My music magazine represents particular social groups in a number of different ways. As I have stated in previous posts, the primary audience for my magazine is a young adult (20-30 apx.) who care about how they look and who are into technology as well as cars and health. This particular social group would probably be seen as the average male who is interested in rock and who likes to read magazines.
My music magazine (Axel) represents this by featuring articles that possibly people with a certain social status may be interested in or just a general interest on the topic. The colours also reflect the different social groups of my magazine and are very important to consider when answering this type of question. For this piece of coursework, I wanted my magazine to appeal to a professional class of people therefore I used a monochrome colour scheme across most if not all of the pages which were featured in my magazine. To accompany the colour scheme, I used the colour red on a few of the pages as this made them stand out and look as effective as possible. In some ways, this alone represented the social group of people who may read my magazine as the colour red is very vibrant yet unpredictable and has many different moods. Connotations of the colour red include: danger, unpredictable, lust, violence, love, attention seeking and many others. I believe that any other colour scheme may have compromised the points my magazine was trying to make; the fact that only a certain class of people should be reading it however others are welcome. Although this particular markband was very clear at the time, I also realised that the magazine had to appeal to another type of social class as the success rate would rapidly decrease if there was only one target audience.
After thinking carefully, I decided to include other significant features in order to apply to my secondary social group of people who might read the magazine: both females and males in their late adult hood (40-55) who were interested in music (rock prefrably) and didn't really have one unique lifestyle ie. a certain amount of money and a certain way of living. In order to appeal to this type of audience, I had to make the content within my magazine slightly less 'in-depth' and niche as I wanted the majority of people to understand the information which was inside my magazine. For example I included articles which were fairly general like x amount of tips to become a rockstar and mention of beef jerky and Sony. These three things are areas which everyone can relate to therfore the clarity of my magazine would be far greater. Additionally, I made sure that I made reference to other artists who were not best known for rock but other types of music like classical and hip-hop.
To summarise, my media product represents two bands of social groups: band 1 - primary audience and band 2 - secondary audience. It does this by using specific lexis and graphology in order to capture the readers attention and allow them to relate to the information provided.
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
EVALUATION: Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience intended for my media product has been influenced by the content and features which are included in my magazine. The primary audience for my music magazine (Axel) is a male audience who are in their early adult hood and are interested in fashion shops, cars, health and beauty etc. My secondary audience includes the band of females and males who are interested in anything however have an avid interest in rock music and music magazines. I decided to choose a fairly young audience for my magazine as
I wanted to follow the standard expectations and conventions of a rock music magazine. Additionally, this allowed me to include unique content which was original and was relevant to the type of age range I was targeting. These features included things like: free posters, competitions, tickets to concerts and interviews with new, niche artists who have different music in the music industry. There were other significant features in the magazine which emphasised who my target audience were. One of which was the main image on the contents page of me sitting on a bench in front of some scenery. The fact that the image is so rural and fresh definately reflects on the target audience. I think that the main selling point for my target audience was that the magazine was different and allows the reader to escape from the ordinary world. After doing some thorough research and development, I understood that there weren't many music magazines which were targeted at an older audience (40-55) which was fairly surprising considering that there are many magazines which include articles on rock legends like Led Zeplin and Jimi Hendrix. However I didn't want to 'rebel' at too much of an extent towards conventions so I also decided to aim at a younger audience.
In order to present my ideas about who my target audience for the magazine is, I created numerous posts which provide the reader with the target audience and my reasons for the choice. These posts included: mood board, audience profile, IPC research, numerous evaluations of each page and audience feedback. Audience feedback was very important for identifying the audience as I was able to get a mix of comments which were from the type of people who would read my magazine and others who would be interested in completely different types of music. This improved my awareness with the content I put into each page and the consequences they may have as an after effect.
To summarise, I think that I successfully identified the correct type of audience who would read this magazine and therefore included suitable information and content for each page which would be relevant for the reader.
I wanted to follow the standard expectations and conventions of a rock music magazine. Additionally, this allowed me to include unique content which was original and was relevant to the type of age range I was targeting. These features included things like: free posters, competitions, tickets to concerts and interviews with new, niche artists who have different music in the music industry. There were other significant features in the magazine which emphasised who my target audience were. One of which was the main image on the contents page of me sitting on a bench in front of some scenery. The fact that the image is so rural and fresh definately reflects on the target audience. I think that the main selling point for my target audience was that the magazine was different and allows the reader to escape from the ordinary world. After doing some thorough research and development, I understood that there weren't many music magazines which were targeted at an older audience (40-55) which was fairly surprising considering that there are many magazines which include articles on rock legends like Led Zeplin and Jimi Hendrix. However I didn't want to 'rebel' at too much of an extent towards conventions so I also decided to aim at a younger audience.
In order to present my ideas about who my target audience for the magazine is, I created numerous posts which provide the reader with the target audience and my reasons for the choice. These posts included: mood board, audience profile, IPC research, numerous evaluations of each page and audience feedback. Audience feedback was very important for identifying the audience as I was able to get a mix of comments which were from the type of people who would read my magazine and others who would be interested in completely different types of music. This improved my awareness with the content I put into each page and the consequences they may have as an after effect.
To summarise, I think that I successfully identified the correct type of audience who would read this magazine and therefore included suitable information and content for each page which would be relevant for the reader.
EVALUATION - In what ways does your media product challenge forms and conventions of real magazine products?
My media product (music magazine) challenges many forms and conventions of real media products (music magazines) due to the features it includes and the ways it represents and delivers information. As stated in previous posts there are many different forms and conventions which apply to the front cover, contents page and double page spread.
They are very important as they are the aspects which make amusic magazine what it is. In some ways, they could be seen as the micros while the macro is the magazine itself. But in terms of the way in how my magazine challenged the conventions of a real magazine, I believe that it did it very successfully. To begin. the front cover of my music magazine was fairly conventional and was very generic in terms of the conventions expected for this type of genre magazine. However I did challenge one convention which was the usual direct mode of address for the main subject (in this case me). I decided to take the picture slightly differently as I wanted the reader to feel as if I was the dominant one and that they are not equal to me. Like many TV programmes and films, the powerful one is almost always shown by a low angle shot as this represents power and dominance; this is what I wanted to reflect in my magazine. In most cases, direct eye contact shows confidence which is why I went the opposite way, because Edge had a dark past and he didn't want to reveal it to everyone. Like one person said in the feedback for this page: "he looks mysterious". Moving onto the contents page; this challenged the conventions of a music magazine contents page in a variety of ways. Firstly, there is the main image of Edge looking out into the distance. Many music magazines don't have such over-powering images like this as they tend to take up too much of the page and can minimise the effect of a lot of articles. Although this is the case, I thought that my image was suitable as it linked well with the colour scheme and 1/4 of the picture was filled with more articles for a special section.
All together, I managed to include 49 articles which is a fairly large amount considering how big the main image is. Taking this into account, I think that challenging this convention in particular worked well and I wouldn't have done it any other way. The other convention which I challenged on this page was the editors section. Many music magazines either have no editors section as they don't think that it's relevant, or they do have one but it is very small and doesn't really have a place on the page. In contrast to mine which takes up most of the bottom-left handside of the page with a fairly large silhouette of the editor. I think I chose to do it like this because the editor is very important in a magazine like this because they should really recieve most of the credit. Additionally, this factor allows me to put extra content about the issue and if it is a special or the next issue should be bought etc. In terms of the double page spread, it didn't really challenge any conventions or forms of a music magazine in the rock genre as it followed very similar guidlines to many magazines I have seen in the past. These features include: a suitable colour scheme, a main image in the center, question answer format and a main title.
To summarise, my media product has definately challenged many forms and conventions of a music magazine in it's genre and it has done it successfully. I believe that many of the choices I made worked well and the slight twist on the expected features of a magazine made my magazine more original and professional.
They are very important as they are the aspects which make amusic magazine what it is. In some ways, they could be seen as the micros while the macro is the magazine itself. But in terms of the way in how my magazine challenged the conventions of a real magazine, I believe that it did it very successfully. To begin. the front cover of my music magazine was fairly conventional and was very generic in terms of the conventions expected for this type of genre magazine. However I did challenge one convention which was the usual direct mode of address for the main subject (in this case me). I decided to take the picture slightly differently as I wanted the reader to feel as if I was the dominant one and that they are not equal to me. Like many TV programmes and films, the powerful one is almost always shown by a low angle shot as this represents power and dominance; this is what I wanted to reflect in my magazine. In most cases, direct eye contact shows confidence which is why I went the opposite way, because Edge had a dark past and he didn't want to reveal it to everyone. Like one person said in the feedback for this page: "he looks mysterious". Moving onto the contents page; this challenged the conventions of a music magazine contents page in a variety of ways. Firstly, there is the main image of Edge looking out into the distance. Many music magazines don't have such over-powering images like this as they tend to take up too much of the page and can minimise the effect of a lot of articles. Although this is the case, I thought that my image was suitable as it linked well with the colour scheme and 1/4 of the picture was filled with more articles for a special section.
All together, I managed to include 49 articles which is a fairly large amount considering how big the main image is. Taking this into account, I think that challenging this convention in particular worked well and I wouldn't have done it any other way. The other convention which I challenged on this page was the editors section. Many music magazines either have no editors section as they don't think that it's relevant, or they do have one but it is very small and doesn't really have a place on the page. In contrast to mine which takes up most of the bottom-left handside of the page with a fairly large silhouette of the editor. I think I chose to do it like this because the editor is very important in a magazine like this because they should really recieve most of the credit. Additionally, this factor allows me to put extra content about the issue and if it is a special or the next issue should be bought etc. In terms of the double page spread, it didn't really challenge any conventions or forms of a music magazine in the rock genre as it followed very similar guidlines to many magazines I have seen in the past. These features include: a suitable colour scheme, a main image in the center, question answer format and a main title.
To summarise, my media product has definately challenged many forms and conventions of a music magazine in it's genre and it has done it successfully. I believe that many of the choices I made worked well and the slight twist on the expected features of a magazine made my magazine more original and professional.
EVALUATION - How did you attract your audience?
(After some helpful feedback, I decided to slightly change my double page spread so that it would appeal more to my target audience. The changes included: Changing to the original colours for the eyes and inserting an album at the bottom right hand side of the page. These changes are not in this video as they were made after)
EVALUATION - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Through the process of creating this magazine, I have learnt many things about technology and the advantages it gives the user when creating a media product. There is numerous hardware and software which is required when carrying out such a product and a lot of it is either already owned or comes at a cost effective price. I used: a computer, the internet, Photoshop, an iPad and a sound recording device.
The vital piece of software which I used the most when creating this magazine was Photoshop CS5.5. This professional piece of software allowed me to design, create and manipulate a wide range of images which were to be included in my magazine. I also did some research and found out that the majority of magazine brands use Photoshop in order to construct and bring to life their ideas. I found this interesting as I had exactly the same software available 24/7 with more tools than I would have needed. From this, I inferred that photo editing software is a must in the magazine industry and without it, constructing a magazine is near impossible. Additionally, this type of software allows the user to put different twists into their magazines which other companies may not have ever thought about doing.
Another large/vital piece of technology which I understand must be available when working on such a project is the internet. Obviously the interent is huge and has been around for a fair amount of time which is why it's developments and improvements allowed me to research, advance and finish this music magazine project. There are many sites which allowed me to compare my magazine with others and then reflect on the things I had done well, and the things which could have been improved. They also gave me an insight to how music magazine industries work and the kinds of magazines they would expect from the creator (myself). Furthermore, this aided the write-up of my publication plan and the production plan.
The final main piece of technology which I think should be mentioned is the use of my iPad 2 16GB. On my iPad, I have a wide range of apps which enabled me to review each page I had created in detail and then add notes so that I could edit them on the computer at a later stage. I also have a Photoshop app on te iPad which is slightly different to the computer version in terms of the amount of features available. They were slightly more limited however different as I was able to put very retro effects on images which would have been hard to apply if I was on a computer. The camera was also a big aid as the recording quality is HD and the images it takes are very crisp. This was beneficial as I was then able to import these images onto Blogger and then post about them.
To summarise, I have learnt many things about technology and the benefits it brings to someone who is creating a magazine. Software is extremely important as well as hardware which is vital as this is required for all software. I think that Photoshop was by far the most important aspect of this project purely because of all of the features it offers and the vast scale of creation ability.
The vital piece of software which I used the most when creating this magazine was Photoshop CS5.5. This professional piece of software allowed me to design, create and manipulate a wide range of images which were to be included in my magazine. I also did some research and found out that the majority of magazine brands use Photoshop in order to construct and bring to life their ideas. I found this interesting as I had exactly the same software available 24/7 with more tools than I would have needed. From this, I inferred that photo editing software is a must in the magazine industry and without it, constructing a magazine is near impossible. Additionally, this type of software allows the user to put different twists into their magazines which other companies may not have ever thought about doing.
Another large/vital piece of technology which I understand must be available when working on such a project is the internet. Obviously the interent is huge and has been around for a fair amount of time which is why it's developments and improvements allowed me to research, advance and finish this music magazine project. There are many sites which allowed me to compare my magazine with others and then reflect on the things I had done well, and the things which could have been improved. They also gave me an insight to how music magazine industries work and the kinds of magazines they would expect from the creator (myself). Furthermore, this aided the write-up of my publication plan and the production plan.
The final main piece of technology which I think should be mentioned is the use of my iPad 2 16GB. On my iPad, I have a wide range of apps which enabled me to review each page I had created in detail and then add notes so that I could edit them on the computer at a later stage. I also have a Photoshop app on te iPad which is slightly different to the computer version in terms of the amount of features available. They were slightly more limited however different as I was able to put very retro effects on images which would have been hard to apply if I was on a computer. The camera was also a big aid as the recording quality is HD and the images it takes are very crisp. This was beneficial as I was then able to import these images onto Blogger and then post about them.
To summarise, I have learnt many things about technology and the benefits it brings to someone who is creating a magazine. Software is extremely important as well as hardware which is vital as this is required for all software. I think that Photoshop was by far the most important aspect of this project purely because of all of the features it offers and the vast scale of creation ability.
Monday, 7 January 2013
Re-submission of final magazine
Below are the things that I have changed to the front cover:
- Increased the size of top banner for better clarity
- The right side puff has been titled, and the text is more relevant to the magazine. The colours are also more vibrant to catch the readers attention
- I have added a left hand puff that looks very technological. A free MP3 download is also effective as this is a product that such an audience would benefit from
- I added a vertical list of famous bands on the left hand side with a consistent theme colour. Inspiration was used from magazines in a similar genre
- I added the QR code at the bottom
- Finally, I changed the font styles as they were originally too complicated. These new fonts are more readable and work much more
Below are the things that I have chaanged to the contents page:
- I added a quotation at the very top of the page to fill some blank space
- I edited the brief introduction about the magazine to make it more clear and suitable
- Finally, I added some more sub-headings under each page topic to give the reader a better understanding of what the magazine is about
Below are the things that I have chaanged to the double page spread:
- I changed the top title to "THE EDGE OF THE EARTH" and also made it large. This is effective as it stands out and is a little punn on the situation
- I also changed the column structure so that it looks more like an article instead of a poster
- Finally, I made the CD case bigger, and tilted it so that it looks more creative and original
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