2011-12 LMED7 David

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When this project was given to me I then went ahead and looked at different and official existing magazines to how magazines would capture the attention of their target audience and the different kind of conventions that would be used. Before even starting along with my music magazine I thought about all the conventions that I could use and what will challenge me into making a professional magazine. A very common convention that I found was being used in various different music magazines was a large mast head which I decided to also incorporate into my own, but I also had to figure out what sort of font I would be using as I was doing a magazine on a genre that doesn’t do magazines so I had to look at hip hop magazines and then compromise my own sort of feel of how a grime magazine would look; I downloaded most of my fonts used from www.dafont.com to give it more of a grime feel to it. With the proper mast head and font it will attract the right set of target audience I am looking for, plus the red will capture the attention of a lot of people when it is in the stands in the shops.

“How it all began” UNDERGROUND KING this is my selling line which I used, which also is a very common use of a convention so I made sure that I was able to fit it into my magazine front cover so it stands out and also doesn’t make everything else on the front congested and close together, it was essential for me to get this right as for most magazines it is its selling point and gives you a slight insight of what the magazines is mostly going to be about as well as the main image. For this cover line a had to base it on what the main story of my magazine was which is the story of how “lil J” came from the bottom to the top and he started from the underground scene so it has a slight connection.
For my front cover I used 3 different types of fonts but I made sure that they collide together and blend well so it doesn’t seem like I have 3 different sections “top, middle and end” but that is all looks like one complete magazine. All this is to keep the target audience interested and wanting to purchase the magazine but the main selling points would be the image and the selling line, these are the key facts of what makes a successful selling magazine. One of my covers lines is very eye catching and intriguing as it says “take your chance” this builds a thought into the customers head that they could have a chance at something and automatically want to know what they have a chance at. The right set and amount of cover lines is beneficial as to much will distract people from the main cover line and the image and if you don’t have enough you will have to many gaps on your front cover, also you have to balance it out as most magazines put the cover lines on the right and one or two on the left.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine was aimed at young teenagers mainly male but females who were also interested in the type of music it is. This type of social group hasn’t been represented with a positive image any time they ark spoken about so I decided to represent them in a manor which people of this age group can relate to with person experience and thoughts of my own age group. The images I used represented the social group I was looking at with the clothes they were wearing which strongly represents the social group I am aiming my magazine at.

The clothes that my model is wearing on my front cover is very basic and dark colours which is strongly worn around this type of age groups which is dark coloured clothing, he is wearing a plain grey hoodie which blends in well with the mic and the jacket that he is wearing I was aware of the amount of accessories to put on my model as with people in this social group it depends on your taste weather you have a lot or not so I took it from my models perspective and he only wanted his earring ring so we went with that and it work really well as it blended with the whole look and feel of the social group. The clothes could represent a casual but rough sense of dress which correlates to the expression on my models face as he looks focused and the dress type shows that it stressful and takes dedication to be were he is.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

To the publishing housing case study I was given in the planning stage of my full product, I think that Harris publishing would most likely publish my magazine, even though most of there magazines are about sports I feel that sports and people taking sports are getting younger every year and in this being said I feel that they would publish my magazine to get a wider audience and enter into a new line of magazines and market to help them build as a company which will increase the sales of there other magazines and increase the publicity.

These are the types of magazines that Harris publishing publishes, very sporty also this will attract a lot of youngster as it looks fun and exciting to do and with my new addition to the magazines the publish it will defiantly increase the popularity of the other magazines they sell

Though the principal focus of my magazine is music, youth and ethnicity is a large part of the grime scene so my magazine would be suitable for the company. Many Harris publishing magazines target a young audience with the type of sports the use, and adding my magazine in the attraction of the youth would defiantly diversify the company.

Publishing and distributing my magazine would have a major increase in profit to the company not only from the sales of my magazine but the increase of sales from there other magazines due to the new audience my magazine has provided, they will be putting there hand in a new pond were none of there other magazines have been and I am positive it will bring a much bigger audience to the business, as mentioned before by publishing a new music magazine like my own, the company would gain popularity. their profits increase extremely, as there is no competition within the company. It will have a major affect on the advertisement and sponsorship for the company which is nothing short of a benefit to the company, this will make the company more recognisable and the audience will be able to associate a lot of things with my magazine which again will widen the audience.

I would distribute my magazine in a music store such as HMV and also shops such as Morrisons. This is because HMV is one of the biggest music stores all across the UK and people who love music and finding what’s going on around the music scene, and by selling it in a place like Morrisons is that your bound to walk past the magazine area and most people if not all take a look at one or took magazines and with my masthead very eye catching am sure a lot of people would pick up my magazine to take a look at it.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience would be from 16-25 as I stated in my audience research earlier in this process, it will be mainly for British audience but I will also be trying to attract the same target audience from various areas such as Tottenham as a lot of artist has come up from there. I mainly aimed it at British audience as a lot of young people in the London area are trying to come up though the music scene telling you there stories in there music so I thought I would aim it at them so they have something to relate to and know there not the only ones also that there help out there, which I thought would attract a lot of them.

The younger audience was my aim target so I decide to make my model on the front a young artist who’s coming up from a rough background and has made it, I thought this will attract more young people as it will show they can also do it as well, even on the content page it was different images of young boys doing something or telling you bout something that’s happen to them and how it affect there music career. The attraction my magazine will have to the older part of the audience is that what these young up and coming artist are dealing with in life and how they need help to move forward in there road to success . ethnicity is something I wouldn’t have an issues with as there is a wide and balanced audience which are interested in this genre and also with people who have made it so ethnicity wasn’t and issue as people like don strapzy, Benny banks and k koke show that its not only black people that live hard lives and have the ability to come up though the music scene coming from a rough background, this makes my magazine more accessible and relatable.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly one of the way I decided to attract my audience using my audience research as a guideline I thought a good way was though my front cover which is vital to get right and one of the thing that had to be perfect was the fonts I used as it had to be eye catching and also relevant to the genre my music magazine was based on, this was a vital part of the magazine as I realised as I changed it various times before coming to my final outcome, after getting my fonts sorted I needed to find a model that relates to my audience and genre of music, so even though my target audience was from 16- 25 I decided to get a model round the younger side which is 16- 17, another thing I took into consideration based on gender as it is a boy I made sure he was fairly attractive so even girl that don’t like the music could jus pick it up and want to buy it just to find out more on the artist on the front so that was vital as well.

The model is wearing a branded timberland jacket, but in this picture I decided not to make it visible as it wouldn’t show what I was looking for which is that rough sense of look which could only be strongly represented as no brands are showing which as you can see in the image no brands are.

The Second way I decided to target my audience was by keeping the focus on the way British people act and the type of stuff young people get into, so it is more realistic and basing my magazine on young British teens with false information as you can see with the other cover lines, it gives the audience a small insight of what the rest of the magazine is about and also could give you tips and information on how to go about your way to make it. I also didn’t use to many well known household names to over look the up and coming artist as I only used Krept and Konan because even though they are big well known and successful they still haven’t been signed to a record label o I thought they were the best to household names that will attract more of the audience without over shadowing the up and coming artists. A strong cover line was “ HOW LIL J MADE IT BIG” this is a young up and coming artist who has come from a bad area and made it out though the music scene I thought this sort of success story will motivate and attract a wider audience.

With my magazine I used to different fonts called that I downloaded from da font and I used these fonts because I thought it brought out the genre I was looking at and it collided well together but I had to make sure the sizes of my text was accurate as they are both very bold font and if too big could both look like mastheads and by doing this I would be able to attract my target audience. I used the downloaded font for my masthead as I thought it strongly connected to my genre of music and would make a strong masthead and stand out, plus with the title being “GRIMTIME” it shows that the music genre grime is up and coming and more people are into that type of music so maybe you should be too.

And used the other downloaded font for the main cover line to also catch peoples attention as it was more bold and eye catching, the way I laid it out right in the middle of the front cover image really worked well and I really think it came off well but with the cover like I used a bit of the font “Arial” were it says “how it all began” as if I used the “ “ again the lines would have collided and it would have looked tacky and un professional.

Third way I attracted my target audience was though the colour scheme I used. The colour scheme I used was based on black, red and white which I thought collided well and made my magazine stand out even more, with my audience research these colours came up the most so I decided to go ahead and use them as that’s that the audience would associate a grime magazine colour scheme to be. The colours I used are bold colours and black and white go with anything so it was mainly the red that made the real stand out, but I also had to use the stroke tool in Photoshop to bring out some of the red writing with a black stroke on it to give it that stronger feel to it.

Another way I attracted my target audience was by the language I used such as “locked up” this is not slang but it is a way of jail time for young people, I used standard English throughout so that my magazine was understood with even old people as well as the youths of this world, the reason I decide not to over flow my magazine with slang is that when it is distributed across the UK and other areas in England is that the slang changes and if I based it on south east London slang people in north London same age my not understand what it says so I just went with standard English.
With my content page I attracted my target audience with keeping a neat and balanced style with the writing and images used even thought the contents page is meant to be mostly content it shouldn’t be all content and the sizes of my images helped the balance of my content page also allowed myself enough space for my editors note. I made sure it was readable and easy to the eye so it couldn’t be overly congested.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The process on constructing a magazine is very technological and such things as Photoshop and a professional camera and equipment was very essential in getting the best images and the best fonts to make my magazine look as professional as possible, i take photography so i new how to use the canon C0S 400D camera and how to position my model to get the best image. All my images was taken in one location which was a media class room in Christ the king sixth form were they had a black background set for my images to be taken, for the best affect i had to take into consideration the brightness and contrast of my image to get the best affect and outcomes. I used the flash kit so that my images were at a better standard.

Photoshop CS5 was the software were I developed my ideas and built the and completed my magazines front cover, content page and double page spread, as I do graphics, media and photography Photoshop is used in all so even though while I wasn’t in media I was able to enhance my skills on Photoshop so every time I came back to do my magazine I had learnt new techniques and skills to use on my work. Manipulating my images and giving it the affect I wanted them was very easy with Photoshop CS5 I refined images, brightened them and adjusted the contrast.

I used the rectangle tool to create my boxes I used on my content page, I also used the grid to make sure everything was in line and had a equal balance to it either side of text and it want more to one side than the other, I also found that useful to change my file from a jpeg to a GIF which allowed me to upload all my work onto blogger with ease. I downloaded fonts from da font so this was useful to me as I knew how to import them into Photoshop

I also knew how to put a stroke on writing drop shadows and different affects on the writing so it made it stand out more and gave it more of a professional look to it and also related to the genre I was basing my magazine on

Q7. Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

From doing the preliminary task which was to create a college magazine using people in my class as my models for my work I didn’t have a wide range of skills on how to use a professional camera and how to use Photoshop and use the tools that Photoshop had to offer, but over the period of time plus with using a professional camera in my photography class and using Photoshop in my graphics class helped me learn a lot of skills and techniques which helped me a lot for my full product which was to create a music magazine. a major skill I learned was the effectiveness that the masthead and cover lines was and how it had to be of a good standard to make your magazine look professional and of a good quality, from the preliminary task I really didn’t have enough time in doing it as you can see and looked like I just threw words on the image with out thinking of the positioning of my text bar code or nothing like that same goes for the contents page I done, it was rushed and could be clearly seen.

Photoshop was always a main use for my preliminary task all the way though to my full product of creating a music magazine but it’s the techniques and skills I learnt along the way that made the difference on how my magazine looked at the end of the product that made it look professional and had its own unique feel to the magazine, I also feel the process leading up to eventually starting my music magazine was very beneficial as it gave me a good feel of how a music magazine was meant to be laid out and how important cover lines and mastheads looked to attract the right type of audience, with my preliminary task you could see no such thing as you could see it was very poor and I had a lack of skills but over the course it got better and you can see that with my end product of my front cover, content page and double page spread.

For the preliminary task consisted of a front cover and a content page as did the full product the difference was that for the full product I also had to create a double page spread as well which I had no practise on but due to the preparation leading up to me doing it was very helpful even though I till found it hard I was able to pull it off at the end, the task that was at hand was how to work on a A3 canvas and adjust everything on it according to the space so it doesn’t look congested and clattered together. Due to the preparation we was given for the full product leading up to the making of my music magazine was much longer than we had for the preliminary task and much more in depth which I benefited a huge amount from and one of the main things I learnt was how to attract the audience I wanted for the type of magazine I was creating, I learnt how to base my magazine of a particular social group and how i had to use the conventions to get the best affect and feel to associate to my social group which I was aiming my magazine at, as for my preliminary task it was to a wider audience. I had to do research on my target audience and what they thought a grime magazine should look like and how it will attract them if certain people were in the magazine.

With my preliminary task I was jut give a canon E05 400D camera to take my pictures and I didn’t really know how to take pictures to get the best quality and images out of it but with the help of my photography course I learnt more about camera so when it was time to take the images of my full product I was able to take quality pictures.

O8. Conduct Post production Feedback to see how successful your new magazine is with your target audience. Collect feedback on ALL magazine pages, identify strengths & weaknesses of each product, reflect on the feedback, and discuss to what extent you agree with it, what would you do differently?

As I am at the end of my full product of making a music magazine with a front cover, content page and double page spread, I had to find out how I done what I had done well and what I could improve on, so I asked a hand full of my friend who was into grime and was even own there own music thing, and the feed back was:

Summarized:

First Feedback: I liked the colours used it really brought out the magazine and it actually got the feel of a grime magazine and not just another hip hop or Rnb magazine so you done that well, the thing I think you need to improve is the space as on the contents page it looks neat and well presented but it also looks kind of clustered together, so many you need less text or make the images smaller other than that I like the double page, so as a whole I think you represented a grime magazine very well.

Second feedback: yeah I really like the images as it give you that feel of the “youth” the costumes was well thought out, I liked the colour scheme used and how it was laid out, what I think you can improve on is the double page it just looks to plain and it also looks like the main image is out of focus which Is not good.”

Third feedback: I love the colour scheme used it really give you that “grimish” feel like the double page spread it simple with the questions in a border, the thing I think you could have done better was work the space on the contents page better as it kind of looks to congested even though I was still able to follow it and also the double page spread image it looks out of focus, but apart from that I think you done really well to capture the grime feel for your magazine.”

With the feedback I was give I really thought that it was the most beneficial feedback I could possibly get it wasn’t very critical but it pointed out were I could have done something better and pointed out stuff that I didn’t do right which could be improved which I thought was very helpful and I will now take into consideration if I ever make a music magazine again, I like the fact that all of the liked the colour scheme which I was pleased with as I changed it a few time, so am glad that my final colour choice was the right one.

The things I would do differently is mainly the advice I got from the feedback and also try and make ma double page spread look more interesting I would also have liked to go out of college and taken the pictures to use for my magazine so that’s something I would have done differently and if any thing I would change the whole lay out as well jus to see if I could have done better and then I would be able to compare the two, but all in all I am happy with my effort and think I done a good job of capturing the grim feel to a magazine.