Evaluation

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The media product I have created uses many of the conventions used in real media products, this gives it a realistic feel, conventions I have used to make it appear to be a real piece of media is, for the original front page, a bar code, date,masthead, headline and many original pictures. I ran into difficulties regarding the front page at first, the first one I created was not of the standard it should be and so I remade the front page using the conventions correctly. The second one following similar layouts to successfull magazines when finished appeared to be much nicer and easier on the eye then the orginal.

For the original contents page I think I did challenge some of the conventions for a typical contents page, I decided to use my own design of page to which I think turned out very well and it did include some of the conventions though, such as a title, a form of listing and medium to small pictures. I had a similar situaton with the contents page as I had had with the Front Page and ended up re designing it to be a better varient, again the second one had more planning and research put into it, and personally I think it shows when they are compared.


Finally the double page spread uses conventional rules used by actual magazines. It includes a headline, page number, and the use of a large main focus picture. It is worth noting that the double page spread does not follow fully the theme of the magazines front cover or contents page. I wanted it to have a slightly different feel to it, because of the artist being interviewed I wanted to have his style shown along with the magazines.


How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is aimed at teenagers from about fifteen to young adults in there early twenty's. The style of the magazine is mainly of a more abstract/rock genre and would attract students and adults interested in that area of music. The article is based of a musician that goes to college, so readers can relate to the article. The overall style of the magazine is in a simple eye catching manner for easy reading.


What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The institution I would think would distribute my media product is IPC Media. This is because the magazine I have created is of a very individual flavor, with a unique look on a certain aspect of the media. This is a lot like NME. IPC Media have the experience with a wide variety of alternate magazines, thus they have the knowledge of publishing a magazine correctly for best results.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product would be for 15- 25 year olds. Ideally for musicians of rock and alternate music. It is aimed at both males and females.

How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract the audience I made the front cover interesting on the eye, by using the pictures in a certain way it draws the viewer into focusing on the magazine. I used a young model on the front cover to draw people of that age group to the magazine also. The title "Tone definite" sounds informal and so for a younger more open audience.

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

I have an increased understanding of how conventions are used effectively within the creation of a magazine, and so will find it easier to create a working piece of media in further assignments.

The use of editing programs such as publisher and photoshop have been a positive experience for me as the more I use it the better I get I have found. This has opened up possibility's to create complex and interesting material.

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

I feel I have learnt what actually goes into making a media product realistic.For example the key conventions needed for it to work. the areas language, ideologies, institution, audience and representation, have been detrimental in providing me understanding of how a product is created.

Creating my Double page spread

To begin my double page spread I had already thought of the sort of the pattern I wanted to do and had taken pictures for it accordingly, the elements I wanted to include was the model staring back at themselves with a different look, this would make a good suggestive image of what the article included would be about. I had my model stand behind a specific back ground so make editing easier. I then had him face one way with a hat on and then the other way with the hat off.


Using editing software(Photoshop) I made a blank canvas and dragged both pictures on and aligned them up into the position I wanted them to be in. With this done the shading was a little off at the part the pictures joined. I started to use a fix tool to blend the pictures together when I had an idea to have a third picture lightly overlaid on top of the other two pictures, exclusively on the skin and between the cap between faces. This would give the finished picture a symbolisation of what the transition between the opposing faces was about.

















The product after editing.

I then placed a mock up of text on top of the picture to give myself an idea of how to best place the article, while still allowing for the picture to be seen clearly , here is an example below.

The final layout of my double page spread I decided to make its slightly abstract and appealing to the reader. I used the magazines color scheme of black and white for the heading and questions but made the answers in lime green/pale yellow for them to contrast with the back ground and stand out. The color and layout used also prevents the page from being boring as they are not all just of the same style and placing, compared to a basic text area. I used different custom fonts for the the title questions and answers. Towards the bottom I ran into difficulties with the text being easy to read so I changed the text to black.

Creating Contents page

First of all I looked at the selection of pictures I had available I decided to edit this one as it was a very tall shot and would be perfect for what I had in mind. I used Photoshop to extract the model from the background, this was done via tools such as the brush, magic wand and clone stamp plus a Variety of other small tweaks.

Here I edited the image in finer detail to make a clean edited image to be used on the contents page, this was done by using the magnifying glass and a low opacity brush.

I now had the image ready to go to be used with other images and designs to contribute to the overall look of the contents page.

I started to flesh out my contents page by placing my large model image to the side and adding downsized pictures of a musical gig I had attended and taken pictures of, I tried out various positions but gave it a quirky Tetris pattern. The images where in layers so I used a pattern on a Photoshop brush to connect the pictures together, the majority of the pattern is hidden behind the pictures and takes the shape of a star I alternated the sides of the star on each adjoining picture so it would give a subtle message these musicians are "stars" The color I chose was red as it contrasted nicely with the white background

Finally I used an alternate font fitting the style of my magazine. The title was placed by itself in in large bold writing, with a logo next to it. The musicians had there names in alternate text at random positions next to there picture for it to be easy to see the picture and give it a care free look.The last touch i did was add a Small border around the page.

Similar to the case of the dis functional original front page, I decided that the contents page could use a revamp. A fundamental flaw I had discovered within my original contents page is that it listed only 7 pages and so would not qualify for a full contents page. When creating my second contents page I added the necessary photos in a building block style along the side of the page with the artists names at a tilt next to each picture to give it a modern look. The colors used (apart from the pictures) conform to the magazines new color scheme of whites, blacks and greys mainly. Finally I added a custom title and a list of the contents within my magazine.

Creating my front cover

When creating my front cover, I came up with various concepts, and the one shown above had the most merit, I really wanted to use the angle of pictures to run onto each other, as this would make for a very interesting and unique take on a front page. I also made room for details to be added, such as price, barcode and inside news.

After I had taken my pictures, I experimented with them in photoshop to see which pictures would work for my desired result. After a time I had my final pictures selected, and started to arrange them on a canvas to build up my front page. Some image manipulation was done for the center of the page so that the images would meld together, yet still be separate.

I used a specialist website called Dafont, that allowed me to a range of special fonts that where not standard, here I had a wide choice of what I would like and what style. Above are some examples of the range available

As shown above the magazine cover had come together, I had added a barcode and a font to the arrangement of pictures. The font being placed on the Canvas ran into difficulty's so I had to manually edit some parts of it, but the end result was satisfactory.

Using extra tools I added the finishing touches to my magazine, this included boxes for information within the magazine and various other text, for example price, issue number and date. And finally a border.

The original front page I created, this design would eventually be replaced with the front page you will see below.

The picture chosen for my second attempt at a front page.

After some consideration when re-capping on the work I had done for my project I came to the conclusion that the original front cover was unacceptable as a front cover using the components used for creating a successful,I included to many images and the text was hard to read. With this is mind I set about re-designing my front page to give it a better new look.

Instead of using many pictures I focused on placing a single picture in the center of the page. To make the title easily definable I used black to contrast with the pale blue back ground and white when the back ground grew to be darker. I also did this for the sub heading. I added clear information on what was in the magazine along with a barcode, price, date and issue number. I also added a plug stating the interview. Overall I think this version of the front page is a vast improvement compared to my original

Picture for my Magazine

Creating/Planning my music magazine

Here I will explain how I am going to set about planning my music magazine. First of all I decided what type of genre the magazine would be. I settled on a rock/ alternativie magazine taking inspiration from some of the more successful magazines of this type. To help me plan this I will use the acronym LIIAR

Language
My magazine is aimed at teenagers to young adults so I will be using quite modern launguage and words, although I will keep it quite witty and informative. Taking this approach it will appeal to a larger portion of the audience I will be trying to attract.

Ideology
The aim of the magazine is to promote upcoming muscians of the genre and highlight some of the more out of the ordinary styles. It would also be informative on a wide range of music related content of the genre to help intergrate the audience.

Institution
I did research into the most successful/influential media production companies, after some consideration I setteled on IPC media, as they have under there name magazines that are similar to the one I am wanting to create.

Audience
The audience I am trying to attract is 15 to 25 year olds. The magazine will hopefully have styles and content to cater for the younger end of the age group and the older end at the same time, this will mean the magazine will have to be easy to read and interesting to look at.

Representation
The magazine as mentioned will have to be suitable for young teens up to young adults. I think for the overall look of it, it should have a simple lay out yet look very interesting to draw in readers. I also want to represent the music I have chosen to base the magazine on, and help the viewer relate and feel a part of what they read.

The color choice for the front page and contents page use very contrasting colors at part to give it an individual look, while the doublepage spread is a much lighter gentle tone as this is about someone personally and helps the reader feel at ease while reading about someone.

Main task, preliminary research

For the main task I have to create a music magazine front cover, contents page mock up and a double page spread. Before I set about creating this I will need to do research on other music related magazines and publishers to find out what contributes to a success full magazine.

first i will look at magazine publishing companies. I have chosen three companies that have very success full magazines. Once i have researched into each I can determine which one was the most successful and relative to my magazine.

IPC media

Taken from the site

IPC Media is a leading UK consumer magazine publisher. Almost two in every three UK women and over 44% of UK men read an IPC magazine. That's over 26 million UK adults. IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone. Our 80 magazines include What's on TV, Pick Me Up, Woman, Now, Marie Claire, In Style, Woman & Home, Ideal Home, Nuts, Wallpaper*, Country Life, The Field, Rugby World, Practical Boat Owner and Look, our latest high street fashion and celebrity weekly. Our digital properties include NME.com, the third largest commercial music website in the UK and housetohome.co.uk, the UK's first homes portal. IPC's brands are very simply at the heart of the UK's cultural life

This shows that IPC Media is very diverse and has magazines for many age groups, some of the magazines are similar for what I am aiming for such as NME.

Bauer(Formally Emap Media)

Emap has produced many well known magazines both for music and other topics. An interesting thing I have found out is that they are the producers of some of the most popular rock magazines such as Kerrang! Like IPC Emap produces a wide variety of magazines that have a very large amount of the target audience they aim for.They also have a other ways to integrate there products into the music industry such as there two radio stations Kerrang! and Kiss FM.

Future Publishing

From the website

Future is the largest publisher of guitar magazines in the world and the biggest music-making publisher in the US and UK. Guitar World celebrated its 25th year in 2008 and is still the world's biggest guitar magazine. Classic Rock and Metal Hammer continued to increase their circulations in a declining music magazine market. In film, Future is the biggest publisher of magazines in the UK, distributing around 4.5 million every month. During the year, we launched new website musicradar.com and relaunched totalfilm.com.

This company has many different magazines for areas such as games, music and film. Noted above they have the worlds biggest guitar magazine.This company would be a good choice for my magazine as it features magazines such as classic rock and metal hammer, both of which are similar to what I had in mind for my magazine.