My Final Products

Final Front Cover

Final Contents Page 1

Final contents page 2

Final contents double page

Final Double Page Spread

Evaluation Question Guidance

March 24th (1-4)

April 11th (5-7)

FINAL DEADLINE IS APRIL 22nd

Evaluation worth 20%

Research worth 20%

Look at these blogs:

Chloe allenby group d

Daniel taylor group b

Beretta swift group d1

Tips

- Repost work from essay

-Don't write an essay (be creative)

-Comparison from college magazine

-Prezi mindmap of all technologies (Photoshop, Survey Monkey etc)

-Slideshare

-GoAnimate

Evaluation Question 7

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

When doing my preliminary task, I focused on getting a good quality photograph and using complimentary colours for the text and feature stories. I liked the photographs I got which is why i tried to recreate and improve them (using studio lights and a white back ground) to get the desired effect.

 

When constructing my preliminary task, I tried to make the main feature obvious by using a block colour behind it. This does make the feature prominent, however, it distracts the audience from the other features and also covers part of the face which is something I would like to avoid.

 

I think the type on the preliminary task is clearly unreadable and boring. I also think the colour scheme doesn't help as it distracts the audience and is hard to read. This colour scheme incorporates complimentary colours which is good, but this colour scheme is quite immature and my magazine is aimed at an older target audience meaning my colour scheme should be more mature, maybe using a limited colour scheme with just one main colour like red or blue.

 

 

This is my first draft of my final product. I liked this because I think it presents my genre of Hip Hop and R&B really well. I made the main feature larger and in a different font instead of it being over powering like it was in my preliminary task.

 

I have made the masthead more conventional by using a different font to my feature stories. I found this typeface on Dafont which is a website with thousands of fonts which are genuinely unused and original. I used this because it helps the magazine look more realistic as the use of common fonts can make a magazine look unprofessional.

 

I decided to improve this front cover by changing the image as I believe it could be improved and better quality. I also think that it isn't as good a composition as m preliminary task images which is why I felt the need to retake and improve this.

 

 

This is my final front cover which I am very pleased with. I definitely think you can notice the difference and improvements from my preliminary task.

 

I decided on a colour scheme of black, white and red because it is more mature and correlates more closely with my selected genre. When altering my first draft, I decided to make the barcode the shade of red which is used throughout because it is less harsh than the black and also fits in with my theme.

 

With the feature stories, I decided to give them all a black background with a low opacity because it still makes them stand out and be legible, but at the same time avoids distracting the audience fr5om the main image and main feature. I also decided to change one of my cover stories into a plug because it is a convention currently seen on many magazines and also makes it more interesting, adding to the verisimilitude of the product.

Evaluation Question 6

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


 

Evaluation Question 5

How do you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question 4

What would be the audience for your media product?

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Evaluation Question 3

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

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social group?

                                 

This survey shows that my audience is almost half male and female showing that the magazine must be able to represent things that attract both genders. This is why I chose to use a female artist on the cover as it would attract both males and females.

Here I learned that my audience favour Rhianna the most, which is also why I chose to use a female model, but also why I chose to use Rihanna tickets as a prize.

This shows that my audience is mainly under 18, however almost 1/4 of my audience is between the ages of 18-22, showing that I need to consider a more mature age range of people. Another thing to consider is that my survey was based mostly on college students and people on my twitter and facebook which could also affect the age of people answering as most of my friends and followers are around a similar age to me. If I was to do this again in the future, I would make sure that my survey could reach a larger amount of people, possibly posting it on a hip hop or R&B website with a wider amount of possible audience members.

This really shows which social class most of my audience come from, illustrating that most of them are ABC1's, meaning they are mainly middle class. Being middle class shows us that they have some disposable income to be able to spend on luxuries such as magazines, which is one of the reasons I chose to set the price at £3.99.

My magazine is aimed at a specific social group which is generally young people aged 16-22 who are from a middle class family and are a mixture of boys and girls. This specific group is individual because of the mix of the genres (Hip Hop and R&B) as generally, more boys like Hip Hop and more girls like R&B, balancing it out to be an almost equal amount of both.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Here I have analysed the conventions of Rolling Stone magazine. I have added definitions for all the conventions aswell because it helps discuss what the conventions are and what they are used for.

I have looked at the existing conventions used in multiple music magazines and discovered that many of the same conventions appear in almost all Hip Hop and R&B music magazines. These conventions are something that i have tried to recreate in my own work. As you can see, the magazine covers from this genre avoid the use of smaller, secondary images on the cover, which is something that i have also avoided. After looking closely at these three magazine covers I realised that they use minimal conventions to create a simple, clean and mature look unlike other magazines from different genres such as punk or pop. I think this is something I have captured in my own cover which I have also annotated.

My own music magazine follows conventions of real media products by including generic aspects of a music magazine such as the masthead, a main image, a larger cover story, feature stories, a skyline, a barcode, a plug, a date and price of the magazine. these are the basic conventions which will be found in almost all music magazines.

Masthead

I have used a bold, sans serif font and used capital letters when making my masthead. This was because I had taken other mastheads into consideration, realising that most other hip hop and R&B magazines use this kind of font. I have developed and changed gneneric conventions by using a pattern in the background of my masthead because I think this gives my magazine an individual look while still following the conventions of my magazine genre.

Skyline

The use of a skyline is also common in music magazines because it basically sums up the magazine in a sentence. I have used the word finest because it is a word which is now frequently used in the hip hop industry. I have used bold writing on 'HIP HOP' and 'R&B' to further define that the magazine is about both of the genres.

Main image

The main image I have used is my model behind an American flag. This image is from my second selection of images because I believed I could make improvements from my first selection of photographs. I chose to use this image because it shows a clear connection to my genre as it shows a direct link to an image taken of an iconic rapper, A$AP Rocky. This main image is also following the conventions as the model is flawless and looking straight into the camera.

Cover story

The cover story is evidently the main one as the font used is different and decorative and the black used behind it is more opaque than the black used on the other feature stories. Cover stories on other music magazines are also portrayed like this as they are usually larger and bolder, and sometimes using the same font as the font usually used by the artist, which is what I have done.

Feature stories

I have used the same font in all of my feature stories, doing this has brought the cover together as the writing is consistent. the black used behind the text in these has made the stories stand out, without distracting the audience from the main feature and the main image.

Barcode, date & price

The barcode, date and price is a vital convention of a music magazine as it tells the audience when the magazine was released and the price of it, and obviously makes the magazine available for retail. I have used the same dark red colour which is shown throughout my magazine which is one of the main colours in my colour scheme. This also develops conventions as usually the barcode is black and white.

Plug

Initially, I didn't incorporate a plug in my magazine cover, however, I decided that I would follow conventions more closely which is why I chose to add a plug. I used large capital letters on the word 'WIN' because that word is the one which will draw the attention of the reader, and I have also used a large, handwritten font for 'Rhianna' as she is a famous artist who will attract people and possibly make more people buy the magazine if they have a chance to win tickets to see Rihanna.

Through the existing pages I have collected, I have discovered that a large, main image is used generally on the left page. This helps show the main feature of the article and also makes the double page spread more interesting as too much text can be over powering. This is also the reason large, eye catching title and subtitles are used, which is why I used a large title in my double page spread.

Almost all double page spread's contain a set of generic conventions. A main image is always used because it instantly makes it interesting. 2/3 columns of text are also used frequently because it stops the text from being over powering and makes it easier to read.

This is an image description which is used to obviously describe the image and what is happening in it. I have included this because it is generally featured in every magazine.

 

The main image is usually an A4 size image which is why mine is this large. It is this big because it is the most important part of the article and stops large paragraphs of words from being over powering.

 

The use of a decorative font for the title makes it clear that this artist is the main feature and it also creates a brand/logo for the artist as it is the only time this font appears in the magazine. You will see this frequently in the music industry as commonly now artists have to market themselves as a brand so they can make an identity and profit for themselves.

 

A by-line like this is also used a lot in music magazine because it is necessary to show the audience who wrote the article and who took the pictures stopping either of them being copied.

 

Pull quotes are commonly used to capture an interesting comment made by the subject which should attract and engage the audience. In my pull quote I made an intertextual reference to Drake's song 'started from the bottom' which would capture the audiences attention because they would hopefully understand this and find it amusing.

 

 

This is a summary of what the article is about, it gives a quick description so the audience can decide if they want to read the article or not. For this reason, this quick commentary should really be quite interesting to hopefully engage as many readers as possible.

 

 

Here I have used 3 columns of text to stop the reader being over powered by a big chunk of text.

 

The drop capital here is used to symbolise where the beginning of the sentence starts. I also used the colour from my colour scheme to make it stand out more.

 

Page numbers are used to inform the reader of the page they are on and also help to locate the article thy are looking for.

available url

i researches www.notorious.com and found that this URL isn't available so i then researched www.notorious.co.uk and found out that it isn't an existing website meaning it is perfect for my magazine as it is a short, memorable URL and is still available.

Contents and double page spread guidelines

Contents

multiple original images
must reflect whats on the cover
must reflect audience survey
subscription offer
letter from editor
divide the contents into sub-sections (band interviews, exclusives etc)
could be 2/3 pages
largest image should be cover star
got to have the same house style/colour scheme
same logo and similar font
page number (6+)
not all contents on contents page
weekly - 60 pages/monthly 180 pages
allow for adverts


Double page spread

design to A3 landscape
300dpiigb
use photoshop for editing and graphics
use publisher for text
drop capital
pull quote (large quote used to break up paragraphs)
has to have columns of text (6-12 words per line)
paragraphs
only need the beginning of article (post full article on blog)
borders and margins
page 80-100 for main

Updated final front cover - refined images