DESIGNS

In what ways does your media produce use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine is aimed at youth college groups who are around 16-25, this is mainly because I know what people around this age group would like because I am within this age group. Also, from handing out my questionnaire, my main response was from this age group of people so I took their ideas and used them towards my production of a magazine. Youth is represented here in a happy and postive way, this is made by their facial expressions in the magazine. This contrasts from their usual outlook of youth because they're normally sterotyped in a negative way, by relating to crime and being rude and lazy. The media also broadcasts youth to be always wearing hoodies and dressed scruffy but from my magazine, we can see that they're dressed differently to how the media says they dress. Youth is represented in this way because I wanted to challenege the sterotype of youth being negative in many ways (eg crime) by showing the pictures which show they don't just turn to crime and they aren't all in massive gangs. In my double page spread the title is 'I've had enough of arguing but I'm continuing with music' this shows that not all youths want to argue and aren't all about violence. But they want to continue and don't give up with what they want to do.
Females are represented in a postive way and quite a glamourous, but natural, way in my magazine, but they aren't shown as all 'size zero' models. This is a contrast from how girls in magazines are usually represented as they're normally shown airbrushed a lot and skinny and always shown as trying to lose weight or always dressed up with lots of make up on. I wanted to represent female in a more natural way to show that girls aren't usually like this every day and don't all want to be skinny and actually have talents of music.
Males are represented in a postive and productive way in my magazine, by playing instruments and being musical. Usually, males at this age in the media are represented as turning to crime and always shown in a negative way. I wanted to show that males aren't all like that and they have talents with music and are productive and don't all just drop out of school/college.
Also, being around college and around this age group, I know what people are interested in and what attracts particular people to buy the particular things.
 I got this image from google.co.uk/images. This group shows it involves a multi-cultural group and involves both genders.
From my magazine, muscians are represented in a postive light. This is done by the stories of the muscians and saying they're successful with what they've achieved which shows they aren't lazy.
My magazine is open to all ethnicitys and there is no ethnicity biased in any of the pages. There is no set gender which this magazine is aimed at, the questionnaire I handed out I had 15 males and 15 females so I was able to take both genders into account to create the features in my magazine.
The magazine is also mainly north-west based, this is mainly because the concert list is mainly based here but it does have some occasional news on other places within the country. Also, the new and upcoming artists will only be around this area because of the location where I live. This is a group of students which my magazine would be aimed towards.

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

Bauer Publishing.
This is a publishing company who are popular over Europe, in places such as the UK, Spain and Portugal. The company is a German publishing company based in Hamburg and operates in 15 countries. The company was founded in 1875 and has been growing ever since, this shows it's a reliable company and it has a good reputation. Bauer publishes Q magazine, take a break, Bella, and other magazines along these lines. Bauer magazine engages 19 million people every week with some of the most influential brands in the UK.
I think this would be a really good company as it already has a music magazine and has loyalty to other magazine so it is a well known company.
My magazine would be available to buy in music shops which I think I would get a lot of people from because the people in music shops will be appealed to this sort of music in my magazine so may get a lot of people buying it as they'll be interested in the genre. It'll also be given out at festivals in the summer such as Leeds/Reading, V Festival and T in the Park. This would create publicity from my magazine which will make people know about the magazine and hopefully add more fans to the magazine which will then create a wider knowledge of my magazine and cover a wider range of people.
I will also sell it in shops like WHSmith and Boots which will have a wide range of various people so
I may get some other audience types from these shops. These sell a various magazines so it's important that my magazine stands out on the shelves so the black and white picture and the red font will add a contrast to most of the other magazines.
It will also be sold in supermarkets, this may be easier for some people to get to, so it may get sold a lot more here and newsagents, many people may go to a local one occasionally so this would be beneficial if they usually get a magazine as they now have a new magazine which they can buy and if my magazine appeals towards them, then hopefully they get a regular magazine and will go more towards this magazine than another.
Also, the website is www.notedmagazine.com so many people will be able to access the magazine online. The subscription is also available which may attract people if they like the magazine as they save £1.00 and get a free gift every fortnight.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For my magazine, I chose to do it for ages 16-25, this is because I am within this age range and most people I asked for my questionnaire were in this age range so then I could see what sort of things they wanted in a magazine as well as knowing what attracts people towards a magazine.

This is a picture from google which is the target audience I am aiming at.
Also, modern trends and fashion is constantly changing so being surrounded by students at college helps me see what people are interested in and so this can keep the magazine in trend with the current trends of the age range. A lot of students get inspiration from celebrities and bands and are influenced by their fashion so some people might create bands because of their idols and the music they're influenced by. I think youth have a lot of attraction towards the 'latest' music and whats in the charts, so I made sure my magazine included this so people would be more likely to buy it.
The fashion celebrities are wearing and the hairstyles celebrities have, has a big influence with students and people are inspired by these. This means I have to make sure that the fashion and music is up to date so that people are interested in the magazine. I chose to do a medium close up of a female which is dressed in a denim shirt and her hair is nice and would attract people towards the front cover. I have airbrushed her slightly to make her look like a front cover model, which will attract people towards her but without her having loads of make up on.



I chose to do a pop magazine but I didn't use a colour theme of bright colours, this is mainly because then it appeals to other genres as well as pop. I used a colour theme of black, white, grey and red so that it also appealed to both genders in order to keep it open and not make it a gender specific magazine. I feel this also gave it a more sophisticated and mature look rather than appealing towards younger teenagers. I didn't want it to just appeal to one gender and wanted my magazine to target towards both males and females, which I have hopefully achieved.
My magazine appeals to all ethnicity's and won't offend any ethnicity. 

How did your attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?
I handed out questionnaires in order to get an idea of why people buy the magazine they do and what appeals to them when reading a magazine.
For my front cover, a lot of people said that they're attracted to a magazine because of the cover story, this is important because it showed me that I needed a strong story and a strong cover photo so people are attracted and see it on the shelves. I used a black and white image of a medium close up of someone, which I think stands out because the colour of the font is a white font with a red background behind it. This makes the title stand out and contrast from the image but doesn't draw away the emphasise of the image. I chose to do a red font for the cover story so that it also contrasts from the picture which will attract people because it stands out from the picture but doesn't take the focus away from the title or image. I also have used the word 'exclusive' which will address the audience and make them know that it's only in my magazine so if it appeals to them they will be more pursuaded to buy the magazine. The banner at the top of my magazine says 'worlds best selling fortnightly magazine' this will attract people as they will know it's a good magazine and so if they're debating between buying two magazines, this may attract them to buy mine over another.
My contents page, I have used a white background, with a black font for the pages and red number pages. This sticks to the colour theme of the front cover but doesn't make it too bland. The main picture covers the majority of the page with three females from the band and a grey background, this links with the bottom of my page which has a grey background and black font - this links the page well together. For the subsciption at the bottom right hand corner, I have told people that if they sign up for it they save £1.00 and get a free gift every fortnight. This will attract people towards subscibing to my magazine hopefully as it's telling them they get free things.
For my double page spread, I've used a black and white picture again and a white font, this fits with my main colour theme. I have tried to use a heading which will attract people and give people more of an insight into the cover which will hopefully make more people want to read the article.

For the age range my magazine is for (16-25) I think the main appeal is the cover star and who is on the front of the cover page, I think most people, especially young girls, will buy this because it will be their 'celebrity crush' or 'idol' so I made sure this was a good picture. 
Most people said they would pay around £2-£3 for a magazine, this is important as if I put the price any higher than this then many people wouldn't buy it and be put off buying it regularly and may only buy it occasionally, if at all. i think it is important to have quite a low price especially for the age range of 16-25 as many will not have much money and may only have part time jobs, so won't want to pay for magazines if they're over their price limit which they can afford.
This is a picture from google which is the target audience I am aiming at.

The front cover attracts the audience because the title stands out from the cover image. The red background with a white big font stands out because it's a bold colour which younger people will look for.
The red font for the cover story stands out too and the name is in big writing which will attract people who like the person who the cover story is about.
The image will attract the audience because it in black and covers the whole page, which people will look at. When I asked people what attracted them to buying the magazine they mentioned the cover story, so it was important to have a good picture which will stand out and attract the age range of 16-25.
The colour theme all blends together with the use of black, white, red and grey, this makes the magazine look professional and it'll be a contrast from other magazines in the shop which may have bright colours, so this may work in my advantage.

The contents page attracts the audience because again it has used quite a 'young' style. I think the pictures used will attract people towards the page and want to find out what's in the magazine.
The grey boxes at the bottom stand out from the rest of the page which is the part where we want the people to be attracted towards because it's the subscription of the magazine, so people will want to subscribe to the magazine.
The page 17 photo has a white border roud it which contrasts from the photo behind it, this will make people want to read it if they see that they like who it's about and want to read more about it.










The audience will be attracted to this page by the main heading at the top in white because it contrasts from the black background of the photo and the red quote which stands out in the middle of the page as it's the only thing in colour. This will give people an insight to the story and then they may want to read it depending on the quote and who the story is about.

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

Technologies from the process of constructing the product from lilyfaulkner



 

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Prelim test shoot

We went out and took photos around the college, which represent the college so took photos in different places, for example, photos in certain lessons and cafes.

These photos turned out really out of focus and were blurry, so we are going to redo the photos to make sure they’re in focus. I would like a photo of some areas of college and some head shots of people.

PLANS FOR FRONT COVER

Magazine names

College magazine
College life
Priestley Life
The CanTEEN
Priestley weekly
College Comfort
Priestley people
Priestley student
Student life
Student Style

Using Priestley People

A medium headshot of just one person for the cover star.

ROUGH LAYOUT OF FRONT COVER

This is my rough sketch of my front cover, I'm going to do a red font for the title and most of the font black but with some different. The cover star will go over the title slightly.

PLANNING CONTENT

PRIESTLEY PEOPLE.
Barcodes,
cover star,
subheadings,
title,
date,
website,
price,
small images
These are what always appear on a magazine cover.

For my contents page I will use images which fit with the stories on my front cover, for example the Enrichment and I'm going to have new stories about the art department and science experiments to use a selection of my photo's I have taken. The photos below are some of the photos I plan on using on my contents page.

PHOTOGRAPHS FOR COLLEGE MAGAZINE

FINAL IMAGES FOR COLLEGE MAGAZINE

The top photo is my cover star. These are the final images I'm going to use on my college magazine front cover. Here, I can then relate it to 'enrichment and sports' and 'new updates for the Mez'

These are the images I'm going to use for my contents page.

PRODUCTION OF COLLEGE MAGAZINE FRONT COVER

I used the stroke tool on Photoshop to add a border around the edges of the photos. This made them stand out more from the background.

I also used drop shadow on the title and the 'FREE' and 'TOP TEN UNIVERSITYS' to make it stand out and less 2d.

PRODUCTION OF COLLEGE MAGAZINE CONTENTS PAGE

EVALUATION OF COLLEGE MAGAZINE

This is my production of my college magazine cover.

Here, I took some inspiration from another magazine to see how to lay my cover out.

I used a red font to make it stand out and so it was bold. I then used subheadings as a blue colour to keep them bold as well but still not take off focus from the title. Then I used a black font to explain slightly the story which was happening.

I included photos and added a stroke around the edges of the photo so they would stand out from the background and tshirt. I included a font to stand out from the tshirt of the right photo to make sure it could be seen and was in a bold font. I put the picture and font in a white rectangle so it was altogether and stood out from the grey background of the person.

I put 'TOP TEN UNIVERSITYS' in red so it would stand out as this would be a big story for students because of UCAS applications.

I put the website address in a black smaller font under the title, so that it would still be seen but isn't going to blend in with a story on the cover, I did the same for my date so that it was at the top in the right.

I think the spacing works well because there isn't too many empty spaces and even though the background is white, there is lots going on to use this space.

This is my contents page which I got inspiration from a few different pages to make this page.

First, I added the title in black and a bold simple font to make it stand out and so you see it as soon as you turn onto the page.

I then added two photos at the bottom to go with the stories I'm using, and added text onto the photo to explain what it's about.

I then added the pages and what's on them next, using the page number in a bold blue font to make sure it's seen. I then added the black writing underneath, using a bolder font for the main subject and then a less bold font to explain the story more.

I then added two more photos into the space so that the page looked busy and didn't have too much white area and then put the page numbers on for these photo.

Finally, I added a black inner shadow onto the photos to make them stand out slightly more and the pictures look better and not as 2d.

For these two pages, I used Photoshop to edit the page and photos and put it all together, first though I had to take the photos which I took around college on a canon camera.

The strengths of the new media technology, like photoshop is that you can do almost everything on it. You can edit photos, construst text and put together a page like this with effects,

INITIAL IDEAS AND PLANS

For my music magazine, my first ideas was Pop or British Music. I have chosen to do Pop because I think they're is more variety at the moment and more to say about.
My initial plans for price are around £2.00 but I will questionnaire people on how much they're willing to pay for this. Frequency of publication, I first debated monthly or weekly and then chose to do every fortnight for an avergae of these, this gives enough chance to get music news and enough time to produce it without the news going out of date. This also means the pages will be average around 30 because it's not too big without it being too small.
Regular content will include regular feature articles, advertising, dates of concerts coming up, reviews of new albums, new and upcoming music, chart top 40 of singles and albums.
Feature articles.....




Kerrang comes out weekly, the average age is 22 for their readers. With gender being 41% female and 59% male. Their readership is 396,000 and circulation is 44,013. It costs £2.20.  http://www.kerrang.com/
Kerrang has around 70-100 pages.

Q magazine is published. The target audience 15-25, 33% being female and 66% being female. Their readeship is 411,000 and circulation is 64,596. http://www.qthemusic.com/
The feature article for NME is Rihanna on this cover which is ther cover stae on the cover, taking up the whole of the background. This would also engage reader if they saw her and were a Rihanna fan it would mean that they'd be drawn to buy this magazine, so they use cover stars who are big in the news recently. Q has between 150-200 pages.

For NME the launch date was 1952, this magazine is produced every week with a taget audience of 15-34 with more being males. The price for this is £2.40. http://www.nme.com/magazine
Also on the front cover, it says 'THE STATE OF MUSIC TODAY' with a list of music artists/bands, this would encourage readers to buy the magazine to see what it was discussing and the story behind this headline. NME has about 30-60 pages.

CASE STUDY NOTES

NME stands for New Musical Express. This would appeal to readers because it is shortened for new music, this makes it quick and stand for something which will it appeal to it.  The pink colour would appeal to people as it is a bright, young colour which appeals to the target auidence. This may draw more girls towards the magazine than boys.

They've used Rihanna on the front cover because she is a big music person and is a role model for some young girls so if they saw her on the front cover, they might be more appealed to buy it.
The barcode in the right hand corner makes sure that the attention isn't drawn away from focal point of the cover but we still know it's for sale.The grey background fading into white makes the background plain so that everything else stands out but it isn't just plain white so it's still a young look.

They would choose to put a picture of a band because people will want to read about them and they will base it on who it appeals to. The black background with the white font makes it stand out and isn't in a boring font so people will read it.

This is a double page spread from NME. The picture of The Vaccines is over one and a third of the pages and the title 'THE VACCINES' is in capitals, big bold black font. This lets us know easily who the article is about. The article is then underneath this in black font, with a blue quote which breaks the article up and blue letters which also break the black font up. The blue squares and lines across the the page break up the page and font and make it look as if it has had little bits stuck onto the page. This links with the font colour of the blue and adds an abstract look to the page which is for an artistic look to the page, it links to the alternative genre of music by breaking up the page.

The name of the magazine 'KERRANG' almost sounds like a guitar sound so it appeals to this genre of music. This would add to the target audience of the magazine. The colour theme is quite a fierce colour which appeals to young people as opposed to older people.

On the page, the subheading is 'READING AND LEEDS' in the middle of the page with a yellow background, this is a focus as it'll draw you towards it and Reading and Leeds is a popular festival so people will want to read about it and see the pictures, this is matching the target audience. The yellow and black is also the theme of Leeds festival which links to that aswell as it standing out for people to see. The different pictures on the page link to more pages inside and link to the genre of the magazine. The yellow background with black font saying 'PLUS...' stands out from the dark background which draws us to winning something which may appeal to try and win something, drawing people into the magazine.

This is a double page spread from kerrang. There is a picture of Linkin Park across one and a half pages. Then it has a quote over the whole left part of the page in black bold.

There is then an orange banner fading into the picture below this with a white font. The article is in white font over the picture in the bottom right page.

This makes us appeal to the quote straight away which will draw us towards it.

In the picture they're all wearing a similar colour, all in blacks and browns, this makes them look co-ordinated and fits to the colour scheme, they have a dark background but with a white font which makes the font stand out and we are able to read it.

The font on the right hand side is different sizes and colours so it appeals to the target audience as it isn't just a boring, standard font. Cheryl Cole would also appeal to younger people and she stands out from the background, covering the whole page. The black banner at the top saying 'THE UK'S BIGGEST MUSIC MAGAZINE' with a white font, makes it stand out as underneath the logo is 'Q' in a red background with white font. So this works well because both stand out as we are drawn towards the Q but the banner is above it which would make us look at it after this. Also the red and white stand out from the black, dark background and sticks to the colour theme. Cheryl Cole has a song called '3 words' this links to the cover, saying '3 words... Cheryl Cole Rocks' this links to her song and also links to an insight of the magazine inside.

This is from Q magazine double page magazine. There is a picture going across one and a half pages which links with the article. Then the article in the bottom right page in back font, with a bold first letter of the article. There is also USA and 'got the love' on the page with USA behind the person in grey which breaks the page up a bitand 'got the love' in a bold italic black font, this makes it stand out and breaks up the page.

NME:
British Music
IPC Media is the publisher
Mike Williams is the Editor
7 March 1952 is when it was first published
Weekly magazine
£2.40
Bought from shops such as WHSmith and places which sell magazines and also can subscribe to it

Kerrang:

Rock Music

Bauer Media is the publisher

James McMahon is the Editor

6th June 1981 is when it was first published

Weekly magazine

£2.20

Bought from shops such as WHSmith, Boots, etc and also can have a subscription to the magazine so it'll be delievered.

Q Magazine:

Popular Music

Bauer Media Group is the publisher

Andrew Harrison is the Editor

October 1986 was the first issue

Monthly magazine

£3.90

Bought from shops which sell magazines and also can subscribe to it.