Thursday 21 April 2016

Note to moderator

Over the period of this work i have learnt a lot about how magazines are produced and the amount of effort that has to go into it, such as how much research and planning is needed. I feel that my overall Photoshop skills have developed a lot and i now understand how important it is to understand your target audience. Thank you for taking the time to look at my work and i hope you enjoy it.

Friday 15 April 2016

Evaluation question 7

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

























The three images at the top are the covers from my preliminary (school magazine cover), my music magazine draft cover and my final music magazine cover. You can see the development from my prelim being very minimalistic through my two music magazine covers being quite busy and full of colour. Just by adding coloured boxes around some of the text can make a large difference in making that text stand out and crating a more busy look. As you can see, i have kept a line of text/banner at the bottom of all these magazine covers. The development to the draft cover shows the significance of adding a coloured box which is highlighting the text and i have made another improvement to the banner at the bottom by finding the correct colours that outline the banner and fit within the colour scheme. Sticking to a colour scheme and finding the correct one to attract my audience is also something i have learnt from my preliminary task to now. As you can see, my preliminary magazine is very dull, it used a black and white colour pallet and the only colour comes from one object in the picture. As the magazine was aimed at students, the colour pallet doesn't attract the target audience at all because the magazine comes across very formal. Then in my draft, i chose a more colourful pallet which would attract my audience but i didn't use it very well, for example, the blue banner at the bottom would've looked better yellow as blue doesn't appear anywhere else on the cover. Finally, on my final cover, i think i used a very appropriate and correct colour pallet throughout, I only used 4 colours to keep it simple, all of which compliment each other and help each other stand out.

I have learnt how much images contribute to making an attractive magazine for a specific target audience. For example, my preliminary wouldn't appeal to many people in my target audience because it only contains one image which is the cover image. Students would appeal more to a magazine with many images and less text. I decided to have examples of the posters within my magazine on the cover, that way the audience knows what too expect inside and means there will not be as much text on the inside which is what a younger audience likes. In terms of the quality of the images themselves, i think i have improved a lot. On my preliminary magazine i did not use any lighting to light my model which made the image quite dull. By the time i created my final music magazine, i knew how to properly light my model and how to arrange the lights to highlight any features i wanted to highlight on them. My use of camera angles has increased as i used a range of shots such as mid shot and long shot on my draft and final magazine, but just used mid shots on my preliminary. While doing test shots for my magazine, i got my models do do a large variety of poses such as, serious, silly and doing something to engage with the audience such as singing. You can see some of these examples at the bottom of this page. Using other images which are not posters shows the audience who else to expect inside without having to use any text and adding too much information on the cover. As well as needing images on the cover, text will also be needed to give a snippet into the stories inside the magazine. On my preliminary i put 3 cover lines onto the cover to show what was inside, on my draft i didn't put much text to see if it would be just as good with out text. However, after that i released that in order to attract an audience, you need to get the engaged using gripping cover lines which will attract the reader and make them want too read it.

I feels as though throughout this process my Photoshop skills have developed and i have learnt a lot more about this. I have learnt how to arrange layers in the best way possible to bring forward the right layers and how to crop and rearrange images. When working with my target audience i found out that the more layers the better and how to add more layers but keeping it look straight forward. My final cover contains about 60 layers but looks like there is only about 20. On my contents page i learnt how to align my text to make it look neater as well as it creating more space. Overall the thing i have improved on greatly is the layout of all my pages. At the bottom you can see my old double page spread and my new one. I found out from this how effective columns can be. 












Evaluation question 6




Evaluation question 5.

Evaluation question 4

 Who would be the audience for your media product?


To find the target audience i was going for i used a website called 'UK' tribes'. This website outlined my target audience as 'ALTs' which i wrote about in my audience profile. The music my audience listens to is rock/metal/alternative which is a very wide range. Because of the wide range of music it comes with a wide age range, about 16-60. This is because the 'alternative' groups are more younger people who are new to the scene, where as the rock groups are more for the older ages as this was abut when they where young themselves. As this age range is too wide for a magazine, i needed to get a more specific target audience. I decided to go for the younger audience because i feels that they can connect more with the artists of new or young bands, they are more likely to be interested in concerts and are more likely to purchase a magazine in general. The age range that my magazine is now aimed at is 14-25. This magazine is largely based on lively people who enjoy going to concerts and festivals- considering my magazine is based on a music festival. I decided to stop the age range at 25 because many people over that age will be more interested the bands they listened to when they where younger and maybe less interested in new bands, whereas younger people have their own generation of new music as it has changed a lot even though it still falls under the same music category. Younger people may also still be interested in some of the older bands through there parents. The genre of my music and magazine within is rock/alternative, this means the magazine will focus on the characters within the crowd which like to get inspiration of the clothing they wear, their hair styles they choose or just the way they act and their personality. Although there are many rock magazines out here such as 'rocksound', my magazine focuses on the download festival and only the bands that have played there in the past year or upcoming year. This lets the audience know who to expect in the new year and why they should go see them at the festival. My chosen price is £3.99 which i think is a reasonable price for a monthly magazine. I did market research and the majority of people from my target audience said they would definitely willing to spend this price on a festival magazine.

The following two audience profiles, which fit in with a lot of my target audience research and are both potential consumers of my new basics magazine. I also asked the two individuals a few questions regarding my new magazine. Such as "Would you be willing to purchase a new magazine which enters the music magazine market?", "How much would you be willing to spend on a music magazine?", "What are your favorite artists".



Name: Isobel Moulding 

Age: 17

Interests: Music festivals/ gigs/concerts, rock/alternative music.


Favourite brands/ shops: Voodoo, Quirk, H&M and blue banana.



Magazines followed: NME

Favourite artists: Hollywood Undead, paramore, Pierce the veil and suicide silence.


Profession/ occupation: Isobel is currently studying in year 12 and will be taking her AS'.


Would you be willing to purchase a new magazine that enters the music magazine market? "Yes i would definitely give it a try if it was different and includes artists and features I would be interested in".

How much would you be willing to spend on a music magazine? "I would be willing to spend around £5 for a new magazine if it was monthly and about £3 if its weekly as its upcoming and im not too sure if I would like 

it".

What artists would you like to be featured within the magazine? "I would love to see any of my favorite bands in the magazine as well as new bands because i love finding new people to listen to."





Name: Callum Bird

Age: 17

Interests: Music festivals/ gigs/concerts, rock/alternative music.


Favourite brands/ shops: 



Magazines followed: NME, Kerrang and rocksound


Favourite artists: Tonight alive, Pvris, Bullet for my valentine and Zebrahead


Profession/ occupation: Callum is currently a year 13 student taking an A level in mechanics.


Would you be willing to purchase a new magazine that enters the music magazine market? "Yeah, i love to hear abound new and old bands. I go to a lot of concerts as well so i like to hear about new ones coming up".

How much would you be willing to spend on a music magazine? "The magazines i currently buy are around £2.99, but they are weekly. So for a monthly magazine i think id pay about £4
".

What artists would you like to be featured within the magazine? "I really don't mind. I love so many different bands and music types within this genera that i'm up for anything."

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 groups ?



During the research and planning section of my work, i used UK tribes and my own knowledge to research the style and interests of my target audience. I had to make sure that my magazine fitted the right audience which was the 'ALT'group on UK tribes which i talked about in my audience profile. Knowing this information about my audience, i could figure out what kind of bands i needed to feature in my magazine and how they would need styling. Kerrang magazine is a very popular magazine for my target audience. So for this reason i looked at the artists on the cover of some Kerrang magazines and what kind of clothes they were wearing. As the 'ALT' category has a very large range of music styles, it was hard to get an idea of a style for my artist. To overcome this i picked the style of rock/alternative music i wanted my artist to be and i went off that. I decided to use a girl as my artist because there are not many bands with a female vocalist in this scene so more people will be interested in this. Using a girl on my cover will attract males due to the 'male gaze' an females who may be inspired by her. The girl i used as my artist falls into that 'ALT' group herself which made her easier to style. I asked her to bring a range of clothes to the shoots so that i could put together a few outfits with. From the start i had an image in  my head to style my model as Taylor Momsen because of their music genre and their style choices. In the photos she wears a lot of black or dark colour which is very much the idea of what i wanted. A black leather jacket with black jeans was the main look that i was going for. I got this particular idea from looking into the style of my artist inspiration (Taylor Momsen- top right) and a current kerrang magazine cover as it had the same background colour as me and the black really made the artist stand out. My target audience has a really wide age range because of the wide spread of music within it which made it difficult to create a magazine for everyone. I chose to use a model who is younger because i feel magazines in general are aimed at a younger audience. I also chose to do this because everyone likes to hear abut new upcoming bands and a younger artist can connect more with the younger audience.

Thursday 14 April 2016

Evaluation question 1

 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e. of music magazines)




The masthead of my magazine spreads across the width of my magazine just like on the cover of a Kerrang magazine. I made my font for my masthead on 'Dafont' and found a very simple font that is similar to the kerrang logo, plain, easy to read, bold, but different. As i know how popular the simple 'Kerrang' logo is, i decided to keep my masthead very similar and to challenge the way that Kerrang layout their magazine by keeping my magazine looking very similar to theirs. The colour of my masthead is Black and i used a red background to make it stand out and appeal to the audience. I chose  the title of 'DOWNLOADER' to that it is clear to the reader that the magazine relates to the festival 'download'. By doing this i can attract my target audience.

The graphology of my cover is very complex. I use a wide variety of font sizes across the page to either fit with in the space allowed or to look aesthetically pleasing. The fonts i use are 'groudyhvyface CN BT' 'Groudyhvyface BT' 'franklin gothic medium cond' and 'impact'. Most of these are very similar but the slight difference makes it more suitable for the use of what the text is trying to say but sticks to the theme. 'Impact' is the most solid font used on my cover which is why i used it for the main cover story as it attracts the reader and really stands out. I like to use fonts that are similar to the ones used on current magazines because they are easy to read. I used the first third of my cover to give examples of posters inside, the second third was purely the cover image and used the final third for the cover lines and text, very similar to the magazine example and the right. I put smaller headlines to the side of my magazine which will give the reader an idea of the kind of things they can expect in this months issue. My contents page also contains a large image spread across the top of the page, which limits the amount of text which is what a younger audience wants. Below the image (the bottom half) consists purely of writing and one tiny image of the editor which is similar to the layout of my double page spread which consists of 4 columns of writing on the right hand page and just and image and cover line on the left hand page. The reason i use quite simple and easy to read fonts is because the rest of the magazine is busy so i need to keep the text simple so the reader can follow it. I tried to keep the colours of the text the same small amount of colours through out to stick to a theme.  I decided to use a coloured background because looking at Kerrang, all there magazine have a colours background which instantly makes it look busier. I used an old Kerrang magazine as a template and tried to re-create it using my own images, text and fonts. I realized from researching into the Kerrang layout that it requires a lot of layers to make it busy. Just on my cover there is 60 layers. This includes every single bit of text, image and shape. I used circles on the cover to highlight certain information. Just like one issue of Kerrang, My magazine has a circle with the words 'UKs biggest gig guide' which will interests the people who like hearing about upcoming concerts and gigs.

When it came to the costume of my model i had to look into the styles used on NME and Kerrang magazines. I did my audience profile to understand what my audience looks like which will contribute to the style of my model, but after looking into the costume of the cover artists, i see that they dress the same as my audience but with extra accessories. For example, the necklace on my model and the tong bar, yes they are small but can add a lot to the image. The colour that i put my model is was black so that she stuck out from the red background just like the masthead. And i can see on almost all Kerrang magazines that the model has been brought forward over the masthead but not enough so you cant read it, therefore i have done the same on my music magazine. 

The colour scheme i chose for my magazine was kept to a minimum of colours (4 colours). I included these colours; Red, yellow, black, white. This is the same colour pallet that was used on a kerrang magazine so i could see how well they worked together before applying it to my own. I used a Burgundy red as my background that compliments the yellow but makes the black stand out, this worked well to bring out the model on the front. The white is good to use as text because it shows up more clearly on black than yellow does and adds another subtle change to the appearance.  

The artists on the magazines always look happy or involved with the audience. Only one of the images at the top is relatively serious, but the other 2 are happy and using and image of someone singing interacts with the audience. For this one i used an example of both types of image on all 3 of my pages. Including all images on my magazine there is a range of long shots, head shots and mid shots. Most magazine covers use either a mid shot or a close up shot on their cover so i therefore decided to go with a mid shot on my cover.


Wednesday 13 April 2016

evaluation question 3 draft

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

As my media product is a music magazine, there is a large audience for this and many companies would be suitable to distribute it. Suitable companies to distribute my magazine are; ICP Media, also known as Time inc.UK, BAUER Media Group and Music Republic LTD. These are responsible for the distribution of big name magazines such as; Kerrang, NME,Q magazine and clash magazine. The reason they would be good to distribute my magazine is because they are all similar genres to my music magazine and are big name companies and the current magazines (Kerrang, Q, NME) probably wouldn't be where they are today without them.  ICP Media has published a lot of magazines which has led them to selling over 350 million copies a year. The Bauer media manages a portfolio of more than 600 magazines, therefore would largely benefit my product. Bauer media group founded Kiss FM and have connections with YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr which means that my magazine can be spread across the globe to a larger audience. Due to Bauer media's connections being with popular sites and events, my target audience can be reached because of the age group, being between 16 and 30 and type of people that they are: being interested in up and coming artists and going to live concerts on a regular basis. This then could benefit my magazine. Bauer media having the reputation it has would be able to promote my magazine at its live events, on its social media sites, on its radio programs such as the Kerrnag radio station that works with the same companies due to the same distribution of kerrang magazine.

For all these reasons i have decided that the most appropriate distributor for my magazine would be Bauer. My magazine is very similar to the style and context of Kerrang magazine which is a very large music magazine distributed by Bauer media group. I think by using Bauer and how successful Kerrang has become, my magazine could become just as successful. Even though its very similar to Kerrang, and people wont want to read the same things, it has its own twist with the download festival that means all interviews inside will be exclusive to my magazine, Downloader.

layers- Contents























layers- double page spread