G Star Evaluation

G-STAR MAGAZINE

EVALUATION

Introduction

• My project is a hip hop/gangster magazine aimed for males age 16 to 24.• I did training before I started my final project I trained on the programs I used like

indesighn and Photoshop. • I did research before completing my magazine I looked at other magazines in

my genre like vibe magazine to see what they did and what I could do better.

Ways my magazine used, developed or challenged forms and conventions of real

media products • The genre of my magazine is a hip hop magazine.• I have used the conventions of other hip hop magazines by focusing the

contents and front page on the image rather than the text.• Hp hop magazines need to be in your face and loud and making the image the

main focus point is a good way to do this.• I used brighter colors than other conventional hip hop magazines• I did something different because it needs to stand out from other magazines

and bright colors do that.• The brighter colors are more eye-catching than darker colors so people will be

more attracted to it.• My innovations worked because most people said my magazine looked genuine

and colors eye catching

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1

2

3

4

5

6

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title suggestions hip hop gangster rock

people

Series1

This table is from a question sheet that

asked what the title gstar represents and

this is the feedback I got

5.4

5.6

5.8

6

6.2

6.4

6.6

6.8

7

7.2

How genuine is it genuine not genuine

People

Series1

This was also from a question sheet

asking how genuine the magazine

looked and the majority said that it looked genuine

How it represents particular social groups

• It is aimed at the urban community and those who like hip hop mostly aged 16 to 24, also young criminals will like this because it focuses on hip hop music which is the music for gangsters.

• I have done this by using stories that would interest the young community and bright eye catching colours. Bright colours do not go with contemporary hip hop but works because it is eye catching and is not to flowery in color so still has that dark gangster feel.

• I have also used a hoody for my feature artists which is linked with hip hop as well as crime so will appeal to my audience.

• It uses curses and swear words in interviews and does not censor what the artists say which younger people will appreciate knowing that the responses are not filtered giving there true opinions.

Media institution that might distribute my magazine

• E map may be the publisher who would like to publish my magazine because he is also the seller of other top magazines like Kerrang magazine

• The reason why he would want to publish a hip hop magazine is because it does not publish a hip hop magazine in the UK at the momentso there is a gap in the British market for a hip hop magazine.

• As well as this my product will be different to others because it will also look at undiscovered talent that is local to britain so people will be intreseted to read about there local talent.

http://www.kerrang.com/QuickTime™ and a

decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Audience for my magazine

• Age would be 16 - 24 males this is because my research shows that that is

the age and sex who like hip hop music.• It is a British magazine so will be relesed

for the british public. It will be more focused for the black/urban community because reaserch shows they are the main listeners of hip hop.

• The socio economic status for my readers would be E because they are students and that is my target age range and they seem to have extra money to spend.

• The magazine will be strictly focused on hip hop so will only appeal to the fans of the hip hop genre.

How to attract my audience• The title of the magazine gstar is a pun on the word gangster a word synonymous with hip hop so

will immediately attract my audience.• The image on the front cover has to be a man posing usually showing a gang hand sign to go

along with the theme of the gangster image. As well as this the image will have to be shot at a slightly low angle to show his dominance.

• I use short sentences to go along with the big names on my front cover in order to entice the reader with a bit of the story of the featured artists.

• The text on the front cover use hip hop terminology like hustle in order to tell the reader immediately what the magazine is about.

• The articles on the contents page have to be the big stories while smaller articles will not be displayed.

• The feature article will also be enhanced to show it is the feature and the image will also have reference to the feature article.

• The double page spreads headline is the name of the artist to immediately show what the story is about.

• The structure of the feature is in columns like most magazines with images of the feature artist which most other magazines have.

• The language of the article has not been altered to show a better authenticity.• The main image has not been cropped out to leave the woods background in, however the

secondary image has been cut out ad place on but the image has a darker background than the double page spread which I was unable to alter.

What technologies I have learnt during this process

• I used the internet to research my product by using google to find other interviews to see how they were done and the images to see how they were layed out.

• I used blogs to help organize my work and record what I had done.• I learnt to use a camera in order to get the images for my product.• I used indesighn to create my product. This allowed me to create my product as

professionally as possible. It let me choose the color scheme and layout much easier than anything else could have done.

• I also used photoshop to edit the photos that I took. It allowed me to cut the images out and resize them to the way I want them. Unfortunately I did not cut some of the images very well but was unable to edit them in time.

What I have learnt• I believe that I have improved in many areas and made my product much better than it would

have been if it was just the same as the preliminary task

• I have made big improvements in the way I design and layout my products

• In the earlier tasks the colours did not work very well and it looked very childish with a very small date on the top left.

• My final product looks more professional the top and bottom are boxed off with the logo and top stories underneath the image. The colours work better together and the design is better.

Conclusion

• My final product is quite different to the prelim tasks that I had previously done but look better than the preliminary tasks.

• Firstly the layout of my cover is different because the image is not in centre it is more on the right of the cover so it did not look as clustered it looked more structured.

• The contents has improved because the word contents stands out more than in the preliminary tasks as well as the logo in the background makes the page stand out more.

• The double page spread is different because it is more structured in columns rather that written around the main image. Also I have put two images in the double page spread rather than just the one.

• I used brighter colors to make it stand out.

• If I were to do this again I would make some changes I would improve the imahes so they were better cut out and I would try to use more than one image on the contents page instead of two on the feature article which I do not think was to good.