Features of my magazine

Masthead
I personally really like my masthead, because it is exactly what i imagined it to look like. It is very cosy and directly represents my target audiences thoughts, as thought they are saying i love r'n'b. I think it is very original although the heart image is common. I also included soem emastheads that i was inspired from on my presentation.

Tagline
It was hard to come up with a tagline, because it had to be too the point and precise. Therfeor i researched into frotn covers of music magazines and most were about the whole thought of loving msuic and living it. So in the end i came up with 'LOVE MUSIC LOVE R'N'B', which met its purpose and more importantly appeals to the target audience, notably it could be considered a unique selling point.

Images
I researched into proffesional images and also included that on ym presenation slide. It was really important for me to research into photos and images on covers of magazines, in order for me to decide the kin dof image i was looking at taking. Nonetheless fro my front cover image i came up with a dubious look, which gave the magazine a rebellious. Nonetheless this is a way in which i believe i attracted my target audience because young people are rebellious and would be impressed because for them it would be as though seeing themselves published, this is also another USP.

How well the assignment went overall

Creation of my Magazine
Overall i personally believe that the ceration of my magazine went very well although i had technical issues at times like losing my screenshots which caused lots of issues with catching up with the erst of the people that were already finishing off. The preliminary assignment i think played a great role in the making of my main assignment magazine becasue it helped me learn how the photoshop and indesign were being used, which was really important in order to come out with a good quality magazine. Furthermore the prelimianry assignment helped me with managing time beacause not ebing focused and not doing things properly when they had to be done meant that the whole magazine would be a failure and as a result not pass, however it also showd me how much eahc task would take therefore i was quite organised with the main assignment.
The quality of my main assignment was very good in comparison to the preliminary, because knowing how to use thing i advance means that you know what your are doing and that mistakes are unlikely. Therefore knowing how to use the software helped me edit photos to a good standard and meet my aim as to how i wanted the image(s) to look. Any problems that i came across were overcome easily, for example i had a problem witht he edited image on my double page spread, when i was trying to get a white shadow the trouser of the model was also coloured in white, however knowing how to use photoshop made it easy for me to overcome the problem, all i did was cut out from the original image and place it on the veryfirst layer of the image beign edited, therefore shows that lesson is learnt.

Attracting my target audience
I looked at other magazines and tried to identify how they attarcted their target audience for exmaple VIBE, how they attracted their r'n'b audience and how i attracted mine. For example similiar conventions were starplines and image. my image was not edited and so was VIBE'S front cover hardly edited. Which was a good thing because it showed that thats how they attracted their target audience- looking very original.

Representing particular social groups
My media product is designed in a similiar way to other magazines of its kind such as EBONY and VIBE- The people that are interested in r'n'b.

My magazine represents people thaat are interested in r'n'b, that are inbetween the age of 16 and 25. Which is the typical mass/popular culture that is made up of people that love going to raves and dancing to r'n'b music. However i have a good unique selling point or even a good source to advertise therefore people that own raves would be interested in advertisisng any events in my magazine so it does nto just represent the typical popular culture of dancers and music lovers but also people but also business owners. Another way that i represent the particular popular culture r'n'b listeners social groups is the images as shown in my mood board on my evaulation slides, which inspired me to put similar taglines etc. which attracts my social group very much for representing them.

ASSESSMENT FEEDBACK SHEET
The assessment feedback sheet was very useful for me to improve my magazine further. I almost altered the whole structure of the magazine, for example ic hanegd the font sizes on my double page spread and converted the whole front cover in to a new look however the reason for changing the whole front cover was feeback from peers rather my subject teacher, because they too gave me feedback and said that the front cover was not at all appealaing and neglecting male peers as a target audience.
On the assesment sheet, there was a 'medal', which was what ahd been done well and a 'mission', which was what could be improved. However my succes was that i had managed to hand in a magazine despite technical issues that i encountered. My mission was to change my front cover , to reduce font size adn make it bulge it so that it looked eye-catching.

Research in to specific magazines

To research into existing magazines i created a powerpoint slide which shows my research of front covers and a contents page. This research really helped me before i started to create my magazine because i learnt about the frequency of magazine and when they were established. I further saw how starplines and mastheads were placed on particular magazine front cover and how some things were put uniquesly to stand out in particular. The powerpoint also has a slide on the two other magazine sthat i did ABC research on, which is about the frequency, circualtion, price and publisher. Overll all this research showed me how could establish my magazine in its own way and make it a succes with its appearance.

Feedback from Questionnaire

I a questionnaire to get feedback from at least five of my peers on my magazine. The twelve questions were:

• who has it been created for?
• what kind of magazine is being promoted?
• what does the frotn cover tell you about the contents of the magazine?
• how attarctive is the frotn cover?
• is there a wide enough contents listing?
• is the feature article interesting?
• do the images and text in the feature article fit?
• how attractive is the magazine as a whole?
• does it meet the conventions of a music magazine?
• would you pick up the magazine and read it if you found it on the train?
• would you buy it?

I asked my peers for feedback on the magazine using the above questions. I thought it was the best kind of feedback i could have received because they have the same perspective as me, however different taste therefore different opinions and better chances of ending up with a successful magazine.

Feedback of my magazine showed that they would pick up the magazine and even possibly buy it which shows that my magazine was a success overall. Furthermore the people that assessed the magazine with the questionnaire recognised what the magazine was created for, the intended target audience and the genre.

All of my interviewees said that there was a wide enough variety in the contents page and that most conventions were met noting that there was nothing necessary to add. Some of my interviewees verbally said that my contents listing was 'excellent'. The questionnaire further showed that the images, photographs and text fit perfectly to the rest of my magazine as a whole and that they were very interesting which is another point where my magazine met the typical conventions of a magazine.

Overall, my magazine is seen as a success in terms of creation; i recieved very positive feedback from most of the them, although on the rare where i asked people verbally wether the magazine was good i was told that it wasn't, however with the exception of my magazine not appealing to those particular people. Siginificantly i also recieved feedback that showed me my magazine was very eye-catching and mostly appealed to them in comparison the the draft version of my magazine; male peers said that the previous magazine did not appeal to them becasue of the colours especially becasue of the colours which were very girly, however now it is very appealing and is seen as a high standard magazine.

On the whole i believe my magazine, acquire the typical conventions fo a magazine that is aimed on the genre of R'n'B. Nonetheless i think that the conventions of my magazine is a way that i attracted my target audience. I think what i could improve with my feedback is asking more people and even adults above my target audience because then i could find out what they would have looked fro in a music magazine if it were for their age group.

Risk Assessment and Recce Notes

THE RISK ASSESSMENT AND RECCE NOTES ARE EXTREMELY CRUCIAL FRO THE SAFETY OF THE CREW THAT ARE INVOLVED IN PHOTOSHOOTS AND ARRANGEMENTS INVOLVING THE SET UPS OF CAMERAS ETC.

Presentation

Double Page Spread

I used InDesign in the making of my magazine and the typesfaces were imported from Microsoft Word.I places my pictures as i went along.

This is the final look of my double page spread, the colours i chose appeal to both genders of my target audience. The first picture is not edited because it makes the feature article look natural, however the second picture was edited in order to add a a poster look to the article, which makes it interesting and exctiting to read just like posters.

This was the very first look of my magazine, it changed drastically as shown above and the changes are the background colour font sizes and the second image. I changed the font size because my font size was 14 which was far too big compared to the rest of the magazines in the industry. The average is 10 to 12, i didn't want it to look too small and also to not be able to fit all the text so i chose font size 11. I also added tags in the centre of texts to make the article exciting and also to make the readers curious to carry on; e.g "my dos was hit by a bus" is one of two that i used as shown above. The reason i added the second picture was because readers want to see more of the celebrity that is being featured to engage with the interview therefore , in my point of view it was worthy to add the second image.

Contents page

This is the very first look of my contents page, as i have stated it look very much like a poster and the vibrant and electric colours did not appeal to my target audience at all.

This is the second look of the front cover, however i still was not fully satisfied although i placed my picture in, also my research in to the contents pages of other R 'N' B magazines showedt hat my one did not appeal to my chosen genre of music but rather to indie and rock.

So i ended up transforming the contents page fully appart from the font of the titile 'Contents' and the image. The colours are more suited to the magazines in appearance and as genre. I discussed this with my male and female peers and they agreed with me that it was more suited to the magazine as a whole.

Final front cover

This is my final front cover, in my evaluation i said that i wanted to use vibrant and electric colours however i saw that it did not really apply to males as much as it did to females so before i went any further in the making of the magazine i altered the way the magazine looked for the benefit of my target audience. Everything on the front cover changed apart from the logo, because i thought it was adequate and related to both my male and female target audience.

Before my magazine looked like this i never finished it off because i changed my mind before i finished it off. Also the frotn cover below looks too much like a poster, whereas my intention was to make it appear cool and original. Nonetheless the picture below is now placed on my feature article. I decided to put the picture on the double page spread because it makes the article more interesting to read.

TYPEFACES

Voltage? I don’t imagine that’s your real name...
Ha-ha no it’s not actually. My name is miles!

These are the two different fonts used in my feature article, the first is ‘HOBO STD’, and the second one is Bell Gothic STD Light. I use these fonts because they look cosy and are easy fonts to read. One of the other main reasons as to why I used it is because I didn’t want to use the default font Times New Roman because it is a type of font that you expect to see in newspapers which is not at all relevant to the concept of my magazine.

Features
This is a font that that I used in my contents page I used on my contents page and as a title for the feature article. I chose this particular font because it makes the magazine look edgy and adds a twist of a cosmopolitan look. It also stands out without looking to exaggerated and making the magazine look really busy.

Other fonts I used on my contents page were:
Bookman Old Style: I used this font to make the magazine easy to read and to give a straightforward look. It looks really serious as opposed to the fonts below which are very eccentric, which overall makes the contents page eccentric to look through.

Stencil STD: I used this font because I wanted some parts of my contents to stand out so that people definitely see them; it is in a ‘don’t miss section’ of the magazine.

Chiller: This font I used because it gives a tacky street look to the contents page which is what the section I used it on was aimed at.

This is the original picture that i used for my front cover. I didn't want to make any changes because, i wanted a very original natural look. The 'No Loud Music' sign above his head was my target, it gives my magazine a rebellish look, which would impress my target audience.

This was the original picture that i intended to use before the one above.

I manipulated it in photoshop however the outcome gave the magazine a poster appearnace which i did not like therfore i decided to use it on my feature article, which has a more poster look which makes it interesting to read.

This was the second picture that i used on my feature article. I did not manipulate this aswell because again the originality of the picture would have been lost. I did not lose the black object that appears because i placed the picture on the magazine in a away that hid it.

The picture below is the original picture, that i used on my contents page. I took it purposely to give a relaxed look.

It is the final edited photo for the contents page. I gave it a black background, because the background colour of all the pages of my magazine is black, so i made it belnd in with the bakground.

Press Complaints Commision

We researched into the press complaints commission editors code and discoveerd that not all practice points apply to some of our magazines. Nonetheless most practice points were relevant to my magazine. To begin with accuracy was one; i saw that i must use correct dates and must distinguish clearly between true and false this applied to me interms of making sure that i do not include false news on artists, no images that are secondary or that to not beong to me are not used and any innacuracies must be corrected or apologised to by printing an apology straight away. A second practice point was to make sure that i give an oppurtunity to readers to reply to innacuarcies when asked for, so a fan page must be include or something similair to that. Privacy was also an important point; because my magzine will not use intrusive paparazzi pictures furthermore i will make sure i do not take intrusive pictures my self. Similiar to privacy was harassment this applies to my magazine and could be considerded most important taking in to mind that many celebrities are constantly harrased. I will prevent that from happening by not harassing and persistently persuing individuals to make news, i will also make sure thata once i am asked to stop questioning or photographing i will stop immediately.

Another point was intrusion into grief or shock is unlikely however considered as not impossible, therfoer in any case if it does occur i muist approach the news with sympathy and in rarae suicide cases i will not use excessivedetail in the method used.

As for children i will make sure i take permission from relevant authorities, when taking pictures of childrena nd approaqching them. I must also make sure taht i do not use a parents fame to publish a childs private life. In rare childrens sex cases i will not identify the child and the word 'incest' will never be used where the child is identfied. Even if legal to identify i will make sure i do not idenify the child in the case. Hospital cases are also rare but do occur therefore i must identify my self from responsible authorities in order to enter non-public areas in hospitals or likewise institutions to retrieve news.

Mock Marking Exercise

The mock marking exercise consited of parking the blogs of our peers on what they had accomplished so far. We used the assesment criteria when doing this aswell as adding our own comments

I have learnt that i had to add to evaluation to gain higher marks. I also had to add more detail about the contents page and talk about it. I was told by my peers that i had to add print screens to my evaluation and the different type faces i had used. I further learnt how to evaluate and analyse other peoples' magazines, which helped me to see what i could do to my evaluation in future to improve it.

Target reader profiles and focus group

Stereotypical Reader

Lauran- This person would be about 16 or 17 and loves partying and booze. She would possibly like raving and listening to RnB typically Nelly and Rihanna. And also old school and slow jam which come under RnB. She would most likely have blonde hair and stereotypically side swept. She would like modern clothes such as leather jackets and skinny jeans rather than a 60’s look.

Elli- This person would be about the age of 17, who wears hooded tops and baggy jeans quite authentic for the time we are in, which would appear to listen to hip hop and RnB, which are sung by Beyonce and Jay Z and Alicia Keys. She would have long hair with a short fringe and possibly dyed in the colour red. She would be on higher education. Significantly she would be very social, easygoing and funny.

Tara- This teenage girl would have plum coloured hair. She would possibly assume that she rules the world. She would most likely listen to black music e.g. reggae, black rap artists and most of the types of music that comes under RnB.

Characterictics of a specific musical genre

This is my mind map that has the different types of music that come under my chosen music genre.

Typical Features

Genre- Style, Form, Type

Genre is the style or type of format something is e.g. a film, drama soap etc.

As the producer of a music magazine I am concerned with the producers of the types of musicians that will be put into the magazine as I need it to be engaging my audience. Following from audience one important factor is marketing as I will need it to continue to existence of the magazine and to make profit.

Genre of magazines found in HMV

Classical
Rock
Indie Rock
Pop
Rn’B
Dance

Jazz
World/Folk
Electronic/Dance

Chronology (time)

Early-classical-romantic-modern
16 17-18 19 20-21

Denotation & Connotation

I analaysed two music magzines regarding their front cover and contents. I had to compare and contrast the differences and what their denotations, connotations and design layouts reflected about the magazine. I distinguished the reasons as to why a certain image or design was there. For example looking at typefaces, i learnt the differnce between serif and sans serif and why they were chosen specifically to be applied on to a certain part of the magazine. Furthermore, i learnt why certain colours were picked, what they meant and what was trying to be achieved. For example on the magazine classic rock there was a variety of colours chosen like purple, red, black and orange etc. once identifying the colours i was able to say that red for example was used to make the magazine front cover look eye-catching however most importantly to show that the magazine had an exciting contents. I also looked at the typical page layouts and alignments of texts of two magazines, how they differed and how i could apply what i saw and learnt to my magazine. Moving on i further learnt that a very busy background does not look very good as it does not allow things that you want to stand out look eye-catching. In spite of that i learnt that a busy background has an advantage of being well memorable for a person therefore they know what they are looking for when they want to buy it or in another sense the magazine is estblished in their heads.

EVALUATION
According to my research on and knowledge on the conventions of a magazine, my media product hits many points. Firstly the images are edited like a real magazine though it is not as proffesional as real media companies as yet. Secondly the barcode and more importantly the logos make my media products very much like a real magazine; the logos were also edited.

On from that the target audience of my media product would be 16-19 year olds that are in Chelmsford College. The majority of their needs are met in this my magazine. My magazine attracts the target audience in many different ways. For example the images used on the front cover and contents page are clearly addressing the college students therfore they will understand and see easily that the magazine is aimed at them. Furthermore Because the images are students from the actual college, my audience further understands that the magzien is purely for them.

My magazine represents individuals from todays popular culture and youth culture social groups; that are the so-called 'fashionistas' regardless of being boys or girls and young people that have interest in music, cars, trends and parties etc. practically social groups that 'love' everything portrayed from mass media.

I have learnt many things in the process of constructing my media product. Firstly good use of Photoshop, which i had used before however had not been able to learn fully. Secodnly i was introduced to In Design, which surprised me with all its different editing ways. I learnt how to shoot proffesional photographs and the to edit them to my desired look.

I think i was very good with shooting photos in the making of this media product. However i would have to work a lot more on using In Design to be able to use it for all its goodness!
Eda Karaca

This is my final front cover, which i edited in In Design. I was careful about the colour of the text because the image is of colours that engulfs most colours but black, therefore i outlined the text in black however used red inside therfore the text was not lost in the background image.

This is the photograph that i took for my contents page. I used students on the go which portrays the busy life of students. I also considered race and ethnic issues in this picture, just like my front cover , however this time i used to students from black race and two from white.

This is the edited image for the contenst page, i edited it in photoshop. Although i used people from contarasting races, my actual aim was to make everyone appear the same, therefore put across a message that the succes criteria of life is not about being just black or white, but actually getting eduaction. Therefore this ultraviolet retro look meets my target.

This is my final front cover for my magazine. I put a barcode, which will create a realistic connotation of the magazine. I edited the image in photoshop to create a vintage look and edited the text and logo in indesign, which i made attractive by using loud colours to add a twist to the overall appearance. Furtermore the eye-catching colours creates a visual memory, therefore the magazine will be easy to remeber.