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.

Contents page

This is my final draft for my content's page. I decided to position the masthead in the same position as on my front cover as whilst doing my research, most, if not all music magazines use the masthead in the same position. This is the main way I have stuck to the general forms and conventions of a real magazine.
I decided to use the same fonts as on my front cover as I think this is a valuable part of the content page.
I used two different pictures of the artists who feature in my double page spread as I think it is best to not repeat what will be on the double page spread.

First draft Front cover

This is my first draft of my music magazine front cover.

Front cover

This is my final draft of my music magazine front cover. I feel I have progressed from my first draft as I have developed to use alot more of the software and make it stand out more.

I did alot of research on other music front covers and this gave me idea's and inspiration on what to create my front cover like. I decided to use red and white Sans serif font for my masthead as whilst looking at several types of covers I decided that Q magazine had the best Mast head so I chose to make a similiar one.

I decided to put the main artist infront of the masthead as it seems to give a better effect that the artist is why you should purchase the magazine. I got this idea from Rolling Stones which also has the artist covering parts of the masthead, but leaving enough to demonstrate which magazine it is. I feel that my magazine cover looks realistic and fits the conventions of my researched magazine covers, such as NME, Q and Rolling Stones as they all have had a impact on my design an layout of my front cover

This is the original picture I chose to use for my double page spread. I used effects from photo shop to give it a more unusual look. I chose bold colours to stand out and to give it more of a indie effect. I thought taking the photograph in Liverpool train station would be a good idea to demonstrate that the girls are very proud to be from the city. I decided for them not to look at the camera as with research, alot of indie groups tend not to look at the camera and give of a serious pose. Overall I am very happy with my photo.

This double page spread is from Kerrang magazine. This double page spread seems to be more rock which has helped me to define what genre I would like my double page spread to be. I chose Indie as my genre as I think it is the best kind of music and they arn't enough just indie magazines. With this double page spread the text is small an not much quanity. The main colours is mainly black which represents the theme of Blink 182.

This is my completed Preliminary task of my school magazine front cover. I decided to adopt a clean professional image to keep with the school prospectus such as clean and light colours which are the school's colours and the ideology which ensures its easily recognisable to the school. For Mise en scene I chose to make the image brighter to enhance the image quality. I chose to let the picture speak for the words instead of overloading the picture with text. I thought that adding the school badge and the advertisement "Specalist Science College" would be good advertisement for the School.

I found that this content page of the "Q" magazine is set out in a very good manor. It is appealing to the audience by ordering the page in a very clear way. I chose to use a Q magazine content page as it states it is "the world's biggest and best music magazine" This is a good way to intrigue readers into frequently buying the magazine.

NME Content Page

My first content page that i have chosen to analyse is from NME. I thought this would be a good choice to analyse as it is one of the most famous music magazines.

Rolling Stone's Magazines

These two covers for the Rolling Stone magazine are all very different apart from the masthead which is very distinctive and to this day still remains in the same font. What i find particularly interesting about these covers is how they have changed over the year. Although the masthead still remains generally the same on the cover featuring Michael Jackson shows the full masthead whereas on the Chris Martin cover the masthead is placed behind the image of the singer who dominates the cover as you can only see the "roll" in rolling and "tone" in stone.

On the Michael Jackson cover the colours seem to be similar and blend in well with the rest of the magazine. It is also very simplistic as it does not feature any other puffs that are not about Michael Jackson on the front cover. This simplifies what features within the magazine as the reader is not given any other information.

On the other Rolling Stone cover which features Chris Martin, singer of Coldplay, The front cover of this is very different and allot more intriguing as it has many puffs all around the cover. The writing used for the puffs look they are serif fonts. They stand out as the background is white and the writing is generally black. However even though they are bold they are not very colourful and intriguing as they possibly could be.

Content page

This is my mock up of my content page. I have decided to use three pictures on the right hand side which will be a little preview of what will feature within the magazine. I thought that these pictures would be apropriate and helpful for the readers who will just be able to see what page they are interested in was on and intrigue them with the correct amount of information. I decided to do the content page right down the middle as it would stand out and look professional. I chose my final mock up by researching other content pages and seen which ones looked best and what types of puffs are generally used on them.

School Magazine picture.

This is the picture that I am choosing to use for my school magazine preliminary task. I have chosen to use this type of picture as I think it represents the school well especially with the background showing that the school have the proud honour this year of best examination results ever! I am planning on editing this photograph before I add it to my final front cover. The features that are in need of editing are the pieces of paper that we are holding as they are supposed to look like GCSE and A Level results but as we didn't have these we had to use other resources. Also the lighting is quite dark and dull so i plan to change the contrast.

This is my first draft of my preliminary task of year 12. We had to create a magazine front cover for our school magazine. The colours which i decided to choose are the original school colours. The reason for my background is because i felt it was neutral and not over the top but still looks appealing. I have chosen to use contemporary magazine features such as puffs which gave the magazine a more professional feel.

Welcome to my Blog!

Welcome (:

This is my blog...
In this blog for my AS Media studies portfolio, which i am going to update every few days on how my preliminary task is getting along.
The work that will feature in my preliminary task are a school magazine cover and a contents page.
I would appreciate any feedback on any of my posts, pictures, Ideas and any questionnaires I post.

Thanks =)