2. What ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms, codes and conventions of real media products? The codes and conventions used to make my final product ( a front cover, double page spread (DPS) and contents for a music magazine) were all based on the research made through analysing three music magazines of separate genre and audiences. This allowed me to compare how different magazines developed a style that attracted a specific audience i.e. Kerrrang!, it is a rock and metal magazine compared to NME which is indie/alternate rock both use different techniques to communicate to their audience such as their masthead, colour, photographs, text and the overall layout in which the audience views it. In targeting my audience I used NME as a foundation for it attracted a similar audience to who I had decided to choose and discussed the same genre of music. The use of codes and conventions in my piece can be clearly shown on all three designs on the DPS the text is 1/3 to 2/3 photograph because visual elements attract the younger audience more and the contents with a variety of photographs collaged on the page, an editors letter and page numbers given with a small paragraph or photo to address the audience to allow them to know what is within the magazine and to buy it however specifically the front cover celebrates all conventions of a stereotypical music cover with a top strip that the magazine also shares which the audience's eye glides across first using the Z-reading pattern, a large, dominant masthead, with a pun styled strap line and cover lines, a large dominant image that members of the group give eye contact with which helps the magazine interact even further with the target audience.
3. Although I have developed ideas from the code forms researched from NME this allowing my magazine become innovative and unique, though the small changes made were not too significant that the audience wouldn’t be attracted to it. I based the layout of the front cover upon the theme of equality-having the group focused on the front cover stood in a line rather than having a visually leading man as seen on NME’s usual format, this also allowed me to broaden the magazines audience range beyond the usual gender stereotype of young 16-25 men and achieve a higher profit rating by communicating to both genders equally, attracting them both to buy the magazine. This helping to ensure financial stability for the magazine due to the general decline in magazine readership within society at the moment when researched at the beginning of the assignment. Another difference is that instead of the commonly known shade of brick red used in NME I decided to have another colour that still complements red so that it isn't too extreme but still different so the magazines can be distinguished. However, at most I kept to the codes and conventions of magazines using three colours within my planning decisions, using a similar format to position the text, a bold, clear masthead, cover lines etc., and large photographs on both the double-page spread and front cover. I also included smaller key points to my final design such as an editors letter and small paragraphs highlighting columns in the contents page that would intrigue the audience and bring a more personal aspect to the magazine. A mixture of both posed and casual photographic shots, direct to the audience, the column topics surrounding the interest of the audience e.g. interviews/reviews etc and the length of the article to which has a brief introduction but small, in-depth answers to questions, interesting the audience on the new band that is fresh to the music scene. This has been done to keep the audience’s attention, by having the text appear smaller but still giving a text that would interest and not bore the reader. The NME covers usually have their artists covering their mastheads which I tried during development however the magazine would not be familiar to the said audience if it were to go into production (16-25 female/male) and therefore instead of enhancing the design and creating an idea of superiority within the music magazine business (our magazine is popular therefore we do not need to show our masthead for it to be recognised) it would distract from the titles effect on the audience making the magazine appeal less rather than more at the beginning of the magazine launch. In all this allowed me to create a basis for a music magazine, creating my own house style and colour palette to match the codes and conventions and develop them from those used in the music industry to produce my final pieces.
4. What institution might distribute your magazine? From research at the beginning of my magazine assignment it enabled me to distinguish my audience further by deciding what publishing house I wanted to aim to appeal to for producing my magazine if it were to go into production. On the reverse I could go for a larger, more commercial institution such like Bauer or IPC media Publishing that has the experience to give the magazine definition within the area of magazine and a high quality production because of the money it has to give. It would be recognised by the publishing house to have it as one of their magazines to eradicate the chance of it being the competition for a magazine they already publish such as NME. IPC Media uses its own products to advertise, this producing synergy that would mean advertisement and marketing would come from the same institution. However a smaller, less established institution like 328 Media which publishes kite world, a specialist magazine, with this the magazine could have the production because thoughtthe companyhas less knowledge and money, it would have the time to focus on making the magazine the best it can be, giving big competition to the institutions such as my chosen institution IPC Media. It could also, make the magazine more specific rather than appealing to the commercial music lovers, and then the price could rise because the product would be better written and musically orientated and therefore attract the ‘hard core; music fns of British indie/rock music and except to paying more. Both ways are good to market an audience and achieve gross profit from the magazine.
5. How does your media product represent particular social groups? Rebellious, individual, grunge, musical with a rock enigma are a few of the qualities that someone’s character would have if they were attracted to this magazine, Flashlight. The stereotype would wear skinny jeans, a non-commercial top such as a band logo, and therefore if their bands are in the magazine would immediately be attracted as fans wanting more knowledge. Their interest would include tours, live gigs, instruments, new releases and more. ‘music would be their life.’ Language-regional accent/British, colloquial to attract the younger audience than of magazine types like Q however still using some sophisticated language because of a higher price of £2.90, the audience attracted would be enthusiastic, middle class music types, psychographics B and C1. Gender…The gender for NME readership is majority young males to females which I found out during my research therefore this was the main thing I wanted to oppose whilst planning my magazine design. I wanted the theme to become equality and have the magazine appeal to both genders equally which I think I have done with using font and colour and my composed photographs. On the front cover and double page spread though the lead singer is centered, the band is stood in a straight line unlike that of the covers of NME which always marks the lead singer in the foreground of the page.
6. The stereotypical image and body language of the Indie/alternative rock persona…the genre of my magazine…
7. Who is the target audience for my media product? Well, the first thing that I needed to do to find was with my layout plan already mocked-up who would be interested in my magazine to find my target audience. To do this I used primary research such as Survey Monkey which is a questionnaire that I made and posted across facebook to get a quick, varied reply. This was done to find an audience who would be appealed effectively by my magazine. My own research from analysing all my magazines allowed me know the stereotype appearance and attitude of the indie & alternative rock artists which I based my idea for my look upon.And then I developed flat plans to me n idea of how the magazine could look before experimenting/using photoshop.
8. More… In my photographs (I am the model however the camera was on a frame and timer, I did this to capture my own idea of what I wanted then positioning a model that may look have looked more awkward) the costume worn was monotone in colour, black leggings, black biker jacket and dark top and adding to the grunge attitude on life. Secondary source material, the research looking at the magazine websites, Wikipedia pages, Google images was used to find more information on how to target my audience. As future reference, if I were to do it for a second time I would interactive, primary data using a video and recording an interview. After my research I found an audience of 16-25 female & male audience would be attracted to my magazine.
9. How did you attract/address your audience? By researching the codes and conventions, the stereotypes of the audience and their interests and gathering this information and concisely including all this into it into final designs. Colour is really significant in magazines for attracting the target audience, specific colours connote different things such as red e.g. passion, love, anger all really powerful emotions and is associated with the magazine NME, as its identity. For my magazine instead I used orange therefore it is similar yet different to NME on the colour wheel therefore the audience would still see a link which there is because, both magazines share the same genre although have a different identity. I thought this would be a good advertising technique selling my magazine off the face of NME. Orange connotes fire and passion therefore this could describe the audience and their interest for music, all positive qualities for a launching magazines enigma. Mode of address is colloquial but sophisticated to meet the intelligence of the target audience e.g. using words like innovative (meaning new) and words contrasting that such as taboo words and slang. Fonts were decided very closely to fit the the genre and style of the magazine. I chose a clear and bold so the text is clear to read and easier to look at, although I did like thechoreography font types.
10. More… The images are important because they are the essential things which will grab the target audiences attention and give the magazine its persona and portray the indie &alternative rock theme genre theme, through pose, body language, that all speak of a society that the audience will be involved in, their fashion, statement scene. All these are important the fact that the artists wear little make-up and jewelry because certain codes and conventions of real life are embedded in this style, which the target audience would only notice and be attractive too.i.e. the lyrical stereotypical t-shirts. My magazine though has developed upon some codes and conventions of music magazines on par they have been used to the max in appealing to the specific target audience for the magazine using colour, font etc. The combination through the front covers colour to the contents and double page spread link all the pages, the font is clear and fresh which blends with the idea of finding new, fresh artists, the pun on the covers sell line. All together it has created a strong magazine that can attract its target audience efficiently. Moreover, on my designs I have advertised other music names and if it was published like this these names would target the audience, interest them because the fame of these other ‘bands’ and ‘artists’ would appeal. The balance of txt to photo ratio was another technique to increase my target audience and appeal because the proportion of the page on most of my designs are more picture orientated, this making the designs more eye engaging attracting the audience, rather then having simply just block, plain text which would loose readership and bore a young audience.
11. What has been learnt from using technology from the process of constructing this product? These are most of the software, technology used in producing the final products…
12. Advantages and disadvantages of using technology: I used technology in general excluding my photograph designs because it could log all my work in an organised manner, and save it so that it couldn’t get lost as easily as if this assignment was paper based. I could work straight into my blog wherever I could access the internet, however finding internet access was difficult. Technology is not as reliable, Tumblr crashed excessively which meant it was time consuming. Using technology allowed the presentation of my work to look a lot more professional. Having a search engine such as Google allowed the secondary research to be expansive, and reliable. Though Wikipedia has a lot of concise information at hand, it is not guaranteed to be hard fact. When using space monkey I could get a range of data from a variety of people sharing a link to facebook, however using my profile as a link meant my friends could have the same interests as me, therefore making the variety in opinion smaller. The studio photographs allowed me to achieve more professional looking photos using appropriate lighting, making a greater realism to my magazine. I used Photoshop for my design pieces because I wanted the look of my magazine to be professional and sleek. I haven't used the software before, I found using it technical and rather difficult. It took time to find affects and tools to make the designs look credible and affective for appealing to the audience. Using Tumblr-setting my own blog up and creating a page that isorganised.
14. What I have learnt from my preliminary task progressing to my final design pieces… Solidifying my working experience: Audience research: Survey Monkey/Primary research: using survey monkey, my skill by doing this is creating the questionnaire online. The lesson taught is learning how to broadcast to a wider audience byFacebookand online distribution. Using Tumblr to create a blog, the skill is to understand how to process it, lesson learnt creating a URL, uploading photographs for text ideas in a clear and precise format using various technology and its techniques. Market research: internet/secondary research: to expand on information for my target audience and design ideas, the skill of textual analysis was used and I have learnt the codes and conventions of different publishers magazines i.e. NME-deconstructing their style, asking why they have done this? Style sheet: Photoshop was used as my technology and the skill is that I was practicing being an aesthetic learner. I have learnt to employ what I researched with market analysis e.g. fonts. Flat plans: using Photoshop and Word. My skill was mapping up my designs. Lessons learnt; to create my basic layout for my final design. This where there is most change to the planning because once experimenting on Photoshop, my flat plans changed so that the format of my final pieces could look the best I could make them, although the flat plans were the basis, compared to the final pieces they are very different except for the double page spread’s flat plan which worked when I transferred the idea into Photoshop. Pitch: using Word. Forming words into a legible paragraph was my skill and to communicate clearly. Lesson learnt: to explain what I have learnt from my research.
15. What I have learnt during the progression of my preliminary task to the full product? ...continued. Photograph planning/model composition: no technology. The skills I used was to plan and organize my work efficiently. Lesson learnt; medium and wide shot didn’t suit the conventions of its appearance as it wasn’t authentic. Instead I chose a three shot rather than rather than another style of picture. Studio: DSLR and tripod. Skills; using the camera and tripod. Lesson learnt: compositions, photographing, lighting. Written article: Word. The skills I used were journalistic skills, creative writing, imaginative writing in a specific genre for an audience. Skills I used were exploring and experimenting with a new style of writing and can appeal to a different audience. Front cover; Photoshop. Skills I use were to use the layout of the page correctly along with some other technical skills Contents: Photoshop-the skills are using the techniques creating the magazine's layout and I have learnt how to re-size an image, use a stroke and use the formatting tool to give depth to the page, (layers of text and photographs). Double-page Spread: Photoshop-, formatting the page to make it authentic in design and I have learnt how to use the burn tool, feather and cropping a photograph and text to the appropriate size.
16. My preliminary task… What I have developed/learnt from my preliminary task to achieve my final design pieces… Too many font sizes, makes it hard on the eye to decide what to focus on, the title, sell line? On my final piece I have used the same font, and have only changed the font size to show a different topic i.e. the cover lines are different to the masthead to make the mast head more dramatic and filed the lettering in a dark colour. The use of colour in mypreliminarytest was too intense, too many colours were used so in my final design I developed it using only three, maximum four colours. Compositionally, I have developed where this image is floating It does not look intentional but clumsy, I would now move this image to be placed in the left hand corner of the page so the models head and shoulders touched the edge of the page. The background is coloured which makes the style of the overall piece unauthentic as a magazine because a code and convention is to have a white, simple edge to the design which this one doesn’t have, it is very amateur which for my preliminary before thorough research can be expected.
17. What I would change… If I were to change anything in my assignment, it would probably be the use of Photoshop because though I enjoyed experimenting at first because I was new to the software it took a long time to get through the process at arriving at my final pieces, it was more sophisticated then I thought, I think I would I the future use Publisher. Have a model for my photographs that I can direct instead of directing myself, though I know in my head how I would like my photographs to be taken, I didn’t know how they looked on camera which I think made the photographs of a poorer quality. Collect more primary data, maybe use a video camera to record the target audience’s reaction to my magazine or a print based hand out questionnaire, giving feedback or at the beginning enlisting their ideas for what they want as the audience to be included since the only data primary sourced was my Survey Monkey that could have been bias since it was broadcasted through my Facebook, my friends who share the same interests as me. And finally to refer back to my secondary audience/market research data of magazines continuously rather than frequent so that I am able to achieve the most accurate, professional design possible for my final pieces.
