Note to Examiner

To the Examiner, I hope you have enjoyed looking at my posts for my AS Media Studies project. I have labelled them clearly to the correct areas they apply too. The labels are found at the right hand side of my blog. I have really enjoyed creating a magazine for my AS level, and I have worked very hard on doing so. Thank you.

Evaluation- Question 7

Evaluation - Question 6

Evaluation- Question 5

Evaluation- Question 4

Question 4 by amybrotherhood

Evaluation- Question 3

Question 3 from Amy Brotherhoodd

Evaluation - Question 2

Question 2 from Amy Brotherhoodd

Evaluation - Question 1

Development on final magazine

 The above two images are the images showing my final magazine. Although, from these two documents I did make some changes to them before I handed them in finally. Below are the final images of my final magazine.

The XX- Islands

Todays task

Today I am going to finish adding onto question 7, once this is finished my evaluation questions will be answered. With time left over I will be beginning to put them into different multi-media formats

Draft Evaluation- Question 7.

7) Looking back at your preliminary task (The continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I was a beginner at using magazine making software and cameras etc. I was also a beginner at how to start thinking about designing a magazine to look professional, structuring pages to look neat and tidy and how to make my magazine appeal to my audience. Although my preliminary was not a huge failure, it has taught me a lot to get where I got to today with my final RAPTURE magazine. I have learnt to take control of my time in order to spend specific time guidelines on certain tasks that need more attention.

The preliminary task was a very good task that was set as it allowed me to go off and just create a magazine from my own perspective using my little knowledge at the time. Without any research, planning or knowledge of how to use magazine editing programmes I created a school magazine. Looking back at this, it looks very unprofessional and the layout and structure is very basic and you can easily tell it isn’t well put together. Comparing it next to my final magazine, there are huge differences in the quality of the overall magazines.

I think without doing the task of the preliminary, I think that my final magazine wouldn’t be to the standard that it is. This is because I believe I was able to have a practice, and learn from my mistakes to then create an improved more professional magazine. My preliminary task was also very rushed; I rushed the entire magazine cover, left major jobs till the last minute, and threw it all together. This taught me that doing that doesn’t help the look and quality of the end product, so I therefore learnt to improve my time management skills in order to meet specific deadlines I set for myself.

The overall outcome of my final Rapture magazine is a success in my own eyes. My progression has come a long way from the beginning, and you can clearly see a huge progression within my work. It’s clear to see an improvement on using technology, research skills, general magazine structures and making a professional magazine.

Planning for my magazine was vital for the success of the task. I did numerous planning and research techiniques to have an understand of current magazines in the shops today. I looked at each magazine of a similar genre to mine, and focused on their layouts, text, language, images, fashion of models, structure etc. With this I began taking little aspects from each magazine, whilst giving them a twist with my own ideas, and began to create my own magazine.

The layout of my magazine was chosen from my research of looking into the magazine of "Loud and Quiet" - This magazine I found quite a nice style and layout to follow, especially for my front cover. It was simple and bold which is exactly the style I was going for. My contents layout I got from the magazine MOJO, I thought this was a nicely structured page and wanted to use it in my own magazine but with a twist, so I added in a few of my own ideas. The double page spread is just a page of which I have put together as I thought it worked well. I got ideas from all different magazines for this.

I used Da Font to collect my main headings. I found these fonts during the planning stages, and I picked out all of the fonts I liked the look of and that I thought worked well with my front cover, contents page and double page spread. 

For the colour of my magazine I used a main 3 colours. I used black, white and red. I used these because they are a well known 3-colour palette. They stand out well, work extremely well together, and are very eaasily recognised. I did add in a twist of colour, by using a yellowy gold within my pages. I think this added a little more personality to the magazine. I got this idea from MOJO and from Q magazine.

The images for my magazine were taken by myself.  I used two models for my magazine, that I thought looked well together. I dressed them up into clothing and make up I believed suited best, and whilst taking the pictures I wanted my models to act comfortable to avoid looking as if there was tension on my images.

The time management of my planning stages was taken quite well. I managed my time in order to complete my tasks ontime, and when they needed to be done. I did a lot of my text writing to begin with, then began moving around my magazine layers on photoshop, and eventually fixing everything together.

Draft Evaluation- Question 6.

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

From the process of creating my music magazine I have learnt a lot of skills when using Adobe Photoshop. I have also learnt to use various editing websites, animoto, using cameras, and photography equipment in the photography studio. Before I began creating my magazine I had a basic knowledge of these, but now I have completed the magazine and I look back on what I have learnt in the process, I have learnt an exquisite amount of skills. I can now take a lot more photos that look more professional, transfer them onto a computer and then begin editing on Photoshop. I can use various tools on Photoshop to fix images I have taken to the exact standard I want them to be. I can put together a magazine using Photoshop, and add in my own fonts, images, colours and logo’s to make it my own.

With my new knowledge of these gadgets and programmes I can produce a realistic looking magazine. I have learnt that modern day technology is a huge part of creating media products, and without it the media industry would suffer. The technologies I have used can be difficult to use but can also be reasonably easy to get the hang of.

Photoshop was a huge part of my magazine process. What I learnt during using photoshop, was basically the entire concept of it. I'd never previously used it before, and I found it relatively easy to use once you knew how to. It helped me to create the entire magazine, putting on text, arranging and cutting out images and overall creating my magazine. 

I have previously used cameras for various other things, so it wasn't difficult for me to understand how to use the camera. The part I found most difficult with this was actually taking the right photo. I took hundreds of photos to limit down to 3 for my final magazine. I sometimes struggled to catch my models positioning and expressions. I did eventually learn a little on the matter, as I ended up successfully finding images perfect for my magazine.

Flickr was a website I have never previously used before. I knew the basic concept of using Flickr, which was to share photos to other photo sharing users. I used flickr to upload every image I had taken from my shoot, and linked the flickr format straight to my blog. At first, I didn't know how to do this, so I did get help. But I now know how to use Flickr in a reasonable manor. 

I used Animoto during the research and planning stages of my magazine task. I used this to do a 25 word pitch showing the basic audience, price, genre, theme etc. of my magazine, which I then posted onto my blog. I found it easy to get the hang of and it was fun and creative to use as well.

Ipiccy is a photo editing website I found during the process of my magazine design. I used this to slightly manipulate the appearance of my model photos. It's a simple site to use and it doesn't cost anything either. I think this was a good find for my magazine process as again, it allowed me to easily lighten colours of photos, get ride of shadows and slightly airbrush the models.

Draft Evaluation- Question 5.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

 In order to attract and address my audience I have used some certain techniques within the design process of my magazine task. Obviously, picking out a colour scheme is a huge part of a magazines personality. As I’ve said before, the colour scheme I used is simplistic and is used on many music magazines already. I used the colours red, black white with the occasional gold splash throughout the magazine to bring a little more colour into it. I believe this grabs the attention of my audience readers as it is bold and easy to read. Another tactic I used to attract and address was to use certain fonts that were outstandingly bold and that went well with the genre of magazine. My magazine cover is quite simple and minimalistic; I therefore used a simple bold, yet powerful structured text and font type. To also attract my audience I used bands and artists on the contents and front cover to pull them into the magazine. I used well known bands such as Ben Howard, Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, The Vaccines and Bon Iver. Instantly from reading these, the audience would be lured into my magazine to read more onto the bands that they enjoy listening too.

Within the planning and research stages of my magazine project I looked at several different magazines, not only magazines that were of the same genre as mine, but with other genre magazines. I did this to try and understand what kind of things matches the genre to the type of audience. From my research I believe that a lot of the aspects of grabbing attention of your audience boils down to the artists and articles you put in your magazine, the images you use and the colour schemes and fonts. With this in mind I created my magazine to fit my audience profiles and I made my magazine look quite indie/alternative and read fluently in the language most Indie Music magazines read.

I wanted my magazine to appeal to an indie group of people with interests in music and particular artists and bands. I therefore used particular well known indie bands within the front cover and contents page of my magazine. As I used them on the front page, and this is the first page you would usually see of a magazine, I thought it would lure in my audience instantly if they see bands they enjoyed listening too. 

My magazine needed to appeal to my target audience, of which I have previously mentioned before in Question 4. The entire magazine was based around artists, styles and sets I had discovered whilst doing my research that related to my target audience of indie/mainstream people.

Draft Evaluation- Question 4.

4) Who would be the audience of your media product?

The audience of my media product as I have previously mentioned, are those of young age, from around 18-24. I have also aimed my magazine at both male and female, the colour scheme chosen does not represent a certain sex. It appeals to both sexes, and I also made my magazine with audience in mind that have a love and passion for rock/indie/punk music. For my draft, my initial idea for the RAPTURE magazine was to have vintage as a main theme. So, for example the music I was using and the artists I had in mind were those just from the 60's and 70's. E.g. Blondie, Fleetwood Mac etc. The music included in my final magazine is not just modern music, I have still brought small amount of vintage into my magazine by using some bands and artists that have been around for many years.

Relating to my final magazine copy, my audience would be somewhat similar. My audience will be of the indie/mainstream social groups. My audience will be of ages from 18-24, possibly even onwards. My audience will enjoy listening to music, reading about music, ad going to see their favourite bands and artists live. They would follow their most favouritised artists on twitter and facebook to see their updates more often. Their music taste will be along the same lines as the magazine genre. Bands such as Oasis, Happy Mondays, Bastille, Bon Iver, The XX, Crystal Castles, Noel Gallagher, Ben Howard, The 1975, Arctic Monkeys etc. will be listened to regularly by my audience.

My audience would visit festivals such as Reading and Leeds, Glastonbury, Download, Summer Sundae etc. Mainly Reading and Leeds as this is a festival highly known for indie alternative genre. 

My audience will not only listen to music, but have interests in TV programmes and movies. TV programmes they would likely to be interested in are The Big Bang Theory, How I met Your Mother, Family Guy, South Park, and Scrubs. Films such as Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, Pulp Fiction etc. Older and newer films and programmes would be of an interest to my audience.

Personality brings alot of inspiration to someones dress style, as dress style gives off an impression to others about their personality. Therefore, my audience will show dress styles similar to that of their favourite music artists. My audience would have a vintage/retro style, with qwerky modern fashion mixed into it. This matches well to the genre of the magazine, as it matches the fashion of a lot of indie/alternative bands these days. 

My audience may also be interested in sports. Things like football and rugby would be a start, but my audience will also enjoy the more "extreme sports" side of things. Sports such as BMX, motorcross, skateboarding, rollerblading etc. This will also reflect on their clothing, personality and music choice. But this would fall comfortablly in with my magazine due to it's style and genre. 

Draft Evaluation- Question 3.

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

For my magazine, it does have a price on the cover of it. This means that it would be sold in shops. Places that may distribute it could be HMV, W H Smith and other magazine/book shops. The internet could also distribute my magazine, as it could advertise it on the website, or on other social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube etc.  As my magazine is inspired by NME mainly and Q magazine, I researched into where these are distributed. IPC Media is a distributed which promotes NME. As my magazine is of a similar genre, layout and theme I believe that if it was to be distributed it would be distributed by either of these.

Specifically, to distribute my magazine I would chose IPC. This is because it already distributes NME. I looked at NME a lot in the duration of my magazine designing stages, so this would be a relevent distributer as it already distributes a well known, indie/alternative magazine, much the same as my own. IPC media is the UK's largest consumer magazine and digital publisher. This means that they give good coverage for their magazines of which they distribute. Once again, this means my magazine would most likely distribute my magazine, as it's qualities are extremely good. My magazine is a monthly magazine, this differentiates from the NME magazine that is weekly.

Draft Evaluation- Question 2.

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

My Music Magazine represents particular social groups. It does this due to its significant grab to the audience I wanted it too. By using fonts, colours, themes, models and music genre I created a magazine to grab the attention of the young, male and female, indie/rock/punk lovers. The colour schemes I used were bland, stuck out and are a well-known and often used set of colours on a few music magazines such as NME, Mojo and Q magazine.  

For my original Rapture Magazine, when I was doing the vintage theme, the audience profile for it was chosen to be readers that will mainly be girls, but obviously the magazine would have been unisex. I was going to be aiming it at people aged between 16-24 and possibly onward.  The genre of the magazine was vintage and retro, so a lot of the news and music inside would be from the 60's/70's/80's era, so obviously the magazine could appeal to people as old as 40+. Modern times, there aren't many vintage/retro styled magazines that are still running, so doing this kind of magazine is a huge opportunity to have a lot of audience.

The social groups represented within my media products would be indie and mainstream. My target audience is the younger era, so from ages of 16-24. A lot of indie/mainstream social groups begin to show their style around these ages the most. With the modelling clothing I have used and the models style, you can see here I have represented the look of an indie mainstream band, to match with particular social groups.

Draft Evaluation- Question 1.

1) In what way does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (I.e. music magazines)

My media product initially was an idea from a vintage magazine called Creem. From handing in my draft, I changed the entire look and style of my magazine to something to that of more Mojo, NME and simple covered magazines with indie genre. Through looking at these types of magazines I picked up several elements from them to expand on within my own magazine. Things such as headings, contents page layouts and general structures of the magazine.  

The font used on the front cover of my magazine I decided to keep simple and bold and I used Neau Thin from DaFont. From looking at other magazines for inspiration I noticed that some magazine titles were more noticed than others. As my cover is simplistic in itself, I wanted to make sure certain aspects of it were clearer to readers.  The fonts at the bottom of the page were used a little differently to add a little more excitement to the magazine. I didn’t want to crowd the cover but I also didn’t want it to be boring. To solve this situation I used a range of fonts to supplement for the loss of activity on the cover.

On the front page of my magazine I also used a barcode, with an issue number and a price for my magazine. I did this to make the front cover more realistic and follow exisiting conventions. I came to the price of my magazine by averaging prices of other existing magazines and ranging it around those to make it realistic and reasonable.  Although my cover is simple, it does hold relevant information on the front to explain and give hints to what is inside that particular issue.

When making my magazine, I challenged the conventions of Rule Of Thirds. Instead of the usual Rule of Thirds that is a vertical guideline of basic magazine layout, I did a more horizontal Rule of Thirds. Although my Masthead was still at the top of the page, I used a double person image, with their main focus in the middle of the page and then used my cover lines at the bottom of my page.

The image I used for the magazine was originally a picture of these same two people but they were back to back facing the opposite direction. I developed my magazine a little more and swapped this image as I thought it was a key aspect for such a simple magazine to have eye contact with the front cover model(s).  The image used on the final design of my front cover shows my models giving eye contact. For their modelling shoot, I decided I wanted my models to wear a particular set of clothes and have particular make up. I had inspiration from other magazines such as NME and Mojo.  I also looked at several other magazines similar to the genre of mine (Indie/Alternative) and took styles, positions and clothing etc. from those to inspire my magazine cover.

I think the fact I have used a simple background for my front cover shows even more simplicity as I have continued this background throughout the magazine. I have also continued with the colour scheme throughout the entire magazine to clearly show that each page is from the same magazine.

On my contents page I really wanted to make it look minimalist. I had a lot of inspiration from the magazine Mojo. The layout and colour layout of the contents page was made with Mojo in mind.  I used another image of the two models on the front, and used an even more simple approach with them. I also added another image of a different model for my contents page. From looking at other magazines I noticed there was more than one image or more than one model somewhere on the page.  With this in mind I used another model and linked them to the contents page and gave them an artist name to match. I added in a competition text, as I seen that this popped up often in other similar magazines.

My double page spread was one of my favourite pages to make during the process of my magazine creation. I used pull quotes within the page to make it look like a real magazine, as again pull quotes are popular with other magazines of a similar genre. I did an interview for my double page spread and used text and language similar to that of NME articles. Again I continued with the colour scheme throughout the double page spread to match the contents page and front cover.

From my draft, I used different layouts and fonts. I learnt these did not work with the idea of my magazine, so I developed the entire magazine to look completely different, more relevent and more suited to the style.

Amy Brotherhood's photostream

Amy Brotherhood's photostream on Flickr.

Own images for final magazine 'RAPTURE'

Inspiration

i-D Magazine has a simple look to it's cover. This is where a bit of inspiration for my simple cover came from.

 The Mojo magazine contents page was one that inspired me for my own. Because of it's simplicity and its layout I really thought it would look well on my own contents page.

I really like this V magazine front cover with Niki Minaj on as the feature. Simple but with a coupel of cover lines.

Evaluation

1) In what way does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (I.e. music magazines)

My media product initially was an idea from a vintage magazine called Creem. From handing in my draft, I changed the entire look and style of my magazine to something to that of more Mojo, NME and simple covered magazines with indie genre. through looking at these types of magazines I picked up several elements from them to expand on within my own magazine. Things such as headings, contents page layouts and general structures of the magazine 

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

My Music Magazine represents particular social groups. It does this due to its significant grab to the audience I wanted it too. By using fonts, colours, themes, models and music genre I created a magazine to grab the attention of the young, male and female, indie/rock/punk lovers. The colour schemes I used were bland, stuck out and are a well-known and often used set of colours on a few music magazines such as NME, Mojo and Q magazine.

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

For my magazine, it does have a price on the cover of it. This means that it would be sold in shops. Places that may distribute it could be HMV, W H Smith and other magazine/book shops. The internet could also distribute my magazine, as it could advertise it on the website, or on other social-networking sites such as facebook, twitter, myspace, youtube etc.

4) Who would be the audience of your media product?

The audience of my media product as I have previously mentioned, are those of young age, from around 16 years old to ages of about 25-30. I have also aimed my magazine at both male and female, the colour scheme chosen does not represent a certain sex. It appeals to both sexes, and I also made my magazine with audience in mind that have a love and passion for rock/indie/punk music. For my draft, my initial idea for the RAPTURE magazine was to have vintage as a main theme. So, for example the music I was using and the artists I had in mind were those just from the 60's and 70's. E.g. Blondie, Fleetwood Mac etc. The music included in my final magazine is not just modern music, I have still brought small amount of vintage into my magazine by using some bands and artists that have been around for many years.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract and address my audience I have used some certain techniques within the design process of my magazine task. Obviously, picking out a colour scheme is a huge part of a magazines personality. As I’ve said before, the colour scheme I used is simplistic and is used on many music magazines already. I used the colours red, black white with the occasional gold splash throughout the magazine to bring a little more colour into it. I believe this grabs the attention of my audience readers as it is bold and easy to read. Another tactic I used to attract and address was to use certain fonts that were outstandingly bold and that went well with the genre of magazine. My magazine cover is quite simple and minimalistic; I therefore used a simple bold, yet powerful structured text and font type. To also attract my audience I used bands and artists on the contents and front cover to pull them into the magazine. I used well known bands such as Ben Howard, Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, The Vaccines and Bon Iver. Instantly from reading these, the audience would be lured into my magazine to read more onto the bands that they enjoy listening too.

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

From the process of creating my music magazine I have learnt a lot of skills when using Adobe Photoshop. I have also learnt to use various editing websites, animoto, using cameras, and photography equipment in the photography studio. Before I began creating my magazine I had a basic knowledge of these, but now I have completed the magazine and I look back on what I have learnt in the process, I have learnt an exquisite amount of skills. I can now take a lot more photos that look more professional, transfer them onto a computer and then begin editing on Photoshop. I can use various tools on Photoshop to fix images I have taken to the exact standard I want them to be. I can put together a magazine using Photoshop, and add in my own fonts, images, colours and logo’s to make it my own.

7) Looking back at your preliminary task (The continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I was a beginner at using magazine making software and cameras etc. I was also a beginner at how to start thinking about designing a magazine to look professional, structuring pages to look neat and tidy and how to make my magazine appeal to my audience. Although my preliminary was not a huge failure, it has taught me a lot to get where I got to today with my final RAPTURE magazine. I have learnt to take control of my time in order to spend specific time guidelines on certain tasks that need more attention.

Final magazine

Finalised results Magazine

Double Page Spread

Contents page

Rapture Magazine front cover

Here is the most updated version of my Rapture magazine. I like the way the magazine is very simple and minimalistic, but I think it does need some extra text e.g. cover lines to complete it's look.

New Magazine changes.

From handing in a draft version of my RAPTURE magazine, I have learnt the basics of using Photoshop and other computer Programmes to create a professional-looking magazine. From the feedback of my draft and from my own personal opinion on the draft, I have changed a lot on my magazine to improve it.

The name of my magazine is still RAPTURE, and the music genre is somewhat the same. Although, the bands I am now using on my magazine are more modern. I have also changed the colour scheme to my magazine. On my draft the colours I chose didn't work with one another. Some you could not easily see on some backgrounds and I believe they just weren't appropriate colours for a magazine. I have now chosen a more basic colour scheme, which is Black Red and white with the occasional flash of gold. I think these colours work really well together, and stand out more.

The cover of my magazine on my draft was a little busy, it worked but I personally think there was too much text and it was not placed correctly. On my improved version of RAPTURE I have chosen to go for a more simple approach, still with a few cover lines but a lot less.

New Rapture front cover

Contents page Draft for Rapture Magazine

Front Cover Draft for Rapture magazine

Double Page Spread

Audience Profile

The sort of readers I will be aiming my magazine at will be mainly girls, but obviously the magazine will be unisex. I will be aiming it at people aged between 17-25 and possibly onwards. The genre of my magazine is vintage and retro, so a lot of the news and music inside would be from the 60's/70's/80's era, so obviously the magazine could appeal to people as old as 40+. Modern times, there aren't many vintage/retro styled magazines that are still running, so doing this kind of magazine is a huge opportunity to have a to of audience.

The type of reader I would have would be someone like Kate Lowther. She is a 20 year old girl, from Leicester. She loves vintage and her music genre that she loves is rock/punk/pop/Jazz/RockNRoll. She loves this genre of music to mainly be from 30's right up to the 80's. Her favourite bands are Fleetwood Mac, Etta James and Blondie. Kate fits exactly into my audience profile.

Review on Final Magazine Draft

Throughout the course of creating my magazine draft I have learnt numerous factors into how to make a successful, professional magazine. With this knowledge I will be able to produce a final copy of a professional music magazine. 
With the draft I have done, I will have feedback and be able to act on this whether it is positive or negative feedback. With this feedback I will also be able to create an even better magazine than my first rough draft. 
When creating my draft magazine however, I did not manage my time carefully. I spent too long on certain aspects and therefore had limited time to do other aspects to the magazine, which were then rushed. From this mistake, I can act on this and when creating my final magazine I can sort out better organisation skills and use my time more wisely to get the fullest from each minute to make all of that time precious and vital to my magazine. 
The draft images on my magazine draft were not the sort of images I will be wanting on my final magazine. On my draft I only had one person modelling, as again, time was limited and I therefore had less time to take the photos. Where photos were meant to be I added more text to my draft. 
On the cover of my magazine I used artist names. Some of these were real artist names I had gathered from inspiration for the theme of the magazine and some were made up band names I thought of to make the magazine more of my own. 
On the contents page of my draft, there is a lot of text. This is a weak point for the magazine. I only used one image on the contents page which is not enough. 
For the double page spread, I did an interview with the cover star of the magazine "Luna White" who is a made up artist for my magazine. I thought that my double page spread was a successful part of my magazine. The finished draft product looked quite professional and it turned out how I wanted it to eventually look. Again, there was only one image and that is something I am wanting to change for my final piece. 
Overall my magazine draft was a success. There is a lot of room for improvement but the overall layout and structure is how I would like my final magazine piece to look. There are certain aspects such as number of images, text and fonts that I would like to improve on but the overall outcome is a positive for me and the feedback I receive from others will also be something I need in order to properly see where I have weak points when making magazines.  

Font styles



Vintage

BeeRidgeVintageBold

Retro60prime

Somebody To Love

Brain Flower

Neou- Thin

Frenchy

Rough_Typewriter

Above I have carefuly selected 7 different font types that I am going to narrow down and use maybe one or two on my final magazine.