Coursework evaluation

Damola Rahaman Salami

My Planning and preparation The initial stage of my preparation starts with myself just listening to music and reading a lot of music magazines both online and in hard copy. This allowed me to be able to pick which genre I would like to base my magazine around, these genres were Hip-Hop and R&B. I analysed various types of magazines, even ‘Kerrang!’, Although this is a completely different genre to what I have picked, I felt that I could bring various elements into my magazine to make it diverse. The main magazines that I analysed thoroughly were: ‘VIBE’, ‘Billboard’ and ‘XXL’ Magazine. My reason for picking these 3 magazines are because, they are one of the most popular music magazines known worldwide, the magazines are mostly read by teenagers and between the ages of 16-25 years old, they give exclusive interviews on well known Hip-Hop and R&B artists both old and new. In a more visual aspect, I really liked the colour schemes, language, images and the clever anchorage texts used and how well thought put the placements were to attract the audience. I used the conventional masthead behind the image style, that covers the full width of the magazine. The artist is looking directly at the camera, which is also conventional.

I liked the idea of having the idea of just a singular image on the front so I did too. Also the amount of cover lines that I put to my front cover was averaged from each magazine, so I could understand what the difference was between giving the right amount and quality of information to keep the audience hooked and just making it look like a magazine.

The idea of having either, black, white or red for the masthead that juxtaposes with the background making the masthead look stronger was inspiration from these magazines. Also from ‘VIBE’ magazine, I decided to have a skyline . Rhapsody

Front Cover Research I decided to base my magazine on well known genres, so it would be hard to think of what to name my magazine, how I should lay it out, what pictures to take e.t.c in order to differentiate my magazine from other Hip-Hop and R&B magazines. One thing I notice that I really liked from ‘Billboard’ magazine is that they are able to emit a sense of class, this lead to me making the name Rhapsody. The definition for this is an effusively enthusiastic or ecstatic expression of feeling, in relation to the music industry it means a Rhapsody in music is a one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. My aim was to converge these different meanings of the word, and elevate the elegance that comes from within the word. ‘VIBE’ and ‘XXL’ magazine have very short mastheads, ‘VIBE’s is very large and wide, as opposed to ‘XXL’s which has 1 less letter and small, the font makes it look even smaller but it works well, I looked into this deeply to see if I can mix both wide a small elements of each magazine. Both magazines also have very high contrast against any background, this is also better helped by the simple layout and structure of the magazines, it is not too congested, I did not what that because it takes away the elegance.

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My Front Cover My magazine’s theme colours are red, whit, black and grey. I used these because it makes it easier and more possible to create high contrasts between them, my front cover also incorporates the 3 main magazines that I analysed, it has a bright red masthead covering the full width of the magazine like both ‘VIBE’ and ‘Billboard, I kept with the slim fonts of ‘XXL’ and ‘Billboard’ and to emphasise on the elegance that I wanted I used the Monotype Corsiva font . The sell line helps tell the audience what my magazine’s aim is. On my magazine I also added a skyline on my magazine to highlight some well known artists to boost the popularity of my magazine as the audience will be attracted to know and read about either their favourite or a well known artist. The skyline is written in white which is a conventional colour in most magazines, and I used red slashes to separate the artists. This particular Idea for the colour scheme was inspired from ‘XXL’ magazine, it is a common feature on the magazines front cover(see pg. 2). The main headline also has this separation, along with strong quotes of what the artist has said so the audience will be tempted to buy and read what has been said. The cover lines on my magazine are placed on the left-third, this is conventional in a majority of music magazines, it is well organised and each have a red heading, to keep within the colour scheme, the artist is purposely wearing red lipstick and had red nails to keep with the scheme also. However, on the right –third I there is more of a mixture of the colours of those within and out of the scheme. The ones out of the scheme will draw an attention to read, the circle contains information on the which other famous artists are topping charts, the ‘+’also draws attention as it is not a letter. It gives informs about which songs the audience should listen to, buy or download.

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Contents Page Research What grasps my attention the most about the content pages are that the most front covers like 'VIBE' can have the simplest of contents pages as well to stay consistent, it looks almost empty. I believe that it gives the reader and audience the ease they need in order to feel comfortable reading the magazine, as there is not too much to swallow as soon as the page is opened. I liked the subtlety of the outlined ‘V’ and how the artist draws attention to it by having her legs in a ‘V’ as well. The title for each contents page are large and bold to catch the eye of the reader and by having large numbers, keywords or important features in bold allows it to juxtapose s with the background to also catch the eye. 'Billboard' with an easy front cover a majority of the time has a more compact contents page with a lot more writing. The illusion from the front page that portrayed the simplicity, has given the magazine the ability to lure the audience in bringing the comfort first and the seriousness second, also being helped with the modern aspects of having the website of the magazine in the magazine. However, 'XXL' remains simple all round, the magazine delivers the comfort all round and if need be, the magazine also has the ability to be more complicated throughout also. This particular contents page follows conventions of using columns and keeping with the traditional style contents page. What I would like my contents page to have is what 'XXL' and 'Vibe' have, to bring that simplicity and comfort to my magazine consistently, bring a lot of modern aspects of 'Billboard' to stay engaged with the possible younger audience as well.

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My Contents Page My contents page plays on the styles of both ‘VIBE’ and ‘XXL’, this is instantly noticed through the title. ‘The IN-side’ is inspired from ‘XXL’, the reason why it is called the inside is because it dissects the magazine and pours it in on one page, also the ‘IN’ is and emphasise on allowing the audience in to be on a personal level with the artists, stories and of course the magazine. By having the ‘features’ red it helps highlights the importance of the articles in the magazine, there is a use of bold writing for each subheading with a red coloured number to be distinct and so the reader knows clearly which pages which article is located and also to follow on with the consistency of the colour scheme. Although small, the people who part take in the making of the article are highlighted just like ‘VIBE’ magazine, not only to give praise to them but to also let other people know that these type of people do great work and informs the audience that my magazine sees not only artists but everyone as important, it brings the artists and the audience on the same level. This again is to make the audience feel comfortable and on an equal and personal level. Also from ‘VIBE’, I used the outlined style of the ‘V’ in to my magazine to have the grey faded ‘R’. This I felt would make my magazine look better and develop in looking even more like a magazine, I also felt that it would help elevate the elegance of my magazine through the font I used for both the ‘R’ and ‘features’, the flowers I used as borders to keep the readers focus between them, creates the elegance for the page in continuation from the front cover. Also in the ‘C’ eye flow positions, and through the well thought out pose of the artist. By having the crossed legs and letting the long hair flow downwards like a waterfall give the Idea of elegance.

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Double Page Spread Research There is a conventional layout for a series of magazines whereby there is an image on one page and the text on the other laid out between 2-4 columns. The image shows the artist’s character first hand and secondly through the content of the article. A double page spread depicts more than one meaning, regardless of subtlety of the poses, it allows the audience to get on a personal level with the artist. The double page spread on the bottom centre is of the artist Lupe Fiasco, the image of him already sets the theme of the double page spread by his pose and what he is wearing. I liked this double page because it looks clean and very well organised, there aren’t too many colours on the page so it is easy on the eye and it is consistent from left to right. I also like how when the paragraph is in white and the gold colour would highlight the importance of a word or paragraph, this also happens when the colours are inverted. On the bottom left and right, there is a Q&A style layout on the double page spreads, this allows an even more personal feel as the audience may have had possible questions that they would have liked to have known answered. It also makes the page neater and I feel that more can be written about the artist in this layout, for my magazine I think it is better for to have an article with the artist than alone. My magazine will follow this conventional codes are going to be present as I feel that it will help with the engagement of my audience and truly highlight my subject. Although not all conventional details have been analysed, I will add a faded logo placed behind my article so my artist does not wash away my magazine and so the name of my magazine will stay fresh within the readers mind subliminally.

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My Double Page Spread My double page spread has a very simple layout with 3 columns, it is on a plan background so that the colours and text stand out more like in ‘VIBE’ and occasionally ‘Billboard’. For my article it has questions and answers, I thought it made my page look more organised and again to give a personal feel to my magazine. Adding on to this, the title on my double page spread, is what a majority of what the audience would like to have answered. There is a very attractive quote that is the same size as the title to attract, the font used for this quote is also different to the title but is the same for the masthead on the front cover and the questions on this double page spread, this also to keep consistency and stays within the colour themes and brings about the elegance looking to be constantly created. This is also helped by the addition of my logo faded behind the texts of the article. The images used are of the artist in a very comfortable zone and is engaged with the audience through out all the pictures, again to have the personal feeling. The comfort of the image compliments the comfort within the article, I purposely made these subtle links so that it’ll have a better and powerful effect on the reader.

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In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? ‘Rhapsody’ uses the forms and conventions of real music magazines through its layout, consistency and content. It has the conventional style of having a bright masthead behind the image, regardless if it is behind, it is still the first thing that we see and although most masthead fonts are bold and straight, my magazine challenges the convention a little by having a different font. Underneath my masthead I had a sell line that reads ‘Bringing elegance to music..’ I decided this because I wanted to make a magazine that goes beyond that of normal magazines, wanted to bring elegance because I felt that Hip-Hop and R&B can be classy. There is also a skyline on my magazine, a lot of magazines have these and I felt it would help if my magazine had the same. My magazine is a fusion of ‘Billboard’, ‘VIBE’ and ‘XXL’, containing all its conventional codes. Also developing on the forms and conventions of a magazine I added a puff that gives the reader a short list of artists that not only are on top of the charts but are also associated with my magazine both presently and in the future. To make sure that the audience is engaged and reader to read further into my magazine I also added a ‘+’ to help the audience know that these are the kind of tips my magazine gives every issue and could resuscitate their playlists. My anchorage text is the second large sized text on my magazine so it attracts the reader, but having it a different colour to my masthead allows it to draw its own attention once the masthead has been read, it placed centre near the bottom straight on the image with a strap line to support it both top and bottom, I feel that this is well placed as it gives my magazine a ‘C’ style eye flow which will lead the reader to the right, making it more likely to have the page turned. On my contents page, I used a flower at the corners to make a border, this is conventional in some other magazines that I haven’t mentioned, it helps keep the focus on the text between them. It also has the conventional faded logo behind the text to keep the audience alert to what magazine they are reading or about to purchase, it also has the date at the bottom of the page which is also conventional . However, my title challenges the conventional style of having the page being called ‘Contents’, I called it ‘The-IN-side’ to purposely to make my magazine different than the normal. There is also a conventional letter ‘C’ eye flow on this page to direct the audience to the next page, I feel that it is fair to say that my contents page overall develops the forms and conventions of real media products.

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Continued.. My double page spread develops on the conventions of a magazine, it has a simple layout and is very similar to how other magazines would have their double page spreads, this way is better and more organised. It has a conventional title placement, having 2-4 columns and a quote from within the article place in-between the columns, it could be placed anywhere as long as it is appropriate and the article can still be read without any problems. There is also a conventional logo on the page, this is a feature that appears in a majority of magazines and if not the magazine’s logo, it is something that relates to the artist. There is definitely a random order that can be followed on this page, there are no purposeful placements in order to get an eye flow going, this has been done because it is a relaxed page and all seriousness have been removed to have an easier feel and read of the article.

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How does your media product represent social groups? My magazine represents people who have an interest in Hip-Hop and R&B, both male and female. Although my magazine is all about elegance, It is for everybody, no upper or lower class because my magazine is not about subjecting the people. It is about music, everyone listens to music therefore there is no need for separate categories. I have developed a magazine for the ages I felt the majority of my audience would be that are interested in the genre of music and my magazine style as It is more realistic if an 18 year old loves the genre and my magazine than a 40 or 50 year old person. To attract these ages my front cover contains features that they would like that informs them on what are in the present, everyone wants to be current. The emphasis on elegance is so that even the ‘street’ style people can feel classy and music is not all about jeans and hoodies, although my subject wears this inside my magazine, it serves a purpose, that purpose was to allow a more easy feeling for the audience because the people in the social group are very busy and likely to feel under pressure form many areas of life, so all in all I feel like that is the breather. The elegance is brought back through my subjects poses. There is a few use of colloquial language in my magazine, on my contents page there are sub headings titled ‘HOMECOMIN’’& ‘Stupid H*E’, I felt this will help to represent the young audience because the younger audience always use shorter ways of saying words and to hide bad words, mostly seen in text messages. I also used word play in a sub heading ‘How did he Guetta?’, to get the attention of the audience and to allow them to have some fun with the magazine at the same time, with this I used symbols such as ‘*’ and ‘!’ to also make it playful. In the double page is a fun page full of informal and colloquial language excluding the questions, for my target groups this is also good, easier to read and relate to. Although the colour scheme is dark, there is still that bright red that is present on every page. Red has many meanings, such as love, anger, power etc. I thought that red would be a powerful enough colour with a youthful element to represent both genders and the ‘hype’ that comes with young adults. A magazine that relates to this the most is ‘XXL’ because although not all the time, they are able to use dull colour to attract young adults also.

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What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Bauer is a well known well established UK company with a lot of customers, they have built a strong foundation and running for over 25 years, with a readership of over 19 million people in the UK alone, bearing in mind that they publish worldwide. There are

locations in countries like Germany, USA, Nigeria, most of Europe and Asia. Bauer also increase their worldwide distribution through television and radio. They are also known to publish already famous and well known magazines such as ‘MOJO’, ‘Kerrang!’ and ‘Q’ magazine. ‘Q’ Magazine is not a Hip-Hop magazine but it has a aim for a classier audience and there is a sense of elegance in the magazine also, the fact that the magazine is published by Bauer shows that Bauer have a good knowledge of handling magazines similar to my own, where to distribute and direct the magazine to and through the best medium.

I believe that Bauer will be a good publishing house for my magazine because they are UK's biggest publishing group, they have various mediums that they can use to distribute and publish magazines. Bauer being a large company in a country of technological advancement is exactly what I feel will be needed for my magazine to abuse such possibilities.

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Who would be the target audience for your media product? My music magazine will be aimed at 16-20 year old, who enjoy listening to Hip-Hop and R&B. My audience will be the type of people who indulge in buying name brands such as Armani, Levi, Voi Jeans etc., they have very good general knowledge on not just music but media on a whole. People who are able to use technology well and kept up to date with what is happening around them in terms of media. A group classified as young adults, who have a mature sense and are able to handle and accept what my magazine will give out occasionally, like formal language, even darker colours and maybe possible introduction or recognition of other genres. My audience will also be very open minded and are able to analyse and pick up what links I have made and how good it is for the magazine.

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Things that represent my target audience

*Note: not to be interpreted as high classed audience, it is people who indulge in buying things such as these.

How did you attract your audience? By using a young female on my front cover, it attract the male and female audience between the ranges of 16-25, this is because naturally males are attracted to females and because some females may see themselves in the model or aspire to be like the model it terms of style or beauty. I also placed components to make them eye catching, like puffs to get the attention of the reader, the skyline place right above the masthead cannot be missed and the sell line right below. It will make the reader wonder how I will be ‘bringing elegance to music..’ and therefore have them wanting more to view the progress.

I made a questionnaire on zoomerang to know the audience’s interests, one particular question that I asked that got a lot of yes to was ‘Other than music, would you have anything else you would put in a music magazine?’, I instantly thought of adding sports and fashion to my magazine for both genders and this also made me add a QR code on the bottom left of my magazine. This allows quick and easy subscription and enters the reader into a competition for a prize to do with and without music, like free holidays for 2. On the bottom right, adjacent to one of the sides of the barcode I have added a website that can be visited, which the audience can use if they do not want to have a subscription but want to enter competitions from there, also on the site there are other topics and articles that do not have any relation to music, so it can entice many different tastes.

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

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I used a Nikon camera to capture my images, I learnt that there are many different factors that will either add an effect to the picture or affect the image. These factors were the shot distance and resolution, mise-en-scene and the concept behind the images. An image can be taken without any thought, but it won’t be as effective as an image with a concept and purpose. It took a lot of time to think of and take the appropriate type of photos. I also had the option to use props which I did to add that extra bit of effect. The shot distance and angles are something to think about deeply when creating a concept, this will also give your subject a stronger presence. The distance will also affect the lighting as well so it needs to be planned thoroughly. To get different ranges in shot distance, I either used the zoom function on my camera or I stepped closer to my model. For my front cover specifically I noticed that a majority of magazines have a medium-close up(head and torso) of an artist(s), so I felt that this would help my magazine to a certain degree. I had to edit a few pictures using Photoshop, this had to be done to remove backgrounds, make the images sharper and or fix components of an image. Over a hundred shots were taken in total and I ended up using 5 of just 1 subject. I had a large selection to choose from, this is always key as concepts and ideas may change. I constructed the mise-en-scene at different places, I stated how I wanted the subject(s) to pose , wear, where they should stand/sit and even the little intricate placements such as how the fingers on the hand should be aligned.

Photos

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Continued..(Photoshop) I have learnt a few skills in addition to my previous knowledge of Photoshop. Although I did not use all that I learnt, it is always good to know new things, and with technology changing and advancing, knowledge is everything. My model’s skin tone was too bright in certain areas especially the hair, so I used the burn tool to darken some facial areas and hair. I later used the smudge tool to make the hair smoother. The magic wand and magnetic lasso tool are similar and were useful in separating the model from the back ground and to place the masthead behind the model after duplicating the layer first. I was able to create new layers and used the healing brush tool and spot healing tool. I held Alt to click the clean area and paint over it. I this is done to reduce lines under the eyes, to take off shine and give an even cleaner finish. The ordering of the layers are very important because all parts must be seen and it is possible to lose focus and not realise that something is missing because it has been layered on top, it also helps to set the layers in groups e.g. a text group and image group. Adjustments to some pictures were made, some were cropped with the crop tool to crop away unwanted edges, I used the transform tool(ctrl + T)to change the scale of the images also. It was always vital to keep track of what steps were taken and to keep organised so I opened the history window on the side to allow me the opportunity to click back to a previous point when a mistake had been made or just didn’t like the end product. It is also vital to make sure that I had constantly saved my work.

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Continued..(Social Media) I also learnt how to create a survey on zoomerang, where anyone in the world can take part in filling out my questionnaire. I printed sheets and sheets of my survey to be filled out and in order to widen the range of answers, I sent e-mails to some of my contacts on Hotmail and distributed my questionnaire over social media, on Facebook, Twitter and I sent a broadcast message on my Blackberry to direct people to my survey. This is more assuring to gain a wider range of results as both young and old characters in society as using social media enables to ability to connect to people, businesses and more.

In addition to the things I have learnt, I had to make a blog on blogger to display my work digitally and graphically, I thought this was really cool having never done something like creating a page that can be viewed buy many, and recognised on Google. To add my work onto the blog I had to make an account on Slideshare as well to make it possible to put a PowerPoint style slide show on the blog.

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Continued..(Audience Feedback) Due to the answers from the survey and feedback about my magazine, I learnt to always have an open mind because their replies may spark new ideas. I received answers to my question (‘Would you buy my magazine?, if so why?’)such as: ‘Yes, because it has the right amount of text, the colour scheme is good and overall it looks interesting,’.(Sasha, 17) ‘Yes, because it is sold for a reasonable price, I’d charge more because it looks of a higher quality’.(Amrit, 18) ‘No, there are no pictures of any male figures, so at first sight I wouldn’t know if it was unisex magazine and I don’t really like the genre’.(Romeo, 18) ‘Yes, it is very eye-catching, I love the stories and the article on the artist, very impressive’.(Jack, 15)

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Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? For both my preliminary task and my magazine, there is a sense of my trademark designing and in both of them, through the similar layout and amount of content. However, there are numerous ways in which my skills have helped me improve from my preliminary task to my final magazine piece. The most noticeable difference is that my preliminary task was made on publisher, using just basic knowledge of what a school paper should be like. To blur the background I had to use Picnik, in addition I used bright vibrant colours so that It can be eye-catching. It also breaks conventions like the masthead is usually and supposed to be at the top but it is place on the bottom. Now, I have created a piece that follows codes and conventions, contains a better image, a well thought out image that comes with a concept and serves a purpose. I have added other things that would be useful in order to have my magazine purchased(Barcode, QR code) and able to attract my audience through competitions, what they should listen to etc. Whereas my preliminary task didn’t have any thing that will attract definitely.

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Continued...(Contents) The information on in my preliminary task appears to have been drowned out buy the images because the images are really big and the information is small, making the lefts-third look congested, the black and white background that I tried to add behind everything does not compliment or help at all in the contents page. The information can’t be read and the background can’t be seen itself. My magazine contents page however, is less congested with images and has more detail in giving information to the audience about what is to come on the inside. It also has more space to allow it to be admired and my final piece has it’s own brand/logo, making it mine, where as the task is for the college. The magazine contents page has a consistent colour scheme, a clean layout and it looks more professional with the additions of people who were involved in my magazine, the date, website etc. What I aimed to do in order to improve my work is to elevate the quality to have a cleaner piece, I aimed and achieved it. All in all I feel that without my previous skills and new found/learnt skills, the making of my magazine would not have been as successful and at to the point it is now.

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