R&b magazine evaluation

R&B Magazine Evaluation

Anais Nzeza

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

products?

The genre of my music magazine is R&B. To be able to create my own magazine. I looked at 2 different ‘VIBe’ magazines to support my ideas as they are also an R&B genre. These are the 2 magazines that appealed to me most on the left side due to composition and colour.

The mastheads in the example and in my magazine are in the same position, on the top of the page. This is to keep in line with the codes and conventions used in magazine layout. The reason why the mast head is at the top is to capture my intended audience as it is the first thing they will see. I have made my model to be in front of the mast head just like the ‘VIBe’ one to show the importance of the model, and to keep in place the conventional layout of magazines. Above the ‘VIBe’ mast head is the sell line. I have used a sell line too but I preferred to place it under my mast head. My sell line says “THE MAGAZINE WITH STYLE”. This represents that my magazine is full of the latest urban fashion and design which reflects my audience.

I liked the idea of how the words touch each other closely in the ‘VIBe’ magazine for the main story, so I thought that I would use this example for my front cover. I wanted my main puff to be displayed diagonally across the image of the main focus so that the front cover doesn’t look so empty. Following the codes and conventions, I have written my main puff bigger than the other puffs on the left side of the cover just like in other magazines.

I had typed into Google ‘magazine ‘barcode’ so that I could get a barcode for my magazine. I have used the example ‘VIBe’ magazine with the male artist, “Akon”, to make my barcode similar to the example. Just like the ‘VIBe’ example, I have put the web link and date of my magazine using the similar colours – I have put mine into two layers so that it was clear to read whereas the ‘VIBe’ magazine uses one layer. Above the barcode and the barcode itself, I have followed the code and conventions used in magazines and placed an issue number and sell price. The sell price is reasonable to suit my intended audience.

I have used the same headline from the other ‘VIBe’ magazine (with the female artist) to use as one of my headlines too because the words were attractive and suitable for my intended audience. I have made my text more bigger than the ‘VIBe’ one just so it fits my front cover well.

Following the codes and conventions, I have used the same positions of how the puff is positioned on the cover of the ‘VIBe’ magazine with the male artist. On the left side, there is the main text written in big, bold writing to show that it is related to the model. On the right side, there are two more topics written smaller. I have focused to have three colours just like the 2 ‘VIBe’ magazines so that the page doesn’t look too busy and so that it fits my age group and gender. I chose to have a smooth gradient background just like the other ‘VIBe’ magazine with the female artist. The only difference is that her background is in front of her face while I put my background behind my model to show a clear image of her as she is more important.

I have used a ¾ shot similar to the first ‘VIBe’ magazine example. I think this helps to show to my intended audience the characters of how the models are. I really like the idea of how I was able to use my model’s head shape to form the letter ‘A’ in my masthead ‘SWAGGA’ as at the same time she is in a good position on the cover.

The codes and conventions that I have done for my contents page considers the layout and imaging, colours, and texts. I have used these 3 examples of magazine contents pages on the left that already exists in order to create my contents page too.

The first example on the left isn’t from an R&B magazine but I have chosen this because I liked the way things were laid out onto the page.

The second example was helpful in terms of colour. I have inversed these colours to make the page look brighter and so that it contrasts with the model’s clothing.

The third example was helpful in terms of text. I haven’t used any fancy writing for the three headlines, ‘DEPARTMENTS’, ‘SEEN’, and ‘STYLE’. So instead, I had referred the text font back from my front cover.

Instead of adding two more images above the main image, I have used three. I have placed the page numbers on the images into the different corners because it makes the page more interesting.

At the top of the page, I didn’t use images, so I filled up half of the banner with the magazine logo, and the other half with the title and the ‘content page’ title.

I have kept these ‘<>’ signs from the three headlines because I saw that it looked more stylish and helped to develop a house style. I have used some texts from this ‘VIBe’ magazine but I had added my own too.

In this example of the ‘VIBe’ magazine, I saw that they had included captions under each of their stories and topics to anchor their meaning and that is what I did too. I made the captions as short as possible so that the page is readable and tempting by the fact that there is not enough information but just the key words that my target audience would be attracted to.

As you can see, none the magazines on the left have a border around them. When I showed my contents page without the borders to my intended audience, they had recommended to me to add the border lines to give a nice bolder effect.My intended audience also recommended that I should add a web link to get people talking about this magazine. So I made a follow-up Facebook link at the bottom left corner.

These four examples of double page spreads on the left were the ones that had appealed to me . On the right I have made four drafts of this in my own version of my story while using the same ideas of their layouts.

Since I saw that the first three drafts looked too simple to create on Photoshop, I had decided to upgrade my last draft. I don’t know if the last double page spread example is from a ‘VIBe’ magazine, but I have chosen this because it is nice and unique by the way the title has been cut up into single letters. I really like the font of the title too because it makes it look young just like how my intended audience would write. I had followed the same example of positioning the title at the top and leaving space for the image to stand out on the whole of the right side. I had decided to refer my colours back from my front cover so that it is stable and prevents confusion. Under the title, I have written a sub-heading to make the page look more like a magazine just like this ‘VIBe’ double page spread example. Because the image was light, I have used a dark background to contrast, and I have added a purple shadow just to give the page a 3D effect rather than a flat, simple effect. I had to think about how I was going to position the text boxes as I would want to avoid putting the text boxes in the middle of the double page, so I thought of an imaginary line.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My intended audience are for girls in the age range of 14-19 years old. From my market research, I found that this demographic was most likely to buy their magazines in a shop rather than by subscription – 98% would get the magazine this way. Therefore, I had to make sure that the front cover was immediately eye-catching to this specific target audience. The best way to do this on the front cover is to use a model of their age group, so they can identify with her; see her as a role model or something to aspire to.

Contact sheetThis is a contact sheet of the pictures that I have taken of people for my magazine. They have not been edited but just rotated.

Audience and Representation – Front coverThe model is young, wearing a hoodie which has connotations of gangster style and rebellion, and is a common style choice for R’n’B artists. She is dressed quite youthfully, again helping the target audience to identify with her.

She is black with quite light skin. Most R’n’B artists are black, so this makes the genre of the music magazine easier to infer.Her hair is worn down and she looks very natural, so this is breaking with conventions of R’n’B. This is because I want to represent my intended audience as more than just superficial, but as powerful women with intelligence, not just beauty.

The mode of address is a mixture of both formal and informal language. The sociolect used represents and constructs the target audience by speaking to them like a friend would, which helps them to identify with that social group.

Audience and Representation – Contents Page

In general, I didn’t use any props because they would draw attention away from the models. The other images I have used show a girl break dancing (Photo DSCN0467 slightly cropped), which represents my audience as active.

I used photo DSCN0481 to show girls in agroup socialising, to represent them as fun-loving.The photo DSCN0430 of the cover model I used on the contents page shows a funside – although she has attitude on the cover, this shows her less serious side.

Audience and Representation – Double Page

I used a bubbly, young font to represent my target audience as young and trouble free. The different font sizes also add to this effect as it’s quite informal. The yellow and red on a black background refer back to the front cover, but are more contrasted, which creates the idea of being young and rebellious again.

The image I used (Photo DSCN0456) has been edited to exclude the other model, which emphasises the pose of this Model. She looks confident, Again representing positive attributes for my intended audience.

Media InstitutionsIPC Media is the UK’s biggest publisher of magazines. It sells over 350 million copies of various magazines every year, and also has a digital division. It is owned by Time Inc. which is a massive multinational company.

Because of this, IPC Media would be a great company to publish and distribute SWAGGA.

They have three sections:Connect — mass market womenSouthBank — upmarket womenInspire — menSWAGGA would be in ‘Connect’, so with IPC it could be distributed widely. They have a lot of money and can afford the advertising need to launch a new magazine. Because its parent company is Time Inc, there would be opportunities to advertise through Warner Bros. etc. and offer very good competitions.

AdvertisingAccording to my survey results, I can see that the most preferred place to buy a magazine would be in shops.

These are m ideas of where I would want to publish my magazine. Referring back to my reader profile, it shows images of music channel logos that my intended audience would watch such as ‘FLAVA’ and ‘MTV’, and radios such as ‘Choice fm’, ‘KISS’ and ‘BBC 1xtra’.

Other ideas for publishing my magazine are advertising on television, social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, putting posters in public, and probably YOUTUBE.

Attracting an Audience for my media product

From my audience survey, I found that 92% of my respondents were female and just 8% male. Because of this, I included images that were relevant to this group and easy for them to identify with. I also included, in my double page

spread ,an interview, which would be interesting to girls, specifically of the age group 14-19 as they are interested in the personal lives of celebrities. The respondents also said that they would buy a magazine for a tempting competition. In this case, I included a talent competition, “Show your Talent” asking the reader to show their personality and shine. Teenage girls love talent TV shows, so this will be a draw to them.

I didn’t offer free giveaways, as, although my readership suggested it, I looked at other similar magazines and saw that they didn’t do this.

What Have I Learnt?• PlanningAs I didn’t have Publisher at home, I had to use Word to create

my preliminary draft. Zoomerang was a very useful tool for carrying out my market research as I could reach a much wider audience. SlideShare also helped me to present my planning in a more accessible way. The Internet was really useful, as it helped me to research different media products, and helped me to identify the codes and conventions of media products. It also helped me to research media Institutions and to realise the importance of them in media production.

What Have I Learnt?• HardwareI had used digital cameras before, but this time I had

to be more aware of what picture I was taking, and why. I had to make sure the lighting was right which is something I hadn’t really thought about before. Also, mise-en-scene had to be taken into account to represent the audience. At first, I didn’t do this as thoroughly as I could, so I had to take some more images of different people and using different angles and shot sizes for variety.

Using the Macs for the first time was a challenge as I had to learn a different operating system to Windows.

What Have I Learnt?• SoftwareI had used some image editing software before, and found

PhotoShop quite easy to use once I got the hang of the controls. Using layers was different to what I’d done before, and found cropping and editing images quite painstaking and time consuming. The outcome, however, was worthwhile as it gives a more professional look in the end.

What Have I Learnt?• BloggerUsing a blog was new to me. It was quite similar in some ways to

Facebook and other social networking sites. It was an effective way of presenting my work, as a folder would need me to print a lot – especially as I did a lot of drafts. It also allowed other people to look at my work and comment, helping me to evaluate and improve what I was doing.

Progression from Preliminary to Full Product

Progression from Preliminary to Full ProductThis school magazine is much more basic than my final magazine because:• It looks ‘flat’ – the background seems plain and uninteresting without a colour or gradient effect on it. • The colours are quite simple and not chosen specifically for the target audience• The images are not edited• The image at the top right is too big• The image at the top right is supposed to be a logo, but is not stylised enough to look like one• The second image looks too busy as it hasn’t been edited

On the plus side…• I have taken into account my target audience by including competitions and addressing them in the right mode of address and other things that would interest them.

Progression from Preliminary to Full ProductSimilarities…

Masthead using appropriate font for target audience - youthful

Integrated text and image- But different layout

Models the target audience can identify with due to them

looking at the camera

Progression from Preliminary to Full ProductDifferences…

Masthead in different places

More text

Different tone and mode of address

Less text