Final Evaluation

Final Evaluation

§ Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



I wanted to make my magazine as realistic as possible so I thought the best way to do this is to look at a couple of music magazines that are based on the same genre of music as me just to get and idea of what type of posses the models did and if they had any meaning also the position of the masthead and coverlines. There are some things that I kept original for example the the placement of the masthead and also the colours used. I dcecided to get my model to pose in that certain way as it shows that he is a singer/rapper and he is pointing in the camera which could also be portrayed a interacting with the readers, as you can see none of the othet two magazines have done that. I choose to use the magazine of 50 cent as I used it for my analysis of a front cover.

§ Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Music magazines can represent particular social groups for example, what the magazine is about, if the magazine is about D.I.Y and has a man on the front with his tools then automatically the audience would know that it is a magazine directed at men to help them learn how to fix and make things. This is also the same with a magazine with cars on the front cover,appealing to males who enjoy reading about cars. However if a magazine had a lady on the front dressed in and apron and had a bowl in her hand then the audience would know that the magazine was appealing to women aged late 20’s and onwards learning how to cook. A social group can be of anything and as my coursework is on a music the social group would be on certain people liking a certain genre of music, my magazine which has a young male on the front dressed quite urban/ street looking with a mic in his hand should appeal to a male and female audience from any ethnic background, aged between 15 – 25, that are interested in hip – hop and R&B, sometimes you can also identify the type of audience that your magazine will appeal to by there dress sense.



§ Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?


If my magazine was going to be published I would publish it with the company IPC Media as they only have one other music magazine which is NME which promotes a different genre of music to mine so there will be no competition between two magazines from the same publishing company. I would also say that my magazine brings something that no other magazine brings which would create more of a competition to other magazine companies who would see my magazine as a threat.



§ Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience that I am trying to attract for my magazine is people aged between 15 - 25 who are interested in the genre that the magazine covers which is hip - hop & R&B also people who are intersted in reading interviews from new and up coming musicians and like to be in the know when it comes to music.I could also say people with open minds as music influences some people in many different ways wheather it be in their dress sense, physicality etc.

§Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I believe that to attract an audience to my magazine the magazine has to be based on something that like and have in common with other people. As the audience that I am trying to attract is around my age it gives me the upper hand as I know what people my age who have the same interests as me would like to see in a magazine this also ties in with why I produced questionnaires which gave me more information as one of the questions were what attracts them to a magzine, also in the first set of questionnaire I gave the audience a choice of three different magazines from different publishing firms and had something different in each magazine for example one magazine had more pictures than others, another had bold writing and the other had bright colours, the choice that the majority had choosen would give me ideas in what type of thing on those particular magazine the audience liked.The picture on the front cover also helps to attract the audience it could be a certain pose that the model is doing which attracts the audience because it could mean something or they could relate to it. The type of font and the use of bright colours can also attract people to magazine bold fonts and bright colours can be very eye catching. Or maybe just the coverlines or a snappy slogan.


§ Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

By making a music magazine front cover, contents page and a double spread I have learnt the processes that have to be done in order to create a good quality magazine.I have learnt how to use a professional camera and remembering to take into consideration the type of scene im trying to create and also what camera angle I could choose which could mean something, for example if I took a picture of my model from a low angle then I could be trying to portray them as strong and powerfull. Also throughout the process of creating my magazine the use of photoshop has increased my knowledge on what it can do which has helped me to increase the quality of the pictures and also the design of the magazine.



§ Q7. Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

The process of making the magazine has been very long but the end result and the exsperience has made it worth while. One of the major things I have learnt about is time mangaement, I decidedto print out all the tasks and write a date that each task had to be done by so that I wouldnt start falling behind and ticking the tasks off when I had completed them also working outside of lesson a college time.The main thing I have progressed in is the knowledge I have In photoshop wheather it be adding effect or text to using tools like the spot healer to make things look even and smooth.

Case study on a publishing house

IPC is a leading magazine publisher. Almost 26 million adults. The International Publishing Corporation Ltd was formed in 1963 following the merger of the UK's three leading magazine publishers – George Newnes, Odhams Press and Fleetway Publications – who came together with the Mirror Group to form the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). And IPC Magazines was created five years later, in 1968. But those three original magazine businesses each had their own illustrious history, having been established in 1881, 1890 and 1880 respectively, with a number of the titles they launched in the late 19th.
They publish over 80 magazines which include What's on TV, Pick Me Up, Woman, Now, Marie Claire, In Style, Woman & Home, Ideal Home, Nuts, Wallpaper*, Country Life, The Field, Rugby World, Practical Boat Owner and Look, there latest high street fashion and celebrity weekly. their digital properties include NME.com, the third largest commercial music website in the UK and housetohome.co.uk, the UK's first homes portal. IPC’s brands are very simply at the heart of the UK's cultural life.
IPC is owned by Time Inc., the publishing division of Time Warner Inc. IPC is split into five distinct publishing divisions: IPC Connect, IPC Inspire, IPC Ignite, IPC Southbank and IPC TX. Alongside these is Marketforce, the UK's leading magazine distribution business. IPC employs over 2,200 people. With every publisher they will not have more than one of the same time of magazine, for example a publisher will not publish two types of hip hop music magazines as they will then go up against each other not making as much profit

Profiling my audience

Vibe magazine was launched in 1993 by Quincy Jones and is published by Time Inc. The majority of the publication features R&B and hip – hop music artist however interviews from actors and other entertainers can also be found.
The magazine is released monthly and the target audience is mainly young people that are influenced and inspirations come from reading about celebrities and also people that like to follow the hip – hop culture. This magazine is different from its competitors as other magazines focus more on one particular genre some also try to attract people from a certain ethnic background.
Vibe magazine also appeals to both men and women

feedback questionnaire results

The whole point of my feedback questionnaire is to find out what people liked about my magazine and if I had to do it agian then bits that could be improved, through the feedback I have found out:
The majority of people who answered this questionnaire was aged 15 -17.
If they saw this magazine in a newsagents then most people answered that they will or possibly buy it.
The colours used was effective to a certain extent.
The text size was big enough.
The font style was readable.
The bold text was well suited for the genre of music magazine.
The genre of music was well represented in the magazine.
The majority of people believed that the magazine appealed to them.
Things that could be improved if anything include more coverlines and better use of colour.

Music magazine feedback questionnaire

The process of taking pictures

The process of taking pictures was very simple. The main things that I had to think about is who I wanted to model for me, what I wanted them to wear, the background colour, camera angles (e.g high angle, low angle) and the posses that I wanted them to do. I made sure I took quite alot of pictures so that I coluld use them for all three pieces of my work and so I had a choice of what pictures were the best.

Editing the pictures

I believe that I had done very well in the preparation for taking my photos however the quality of them were'nt as good because I did'nt focus the camera properly and there was not enough time to do them again so I just had to make do with what I had. These pictures (all of the above) are before I had edited them. The editing part was very simple as I put all the pictures in photshop and just cropped the picture to take away any unwanted parts.Other helpful tools were the spot healer. It was also the programme I used to put all the extra parts on to the picture for example the masthead, coverlines and bar code. I have also added pictures of the process of editing the pictures in Photoshop.

final front cover, contents page and double page spread

These are my final pieces first is the font cover of the magazine where I decided to use the colours red,white and black wich runs throughout the magazine. On the front page I decided to use only one picture to create a main focus. Because the magzine was based on music I decided to call the magazine sound. The masthead is in big bold red writing with a black outline and all the coverlines followed in red writing. I tried to make the music magazine as realistic as possible by adding a barcode and a price.

I wanted to keep the font cover, contents page and double page spread eye catching but simple at the same so it did'nt look like too many things were going on at the same time.

The contents page was simple keeping to the colour scheme of red, black and white. The back ground was white and all the coverlines followed in red and black I also added four pictures, three of what was going to be featured in the magazine and the fourth picture was of the front cover of the magazine.

The double page spread was on an A3 page on one half was mainly pictures of the fictional celebrity rapper and on the other was an interview.The colour scheme continued to follow through making it very clear when questions were asked at the answers in two different colours. I did'nt have enough space to write more on the interview so I just explained as they normally do in a magazine that the interview continues on the next page.Again the masthead is clear and big enough for everyone to read.

design layouts for music magazine front cover,contents page and double page spread

Questionnaire results

In total I asked twenty people to fill in my questionnaire. I have presented my results in 3-D bar chats.I apologise if some of the writing on the charts are not readable I am still trying to fix that!
By doing this questionnaire it has helped me to figure out what makes a good magaine from the readers point of view and what i should put in my Music magazine:

• The results have told me that the majority of people I had asked about the genre of music they liked would be either R&B or other which was later stated as hip/hop.
• The majority of people buy their music magazines fortnightly.
• Bright colours and pictures attract them to a magazine.
• Bold text is more eye catching.
• The results also show that the the audience like magazine one and two equally which tells me again that they like bold words bright colours not too much text on the front cover and a big picture which they can focus on.
• Most buyers buy the magazine to read the interviews.
• A percentage also think that music influence their style (fashion style)
• Most readers would enjoy an agony aunt section.

Music magazine Questionnaire

Textual analysis double spread

This is a double page spread for a magaine.It's the beggining of an interview with Amy Winehouse.

As this is the inside of a magazine there is'nt really a masthead however the text in the pink writing could be classed as a masthead as it gives us the basis of the page (a beggining point). I also have a reason to believe that it is masthead because it is positioned in a common place where a masthead usually is.The words are in pink which stands out against everything else on the page to catch the audiences attention.

The main coverline on this double page spread is Amy Whinehouse. The main coverline is in the bottom left - hand corner where its gives a brief summary of what the interview is about.Throughout the interview there are of little coverlines still to do wth amy Wjinehouse but on differents aspects in her life , I can tell but by the different use of colour.

I believe that there could be a type of selling line on this double page spread becasue in the centre of the page it has a brief section of what the celebrity says in the interview which could persaude the audience to buy it and read it.

There are three images on the singer however I beleieve that the main image is the one on the left - hand side which shows the singer at her worst time and very distraught.The colour scheme is very simple using black and pink for the writing with a white background. It is very easy to see the questions being asked in the interview at the text is in bold writing and the answers are in italic.Serif font is used throughout on the double page spread.

The audience for this particular interviews may be people age between 16 - 25 also people interested in music.

Front cover analysis

Media magazine analysis

Masthead

This is the name of the magazine which is placed at the top centre of the front cover .This magazine is called ‘Vibe’ which is in a bold font and in a bright red colour which will catch the audiences attention very easily. The name of a magazine is also used to help the audience recognize the magazine. The masthead can also be found on the contents page and in the right or left hand corner.

Dateline

The date of which the magazine was released is in very small print situated just above the bar code. I believe having the date on this magazine is very important as there will be a time when the editors will look back at all the covers they have produced and also for people who collect them.

Selling line

For this issue only the selling line is ‘The Hollywood Issue’ as the main subject for this magazine is music however this is a special edition as it is taking a well-known rapper and putting him into a actors position or a scenario. Which then explains the reason for calling this issue a Hollywood issue?

Main cover line & Cover lines

The main cover line on this magazine is 50 Cent one of the biggest and power fullest people in music I believe that what the editors have tried to do is compare 50 Cent being a big name in the music industry to Scarface one of the most well known films and character in film history. The editors have been very clever with this cover as they link the other cover lines by explaining who else will be featured in this weeks magazine using the word ‘starring ‘ carrying on the theme of comparing the film industry to the music industry. The font used for the cover lines are called serif this could be used on purpose as it is very traditional to make it seem that all the cover lines were started in history however the still have a big impact in things that happen now.

Left Third

This is the begging of the main cover line story it talks about 50 Cent and how he first began his rapping career. They also take real pieces created for the purpose of Scarface and alter them to relate to 50 Cents life. They have only used the most common bits that the audience may remember so they can relate to it.

Bar Code

The bar code is used for retailers to easily identify each magazine every product has a unique one. The bar code shows that it is available to buy in local news agents or supermarkets.


Main Image & Colour Scheme

The main image is of 50 cent however the scenario that he is placed is not and original idea the scenario first began form the film Scarface.This film is known all around the worlds and is known as one of the most greatest movies of all times. As you can see the whole layout is the same from what 50 Cent is wearing down to the serif font used and even some of the sentences used. This magazine compares the history of music to the history of film.
The colours scheme used is exactly the same the red black and white these colours could be used to represent the good the bad and the dangerous of power. Even the way 50 Cent is standing is exactly the same.

Audience

These music magazines is for music lovers mainly fans of hip-hop and rap however in this edition even film lovers could be interested in the way they compare music and film.

Introduction coursework (2)

Introduction
My name is nicole Young and for my coursework I have been asked to make a music magazine including a front page,contents page and a double spread of an interview.I also have to keep in mind the audience for this magazine. Also thinking about the genre of music I will be basing my magazine on or will I be covering more than one.I will need to research what type of music is most popular and what they like to see in music magzines,I will be doing this by making a questionnaire and getting people to fill it in.This blog will be used to my coursework.