My final magazine Cover

My final magazine contents

My final magazine double page spread

my preliminary cover

my preliminary contents

Question 7

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


I feel like that, following my initial preliminary task, I have developed greatly in terms of my understanding of conventions and skills at creating a magazine. Firstly, I believe that when comparing my preliminary task cover and my final magazine cover, it is clear that I have progressed greatly. I made better use of the main image, which was not the best option for my preliminary task, because of a unsuitable background, needing to be removed. On the other hand, my final magazine cover has a suitable image for my magazine genre, with a close up accompanied by a brick wall background. Whilst it was a unsuitable background for my preliminary cover, it worked well for my final magazine cover. By recognising the correct uses of that particular background depending on the genre, I was able to develop a solid foundation for the cover. Another aspect of the page I felt that I have progressed from is my use of spaces and filling the spaces with text and images. On my preliminary cover, I left plenty of blank spaces all over the page, space that could have easily been filled. So when I begun to develop my final cover, I incorporated several conventions that I had learnt, such as anchorage text, secondary images and a slogan, all of which, plus many more, fills the blank spaces which make a cover look bland if not added.

Furthermore, I believe that I have progressed in my contents page from the preliminary task to my final contents. Firstly, I made sure to focus on creating a easier guide to what is actually inside the magazine, as in the preliminary task, my contents themselves are very limited and don't describe the limited number of articles well. Additionally, There is also a issue of blank spaces all over the preliminary task,  with the huge gaps wasting the space that could be used for text and images. So when I was developing my final magazine, I made sure to include images for several of the featured musicians, as well as making sure that there was a lot more text there to fill a entire magazine rather than just as few articles.

Overall, I feel that my magazine has shown great progression from my preliminary task, and as I have learnt the conventions and techniques of creating a magazine, I feel far more confident in creating one than I did previously.

Question 6

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

Through this  process, I have learnt how to adapt and use different software which would work well in the construction of my magazine. The most prominent example of this is Adobe Photoshop. I had already had experience with this software though only to a certain extent, i was nowhere near as efficient and comfortable with the software as i am now.This software was extremely useful when editing both my preliminary and main magazines. I used tools on the editor such as a rubber for the backgrounds in my preliminary task, text boxes to create and vary the text for the page,guidelines in order to keep the columns in line. These all helped massively when trying to create my magazine, and i progressed greatly in my skills from my preliminary to my final piece.

Furthermore, i have been using Apple Macs for my primary work at photoshop and indesign. I have never owned a Apple Mac, or any computer with Mac OS, so adapting to the different controls, functions and layout was a gradual process. Despite being used to Windows OS, i adapted to the Apple mac well as i can easily perform actions around files, internet browsing, screenshots and much more. 

Another piece of software i have been using is the website blogger. Blogger has allowed me to showcase my magazine's development and my progress on other software. The website was complicated at first as there were initial difficulties around creating blogs and generally finding a way around the website, though over the course of the year i have become used to the layout and learnt how to label my work for easier reference.

I have also used the website, Slideshare in order to present my presentation for one of the questions on the internet, as blogger does not support this properly. It was originally very simple as it required just a sign up process before i could publish my powerpoint. 

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my target audience by using conventions and features that would draw in my target audience, which is professional working adults between the ages of 25-45. I feel that the primary feature that would attract my target audience would be the artists i have featured. For many of my artists, such as Elton John and Paul McCartney, their primary fan bases are in this age demographic, though more towards the upper end, at around the age of 40. This could be contrasted to the lower end of my age group, which would be more accustomed to the likes of Philip Selway, as well as my own original artists, Jordan Lloyd, Zhao and Navarro. By dividing the target age group with 20 years, but uniting them under the genre, the magazine could attract the target audience into the single magazine, thus selling more issues. This also served to broaden my target audience into different age groups, which would then make it easier to appeal to the mass audience, while including some features that the other parts of the target audience would enjoy.

There are several features that i feel would appeal to my target audience. Firstly, the house style is very reminiscent of Q and Mojo, which are not only my style models, but share a similar target audience to my own magazine. So the readers for them magazines are likely to buy my magazine as they will recognise the style and therefore genre. In order to replicate the similar house style of Q and mojo, i used a very similar font to mojo in my magazine which was used in a colour scheme which is similar to Q's primary colour scheme of red, black and white. The colours used represent both formality, seen with the black and white, and the rock genre of my magazine in red. I used red in order to stand out from the background and other text and attract my target audience as red is a colour that q associates itself with, so the target audience will be able to identify the genre from the colours i have used.

I also made sure to use very large and bold text for the headlines and masthead in order to not only stand out, but to also attract my target audience as it is a font and colours scheme which is reminiscent of Q.

Furthermore, i used features that are common across all magazines and directly address the target audience. The biggest example of this can be seen with the subscription offer in my contents page, which would attract my target audience as it offers a reward for the target audience subscribing to the magazine, which therefore would give them the magazine to read per issue, therefore ensuring that there is a fan base behind the magazine, regardless of the musicians included.

Question 4

https://www.slideshare.net/secret/nxVmgutCtGDI3p

This is a link to my Slide share response to question 4

Question 3

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

Bauer is a publisher that already owns Q, Mojo, both of my style models, and Kerrang! Kerrang! is a rock magazine that shares many similarities to my own, in terms of genre and some aspects of house style. Due to the success of these two magazines, both of which share my genre of music, i would feel confident in Bauer distributing my magazine.While they are a privately owned company, Bauer own all of the aforementioned magazines as well as many more across the world, although they do have a headquarters in Hamburg,Germany. A advantage of picking Bauer media over other publishers is that they already have had prior experience with music magazines, especially magazines of my genre, and they would be able to attract my target audience as they have proven to be able to do so with several other brands.

 They have shown to be able to adapt the brand over to different media platforms, for example, Q magazine now have success in radio and on digital platforms with websites and social media. Under the supervision of Bauer, my music magazine would be able to reach a much wider audience than it would from just print sales. However, the issue with using Bauer as a publisher is that they already own magazines that are similar to mine,including my style models and there wouldn't really be a gap in the target market for my magazine. This would limit the interest my target market and audience would have in my magazine, and this would be further decreased if Bauer put little funding and marketing behind my magazine in comparison to another of its brands like Q or Mojo.

Furthermore, i have looked at alternate publishers for my magazine, but the primary one i considered was Haymarket Media. These are a privately owned publisher based in the UK, however they have recently began expanding overseas and now have headquarters in countries like the USA, Germany,India and Hong Kong. This would help to appeal to a worldwide market and not just my target audience in the Uk, but fans of the genre across the world. Additionally, they operate over different media platforms and not just with magazines, and the companies use of these different media platforms would be beneficial in marketing over a larger audience than what is normally possible.

On the other hand, the publisher has had little experience with music magazines of my genre and target audience, which therefore gives doubts about their ability to market this correctly to the target audience. They would not know the correct sort of advertising for this, and they may not know crucial marketing knowledge, including where to put the magazines in the store, and what sort of features in my magazine they wish to market at my target audience.

Another potential publisher that i have looked at is Time Inc, who are a publisher that have a headquarters in the UK. They recently changed their name to Time Inc from IPC media, and they clearly have a successful history with publishing and distributing magazines, with their current sales of 350 million issues a year over their magazine subsidiaries They have published such magazines as NME, and i feel that they would be a good choice for marketing my magazine to a more mainstream audience, as they don't really have anything currently that shares my genre and target market. This means that they are able to put more attention into my magazine than Bauer would, as it does not have several other brands with a similar target market. The popularity and success of Time inc means that they are also going to be suitable for a large financial backing, again which i contrasted to how i feel Bauer would back my magazine.

Looking at the pros and cons of each individual publisher, both in terms of their popularity in terms of both sales and marketing, and their general suitability for my magazine, i can conclude that Time Inc would be the ideal publisher and distributer for my magazine. This comes down to a number of factors, however i believe that it is the mainstream popularity and a gap in the lineup of brands they own for my magazine which were the contributing factors in my decision.

Question 2

https://www.slideshare.net/secret/ne9QUXlGZuapHp

link to slideshare powerpoint

Question 1

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

My magazine takes plenty of inspiration from my style models, merging elements from each as well as incorporating different features to make it unique.

Front Cover layout and conventions

For my front cover, i largely took influence from Q magazine, in several ways.Firstly, the magazine as a whole has a distinct house style of red,white and black, which is based of Q's own. This allowed me to make my text and shapes very distinct from the main image and meant that i did not have to remove the background in order to actually see my text. I also used masthead in a similar way, putting the large, red font text over a white background at the top of the page. This draws obvious parallels to Q's, however, my masthead covers the entire top fifth of the page from left to right, whereas Q's is generally in the top left corner with the single letter name. Furthermore, the magazine's shot is one inspired by Q's common use of close ups on the artists on the cover, which serves to further align my magazine with my style models. The image used has a brick wall as the background, and this is in order to give the rockstar look to not only my actor, but the entire cover as a whole. Furthermore, my cover incorporates a slogan which is inspired by my other style model Mojo. I chose to incorporate this in order to suggest the class and high standards of the magazine, and it is in a white font in order to contrast the background and masthead font. There are also elements that are similar to Mojo, such as the lists on the side for the other artists featured. For this, i chose to select a wide range of different artists from bands and solo musicians. This ranged from the likes of Paul McCartney and Elton John, who are generally aiming their music at the late 30's and 40's, which is at the top end of my target audience's age demographic. On the other hand, i also incorporated more recent rockstars such as Philip Selway, mixed in with some of my original artists such as Zhao and Navarro. These are aimed at the mid 20's age demographic in my target audience, this is in order to have a wide range of musicians within my magazine genre, making it more accessible and it is more likely that the numerous fan bases for each artist will be interested in s anything regarding them. Additionally, i decided to add anchorage text,(featuring the artists), which would be advertised to the reader with the large bold text saying,"Plus!", and,"Also!". This is in a bold white font in order to stand out from the background, making it easier to spot for a reader, as it lets them know that there is more content that they may like. I also decided to add a few minor details, which makes it feel more like it fits in the genre alongside Q and Mojo. These included the barcode, which is a necessity on a magazine, as it is how the issue is sold. Without a barcode, not only would the magazine be unable to purchase by conventional means at the shop, the potential reader would doubt it's credibility as the magazine is lacking its own sort of id in the shop and amongst the other magazines. Another minor convention that i added was the date and price to the cover. The date is needed so that the readers know that the magazine is up to date and some would value this as crucial when buying a magazine. The price was also required as it is important for the readers to know the price of the magazine when coming round to buying it.  The price itself is based of Q's and Mojo's price range of £4-£5, further aligning my magazine in the genre alongside my style models. This price is typical of the genre as the magazine has formal and class elements to it, such as the language and organised  conventions. 

Contents page layout and conventions
On my contents page, i once again took heavy inspiration from my style models, especially Q magazine. The gridded images is meant to be reminiscent of Q's style of contents page, with smaller features like the numbered images and the main article having the largest picture. Each image is representing the article it is numbered, for example, the image of queen represents the queen article. I have also added convergent links at the base of the page, linking to the magazine's social media accounts on both Facebook and Twitter respectively. This helps to attract the readers to other platforms that many other magazines, including my style models, are capitalising on. I also decided to add a paragraph, separate from the rest of the contents, discussing a subscription service, with potential rewards if the reader subscribes. The rewards i selected was a i tunes gift card and a entry into a £10,000 lottery amongst subscribers. I feel that the gift card is appropriate as it allows the readers to download more music, likely to be made by artists featured in my magazine. This would keep the reader and target audience invested in the magazine as they would see the artist they have downloaded music from appear and promote new music giving the audience a chance to  learn more about them by buying the magazine. The contents also adds the issue number, which allows for the reader to keep track of how long the magazine has been running. I chose not to add this to the front cover due to the lack of a place where it would fit well. A convention that i felt was integral was the addition of the page number at the bottom corner of the page, which is seen in pretty much every magazine, regardless of genre. I also included a large title for the page, named Contents, and this is the most obvious and stand out text, in order to attract the reader, and to inform them very easily of the pages purpose. the individual images of my own artists have been designed to fit the aesthetic of my magazine especially, and can be seen in the primary image of the contents page. The image shows my actor wearing very casual clothes, which is meant to represent the genre well, and reflect  his casual attitude, which in turn would appeal to the target audience for my magazine, as this casual attitude is a common look for rock stars.

For my double page spread, i used a shot of the artist looking across to the other page. This is in order to connect the two pages easier and is very common in all music magazine genres and not just rock. I chose to make the headline large and bold in order to stand out in the middle of the page, as well as placing a pull quote directly beneath it. This gives the reader a impression of what he will be discussing in the article. Pull quotes are extremely common in music magazines and both of my style models use them to great effect, as they give the reader insight into the discussion and goes as far as to reveal aspects about their personality. In this instance, it tells the reader that the interview is going to be positive and that the interview will go into the artists life specifically. I made sure to measure the three columns correctly in terms of width, in order to create a accurate reflection of the typical rock magazine's double page spread. I added a credit for myself as the writer of the article and interviewer, a convention which is common, and i added appropriate font to align with this. The font is meant to evoke a writing style, which not only distinguishes itself from the other text on the page, but gives the text a personal, hand written feel. I also incorporated the page number onto the page in order to maintain a sense of direction within my magazine for my reader, and works in conjunction with the contents page. I made sure to make the page numbers align with what i had previously labeled them in the contents, in order to maintain a continuity in my magazine. So to follow this, i made sure to give the page numbers 22 and 23, which aligns with the page as it is specified in the contents.

Assessing my coursework

Level 3

I feel that my magazine front cover shares many similarities with this example. The magazines are both sharing the same genre of music which is rock, which is clearly identified from the mentioning of bands on the example, an a image of Queen on the left side. They also both incorporate a brick wall for the background, which gives the impression of the "street" character of the musician.

Potential improvments

                     
I think that my cover shares similarities to the model work, levelling at level 3. I feel that i could improve my work by adding more text in the bottom third of the cover below the headline. This means that there are little to none empty spaces. I also need to improve the placement of my text and more closely follow my style models in this aspect.

Taglines

The tagline for my main headline  will be fitting with my house style and will be located underneath the main headline, providing the reader with more information about the featured article.

Anchorage text

The anchorage text i use will use the house style i have established in order to stand out from the background. It will feature information about different musicians in the magazine, however there will not be any secondary images to accompany this. This is because my chosen style models, Q and Mojo, tend to feature the main image as the centre of the readers attention, therefore adding additional images would serve to clutter alongside the other text on the cover.

Slogan

the slogan for my cover will be, "Your No 1 rock magazine", i use direct address in the slogan in order to make the reader more engaged in the cover. The number one gives the magazine some rank and prestige.

Date and Barcode

i plan to add the bar code for the front cover at the bottom left of the page, this is in order to avoid it pulling the readers attention away from the headline and main image. I will place the date above the bar code, and i have done this for two reasons. Firstly, i did this to follow my style models as  Q magazine keeps the date near the barcode, and secondly i did this to force the reader to show interest in the magazine by looking for the date to check for how recently the magazine has been published.

The price

The price for my magazine will be £3.99 and will be located next to the date and barcode. This is the selected price and location on the cover because it is around the typical price and location of this genre of music magazine, with my style models Q and Mojo using this.

House style

For my house style, i plan to use the colours red, white and black, red because of the common symbolism of danger, action and anger in the rock genre, white because of the contrast to black, and black due it's continued association with fans of rock and the constant uses of black on my style models, Mojo and Q.

Main headline

The main headline will be featured very prominently across the cover in order to catch the attention of my target audience, and will be coloured red in order to symbolise danger, anger and blood which will attract my target audience. The colour red is seen in many of my style models as either the masthead, main  headline or both.

Fonts

The fonts are crucial in order to maintain a house style that suits my chosen genre. For my mast head, i plan to use the font Rockwell extra bold as it is a easily noticeable font and will stand out against the background.
For my headline text, i plan to use the font Grenoble light sf as it is different enough from the other fonts but still bold enough to be noticed.
Finally for my  additional text, such as the slogan, tagline and secondary articles, i will use the font Bookman old style.

Masthead

This will be the title of the magazine and must be distinct from the background/central image. I plan to have the masthead above the head of my actor. The Title of the magazine will be called Premier, and this indicates the class and prestige of the magazine without sounding too contrasting  to my style models.

The central image

This will be my main front cover image as it allows for the other conventions to be incorporated well, for example, there is room for secondary images and text at the side, due to the central framing of the actor.

Best selection for my double page spread

I have selected these photos because of the one key element, the guitar. I planned the design of the double page spread and one of the most prominent ideas was having the actor on one side of the page and the guitar crossing over to the over. Due to my singular vision for my double page spread and the kind of angles, editing and framing around it, i was unable to take more varied shots, something of which i will evaluate when the magazine is created. Although i feel that the photos will work well, i could have improved by creating more of a "l" shape with the guitar to clearly outline the area for the considerable amount of text.

Best selection for the contents page of my magazine

I feel that these shots are suitable for the target audience as they  are prominent, though they leave enough room for lines of text to accompany them. They would ideally have the background removed for them although it is not a certainty. the equipment, props and location on the walled photos completely fit the genre in tone and the aesthetic, mirroring other prominent rock magazines. It is good but not without areas to strengthen, such as the variety and locations of the shots.

Best selection for Magazine front cover

These are the selected photos of which i will choose to become my front cover, due to the medium close up shot, the lighting being mostly accurate and variety of varying camera angles. All of these photos fit my mise en scene as the guitar, leather jacket and even the wall location signify that the magazine is of the rock genre, which would attract my target audience.

My time management for equipment

For my equipment, i went and asked for the camera as early as possible in order to secure it for the Thursday and subsequent Tuesday of the photo-shoot. The camera used was a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ28 and is widely considered a high quality camera, able to ensure my photos look as good as it is possible.

Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ28

My time management for the actors

I arranged my actor's time schedules well despite certain circumstances potentially delaying or even stopping my planned schedule. Jake needed to have a operation on his nose so i had to organise my actors across two days of photo shoots, one when jake was missing and one when he is there. I organised my actors into the correct background and angles.

My time management for the location

Overall i managed my time for the locations well. I was unable to use the green screen i required so i drafted a new schedule and using the main hall and some streets/alleyways instead. We had no problems with the timings as the locations were well within a set distance and time frame.

My time management for the costume

I began organising my costumes required by enquiring to my peers if they had any leather jackets, jeans and boots. Jake and Jordan did, but Zhong lacked the leather jacket. In order to successfully take my shots i had to organise when the actors would bring the costume and for zhong to use one of the other actors jacket.

Time Management between 18th and 24th of January 2016

We manged to inform Jake on the Monday about the current schedule and when we were planning to take our photos. So on the Tuesday between 9:00 and 10:50 am we took our shots. I took a more varied approach this time and, following advice from others, decided to use more natural, street backgrounds which i believe worked a lot better than prior photos.Due to events planned on the Thursday, i evaluated my photos on Friday, and i was overall pleased as none of my actors had let me down and they had all brought their props and costume required for my genre, subsequently making the photos look like they fit the genre style very well.

We used a wall similar to this.

Time Management between 11th and 17th January 2016

On The first Monday of the week we were informed that Jake would be unable to be a actor as he was having a nose operation. In order to solve this problem, i decided, with collaboration from my other actors, that we should continue taking the shots on Thursday, however we would then have to take more photos with Jake next Tuesday.So subsequently on the Tuesday we continued to have discussions about where we would get one of the guitars from. Fortunately Jordan had his own that he could bring in with a leather jacket as well.
On Thursday we took the shots in the main school hall in order to have plenty of room and backgrounds that could be used. I was unable to acquire the use of a green screen and this possibly benefited my shoot as i could think more about a practical background and elements such as the   mise en scene.
Friday's lesson was used to analyse and pick out key areas of both strength and weakness in our photos, and decide how we could improve when we take further shots next Tuesday.

Time Management between 4th and 10th of January 2016

I began on the Tuesday by planning what times in the following weeks i would begin taking my photos and subsequently editing them.
Then on the Thursday i planned a schedule for when i will hopefully be able to take the photos and begin editing them. I have selected the Thursday next week to begin taking some photos.There are benefits to doing this early, the main one being that if we are unhappy with the quality of our photos, or actors are not available, it can be rearranged for another day.
Between Friday and next Thursday, i plan to plan and evaluate my actors roles and that the correct equipment and props are available for use. By continuing to plan like this there is less of a chance of time restraints taking a major hold on my work.