My final products

I posted the link to this post onto my facebook status as well as sending it to my contacts on MSN. I asked them their honest opinion on them as I wanted the oppurtunity to improve. I recieved good responsese, nice compliments and a few replies on how I could improve which I was greatful for.

" Front page- I love! Busy, colourful, eye catching. Contents page- layout is good, easy to read and locate what you want to look at. Double page spread- Like the font of the title, love the way the main photo is on one side and the writing on the other and the way you've pulled out a quote right in the middle."

"I think it's really good..If it was me I would have made the contents page a bit more colourful or something"

"I really like it, it looks great, I think it could definately be made into a real magazine."

"It's fairly good however the contents could do with a background or a bit more colour, it's a bit boring."

I took what my audience had to say on board and on the final cotents page I added the green boxes around the sub-headings.

Question 1

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

My media product, music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread follows conventions of existing music magazines. I decided to follow some of the conventions and challenge others, this is because the way they are laid out help them sell to there audiences and to go against these conventions you are possibly jeopardising your market. One convention I didn’t follow was the size of the magazine I used an A4 sized piece of paper where as magazines use the same width of paper as an A4 sheet but is roughly a centimetre smaller in length. I simply used an A4 because it’s a very similar size and the measurements were already set into the laptop.
Main conventions I have followed are; putting the masthead horizontally along the top of the cover, the reason the mastheads are typically along the top are because it catches your attention in a shop when all the magazines are on the shelves the top is clearly visible and as its at the top its typically the first bit you see, However some issues of magazines have their main image covering the masthead, this is simply because the house style is easily recognised to those who buy the magazine, I haven’t followed this because my product is the first of its kind therefore people need to know what the magazine is called in order to become familiar with it.

Magazines nearly always have one main large image taking up a large percentage of the cover. I have followed this convention using a large image which takes up the cover. The style of shots used in covers varies a lot. There is not set convention, each leading magazine such as Kerrang, NME and Q use a variety of shots on each issue however there tends to be favourites used, Q are a fan of long and mid shots shots, NME are in favour of mid shots and close ups and Kerrang are in favour of mid shots and close ups. Mid shots are usually taken from chest upwards however sometimes are taken from waist up, these aren’t long shots because you can not see the entire body. My cover follows the shot style of a mid shot, I took the picture from just under the chest upwards. I did this so the models face would be in the centre of the magazine cover. It’s the main focus.

Looking at several copies of existing magazine covers the number of smaller images vary. Some covers use images of posters that are featured inside the magazine, such as Kerrang’s Panic at the disco and Green day issue seen above. Posters featured inside the magazine is a great selling point for both sexes of their audience, for the females posters of your favourite bands, or bands you like the physical appearance of can be hung onto your wall. And for the males it can be seen as an inspirational target or dream to be as successful. Not all posters are of male artists posters of Hayley Williams from Paramore can be hung onto guys walls too. This convention is only really seen on Kerrang covers.

What Kerrang and NME do use are footers and headers, I haven’t used these because what’s inside the magazine is placed down the right hand side of the cover. Also often used in magazines are pugs, seen above featured in NME and Kerrang. Once again I was unsure of where to include any and what would be written inside them, so therefore left them out, I didn’t want my cover to look crowded as it was the first of its kind.
Front covers have the barcode, date and issue number present on the cover, often surrounding the barcode. I followed this convention but also to emphasize that it’s the first issue of the magazine I have written the issue number at the top of the page.

I found constructing a contents page the most difficult out of all 3 tasks, because you can look to existing magazines to see how they lay it out but there aren’t many variations you can use. I looked at contents pages from Kerrang, NME and Q as these are the 3 top competing magazines. One convention I followed that is present inside Kerrang was a little letter from the editor simply to welcome the readers to the magazine and informing them what days the magazine is sold and the aim of Launch! Every music magazine breaks down there contents page, they use several subheadings.

Kerrang breaks down the contents into sub headings some headings appear in some issues but not in others the main headings that appear in every issue are ; Feedback, News, Live Reviews, Features, Album reviews, gig guide. Other breakdowns present in some issues are Poster special, Famous Last Words, Swag. Content under each heading descend in numerical order. NME break down contents page in a similar way subheadings typically consisting of five subheadings as seen above also seen above the use of a band index, this is helpful to those who are interested in only certain artists

Question 2

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

To represent my particular social group I used a colour scheme of purple and green. The green represents being new or inexperienced and the purple represents elegance and its uncommon in nature, these are ideal for my audience. These colours will attract my social groups as genres such as punk and alternative can be identified with bright colours drawing them towards the magazine. These colours are on my front cover, continued onto the contents page and double page spread this was to keep to the colour scheme and house style.

The age of my model also attracts the social groups as she is young targeting a young audience, she’s a pretty female, also unknown in the world of music which intrigues the buyer, her outfit of a black corset with red indicates sassiness and passion, the corset can often be worn by punks and people who dress alternatively to others. The eyes are focused on the camera catching your eye and drawing you in, the model isn’t pulling a particular pose for example I have witnessed in an RnB magazine the male model has a clenched fist in the fashion of “respect”. The language isn’t particularly grammatically correct, it’s written in the style of a teenager but not too simplistic. This is demonstrated in my double page spread. Along with the language the font I used changes on the cover contents and double page spread but is consistent throughout each page. For example I used Lucida Handwriting on the cover except for the masthead, on the contents page I used Meiryo, it’s easy to read off of and slightly plain, I also used this colour on the spread but alternatively changed the colours from green to black, making the page more exciting also splitting the article up into question and answers, as my audience don’t typically like to read pages of writing.

Question 3

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

My a magazine to be distributed a publisher has to be discovered that works best for the magazine. Magazines Q and Kerrang are published by a large German publishing company Bauer founded in 1875. The company’s headquarters is in Hamburg but operates in 15 countries worldwide. Even though the company publishes two magazines that feature the same genres as my magazine publishing three of the same may be a strain. NME is published by IPC Media as well as publishing over 80 other consumer magazines.. These companies are well known in the media industry and for my magazine to be successful I would have to choose carefully to make mine successful. My magazine will be distributed by a variety of media institutions this is because it targets a large market, to teenagers anywhere in the country as it features more than one genre of music so the market is broader. It will be creating a large profit to institutions selling it. Big shops such as WHSmiths would stock large numbers of my magazine as it is a well known store that has a large variety of customers. My magazine is similar to Kerrang and looking at different media distributes its sold in many places such as Tesco’s and other large supermarkets, WHSmith’s, Newsagents and magazine kiosks. The magazine can be publicised on the internet and therefore can be mail ordered, as a lot of people use the internet to buy things. As the internet is a useful place to order products I have included a subscription on the contents page, alerting the reader that they can order it online in the comfort of there own home.

Question 4

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my magazine are males and females who listen to a variety of music from rock to metal to alternative and punk music. These are my target audience as they are the genres that would be featured inside, therefore there is little point in targeting people who listen to pop on the cover, when the music inside is completely different. There are no boundaries on the age of my readers however the main market of music magazine buyers are 15 to 19 so I will be aiming towards them in this case careful decision on colour schemes needs to be in consideration. This is the ideal audience however the magazine may appeal to other people who are interested in one particular band featured inside an issue.

Question 5

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract my audience I researched into other existing music magazines and what features attract there audiences, I created a questionnaire asking the market these magazines target, what they liked and didn’t like about a select few magazine covers. Feedback showed me that majority of people answered the familiarity of the product and who makes it attracts them to the product. For example people buy a product from Cadbury because they are familiar with the brand and trust it. A feature that scored low was the use of celebrities highlighting the fact that my target audience are not immediately interested by the artist, creating a great market for new undiscovered artists. I then proposed my ideas and had them answer questions on what ideas they liked better, as my aim is to target this audience you have to use their opinions when creating my product. Features that attracted my audience are the colour scheme, main image and text. To target my audience I first took a look at colour schemes used in these existing magazines, I decided to use bright alternating purple and green colours as it draws your attention in and was favourable by majority on my questionnaire. I asked a few participants why they answered green and purple and they replied that “they contrast well together they’re quirky and purple is a good colour.” The font attracts both my male and female audiences because these two colours are neither very girly or boyish. Both colours are appeal to both sexes. Both colours do not represent a distinctive sex like pink is stereotypically used for girls and blue used for
To keep the audience interested I kept the colour scheme running throughout the contents page, the background is plain so it does not subtract attention from what’s inside. The shade of the colours are identical to the cover. The page numbers are in green with the win box in purple. The green boxes surrounding each subheading is a new edition to the finished page. This is because I sent my finished work around my target audience and asked them what they liked, didn’t like and what I cold improve and the feedback suggested that the contents page could do with something extra, some suggested a background to be used. After this feedback my initial idea was to fill the background in one shade of a colour and then use the gradient tool to emphasize areas. However with the green and purple already being used on the page using these colours as a background would make certain parts blend into the background, and changing the background colour would throw the colour scheme out the window. So I asked my teacher and he suggested a simple box round each subheading would give the contents page that little boost as having the idea of the white background was good as it is clear to read off of. Little adjustment but made the page more colourful and sticking to the colour scheme drawing equal attention to every feature.

Question 6

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The first technology I used in the process of constructing my product was the internet to create my own blog, however I already hit my first complication which was that a year or so previously I created an account, which I had to send my forgotten password email to my hotmail account to which I then accessed and deleted my original blog so I could create a new one. Once I complete this the next piece of technology I used was my camera in which I took pictures for my preliminary coursework. I took a lot of photos as I had wiped my memory card so it was empty in order to take as many pictures as possible, recieving a better result than only having 10 picture spaces left to take good photos. I used my own 10.0 megapixel digital camera as I am familiar with the settings and it takes good images.

I however didn’t have a scanner handy to scan in my design ideas so I simply took a picture of them and uploaded as a simple idea and created neater versions on paint. To upload the images I took on my camera I used the lead that is compatible for uploading on machines and also the memory card reader that was provided by the school, I swapped many images onto my memory stick so I had them on more than one portable device in case I forgot or misplaced one for the lesson I needed them for.

A tool I used on the creation of my product was the changing of the brightness and contrast of my colours, making some brighter or darker depending on the image and where I was placing it.

The only other tools I really used are the eraser, blemish tool, crop tool and copying and pasting into new layers.

A problem I found was that my memory stick was quickly filled up with work quickly so had to often uploaded other subjects work onto my laptop or computer at home creating enough space for media as image sizes are large especially PSD files for example one PSD image of my double page spread is 62.4 MB. A major thing I have learnt from the process of creating my product is to continuously save my work as on several occasions the apple macs photo elements programme shut down and I was unable to recover my work, this same problem occurred on my laptop so I learnt to save after every new bit I added or changed. once I overcame this element the use of Photoshop was relatively simple as I have a similar programme on my laptop. A new website I have discovered through this work is http://www.dafont.com/ where there is an entire library of different fonts.

Question 7.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back on my preliminary coursework I feel that I have learnt a lot. Mainly I've learnty to use one large main image on a front cover rather than several smaller images, each indivdual image recieves equal amount of attention, nothing really grabs the readers attention. The larger the image the less block colour is visible. I've learnt that it doesn't take much to make one colour look more interesting by using the gradient tool, this added element on my cover would grab slightly more attention. Another problem with the colours on the cover are that they all blend in and they are boring. I've learnt that the layout would look better with the title of the main article going across the image and the page rather than down the side of it on two seperate lines. If I had done this the image could be larger also on this part of the page I accidently saved the file into a JPG while some of the text was hidden behind one of the images. Therefore I have learnt to save the file in a JPG is I think it's finished as well as saving it as a PSD so if any mistakes were spotted I could correct them. This did happen with the final product the last digit of the date went off the page and the file was saved in a JPG so I had to cut and paste the background which was a long process just to change one detail. The colour of the text down the right hand side of the page could have done with being in more interesting colours, even alternating colours to attract more attention.

I've learnt to cut images out much better, after the creation of these, a good way I learnt to do it was to use the eraser tool that doesn't just erase the background but can also erase layers, this came in really useful. I've learnt to piece pieces of the cover together better than just listing them for example "New Yorkers Tell All" doesn't look as thought its with the image which it should look as they are part of the same article. One other thing that I learnt, is to print the date much smaller. An item I am fond of on the cover is the positioning and font of 'Respect. Confidence. Achievement.' It represents our school well along with the schools motif, this is good in my opinion as the idea of the coursework was to design a magazine for your school. I feel I have progressed far from this piece of work to my final product.

I personally don't mind my contents page, I like the idea I had of listing the contents down the centre of the page with the page numbers next to them, however this will only really work with little contents otherwise the size of the font would have to be decreased to fit it all in. The overall look of the page is too faded, this was because some of the text overlapped the images so I decided to fade all the pictures to keep the look consistant. The editing around one particular image on this page is poor, but now I feel that I am more confident and able to edit around images. Also the idea was to take photographs yourself but I used the internet for a couple, which in practise if this was my actual marked coursework would have been deducted marks.

Overall I feel I have come along way from the beginning of the course to the end. I've learnt the ins and outs of photoshop, technology involved in making the product such as saving work in many places, on memory sticks, Macs at school and computer/laptop at home.

Editing

Editing part of my double page spread.

Images.

To begin to construct my products I needed to take lots of pictures, as the more pictures I took the better my chance at finding the right picture, it's better to have too many than too less.

Two of these pictures feature Nickelback on the top however if I was to use this I would probably edit it so it was not visible as the model featuring on the cover is an artist herself.
For my front cover I took pictures from a mid shot to closer up shots as this was my prefered shot according to my audience who filled out my questionnaire.

I found that neither of these two shots i narrowed it down to the angle the photograph was taken doesn't would conventionally be seen on a front cover, these are unedited photos as one is really pale I would have added colour to the cheeks. Therefore the style of photo I decided to use is the image you can see on the cover. The image below is the original photo. In total I took around 60 photos for my front cover.



The double page spread pictures were taken on a trip up to London with some friends. I took several pictures of the 3 guys together.

Pictures taken are the ones that are featured in the magazine others that didn't capture the light properly, as I was taking pictures of three people they all have to be ready at the same time for the photo, as I found on some occasions two were ready and posing/smiling and the other was not.

This is the original photograph before being edited of the band. Befiore I cropping and editting it. The idea of the layabouts came from a day at school, when some friends were playing around and I ended up taking a photo of them holding a friend up.

Following this I took the pictures which demonstates two out of three were ready.

Once the photos were decided I had a look on Dafont.com and browsed around the library of fonts on there. I print screened any fonts I liked and pasted them into paint.

For the conents page I didn't take that many photos I simply used existing photos I have taken on days out with friends, parties and concerts as I feel that they are suitable to the use.