FINAL PAGES: COVER AND CONTENTS

Evaluation

For my media coursework project I chose to independently work on the print project to make a music magazine which would be good enough to be published in the music magazine market today. I chose to do the magazine as i thought this would be more suitable for me as i am most interested in the music side to media rather than the film section. I also enjoy the journalism aspect towards media. Above is a photograph of me working on www.blogger.com uploading my work. 






Question1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


After some hard decision making i decided to name my music magazine ‘Represent’ which I considered to be very relevent to my magazine. I thought it fitted in perfectly as it is an RnB character i was going to 'represent' i also felt like it made you eager to find out what was going to be represented therefore making you want to read on. The majority of my magazine is based on RnB music including the feature article, although the magazine is hybrid with a hint of celebrity gossip included. I chose to do a solo artist based on other solo RnB artists such as LilWayne and Chris Brown. I named my artist Danny Conboy; more commonly known as 'Conboy'.

The images above are also what i represented my protagonist to dress like. I enjoy the look of the baggy clothes with the chains and the caps. I think this is the general look of an RnB solo rap/singer artist.






The genre I chose to base my media project magazine on was 'RnB' the reasons for this is because I particularly like this genre, it's one of my favourites and most of the music me and my friends listen to is RnB. I thoroughly enjoyed researching the RnB genres and found it very interesting finding out what magazines promoted the RnB genre. The main magazine i found was called 'VIBE.'

'VIBE' thoroughly helped influence the created of my media magazine and it inspired my designs. My favourite magazine cover i found by 'VIBE' was modeling Lil Wayne, i loved this one as he has the same dress style i wished to dress my model into. Below is a picture of my magazine and the one i was influenced by.

Whilst researching 'VIBE' i also had a look at some of the contents pages it had to offer. I found quite a lot which i liked but the one i chose to inspire my work was the image below. I loved how there was only two main colours in the colour scheme which made them stand out a lot more and i thought it was very interesting and made me want to read on.

Looking back to the results of my questionnaire another one of the main reasons i chose to base my magazine on the RnB genre is because the results of most listened to genre came in as RnB. A chart of the results is shown below. I genuinely think i succeeded in getting the RnB message across because in my audience feedback questions; 'what genre the magazine was based on and if it is generally obvious as to what it is on' the results came back that it was 90% obviously based on RnB. 10% show that it looked like a pop magazine, which doesn't bother me too much as they are fairly similar genres. The results are also shown below.

Question2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?


Typical representations and stereotypes are shown all over the world not just in Media language. There are so many different stereotypes for example the mail chav, or the business working dad.

Personally i have created my RnB artist to be a male solo rapper. This is the typical representation for RnB style as you compare my image to a famous artist i think that they seem to be fairly similar!! The male in RnB is always seen as the rapper or artist were as sometimes the women in RnB may come across as a sex object.

 

Question3

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

I have decided to distribute my music magazine to the well known company IPC. IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands, with their print brands alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men – almost 27 million UK adults – while their online brands collectively reach 20 million users every month.

IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women.

The men's portfolio (IPC Inspire) comprises a wealth of leisure brands including Country Life, Horse & Hound,Rugby World and Decanter, as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME.

The mass market women's division (IPC Connect) comprises famous women's weeklies including Look, Now, Chat andWoman; TV entertainment brands including What's on TV,TVTimes and TV & Satellite Week and, online, thegoodtoknow network.

The upmarket women's division (IPC Southbank) comprises luxury fashion brands including Marie Claire and InStyle, lifestyle brands including woman&home and essentials and home interest brands including Ideal Home, Livingetc andhousetohome.

Some of my favourite magazines they produce include: NME and Look magazine.


My magazine would be successful with this company as it contains celebrity gossip like many of the other magazines they produce such as; Look. The music side also gets produced for example in; NME.

The official IPC website can be found at http://www.ipcmedia.com/

Look magazine official website can be found on http://www.look.co.uk/

NME magazine official website can be found on http://www.nme-magazine.com

Other known magazine publishers include: EMAP and Future Publishing.

Question4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Gender- My magazine will be based on a male protagonist. I will try and include a few pictures and information on female artists also. Just because my magazine is based on a male i am still aiming to get my magazine viewers of both genders, male and female. 

Race- Race is fairly important when planning my about target audience. The artist i will choose to feature in my magazine is generally white british or american as RnB artists are mainly from that race and attract the same. The target audience i wish to meet in the race category, is all race's. 

Age- Age will probably be the key aspect of getting the magazine reached to the correct target audience. In general young people will not be reading this magazine as they may not be able to read very well and understand some of the terms used. Older people probably are not interested in this style of music so therefore the age genre will most likely be mid-teens to early twenties. Roughly 15-25. Age is particularly important grouping because members of the same age group tend to be at the same stage of their family life cycle e.g. new parents, and thus seem to have similar wants. I hope to attract most ages but mainly 15-25 will be the most popular in my opinion.

Socio-economic Status- Essentially this is which class you belong to depending on your job/occupation. Socio-economic segments are widely used in marketing, the six standard socio-economic groupings in the UK are:

A - higher managerial, administrative or professional e.g. surgeon/director

B - intermediate managerial or administrative e.g. solicitor/teacher

C1 - skilled non-manual e.g. sales assistant/shop floor supervisor

C2 - skilled manual e.g. electrician/plumber

D - semi skilled e.g. assembly like workers/cleaners

E - unskilled, pensioners and unemployed.

I will be hoping to reach all socio-economic status's but i think i will mainly reach the lower categories. Mainly C-E.

I doubt i will reach any secondary target audiences but i will try to non-the-less.

Powerpoint Audience Feedback

My audience feedback is mainly positive which i am very proud of. I will use the negative feedback if i ever need to come across this project again and i will therefore make it much better.


Question5
How did you attract/address your audience?


In my music magazine i tried to make many things attract to my audience. The first thing they would be attracted too would obviously be my front cover. The title may be the first thing they look at. The title 'Represent' i think attracts many people, as they are eager to know what will be 'represented'. The main image shows that it is generally going to be about RnB as the dress style of the main protagonist proves this with his baggy clothes. I think that the captions on the front of my magazine play a great part in attracting my audience as they would like to see something they would enjoy reading later on in the magazine. The background i think helps a lot as it is black it helps everything stand out against it. The colour palette is good as they clash against eachother making it very eye catching and intriguing. The editors letter on the contents page, the content on the contents page seems to be to be very appetizing, there is a range of things. Not just all a heap load of information, things such as reviews. I particularly like the image on my double page spread. I took that photo especially for it. It fits perfectly and it looks like it should belong there. I cropped out the background for it so it would look like more of an effect with the image. I think that it is appealing to the eye to read because the title sound interesting and its very big and catches the eye easily.


Question6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


I have used a great amount of technology in the production of my magazine. Without all the use of this technology i would not of been able to create a successful magazine.


Firstly I created my blog to record everything i have carried out including my research, planning and steps of the making of my magazine. To do this i used the website www.blogger.com I kept my blog up to date and regularly added new posts to it to record my progress and keep on top of my work i was carrying out so this would enable me to make the best magazine i possibly could. Blogger had its good points and bad points, at times it could be very useful as i could use it wherever i wanted, at home or at college. I could add photographs and blog posts if i had little time and then save them as drafts so that when i had more time i could access the site at home and correct my posts and make them as good as possible then publish them. However, on the other hand blogger could be very un-reliable. Some times it was very slow especially when adding images. This led me too be late in completing my final product as it wouldn't load onto blogger. Below is a picture of how www.blogger.com looks once you have been logged in.

The most commonly used piece of technology was the internet. I used it throughout the creation my project but mainly for my research at the start of my product. I needed to research front covers, content pages and double page spreads to gather information and ideas for my own magazine. For my research i used www.google.com/images many times and i also used www.youtube.com quite often. Below are screenshots of the two:

Examples of the other online websites i used include: www.google.com and www.dafont.com. I used www.google.com images too search for things such as the barcode for the magazine cover i used. I also used it for research. I used www.dafont.com too look for some of the fonts on my project. Here are some screen shot examples:

Two other useful websites i used was the SMC Moodle website, which led me onto the IPC website.

I also used a camera similar to the one below to take the shots for my magazine. When I was taking the pictures for my magazine I was worried how the quality of my pictures would be as I wasn't using a professional digital camera. The quality of the pictures wasn't great, they were a bit pixelated but they were still good enough to use. They lost a lot of quality as they were being processed through many programs i used such as InDesign and PhotoShop. If i was aware of the problem before hand i would of tried to borrow a professional camera to take the pictures.

InDesign was the main programme I used whilst putting my magazine together. I would not of been able to make a successful magazine without it. It is a very professional programme which at first I found difficult to use as there are a lot of areas within InDesign which are complicated to use, but after a while i began to come to terms with the basics of the program. After completing my magazine i think i have quite a range of knowledge on how to work the programme. By using Indesign, my pages look very professional and I don't think I would find another programme that would make my pages look as professional as this has managed to, this programme had everything i needed on it.

Another very useful programme i used was PhotoShop, i also found this programme very complex and hard to use. But once i had been on it a while i managed to pick up on the basics of it. I used this programme to upload my pictures onto once i had taken them. The effects of this programme made my pictures look much better, it helped sharpen the image and therefore making it less pixelated. It also helped me crop out the background for images i used such as on my main feature article. I also faded one of the pictures too look better on my contents page.

All of the work i have carried out was completed on a Mac. I found this extremely easy as i have a Mac at home. I also took this as an advantage as i could do most of my work at home which was quicker than the Mac at college. Both Macs had the programmes on which were necessary for me too use. If i was to make another magazine i would still definitely use a Mac.

Question7

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

After finishing my final music magazine task I looked back at my prelimary task which was the first thing in my blog and I compared the two of my front covers. Since I created my Prelimary task, I have learnt alot of new skils and techniques, including how to use Photoshop and Indesign properly and this has definitely made a difference towards my final product. In my preliminary shot it is just a basic shot in a plain boring background. Once i had taken that i thought it was very good and i was proud of myself. But now i have challenged myself and seen what i am capable of it makes me admire my final task more. This was understandable though as i was unaware of the full advantages when using InDesign or Photoshop like I did when creating my music magazine. Also there was no consistency in my preliminary task. I had used a number of colours and fonts which do not match, were as in my final task i had used consistent colours and the same font which looked so much better and professional. The sub titles in my preliminary task were rather boring as i didn't really know what i was doing. I also used the tripod whilst making this but i wasn't very sure on how to use it, i think thats why my shot wasn't great as i was just practicing. But on the other hand i enjoyed doing it and also i got to experiment on InDesign on PhotoShop which taught me the basics towards making my final product in my music magazine.

Conclusion

Finally my blog and product have come to an end and overall after reading through everything and looking at my final product thoroughly i am very pleased with the way everything has turned out. I particularly like my front cover and main article, this is because of the images i have used i think they look very realistic and they turned out just how i wanted them to. My front page stands out to people by the colours used as they clash together and  it isn't overpowered by lots of images and information. Alongside the images in my magazine i like the name of my magazine as i think that it means something. I think all of the pages in my magazine look good considering the level of experience i have had making music magazines. Most of all i enjoy looking back from my preliminary task to my final task as it shows how much i have progressed.

The only weaknesses of my final products i feel is the contents page, I found that it didn't look as professional as the rest of my magazine which let it down. I do not have time to change this now but overall i am generally happy with the whole project and i have enjoyed learning new techniques of programmes i have never used before.

Audience Feedback

Powerpoint Audience Feedback

Also here is a scanned copy of one of the audience feedback questionnaires i gave out too one of my classmates.

Final Product - Double Page Spread

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Final Product - Contents Page

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Final Product - Front Cover

Images

Below are the three images i chose to use in my magazine, this is because they were my favourite ones and i thought they would look the best in my magazine. I took alot of images but deleted them after not all of them turned out too good as i took them in a black background a lot of the images were too dark to be used.

Font Ideas

As part of my research i went on www.dafont.com and looked at a range of fonts which i thought may be appropriate for my front cover, contents page and double page spread. The fonts I have been looking at are mainly going to be used for the main headings on the pages of my magazine. Below are a few examples of what i thought would look decent.

Mock - Double Page Spread

This is a mock hand drawn of what i would like my double page spread too look similar too once made.

Mock - Contents

This is a hand drawn sketch on what i would like my contents page to look similar too.

Mock - Front Cover

This is a self drawn mock of what i would like my front cover too look similair to when produced.

Calender

In order to have enough time to finish my music magazine by the deadline given i have created a calender to help me reach my target. The week beginning the 07/12/09 is going to be my last week of planning and designing how my magazines front cover, contents page and feature article will look. As soon as i have all that planned out i am going over to Manchester to visit my cousin who will be modeling for me, so i will therefore take the shots then. After that i will use the next two weeks to complete everything and make sure it is up to scratch and as good as it could possibly be. Once that is over i will then start on my evaluation. 

Planning - Background

For my front cover image i don't plan on having a background. I would like an effective look with just one plain background. Here are some examples using other artists:

Planning - Costume

Costume will  be a main characteristic of my music magazine. As it is RnB it is crucial the outfit coincides with this. One of the main looks for RnB is very baggy clothes, but yet smart, below i will show a few examples. 

As you can see this is a typical RnB dress sense modeled by Akon. This is what i would like my artist too look like. He is looking very casual, yet smart at the same time. He has a big expensive chain on alongside the expensive belt.

I also like this image as it is similar to the first one. Here the RnB look is modeled by Lil Wayne, similar to Akon he is wearing a huge chain around his neck and also a huge belt. And the same style jacket.

Download Top 40

As part of my research into genre i investigated popular music genres through the analysis of the download top 40. I researched this through the internet and then processed it into Microsoft Excel and created a pie chart to clearly show my results.

As my results can clearly show, RnB was the most popular downloads indicated in blue. Results showed that a huge 14 out of the 40 top downloaded albums were actually RnB. Which is a good indication that my music magazine as it is based on RnB will be rather successful. 

Questionnaire Results

Above are three charts i have created in excel after analysing the results in my questionnaire. On the top is a pie chart with the title 'How Old Are You?' As the results show the most common result was 16-18 with 7 out of 10 people being that age indicated in red. 19-22 age range had 2 of 10 people in it indicated in yellow. 23-25 had one person out of ten, this is indicated in green. Under 15 and Over 25 contained no results and therefore didn't appear on the chart. Therefore i am going to range my magazine for those in the 16-18 age range.

The second was a bar chart displaying the results of the question 'How Often Do You Purchase A Music Magazine?' there were only two possible answers too this: weekly and monthly. As you can see by the results 3 out of 10 people purchased a magazine weekly and 7 out of the 10 purchased a magazine monthly. Therefore i am going to produce my magazine monthly too meet the correct target audience.


Finally the chart was based on 'Genre Of Music Interested In?'. There were 7 possible answers to choose from. As seen on the graph 'RnB' was the most commonly listened to music genre this is indicated in yellow, pop was the second most listened to which is indicated in red. Rock, dance and indie all had one person who enjoyed listening to them. Lastly 'alternative' and 'other' had no listeners.

Psychographic Profiling

This type of profiling assumes that the audience is complex and have to have certain needs which need to be satisfied. An example for this is adverts as they appeal to the audiences emotions and psychological needs. Maslows hierarchy of needs addresses audience segmentation. Young and Rubicam's Cross-cultural Consumer Characteristics is an approach which characterises people in terms of their personal aspirations. Young and Rubicam said there were four categories of audience based upon these aspirations. These include:


Mainstreamers - 40% of the market. They seek security in conformity and thus tend to buy well-known brand items.


Aspirers - people motivated by status. They buy smart. high tech and high fashion goods.


Succeeders - these people have already climbed the ladder and want too keep control of what they have. Car adverts that emphasise power and control are aimed at this group.


Reformers - this group want the world to be a better place. Educated people such as teachers and doctors who are apparently more likely to buy eco-friendly and healthy products.


The group i wish to distribute my magazine too are mainly: reformers, succeeders and aspirers.