Evaluation

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

I believe my front page challenges what is commonly seen on a magazine. I have made my product this way intentionally to allow it to stand out in an otherwise mundanely typical market. The differences which can be seen on my front cover is the use of mainly black and white with only a small amount of colour. This automatically makes my magazine stand out when compared with others of its genre. Another aspect is the way the image has been edited, I have intentionally made the picture harsh and sharp as opposed to the way in which other magazines make images in black and white look soft and comfortable. In doing this I feel I have again brought a new atmosphere to the magazine which is rare and mostly unvisited by others. My contents page fits in more with what is expected from this sort of magazine due to its very casual feel which can be found in many other music magazines. It is in this way my magazine uses real media product's conventions.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I believe my magazine is a similar style to others such as Vibe and Blender which are mainly Rap and R&B oriented, due to this I feel mine reaches out to the same or similar social groups and has the same audience as these highly popular magazines. My product is aimed at many social groups as although it does have this main audience others could enjoy the magazine due to its mature and professional feel which is perhaps not always accomplished in 'Rap' style magazines. My magazine adresses these social groups in the selection of models, who are of the age group and style of those who would be reading the magazine, allowing them to relate to the magazine. The golden theme also relates to the genre of music as it was inspired by Kanye West and Jay-Z's album 'Watch The Throne' which presents a fully golden album cover without anything else. The use of gold also refers to the unattainable feel most models have in magazines which are made for this age group.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

I feel my magazine appeals to a high end market as it is different and edgy such as magazines like ID. It does not fit in with what is commonly sold at corner shops and newsagents and instead is the sort of magazine you would rarely find in these places. I feel my magazine would fit well with specialist stores such as music shops and book stores. Putting the magazine in a music shop gives a highly professional feel to the magazine, again enforcing the way in which the magazine is different to others of the genre yet still appeals to the right audience, even if they have to go to a bit more of an effort to find the magazine. This also adds a more rare and exciting aspect to the magazine. With so much focus on social networking and the Internet in this digital age I feel it would also be a smart move to also create an online magazine subscription option. This allows the magazine to still feel original and special yet allows a different experience for the readers. Along with this digital idea, creating a version for smart phones and tablet reading would also ensure my magazine is fresh and up to date.

4+5. Who would be the audience of your media product? How are they attracted?

As I mentioned before my target audience would be those interested in listening to and finding out about 'Rap' and 'R&B' styles of music. A majority of the artists mentioned on the front cover and contents page of the magazine are of this style, for example Odd Future are a group mainly known by this audience and have not yet become so popular as to become mainstream. Other artists mentioned such as Jay-Z, Beyonce and Kanye West are much more well known and loved by a much wider audience as well as being constantly in the media therefore attracting not only those interested in the genre but also interested in these singers/ rappers themselves. My use of certain colours and fonts has also helped towards aiming my magazine at my target audience's age range. I feel the mature fonts and basic colours appeal to an audience of 16 to 25 year olds, who are also the age group mainly interested in the genre of the music in my magazine. The group my magazine relates to would want aspirational and inspirational images which I feel I have fulfilled by using the golden model in two of my photoshoots and the using the road signs in my other photoshoot which are unusual and quite thought provoking.

6. What have you learnt about technologies since starting this product?

Before this experience I was not able to use any of the main programs needed in order to make the magazine. I had never before used adobe photoshop, something that was essential in the editing of all of my pictures. I am now able to make adjustments to the pictures such as changing the contrast and brightness, which is something I found use for in all of my pictures. I can now give an airbrushed effect to pictures and remove any blemishes which would have made my pictures look messy and unprofessional. I can even now change the look of an entire picture seemingly effortlessly due to the skills I learnt in this program. I have also learnt to use adobe indesign without which I could not have put my magazine together effectively and would not have achieved the finished product I have now.

7. What have you learnt from the progression from preliminary to full task?

Due to my research of other magazines I have learnt the reasons behind the placement and use of certain aspects. For example the use of the 'rule of thirds' and why you should make sure there are no 'hanging words' on the page. These are things I perhaps didn't pay enough attention to in the preliminary task yet concentrated a lot more on in the main task. Upon starting my preliminary task I had no idea hold to use any of the programs needed to make my magazine but now I have progressed in my skills in using these programs a fair amount and did not hit any major issues along the way whilst making my products. Comparing the overall results of my preliminary task and my full task it is clear to see that not only have my skills developed but also the level of planning and organisation I put into the work. I did not manage my time well for my preliminary and therefore did not have time to complete it to the standard I would have hoped whereas I can confidently say that I have managed my time much better in the full task and therefore produced a much better magazine. The quality of my pictures is also a difference to be noticed, but this again was due to not having the time to conduct a good amount of photo shoots to achieve a good enough image. You can see how much better the quality of the pictures used in my full task are due to me allowing myself the time to take three different photo shoots to develop my ideas. In the preliminary task I used my iPhone camera which meant the image was not very clear and could not be easily manipulated to make it look more professional. This is why the pictures in the preliminary task have such a poor quality and therefore make the magazine look very amateur and uninviting. Instead of trying to change this which could have ended up taking me a lot of time, I decided to take it as a lesson and made sure I would not allow the same bad results in my full task. This meant that I knew I would not make the same mistakes by using a bad quality camera again.

Preliminary and Focused Drawings

 

Double Page Spread Font Research

For this page I decided to stick with the types of fonts I had been using throughout the rest of the magazine. I have used trajan pro which I have used on every other page as I feel it has the exact right feel for my magazine. I have used mainly sans serif fonts excluding the font which has the mirrored effect which I feel stands out even more due to the fact it is the only different type of font on the page.

Double Page Spread Photo Research

An idea I have been considering is the use of body paint to make my front cover stand out amongst others. This technique has been used in many magazines and music videos to add something extra to an otherwise plain shoot. A well-known example of this is Rihanna's Umbrella music video in which she was completely coated in silver. Paris Hilton has also been painted gold for a magazine shoot and Kim Kardashian was recently covered in silver for a magazine. These pictures almost immediately become iconic due to how dramatic and different the images are.

  

  

The use of gold on a magazine draws attention to whatever level it is used, for example these magazines are placed in order of the amount of gold actually used however each picture stands out from 'normal' magazines which use plain colours.

   

Contents Font Research

Magazines which I would view as being similar to mine appear to mainly use quite classic, official looking fonts for their contents pages. These again create a more basic and clean feel to the magazine, which as I have mentioned before is the direction I would like to travel in with my magazine. These magazines only use a small amount of more playful, serif font types which is usually only used in the page title, which I feel is something I would like to leave out of my magazine as to create a feel of continuity. I plan to use a very professional, serif font "trajan pro" for the writing on my page as I also plan to use this font on both my front cover and my double page spread. Along with this I have also noticed most magazines play with their title fonts as opposed to keeping them plain and boring. This is why I have chosen to have my subtitles at a slant with a contrasting background to create a label effect.

Contents Photo Research

Further to looking at contents pages, I have been noticing that different magazines have a very different concept of what type of pictures should be used on their contents pages. For example fashion and gossip magazines tend to mostly include candid, paparazzi taken photos, whereas music magazines will use those taken by their own photographer. There is still a difference to be seen in the types of pictures used in music magazines, in some, often the slightly cheaper magazines there can be mainly pictures which have been taken live at concerts and only possibly a few modeled pictures, whereas those slightly more expensive music magazines all or a great deal of the pictures will be modeled, this gives of, I feel, a more professional vibe to the magazine. This is the path I plan to take with my magazine and I plan to use only modeled pictures for my contents page.

 

Something that has been music related for a while now is the use of road signs and road names. I want to include this in my contents page in a similar way, I still would like to keep this simple however so I will try to mainly focus on the writing with the road signs in the background.

  

Pictures

Ideas for Contents Page

For my contents page I have looked at similar magazines to those I studied for my front page. These pages appear to be fairly basic and steer away from looking too busy. For example this magazine uses one full page picture and uses minimal text to write over the background of the picture. However, most contents pages include multiple pictures and more text in a grid like state. I feel that for my magazine I may stick to the norm as to not risk mine being 'too different'. I would be inclined to use a similar colour scheme for the contents, this consisting of mainly black and white with only a tiny bit of colour if needed.

   

I hope to replicate the use of one large picture taking up the entire page with writing over it in my magazine. I feel this is alot more original and different looking to most magazines contents pages which use uniform columns with multiple pictures, which can end up looking cluttered. I hope to keep my contents page clean and simple with perhaps only one extra picture on the page.