Evaluation

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

1.For my main task I had to create a front page, contents page and a double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text I use should be original and a minimum of fourr images used in my designs.

I believe my front cover does follow many conventions as I wanted it to look professional and realistic. The mast head I named my magazine ‘VOLT’, short for voltage which I believe connects with my genre alternative/rock as voltage is electrical and this genre includes electric guitars. I purposely designed it in capitals to make it eye catching and memorable. I also decided to use the colours black and white as they stood well against my image, following this I added a ‘stroke’ effect to make it bolder so you could easily tell it was the name of the magazine. The name of the magazine was also positioned in the left hand corner as this is very important for successful magazines because when a magazine is put on a rack the left hand side is usually visible.   I also added the mast head behind my models head, although this is not usually used I thought i'd use it because most magazines that use this technique are successful ones so therefore the audience already knew the name and I wanted mine to be the same.

The sell line on the right hand corner surrounded by a red circle (meant to look like a sticker) and a border quotes “THE UK’S BEST SELLING ROCK MAG”. I thought if it said this it would instantly attract people to read it because if it was best-selling then it must be brilliant as there are so many magazines out there for the same genre. The black text used to create the sell line I made to be grey witch a white border to make it pop on the red.

A bar code I also used on the right bottom hand corner which I thought was very important. All realistic magazines had a bar code so they can be distributed. I wanted to personalise this bar code so I went onto a website called www.barcodegenerator.com and added the date and the issue number.  The price I chose was £1.99 as I decided I wanted my magazine to be weekly, this was a suitable price as my target audience that are under twenty five ( C2, D and E ) considering most young adults struggle to find jobs today so it needed to be affordable. I decided to put my price just under my bar code and also made it small. The main cover line I used I put in the centre of the page and bigger than the rest of the stories on the page so the audience could easily see it was the main story. The main story I used was about a band member’s drug addiction so I decided the words ‘DRUG ADDICTION’ should be outlined, which I did by putting a red box behind the ‘DRUG’ as red is conventionally seen as dangerous, just like drugs are seen in our society, I did experiment with other colours such as green and purple but because of this reason I felt red suited more. The only other cover line I used I placed at the bottom of my page as it was not as important as the main one, although I have only used one other cover line I felt this was enough as I also inserted images to go with it,I also made these images touch so they look more involved. Both of these cover lines are unconventionally in the same font but I believe you can easily establish the main story by the colours, size and placement.

The skyline I used I felt did follow the conventions of a real magazine as it the text on it usually involves some kind of competition to draw the reader in as everybody likes something free! And mine involves a download ticket give away. To emphasise this point more I made the background black and the writing bold white with a red outline to follow the house style.

For my contents page my inspiration came from a Kerrang contents. I decided to spread it out exactly the same but personalise it to my theme.  The main image I used was from a previous photo-shoot of Adam and I liked it as it had a lot of character. I was going to use it as my front cover although there is no eye contact. I also edited this image by adding a swallow tattoo and stretching his ear so I could fit a plug in. At the top of the page I put ‘VOLT CONTENTS’ in a large size and the same font as the front cover so it kept it similar. Underneath my main image I placed a cream box and wrote on it with publisher as I felt publisher was easier as when I wrote the text it lined it up better.  The text I inserted was about a competition to win a new guitar; I thought this was a good idea as many magazines use competitions to keep their audience interested.  The word ‘win’ I put in a star shape which I created on Photoshop to make it stand out and draw attention also by making it bolder and the inside of it a yellow colour which at this point became an odd colour in my house style which made it even more eye catching.

The content I inserted was a crucial part of my design as many magazines I have looked at have a lot of it. Therefore I created 58 pages with many different stories which all connect back to my genre alternative/rock. The features section I made to be all the same colour and the same size to show they were all equal accept the main story which was in a separate coloured box. In nearly every Kerrang magazine I looked at it had an editor’s column which I was happy to put in to make it look more personalised. I decided to use an All Time Low member Josh to be a guest editor and scan in handwriting; I felt this made it look more professional and had more time put into the creation. I used Josh from All Time Low because I had a couple of photo’s I had taken of him at Sonisphere and also they were already mentioned in my magazine. As I was doing my researched I realised many magazines are always trying to get your details so they can bombard you with tour dates and merchandise etc. So I thought having a subscribe box was a good idea, I felt I needed to give something away for free to get people’s emails. This is a very popular technique in the music industry.

For my double page spread I didn’t actually use a headline as I thought the pull quote would have been enough and it also took a lot of room up. The pull quote “I shouldn’t be judged for what I do off stage” was used as it doesn’t give too much away and makes people want to read more into it. The large main image I did use although it wasn’t enough to the left so I decided to crop it down in Photoshop as I didn’t want the crease separating him, I also made more fence by using the clone tool to make Adam be more on the left and more room for my story. I was happy with his image because I wanted his created character to have a lot of personality and also not caring what other people thought of him, this was done by putting him in a high angle shot and putting his clasped together to make him look dominant. I then used a lead which I places under the pull quote and also made it smaller, this was important as they are used to give you more detail about what you're about to read. Lastly I used a drop cap, a drop cap is a single letter made larger than the others in a paragraph. It is the first letter in a section and, as a drop cap, is in a separate text box. It is used to draw the eye to the beginning of the section. The editing I used with my double page spread is as follows, I dimmed the image so it would look similar to the other two designs although I did brighten Adam's top with a brush tool to make it look more red as I thought this was a good effect and a good contrast against the dark colours. For my story I decided to create in on Publisher as the lines were more even.

2.    How does your media product represent particular social groups? I believe my magazine does represent particular social groups as the main story; about Mitch's drug addiction is stereotyped within rock music. Rock music is defined as; A form of popular music that evolved from rock and roll and pop music during the mid- and late 1960s. Harsher and often self-consciously more serious than that which had gone before, it was initially characterised by musical experimentation and drug-related or anti-establishment lyrics. Also the background of the images and Adam's clothing shows a lot of stereotype. I based my influence and style from a real band A Day To Remember, their style for images I have seen and commented on seem to be very casual, I believe this shows even though they are very successful they are still like normal people which the audience could easily connect with. Adam in my magazine is wearing a leather jacket with his hood up which gives him a 'dodgy' look and he is also  shown to be outside with a gate behind him which associates with a ally which is seen to be a threatening urban environment. As my magazine is aimed at the C2, D to E category below twenty five I think they could relate as many working class or unemployed young people are labelled as anti social for example. This magazine shows anyone can be successful if they really want it despite what they do in their spear time this could create a sense of inspiration.

3.    What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?  If I was to put my magazine out I'd try and publish it with the following.I found an Institution called Development Hell Limited who are an independent media company based in Islington, London. This media company at the moment currently publishes a monthly magazine MixMag which is a dance and clubbing based magazine. This company are some of the most experienced and respected operators in British magazines including Editorial Director of Q and Smash Hits, David Hepworth. I believe my magazine would be perfect for this company to take on because there isn't a rock/alternative magazine in this market. Also Development Hell's successful MixMag is also aimed at young lively people who have a love for music as well as mine.  Even though my magazine and this MixMag are very different genres I believe it would give the company the chance to experiment more and try to reach a wider market of young people which would instantly make them more successful.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
 The target audience for my magazine will be aimed at the younger generation both male and female. I have chosen this because my main music genres in my magazine will be rock/alternative which are listened to mainly by the under twenty fives.  I want my magazine to make young people aspire to be in the music industry by inserting younger bands that are trying to become successful or are already successful in the magazines main stories and images. The readers I want to buy my magazine are people that eat, sleep and dream rock/alternative music who are totally dedicated to what they listen too and not afraid to be original and out there. I will  focus on the biggest things that are going on in our world each week, as well as guaranteeing that I am giving our main base of younger readers everything they need to get into, on top of this the interest in older, harder bands, cementing our role as an educator. The social class I'd like to aim my magazine at are C2,D and E considering most young adults will struggle to find jobs because of the increase in unemployment so therefore the cost of each issue will be affordable but still good quality. I have also chosen these social classes because nearly all bands start at the bottom of society and don't necessarily need a lot of money to become successful. Magazines such as NME, Kerrang and Metal Hammer have influenced my decision for my target audience. 


5.    How did you attract/address your audience?
To address my audience I used a range of techniques. As my target audience was young people in the C2 D to E category I decided to make my magazine a weekly £1.99 which I thought would make it affordable for anybody to buy despite their background. Also as young people are known to be very interested in music I decided to use a young guy for my front cover so the audience could connect as they are around the same age, this also may show that it doesn't matter how old you are if you have a music talent you can go far. By the way Adam is dressed and his surroundings because show he isn't fancy and all made up because he's famous and may show readers he is a 'real person' and similar to his fans. As I said before under twenty fives are known today to love music so therefore I decided to give a way a load of music related things. On my front cover for my skyline I decided to involve a download ticket give away as it tied in with my genre and many young people do attend this every year. On the contents an £350 guitar was also to win by answering a question and finally if you subscribed you got a free All Time Low top, everybody loves something completely free so I thought this was a good idea.  Following this I did a short questionnaire that I handed out to ten people around my college.

Questionnaire

 I asked sample students a small amount of questions after showing them my media product. This is their response.

Can you tell which of the following genres of music the magazine is about by looking at the cover?

Indie
Rock/alternative  (9)
Pop
Hip Hop
Metal    (1)

The correct answer was rock/alternative

How often would you buy the magazine?

Never   (1)
Weekly  (3)
Monthly  (4)
Six Monthly (2)


How much would you pay for the magazine?


£1.50 (2)
£1.99 (6)
£2.20
£3.00 (2)


I priced my magazine at £1.99

what is the main story line  on the front cover?
 The following are individual responses
all ten students said Mitch Adam's drug addiction

The correct answer was Mitch Adam’s drug addiction

        Pie chart of results

For my first question I was very happy with my results as 90% of the people asked chose rock/alternative and 10% said metal. Although 10% of my findings said metal I'm not to worried as rock and metal can easily be confused.  I believe the style of clothing and images give it away also including the sticker that actually says 'best selling rock mag!'

For my second question I was also pleased as 70% would buy it weekly/monthly as I did decided to make it weekly shown by how much stories I'd put in the content. I'm also happy with this result as this means the people who answered actually were interested in my magazine which is great as they were all my target age and class.

For my third question most people picked the price of £1.99 which is what I decided to price mine at. As 50% of people asked this I asked why and they said because it's affordable. This was also a good result as of my class target.

100% of people I asked identified that Mitch Adam's drug addiction was the main headline, I was pleased with this as it makes my magazine conventional as all successful magazines clearly show the main headline.



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grace interview about feedback

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

I have learnt so much using Adobe PhotoShop and publisher to make my final products look professional and well put together.

FRONT COVER

firstly I picked a photo that I thought was most suitable for a front cover of a rock/alternative magazine and uploaded it on photoshop.

I thought this was the most suitable because he is giving the audience eye contact, I also like the pose he is doing and the choice of background as it creates a 'grungy' look. The only problem was that it was landscape not portrait and their wasn't enough room above his head to put a mast head. By cloning the existing boards I began to recreate the top of the image. This took time as it had to be a perfect match to look convincing.

  As I was doing this I airbrushed the sides to make it fit more. I also used the layer mask tool which faded the cloned piece into the existing piece.

   End result. After this I emerged this image as one so it became less hassle as if I was trying to move something it wouldn't move each single board.

 I then began to reduce the vibrancy to make it look duller, I think this is a great idea for my magazine as most rock/grunge/alternative magazines use this technique.

I     I then made the grey part of the eye white, as it makes it look more eye catching.

I      I then used the patch tool to get rid of all imperfections on his face to make it look more smooth but natural at the same time.

As most people involved with rock music have piercings etc, I decided to liquefy his ear so I have enough room to insert a tunnel ( image from google, cropped and pasted into ear)

Result of ear after I used the blur tool to make it look more realistic.



    As I thought the writing on his shirt would inter fear with headlines on my magazine I decided to get rid of it by using the clone tool.

    For my mast head I decided I wanted something bold so I decided to outline my mast head by using a stoke effect and drop shadow.

      As the mast head was simple and short, I decided to hide it behind my model by using the eraser tool.

I     then began to add a skyline, still following the colour scheme as it makes it look more professional.

   After adding the writing on skyline using an arial font, so it makes it easy to read.

I then added a bar code to the bottom of my magazine.

 After this I added my main storyline making it bigger then the other stories, using similar effects from the mast head like the stroke effect.

I felt the barcode was too big on my front cover and this made it unrealistic so I decided to make my own on a code generator which I also put the issue number and date on.

I placed and rotated this to fit the image

I thought the sticker on the side of the mast head had to much space inbertween the sticker and the writing so I changed the size on the circle to the best size I could. The mast head I also decided to change as I thought this one fitted the grunge type magazine better as the last one I thought looked a bit to 'pop' like. Along with this I changed the headers, I think it looks more suitable and bolder now.

I felt there wasn't enough at the bottom of the front cover which let it down a little so I inserted two photo's I have took from a gig of All time Low with house style bold outlines to keep them stood out, I also drained most colour out of them to match the image..

My final product was then again changed, I felt my images weren't accord enough so I moved my story to over lap my images. I placed the two images out like a pack of cards. As a result of moving everything down it filled a space that was very bare. I also moved the sticker up and made it stand out more by using a stroke effect on my font and also with my skyline. My final change was on the little sticker in right hand corner. I thought it looked unconventional to have the word sell instead of selling so I changed it and put it on one line.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

This is the image I have chosen to use for my double page spread,  this was my favourite out of the photo's I have taken because the high angle shot makes him look dominant. The fact he is also smirking shows he doesn't take himself to seriously as a artist. The clothes he is wearing also makes him to be quite rough edged and casual as I didn't want to make him look like he cared a lot about what other people thought about him.

    The only problem with this image was that he was to in the centre to use as a double page spread image so I decided to use the clone tool to add more fencing to the right hand side so he'd be more to the left. After this I used the smudge tool so you couldn't tell it had been edited.

     Although my aim was not to make him look very airbrushed I did use the patch tool a little to remove some of his blemishes.

   Result of doing this

   I then used the paint brush to make his t-shirt more red, I copied the colour from the front cover so it was similar and you so you could tell it was the same magazine.

    Using the liquefy tool I then made his plug bigger as it had to match the one on the front cover.

    Using the same tool I made Adam's nose ring smaller.

     Using the clone tool again I removed the logo from his hat.

I      then I created a box and made it the same colour as a previous colour on my front cover and wrote in the headline ( pull out quote ) and sub headline using again the same kind of colours as the front. This I think is important so it carries on the same style. I also added photo credit and a page number so it was conventional. I also dimmed the photo, reduced the vibrancy so it looked 'rusty'. After this I went on publisher and wrote out my story, I used this because it's easier as the lines are more equal. This is my final product.

CONTENTS

Firstly, I started of with a grey band across the top, similar to the colours on my double page spread and front cover. I once again have put the name of my magazine 'VOLT' on the top with the same font so it keeps the continuity and the audience will know what they are reading. I have outlined all letters in a stoke effect to make them bolder and recognisable.

      An image I had taken for my front cover I felt was perfect for my contents. I added a swallow on his hand to make it look like a tattoo by copying it onto him and blurring it out. I also took a lot of colour out of the image to match the other ones.

      As I used for the double page spread and the front cover I once again have liquefied Adam's ear to give me enough room to add a plug that I got an image from on google.

       Result of this, although there was a few missing parts in the middle of the plug which I then filled in with a paint brush.

I      I then added it on my contents and also added an issue number and a date. I created a box underneath the image to add the main competition ( to win a guitar ) 

I       I used the shape icon to create a star and I used a stoke effect to make it bolder, later on I change the star yellow as white I felt was to similar to the grey box and that yellow would make it stand out more. 

I     I opened this image up separately selected, copied and pasted it into my contents. I also reduced the vibrancy and changed the colour so it would fit in with the other colours of the other images on my magazine. 

I   I then made more boxes to put my main headlines on so they were easy to see.

    I then added text, using the font Arial so it was easy to read.

I     I also scanned this in for the bottom of my contents to make it look personalised.

   Final product after inserting text on publisher, I also decided to change the image and use a similar one as it looked to stretched. I made the numbers of the pages bigger so they are easy to spot!

















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

     I feel like iv'e improved so much from my preliminary task of making a front cover college magazine. Their are many reasons for this such as the image I used was hardly edited and the clone tool I used above the mast head is very poorly put together. The image looked plain and looked slightly blury. The page seems to be quite empty, with no spalsh or puff to attract the reader. The house style also seemed to feminin as I found out in my feedback.  For my music magazine I feel I have taken so much more time planning it before creating it and making more meaningful decisions. For my college magazine I decided to put my headlines on the right hand side which I now realise was a mistake as if it was in a rack you wouldn't see them. This time I made sure there was enough room on the left hand side. Editing the photo also stepped up to a new level as in my music magazine I used more techniques such as the liquefy and clone tool. Some things I did do similar though such as the boxes behind the text to make them bolder and the writing, this is called a stroke effect.  Both magazines do follow most conventions of a magazine though such as a main image with eye contact, a skyline, bar code and an issue number. It is very clear that I have used the space more effectivley with my music magazine too as I haven't just placed it anywhere. The college magazine I also thought was lacking in images and lastly the bar code I created was way to unrealistic. I felt with my music magazine I made more of an effort to connect with my audience as I day a lot more research, a teenage girl with a folder although it does tie in with the magazine I felt lacked in reaching a wide audience as it was to basic. My college contents also was very basic and no were near as informative as my music one as it didn't even have hardly anything on the page.  The layout and organisation of the magazine is incredibly important and it is visible that my skills using technology have progressed throughout the making of the final product. The feedback and ideas I have received have helped with the development of my learning and final outcome. In conclusion I am very happy with my final product as I think it does connect to it's target audience well by my research and it also looks professional and well presented for it's genre.