reply's from the questionnaire I produced which is a sufficient amount to make the final decisions for my rock magazine. The questionnaire was given to males and females of the age range 16-19 years old. In the first question I asked what priced did they believe to be a fair amount to pay for the magazine that will be released monthly. The majority (35%) believed the price should be between £1-£2 which is a fair amount for a new magazine on the market. 52% of people asked preferred the magazine title to be called LOUD, so I decided that is what I will call my magazine.

61% of people asked did say that they would rather read about established artists rather than up and coming artists, nevertheless my magazine will feature up and coming artists because it is not fully established enough to have interviews with well known artists and people will like to find out about exciting new artists. An overwhelming 77% would prefer to read interviews with music artists, so I will make sure the majority of my magazine will be interviews.

70% of people revealed that they regularly collect magazines. This is a very promising statistic because it shows me that if my magazine is popular with my target audience, there are still enough people who would be willing to regularly collect my magazine. The majority of people said they would prefer my magazine to have a red & black colour scheme, I agree that this would be appropriate for my rock magazine so I will use this.

Lastly, 78% of people said that they would like the magazine to offer the readers the chance to win competitions to meet bands and artists etc. So I will ensure that the magazines will be able to offer readers the chance to meet artists or bands that are featured in my magazine.