Monthly Archives: March 2013

What Have You Learnt About Technologies From the Process of Constructing This Product?

I learnt a lot about the different technologies such as Photoshop and InDesign when I was creating my magazine. I learnt that these technologies are confusing to start with but then become very simple once you get the hang of them. If I hadn’t used Photoshop to edit my pictures they would not look professional or desirable enough to be features in a magazine. The spot healing tool is very quick and easy to use but makes a huge difference to the quality of image and makes airbrushing the photo’s very easy. Also on Photoshop I found it easy to cut out individual people from my pictures so I could rearrange where each person was if they weren’t in the exact place I desired in the original photograph. The quick selection tool made this very easy and essentially does a lot of the work for you, I learnt a lot about the different tools on Photoshop and the possibilities of using them.

InDesign made creating my magazine a lot less stressful than it could have been, using layers to put everything on and making sure everything is on a separate layer makes it much quicker when you want to put different elements on top of each other. The rulers that can be dragged out from the side of the document in InDesign also make it much easier to line everything up neatly and evenly. Below is a link to a video I made explaining what tools I used to create some aspects of my magazine. The video may take a few minutes to load…

http://prezi.com/nx1eqq1y2at6/evaluation-question/?auth_key=87328c110eaf5b36c5accc6e175c90478e28fbaf&kw=view-nx1eqq1y2at6&rc=ref-20552943

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

My music magazine is of the rock music genre and I think I have followed the main magazine conventions for similar types of magazine to this. I have used to standard red, black and white colour scheme that appears on a lot of other music magazines with similar genres to mine because that means the audience will instantly recognise it for what it is and know that they will like it. Red, black and white are also good colours to use because they are very different so contrast against each other, when put together it is very easy to distinguish between each colour and so it makes my magazine neat and clear.

I have used quite plain fonts because this is a convention of rock music magazines, they rarely use fancy fonts for the main headings and subheadings. However rock magazines often use a serif font for the body text of articles because it is easier to read in large paragraphs so I have mirrored this on my double page spread and used a simple serif font. For the masthead of my double page spread and for the word ‘Tusk’ on my front cover I have used a more fancy serif font because I believe it looks authentic and like good quality, so makes the band seem like they are a good quality band. Sometimes more of the old school rock magazines will use serif fonts for headings for this reason. Most of the other headings are sans serif because this is accepted as normal for a magazine of any kind.

I have used mid shot pictures for the main images of Tusk and ‘Rock’s most famous duo’ because this shows their expressions closer up but also shows what they are wearing which is a big part of their cool image. This challenges the conventions for rock magazines because they often have full body images of the artists featured in them. I wanted to be different because my magazine is a high quality magazine and the artists featured in it are serious about their music so their facial expressions are an important part of portraying them like this.

I used a full length image for the ‘fashion’ section on my contents page because that part is obviously more about the clothes than anything else and the model is pulling the t-shirt out to the audience so this draws a lot of attention to the clothing and so is effective for it’s purpose. I believe this is common of music magazines and their fashion sections because they want to put emphasis on the clothes they are advertising.

I have used a puff on my front cover because they appear on a lot of magazines that have competitions and are very eye catching. I made the whole thing red because it stands out a lot against my black background and made the writing white to stand out against the red and the black. I believe reversed out text to be very common on rock music magazines because it is eye catching and dramatic so the audience are likely to recognise and read it.

I used lots of colloquialisms in my article and even used a swear word because this language appears a lot in rock music magazines as it is associated with the bands and artists in this genre and a lot of their music contains explicit language like this. For example i used phrases such as ‘it’s fucking brilliant’ to make the article more readable and familiar to the audience, so it’s fun to read and not all serious and boring.

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

The models that I have used on my front cover are all of a similar age and social group. They are all teenagers between the ages of 16 and 20 and are all from middle or working class backgrounds. The four models I have used for the central image are good looking and so the audience will aspire to be like them and look like them. There is a contrast between some of their facial expressions, three of them look happy and approachable whereas one of them looks serious and moody. It is stereotypical for there to always be one naughty and moody character in a band and so this fits that stereotype. It is also stereotypical for a rock band to look happy in their pictures because some of the music is happy and this represents that. Evie is blowing a kiss at the camera and this looks welcoming and makes the audience feel as though they can open the magazine. Also the fact that all the models are looking directly at the camera makes it seem as though they are looking at the person reading the magazine and this will encourage them to open it and read it.

All of the models in all of the images throughout my magazine all look neat and well presented, I think this is important because it shows a more middle class perspective and shows that not all teenagers are messy and dirty. My target audience is more middle class than working class and so this is appealing to them.

I think my magazine challenges a lot of stereotypes of teenagers because it shows them as successful, well together young people whereas a lot of people view them as a nuisance that don’t care about anything. So my representation of them is very positive. In my article I have mentioned that they appear to be very mature and will go far, this challenges the stereotype that musicians and young people are lazy and makes them sound like driven individuals.

I have used bands that are associated with younger people because that is their audience in my magazine however I have also used the name ‘Tusk’ for my made up band which makes them sound creative and different. There are a lot of bands round nowadays with unusual names so this fits in well with the current music industry and makes the band sound up to date.

I have tried to represent all the people in my magazine as confident by the way they are posed, the main band Tusk all look fearlessly at the camera in both pictures of them and I think this represents them in a confident way. I have also used to quote ‘we have arrived and we’re not going anywhere’ in bold on one of the pictures on my double page spread because I think this shows determination and drive which is a very attractive trait for young people to have and challenges the misconceptions that a lot of people have that all young people nowadays are lazy and have no ambition. Many of the quotes I have used from the band are confident things and positive things, showing their maturity and showing them as good role models. I have tried to make the article on my double page spread positive and show young people in a situation where they are working hard and making a living for themselves but also inspiring others to follow suit. I used some colloquial language to make the article accessible but also to make the band seem like normal teenagers, so the audience could be on the same level as them, it’s important to make sure the artists don’t seem too perfect and different to their fans. I think colloquialisms and slang are very stereotypical things for young people to use, many older people view their speech as bad and think they use slang all the time, whereas this isn’t the case they do use a lot of colloquial language so I have followed stereotypes in that way.

I have also made sure I made the band seem grateful for their opportunity and as though they aren’t taking it all for granted because it is often viewed that a lot of celebrities take their fame and fortune for granted and don’t realise how lucky they are. I think it is important to make sure my band don’t seem like that and don’t seem too cocky, but are confident in what they do so I have used quotes such as ‘I knew it would do well, it’s a great album’ to show their confidence in what they are doing but then contradicted by a comment from another member saying ‘I was nervous that people wouldn’t get it’ so it also shows they are not cocky and don’t expect everything to be handed to them.

Who Would be the Audience For Your Media Product?

The target audience for my music magazine is young adults, between the ages of 16 and 25 who have a strong interest in rock music. I am targeting both males and females. My target audience are predominantley middle class but also working class (NRS social grades B, C1 and C2) from large towns and cities.

They have a strong interest in music and most of them are interested in making and producing music as well as listening to it. A lot of them will be in small bands themselves or at least play an instrument like guitar, bass or drums. They will wear a lot of band merchandise and will be very defensive and passionate about the bands they like and dislike. They will have messy hair and wear skinny jeans and Vans, Doc Martens shoes or something similar.

Their main interest is music and they spend a lot of their leisure time listening to music and they attend gigs regularly and go to the big festivals such as Download and Reading.

The Survey that I produced on Survey Monkey showed that my target audience would like to see bands such as Skindred, Young Guns and Deaf Havana in a rock magazine so this is the type of music that is popular with them. It also showed that they liked the colours black, red and white for a music magazine and this shows that they are more likely to wear these colours and a lot of band merchandise is predominantly black or white so this may be why they chose those colours, because they associate them with the music that they listen to.

This is an example of my target audience:

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How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

I wanted to make my front cover as appealing as possible to my target audience so I used large fonts that are easy to read from afar and used the colour scheme of red, white and black because this is the colour scheme used for many music magazines of similar genre and so the audience would instantly recognise it as something they will want to read. I think blacks and reds are used on rock magazines a lot because they are universal colours that are appealing to everyone yet they are not in your face, for example if they used pink or purple then it wouldn’t be appealing to boys and may be a bit too much. Also, the results from my survey on Survey Monkey showed that my target audience wanted to see black, white and red on a music magazine.

I have used two images of people similar ages to my target audience in similar clothing to what they would wear so the readers can relate to them and feel comfortable reading this magazine. The people in the pictures are all good looking and so the target audience may even look up to them and aspire to look like them. It is important to use models that are similar to the target audience because they won’t want to read about people that are much older than them and will know that the magazine is for them if they see people of a similar age and style on the front cover.

The colour scheme I have picked works well because all the colours contrast each other and so are easy to read when put together, for example my masthead is reversed out, white on black so is very easy to read. All magazines of this genre or similar genre follow the red, black and white colour scheme so my audience will recognize this as a magazine they will enjoy reading and therefore it will be more attractive to them.

The price of my magazine is £3 which is affordable for everyone. I didn’t want to make it too expensive because then people would not want to buy it but I also didn’t want to make it too cheap because then people may feel that the content is not quality. As my audience is teenagers they would not likely be willing to pay a lot of money for a magazine so I had to make an informed decision to keep the price low.

All the artists featured in my magazine are relevant to the music genre and so will be appealing to my target audience because they will be familiar with all of these artists. The artists I have chosen are all also very popular right now in the music industry so my magazine is up to date, my audience would not like to read a magazine about bands that are not popular anymore, they are only interested in what is cool right now.

On my double page spread there is a lot of writing however I have used some colloquial and slang expressions that the audience will be comfortable with because that is similar to how they speak, I don’t think they would be very likely to read an article that is all in a formal register. For the pull quotes I have also tried to use things that sound exciting or scandalous so the audience will be intrigued and want to read the article. I have made sure the band don’t sound too cocky and confident in the article because this would make other teenagers dislike them and think they are taking their opportunity for granted, so I made sure I included quotes such as ‘I feel like I’m living in a dream world, it’s so overwhelming’ which shows that they are grateful and shocked by their success.