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

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

When I started this project I had no knowledge of how to use a Mac, Pixlr, Blogger, Camera, Uploading and Pages. However through taking part in this project I have now learnt to use all of these things and more. For example, I edited a lot of my images on Pixlr, by learning how to layer images and turn saturation down then erasing parts of the saturation, to bring out the colour. Learning how to master this was key in my project, as I had no prior knowledge of how to edit photo's and then create the images that I did.

I use Blogger every week, multiple times a week, and I have been able to upload drafts and edited images of my magazine and of other things things I felt were relevant. At first I found this slightly difficult because of the layout, deciding what was worth blogging (all of it) and because of having to upload images but I quickly overcame it and I have now produced a blog I am proud of.

The Macs have been a real struggle for me, as I do not get to use them often, I found myself falling behind on how to operate pages and to use them to create my magazine. However, through practice and a little more time, I now feel confident on the macs and I think I can use them effectively, and to their full potential.

I was worried about the images that I would get from my camera, as it is only a simplistic and basic thing, with not many mega pixels. The images I took however turned out exactly as I hoped, and through the enhancement and adjustment of Pixlr, I am really pleased with the finished result.

I used safari and internet explorer to their full uses as well. I was already confident with both of these and have used them both throughout my project, for research, planning and a general source of information.

I think that I have benefited greatly from all of the new technologies I have been introduced to, and after having had thorough practice, I think I have developed an understanding for them all, and that, as I was able to learn all of the above and more, I could easily learn new technologies that may be introduced to me in the future.

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

I think my text is aimed at a recently turned mass audience. Indie Folk was never as popular as it is today and I think that IPC is the publishing house I would choose to publish and distribute my magazine. Also publishers of the NME magazine, I think it would make sense to be published by them, as NME is of a similar genre to my own and is incredibly successful in the UK. IPC has three publishing divisions, and I think mine would be included in IPC inspire. This publishes lifestyle magazines, including NME so I feel this would be the best fit for my magazine. I would like my magazine to be distributed to shops like WHSmith, HMV, Newsagents and supermarkets like ASDA and Sainsburys. These are popularly visited places by my TA and are the most likely and expected places to purchase  music magazines. IPC is also well known for its digital market. This would be very beneficial for my magazine, as my target audience could access it anywhere, on their phones, tablets and computers for example. This would help my magazine to reach all corners of my TA. 

Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I think I have represented my social group of male and female, Indie Folk lovers, in a positive way. I think the images and style of my magazine, represents these men and women as quite cool and alternative. For example, the front cover image, has several effects and adjustments in place, like a light chemical burn and decreased saturation, to make it look similar to an album front cover, something that would not look out of place in a music store, which is a primary place for my TA and social group to spend time.  
However, in my text there is an unintentional signifier  in that I think the magazine represents this social group as being quite effeminate. I believe I have unintentionally let my own preferences influence the style of my magazine slightly, therefore making it appeal more to women and disrupting my preferred reading slightly. I wanted the magazine to appeal equally to men and women, but looking at it I can see that it may not be something a male would be very interested in upon first look. I still think that it would be a popular magazine with this social group however, because I have still included what both genders preferred in the questionnaire I distributed before starting my magazine.  

Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?

I used intelligent vocabulary and friendly/inviting language within my text to address my audience. The interview that I carried out used informal language, and was written exactly as the artist responded to the questions, helping the interview to feel more like a conversation between friends than a stilted and edited piece that is purely fact without giving any insight into the artist's personality. The image used on my DPS is of the featuring artist, lounging on a park bench in a natural setting, she is looking directly at the camera, providing eye contact for the readers. It often happens that the set-up, purposely shot for effect image, is used as the glossy front cover to provide the initial appeal, and that the images of the artist in a more comfortable and personable setting are included inside the magazine, to make the readers feel more engaged in the interview. This is what I did with my magazine to attract my audience. I think the photos I used represent my audience exactly as I want them to be, - relaxed, cool, authentic and alternative. My model was displaying exactly the style of my TA and the final images put her in a setting that my audience can relate to and feel comfortable in.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?

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

Final Double Page Spread

This is the final right hand page for my double page spread. It is quite simplistic and professional and I took my inspiration from Q magazine, minus the large lettering it uses to cover its interviews. I have stuck to my house theme of white red and black and have complied with typical magazine conventions and written in columns.  

Final Double Page Spread

This is the final left hand page of my double page spread. I have used the artist featured on the front cover in a long shot and edited the image on Pixlr, to bring her out in colour, to make her metaphorically 'shine' in the world around her. I used one of the more memorable quotes from her interview and placed it over the top of her, to give the reader an initial look at what the interview is going to include 

Final Contents Page

 

This is the completed version of my contents page. I have made a few changes, including the font style and layout. I think this version is a bit more interesting to look at and flows better on the page.

Final Front Cover

 

This is the final version of my front cover. I have used a mid shot of a featured artist in the magazine, used a bold masthead, and I have also included particular points of interest within my magazine on the cover. I used a font colour theme of white and red to stand out against the darkness of the image, and I edited my image on Pixlr. I turned down the saturation on the image, and then highlighted the flower in its original colours. I think this front cover is appealing to my TA, as it maintains simplisity, whilst still managing to look professional and displaying some of the typical conventions of a music magazine, like the date and the barcode. The artist featured has the indie folk style I am trying to sell, which will also be appealing to my target audience. 

 

 

New Contents

 

This is another version of my contents page. I decided, instead of featuring a person on this page, that I would try to be a bit more creative, so I used one of my books of sheet music and see what shapes I could create, I found that the loveheart shape was most successful and the most appealing to my TA. I did not edit the image, as I felt the neutral colours and the lighting in the picture were already appropriate and fitting for my house style. I have used a different font than on my most recent front cover, but they will be changed to match for the final edit. I did not use a particular order for the colours in the text, I left it up to what showed up against the background the best, but at the same time making sure I was in keeping with my three font colour scheme, and ensuring that I highlighted the key words.

Contents Page

This is one version of my contents page. I used a mid shot of a 'festival goer' behind the text, and I enhanced the colours and vibrancy of the picture to give it a bright and summer feeling tone, I then blurred the image slightly and placed it behind the text as it is not the focal point of the page, the text is. I wanted my text to look inviting and interesting to look at, so I continued with my house theme of red and white and then added black to help the text show up against the models skin. I did not use any particular order for the colours in the text, I only based it on what is easiest for my TA to read against the colourful background. I included several things in my contents page that I think would appeal to my TA most, like the mention of a particular festival and a few bands that my TA would typically listen to. To improve this page and make it look more like a typical music magazine contents page, I would decrease the image size and place the text to the side of it. I would also include page numbers and vary the fonts and font sizes to highlight particular points of interest. 

Front Cover

This is my nearly complete front cover. I have used a mid shot of a featured artist in the magazine, included a masthead on a vertical and I have also included the points of interest within the magazine. I used a colour theme of white and red to show up against the black and white image, and I edited my image on Pixlr. I removed the colour and highlighted one particular point in the image in colour, the flower. I think this front cover will appeal to my TA as in my opinion it looks quite classy, and inviting, and the artist featured has the style usually associated with indie folk, which is what I am trying to sell. To improve my cover, I would need to add things like a headline and links o social networking sites perhaps, but I do not want to disrupt the look and design with things like bar codes and icons, because I think it will look irregular and unappealing to my TA.  

Health & Safety

When capturing images and doing recce for my music magazine, I have to take in to account health and safety issues in terms of my model(s), equipment and the environment. 

- When shooting on location, if there is any other technical equipment around, I need to make sure there are no loose cables, that could become a trip hazard.

- If there are any low hanging spot lights that people may hit their heads on. 

- I can not take a camera into the school toilets for ethical reasons. 

- I also need to keep the people I am going to use safe, so not letting the images I have captured be distributed, if they do not want me to. 

- If I am shooting outside, I need to make sure there are not any hazards like broken glass on the floor.

Contents Page Draft

This is a draft of what I would like my contents page to look like. Very minimalistic, like my cover page, to remain in-keeping with the rest of my mag. I am sticking to my colour theme and also, I want to feature one of the artists who will be playing in the Lunar Festival as I feel this will draw my TA in.

Double Page Spread Draft

This is the basic layout of what i want my DPS to look like. I will have a mid - long shot of the artist, with one of the quotes from the interview printed over the top. I will then use the right hand page for the interview, using my colour scheme of black, white and red throughout. This layout is similar to Q magazines interviewing style, so I used it as a style model for my own magazine, because Q is the type of magazine my target audience are likely to read.

Inside Page

This is a draft of one of the inside pages of my music magazine. I created the page on Pixlr and included the Lunar Festival Tour Dates, which is something my TA is very interested in. Also to help this page appeal, I included a long shot of James Vincent McMorrow, one of the artists playing at the Lunar Festival. It is agin quite minimalistic like my cover, to help continue on with the style of the magazine. I also stuck to my 3 colour scheme and used black and red fonts.

First Draft

This is a rough draft of what i would like the front cover of my magazine to look like. A large close up of a featured artist and a clear magazine name on a vertical. There is a 3 font colour theme of black, red and white. I want to keep the cover quite minimalistic as i feel this will appeal most to my target audience. It looks more like an album cover to me, which is what i think my T.A. wants, as they are more about the music than the presentation. The title of my magazine is named PICK, I chose this because of its relevance to a guitar pick, and the fact that my magazine is indie folk so a guitar plays a big part in the type of music my TA reads, and also as i want them to pick my magazine to read over the others.

Photo Edits

These are a few examples of some of the photo editing we did in lessons, using the website Pixlr. We selected multiple images and experimented with various different effects and colouring. I have included the originals to show how we proceded to edit the images and our final results.

Photo Edits

These two images are the before and after edits of one of the bands (Daughter) I would like to include in my Indie Folk magazine. I will use the same photo editing site, pixlr, to edit the images i will shoot on location in the next few weeks. I will be using similar shots to these ones on my models - mid - long shots possibly. I will keep them simplistic and include a band name as I have done here.

 

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire Results

I distributed my questionnaire to a total of ten people with questions about music and music magazines to try and establish a target audience, these are my findings.

Gender:

- Female: 6

- Male: 4

Age:

- 16-18: 4

- 19-21:3

- 22-24:1

- 25+: 2

How often do you listen to music?

Never: 0

Sometimes: 2

Often: 5

All the time: 3

What music genre do you prefer?

Rock: 1

Rap: 0

Electro: 1

Indie: 4

Hip hop: 3

Classical: 0

Jazz: 0

Country: 0

Do you read Music Magazines?

Yes: 7

No: 3

If yes to the above, what genre Music Magazines do you read?

Mainstream: 2 

Rock: 0

Rap: 0

Electro: 0

Indie: 4

Hip hop: 1

Classical: 0 

Jazz: 0

Country: 0 

What are your hobbies? (you may select more than one)

Fashion: 7

Sports: 3

Books: 4

Art: 3

Music: 8

Television: 5

Study: 3

Work: 7

What is your occupational status?

Student: 6

Part time work:1

Full time work:2

Unemployed: 1
Retired:0

From the findings of this questionnaire, I discovered that my Target Audience are men and women aged 16 - 26, are students with hobbies centering around music, work and fashion, and are indie music lovers.



Target Audience

 

These young adults are an example of what my target audience will be.

The Female: first of all, she is wearing quite casual clothes, possibly designer. She is wearing skinny jeans and a loose knitted jumper, which is high in fashion currently. She is wearing Coverse All Star, a famous brand of shoes.
The Male: he is wearing a designer jumper, with turned up jeans, currently in fashion and expensive Nike shoes.
The style this male and female are exhibiting is very similar to the genre of my magazine - Indie Folk.

The age of my TA will be from 16 - 24.

History of Music Magazines

NME

The New Musical Express magazine is the longest running music magazine and has been published weekly in the UK since the early 1950's. It originally started its life as a newspaper but the format changed to a magazine in the 1980's. It was also the first magazine to include a UK singles chart, featuring the top 12 best-selling singles. NME is currently published by the publishing house IPC media, which is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher. NME's readers are usually Indie Rock fans, which features heavily in its content, and they are around the ages of 20-25.  

RAY GUN

Ray Gun was originally published as an American alternative rock and roll magazine in California in 1992. Ray Gun explored typographic design, giving it it's, not always readable distinctive design. Ray Gun was also distinctive in its content, featuring cutting-edge advertising, edgy pop culture icons and artists that were typically ahead of the curve. Ray Gun produced over 70 issues from 1992 through to 2000.  

HNT and U>

In today's lesson we discussed the Hypodermic Needle Theory and the Uses and Gratifications Theory. Beforehand we had to research these theories for a homework task, and here's what I found out -

The Hypodermic Needle Theory - mass media is seen to have an immediate an influential effect on people and their behaviour. This is done by 'injecting' them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response. This theory is also known as the Magic Bullet Theory, in the sense that the message is directly 'fired' into the persons mind. My knowledge on this theory was furthered in today's lesson, as we learnt that this theory assumes the audience to be passive receivers of the messages who accept or do not challenge the messages. There is a quote from SpiderMan that says 'with great power comes great responsibility', this was applied to the mass media as they are so powerful they can 'inject' whatever messages they want to into their audience. A really good example of just how effective this theory is, is Margaret Thatcher's victory over Neil Kinnock in the elections in the early 1980's. Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Sun, hated print unions for pulling a print of Arthur Scargill (President of the National Union of Miners) and so wanted Margaret Thatcher to win the general elections because she also wanted to crush the Unions. Rupert Murdoch continually used the Sun to help, and promote Thatcher, so that ultimately he could print what he wanted and not have to listen to Unions. Thatcher won, and the Sun accounted for a lot of the reason for it.  

The Uses and Gratifications Theory - This theory focuses on why people use particular media rather than the contents. It is more concerned with what people do with media. The gratification of social or psychological needs of the individual. Gratifications can be obtained from a medium's content, e.g. watching a specific programme, and from the social context it used, e.g. watching TV with the family. Studies suggest that peoples needs and moods influence how they use and respond to a medium, for example, feeling bored encourages exciting content and feeling stressed encourages relaxing content. The same TV programme may gratify different needs for different individuals. Individual personalities, stages of maturation, backgrounds and social needs = individual needs. The Uses and Gratifications Theory assumes that the audience are actually active receivers; they use the media text to gratify certain needs, e.g. a need for diversion, information, advice, etc.

classical music magazine deconstruction

This is the cover of the music magazine, Classical Music. This is almost the opposite to my chosen genre, and this can be seen just by a first glance. It looks very classy and sophisticated as it includes a french artist called Pierre-Laurent Aimard, sitting on a bench in a probably expensive suit looking out into 'the unknown' as it were. The font style is swirly and fancy, which immediately sets the tone for the rest of the magazine, it is going to be very smooth and elegant which is what they are trying to portray. There is a three colour theme of blue, red and white. These are all cool neutral colours indicating that this magazine is going to have quite a calm tone throughout, and will only feature music relevant to the genre of this magazine.

music magazine deconstruction

This is the cover of the music magazine Plugged, made by another student. Straight away the first thing that i notice is the image, it is a mid shot and she is dressed all in bright red. They have matched the colours of her clothes and makeup to there overall theme and fonts, as there is an almost pinkish grey background with splashes of red in the font, in the bursts and behind the masthead. There is use of several fonts to advertise different things, e.g. Lil' Red On Tour! Is in a crayon style font which may be one of her advertising signatures, so that when audiences see this they automatically associate it with this artist. The gift of free earphones with purchase is in a burst making it one of the first things that stand out on the page. When readers see this they are likely to be more inclined to pay the reasonably priced magazine of £2.00 when they realise they are going to get a set of free headphones thrown in. They have included a small barcode in the corner, which is both nondescript but still noticeable, so readers no straight away that this magazine is to buy and not to browse like a brochure in a travel agency. Something that could maybe be changed about this piece for the better would be to eliminate the black bar at the bottom, and just have writing over the top of the image instead of inside this black box, as it makes the page look like it has a border as the masthead is also large, square and blocky. This is not a good feature to include and eliminating it would make the cover look more professional and creative.

music magazine deconstruction

This is a cover of the music magazine Vibe and is also similar to my chosen genre of a hip hop magazine. In this cover they have successfully matched the colour scheme to what Kanye West is wearing, by using the same bright blue on his collar for the masthead. They have also placed the close up of his face in front of the masthead, making it the central and most important feature. They have also made good use of the pink which traditionally contrasts well with the baby blue, and also the use of the black is paired well with his matching hair colour. There is a good clear and bold font throughout, making it easy to read, and showing very direct statements. The background colour is a neutral grey which is a good contrast against his dark skin, and the striking colours of the font. Another good point to make is that the masthead is sitting on top of the title, which is partially obscured by Kanye's head, and there is something in media terms called audience pleasure, and the audience pleasure here is that frequent readers of Vibe magazine, will already know what the title is and feel that they know the typical news and features this magazine is going to contain, whereas as people who are new to this magazine are not going to experience the same thing, as they may not even be able to decipher the title. They have missed out on an opportunity here to spread there magazine further around, as thy have not included any links to social networking sites anywhere on the page. They could have also maybe included a big bold competition on the cover to initially entice the readers, so they want to pick it up and at least flick through it to find out more.

completed school magazine

This is the completed version of my school magazine. I am happy with the final result as I have included;
- a Mast Head
- Boosts
- a Strap Line
- Links to Social Networking Sites
- a Mid Shot of several students from all different years
- and a continuous Theme of Colours based on the Southfield School Colours.

draft of school magazine

This is the first draft of my school magazine.

I have included;

- a masthead

- a main image

- links to social networking sites

- boosts

Through further development, i shall include a strap line and additional key information about term dates, and a different image that will include a student from each year group.

introduction

Hello, my name is Kate and I am currently in year 12 doing AS Media Studies.
My preliminary task is, using DTP and an image manipulation programme, to produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus well laid-out text and a mast head. Additionally I must produce a DTP mock - up of the layout of the contents page. My main task is to create the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.