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

Since creating my school magazine I felt that I have learnt alot more on fireworks and how to function with the tools to create the best out of images, fonts and texts to display on my front cover page, contents page and double page spread. For example I now know how to make fonts and images stand out more by adding live filters such as a glow or shadow to create the edge which my grime magazine is looking for. Having the code and conventions in mind, I have always kept to the idea of how my magazine pages would be laid out. An example would be where my masthead is always placed, which in the top left corner of the front cover and this is because most of my target audience would always look at this part of the page first.

school magazine   music magazine

As you can see in this image of both my magazines, I have kept most of the conventions in the same place. The masthead, barcode and price have all stayed in the same position whereas the subheadings and text have differed, this is because I felt that these parts are the selling points of the front cover which would convince the reader whether they should buy the product. The dominant image on both magazines plays a role in the deciding colour scheme, the school magazine being purple because of the way it brings out the person dramatically and orange in the music magazine because it matches a piece of clothing which the person has on.

school contents page                                   music magazine contents page

In creating this magazine you can see most of the improvements. From a school magazine to a music magazine I have added more colours, fonts, images and text. I have done this because I feel that it is targeted at a specific audience whereas the school magazine it is targeted at students, teachers and parents which makes it a niche audience. In both front cover and contents page they are very different. In the front cover the main thing you can see that I have manipulated are the fonts and image, I did this through colour and style which makes it more eye catching compared to the school magazine.

The contents pages are also different because in the music magazine you can see that it is two paged whereas the school magazine is only one page. I have chose to do this because I wanted to fit more images which relates to the sub heading and so that I could have more room for information under the subheading. The colour scheme are similar because I in using the colours of purple and white makes the page stand out from the rest.

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

Most of my magazine work was actually created on my home computer. If I didn't have enough time to get my work done at school I would always be finishing off the products at home. As you can see in this image, computer would be my main source of technology in creating this magazine.

Here was when I just finished my front cover of my magazine.

I've used a memory stick to save my files in different folders, these included photos, fonts I created and just research for the music magazine. Using this type of device meant it was quick and efficient for me to transfer files.

 All my original photography was taken on this Olympus camera

 I created a blogger account so that I could post all my research and information also including my magazine spreads and evaluation

I used macromedia fireworks to create most of my magazine products, it is also where I learnt how to use different tools so that I could make my magazine stand out from the rest.

 I learnt how to use photoshop efficiently but mostly I only used this software for the background of my pages

 Paint was a main source of croping and combining images together, I learnt how to save images from paint into Jpeg and later on placing the images on fireworks for creation.

dafont.com was the sources to my font and text. I found this website useful for the different designs they made for the text to stand out.

Using word, I typed in all the text so that it would correct me through my grammer mistakes and spell check my typings before I copy and paste it on to blogger.

 Using windows movie maker I gathered all my filmed interviews to create a video to support the background of my evaluation.

 And finally uploading onto youtube so that I could grab it and put it onto blogger.

Overall, I think I have learnt alot about using different softwares to create my magazine. Using all the above technology allowed me to learn more into the softwares and how to use them. I also have a greater knowledge on how to manipulate my magazine products before handing it in. For example, Before I wouldn't even think of using blogger as I thought this would be a long process just to hand in work but now I have the confidence and the knowledge to use the tools to make a neat and tidy presentation. I have also learnt about the ways in which I can save my work on blogger before publishing a post. i.e. before publishing any post I would save as draft so I could add to it later on in the course.   

5: How did you attract/address your audience?

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Our group classed the music artist in the grime industry. The appearance also attracted the audience because the colourful graffiti fonts which appeal to the young persons character. A lot of teens enjoy the art of Graffiti. We use some slang terms in our magazine that only our target audience would be able to understand. The appearance of our magazine is unique.

(Click on screen to enlarge)

In this video, I addressed my target audience by constantly asking questions for their opinions on what they think about my magazine products. As you can see most of the people in this video talked about how the main attraction would be the brights colours and how well its manipulated to draw the readers attention. They have also talked about the main images on each page, one reader talked about how the picture of Kye pointing at the camera shows that he is interacting with the reader. The only bad points that I received from the audience was based around the colour theme, one of the audience pointed out that in the background of the double page spread the black didn't stand out as much as it did in the contents and front cover. But overall I think I received positive feedback and even one member of the public saying that they would buy the magazine. 

The questions which I asked the audience were:

-What do you like about the magazine?

-What are the bad things about the magazine?

-What catches your eye on each magazine page?

-Do you listen to any grime or UK rap?

4: who would be the audience for your media product?

Our general target audience are teenagers/young adults aged 16-21, specifically:

Black male, aged 17, college student, listens to grime/UK rap in their spare time, dress sense is influenced from the American hip hop scene. As you can see at the top of the screen this is a almost if not exactly the audience which our magazine product is aimed at. You can see that the dress sense in which the young man has, which is quite clean cut as in he doesn't look too childish nor too mature. He is colour coordinated, so he would wear coloured clothes on his upper body to match his footwear. Ideally he's daily life would consist him going to college as a full time student and to have a part time job, during the weekend he would attend house parties and even teenage raves.

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

IPC media would be best suited to distribute my magazine because they are UK's leading publisher with over 90 Brands and selling over 350 million copies of magazines a year. They also make some magazines which I am currently researching on, RWD magazine. Also my magazine is aimed at the younger audience so it would bring more youth into the business, bringing them a more wider range of audience. This institution already distributes well known music magazines so they could have the necessary experience and loyal consumers who might be interested in the genre of grime and UK rap.

The high quality of IPC Media's magazines such as Nuts & NME, will assist the initial sales of my magazine. And because their brand is so well known for selling popular magazines this will engage people to look out for their new products. I would like my magazine to be distributed around United Kingdom but I would preferably like the most of my magazine sales to be in London because the Grime music culture is based in the streets of London. On the whole IPC Media are a reliable distribution company and this is illustrated with their successful magazine brands. This is why I would like IPC Media to distribute my magazine "Grime Time"

2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The genre is grime/UK rap. The audience which I specifically targeted is young teenagers in their college years, roughly from aged 16-21. We give positive representation of this social group because everyone we have mentioned in the magazine is doing something beneficial.

I have chosen this photo from RWD's magazine showing the image of Skepta to compare to my front cover photo of Kye and explain how my magazine represents a particular social group.

As you can see from the photos, both of the artist's stand in a particular way to show the audience that they mean business. The photo of Kye shows him pointing towards the camera shot and this shows that he wants the readers and audience to get involved in the magazine, the photo of Skepta shows him staring into the camera lens and this suggest that he wants the audience to try and read his mind and what he is thinking. Both facial expression on the artist's are similar, as in they have the rebellious look which shows the audience the power which they have in the music industry. For costume appearance both of the men almost match, Kye wears a white cardigan with a dark coloured shirt underneath whereas Skepta wears a dark coloured body warmer with a white t-shirt underneath. Both artist has branded hats on showing their type of fashion sense within the grime industry. Both backgrounds look almost identical as it shows a dark blue wall with a glow showing that the spotlight is on them although in Skepta's front cover it shows more of a red mist indicating that there are lights focused on him front and back.

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

The name of my music magazine is GRIME TIME. Me and my other group member chose this name as our masthead clearly states the main genres of the music that will be featured in the magazine. The name is short, straight to the point and it rhymes. We chose not to have a fixed colour scheme for the magazine because we wanted to adjust the colour to match the artist’s clothing in the dominant background image. This would give our magazine a unique style/flavour to differ from other magazines. This idea was inspired by our research of RWD magazine as this music magazine shares the genres of our magazine; Grime, Rap & R’n’b.

We decided to follow some of the regular conventions of music magazines when creating our product. The main conventions we have in our front cover includes a masthead, a price, a bar code, a issue number and a date.

Title and masthead

As you can see from our masthead this stands out from regular conventions of magazines as this particular title attracts my target audience of younger ages. Our group decided to choose the name of this title it is short making it easier for readers to remember and because we thought it would appeal to our audience link up with the genre of our magazine. The title "grimetime" suggests to the readers that it is time for a change in music, it also challenges regular magazines as this title has a bold effect which makes it look 3d whereas in a regular magazines you would have a 2d image of a masthead which is more informative than eye catching. For this title I used the website dafont.com to retrieve the image before editing the colour and style on fireworks to make it associated to the genre of grime and UK rap.

Mise en scene

I think the mise en scene of my images follow the code and conventions of how a grime or hip hop magazine would. This is because in my images I have made most of the people stand or pose in the middle of the frame to show that the storyline is all focused on them. I have followed similar conventions to what a grime magazine would, for example on the front cover I have one dominant image with other text around the image to show the focusing point

Costumes

The costumes and props used in my magazine "grimtime" are conventional. This is because the people in my magazine wore costumes which included baggy trousers, checkered shirts, wooly jackets and baseball hats. All of these items would be found in real music magazines. The props features are commonly used in existing 
magazines as main source of grime and hip hop, for example iconic microphone.

People

The people in my magazine are unconventional. The people in my magazine are all about the same age being college or sixth form students aged 16-19. This is unconventional because usually in grime and hip hop magazines you would see older images of people, particularly in their mid twenties. However one convention which I have kept the same would be the gender representation, using the males as the dominant sex rather than the female.

Title, font & style  

The fonts I used were from www.dafont.com. They had interesting graffiti fonts which I used to relate with the genre of grime and UK rap. As you can see in the image above I have focused on making a slight edge to each font by adding live filters and glow to make it appeal to my audiences. This would be unconventional as in regular grime magazines you wouldn't have bright colours and glow as they have a more wider target audience ranging from late teens to early 30 year olds. My font and style definantly appeals more to the younger audience as the glow and shadow effect draws their attention immediately.

Written content

The written content of my magazine follows the codes and conventions of a real magazine having the similar topics and information. For example I have an interview which asks about who their favourite artists are, what they think of the grime industry, how they developed into music and what they have in mind over the coming years. All of these topics could be found in a grime music magazine aimed at teenagers and young adults.

Music Genre

My magazine genre is based around grime, UK rap and hip hop. I have also listed some famous artist who are catergorised in grime, UK rap and hip hop. The genre of my magazine is quite clear throughout as the costumes and clothes shows what category they are classed in. Also the way the artist's in my magazine posed showed attitude which the grime scene has in this developed culture.

Layout

The layout of my front cover and double page spread are conventional as have all the things which a regular magazine would but my contents page however is uncoventional. One of the reasons being the way which my images are shown, making it noticeable and showing how important they are on the page. I did this because I wanted to add youth into the page which would be challenging and breaking the codes and conventions of a regular magazine, for example the numbers are scattered around the page because I feel that my target audience would prefer to have it unorthadoxed and this making it easier to read. This also relates to actual teenagers in real life, as they have been criticised for being lazy and unorganised which helps me explain why I chose to lay the contents out in this fashion.

Contents page

My contents page contains elements that follow the codes and conventions of existing music magazines. For example it featured two pages with subheadings stating the order of importance in this genre and this shows the audience how easy it is to find what type of topic they want to read. Another convention which I followed is the numbering of the sub headline with the image, this shows the reader who would feature in the story through the captions and giving them a little idea on what is inside the story.

Final Design's

FRONT COVER (CLICK FOR FULL SCREEN)

CONTENTS PAGE (CLICK FOR FULL SCREEN)

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD (CLICK FOR FULL SCREEN)

Editing & Creating Photos

Using Macromedia fireworks I edited the original photo to make it look more dark and grimy. The aim was to produce a image which would represent the target audience that I am focusing on. As you can see in this photo I have added shades of black which connotes the time of midnight or night time, I did this because during the night is where the youth in this generation likes to party and rave to this genre of music. I also played around with the brightness and contrast of the photo just to give it that edgy effect which I was looking for. The main focus is the boy who is framed in the middle of the photography, I used this particular person because he is dressed similarly to the music artist who produces the music of grime and UK rap.

Original Photo

Edited Photo

This was the original name of the font which I found from www.dafont.com

I then re-lettered the text to make it into my personal title

Finally, I adjusted the colour and tweaked with the fireworks tools to make this my masthead on my front cover

Draft Of Double Page Spread

This is my draft idea for my double page spread. I have chosen these two colours (blue & purple) because I wanted it to attract the readers attention at first site. I have included 3 images, one which is the main attraction, I have specifically put it on the left hand side because I think that the reader always reads whatever is on the left. In this sense I want them to see who the story is about before they read about them.

Draft Of Contents Page

This is my first draft of the contents page and as you can see I have focused more on the detail of the fonts as my target audience like to see fonts with a little edge to it. I have more in mind which I will add later on but for a draft this is what I have achieved.

Draft Of Magazine Frontcover

I have chosen this image because I think it appeals to the audience which my magazine is aimed at, teenagers and college students. The image which I have chosen represents young males who has talent in the music industry, especially in grime, hip hop and UK rap. At the moment for the draft I have chosen to create  a transparent masthead. This is a unique style which is targeted at the niche market. The style of masthead which I have chose, represents the genre of music which my group is focusing on, the genre which I am focusing on is Grime and UK rap. This is only my first design of the actual front cover, but I still have a bit more in mind which I want to add to create a perfect front cover.

Original Photography

I chose to use this photo as I wanted to have a love column inside my magazine. I have framed the shot in this way because I think it shows the intimacy of the couples relationship. It also relates to the headlines which I showed in my contents page "how to keep you relationship intact"

I staged this image to show the artist preparing for a grime concert. I chose to frame it in this way because it looks as though he is going through his lines.

This image is used to portray how the regular grime artist would stand in a staged concert.

This photography portrays how real grime artists would perform on stage. This would be their routines on being a music superstar. I have chose to use this photo because I think that the artist stands in the exact way which I feel would attract my target audience.

This photo shows that this artist may be mysterious as his face is covered meaning this would be his style on stage. I chose to use this particular photo because I think this shows the way which some teenagers stand in real life which shows that it could be related to them.

I used this photo in the fashion section of my contents because I think the way in which this person poses shows that he is a confident artist. It also shows the way in which young people dresses in this modern generation.

I chose this photo for my front cover because I framed this person to show that he wants to interact with the audience. In the photo he is pointing towards the camera shot which shows he wants the reader to look at this magazine issue.

I have used this photo for my double page spread because this photo shows the artist "at work", I say this because he is holding a pen in his right hand thinking whilst holding a notepad.

I chose to use a close shot of this person because it shows his "swagger" and style.

This photo just shows the romance which the two people have.