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Final Product

Question 1

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

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

by sianhorrigan5786 please click the card in order to read the writing on the back.

Question 3

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

by sianhorrigan5786

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I used some of my peers who I thought would fit my intended audience in order to answer this question. I did this so that I could see from another perspective what attracted them to my magazine.

Question 6

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

Question 7

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

I have now created my final double page spread on photoshoop as you can see below.

 

 

Evidence

This is a picture I got somebody to take while I was working on the changes of my double page spread.

Changes

After creating my draft I was relatively happy with the outcome. Despite this there is always room for improvement so I changed the things below and explained why I have done this.

 

The image below shows my potential ideas for my double page spread having taken my style models as well and my own ideas into account.

When planning my interview I wanted it to be relatively sophisticated for my target audience who have an interest in education therefore I didn't use a simple question and response format when creating the interview in word. I used this software so that I was able to spell check my work to prevent spelling mistakes from occurring which are shown by a red underline as shown in the screen shot below. 

 

After creating my Polaroid I then went on to edit my picture I had chosen with an app my iPhone. 

 

The app:

Here is I used before the picture before the editing process:

The first thing I did was use an effect  called Sophia which brightened my image making my artist looked tanned . 

I then used an effect over top called josh which help to soften the brightness of the picture while blending the colours subtly.

After I had taken my pictures I then began to think about which ones I wanted to use. I thought that centering my image on my page was unique however I wanted to stem further into this unique side. I thought about using Polaroid images so I downloaded some apps to have an experiment. 

First of all I heard of an app that enables you to make a Polaroid collage so I played around with it.

The app:

I experimented with four of my favourite images from the photoshoot:

However I didn't like it as you were unable to remove the horrible pea green background. I also found that the collage took up too much space on my double page spread and when I made the image smaller it didn't look very professional. So I decided to make the Polaroid image myself on photoshop.

Double Page Spread - Drafting the photoshoot

After I had found appropriate style models I began to plan my photoshoot. I have created a comic strip of an animated character doing different poses so that I can see how they look before my actual photoshoot. As you can see they are all Mid shots enabling the audience to see both the artist expression and posture which should represent the stereotypes of the rap industry.

 

Evidence:

Below I have posted a picture to show that I have edited constructed this comic and what app that I used to do so

 

I used:

 

 

Now that I have created my front cover and the contents page for my music magazine I have now started my research into constructing a double page spread. I have already decided that it is going to be based on my made up artist Gee Bronx and that it is going to be an exclusive interview where the artist answers questions that the readers will be intrigued to buy the magazine for. I have research double page spreads in order to find some style models that I can use when creating my own double page spread. Below I have posted the pictures of the pages I like most and am going to incorporate in my work:

This double page spread is found in the source I really like the left had side as the image is in the centre of the page with the text around it. This gives the impression the artist is very important. it is also extremely unique and I have never seen it before therefore I am going to use this.

The other double page spread I like is this one. I like this because the plain background really emphasises the varied typography colour, style and size. 

 

Above I have posted a picture of both my draft copy and my final contents page. As you can see I didn't change much when I came to creating my contents page as I wasn't faced with a lot of issues. I added, like on my front cover the colour gold to certain text in order to emphasise main points on the page such as page number and headings. I also changed the font of the articles in the exclusives and features boxes to fullpack making it look much more professional. Finally I changed the cover story text associated with the image of Gee Bron I did this to enforce text image cohesion so the consumer is able to automatically associated the picture with the text. I also changed the font from Neou to impact so it stands out more making it larger and clearer to the audience.

Now that I have chosen a style model for my contents page I decided to draft out how I wanted it to look so that I could ensure I had the write balance of text and images.

I have used many of the articles mentioned on my front cover including one of my made up artists 'sheepy'.

I decided to add a blackberry scan code to my magazine as I have seen a variety of magazines them including one of my competitors the vibe. I thought that this was a very effective way of targeting my auidience as they are within the age range who are most likely to own a blackberry and be interested in social networking. By using a barcode it will allow my readers to get more involved with my magazine and shows a convergence between multi media the magazine industry. Below I have posted a picture of the vibe which has used a scan code on its front cover.

 

 

Contents Page Images

The final thing I need to do before constructing my contents page is to take the pictures that are going to be used on it. Above I have used a prezzi to show the images that I will be using while the other ones from the photoshoot can be found on my flickr album.

Contents page style model

After creating my previous video I have decided that my favourite layout for a contents page is from Clash therefore I am going to use this layout as a style model in order to influence my work. I like this due to the fact it has a balance between images and text creating a professional look. I also like the fact the page numbers are in a different colour to the text making it look attractive and eye catching so it is easier for the reader to be led to stories they are most interested in.
 

 

Now that I have completed my front cover for my music magazine I have started to move onto the production of my contents page. To start off I wanted to do some research and look and some contents pages created by established music magazine companies so that I could get a better idea of what my contents page should look like when I come to creating it.

 

Here I have posted a picture of my updated magazine front cover. I followed my draft as I thought through my research I had learnt how to construct a front cover properly. However, when reevaluating my work I wasn't happy with a few things so I made a few changes.

 

 

Colours scheme : Oriniganlly I was only going to use the colour red, white and blue in order to represent my American theme. However, having time away from my work made me realise when I came back to look at it everything flowed into eachother and none of the text really grabbed my attention. So, in order to improve on this I added gold to emphasise main points on the front cover as gold connotes to importance so I thought this would be effective.

Typography: As highlighted above I didn't think any of my text stood out enough on my cover. Therefore, I usage fonts Impact and Neou in different sizes and with different spacing in order to make all of my text eye catching.

Text positiong: I changed the position of my cover story to the centre of the page as it allowed for me to have more access to space on the left third. This is extremely important as the left third is what sells the magazine so I used this to cram it with all the most important things my magazine has to offer in order to attract the consumer.

Draft front cover

Now that I have decided on my main image, font and colour scheme I have created a draft of how I would like my magazine front cover to look using photoshop 

Location images

Through secondary research I found out that rap music originated from America. As my magazine's genre is rap, I decided to use a location that is associated with this, bringing history and culture into the theme of my magazine. The location images  will also link with my American colour scheme, and the mise-en-scene through clothing choices e.g basketball vest showing continuity of my American theme throughout all aspects of my magazine. I also chose to use New York City as several rap artists have used this location when shooting music videos due to its famous landmarks and the cities associations with wealth and power.  I was fortunate enough to visit this city and take many photos that I can use for my magazine. I have used some of the images of landmarks that many people will be aware of inorder to create a collage effect on my front cover.

 

Once I had inserted this barcode into photoshop I felt that it took up too much space as I wanted to include the logos of social networking sites underneath.

Therefore using the select tool I selected a section of the barcode that I wanted to remove.

 After I had selected the area I want to get rid of I used the backspace in order to cut it out of the image.

This was the outcome:

 I used the same tool to select the area above the section I removed and used the down arrow on my key pad to connect it with the other part of  my barcode. This gave me more room on my front cover to include the social networking logos and the magazines web address.

Barcode

I took a barcode off of google for my front cover which is shown in the following link: http://www.atissuejournal.com/2010/06/09/barcodes-that-make-you-smile/


As you can see they are not your typical standard barcodes. I came across some unique barcodes on google which made me search for 'American flag barcodes' in the navigation bar I then got a number of options but this was my favourite. I thought using the American flag bar code could be a unique selling point that would  help establish my brand image as a new magazine while complying with my American theme.

When editing my cover image I wanted to keep it as natural looking as possible. Therefore I only changed a couple of things. Firstly I played around with the brightness and contrast and decided on the outcome below. The contrast separates the darkest and the brightest areas of an image. I chose to increase the contrast so that the shadows  are darker and the highlights are brighter. I also played around with the brightness of the image and decreased it making it darker. I thought this would go well with the contrast I used on the image because it enables the highlights to become even brighter emphasising the artist which is the focal point in this issue of the magazine.

I then used the paintbrush tool in order to add additional eyelashes to the artist. I did this as make up and looking good is something representative of my female audience. This also draws you into the artists eyes giving connection to the consumer. 

Front cover image

I have decided that the picture I want to use for my front cover image is;

 

I have decided on this because through my market research I noticed that all front cover images were medium shots at eye level. I did have doubts on using this as my front cover main image due to the fact that within the rap genre all of the artists featured on the front page are black and male. However, I then used this as a unique selling point in order to attract both males and females to my magazine which will give me a competitive edge.

Photoshoot Clothing Choices

With my genre in mind I decide to plan the costumes I will picture my featured artists in. I used stereoytpical clothing of the rap genre for example snapback. While also appealing to my audiences interests noted in my pitch sport (basketball jersey) and fashion (up to date looks). I have used a collage in order to present my chosen looks.

 

Masterhead Colour

Now I have decided on the font for my Masterhead it then lead me to think about the colour that I wanted it to be. Through my reasearch I noticed that many successful magazines not just within the music sector used a box behind there masterhead for empasis which I liked the idea of.

 

 

I chose to use the contrasting colours of red and white like other magazines but also because it goes with my American theme. I also chose to use a red box as it is the exact same colour as the basketball jersey my cover model is wearing. The use of text image cohesion shows my front cover has continuity.

Masterhead Font

Now that I have analysed various magazines and have done research on the my genre and found competitors to influence my work, I now need to start on the production of my magazine.I have decided to start with the masthead of my magazine, now that I have decided on the name $$$ I just need to decide on which font I want it written in.Here are some potential fonts that I could use;

Potential  Headings	Name of font
$$$	Impact Bold
$$$	Arial Black Bold
$$$	Berlin Sans FB Demi
$$$	Bauhaus 93
$$$	Blackoak Std
$$$	Cooper Black

From looking at this table that I have created I came to a decision that I am going to use the font- Impact Bold for my masthead as I think it is clear, big and bold font making it easy to read and eye catching for a consumer. Through my market research I noticed that my competitors had used bold eye catching fonts proving it to be successful. It is important that I choose the correct font for my magazine as the name of my magazine needs to stand out to my readers and for it to be memorable so that when they see it on the shelf they will immediately recognise it.

Music Magazine - Planning

After looking at many different front covers this is my favourite. It follows all the typical conventions for a good magazine such as; using the left third, using three columns, typography, and a colour scheme. However, what really attracted me to this was the collage background of famous landmarks around the world. This stood out to me as all the other front covers had a plain coloured background so as a consumer this would catch your eye. I also liked this as I thought it would stretch my ability enabling me to use different types of media programmes and apps. As my researched shows Rap originated from New York therefore in order to incorporate this into my magazine I am going to use some of the most famous landmarks in order to crest a similar collage for my front cover.

Music Magazine - Planning

Now that I have analysed various magazines  I have a much better understanding on how they should be constructed. However, I have done some further research on magazine covers as that is what I am going to focus on creating first of all. Although, I have already looked at magazine front covers I researched rap magazine covers as they would be able to influences me better than the magazines that I have looked at that focus on a different genre of music such as Kerrang! and Q.

 

 

I have created a Flipagram and coverted it into a YouTube video in order to show case some magazine covers which I can use to help influence me when creating my own front cover as they are all well established brands and appeal to the audience which I want to attract. When looking at Rap magazines XXL, The Source and Vibe all stood out for different reasons therefore I am going to try to combine all the things I like from each in my work.

Magazine Pitch

I have created my magazine pitch using slideshare.

Main Task - Left Third

This image shows how magazine are displayed in shops.     The left thrid of the magazine cover is vital for sales in shops as the magazine is not shown at full-frontage. Therefore the title must be easy recognisable in a display which it shares with its competitiors. This means that the most important short cover lines that are easy to read should be placed here so the auidience is able to see them and be attracted to buy the magazine.

Main Task - Planning

I have created the prezi below in order to demonstrate what I have learnt about creating a good front cover of a magazine through my own research on other magazines (previous post). This information has helped me understand that creating a successful front cover needs time, patience and planning.

In groups during todays lesson we conducted research into magazines, looking at genre and artists. Me and one of my peers created a prezi to display what we learnt in today's lesson about magazine conventions. The other prezi presentation and slide share was all my own work however.

I have print screened a map of New York that I got from google to help me decide on the name for my new artist. I decided I wanted to use a part of New York in order to fit in with my continued theme of the city so that the artist shows continuity with the location images and colour scheme. 

I chose the name Bronx as I thought it was the catchiest being only one syllable. I then chose to use Gee infront to give a feminine aspect to the name, Gee being short for Georgia. G also stands for gangster which is representative slang term of the rap genre used a lot in artists lyrics.

Music Magazine - Planning

After searching 'rap artist' into google I then thought I would brainstorm what I personally thought of when I heard the term 'rap music,' so that I could interpret these elements into my magazine. However, I found a website called imagechef which enabled me to construct my brainstorming ideas into different shaped word clouds and I thought that using a music note instead of a standard brainstorm would link nicely into my task.

Main Task - Planning

Below I have posted a print screen photo from google images from the search result 'rap music' as shown in the toolbar. The main feature that stood out to me when looking at these images was all of the artists are male and only one is white. At the top it even shows subsections from the search which are again all black males. To me this seemed interesting and something that I would consider when choosing my models when it comes to taking photos. However, looking at this I now know that I want to subvert the stereotype of the black male rap industry and use a white female as my main artist on my front cover and double page spread.

Music Magazine - Plannning

After I had chosen my genre (rap) for my magazine I wanted to find out its origins so I could incorporate some culture into my magazine. The screen shot below shows three different answers to the question all stating it properly immersed in American despite some forms being noted in Johannesburg.