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UNIT G321 EVALUATION; How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Click Keep Reading for the Script

So, first, how does my magazine represent social groups? This is in relation to class, race, age, gender, and sexuality. Quite a few things for a magazine, right?

First let’s start with stereotypes and how my music magazine represents stereotypes in mainstream music magazines.

We see here on my front cover, it’s a mainstream music artist as my main image. This is very typical of mainstream music magazines to do as it has the main image becomes the main feature and topic of that magazine. It means we focus most on the main image and the model on show and she’s the one who’s creating the stereotypes on this magazine for us to see, representing the mainstream pop industry if you will.

We see she’s mixed race and at face value, this means she’s representing the mainstream music industry as diverse and mixed, especially for young people. We see her dressed as young people would in this generation, meaning that she’s trying to represent the pop music industry being mostly dominated by young people, for young people, mostly young adults or teens even. This is a stereotype in society, that young people like the mainstream music and this could be seen from these young people feeling the need to fit in and find their own style and influences, therefore using the mainstream music industry as their basis which is what the model on the cover is seen to do.

This could be an oppositional reading too since, for me, my preferred reading was just to have a young artist on my cover to promote and get out there into the industry since the industry, stereotypically, is targeted towards the younger generation more anyway. However, the oppositional reading from this could be that since this is a young model, people could see it as this artist is just invested in music instead of her education for example since the industry is quite demanding on people for time and effort. She is also quite heavily made up makeup wise, so while my preferred reading could’ve been to make the artist relatable and appealing to younger audiences by looking like them and looking nice, the oppositional reading could’ve been about how the girl is being presented as a ‘product’ for the music industry, as another stereotype of mainstream music is how sexualised the women are to draw in male audiences.

Another music magazine I could compare to that’s quite similar is VIBE since their female artists when they’re on the covers, are overly sexualised to appeal to the young male audience which could stereotype women in the mainstream music industry as showing off their bodies to get attention for their music and it could be read as that they don’t care about the music but about the fame instead.

This stereotype and representation does reflect reality in a way because of how a lot of women in the industry do show themselves off to gain attention for their music in the first place but it constructs the reality that they only care about fame because a lot of women artists actually do care about the music since they wouldn’t be in that industry if they didn’t have that passion in the first place.

There’s quite a few headlines on my cover that also mention either tours, concerts, or music related events. This represents the stereotype in society that young people are always going to concerts and tours, especially in the summertime with the come up of all the big music festivals such as Coachella. A stereotype of these mainstream music festivals that it’s dominated by young people with alcohol and drugs and all things bad. This could also be a big oppositional reading of my magazine where my preferred reading was just to promote the events and what’s happening in the music industry now.

On my contents page I have created it so there’s minimal text for the navigation to pages and a big main image of my artist taking up a whole side of the page. This was done to make the page much more accessible to young people and audiences reading my magazine so they can easily navigate to whatever page they want to. However, an oppositional reading can come into this, suggesting that the younger generation who are into the mainstream music magazine industry are lazy and don’t want to work to find what they want, they’re given everything easy and simple.

This doesn’t represent the young generation or reality at all since young people are all different in the way they are brought up. Some people enjoy reading and some people don’t, my intention for this was to just make the page easily readable for anyone without making it look cluttered so it wouldn’t scare anyone reading it away.

We could compare this to the billboard magazine however since that is also another magazine aimed at the younger generation into mainstream music and their contents page is quite cluttered with lots of information so this doesn’t represent the young age group as mine seems to represent. This is a vastly different representation of the audience’s stereotypes and the reason for this may have been just to do with style preferences or even having the music magazine aimed towards the older generation after face value (referring to the front cover) judgement.

This is very different to how I’ve presented my magazine as the pages are all made up to fit the stereotypes surrounding the younger generation instead.

From my double page spread we see stereotypes imbedded in this too with the makeup made up model on one whole side of the page. My preferred reading was to just have the page look nice and open for the audience to read, with their eyes more drawn towards who the artist is with use of one whole page dedicated to an image of the model. This was to have the audience want to know who that artist is and think she’s an upcoming, famous artist who will dominate the music charts easily. Instead, the oppositional reading again could be surrounding the makeup choices and the fact that young people are too invested in fame and makeup to care about the more important things. We could also see an oppositional reading come through regarding her facial expressions as they’re not at all smiley or inviting. They’re more cold and serious, implying the stereotypes of young people having attitudes and could even have the model represent the younger generation as spoilt and demanding. The preferred reading of this was to just have a nice, professional looking headshot of the artist so people would be more inclined to search her up and find out more about her.

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UNIT G321 EVALUATION; What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Click Keep Reading to see the Script

During the preliminary project, I used basic tools and programmes to create my work, most of which were either typed up into the blog editor itself or created on Microsoft Publisher. My student magazine was created on Microsoft publisher, a very basic tool that’s easy to use for beginners such as myself although it doesn’t have the professional quality outcome to it that a magazine should have.

A benefit of using this programme is how easy it is to use and how the tools are all set out in a basic and simple way with specific uses. This is good because it means, for someone who has little experience in editing software and graphic design, it’s easy to grasp the basics of these kinds of software and it allows you to learn about image and text placement, especially in preparation for a professional product.

However, a major setback of this software is because of how limited it is in terms of image editing and text editing. Publisher is only good for moving things around and placing text, not manipulating images and colours to make it look more professional. The outcome of the products are good but not great and are definitely not of a professional standard which makes this software quite limited in terms of editing and graphic design for my magazine.

A benefit of using the built-in blog post editor for large amounts of text on the blog is how there’s no need to faff about with copy and pasting and embedding text documents into the blog. This means that the information can be directly uploaded to the blog without extra time being spent and errors occurring with the embedding html.

However, a big setback with this is the inability to edit text size and colour on the blog post easily without messing around with the html which could cause major errors in the coding of the blog. It also means the post looks dull and boring to read, with just a huge chunk of text to give information on it.

During my research, planning and production stages, I used a few more programmes with a higher difficulty level, one of which was Photoshop.

I used Photoshop mainly for my magazine image editing and image manipulation in terms of making my magazine images look a lot more professional and appealing.

I did this through using tools such as the dodge and burn tool to manipulate the model in the photos to make her look more defined and professional as I had to go through multiple complicated steps to create these effects. These steps included creating new layers under different layer conditions such as 50% grey to achieve the effect I wanted with the dodge and burn tool and then lightening these layers to little opacity to soften the actual harshness of that effect.

I also had to use the polygonal select tool often to select carefully around my image to increase the contrast of colours my model was wearing. This was to increase drama in the image to make it look more eye catching and pleasing to the audience’s eye.

In addition to using Photoshop as a new technological software, I also used Illustrator in order to make my magazine logo look more unique as every magazine needs a logo to aid with its branding so people can recognise this. A benefit of using this type of software means I can create a unique logo and look for my magazine, increasing the amount of uniqueness in my magazine as a brand should have. It allows the audience to recognise the brand itself when in a shop and a logo could be the difference between catching the audience’s eye or having them just walk past it and not pick it up. However, a massive downfall of this software is the fact that for beginners, it’s very hard to use and get used to. For example, the tools to manipulate the text was very difficult to grasp, especially since you have to create so many anchor points in the letters to get the desired effect you want, even if it’s just a simple width widening. This was a big problem I encountered trying to manipulate my ‘U’ letters as the anchor points kept on hindering my ability to easily distort the letter. This could drive away people who don’t pick things up easily and could hinder their ability to add that extra quality to their products.

Another new software I used was InDesign, a software used specially to place things easily and insert text to magazines, infographics or even newspapers. This was a fairy easy to use software which allowed me to place text and images quite fluidly and move them around to see where they would best fit in terms of physical appearance and audience preference. A really big advantage of this software was the fact that it allowed me to really see the physical appearance of my magazine and unlike publisher, I could give my magazine a professional finish without just simply inserting text boxes and images. The software allowed me to insert placeholder text where my article would be on my double page spread which really helped me to see where everything would fit and what would look best. This is a huge benefit because it means I didn’t have to waste time typing in my articles and contents page cover lines just so I’d have to delete them and start over again if they didn’t fit or it didn’t look right.

However, a big disadvantage and limitation of this software is the fact that the image placing is a little complicated if you’re not used to the tools. Since the image placing has different boxes around them – one blue and one brown – it’s difficult without teaching to understand what each box does and how to use them correctly, it’s also pretty hard to try and remember that all the time too. This could yet again, drive away people who have no experience with this software, hindering the production quality of their products.

I then also have used Adobe premiere pro for some basic video editing for some of my feedback questions. This really allowed me to show the feedback I got for my magazine from people’s perspectives by interviewing them on the spot and proving that the feedback is genuine and honest for my magazine. I think it was a huge benefit for me to use this software because I could get a grips for the basic tools and controls for video editing, something that is used heavily and everywhere in the media industry, especially promotion wise. However, a huge limitation of this software is the fact that all the tools are complicated to use and it can get quite overwhelming with the amount of boxes and sections on the screen of your project. For someone who has little experience editing, it limited my ability to add any good effects to my video and show my potential in video editing as the tools weren’t simply set out or labelled on what they do. This meant I didn’t know how to use any other tool other that the ‘razor’ to cut and snip different clips together as well as inserting some text to the video too through the adding slides option which I had to ask my mentor for help with.

I think, for future products I’d like to use more of the Adobe Premiere Pro software because of how complicated it is and I feel it would really benefit me to learn about my potential in video editing and how that can help me in promoting my music magazine and other products in the media industry. I would also really like to learn how to do more complicated edits in Photoshop in order to make my products look a lot better and maybe even unrealistic if I’m creating or promoting something that’s not real such as an animation or product based on fantasy. I feel like I would also like to use a bigger range of technology in future products such as higher end camera equipment to learn how to use them and increase the quality of my products overall.

[amanikhanmedia]

UNIT G321 EVALUATION; Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back now, I feel I have grown so much in terms of versatility in using different technologies and software to create a media product. From my preliminary task, the technology I was using was basic and simple compared to what I’m using now, especially in terms of quality production.

For example; I took photos originally on my mobile phone for my preliminary task student magazine. It was low quality and grainy, not of professional standard at all. At the time I thought it looked okay until I used the higher end cannon camera to take new photos for my actual music magazine product. I learnt that quality is important and different technology can determine the quality outcome of a certain product. I also learnt that taking professional photos is much more complicated than just pointing a camera and hitting the shutter button.

We can see in the first photo I originally used for my front cover of my Student magazine it was taken on a very low resolution camera such as a phone in natural lighting that isn’t suited to the type of shot for a magazine front cover. It also isn’t the type of profession, ‘crisp’, quality a magazine front cover image should be. At the time of using this image, I didn’t think about what audience my image would be suited for, neither did I think about what kind of shot or quality is best suited for a magazine front cover like this. The quality is grainy and the model is in an awkward position for the cover, there’s also no use of professional lighting equipment as I had no idea about lighting at this time. However if we look at some of the photos I’ve recently taken after learning about conventions of a magazine and how to use professional equipment, the quality has not only improved, but my understanding of location and shot framing has increased greatly.

Even though this photo is taken in natural lighting, I chose a specific time of day to shoot it so that the lighting wasn’t too blinding or too dim which was around early evening. I now understand that lighting is important to not only make the photo look professional, but to make it look appealing too. We also see, as this is also taken outside, the camera quality is much better and less grainy than the first photo taken. I learnt that location also plays a huge part in image taking for a product of media as it depends on your targeted audience. Since I wanted to target teens, I chose an urban area that a lot of teens and young people could relate to since a lot of them may also live in cities and urban areas. My first photo was taken in a location that looked nice but seemed like it couldn’t relate a lot to the audience itself. This was how I’ve developed my understanding in location framing for photos. 

This was my student magazine contents page photo, yet again taken on a phone with low resolution quality. However, at this point of taking the photo I had some idea of what my target audience should be for a student magazine and how to target them with an image, attempting to make my model look like a model student. However, I still didn’t know much about making the photo look professional with a professional white backdrop. Here we can see I had no idea about lighting the set and how to make shadows disappear in terms of editing or through use of lighting from different directions. My understanding of this has improved vastly as we can see in the next image:

We can see use of costume to target an audience and I understood how to use lighting to light the model from all directions effectively in order to make this shot a professional candid. I also understood the importance of shot types and how each shot type can create a different feeling to the magazine. Here, this close up shot shows more details of the model, increasing relationship with the audience as it allows the audience to feel closer to the model shown by showing off more of their facial features. I also learnt that lighting equipment takes a long time to set up but it makes a big difference to the quality of photo I’m taking. I learnt and understood that quality means effort must take place and everything such as pose, target audience, lighting, and backdrop must be considered to create the perfect image for a media product, in this case - my magazine.

Professional shots need good lighting and a lot of preparation such as professional lighting and a clean backdrop setting. This kind of equipment costs a lot of money so it means the pressure to create a good product is much higher in order to make that money back too. It also takes a lot of time to set up which I didn’t initially expect.

I learnt that there’s many different types of shots such as long shots and close ups which all create a different feeling for an image. For example, I learnt that different genres of music magazine use different types of shots to create a feeling for their magazine, further contributing to the promotion of that products intended audience and genre.

I have also learnt that computer software is a big contributor to creating a professional quality product, especially since I used publisher in the beginning to create my student magazine. I only used one software in my preliminary task to create my student magazine and it shows because it only took me one class session (2 hours) to complete this. The quality is bad and it really show’s I’ve only used one software for it because of the limited editing on the image and text that has been done. For my music magazine, the different software’s have made a massive difference and you can see that since the quality is so much better due to each software having its own area of expertise. I also learnt that creating something to a professional standard of quality takes a lot more time than intended since each section of my magazine roughly took me around 2/3 weeks each, image editing and text manipulation included. The time and effort spent on it is definitely shown through the greater quality it has compared to my preliminary task.

Using a single software that’s on it’s own quite basic has major quality set backs and impacts on my media product. I didn’t know beforehand that this was the case and I thought that Publisher was the best software to use originally since it was the only software I knew about at this time. My understanding of software to edit magazine covers and other graphic design products was very limited as I was a beginner and had never done something like this before. I rushed this piece of work, thinking that I could make it look good with basic text that was already installed on the computer but that isn’t the case since I understood more into the course that thinking about every little detail is important, especially the font type and the house style I wanted to create for my magazine. My understanding of text and font and attention to detail was very limited, especially in terms of placement of text since in this first student mock up, my text was just thrown onto the page where I thought it would look nice. Text placement is important to draw the audience’s attention and I now understand that as we can see in my final draft of my music magazine below.

Here we can see that I’ve kept a font type style of sans-serif all the way throughout my cover as it not only suits my targeted audience, but it keeps the magazine looking professional and clean. Not only are the font type the same style, but there’s about four different fonts on this page. They were all downloaded off custom font sites so I could see which one suited the theme of my magazine the best. I also asked my audience which fonts appealed the most to them in order to find out more about font type and what my audience liked the most. I realised that visual appeal is the most important factor for a music magazine and using different software in combination can really help to achieve this as each software has a different purpose and tools I can use.

Adobe Illustrator, for example, was a software I understood to add a splash of uniqueness to a media product as it could be used to make logos and custom fonts. The tools, I found out, were quite hard to use and get used to but I understood that the effort put in contributed to the overall quality of my magazine in the end. Creating a unique style and brand for a media product became apparent to me through using this software as it meant that the audience can distinguish and recognize your own media product’s brand in a market that’s increasingly becoming saturated with lots of media products every day.  It allows audiences to differentiate what they want to read as these custom logos and products are tailored to appeal to a specific audience and this is made very apparent through the use of this kind of software.

I realised that having an audience to target is very important in terms of deciding the content of my product and how I should lay it out since a target audience has very specific beneficiaries and preferences. Beforehand, I thought I could just choose an age group to target and that would be it but now I understand there is much more to it in terms of finding out the specific stereotypes and needs of that audience in order to create my whole magazine based around them and to draw them in specifically. I now understand that each target audience is very different regarding social class, ethnicity and age. There’s more than just age in a target audience and everything needs to be taken into consideration because it means targeting a lower social class could mean a product could be more informal or have less quality compared to a very high quality product produced for a higher social class.

I also understand that magazines aren’t just created and put on a shelf. A lot of magazines are owned by companies that are either corporations or conglomerates and the type of company they are under can impact a magazine heavily in terms of what content it can publish and the rights it has. For example – corporations produce more niche audience targeted magazines because they have more freedom to do what they was as they own themselves whereas magazines under a company owned by a big conglomerate have more restriction on what they can publish and are generally targeted towards a more mainstream audience as they are often trying to bring in as much money and profit as possible. 

However, it also means that conglomerate owned magazines have more access to general things they can publish as conglomerates own multiple companies that have business deals with other companies, allowing the magazines owned to freely publish content from those deals without having to ask for permission unlike corporation owned magazine brands. This is because of the amount of companies and brands under a single company, Time Warner being a very big example. They own the big brands such as Warner Brothers and HBO which then in turn own smaller, more specific companies that then target niche audiences. This helped my understanding of why so many magazines are under big conglomerates and why this may be a good thing for them as it means they can publish much more content from their sister companies part of the big conglomerate.

Through this, I now understand my own personal weaknesses and strengths because I can see what I am generally good at in terms of making a product and what I need to work on. One thing I have understood about my skills is that I’m a perfectionist and if something doesn’t look professional, it’s not good enough for me because during the InDesign stages, I would spend hours in school and at home rearranging my magazine sections to see what looked best and what was better for my intended target audience. This can both be a weakness and strength because not only does it mean I have a good sense for making something look of high quality, but it means my products will all have a high quality outcome, good for attracting an audience I want to target. However, the negative comes into the fact that maybe I spend too much time on a section that doesn’t need so much work put into it such as the text sizing and colour scheme. This could really put me under pressure when deadlines approach and I haven’t completed something due to me trying to make it as high standard as it could be when maybe it doesn’t need to be.

Another strength of mine I understood was my ability to pick up software tools quite fast and easily such as Photoshop. Although it took me a while to remember everything, I picked up the simple edits really fast and was able to do it quite easily with the third image I edited. This is a huge strength for me in this industry as it means I can pick up skills and things needed in the industry to quickly create and distribute products when needed. It also means I’m versatile in different software, a huge hiring skill in this industry as new technology is always being used and is always needed as quality production constantly increases.

[amanikhanmedia]

UNIT G321 EVALUATION; Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract/address your audience?

Here is the link to the presentation if it does not load: https://prezi.com/view/ibVs7V4VoMTWO7wilc2n

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UNIT G321 EVALUATION; What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Click Keep Reading to see the script:

Amani Khan - G321 Evaluation Question 3

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

If I were to have my music magazine published by a corporation or conglomerate, I would choose Bauer Media, a conglomerate which owns over 50 radio and TV stations as well as 600+ magazine brand names. The reason for choosing this is because of the vast number of digital media and big name brands they own such as free radio, heat and kiss FM, all of which are mainstream music radio stations.

The fact they own these mainstream music stations makes it very good for my magazine to be published by them as it means they will have links to others in that industry, meaning my magazine could have exclusive content from the industry and have more artists from the mainstream music scene interviewed for my magazine. I feel like having my magazine brand owned and published by a conglomerate would also mean I could freely include more content since companies within the conglomerate would allow me to publish the content they put out as well as create and it would mean more companies and more business relations could mean I could include a lot more content from other companies outside the conglomerate too without having to ask for permission.

Since the company also owns various music magazines such as Q magazine, Kerrang and Mojo, Mojo being more mainstream music orientated, it could mean good things for my magazine as it could allow me to collaborate with them for information and content as well as have my magazine brand name featured in their magazine as part of a conglomerate deal. This would work well for promotion and having my magazine reach a widespread audience through use of companies within the conglomerate.

I think from this conglomerate, what would work extremely well in terms of promotion, would be the creation of a music TV channel as they have done with most of their other music brands. Kiss for example, as a mainstream music brand, has a TV channel and now radio station too. This has been done for Kerrang magazine too which now has a radio station and TV channel promoting their genre of music. Having a radio station or music channel created for my magazine under this conglomerate would mean a highly successful and widespread promotion campaign to get my magazine attention and an audience.

Another way they could promote it would be to host a music festival or event under the name of my magazine to celebrate its launch and since this is a big company with radio stations under it, the radio stations could easily host this event which a lot of people would come to as it would be advertised on the radio, especially since it’s mainstream radio such as Kiss FM or Free Radio.

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UNIT G321 EVALUATION; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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MUSIC MAGAZINE; FINISHED PRODUCT PHOTOS. FIRST PHOTO - FRONT COVER SECOND PHOTO - CONTENTS PAGE THIRD AND FOURTH PHOTOS - DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

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Production Log; Week Beginning 03/04/17

In this week, I focused on tweaking and improving my contents page through the feedback I have received.

Here is a before picture of my contents page from my final first draft;

Here is the finished product with the improvements taken place;

For the improvements, I first of all lined the bottom of the image up with the contents grid so it looked cleaner and more professional. Then I took the article headlines and put them in a different font to the article descriptions so they stood out more as the actual headlines. I then changed the colour of the article headlines to white so they stood out as headlines instead. This suggestion was made by my teacher which I took on and implicated into my contents page.

From my audience feedback, people said how the article descriptions weren’t that readable so I increased the width between the article description characters in order to separate the characters more and make it easier to read. I also deleted some lines of the article descriptions in order to make it look less cluttered and yet again - easier to read.

I also took the feedback from my teacher and played around with the size of the page number ‘22′. I enlarged it to fit more into the picture because of how large the picture was compared to how large the page number originally was. Doing this makes the number look like it belongs on the page more and doesn’t look so lost in the scale of the big image it’s on top of.

I also changed the page number of the contents page to ‘3′ because of how pop magazine contents pages usually start on page 3 anyway because of how they have adverts or editors pages before hand. This is following pop magazine conventions closely.

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Production Log; Week Beginning 27/03/17

This week I focused on improving my double page spread and basing these improvements off the feedback I have received.

Here is a before picture of my double page spread from my final first draft;

Here is the finished product with the improvements taken place;

First of all, I decided to swap around the placement of the two pages, having the picture of the model be on the left hand side instead of the right because it generally looks better and looking at most pop magazines, this is how their double page spreads are set out too so I’m following those conventions.

I then took the feedback about how my double page spread article page looked cluttered and unreadable through the body text. I changed the headings and titles around, having the title of the article move to the left hand page (image page) in order to loosen up the article page a bit as well as fill the awkward space in the image page since it looked very empty compared to how much was on the article page. On the image page, I also exchanged the puff for a more simple, stylistic way of text design. This was to open up the text a lot more as feedback I had gotten back suggested that the puff looked lost in the large space given to it. It looked out of place before and not properly part of the page. Now it looks integrated and much cleaner.

Next, I enlarged the images in the article as the feedback I got said how they looked out of place and maybe enlarging them would make them look more belonging. Now they look part of the article and are also easier to see.

The feedback I got about the text was people saying how it looked really informal and unreadable. I looked up body text used in magazines and chose one more fitting for an article as well as changing the size to make it fit into the box better. I also cut down some of the text so there looks like there’s less text and more space. It makes the body text look less cluttered and clashed.

Lastly, I also changed the text of the block quotes to make them smaller and look much more integrated into the article instead of standing out obnoxiously. This allows the whole article to flow better in terms of typography and style.

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Production Log; Week Beginning 20/03/17

This week, I have focused on improving and making tweaks to my front cover magazine page from the feedback I have received from both my questionnaire, focus group interviews and teacher feedback.

Here is a before picture of my magazine from my final first draft;

Here is the finished product with the improvements taken place;

First of all, I changed the ‘LIVA REONA’ text to stand more out from the background by adding a small drop shadow in a different colour. This was feedback from my teacher in order to make the main coverline stand out and ‘pop’ from the background. It works well and shows that this is the main cover-line and focus of the magazine. It also works in showing the audience how the model is the name of that cover-line.

Next, I took the advice from my teacher and rearranged the cover-lines on the left hand side by enlarging the text of the ‘Wamps’ coverline and moving all the cover-lines round a bit in order to make the spacing look less awkward and fill more of the empty space there. It previously interrupted the flow of typography but now it looks clean and flows well together.

On the right hand side, I also added some more cover-lines in order to make the typography flow better and also fill the empty awkward space. It looks more like a pop magazine now as general conventions of a pop magazine often include many cover-lines to show the audience the broad contents of the magazine at first glance.

I also added the bar-code at the bottom with the date, price and a message saying that it’s a subscription based magazine along with the issue number and website for the magazine. This style of bar-code with information looks much cleaner and easy to read the information provided alongside it.

I didn’t have much feedback for the magazine cover to change it so I followed most of the feedback given by my teacher to improve it and make it look cleaner and more professional.

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Music Magazine Focus Group Feedback

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Music Magazine Audience Feedback Questionnaire Responses

Mostly from the feedback, I found out that I need to change the font on the double page spread as it doesn’t fit with the rest of the magazine that much as well as it being quite hard to read.

The font in the contents page is also quite unreadable, I need to cut down on the amount of articles there are on the contents page as well as the amount of writing there is for each article title. This will make it easier to read. I may also make the font a little bigger to make it easier to read. The colour may be changed too since they said that it being white against a grey background makes it quite hard to read.

Overall,the colour scheme seems to get the point across that it’s a pop magazine. I may make the purple a little brighter though in order to make it pop with the bright colours a little more.

Most the fonts seem to bode well with the audience too, it’s just the contents page and the double page spread fonts that don’t seem to fit that well at the moment.

For the double page spread font, I may change it to something more formal and direct to make it fit with the rest of the magazine. I may also make things smaller as well as remove a couple things to make the page look a lot less cluttered. This would make it easier to read but also fit more with my magazine’s modern/minimalist theme.

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Music Magazine FIRST DRAFT Feedback Questionnaire

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Music Magazine; First Draft Finished Photos. First Photo - Front Cover Second Photo - Contents Page Third and Fourth Photos - Double Page Spread

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Production Log; Week Beginning 20/02/17

This week I used Indesign and Photoshop to piece together my contents page as well as add the finishing touches to my other first draft pages.

First of all I used Photoshop to edit the main image on my contents page;

Before;

After; 

In the editing process, I removed blemishes on her face with the spot healing tool as well as removing creases in her jeans to make them look more pristine and clean. I increased the saturation and brightness on her coat in order to make it pop more and stand out rather than looking bland. I also used the spot healing tool to clean up some of the stray hairs on her head to make it look more clean. I also used the dodge and burn tools to add slight contour to her face in order to make it look more defined. I also used these tools to make the door pop more and look less dirty than it was before. This makes the background look a lot better and much more professional.

Here’s the first progress picture from my contents page;

First of all, the header is the word ‘CONTENTS’ in order to show the reader that this is the contents page and it’s the main source to locate the different pages and find out briefly what is on them.

I’ve also included the logo of the magazine on the contents page as it’s a generic convention of pop music magazines, allowing the reader to identify the brand in which they are reading.

The colour scheme is the same as the cover in order to keep a house style, the fonts are also the same as the cover to keep the magazine looking clean and well put together throughout. They’re all sans serif fonts to keep it looking modern and it’s also the type of fonts that were liked most in my questionnaire.

I’ve had the main image take up half of the page as it’s a generic convention of pop music magazines to have the main article artist be the main focus of the contents page as they are also the main image on the front cover most of the time. This is to not confuse the audience and to make it clear what the main subject of that issue is.

The article subheadings will be divided into categories for the audience, making it easier for them to navigate the type of articles they want to read in the magazine. The articles will also be numbered in order in their categories to give it organisation and clarity to the structure of the articles.

Here is my final first draft of my contents page;

As you can see, I’ve added in the page number of the article relating to the main image in a bigger font in order to make it clear what article the image relates to. This is another generic convention of music magazines I have followed. I have also added in the page number, issue number, and logo into the bottom right corner just like I have done on the other pages (except for the front cover).

I’ve also added in a pug which displays a giveaway opportunity which many other pop magazines have as a ‘win’ opportunity for readers. This draws readers into wanting to buy the magazine so they can take part in the competition.

I moved the ‘contents’ logo and the magazine logo itself to better fit the page and also so I could fit in the top line of text (skyline) to give the reader extra information about the magazine and what issue it is.

[amanikhanmedia]

Production Log; Week Beginning 12/02/17

This week I’ve been working on my double page spread and working on trying to get it finished.

This was my first progress picture;

Here I made the artists name the most prominent thing on the page, being the header of the article. It’s in bold writing to draw attention to it and allow the audience to understand this is the main subject of the article. It is also her name because an image of the artist is on the other page, taking up the whole page to further make it obvious that the article is all about her - a pop artist.

The minimalist grey, black and white scheme is generic of pop magazine conventions as it is quite modern and mainstream looking. I decided to add the title of the article as a subheading in a different font and colour as well as layering it over her name in order to make it look quite unique as well as make the subheading stand out against the grey background.

I started to write in the main article body, having it printed on a rectangle that’s a slightly lighter colour than the main background which makes the main body stand out against the grey background too. The white font in the article makes it obvious that it’s the interviewer speaking instead of the artist which makes it a lot clearer for the audience to read.

In the bottom right hand corner, I’ve placed the magazine’s logo to keep a house style and brand flow throughout the magazine as well as putting the issue number and page number to make it look more professional and also since it’s quite generic for pop magazines to have this in their magazines too.

I decided to have two photos within the middle of the article in order to make the article look a lot less wordy and stop it from intimidating the readers. It breaks up the text a little bit more.

For both pictures, I used Photoshop to edit them a little bit by increasing exposure in each and increasing the saturation in the models jacket to make it stand out a little more.

I didn’t fully edit them both since they’re only secondary images and aren’t seen as much as the main image.

Before;

After;

Before;

After;

Here is the finished draft of my double page spread;

Here we can see that I added in an introductory paragraph to quickly introduce the article and show the reader what the article is about on the front foot. This is a generic convention of a pop music magazine. I also added in a skyline in the top right hand corner of the magazine, aimed to draw the readers attention as well as filling empty and awkward space. I also added in a pug to the left page, filling space and also showing the readers that the article is only exclusive to my magazine, making it unique and different to the other magazines on the market. I’ve kept to a monochrome colour scheme on the page to prevent it from looking too cluttered and also prevent it from looking like a teen magazine since this is more of a modern structured pop magazine.

In the bottom left on the left page I’ve also added in the footer which is the issue number, page number, and magazine logo. This keeps a house style and keeps a theme running through the entire magazine, reminding the reader constantly what magazine they’re reading. This is also another generic convention of pop magazines I’ve followed.

In the article, I’ve added in two block-quotes in order to split up the article and make it seem a lot less than there actually is. This is to engage the reader and to not frighten them away with the amount of text there actually is in the article. The block-quotes also highlight key/interesting things the artist has said within the article.

[amanikhanmedia]

Production log; Week Beginning 06/02/17

This week I finished my magazine front cover’s first draft.

Again, I used In Design to piece together my front cover draft.

To finish it, I used the text tool to place text to make my headings and cover stories, using a couple of custom fonts I’d found off the website ‘DaFont’ that corresponded with my magazine theme. This was also to make my magazine look more unique rather than using the defult fonts already in the programme.

I only used 3 fonts for the main text to keep a theme going and make it look clean, but with variety too so the magazine didn’t look too mundane and boring. I also placed a barcode on my magazine cover in the ‘dead area’ (bottom left hand corner) as it’s of little importance and not many people should pay attention to it.

I also added a drop shadow to my logo to make it stand out more as the masthead and draw people’s attention to it, making them understand that that is the brand of my magazine.

My main cover story is in the largest writing and in a space on it’s own in the ‘terminal area’ which is where the readers natural line of sight will follow to and when they leave the page, it will be the last thing they think of which will leave a lasting impression on the reader.

I also changed the main cover story’s font to a sans serif block font to make it stand out more and fit in with the rest of my magazine’s theme.

I also placed the issue number date and the magazine’s website at the bottom of the barcode as it isn’t that important but included it still because it’s part of the brand.

I also added a pug to fill up empty space and add character to my cover too.

Here’s the progress and first draft of my magazine front cover;