Evaluation

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

• With my magazine front cover I tried to combine conventions and inspiration from existing magazines with originality from my own ideas. I feel I have done this successfully. To stick to conventions I have made use of the left third as a way of organising the copy and I have placed the masthead across the top of the page with my main cover line at the bottom of the page in a larger font than the rest of the cover lines. I have also composed my front cover image specifically so that the main focus point was visible with no cover lines in front of it. To subvert conventions I mixed colour with black and white (by use of editing on photoshop) this makes it different to all the front covers I have seen in my research whilst taking ideas from them about the actual content of the image. I feel it all comes together very well, particularly because the colours I used for the cover lines (black, white, red) link in with the colours in the image. 
• My double page spread sticks to the conventions of most magazines by using one large image but it varies slightly because the image is on the right-hand page whereas from my research I have found that most magazines will place the image on the left-hand page (for example NME does this).
• My contents page ended up being rather minimalistic with a simple layout: 'Contents', 'Euphoria' and 'December 2010' running across the top of the page (getting smaller in font size respectively), 'News', 'Features' and 'Reviews' running down the left side of the page, an image top-right with a caption, and finally a subscription section at the bottom-right. This could've been livened up considerably to make the page a lot more eye catching by use of colour, larger fonts and more pictures. However, in terms of existing magazines my contents page is fairly loyal to conventions its just a little basic.

2. How does your media product repesent particular social groups?

• My music magazines target age range is 16-24 so it does not address issues and stories which, for example, elderly people or young children would find interesting or indeed suitable. Based on my audience survey I have tried present 16-24 year olds in a positive light as people who mostly enjoy going to music festivals and gigs and whos favourite genre of music is rock.

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

•  My main inspiration for the design and content of my magazine was NME. NME are published by IPC Media so an organization like them would be a good company to work with as they already have experience with NME.

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

• Early on in the project I conducted an audience survey so based on this the target audience for my music magazine would be mostly male, aged 16-19 (extending up to 24 after I did further research), whos favourite music genre is rock/indie-rock (particular bands that came up as favourites were 30 Seconds to Mars, Muse, Biffy Clyro and Linkin Park)

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• I used news and stories about the bands that I found were popular among people within the target age range.
• I used language that was appropriate to the audience.
• Because of the target audience I tried not to include extensive amounts of text.

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

• Although I already knew how to se photoshop, I had never before tried applying text to an image on photoshop. At first I found this rather difficult because of the many different layers overlapping etc and because it was so different from simply typing the text and placing it where you want on the page. When editing the front cover image I used the blur tool but when I overlayed the text onto the image I found that the text became blurred as well as the image, which is not what I wanted, this was another obstacle which slowed me down a fair bit (although later I discovered that it had a very simple solution of simply rearranging the order of the layers). I also improved my skills on Microsoft Publisher (particularly when creating my contents page). I ended up combining wor from Photoshop and Publisher to create my finished contents page which was alos something I'd never done before so it too was a considerably challenging task.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the prgression from it to the final product?

• At the beginning of the preliminary task I wasn't fully aware of just how much work there was going to be , so it was good that I had done the preliminary task because otherwise I would've still been unaware when it came to the final product.
• I was also partially unaware of the need for planning: in the preliminary task i rushed into it much too quickly without planning anything properly and then i ended up finding it difficult so by the time it got to starting the music magazine project I had begun to realise the importance of planning a bit better.

Double Page Spread

I thought the double page spread was going to be the hardest section of the task as it required lots of writing. This, however, was notthe case and it turned out to be one of the easier sections.
I used an existing story that I had very briefly heard about to give me a baseline for my story, I then adapted it and changed it to better suit the sub-genre of my music magazine. I think that if I knew more about the story  then it wouldn't help me to produce a better article, but rather it would hinder me because I would then know too much and I would be running the risk of almost copying the article all together. On the other hand, I think that if I didn't have a story to base my article on at all then I would have struggled a little bit to think of original ideas, this would have been a considerable problem because I only had about a week left to do it in and I still had to take photos appropriate for the double page spread within this time limit.
I only included one image in my double page spread as I feel that this simple approach would appeal more to readers and I have seen that in existing music magazines that I have researched, such as NME, they often only use one photo in their double page spreads as well. Once i had taken a large amount of photos I uploaded them to the computer. I browsed through them and found that all of the photos I considered as possibles for my double page spread needed editing. Even though the editing wasn't extensive it still took plenty of time to complete and the deadline was creeping up very fast. I did though have the advantage of also studying photography A-level meaning I, hopefully, have a better understanding of what would make a good (and appropriate) photo to go with the story I was writing and a better understanding of how to use photoshop for the editing of my photos. I believe these skills made a significant difference to my work and also a slightly artistic touch to soe of my photographs (as photography is an art form).
All I had to do at the editing stage of my photos was to make the background whiter and the subject darker to make them stand out better on the page. I decided to go for a plain white background on the double page as this would help to emphasise the subject of my photograph, particularly as I took the photos in black and white. I took them in B&W because I felt it added something a little artisitic to the magazine and it was my own unique take on what a magazine should look like. It was also for convenience because in the process of taking my batch og photographs I found that the lighting was difficult to master as the lights in the studio were not particularly bright. The lack of decent lightng manipulated the colour in the photo and rendered it unusable, however, when I applied a black and white layer over the top of it n photoshop the problem disappeared and i was able to tweak the image to make it suitable for the magazine.   

Next I started on the creation of my contents page. I found that there were many design templates I thought of that could be used to great effect. To help me with this stage I looked at existing magazine contents pages to get an idea of which layouts worked which ones didn't. I thought the ones that worked best were the ones with smaller images with page references as these helped guide the reader to the specific part of the magazine they wanted to read, not only this but it also makes it more efficient as this would enable shoppers to pick up the magazine and quickly and easily find out what the main stories are in this issue. Although this made it more effective, efficient and appealing to the audience, it was also harder to do as choosing this option meant I had to take more photos to go with the variation of stories.

After creating the basic front cover with an image, barcode, price, date and masthead I added the cover lines. I found that it was easier to research current music news than create my own because this made it less difficult to write about them. However, this did make it harder to do the photography side of the magazine as it meant i needed to replicate the style specific to that artist. Despite this the task was not too dificult. Below is my final finished front cover complete with coverlines etc. I think my cover looks quite professional and, generally, everything stands out as it should. To help the masthead and cover lines stand out from the background image I blurred the background (using photoshop) this made the background appear plainer therefore making the copy stand out more. I chose a colour theme for my cover - red, black and white. I believe this emphasises the copy and gives it a more professional feel because if there was a large variation of colours then the front cover would appear cluttered. To make my magazine appear conventional I have made use of the left third for the positioning of my coverlines to help organise it and to add an unconventional touch to this I have made parts of the main image black and white. This adds a sense of mystery to the image whilst at the same time providijng a plainer backgrounf to emphasise the coverlines, masthead etc.

Overall, I am very pleased with my music magazine front cover and I think it would attract the eyes of shoppers passing by if it were on the shelves ready for selling.

The next thing I did was start on my music magazine front cover which I did on photoshop, I entitled it 'EUPHORIA', I called it this because of the exilerating feeling you get when your performing on a big stage. The genre I have chosen is indie/rock. Below is a first draft of my magazine without any cover lines on it. I have chosen to go with a font that appears to be representitive of classic rock/indie rock music such as The Beatles. I have backed this up by use of the image I have chosen; the hair style and clothing of my subject has a very retro feel about it, I have used photoshop to create a partially black and white layer over the top - I think this adds a certain unique quality about my front cover and the black and white mixed with colour is also a representitive of older rock bands from the past when colour photography wasn't quite 'up to scratch'(this ties in with the font type I have used as it relates to the past which is what I was tryng to do with the masthead font). The original image is a colour photo and I have applied a layer over the top to turn it monochrome, I then rubbed out part of that layer to reveal the colour underneath (in his clothing and the guitar), I decided to keep the face monochrome as I feel this gives a sense of mystery as to his personality, but also because it makes the cover stand out as this is not a typically conventional cover image (although the pose of the subject in the photo may have been seen before). I have blurred the background of the image so that the magazine masthead would stand out better, because before it did not stand out against the bright colour and patterns of the guitar behind it, not only this but it also makes the cover appear almost 3D which I think looks appealing and would attract a customers eye when browsing shelves full of magazines. I did find, however, that it was clear and easy to read over the black and white section of the photograph. I have included the date and barcode in the bottom right-hand corner in a vertical position as this took up the least 'useable' space and was less distracting from the image (and the cover lines when used). Also it was more convenient to place it on the right of the page because of the use of the left third when the cover lines had beeb created and applied.  

Having done the preliminary task we were given our main project of creating a music magazine. I did some more research but this time more specifically on music magazines, I went into more detail by analysing the front cover and contents page of a specific magazine and then going on to analise some mastheads of some of the big music magazines in the UK.
I took images from google and used magazine subscription websites and the respective magazines websites to gaher infomation about them. Here are some websites I have used:
http://www.kerrang.com/
http://www.nme-magazine.com
http://www.nme.com/magazine
http://www.uncut.co.uk/
http://www.qthemusic.com/

Following magazine research we were given a preliminary project to create a school magazine. For the the task we had to mock-up a front cover and contents page. The cover had to feature one main image, ideally, within the image there would be a boy and a girl so that the front cover would appeal to both genders. We looked at the conventions of a magazine front cover and attempted to apply them to our own front covers. For example, on my front cover I tried to use big, bold masthead so that it would attract the audience and make a big impact, I arranged the cover lines into the the left third so as to make it apear more organised. We then did our contents page, I found this slightly easier as there was a little less to think about with  regards to presentation of information etc.