Main Task: Evaluation Q2

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine focuses mainly on teens and young adults with an interest in Dubstep, aged between 15 and 33. My magazine is also focused on young adults who have an interest in genres such as Drum and Base, Indie Rock, Garage, and electronic, as these genres are closely related to Dubstep in many ways. This allows readers who have an interest in those other genres to relate to my magazine.

Despite this, looking through my magazine it seems that I have managed to target a narrow audience: a younger male audience, because the subjects I have used throughout the whole of magazine are young and male. I feel that although it seems this way, my magazine will still attract the attention of older people up to the age of 33 or 35 and also females, because many electronic artists are young and most are male, so this won’t restrict the capabilities of gaining a large audience ranged between different ages and sexes. I have constructed the magazine so that it doesn’t target a single religion or culture, as there is a large amount of diversity in cultures religions and communities when it comes to dub step and drum & base. I feel that in most genres the artists dress extravagantly in flashy and expensive clothing, where as in dub step and drum & base they dress in simple yet eye catching clothing. Bearing this in mind the subject on my front cover is dressed simply so that he represents this, giving the magazine a sense of reality and making it easier for the readers to relate, as many do not have large paying jobs to buy expensive clothing.

Main Task: Evaluation Q1

Q1. In what ways does your media product use,

develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Front cover:

At the beginning of our media project we analyzed music magazine covers, contents pages and double page spreads to look at the conventions used and to see whether/how any of them challenged typical conventions. There are many ways in which my music magazine uses typical conventions. It also attempts to develop and challenge some. I tried to incorporate the usual conventions in my music magazine as to make it more professional and realistic. Starting with my magazine front cover, the first convention I followed is the masthead. I used a large masthead and placed it at the top of the page, behind my subject’s head. I then used a font that I found on Photoshop called Bauhaus 93, as I felt the bulky 'bubble' text would fit in with the masthead name "liquid bass" as well as representing the dub step theme. After choosing the font, I used Photoshop to manipulate it and make some changes. I gave the word 'BASS' a black inner glow, a light blue stroke and added a bevel and emboss. I left the word 'liquid' with just a light blue stroke. Also, I placed the masthead behind my subject’s head, as it seems to give a professional look to my work, like a real magazine. The last

convention I followed regarding my masthead is placing a strap line at the top of my screen consisting of the names of a few well known dub step and dance artists: Chase and status, Skrillex, David Guetta and dead mau5.

Although I only found three music magazines with a strap line like this, and only one was a dance magazine, I still feel that this is a good convention to add to a magazine, giving the reader a few names to relate with, which is why I followed it.

The next two conventions, which I followed, are the barcode and the selling line. A barcode is used in every type and genre of magazine, as the distribution team adds it to the magazine instead of the design team. This is because the barcode has to be programmed in order to deal with commercial problems like the sorting and purchasing of the magazine. I added a selling line to the magazine as it is a

n important selling point of a magazine, and can be found on all magazines in some way or another. It is used by practically every magazine design team these days because it gives another chance to interact with your readers and reveals the main focus of my magazine to them. For this reason I felt it was incredibly necessary to include a selling line in my magazine.

I added a selling line to the magazine as it is an important selling point of a magazine, and can be found on all magazines in some way or another. It is used by practically every magazine design team these days

because it gives another chance to interact with your readers and reveals the main focus of my magazine to them. For this reason I felt it was incredibly necessary to include a selling line in my magazine

Another convention which I followed is cover-lines, most of which I placed in the left hand side. These have been widely used within the large majority of music magazines I have seen in my life, as they are another main factor used to draw the reader’s interest. Cover lines are predominantly brightly colored and laid out in straight, short paragraphs. As well as catching the readers attention, they also give the reader an insight into the contents of your magazine, allowing readers to make an instant decision on whether the magazine has information which will interest them or not. For this purpose it is important to ensure that your cover-lines are eye-catching, and that you can make them sound as interesting as possible while using very little words. The informing text is the same in all of my cover lines apart from the main cover line, which wrote using a number of different fonts. By doing this, I have challenged a convention, as it is rare for magazines to have a large number of different fonts on the front cover. This is because a large number of different fonts can become confusing for the readers and may deter them from picking up the ma

gazine. Challenging this particular convention was a risk, but I felt that the jumble of fonts will bring the words 'messy' and 'madness' to mind, which are often seen to be related to the dub step and dance theme. I placed my main cover-line on the bottom left of my front cover, so that the right side of my magazine.

In terms of the image, which I used for my magazine cover, I found that there isn’t a “dominant” or “popular” preference when it comes to choosing your camera angle/shot. A good camera shot to use would be a medium close up, as it only shows the face, allowing you to communicate to you’re target audience using nothing but your model/subjects expression alone. This is good for R&B and rap magazines, as artists from those genres are m

ost often perceived to be angry, rough or have an attitude. For my magazine I decided to use a medium long shot of my model/subject, as I felt that his laid back/casual posture was very similar to the attitude you see in dub step, D&B, and dance these days, as similar to rock artists they portray a kind of rebel persona. Also I felt that my model/subjects posture was an important part of the image.

Contents page:

Next comes the contents page. Being the second page, usually coming directly after your front page (or sometimes separated by advertisements), the contents page needs to be consistent; in terms of theme, mood and colour scheme. The first convention which i displayed in my contents page was categories. This is the most recognisable convention, and it could be argued that it is categories are so widely used and accepted that they have become necessary. Although i followed this convention, I did not style my categories in a usual manner. It is most common for categories to be placed on the side, or in the middle of the page as vertical lists.

I originally chose to lay my contents page out like this because I intended to place a number of corner stops and vectors around the side of the page on photoshop. As I could not find a way of continuing this on the front cover I decided to discontinue it, leaving my contents page looking empty and dull, a serious mistake. The next convention i followed was including photos to go with the story's. This convention is used constantly within the industry, and again, seems to be a convention which is always followed.

Usually there is at least three images included on a contents page, to give readers a visual idea of what they will find in your magazine. I placed two images on my contents page, as the cartoon vector on the right hand side took up a generous amount of space and already gave my contents page a strong visual boost. Also, I had quite a few story's which I wanted to include in the contents page, and felt that if I added more images I would not have enough space for the text.

Double page spread:

Moving swiftly on to my double page spread, believe I followed almost every convention in an attempt to make my magazine look more professional. I tried to keep it simple, using a black and red gradient for my background as to continue the look which I established on my contents page. The left side contained the image of my subjects, while the right side contained my columns of text. I placed a quote from the subjects above their image, and placed the title on the right side above the columns. The font which i used was very simple, and I feel it fits best with the subjects as they supposed to represent neutrality. I continued to use the same font for the main text as i have used in the contents page and front cover, as this helps to make the magazine look more professional as a hole. I used a blue stroke around the quote and title, so that readers would have no difficulty reading the text. As the main text is white I decided that I would not need to use a stroke for it. my text was arranged in two columns, as to follow the usual conventions of a double page spread and also to help make the page look neat and tidy.

Main Task: Post production feedback

Music magazine front cover

negatives:

1. Most people said that I did not select a font which would suitable in attracting my target audience.

2. They also said that the font I used looked simple and "default", and that it would not fit any type of music magazine.

3. Some people said that my model/subjects facial expression should have been more fierce and confident.

positives:

1. People sid that they liked the vibrant colours in the background. Nyle said; "They grab your attention and draw you right in!".

2. David said; I like how that guy is dressed in casual clothes, these days all dem models on music magazines have eccentric clothing on, but thats not the case in real life".

Negatives:

1. There was roughly a balanced amount of people who felt that the vector (cartoon image) of my model was enough, and that there was no need for the bubbles.

2. Some people repeated the criticism that the font I used for the category names could have been more creative.

Positives:

1. People liked the vector image of my friend, although many said that I should have edited it more in photoshop so that it as more colourful and creative.

Negatives:

1. Some friends agreed that my double page spread looked dull, and that it did not catch their attention enough.

2. Allot of people said that i should have taken better photographs of my two models, making them look more "in you're face".

Positives:

Main Task: Contents page FINAL

Main Task: Double page spread FINAL

Main Task: Unmanipulated photos

UN MANIPULATED PHOTOS

I used this picture in my contents page, as one of the articles was about a music producer creating his own clothing line based on his and other producers music.

I edited this picture using Photoshop and created a vector image of it. I then coloured the image and used it in my contents page. I used this picture as it looks like the subject is thinking, and I made thinking bubbles seem to flow from his head in the vector image. On the last bubble I put the word "contents".

I used this picture in my contents page, It was another article about an artist who is starting up their own clothing line based on the 'Dubstep scene'.

I cropped out the images of the two subjects here and used them in my double page spread.

This is the image which I used as my front cover.

Main Task: Front cover FINAL