As Media Studies Krishnae Cooke 9106

     EVALUATION:

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

My front cover of my music magazine challenges the stream of other music magazines because it includes different information to what a country music magazine should have. I feel that the magazine looks more professional than the one that I created before. I looked at the first attempt and reviewed the feedback I was given by many other people and taking into the account that some said ‘it looks unprofessional’ and ‘it looks plain for it to be challenging top magazines in the institute’. So I then took aside what the reviewers had said, and added a lot more information to the magazine cover and changed the colour , the format and the front of it to make it seem more professional. As a result, I received more positive comments and using another magazine as my template helped me a lot. The magazine to the shown was the one I used as my template: It was a country music magazine made a long time ago; I chose this magazine because it looked simple but professional in the same way.

Challenging media forms and other music magazines, I feel that my magazines portrays a more simplier yet sophisticated way of the genre of the magazine. It makes the audience want to guess what the magazine genre is, which I thought was a good idea, because many magazines look obvious by just the way their models are dressed on the front of the magazine. The front cover portrays full length of the model unlike the image shown above in the sample magazine. The guitar portrays the fascination the model has with instruments, and it makes the audience question what the genre would be if it involves a guitar.

I think using another magazine as a guideline helps and increases the layout skills of your magazine. It helps to analyse a professional style front cover and contents page in order to know how everything is normally set up on the page. I looked at many contents page, other than country music magazines and picked out similar areas in which I would like to include in my magazine. I looked at furniture magazines and rock music magazines.

My magazine contents page challenges others because unlike other country music magazines, mine portray images of various races and does not look too much like a real country magazine. It is more of a country/lifestyle magazine. The magazine consists of certain information that would be found in a common lifestyle magazine. The layout of the magazine, I interpreted from the ‘Q’ magazine which is a music magazine ‘shown above’ and also known as a music channel.

The genre of the magazine is country so therefore it would have images that mark the country side of the magazine. I had to make the font fit the country style therefore I used a font called ‘Rosewood std’ in Adobe In design. I chose this font of the format of its letters and how each letter brings out a western look that would fit with the theme of my magazine.

The targeted audience was the elderly age group, as it seems they are more likely the age group that are interested in Country and western music, but I then thought about setting a challenge for myself and aim at the younger age group, Of course knowing that I had to make the magazine a lot more attractive and use appropriate pictures, which would work on attracting the young people.

The effects the form and style would have on the audience is that it would have a more easier way of reading, where is what in the magazine and unlike my other magazine contents page that I had created before, I wrote small information under each page title to explain what is on every page of the magazine in the contents page. Similarly to other magazines there are various images on the page that shows what is included on particular pages in the magazine.

I found my double page spread the most challenging one of all, as I needed to include a brief example of what would be in the magazine. I also had to research of many other example of double page spread. I realised that many are usually biographies or interviews about a certain celebrity, usually reflected on the model on the front cover, so using this example of a double paged spread:

My DPS was an interview on a famous singer which is indicated on the front cover, it consists of two different images which shows of her holding her instrument, I used the smaller image on DPS on the front cover as its main image and used another image for the main of the DPS, so then the attraction would be increasing rather than decreasing if I had the same image inside blown up. When looking back at my drafted double paged spread I realised that one side of the interview was stretched out and was not in column form, therefore I knew I had to change that.

Rianne: The page looks really simple and you need to add more imagery to make it look realistic and attract the audience

Quyen: I think you should rearrange the images and the text and see if it would make a difference to how it looks now.

Taking into account what these feedbacks said I rearranged my double paged spread but also changing the colour and an image to see if there is a difference, and by comparing it now I have made a huge difference to the double paged spread.

 First attempt

Final attempt  


In all I feel that my magazine would be a challenge in the industry, as it is different in ways of the information people would expect a music magazine to have, which my magazine would not have. As said before it would be combined as partly lifestyle but more or less mostly music. Having the most out of a magazine, meets the price of the product and it would be substantial for the audience. I feel the confidence in which my country music magazine would be the first to have a TV mag and lifestyle section, but knowing that I may lose attraction I insured that the magazine was mainly about country music and the non-relations would be at the back.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The front cover represents certain social groups because it consists of a young person that has followed her dream to be a famous singer. It shows of motivation towards youngsters wanting to achieve their dream of becoming successful in the media industry. Unlike many other music magazines, this shows of a more realistic view towards the lifestyle of being a country singer and going in depth of what it is like in the celebrity life.

Also choosing a substantial image to suit the audience, also attracts them and brings their attention to the magazine, as it would be a famous singer that the age group loves . In addition to that I feel that the social group would be represented through the information portrayed on the magazine.

 I feel that the double paged spread represents social groups because it relates to questions that would be asked by the social group to the singer of their choice. I asked many people what questions would they ask a famous person and I got many but then I cut them down and used the popular ones in the magazine. I asked people of the age group which I aimed at so then I knew how to attract them and portray the questions as if I were in their shoes.

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

I feel that focusing on stores that distribute things relating to music would be the perfect place for selling a country magazine such as HMV. This store not only sells DVDs and Games but they sell CDs which relate to music and they would surely approve of selling music Magazines, instead of focusing on the newsagents and the local corner shop, I felt that I had to aim at a store that would be common for the age group to be seen in. I also feel that distributing this magazine in HMV would increase the population of people who would be eager to buy the magazine.

The contents page of my magazine is suitable enough to be sold out to the audience. I also had to think about how the content of the page looked in relation to the genre of the magazine. I had to think about whether it portrayed country music enough? Were the colours appropriate, I did not want the music magazine contents page to look too revealing so having received some feedback from others it helped a lot, many said that the colours were not flowing with the genre of the magazine and how the images were too common, so therefore I had to change that as much as I could, but now looking back at the contents page I feel that I could have done more by changing the images or going into detail of making the models seem more country and fit the genre of the magazine.

Country Music is not as common as ‘R n B or Reggae or Pop’ but it is popular and there are many popular singers that the youngsters would listen to now. I had to make the double paged spread attractive enough to keep the audience intrigued knowing that the audience would more or less be interested in the first news on the front cover of the magazine, and on my magazine is the exclusive interview. This would be a famous singer, that they all love therefore they would immediately look in the contents page and go straight to the double paged spread. In order for the institute staying in business, making sure that I do not mess up with the magazine content and the content was appropriate enough was the importance.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of my media product would be the younger age group, ages between 16-24 would be substantial to focus on and I think moreover the ideal age group that is more likely to be harder to attract, which is why I took my chances of aiming there. Having looked at the country singers, there are a lot of new young singers which attract the younger age group which is another reason why I aimed at them.

‘Taylor swift ‘and ‘Miley Cyrus’ are around the ages of 18. So therefore I decided to make the images look of younger people and referring to kids in college going on to university, this would be a magazine they would like to buy to find out the most out of their famous country singers, they could read it in their spare time and not only finding out about country music but seeing what freebie comes with the magazine and the latest on what’s on TV with the latest TV magazine inside. I also had to make the layout and form of the DPS clear and reformed the font so that it was easy to read. In relation to making the magazine profitable I had to evaluate the key concepts of what was needed to be included.

Furthermore, with the double page spread and the contents page I also had to make sure that the information was suitable enough for the targeted audience otherwise the magazine would lose customers and would not make much profit. I then had to reconsider what standard of magazine the shop would take in because HMV is a huge and popular store, so in order of risking jeopardizing their standards, I needed to insure my magazine was fit for purchase.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I feel that I have done enough in regards to the finalised front cover to attract my audience because after creating the first front cover I realised that I could have put in more to make it look professional, so I took apart the magazine and recreated it to make it look more professional, changing it around and adding new colours and text. In my first magazine front cover I edited the background of the image but I decided to keep it on for the second attempt as the image looked more realistic and makes the magazine look more professional.

I also used colours that would flow with the genre of the magazine and I therefore looked at what that age group would want in a magazine not just it being a country magazine. I thought I should include similar things on the list of the contents page such as horoscopes, TV magazine etc.

To further bring the audiences attraction, I asked questions to the celebrities that I thought they would be interested in knowing. I also placed appropriate imagery on the double paged spread so that it would be attractive enough for the targeted audience. I feel that, when looking back at the double page spread I could have added more imagery and make the writing stand out more. I also had to think about the form and style of the page and how everything was placed. Was it worthy for the selling point of the magazine? Would it attract the audience? Are there enough information? Is there a purpose to what you are doing? The purpose was to make the audience feel the need of buying the magazine again and not having to be bored of it.

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

Comparing the draft cover and the final I looked at the differences and how much I had improved on my design skills and looked at the representatives of the magazines. I also thought the style and form of the magazine had improved. I learnt a lot with creating the front cover with using the ‘arrange’ tab by selecting the text to be in front of the image and certain sections to be all in front of the image, I also used the rectangle tool to create boarders around the magazine so it would look more professional and different to other magazines.

I feared having not being able to produce it in a way that I could not attract the audience. But having experiences with software’s such as Adobe Photoshop, I learnt how to fit an image into another image and cropping out the unwanted in an image, which gave me more experience on how to form my magazine. 

I also learnt more of what the institute needed in the magazine which is why I knew I had to improve from my first attempt at the country music magazine. I thought the first attempt was simply rushed and not thought about like I did with the final format.

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

In relation to my preliminary task front cover I feel that I have done a lot, and improved on knowing what to place on the front to attract the targeted audience, I researched and evaluated the idealism of what the audience would be interested in and took the information and placed it on the front cover. As of feedback:

Nourin: It looks much more professional and much improved

Theresa: In comparison to the first attempt I think it looks better, and would attract your target audience. I would buy a magazine with that front cover.

I also had to think about the price of the magazine and if it was reasonable to give it that price for the standard of the magazine. Analysing the simplicity of my magazine I lowered the price by a pound to make the magazine seem more profitable for its standards.

In regards to my contents page, the differences of the preliminary task and the final, it looked as if I was comparing a low standard work with a higher standard work, My preliminary task contents page did not look anything like my final design. This is where it showed I had the ability of doing much better and I just did not put that much effort into the preliminary task. Having improved my skills with software’s I used to create the contents page, it was easier to know what and where I wanted everything to be, along with the Front Cover layout.

Having looked at other contents pages and comparing them based on the different designs on each of the magazines, I compared and picked out the differences between the magazines and analysed their conventions and how they appeal to their audiences, I also asked others what they thought about when they looked at the two magazines and which ones looked more of a type of magazines that people would rather buy.

Theresa: The ‘Q’ magazine looks more plain to the ‘NME’ magazine but I also think the NME magazine has too much information placed on one page which makes everything look compact and unattractive whereas the Q magazine although it looks simple it contains the right amount of information about the magazine but lacking images. The big image therefore portray attraction, just that the page would bring more attraction if it also had more supported imagery to convey what was included in the magazine rather than just text.’

By taking into account what my friend said about these magazines I used it to create my magazine contents page making the text flow with the images and splitting the page with one side listing this information on the pages and the other side showing of some images which are consisted on the pages, not using all the images because that would lose the popularity of the audience.

In all I feel that my performance has improved since when I had to create my preliminary task, I achieved more design skills and my range of ideas widened when I studied thoroughly about semiotics and imagery and representatives of magazines. I feel that my ability of creating my magazine related to me familiarising more with the soft wares Adobe Photoshop and In Design. I learnt how to create a good magazine using the soft wares.

PRESENTATION:

I put together all of my work that did inside a presentation labelling bit by bit the feedback I received from people from my preliminary task to my final creation of my front cover, contents page and double paged spread, I aslo included the researches I did for each and the example I used as templates. Here are the slides of my presentation 1-30:

PRELIMINARY TASK:


For my preliminary task I created my front cover and my contents page in adobe photoshop. The task was to create a school magazine which I therefore had to take pictures in my spare time of students around the college to be represented on my magazine. My front cover was fairly difficult to create as I was not sure how to crop and remove the background area of an image.Other than that the layout was quite simple.I used a website called http://www.dafont.com/ to create the font of the title of my magazine cover, I then had to save it and open it on adobe photoshop to edit and add colour to it. My front cover consists of a half-bodied image of a student and a smaller image in the top right hand corner and the bottom left hand corner. Using the same techiniques as other magazines I added promotions about prizes alongside the front and included sub-headings of different articles that were included in the magazine.

     Furthermore, for my colour ways I tried out different colour blends on the site kuler.adobe.com, and used the blends on my frontcover and my magazine. I chose the colour purple because it is not as feminine as thought it used for both male and female and it seemed to be more of a stubstantial colour which would make the magazine seem more effective. I asked different viewers what they thought and i recieved feedback such as ' I think it is fairly bright and you should darken the colour if you are aiming at both genders' and also ' The colour brings out a good format to the magazine'. My magazine cover is aimed at students in college around the age of 16-18 as i thought they were the most popular age group in the media.

      A media institution that would be interested in something that is an educational place, supposedly a college would be interested in having the magazine represent their school. I addressed my audience by including the main points that students their age would be interested in. The aimed gender was both due to the fact of trying to portray the interest on through both boy and girl.

      The contents page was a bit of a challenge as I did not know how to choose the same colour of the background colour as the front cover, therefore I tried very carefully to match the colour as a close as possible. Using the layout for the experimented colours on kuler I followed that design by put layers of different purple starting from the darkest colour to lighest going down. I had to make sure also that the colour fit in with the front cover and did not seem like a complete different design. I used the square tools as an icon to represent the page numbers. I also added more images to the page and made it seem more professional.

     As a result when I look back at my preliminary tasks it shows that I could have done a lot better and edited it more making it seem a bit more professional. In addtion to that I do feel that a few changes could have been made especially to the front cover as it did look as if something was missing from it. I received fairly good feedback also but in relation to the standard of the magazine it seemed fairly simple and lacked information.


Drafted review of my music magazine first attempt:

Music Magazine:

     The genre of my magazine is country therefore I had to research in depth the definition of country and how it is being conveyed in the media. Country was a very popular genre in the 1940s-70s. In existence in the United States of America it was formed. Elvis Presley being the basic role model of the genre he made country one of the most popular genres in the world to become noticeable and an enjoyment everywhere. 

    I researched on different magazines such as 'country music' and 'billboard' and 'People - country special'. What I found out about these magazines that they mostly conveyed the model with either a guitar which is the main instrument and figure to country music or them wearing cowboy boots or cowboy hats. I simply thought that those were the symbols of representation towards country music.
    I decided to go with the flow of country music by including a guitar with my model on the front cover of my magazine. The title of my magazine is 'La Musique Pays' which is French for 'Country music' I decided on that name because it is unique in its own way although it translates to country music it stands out hence the different language. I feel that the magazine is a stronger point than my preliminary task. 

    My target audience is aimed at people age 18-30 as I thought that the age group more to be fond of this magazine would be that. How I feel to engage them is by mixing different topics in the magazine rather than just concentrating on music I reflect on people's lives and what they do behind music. I took a picture of myself holding a guitar in representation to the common feature of a country magazine.

    As my unique selling point I figured that the magazine would be different other magazines having them being sold in common stores such as: Tescos, Asda, Sainsbury’s etc. I thought that this would benefit on the increasing point of people wanting to buy the magazine rather than having them in corner shops or stores hardly anyone goes into. I feel that it should be placed on the same shelves as the common music magazines being sold rather than the less common. My magazine would include a bargain every month in relation to buy one and get the next issue free in regards to a common customer.

    For the bottom of my magazine where it contains the word 'Alert' and the rest of the text I wanted the latter to be standing out. By using the emboss and the glow tool in Adobe In design I placed the words on the page and did that.

     I think that my audience would find this magazine fairly appealing as it covers majority everything about country and it does not just focus on music alone it would go behind celebrity lives of their choice. My magazine front cover consists of both overt and covert messages, giving the audience of what to expect and what to not expect. It consists of a question, exclamation statement and a warning message to make the reader seem more interested in what is inside the magazine.

Music Double Page Spread Production

       Planning:

 Looking at a lot of double page spreads, most of them include a huge image of the person or people that flow into both pages, most of them are either usually an interview or a short biography of their lives or update on their lives. I wanted my double page spread to challenge those in the media. I wanted to have more than one images of the same person but in different postures and wearing different things but still conveying the same theme and concept of what is supposed to be discussed on the page. The difference between my double page spread and others are that it’s going to consists of many different images rather than a whole image covering the two pages.

                            

As my design is aimed at middle aged people I decided to make the image look interesting and more modern. The image would be of someone holding a guitar and doing different postures of holding the guitar. My media product would represent particular social groups by the format of the page and how appropriate the image is towards the audience/media.

Having to complete with so many good magazines in the industry, I know I have to come up with something different or having to use the same trend as other magazine but look more outstanding. My page spread would supposedly look like an interview response on the singer. In order to attract the audience I would therefore want to try and compose it in a similar format to the front cover. The layout would show the name of the artists being interviewed where the font would be bold and bright for the audience. It would have four different images of the person in different postures. The questions that would be asked by the interviewer would be in another colour to the artist’s responses. It would also consist of different quotes used by the artists in speech marks. To attract my audience I feel that the need of wanting them to not be bored of what they are reading. I decided to use questions that were given to me by other peers to use in the magazine, so therefore it would seem more realistic to ask something people would want to know about the artist. My product would consist of one medium sized image and 3 small images at the side.


Final:

My media product develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because it consists of more than one image and the images are not big and one is not overlapping the pages like other magazines. I wanted to change the format of the magazine just to make it different in the industry. It would challenge other country magazines because not many country magazines have a section where you can interview the singer or a famous person, so therefore my product would get very far.

I have learnt many things with this product, for example that the most important technical features that the audience would be looking for are: Language, audience, institution and representation. The text of the magazine is formatted properly on the page and is an appropriate size for the audience to read it. The audience would be simple to pick out because the image of the magazine itself looks for more middle aged and I think the yellow background just suits the theme and concept of the magazine. Theorists such as Berger argued of how the media portrayed women so therefore I tried to make the model on my double pages spread not look like a person who is portrayed in that format or is seen as a sex object. I made her seem more interested in music and not revealing anything that is not related to music.

Looking at my preliminary task I feel that I have made a huge improvement and learnt more on how to place objects where and increased on my ability of cropping images. I also know how to embed and emboss the letters and words for my titles. I kept y double page spread in consistent with the front cover so the colour theme stayed the same. Like the others I still feel I should have improved on my creativity with this double page spread and make it stand out more, although I created the magazine a little simple I thought the simplicity would go with the genre country. Knowing that Country is not of a music genre which would not want a magazine to represent them with too much information and designed too fancy, it would remove the key feature of country music.

     Furthermore, I feel that the quality of my magazine could have been presented better and it needed more effort to be put into it. In relation the main image I feel that the outlined needs to be refined a bit more and cropped to the sharpest so the image does not look like it was included in another image.
This double page spread was taken from the Kerrang magazine which helped me to develop my own magazine as it represented its genre easily and powerfully. This inspired me by making my double page spread, and including a huge image as the background image of the the pages, also including more images in the corner, of the double page spread which would make it seem more attractive and pleasant to look at by the audience.
My Magazine Contents Page:

       My media contents page conveys a similar layout as the ‘Q’ magazine that I decided to research on, I thought of using that specific layout because instead of using a lot of images with the text, there may be a less attraction towards the contents page. Therefore I decided to use just three images, but I enlarged one image so it took up half of the space but also looks intriguing and realistic. The difference is  it has between the ‘Q’ magazines is that the layout with the images is different and there are different things included. I believe that my magazine would get very far in the industry because although it looks similar to the ‘Q’ magazine there is still a different theme to it and the fonts stand out more.
        I realised that with ‘In design’ there are not a lot techniques or suitable tools used to edit images so therefore I would have to edit the images in Photoshop then transfer them to ‘In design’. I learnt also how to create borders around the page to make seem more professional, I realised that most content pages of other magazines are usually split in different sections in terms of subject/topic.
          In relation to my preliminary task, I thought I made a huge improvement to my music magazine than my school magazine. As I learnt more about the tools that I could use to edit images to place on to the magazine, such as the lasso tool in photo shop I found it more easier to crop the image rather than using the select tool or the magic wand which was a hassle. My ideas also built up for my music magazine using brainstorms and researching on the topic also improved since I moved on to the actual task. I feel that my contents page could have been thought through properly and planned out thoroughly which is the point I would change if I was to create it again.
          Overall I believe that the magazine based on layout and format was fairly good yet I thought I couldve used different techniques and improve the close ups and full length images on the editing. When I look back at the magazines now I feel that there are so many changes that I could have made. I also feel that the colour scheme is fairly different to the magazine front cover. I used Adobe Photoshop to edit the images and crop them to make them suitable for the page. If I added more images I think the page would look more appealing and the audience would more likely seem interested in what is in the magazine based on what they are seeing rather than reading.
             The magazine also looks plain and simple compared to other magazine contents, therefore there maybe a chance of it getting somewhere and in regards to other magazines being filled with information and alot of images which makes the page looks compact together. This magazine layout looks reasonable yet refined and clear. The only thing is that the magazine seem to lack topics to be included in the magazine. If I was to change my plan I would look thoroughly at the layouts of different country magazines, and I will also look at other genre music magazines which would help me design mine and make it look very refined and professional. I would also take alot of pictures and from there choose the ones I would like to put on my magazine.

These were the example contents page which I was inspired by to created my contents page.