Personal Learning

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


Before starting to constructe my magazine I had never used Photoshop before. The nearest to it was Window's Publisher. It took me a while to learn how to properly use the software and know I feel alot more confident with using it. I learned how to use most of the tools such as cropping photographs, adding borders, changing fonts and text, and also changing the colour of pictures and editing them, which is shown with the difference from my original picture for my front cover to the final product. With taking my photographs for my magazine myself, I learned how to proportion the image correctly and use software such as "Coloursplash" on the photographs for my double page spread to give a unique style and effect. The programmes I used to help me use Photoshop where sites such as:


http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-elements-8/





This is my original photograph for my front cover. I edited it using Photoshop tools.



What do you think you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?






















In the terms of progression from my preliminary I have learned how to use Photoshop, edit photographs and add puffs. The text used in my preliminary was not up to a high standard so while developing my skills for my music front cover I learned how to make text look more realistic etc. I think I have learned more advanced teqniques and I think my preliminary is very simplistic witht the techniques used. Whereas now my front cover consists of more complex conventions.

Audience

Who would be the audience for my product ?

There is no exact type of audience type who would purchase my magazine, although the stereotypical audience of my magazine would be people who enjoy reading about indie bands. People from indie social groups. However my magazine can also appeal to a range of different social groups, ethnicity and culture.

With most modern music magazines in my genre having the same stereotypical type of indie band ( boy groups playing their own instruments ) My magazine would attract audiences who like a range of music artists.

The typical audiences will be male usually for magazines such like mine. But with my double page spread featuring a unique all girl group, this will attract a range of audiences.

I would strive to attract my audience by having the same distribution as the other magazines under my genre, this may attract audiences who purchase the magazine due to the fact they like the specific distribution.

I would make it appealing and fit the general forms and conventions of the music magazine industry and distribute it like magazines such as Q, NME and Kerrang!

Distribution

The type of media institution that would distribute my media product would be Bauer music group.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_Media_Group

http://www.bauer.co.uk/about-bauer



I chose to use this type of distribution as the main music industry's such as Q and Kerrang. As Q was the main influence for my magazine I thought that I would use the same distribution as with Bauer music group already distributing Q, the consumers who purchase Q are more likely to want to buy a magazine with the same distribution if they like Q magazine than a original unique not known distribution.



According to a recent questionnaire people are more likely to purchase a magazine from the same distribution.

The Bauer media group has 50% stake in box television company, with Channel 4 being the other 50%. The channels on the box television include:

Q TV

4 Music

Kerrang! TV

and many more. This would suggest that there intention that they want to invest further and I believe my magazine would be an ideal publication for them to invest in.

Representation

According to a recent questionnaire that I carried out all girl indie bands seem to be the missing piece of the puzzle in the music industry.

My magazine represents different social groups. The main type of social groups that will purchase my magazine are Indie groups. This is mainly because my featured artists are indie typed artists. These may be some of the types of groups who may buy my magazine as these bands are similar to the ones in my magazine.



http://www.arctic-monkeys.com/

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/the-wombats

http://www.kate-nash.org/



However, with these artists listed above being boy groups or single artists my magazine may attract different types of readers as it features an all girl group.

The stereotypical people who would purchase and read my magazine would be mainly boys between the ages of 15- 25. Who are like the artists, tend to wear a similar style of clothing and like the type of music which is featured throughout my magazine.

Conventions

Before beginning to create my magazine I researched several magazines before deciding to specify mine to Indie. Stereo typical indie artists tend to wear checked shirts, skinny jeans, big hair. I decided to conform to these stereo typical conventions as otherwise, it may not be as easy to know what specific genre my magazine is.

With my front cover I decided to get my inspiration mainly of Q magazine. As you can see I used alot of similar conventions that Q used. I decided to go with a similar Masthead as I think that the one used by Q magazine is very powerful and effective. In comparison to Q, I had my artist over the masthead, but not completely to show the possible buyers what magazine it is. With having similarities to Q front cover I didn't want to completely copy it as it isn't a indie based magazine so I decided to use some different fonts and colours such as yellow to make it more appealing to my social groups.

For almost the whole magazine, I have followed the forms and conventions which are in the magazine industry. With this said, I also challenged expectations of the magazine industry as I had a all girl indie band in my double page spread. Whilst doing my research I seemed to find that there are not any all girl bands in industry that are well known and regularly feature in such popular magazines as Q, NME etc. However, Feminists may argue that with using an all girl band on my double page spread it would be subject to the male gaze and the attention not being focused on the music.

Double page spread

This is my final draft of my double page spread. I decided to use a grey font as to blends in well with my main photograph. I edited the main image using special effect called coloursplash. I changed the font colour of the interviwer's questions to white to make clear who was saying what. I chose to have different effects on all three of the smaller pictures to give a range of photographs to make it more intresting and apealing.

This is my first draft of my double page spread.