Evaluation of my college magazine

Conventions

My music magazine uses the conventions of a real music magazine. I studied established music magazines such as Vibe and Clash. I chose to relate my magazine to the style of Vibe magazine as it is a well established RnB/HipHop magazine which has a similar audience to the genre I chose my magazine to be. I am very happy with the outcome as I think by using the codes and conventions from other well established magazines I have been able to produce a professional look to my magazine.

Representation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine represents those who are interested in Garage music. I chose to mention well known garage artist such as the Artful Dodger and DJ EZ so it is obvious that my magazine is specialized in the garage genre. The use of merging with club craze shows that my magazine is aimed towards a younger clubbing audience.

I made my magazine pink and blue to aim towards younger females as they are feminine and fun colours.

Distribution

My magazine will be merged with Club Craze who will advertise my magazine as well as us advertise them. With such things as displaying pictures weekly from the club on my contents page. I will also offer discount vouchers for the club.

My magazine would be seen in the shelves of newsagents, supermarkets and other shops such like this. Inter Media Partners could distribute my magazine as they have distributed such magazines like Vibe which specialise in similar music.

It could also be distributed by various media productions including publishers like Rupert Merdoch who owns magazines and newspapers such as the Times, or by companies like IPC Media who are all today successful. It would be considered a good idea merging with some one like Rupert as the magazine could be advertised in his own line of products.

Audience
My magazine will entertain the audience range from 16-24 year old females. The reason I chose this target audience is because I believe that age group are more likely to be interested in the garage genre and clubbing at club craze. I believe that this magazine will not be suitable for under 16s however there will be no restrictions. I have managed to aim towards this audience by using the right feminine colours, the bold and modern outlook, the clubbing aspect, the newsfeed of famous artist and the garage fashion. All of these aspects aim towards females of that age range.

Technology

Before starting this product I had used little photo shop and no indesign before. However I now feel confident in both programmes.

I have learnt that in creating a piece of media such as a magazine can be very time consuming
depending on how well you know the programme. I felt as I learnt the programme better the work become more enjoyable than hard work.

I produced all four pages on PhotoShop and then created the basic magazine layout in InDesign. Once I finished the magazine pages in PhotoShop I would then place them in InDesign with a bleed line. I became more confident with tools such as the magic wand, Hue Saturation, Layers, Blur tool etc.

Peliminary Task

I have learnt alot since I started my peliminary task. It allowed me to explore the features on adobe and then use the techniques I have learnt to develop my music magazine. The features I learnt include things such as the layer tool, magic wand, hue saturation, brush tool ect. It gave me confidence to produce my magazine as well as knowledge.

Making the double page spread

I found this double page spread which I liked. It is bold, bright and busy. The pictures with writing over lapping is one aspect I noticed. I also liked how the pictures were placed across the page. I used similar aspects whilst making my double page spread.
I began with taking pictures of a female friend.




The pictures are of a blonde female dressed like a singer. She is playing the instruments to make her look like a more realistic music artist.
I then cut out the background and added it to my double page spread.

As Gabrielle is a singer I made a CD cover for my double page spread. This is to advertise her album and to emphasise realism to the singer. I used hue and saturation to change the cd covers colour to match my pink and blue colour scheme.

I firstly kept the background white whilst exploding colour in shapes and text across the page. I made a pink rectangle which has the title in it. In the top left corner I placed the logo as I want it on every page. I made the rectangle as well as the title and master head rotated for extra effect. After writing the interview in a standard form I placed a picture of the singer in a photographic border. I did the same next to it but with a younger version of herself. I have seen this previously done in other magazines and I thought it was a good idea. It makes the audience relate to the singer more.

On the second page I put the the picture of the singers CD with an advertisement text underneath it. I made a bigger and bolder text at the bottom of the page. This draws the reader in first if they don't want to read the longer text.
I think this double page spread has worked well as the colour scheme fits in well with the rest of the magazine. There are lots of photos and large text making the page less plain and altogether is a good read.

Making my magazine contents page

a)b) c)

These are three layouts that I planned out for my contents page. After trying the layouts out I decided to go with layout a as it worked best with the information that I wanted on the page.

The images that I used:


The magazine's progress:



I have kept the colour scheme, pink and blue, so that the magazine is fluent throughout. However I changed the positioning of the colours as on the front page there is a white background with the colours on top whereas on the contents page i used a pink background with a white rectangle overlapping.
I created a voucher for free drinks. I made the voucher by using the rectangle tool. I then added a dotted line around it with scissors to emphasise realism to it. I made this voucher to aim to my target audience who would be attending clubs. It also will make people go to the club that my magazine has merged with. I put the magazines logo in the corner of the voucher as I want it on every page.
I used the picture of the girl from the front cover to make a shadow. I cut out the shape of her body then turned it into a shadow and placed it in the bottom corner adding the catch phrase 'Get your craze on.' It is short catch phrase that is similar to the well known phrase, 'Get your freak on.'

Lastly I placed pictures that I took from a nightclub on the left. This is the weekly update of pictures taken from club craze. It gives people the chance to be seen in a magazine. This will make more people buy the magazine that attend Craze club.
After adding the contents in a vibrant pink I then placed the magazines website on the bottom right.
The overall look went well with the rest of the magazine as the colour scheme and vibrant images stand out well.

Making my magazine logo

I wanted a logo that was bold and eye catching like my magazine. I firstly looked at other music magazine logo's for ideas.

I liked how this logo text was in the middle of an image and therefore I attempted to make my own version of this logo:

However I did not like the outcome as it did not blend with my magazine.

I did not like this logo either as it looked too formal and busy.

This logo was bland in colour however I liked the layout of it and decided to base my logo upon it.

I made my logo by using the same title text and adding a black drop shadow. I added blue text underneath the main title with another drop shadow. I last added a small full stop on the right for added effect.

Making the magazine's front cover

This was my initial plan for my front cover;


It includes a picture of a well known garage artist at the bottom and the top right corner. It has small pictures in the center which I was not sure what they would include yet. It also had a main title at the top with subheadings underneath it.

I began making this plan in Photo shop. The first stage was taking the pictures:


This is a picture I took off a 17 year old girl. She sat across the floor with a white wall behind her. This is so i could turn on the flash and make most of the background dissolve into white. Once i put it on the computer I lightened the picture and blemished out the outline of the door.


This picture is from the same girl. I took a picture of her lying on the floor with her legs up against a white wall. Then I completely edited out the background with the magic wand tool and the lightener tool so it would blend in with my front cover.

With these two pictures I made the basics of my picture. I started off with making the title in blue and pink. These are feminine bold colours which will attract my target audience. I then made the blue and pink my colour scheme for the magazine as a whole. I put a title overlapping the singer at the bottom for added effect. It makes an instant statement that she is important. At the bottom is a strip of text, in blue with a pink outline, identifying what feature the singer has in the magazine. I put my logo on the bottom right fitting in with the sentence. The next stage was;

In these few steps I added music notes to the picture of the girl in the corner. This is to emphasise that she is a singer. I rotated the title to make the picture more distorted and edgy. I added a bar code and the price to add realism of the magazine. I added text about a competition and rotated it under the title. I added an outer glow to this text what made the main title have a white glow at the bottom of it. The next step I took was to add a speech text next to the main picture of the girl. I further went on to put quotes around it to let the viewer know the quote is from her.

I added a text in white and pink saying 'this week features'. Next to this text I added artist names with the outlines pink or blue. I added a music note in random places with the same outline effect as the artist names.

This is the final copy of which i added colour to the artist names and music notes as i found the page to bland. The colour makes a statement and the picture is bold and eye catching. I put little stars next to the artist names. I did this with the star brush tool. I changed the text strip at the top of the magazine to 'EXCLUSIVE GARAGE MAGAZINE' this is because I want people to be able to know what it is.

College Magazine

For my college magazine I planned to make an upbeat fun magazine that aims to both male and females. My magazine will be specifically for my college, South Essex College.

I took this picture for my college magazine. It is off a boy ripping out of his school uniform. I think this is relevant to new college starters as they have not long left school. However I added a twist as the boy is wearing a top hat and a diamond earring. This is so the students can see the boy to be 'cool'. I tried out many different effects to see what looks good and what doesn't.

I desaturated this picture and put a neon glow effect. However I didn't like the result as it was too bland and the top looked unrealistic.

I used the film grain tool with this image however I believed the picture looked to unrealistic and not as good quality.

As the many effects I tried out did not appear to improve the picture I decided to keep the original look. However I did not like the bland background so I used the magic wand tool to edit it out.

The next thing I had to do was create a background. I thought a picture of the college would be appropriate and pasted it behind the main image.

I faded the background image of the college as I wanted the main image of the boy to stand out more effectively.

I then added text to my image

The text I added is a bright blue and red. These are masculin colours however are a bold statement to the page and draws the audience in.

The text advertises such things as competitions, revision help and easter escapes. All this relates to the college audience. I also places a short catchphrase on the boys chest saying 'Its tym to say gudbye to ur blaza and ur tie' As well as being written in text code it also rymes. This relates to the school leavers starting a new uniform less college.

My master head reads 'Seec' A fresh start. This is because my college is called SEEC short for South East Essex College. This was a clever word play on that.

Research on music magazines

Research into existing media products to gain basic information such as dimensions of the magazine, social groups represented, income bracket, gender, ethnicity and how is it advertised.





These are all front covers for the magazine Vibe. This magazine stands out to me because they are vibrant, modern and eye catching. They are vibrant with colours using bright purple, bright blue, red and other bold colours. These are a few annotations I have made;


These magazines look as the target audience would be aimed towards girls. This is because it is women on the front covers however not inappropriately dressed to hint a 'mans mag'. The women are all of a black ethnicity so it looks as if the magazine is aimed towards black people. They are advertising 'RNB' and 'HipHop' which relates to the target audience of possible 16-22.
These magazines will all be used for ideas for my magazine. I aim to make a magazine with the typical styles and conventions that these stereotypical 'RNB' magazines use. The magazine will be bold, eye catching, modern and most of all original. My magazine will entertain the audience range from 16-24 year old females. The reason I chose this target audience range is because I believe females between that age group are more likely to be interested in the Garage genre and there are features such as club craze tickets that would not be suitable for under 16's. There won't be a restriction of age for the magazine though so it will be possible for different age ranges to buy it.

My magazine will include the latest garage events, DJ events and concerts. It will be releasing news on celebrities, for instance the new releases and Cd's. It will have the latest gossip on the stars and my magazine will have a fashion double spread for the reader to see how to get the 'Garage Star look'.
Existing products include magazines such as VIBE (above) which typical purpose is 'RNB' news, gossip about the stars and the latest events. Other magazines include:

SUGAR - which is not a music magazine however I wanted to discover how they attract a female audience.

CLASH - which is a well known music and fashion magazine aimed towards women

My product differs from other music magazines as throughout my research I have not discovered a garage genre magazine. It is also unconventionally designed with a white background and bright bold images.