My Final Product

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

 I have learned, looking at my preliminary task cover to my final front cover; when taking photos using a studio with proper lighting and cameras result in professional looking photos as apposed to 'ATTAIN' in which the picture was taken with my iPhone 5 in the outside sunshine.

I have learned how to arrange sell lines and display them more clearly. With 'ATTAIN' the pattern on the props meant that it was difficult to write over it as you couldn't read the text but because the props took up such a large pre portion of the page it left me with hardly any room for text anyways. When creating 'EXPRESS' I chose a prop that was fairly plain to avoid this problem and I made sure it wasn't centre of the page making it look busy.

I have learned how to attract a specific audience depending on the genre of magazine by using the correct props and model.

My skills have developed in terms of creating a magazine that looks realistic. This is due to the correct use of conventions and being very disciplined with my choices such as colour theme, font, font size and arrangement.

With my preliminary task I was quite relaxed and picked any random fonts and images and stuck with them, where as on my final piece in the editing process I played around with different colours, images and mastheads until I was completely satisfied.

If I could change anything I would change the masthead to the same burgundy red colour that is used throughout. I would say this because I have come to realise there is a cluster of white towards the top 1/3 of the page including 'EXPRESS', '12TH OCTOBER 2014 £2.50', 'THE BATTLE' and '1O TUNES YOU NEED TO HEAR'. Although the white does stand out I think that perhaps the red would also do the same, but better.

I thought carrying out the preliminary task was useful because it helped me learn from my mistakes as I progressed into making my final piece. I would occasionally look back and make sure I wasn't making the same mistakes I did with my preliminary and In the end it worked in helping me create, what I believe, a far better product.

I gained a lot of knowledge that was vital when creating my music magazine. I needed to gain independent research skills to inform myself how to attract an audience that is correct for my genre of magazine. I learnt editing skills such as adjusting the colour of my images used and how to fit an arrange everything on a page so it looks appealing to the eye. I had to learn how to export files to the correct format so I could upload them onto my blog (from pages document to a JPEG). Last but not least I had to learn how to write for the correct purpose which was to intrigue and audience and draw them in (this occurred mostly with my sell lines).

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

I chose not to use photoshop when creating my product as I have been working from my personal apple macbook and I do not have that software. I have overcome tricky obstacles through making this decision such as trying to rid of the background on various photos i've used for my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I had to find a way to do it without photoshop, at first I tried using 'instant alpha' on 'pages' but I found this not to be precise enough so I turned to online tools where there are websites similar to photoshop that are accessible 'https://pixlr.com/editor/' being an example of the one I used.

Computer technology:

I used a memory stick to save all of my coursework to so I could easily move work from laptop to computer which was very convenient. I however, experienced some problems with this when I wasn't 'ejecting' it and a lot of my coursework got ruined before I could use it:

To fix this I had to save what I could from draft documents and piece it back together.

I also used an SD card when taking the photos for my magazine so I could transfer them onto my laptop. 

I used prezi once to create my genre research. It was a free way to create a presentation piece and put lots of information into one piece however I found it to be very time consuming and that is why I only used it the once. 

I used iMovie to create several videos, one to show how I edited a photo and one to use to present. It is a piece of soft wear that my laptop has therefore free of use to me and I found it very useful for editing video footage and putting voice overs and background music in videos to present. 

I used quick time to take all my audio recordings and screen recordings for iMovie. It's really useful as you can select how much proportion of the screen you want it to record therefore any other areas you don't want to be seen don't have to be.

I used pages to assemble and create all of my product. I liked this format because I am familiar with it and it is the application I used to create my media magazine at GCSE. It is simple to use and allows you to choose from an array of fonts, unlimited amount of photos and holds many various other qualities. 

I used this to create a small presentation as it had a variety of online templates. It was free of use and great to use as I don't have power point. All that was required was an email to sign up then you simply click to create a new presentation, scroll through the options provided and choose one that you like then start right away, like so: 

Last but not least I used 'POWTOON' to create a presentation also. It was very similar to emaze, there was a sign up recurred. It was slightly more difficult to navigate my way around but this site gave me more options when editing. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I chose to target the Indie scene genre as it connects with my theme and I thought it would be fun to create a magazine a bit unusual in terms of style and music to what is already on the market. In my research I had created a reader profile

I put features on this such as 'other interests' and 'occupation' because I wanted to achieve depth for the target audience in other forms other than just their taste in music. Other research such as my questionnaire, I made on a site called survey nuts, which helped me to understand what the audience expects and is looking for therefore by following their opinion I will be appealing to my target audience and created the most accurate magazine that I can.



Each question I asked was very relevant and helped me make designs for each aspect of my magazine. If it wasn't for one of the answers I received to 'What is your opinion on magazine freebies' stating 'I love a magazine freebie as it make me even more excited to buy the product' I perhaps wouldn't have included one due to my response of 'I wouldn't expect any freebies with the magazine being a fairly average price - in my opinion.' I did though choose to in my final product because it can only ever be a positive aspect and not a negative.

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

My media product uses all conventions of those you would find on an average music magazine. On my double page spread however, I challenged the conventions due to changing the colour of the background which is usually just kept white. I did this to bring and incorporate individuality into the magazine, not just through the artists and bands featured but through the style and layout of the magazine its self, I believe this works and gives my magazine a very vintage look.

Examples of typical double page spreads:

I also noticed that on many of the double page spread, conventionally, a main feature image is placed on the left hand side. On my first attempt I did follow this in the same way:










however after careful thoughts and asking my peers, I decided it looked like it could have been two separate articles. This made me want to create a double page spread which was obvious to the eye, and that is my reason for the main image to be placed down the very center of the magazine leaving half the image on the left side and half on the right. This way both pages are clearly linked before any text is read.

I challenged the typical convention of  'pull quotes' as I didn't embed my pull quote within the text but placed it at the top of the left hand page.  The reason for this is that my text was only one column to a page due to then large image in the center which meant I didn't have much room to fit it in. With the text having to be larger in size to attract the audience I placed it at the top where it can clearly be seen instead of trying to squeeze it insignificantly in the column of text. I also believe this works to my advantage as it is the most engaging sentence in the first two pages of the article and because we read from top left to bottom right it should be the first thing the reader see's, engaging them to read on.


I think the conventions I used on my contents page are typical. I developed them slightly further by giving my layout a revamp. I didn't want my contents to look boring to read, I wanted there to be an exciting look to it with different pictures and sized writing incorporating a random looking layout. I was not intending for it to look messy as it has been well thought out however I did want it to look fun.

On my front cover I have used a close up shot of a female model and vinyl prop partially covering the face for my main image. I wanted to do this because I didn't want my magazine being hard to differentiate between when compared to a fashion magazine. So to really emphasize the fact it is an indie music magazine I thought adding the vinyl record would set it off perfectly. I have also found other various magazines which have used props and I believe it still contains a very professional look.

 

In terms of continuity I created a house style throughout my product; front cover; contents and double page spread.

I achieved this by repeating the use of the red colour used for the main features sell line, main features description, page number as well as for the main body of text on my double page spread. I also used the same font for 'THE MASTER', 'FREE POSTER INSIDE' and 'INSIDE THIS WEEK' my reasoning for this was to tie things together with the front cover and contents. I did not use this font for the text on my double page spread as it was very bold and dramatic where as I wanted it to look more conventional and be easier to read so I chose to use a vintage type font, to tie in with my indie theme, called 'courier new'. My front cover main image, main feature image on contents page and all images on double page spread are of the same artist (model) which can be clearly noticed as the same costume is worn. Although there are slight changes in some images where there is a use of props or clothing items are removed the style and person stays clearly the same. My strongest and main three colours used consistently throughout my product are the red, blue and white. I matched the background colour blue to the same of the models eyes, like so:

I did the same for the red matching it to the colours on the scarf worn by the artist/model and I then chose the white because it would stand out like the white in her eyes.

Whenever I displayed the masthead elsewhere such as the contents I kept the same font (only changing the colour to blue due the colour of the background being white) to prevent confusion in the consumer and because it is the conventionally correct thing to. If I was to change the font and colour it would no longer look as if it was representing the same magazine. 

Rough draft of page 2/2 double page spread

Rough draft of page 1/2 double page spread

Double page spread inspiration

I really liked and was drawn to this because of the vintage look. When seeing it I knew instantly that I
wanted to create a double page spread similar to this one. I looked at the colour and noticed it was sepia. I liked this and recreated this effect with my own images using 'preview' on my macbook.

   

   

I also found the 'pull quote' to be set out interestingly as it is not embedded within the text but is placed on the blankest area at the top of the right hand page. From this I continued to create my double page spread incorporating the things I liked from this example. 

The refined two versions of my front cover

These were the two copies I narrowed down to when trying to decide which will be my final front cover.

Masthead development

 

I first thought about what I wanted to name my music magazine having called my mock up 'AMPLIFY'. I didn't want to keep that as I felt it didn't reflect the indie genre as much as I'd have liked. I then tried 'LISTEN' however I still didn't feel this quite fitted right, It is within the semantic field of music however I felt it was missing something. I then thought of 'EXPRESS' and I loved this as it connotes expressing yourself individually and as many do: through music. I believe it has both aspects of the genre of magazine i've chosen to do. I wanted to keep the font simple and square (edgy) as I felt it follows the conventions more. The reason for the colouring is simply to match the model. The red was from the patterns on her scarf present in various other photos and the grey-blue was matched to the colour of her eyes - with the black and one white version of 'EXPRESS' just being basic. I also thought it was best to match the colours to the model as it creates a more distinct colour theme.

This is a video I've created using iMovie to show how I got my original Images to the first stage of editing (as shown below).

These are my 8 favourite photographs I took of Shannon Tonks who agreed to model for me. On the day of the shoot I asked her to wear something different and out of the ordinary to reflect my genre of magazine.   These images are not in original format. Before I chose to use any of the images I faded them and decreased the exposure, contrast and saturation.