Q7

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

Ever since I have done my preliminary task have learnt many things that I had to undertake when creating my magazine. Things like keeping up with the time and also organisation skills, this was because I understood that my magazine was very long and pretty tough so I had set myself a plan on what to do and when to do it. I have also become an expert with using a canon e0s 400d camera as I had to look after it during the holidays, this is because I did not know anything about using it just before I had it but now I’m pretty used to the functions of it.

I have also learnt about framing camera shots rather than just pointing the camera at the subject. When taking photograph of my models I made sure that I took it very well with different camera shots that would be effective for my magazine. When it came to taking photographs of my models I was far behind from many students however I overcame this by structuring my time and making sure I did everything on time.

My creative decisions did not come from the audience feedback at all, I used my own knowledge .With the pictures I was taking I made sure my models were giving the right gesture ,body language as well as good poses to attract my target audience well. With this I felt like a professional photographer and to be honest I was very pleased with the amount of pictures I took because they were all very good.

I have never used Photoshop in my life before ever sinceI started my media course; I used to think that Photoshop was avery complex software. But then ever since I have started the real music magazine i faced many challenges but at the end I became an expert in using most tools, it felt almost like I was using Microsoft word. Things that I found difficult was changing images into jpeg before inserting them into blogger, I believe that was very difficult thing before I even knew how to do it but then when getting used to it I founded it easy. Also I never knew how to rotate images and text on Photoshop but then when I got some support from a friend after all i then realise Photoshop was not that bad although it is not straightforward. I managed to use a good background for my front cover just to give that style of genre I was going for after all it did work out. My draft layout of a music magazine does not look anything like my actual magazine this was because I had a change of mind when creating my ideal magazine as I did not like the one on the layout

                                           
                                                       Post production feedback

My front cover

strengths
Looking at my feedbacks from the audience it looks like my audience really likes my magazine as i used good colours that well attracted them. They also like the fact that i used a hip hop look using the style of font and also the artist.Most of them were very attracted to my magazine just because of  my masthead they said that it really stood out and also the colour black really stood out.Some of them had said that my magazine looks very proffessional

weaknesses
One of the audience had said that the fonts that I  used were too into the audiences face this means that I should have decreased the size of the font more so that it wont go all over the place.They also said that my barcode should have been at the bottom of the page because most magazines are not seen with barcode on the top right hand side.

Contents page
 strengths
My audience liked my contents page because of the use of repetitive colours and also the position of text helps give that asymmetrical look. They had said that it didnt look too boring because i did not include too much text in it, and also the model i used was very attractive which meant that it would be appealing.They also liked the advert about the subscription of my magazine they believe it makes the magazine seem real and also the fact that i used another ' boss' magazine along with another magazine in the editors note made it look really excellent.They had also liked the editors note ,they thought it was very realistic.

weaknesses
Style of the text was very boring compared to the front cover it did not attract the audiences at all , i should have made the font look more interesting.

Double page spread


strengths
My colour schemes were simple, it is also continuous as it follows on from the front cover and contents page. Subject name is very bold and eye catchy due to the size of the font and also the colours .The column that i used for my page was said to be very cute and simple because of this it has gain many attention. I also mentioned the models name at the bottom center of the image this attracted alot of my audiences well. The stand first at the start of the written article was also said to be very unique and appealing as it shows the reader were to start reading

Weaknesses
the page number was very dull and boring as it looked simple , I believe i could have done better with that.the shape that i used behind the text was too dark and because of this it has made the text very complicated to read.

Q6

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

The first technology that I have used during my coursework was the internet, I was given a blogger account to store all my coursework work into it. Using blogger was pretty straight forward however it had some disadvantages I had to face  for example when using large pictures within a text, shortcut support does not work with it (ctrl+v etc) and also their text format is different from the one in Microsoft. The advantages with blogger are that it’s straightforward and it does not allow unauthorised people to view your blog making sure its safe.

My coursework task was to create a music magazine front cover, content page and double page spread. For this task I had to take a pictures that I was going to include for my magazine using a canon E0s 400D, the reason why I had used this particular camera is because it would help my magazine look as professional as possible and effective in terms of the focus of the camera rather than using any other low budget camera. I had created my music magazine using adobe Photoshop cs3 which was very useful because it was very good in editing the images and font text of the front cover and content page. I am not a big fan of adobe Photoshop cs3 because It is a very complex editor for me as Photoshop is not the first choice for me if I was to edit a magazine. When it came to using the still camera, I was having difficulties with operating the camera because it was my first time using a canon E0S 400D camera and also focusing well on the subject. However after a few practises I started getting used with operating the camera this then started to build my confidence in using the camera. After using Photoshop a numerous amount of times, I then became an expert in using most tools which then made things much more faster and easier for me.

When taking a photograph of people i wanted in my magazine, it took me a long time to take it this is because of the state of the weather

One of the 3 tools that are enjoyed using were custom shape tool crop tool and layer style.

Custom shape tool-I used this tool on my contents and double page spread .I did this to beautify it even more and also give that teenaged nature letting people know my magazine is aimed at young people. What you do is click unto the custom shape tool on the tools box and select whichever type of shape best suits you

Layer style-this is one of my favourite tools that I enjoyed the most as it helps me give that effect unto the photo, such as strokes, drop shadow, inner glow and texture etc. When you have your photo up you simple double click unto the layer page on the right hand side and then the option will come up.

Crop tool- I really enjoy using this because its fun and exciting and it helps get rid of things i don’t want in a photo right away.

I believe that I could have taken a better medium shot of my subject, as my subject was to close to the camera making it seem as if the artist was too into your face distracting the audience from viewing elsewhere

Q5

Q5.How did you attract/address your audience?

I have attracted my audience very well in my magazine. Firstly I used a young female artist to help attract the female audience who are viewing my magazine, this helps them feel important and empowered as they are the centre of attention of my front cover. My magazine mainly focuses on the American audience as it features many hip hop and r& b artists, I would say hip and r& b is mostly dominated by the Americans this means that they can be able to relate more with my magazine.The main colour on my magazine is black and white I have chosen this colour because of the fact that they are very bold and eye catchy .The males can relate to it also because black and white is a unisex colour this means that I will have a wide range of audiences rather than just females. The  cover line ‘Rona’ I have used a sharp black colour as a way of drawing attention from my audience , most teenagers tend to loose concentration easily so with use of dark bold colours it helps catch their attention much more quickly. I have also used large images in my contents pages with little text to not bore my target audience as I said before teenagers get bored easily so using brief texts helps draw more attention from the. I also believe reading is much more boring than viewing an image with my magazine I made sure that I satisfied my audience needs by letting the images take over most of the page.

In my magazine i have used a few advertisements to catch my audience well i felt that my audience will be more interested in it. I also used many different shapes in magazine not only to make my magazine interesting but to also attract my audience and make them feel more obsessive with it.

With my magazine i used formal language to interact with my audience  the reason being for this is because i wanted to show my magazines profession and also give a good impression of it aswel because i know parents will be interested in reading it therefore i would need to use an appropriate language just not to confuse them. I have already said my magazine is targeted to females around the world .

The artist on the front cover has very curly hair this show the feminine side of her feeling the audience that ‘she is bothered’ she is not like any typical ‘tomboy’. Her glasses is a very modern style for teenagers in our generations, this represents a sense of style this can relate to many teenagers who also have a sense of style when it comes to dressing up

Q4

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine would be targeted at the following;

·         Teenaged girls who have an interest in hip hop music#

·         Teenaged girls who watch Mtv base AND VH1

·         Shop at stores which sell clothes from stores with a hip hop culture.

·         Enjoy catching up with the latest update of well known hip hop artists

My magazine ‘Boss’ is aimed at an international black audience aged from 14 -19.It mainly follows the American style of a typical magazine not because of the convention but the whole nature and also the style of the artist on my magazine will relate to the Americans  more .I decided to focus on that particular audience because of the fact that teenaged girls will have something to relate to when they read my magazine , for example catching up with celeb gossip, feature , interview with artists, fashion and many more . Things like this will help entertain teenagers and also keep them out of trouble. If you look at my contents page there a is few members of teenagers around the page, I have done this to attract my audience  giving them that opportunity to focus on fame than the worst. As I said earlier my magazine does not mean to target only blacks it also welcomes other ethnicity but unfortunately have not shown this in my magazine however hip hop is loved by many not only black people so this can relate to other ethnic background and also by the male audience.

 My magazine targets people who have active social lives such as going clubbing, concerts, youth clubs etc. Looking at my magazine most of the members are very active as their photograph are mostly taken outdoors rather than indoors this helps motivates my audience getting them to become more active.

Q3

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

Going back to my case study that I and research on earlier, I have decided that a magazine publisher such as frontline will be able to publish my magazine. The reason why i chose frontline publisher is as follows:

·         It is the UK’s leading magazine sales and Distribution Company.

·         Frontline distributes consumer magazines produced by prestigious publisher shareholders - BBC Magazines, Bauer and Haymarket

·         Frontline sells and distributes over 160 of our Shareholder Publishers’ magazine titles, including 60 of the top 200 best selling titles in the UK (source: ABC)

I had tried to find an institution that specialised in black teenaged girls magazines, I went through teen vogue and Cosmo girls but I could not find a publishing company that would be able to distribute my media product.

Frontline publisher do not publish a magazine that is similar to mine therefore, this would not create a competition within my magazine and the publisher titles. Frontline’s purpose is to give each and every copy the maximum opportunity of being sold for the lowest practical cost I believe frontline would be interested in my magazine as the price of my magazine is affordable for most teenagers. It is said that frontline distributes 60 of the 200 best selling titles, my magazine should be part of the 60 bestselling magazine this is because of the fact that it is eye catchy and engaging. My magazine is targeted to the hip hop audience however frontline does not distribute hip hop magazines like mine so I think that if they did distribute my magazine there would be a more wider audience that will be interested in their media product with a combination of mostly black and white race.

Furthermore Frontline sells and distributes over 160 of our Shareholder Publishers’ magazine titles this means that my magazine will be sold to a vast amount of audience making it more known and successful. I have encouraged subscription with my magazine so that more of my target audience will be able purchase a good amount of my magazine issues for a reasonable price; I have done this for the fans of my magazine just to not keep them waiting with my magazine.

I will have my magazine being sold mainly in WH smiths .The reason why I have chosen Wh smiths is because of the fact that WH Smith currently operates over 1000 stores, primarily in the UK, comprising 532 travel outlets at airports, train stations, hospitals, workplaces and motorway service areas and 581 high street stores .This means that my magazine will be seen and sold through wh smiths stores in the UK and also from tourist from all around the world who knows their might be another publishing company from another country who is interested in distributing my media product in their own country making my magazine become the talk of town. However i would have to look closely at my target audience as they are still young so travelling all the way to large markets such as WH smiths and HMV.

I would then have my magazine sold at corner shops and newsagent shops to suit the convenience of my young target audience. Most corner shops are less than a 10 minutes walk was as the large markets take a much longer time to reach.

youth clubs are a much more easier way of getting into contact with  my target audience as many teenagers attend , this also means that I would be able to sell out a lot of money with my magazine as a majority of them will be able to relate to my magazine. I would give out a good number of copies of my magazines to the youth club owners to hand out to the teenagers that are interested.

Q2

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

My magazine was created to represent urban black teenaged girls aged 13-19, and what I have done to portray is with a photograph of a young girl dressed in style as my front cover. I did not intend to aim it only black people but my magazine just ended up like that, I wished I included majority of different race to increase my target audience. I believe there are some people from a white background who live and are influenced by the black culture, this means that they can relate to my magazine instead of been excluded. This artist on my magazine is a hip hop and r&b music rapper and by this I made sure she had the look of an hip hop artist so that when the audience looks at it they will be able to recognize something that they can relate to more .My media product will relate to people who are fans of hip hop music and also the hip hop look. Looking at my magazine you can see that I had tried to give this hip hop nature by the use of fonts, colours and the photoa, I made sure I did not make them look very boring because teenagers loose interest in things quickly. Although my media product is targeted for the younger audience, adults are also included as a result because many other audience who are fans of hip hop music will relate to it also as it is something they enjoy. I made sure that my media product was not to childish because i wanted the older target audience to also read my magazine making it a diverse group.

My front page would be mostly related to girls who dressed in a famous American style known as the ‘jerking style’ .Things such as these big bulky glasses, checked top and jeans really shows the sense of hip hop nature. Looking at my contents page it looks like the social group is much more diverse as doesn’t focuse on girls it also focuses on boys as I included a male in my contents page. This reason why I have done this is so that the males would not feel isolated when reading my magazine, I feel that i need a vast amount of target audience to read my magazine not just girls because this will look too fake.

I have tried to link my magazine with scratch magazine by including a female rapper as the front cover of my page just as the real conventions of a real magazine. I believe my so called artist on my front cover will catch many attentions from my target audiences this is because people would like to know who she is so therefore they would want to read about her. I also followed the characteristics of a typical rap artist with simple features such as body warmers, jeans checked top and also the serious expression a rapper .I made sure my model was dressed in style so that they can have some sort of respect .Nowadays in the UK’s street culture many teenagers like to be seen wearing clothes with brands, what this means to them is that people will show more respect and it will also show that you are up to trend. This is what i have tried to do with the artist, although the brand on my artist is not as visible my target audience will still get familiar with it.

                      

In my contents page you can see that I included the main model, clothes and props to help fit in with my genre, I did this so that my target audience were familiar with the type of genre that I was pursuing .Looking at billboard board magazine above we can see that missy Elliot is dressed in urban style with the typical long chain with he big pendant and also a fashionable hoody that shows femininity of the magazine , this is related to my magazine in a way due to this female rapper nature .Her facial expression looks very serious as she looks directly at the camera this shows that she is strong and confident. With my magazine the artist on the front page uses a very serious facial expression this shows what a typical female artist would do especially in London. In the billboard magazine missy Elliot’s hands rests on her waist this shows that she has confidence in what she is wearing and it also shows the feminine side of her.  Most teenagers will relate to this because their body language represents youth as casual, informal and relaxed, this is also what i did with my artist on my magazine .Instead she holds glasses to show confidence and pride with her style.

In my contents and double page spread using a white background was very important for me because most teenagers loose distraction easily so with the use of a white background implies a sense of exclusivity which then implies the young audience who feel the need to stand out amongst the rest of the society.

*keeping text simple-teenagers get bored DPS

Q1

Q1. What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

At the start of my coursework unit we were asked to create a textual analysis of a music magazine front cover. What I chose to evaluate was a ‘billboard’ magazine.  I chose this because it attracted my eyes well and it had a photograph of a very popular music artist that I admired as the front page. I analysed the denotations and connotations of the magazine and how it met the conventions of a real music magazine. In creating my magazine i have used many conventions of a real magazine to attract my target audience well which are young black teenagers.

Firstly in comparison to the bilboard magazine front page, the size of my masthead is slightly similar, this is because of the use of bold fonts.The reason why i have chosen to use thick bold fonts is to reflect on the powerfull nature of my magazine and this relates to my genre which is ‘badgirls’ . A typical ‘badgirl’ keeps up to trends,tough and they can also be ‘tomboyish’.

Looking at my masthead  ‘boss’ you can see that I have started it off from the top left corner of my magazine which then makes it way to the right hand side, this is very common with American magazines such as billboard ,scratch and vibe. I had decided to follow these common American conventions because of the genre of magazine so i had to make it a mixture of American and British just to give it a little more taste than using the typical left third convention. The whole point of this type of convention is so that it would be seen when stacked on the shelves in local shops or supermarkets, doing this meets the real conventions of real magazine this is because it helps them attracts their target audience.

In my front page I have used many font and sizes just like the real conventions of magazine to connote a variety. This is done because many teenagers find it boring sticking to one thing as it does not interest them, but with me meeting their expectations of a magazine this will really attract them more

I have also included a website link of my magazine just to add that extra spice unto it making it more realistic, this type of convention would be also important because it helps the audience keep on track with the different features of the magazine and also updates.

With my main cover line of my front page ‘ Rona’   i made sure that this took up a quarter of the magazine cover this is done to show the importance of the artist on the front page as it promotes them as current. I used bright and engaging colours such as yellow and black to attract my audience , I came up with this when looking through real magazines what I did was looking through the colours ,font size and also the type of font that was used to present the artist. I used this type of font to flow along with the style of the artist, if I used a much more feminine type of font this would not fit in well together so I had to use my common sense in choosing the style of the font and also colour.

My barcode is on the right side of my front page just like the real magazines

Im a fan of using strokes on font, if you have noticed i have used the stroke effect in most of the fonts . I believe that using a stroke helps beautify and also makes a font much more engaging than it already is. When using the stroke I had to be very careful this is because of the fact that it would be too into your face. I have used colourful titles well in my front page, I have done convention to catch my audiences and also meet my genre well , doing this will relate more to the teenagers and also make them spend more time on my magazine than anything else.

 I used a banner at the bottom of my front page which reads ‘ interview/review/news/fashion/features, I made sure that it was short ,sharp description of my the titles main marketing point. This was done as a visible status which helps convince my target audience into purchasing my magazine. I made it look just like the real conventions of magazine such as buzz magazine, substream etc

I have also used a puff on my front cover, this is done in a style of a sticker, this opposes the real conventions of magazine this is because I decided to use the selling line description on the puff as a made up convention of my own and I have no reasons for this. However puffs are common in some magazines and I have done this to attract my audience and give them an interest with my magazine.

In my contents page I have used a few conventions that meet many real magazine as way of attracting my audience. Firstly I have used a continuous colour scheme that will help match my front cover this is because it helps give that ‘the boss’ nature and also remind them of my magazine. It very important to use a colour scheme this is because it helps the audience keep track of a specific magazine, without the use of a colour scheme it would make them forget about the theme of your magazine and eventually make them loose interest and this is what I did not want. I had to be very carefull although it was very difficult for to make it continuous.

I have also used a mix in my contents page I made sure that I used an equal amount of photos and text boxes that suited my audience , I made sure I did not use to  many text boxes so that it would  not bore them.

In my double page spread i made sure that the heading ‘People compare me to lil mama and i hate that’ go across the page on the top of the page, this was done to catch the attention of my audience and also make both pages interesting. I also used pull quotes on the left hand side of the page to pull the reader unto the text more .The column of the text on the double spread is very neat and it helps show how organised my magazine looks.