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

The preliminary task that we were giving was to make a college magazine front cover and context page. The task was similar to the music magazine, we was told to take pictures either using are own camera, borrowing the schools camera or our phone camera. For me this was something new and I was eager to learn and make my own magazine, we had to use all the features for example Photoshop and blogger. The contents page on my preliminary task to the contents page that I have made now there is a dramatic change and there have been big improvements it is important to plan your time well because so much can be done if time has been planned well.

The contrast between my work now and then has improved and the changes are noticeable, I have learnt lots of new technical skills from that time, I have learnt how to frame my pictures properly now than in my college magazine we can also notice by the focus in my pictures from my college magazine to my music magazine.  There is also no shadow in this work and the picture looks much more professional than in my preliminary work, the fonts are also much classier. My skills on Photoshop have improved efficiently.

I have also kept me up to date with my deadlines, which I am, already good at but helped me to focus well with it as. For example when I needed to do the questionnaire by, meeting my model, where I was going to meet my models and date and time, what I wanted my models to wear and booking the rooms and cameras for my pictures. There has been so much to do and writing down lists of what need’s to be done is very helpful.

The workload has also had to be balanced out, as I do other subjects with requirements needed to it, which s really helpful as it has helped me to plan my work and balance it out. I have learnt out to structure my work efficiently since my preliminary work.

I have learnt how to use the Photoshop much more since the preliminary task, I know hot to cut out pictures and put it into a new background, I know how to change fonts and sizes that are appropriate for my magazine. I know what sort of pages are needed in a contents page, I have learnt how to make a professional double page spread that is used in a media industry hence why there is two picture on each side like the ones in a professional magazine.

I have also learnt how to duplicate pictures and how to change pictures into different colours for example, from colour to black and white. Like what I have done in my contents page.

I also went back to get my audience feed back after my task was done, they told me that my work had improved a lot from the first task, my picture could have had better lighting to it and it was to simple, however because the task was simple it made it look professional and the colours really do match to make the magazine stand out.

I scanned what I wrote to them and show the feedback that they responded to me below.

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

-  Learning media was a whole new experience for me, I encountered a lot of new skills over the 7 months of the course. We started of by being introduced to blogger this is where all my coursework was saved and viewed. We had to start of by making an account and this was new to me as I didn’t know what blogger was, I found it entirely frustrating and hard to use.

This was because sometimes my work would save however it wasn’t in an ascending order, at first I found it very difficult to upload my coursework at the beginning, my biggest problem that I found was how I put pictures up on blogger, I had to save pictures as a j-peg before they was then able to go onto blogger which was really maddening as at first I didn’t know how to do this and I never uploaded pictures until I had learnt the skill, when the pictures are on the page it is then hard to move the pictures freely to match the text when it has been uploaded to blogger, even though we was allowed to add people to our blog I found it really hard on the process of how I was able to add people or having security to my page. It is not a straight for network site like facebook and is really complicated.

The internet was a big priority on my coursework, this helped me to gain research on magazines and give me hints on tips on ideas for my magazine. I used google a lot to search for images as well as definitions. The internet was a big help to me and gave me useful ideas that I was able to put forth into my magazine, especially for my double page spread as I never knew what to include.       

The internet was a big priority on my coursework, this helped me to gain research on magazines and give me hints on tips on ideas for my magazine. I used google a lot to search for images as well as definitions. The internet was a big help to me and gave me useful ideas that I was able to put forth into my magazine, especially for my double page spread as I never knew what to include.       

I also used Photoshop CS3 which I have never used in my life, Photoshop is really interesting and a good way to create all types of things. I have found it very exhausting and stressful their was so much to Photoshop that I was so hard that I didn’t know how to use it hence why I had to stick to the basics by learning via YouTube. This was a great help as I have never used Photoshop and never knew how to go about it, I believe you can see a big contrast in the college magazine that I have produced to the music magazine that I have recently made I know if I had more time given to me, I would have been able to learn more from Photoshop and a lot of skills would have been detected in my work, I had heard about air brushing before but I never got around my way of using it, instead I would ‘select all’ and then just change the contrast. With Photoshop you have to take baby steps at first and be very patient if you do not understand it. Another problem I had was when I wanted to write text and then I would write and it wouldn’t come up, I found it very annoying to use I would have to drag the item above the background till it is able to show. Which beginners like me would find hard and wouldn’t know what to do. I also had to double check my spelling as Photoshop has not got word check on it which is a negative point as a lot of writing needs to be done especial on contents page and double page spread. Over all I think that Photoshop is an intelligent application that enquires months of using it and if used to the best of someone’s ability then it can be a gifted skill.      

The camera that I used was a canon E05 400D, I have never used a professional camera and found it very challenging, however once you know how to use it, the camera itself then becomes straight forward. I have only used the camera twice and at times found it quite tough to use especially when trying to put the camera in focus, I found it really difficult. However by the help of my teacher I learnt how to use it and get pictures in focus. Whilst using the camera we had to make sure that the mode was in ‘P’ for programmed. I didn’t really use the flash of the camera as it was already enough light as I had been using the soft box. This helped me know how to position my model so I can get a good lighting.

Facebook also helped me, even though this is something that I use quite often I was happy on the new way we was allowed to do our audience research which was by asking our friends, this was a easier way of asking and was less hassle then taken a questionnaire and handing out sheets of paper for them to give you back, it is also very reliable as the ‘print screen’ button is there so the conversation is recorded effectively.

5.  How did you attract/address your audience?

- With my magazine that I made I believe there was many techniques I used to attract my audience.  My age group that was my intention to attract was 16-25, I made sure that the model that I picked wore fashionable clothing but nothing to expensive. I made my model wear a bangle on her arm, as I know young people are very trendy and like to show off fashionable things.  The model I chose was also in this age range of my target group, because I thought it will help me to appeal to my target audience and they can also feel that they can pick up the magazine because it is their age group and will feel comfortable to read the magazine and relate to the magazine. The bangle that the model is also wearing is natural and not very noticeable, this also helps to show the theme to attract my audience and also helps to compliment the models face as she is not in wearing any make up.

My model is not wearing anything which is designer as I wanted my audience to be able to fit in to the clothes that my model is wearing, I didn’t want her dressed up in expensive name brand because realistically not everyone can afford that I want the target audience to be able to say ‘I have that’ rather than ‘I wish I had that’ knowing they can’t buy it because of the cost, I just wanted the headline to be really important yet simple hence why the magazine is called  ‘bold and beautiful’ and basically the models eye contact connects with the audience even though she is not looking at them this will enable my audience to pick up my magazine up. My model has a deliberate facial expression of being calm, happy and confident face.

 She is in casual clothing to express that you can be ‘bold and beautiful’ without wearing the newest and most expensive clothing or having lots of make up on.

The props that I used was at a minimal and the bangle is used throughout her pictures that are in my magazine to show this representation of the use of minimal props, I didn’t want their to be too much happening in my picture the models eyes are not looking at the audience instead she in gazed and with this non verbal communication it shows that she is happy and smiling at her success because of the use of the headline next to her explain ‘how she became successful’ I think this attracts my audience because her non verbal communication brings them to want to know more on why she is looking up day dreaming and smiling.

The colour scheme of my magazine was a big deal to me and was purposely black and brown, this is because it helps to attract people who want to read my magazine, I was able to pick my theme colours because of the audience research I done earlier on. They gave me lots of ideas on colours that I could use which made me think I wanted to use colours which were plain and simple so I did not easily mess up.

4.     Who would be the audience for your media product? 

- Before I made my magazine, I first had to think of what sort of audience I wanted to attract for my music magazine. I thought about making my music magazine being placed in the rap and R&B genre so it can appeal to an urban mix of young teens but mainly appealing to the boys. As I started to do my work I started to change my view on this and wanted to make a more peaceful looking magazine and believed it wouldn’t go with the rap and R&B genre that I chose before hand. I wanted to now do a soulful type magazine but still have a few rap artist titles in my front cover so it can appeal to the boys as well as the girls. I associated this with a theme of brown and black which is a nice mix of colours to appeal to both types of audiences, I believe that my magazine is now mainly appealing at young black females and young men into rap and R&B.  

Bold and beautiful is mainly based for an international view for Americans and British people to both enjoy the magazine, this is because the magazine is freely able to appeal to many types of different audiences around the world. I would say that bold and beautiful age group is ranged from 16-25 so form adolescence into young adults, this is because the woman featured on my magazine is in this age groups and people can find out how she did it and became successful, I chose this age group because this is the age were a lot of people start to focus on the career they want to adapt on and would want to pick up the magazine to see how other people have done it and became successful. The headings can relate to some of the older readers for example some of the artist that has been listed on the front cover are celebrities that people really like so we can see the contrast from them to the model on my front cover.

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

-           Looking at the publishing house that I focused on before I think that it will be suitable if Condé Nast was the media institution to distribute my media product.  http://www.condenast.com/ 

I have chosen them because Condé Nast has a wide range of different magazines that they have distributed and market and it is a very successful company. I think that it is important that the distributer of my magazine is an industry who is very successful and looking to expand on their business.   

As we can see by this website link Condé Nast have lots of different types of magazines, however they have not got a magazine that I have made which is really good, this would be beneficial to me and the publisher as it is something new and something they have not already got in their genre, it also shows that they are a company who is serious and willing to try out new things. They are very successful and as they have nothing like this genre in their industry, it will not effect the money that they are grossing on any of the other magazines, and the funding will not be to costly for them.

It will also sell a lot more as my magazine appeals to a lot of different audience’s people who enjoy soul, rap and R&B. This will have an affect on a lot of people to pick my magazine as there is something to read about for everyone, as well as it also being a music magazine it is also able to appeal to people who want to become successful and gives tips on how other people became successful and advice from these people themselves for example my double page spread helps to attack bullying and ways of how celebrities have stopped it. Which is really important because most people feel celebs have lives a wonderful life.   

I don’t want my magazine to only be featured in the corner shops I want my magazine to be able to attract different type of people. I would like it to be in fashionable shops such as H&M. I have chosen this store to sell my magazine because my model is promoting their clothes and a lot of young people shop in H&M this will enable them to see my magazine and they will notice the clothes from the store and they will want to pick it up. This helps to sell the magazine more and also help to cross promote H&M clothes. 

2.     How does your media product represent particular social group?

I believe that my media work that has been produced is targeted at mainly young black females this is because of the title of the magazine some men may feel patronized for picking up a magazine because of this I made sure that I mad the magazine also available to men and have put some R&B and hip hop artist inside of my magazine. I wanted to make sure that I can sell my magazine to both sex and not feel biased about having my magazine available to one selection of people, it also helps to sell effectively as because there are lot of different stars people are bound to find someone they like and be attracted to my magazine. My main age group is around 16-25 which is like a wide spread of ages this is because there is so much that my music magazine has to offer. My target groups will be attracted by the front cover and heading ‘bold and beautiful’ which will helps to attract people as they see this headline. However I also added some famous men so it can also attract the male audiences.

I put it in a style of a mnemonic:

Snoop dog

T-pain

Akon

Rick Ross

I used this mnemonic to help attract my male readers and used people that I know that the target age range would listen to such as these hip hop and r & b players, thesae artist ar4e all different and will help to attract to different people who are into their music which is why I have a wide spread on the age group however my magazine is more suitable for urban listeners, I thought it was a really smart way to introduce the stars to the front cover and having it read out stars.

 

Even though my model has dressed normally it helps to give a natural look to my magazine of a beautiful girl who doesn’t need to wear make up, my model is wearing a black and brown jumper to match my theme and is in casual clothing, which can help her to relate to the girls of today and show them they do not need the finer things in life, it also helps with the soft and natural look that I am trying to display hence the reason why I chose the colour brown because it is a natural colour.

We can see even by this magazine, he is a famous celebrity ‘trey songz’ he is also just in all black and in casual clothing, even though he is rich. This helps to set a good meaning to the children of today and let them know that it is not all about the expensive clothing and is what I want to represent in my magazine to my social groups. My model is hardly wearing any jewelry, apart from the natural beads around my models wrist which helps to represent my magazine. The beads she is wearing looks handmade and attracts the audience as she has not jewelry around her too look good.   

The model is a light brown colour which is usually the colour of the models that they like to use on a front cover in the media industry which is quite stereotypical as when we think of soul, automatically we have a light skin man or woman for a model and they have a natural and smooth face.  

Just like in these professional magazines, it my models hair is licked and her hair is not covering her face as that’s the whole reason for showing her natural beauty, which helps to represent to my audience why I called it ‘bold and beautiful’ also the way soulful music are represented in the industry this helped me.

Question 1: in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

-          I produced a music magazine for my media assignment, I will be evaluating my work and talking about the differences that are shown in my magazine and a music magazine in the industry to back up my work.

Before my music magazine was developed I was given a task to give a textual analysis on music magazines, I believe my magazine has so many positive and negatives on how it relates to a music magazine in the media industry and how it has helped to attract my audience.

Music Industry

My Music Magazine

As we can see by both mastheads there is a difference in what has been made in my music magazine than a professional one, however I have used some on the convention that a media product would use. My heading is in the very middle and the professional magazine has their one straight across the front in a bright colour, both are magazines have this bright colour so that we are able to attract are audience which is an example of how I tried to relate my magazine cover to one in the media industry, this helps to attract my target audience to my magazine when it is on display to pick it up, the first thing my reader would see is the masthead and that is why it had to look effective as it is a selling point. The font used is represented on the words of my heading ‘bold and beautiful’ and italics really help to give that effect of being unique.        

The use of my writing being a one step down than which is called a drop cap is by the first letter helps to show a distinctive and different type of image we can see something like this in the magazine above produced by the media industry. I believe I have developed my music magazine than one in the media industry this is because usually they have their headings on the left third however I never used this as I wanted it to be in the middle to be suitable to for my magazine front cover and help to attract my audience. I thought having it on the left will make my music magazine look out of place and think that it suites my magazine and makes everything on the page fall into place. 

 I made sure that the fonts suited the word that was in use as shown above ‘bold and beautiful’ the size of text I think is a really important and I think I met the standards of the size of fonts needed to be used, I also had an italics sort of sway because of the words I used and wanted the title to represent it rather than using bubble writing I believe it wouldn’t be a good quality on the title.  

I also tried to use a catch slogan because, slogans are used a lot in the media industry so that people can remember it like a hook. I had to make it sure that it connected with my magazine and the title of the magazine. This was put deliberately underneath the heading because, my audience would read the heading and then see the slogan and read it before having the intention to pick it up.  

The contents page was also in the font of the title on the front cover of the magazine, and I wanted to keep theme and colour that I have been using, the size of the font is really important and I think the size was fulfilled. The test print helped me to notice when the font looked really big which I kept doing until it didn’t look really big and I was satisfied.

Page numbers were also important and I made sure that it was correct by looking at different music magazine and looking at how much pages their magazine can hold, which helped me to know how much pages I needed to make on my contents page to feature in my magazine.

The contents page was also in the font of the title on the front cover of the magazine, and I wanted to keep theme and colour that I have been using, the size of the font is really important and I think the size was fulfilled. The test print helped me to notice when the font looked really big which I kept doing until it didn’t look really big and I was satisfied.

Page numbers were also important and I made sure that it was correct by looking at different music magazine and looking at how much pages their magazine can hold, which helped me to know how much pages I needed to make on my contents page to feature in my magazine.

There was 3 colours used in the whole of my magazine with the background being black, I wanted it to be plain and not over the top so it doesn’t look messy and are not able to read the text properly. I think the colours worked well which was brown,white and white.

 This vibe magazine from the media industry works very well as the colours are limited and it is simple, just like how my magazine is with just simple colours pink black and blue.  

 I challenged my double page spread because it was important to me as, in the music industry the heading on the double page spread is always important so I used a sentence that will make my audience want to read on “my haters are my inspiration to my success” the image of the model also looking at the camera and smiling also helps to represent the heading just like a magazine in the music industry. For example Lilly Allen is also looking the camera and giving off a cheeky look and the title saying “people think I am an attention seeker but I am just honest”. I didn’t use a drop cap which I should’ve used.

However I made sure that I used columns in my work like in the media industry as I wanted to make sure my work looked like a professional magazine and also by the way the model is posing, I colour coded the questions from the answers to also add some colour to the page.

Mood Board

Before I started my college magazine I put together a mood board of sorts of people and the way they were posed to help me have an idea on how I wanted my model to dress and look, I have selected different people who all look natural as I want my magazine to have a natural look to it with the heading bold and beautiful. Most of the models in my picture have either one of their hands in the picture or there should lean a bit which I like. I also added a picture of nature to because I wanted this to be perceived when making my magazine because I do not want my model to wear any make up, I think that nature and natural are converged together somehow hence why I put up a picture of nature in my mood board. There is not much use of make up on the pictures in the mood board apart from eye shadow. I think that this mood board has helped me on what my model will wear, how she will look, her body language shown on the front cover and has helped me to pick a natural theme with not too much colours.