The document summarizes the design choices made for a magazine focused on R&B music. Key design elements included choosing "Bass" as the masthead to represent the low musical range, using bold colors and fonts to attract a young audience, and including common magazine features like cover lines, a table of contents, and interviews. Conventions from real magazines like Vibe were both used and challenged in the layout. Images of fashionable young women were chosen to appeal to the target demographic of 15-20 year old females.

1. As Media Studies Production Analysis Front cover Contents page Double-page-spread Preeti Jandu

2. I chose ‘Bass’ to be the masthead of my magazine because ‘Bass’ symbolises music as ‘Bass’ is the lowest part of the musical range. However, the sentence “R&B GOES SOFT” links in with the masthead as the sentence includes the word “soft”, which reflects the low part of the musical range. I felt that the font and colour of my masthead would attract my target audience, not only because it is In big and bold writing, but looking at other magazines that are the same genre as my magazine they have used similar types of lighter and darker shades for there mastheads either coloured in grey or black. I chose grey as the colour of my background because it looked more appealing also the image and the text will stand out more. R&B is a sort of music that most people see as being vibrant and I believe my background and text colour represents that. I added cover lines on my magazines so people could see that there was more things in the magazine and it was not just based on one person, which covers everything that should be in a music magazine.

3. The shot type that I have used was a mid shot, I used this image on the front page because I believe the way the image has been taken and the way the image spreads out onto the page attracts my target audience. I made sure the main cover story stood out on the front page so it could attract peoples attention more as I saw in other media products there’s always a main cover line on the front cover which is normally an exclusive interview. I have also included a barcode and price to make it look more realistic when looking at all other magazines I have noticed a barcode and price.

4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The magazine that I have created develops the from and conventions of a real media products because my magazine is similar to the ones that are out there in the media industry. For example the magazine image and the masthead is the biggest feature because it is more important like VIBE. I also wanted to go for the VIBE look and have the image in front of the masthead. My magazine challenges the conventions of real existing media products, as the name stands out and represents something- Bass a lowest part of musical range; as R&B, Hip-hop music can include slow jam music which includes Bass as the music is low, calm and vibrant. The colour scheme is another convention I had used from looking at other magazines. I wanted to keep the colour scheme matching and simple . I have used red, black, white and blue. I wanted to create a unique style. Also my cover lines run down at each side just like the vibe magazine below. I wanted less writing and simple layout because the magazine is aimed at young women aged between 15-20 year old and I know that teenagers like to read less.

5. On my contents page I challenged the forms and conventions of real VIBE magazines because I decided not to have one main image splash. On my contents page I have 2 image splashes and text. By having this I wanted to show that my magazine was simple and straight to the point as my magazine is aimed at teenagers who like to read less. However I've followed the tradition on R&B/Hip-hop contents page by having the departments list on it, so I can separate the articles from the style list etc. I kept the same colours as the front cover to keep the magazine consistent. I have included 2 images which are aligned on the right- hand side of the page. R&B/Hip-hop magazines such as ‘ Vibe’ normally include one image of an artist on their content pages, but I wanted to challenge and develop a different convention and include 2 images to make my contents page look attractive with less writing. Lastly my media product uses a real media product through the layout. I took examples of R&B/Hip-hop contents pages and tried to create my own. The layout is consistent, like an Vibe contents. It is also easy to navigate your way through as the text is laid out clearly.

6. I added quotes to make the important factors stand out, as this is used in every magazine to draw the readers into finding out more and reading the entire article. I have used two image of the artist. one big one on the right-hand side and one small one on the left. Normally magazines will have photos in thumbnail's but I decided to put my small image in between my title to create a unique affect. Furthermore the image includes a hat which represents R&B/Hip-hop as artists within this genre normally wear hats, jackets or tracksuits. I used a stereotype convention that a majority of music magazines feature. They have the interview questions in one colour and the answers to the questions in another. Having two different colours make it easier to read and it is more effective. I used this convention so that my magazine looks realistic as most magazines use this technique and to separate the interview questions from the answers/feedback.

7. Draft front cover Final front cover Banner has been added as it looks more realistic with font going over the banner. ‘ Bass’ masthead has been enlarged and stands out more. Colours have been changed to red, black, white and blue for a more consistent look. Price and barcode has been added on the right-hand side so the image is not overlapped as much. Font sizes have been changed to big, medium and small to create again a realistic look. I think my first draft was a good attempt as it looks like a magazine although it does not look professional and realistic. The final one is much better as it has matching colours, masthead stands out just like other magazines and my magazine includes a banner, barcode and price as this makes it look professional and real. I used different fonts on my draft front cover to try and make it look like a real magazine however using the blending options on Photoshop helped me achieve a stylish and unique look on my final front cover. When I was planning my magazine I researched what kind of images ‘Vibe’ magazines have on their front covers. I realised that the images are usually centred in the middle with text coming down along the sides. In addition the women artists are looking very girly e.g. hair styled with make-up on.

8. I used this photo as it is girly as my target audience is aimed at teenage girls. Most teenagers like fashion and style. In addition most ‘Vibe’ magazines include model’s with make-up on. I used this photo as the model is posing with a hat which relates to R&B/Hip-hop as magazines with these genres either hold hats or chains which they are wearing or have no crops and stand looking directly at the camera.

9. How does your media product represent particular social groups. My magazine appeals to girls as the girl model is wearing pink in the images. Also my magazine includes images of girls throughout. If I wanted to attract men/boy readers then I would balance out my images and include images of boys as well as changing the colours of my magazine so it reflects both genders. I have priced it cheaply and it will be published every month because my target audience is young teenage girls in education, so they would not have a high income to purchase an expensive magazine. The main image of R&B/Hip-hop magazine is fashion, personal artists life and music. My target audience would be 15-20 year old female teens and young adults, as they are easily attracted my bold colours, stylish images, bold text and headlines. My target audience will not live a day without listening to music, know the latest fashion tips and enjoy fashion. My media product also represents young people as the images of the models throughout the magazine is young so this social group will find the model/artist more engaging if it is based on younger artists. Furthermore reading about a young artists will be easier for a young reader to understand the young artists point of view more. The model on the front cover wears curly hair and a pink top this shows that R&B/Hip-hop readers are obsessed with fashion and style. I chose the colour scheme so the magazine draws young adults and teenagers attention as this group of people like catchy colours. I used red, black, white and blue. I used these colours as the model already wears pink which makes the front cover look bright. The darker colours scheme would bring out the text more so that the text looks catchy. The written style of my magazine is straight to the point and includes some slang. I have not included formal language as my magazine is targeted at teenagers who are still studying and like to use slang.

10. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The media institution that might distribute my media product will be Bauer Media. Bauer Media reaches over 19 000 000 UK adults across multiple media products. These are the media magazines that they produce in the UK: Heat, Graziar, FHM, Empire, Q and many more. Also Bauer magazine do subscription where my magazine does it too. Bauer media also produce Kiss 100 FM and this radio plays a lot off R&B music. So Bauer Media are all ready specialist in R&B. Because they are no R&B/Hip-hop magazine that they produce, I think that they will distribute my magazine because, my magazine comes out monthly and Bauer Media produce monthly magazines. Also because the R&B/Hip-hop music industry is very big they will make a lot of money because teenagers love R&B/Hip-hop.

11. How did you attract/address your audience? My target audience for my magazine would be females aged between 15-20 year olds who live in London because that’s where urban/R&B/Hip-hop is mainly from. I attracted my audience by firstly, having a good, unique and eye-catchy front cover page. This is because the model on the front cover is wearing make-up and curly hair that a girl/women could relate to. Also the way the model is posing and her look is very sexy which makes people buy as people want to see an attractive image. I also attracted the audience my by having a masthead that is big and bold that stands out. Moreover by having two colours for the masthead that contrast each other makes the magazine stand out more ad catches the reader’s eye. I have used simple headlines as the use of simple head lines attracts the younger audience as they like to read less. Un-complicated vocabulary has not been used in the magazine as teenagers like to read more simpler words. I also featured a banner at the bottom containing new artists. This is a effective way of reaching out to my target market. Teenagers like to listen to new up-coming artists to find out if they like the artist or not so they could talk about the artist with their friends on the artists up-coming music and videos. Headline such as ‘Talia Rose, I’m Not Going To Hold Back Anymore’ is inevitable to attract readers as it is in big and bold writing. Readers would want to know more on why ‘Talia Rose’ is not going to hold back anymore and would purchase the magazine to read on.

12. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? During the process of making my product I have used Adobe Photoshop which I have learnt to do a lot of stuff on it. At the beginning I had no idea on how to use Photoshop as I had not tutorials lessons about it. Playing around and making a draft copy of my magazine rapidly gave me knowledge and skill on how to use the software. As my knowledge and skills by playing around with Photoshop enhanced my final magazine front cover started to look better and professional. However I also used publisher before I started to produce my magazine to produce rough copies of different genre magazines so that I had an idea of how magazines were laid out. The digital camera which I had used was handy and helpful as it allowed me to lighten the image if the model was standing in a dark place, also the digital camera would display the image and it would enable me to see how the image turned out like. However publisher was easier to use than Photoshop as I discovered so many different types of tools on Photoshop which you cold use such as the lasso tool, clamp tool etc. In addition, I learnt how to use different layers which allowed me to place text and images perfectly and pick a majority of fonts that would look right for my product.

13. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Preliminary Task. Media production. By looking at my preliminary task and my media production I can see I have learnt a lot of new skills and techniques. I have learnt how to cut out the background from the images by using the lasso tool on Photoshop and that all magazines articles are in columns. I have also learnt how to make my magazine look more professional by using blending options on the Photoshop cs4. The colours on my preliminary task are not very appealing than on my media production, this tells me I have also learnt how to contrast colours together to make magazines look more professional and realistic. Lastly I have learnt how to relate my product to a specific target audience. I also know what forms and convention to use when attracting a certain target audience.