Foundation Production Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My masthead is both conventional and unconventional. Its font size is typical of a magazine, as it is the biggest font of the page. It’s unconventional as I chose to develop an original masthead into something unique and to fit its selected target audience. I challenged the convention by using a different font style as most magazine titles are just plain where as mine has a certain style to it as I used a specific font on the website http://www.dafont.com/ I also placed my masthead in the top centre of the page as I didn’t want to follow the magazine style of having the masthead to the left hand corner. I think placing it in the top centre was successful as I believe it stands out more aswell as its font style. This therefore makes it believable as a media product.
When I started to design my magazine I chose to stick with the conventional methods that includes following a certain pattern through my magazines, using cover lines and mastheads on the front page of my magazine. This style of my magazine includes limiting the colour scheme to four colours which results in the magazine being able to follow the specific colour scheme throughout. The four main colours used were: red, black, yellow and grey. These colours were to reoccur throughout the whole of my music magazine to create a sense of consistency. However, when designing my contents page I wanted to make it stand out and be irregular from other contents page. To do this I used abstract shapes on the contents page to produce a pattern/style. This shapes included: circles and squares etc.
Whilst I was producing my own images for my music magazine I thought about several things. For example: the shot distance, framing composition, misc-en-scene and the angle of the image. The conventional form of the main image of the magazine was that the people in the image were representing the main cover story of the magazine. When taking the image for my front cover I chose to use a medium close up (MCU). A MCU was used so the magazine audience could receive a clear, visual image of the band also I believe that a MCU is conventional of a music magazine. When creating this certain pose I took the setting of the image into consideration. This was because I didn’t want a plain background; instead I wanted a background that would reflect the genre of my magazine. I therefore chose to challenge the typical conventional forms of a background; therefore the background I used consists of vinyls placed on a wall. This misc-en-scene was used to represent the genre of my magazine, music. I also used props within the image, the props used was a musical instrument, which was a guitar. This too reflects on the genre of the magazine, the audience shall know the magazine is rock based.
I believe that the language used within the whole of my magazine is very friendly as I chose to use welcoming language such as “hello” etc. By doing this it makes the readers feel comfortable and welcomed. I chose the language to be fast paced as I want it to attract the reader in and not result in it boring them. However, the conventions I chose to develop on was the title of my magazine. To get the masthead of my magazine I was inspired by a recent song from a British band “Hadouken!” This song was called “That Boy That Girl.”
The convention that my magazine layout follows is that is has smaller images on the contents page informing the readers of the other stories in my music magazine. These images mostly consisted of bands. Also the main image on my front cover represents the story of my main feature. However I chose to challenge a few conventions. One that I chose to challenge was the way my cover stories on my front page were presented. I chose to style them out in bullet point form instead of listing a few sentences. My covers stories being in bullet point form suggest it’s short, sharp and sweet. I think it’s successful and it stands out and looks neat. Also when mentioning page numbers in my contents page I chose to place the numbers in a shape of a vinyl.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My masthead is both conventional and unconventional. Its font size is typical of a magazine, as it is the biggest font of the page. It’s unconventional as I chose to develop an original masthead into something unique and to fit its selected target audience. I challenged the convention by using a different font style as most magazine titles are just plain where as mine has a certain style to it as I used a specific font on the website http://www.dafont.com/ I also placed my masthead in the top centre of the page as I didn’t want to follow the magazine style of having the masthead to the left hand corner. I think placing it in the top centre was successful as I believe it stands out more aswell as its font style. This therefore makes it believable as a media product.
When I started to design my magazine I chose to stick with the conventional methods that includes following a certain pattern through my magazines, using cover lines and mastheads on the front page of my magazine. This style of my magazine includes limiting the colour scheme to four colours which results in the magazine being able to follow the specific colour scheme throughout. The four main colours used were: red, black, yellow and grey. These colours were to reoccur throughout the whole of my music magazine to create a sense of consistency. However, when designing my contents page I wanted to make it stand out and be irregular from other contents page. To do this I used abstract shapes on the contents page to produce a pattern/style. This shapes included: circles and squares etc.
Whilst I was producing my own images for my music magazine I thought about several things. For example: the shot distance, framing composition, misc-en-scene and the angle of the image. The conventional form of the main image of the magazine was that the people in the image were representing the main cover story of the magazine. When taking the image for my front cover I chose to use a medium close up (MCU). A MCU was used so the magazine audience could receive a clear, visual image of the band also I believe that a MCU is conventional of a music magazine. When creating this certain pose I took the setting of the image into consideration. This was because I didn’t want a plain background; instead I wanted a background that would reflect the genre of my magazine. I therefore chose to challenge the typical conventional forms of a background; therefore the background I used consists of vinyls placed on a wall. This misc-en-scene was used to represent the genre of my magazine, music. I also used props within the image, the props used was a musical instrument, which was a guitar. This too reflects on the genre of the magazine, the audience shall know the magazine is rock based.
I believe that the language used within the whole of my magazine is very friendly as I chose to use welcoming language such as “hello” etc. By doing this it makes the readers feel comfortable and welcomed. I chose the language to be fast paced as I want it to attract the reader in and not result in it boring them. However, the conventions I chose to develop on was the title of my magazine. To get the masthead of my magazine I was inspired by a recent song from a British band “Hadouken!” This song was called “That Boy That Girl.”
The convention that my magazine layout follows is that is has smaller images on the contents page informing the readers of the other stories in my music magazine. These images mostly consisted of bands. Also the main image on my front cover represents the story of my main feature. However I chose to challenge a few conventions. One that I chose to challenge was the way my cover stories on my front page were presented. I chose to style them out in bullet point form instead of listing a few sentences. My covers stories being in bullet point form suggest it’s short, sharp and sweet. I think it’s successful and it stands out and looks neat. Also when mentioning page numbers in my contents page I chose to place the numbers in a shape of a vinyl.
Here is an example of the page numbers and the images within my contents page.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My music magazine is aimed at indie/rock stereotypes aged 14-25. This magazine is aimed at people who are located in the social demographic scale of B-D. This is done because I believe my magazine is affordable for all. My media product represents the specific social group of indie/rock in several ways. One way is the costume style of the people in my main image; this reflects the selected target audience well as they are wearing stereotypical indie clothes such as: black leather jackets, skinny jeans, band t-shirts and dresses. The body language of the two band members also represents the ideology of the magazine audience. Their ideologies consist of being “laid back”. This magazine reinforces their laid back ideology as I framed the band members to be standing quite calmly and freely to give out a sense of having no worries. I was also trying to create a sense of the “unappreciated music” that my magazine consists of. Indie/rock fans can receive judgements of their taste all the time and may lack self-confidence, to reinforce the realism of free will, within my feature I chose to use a few images of the band laying down looking up. Therefore this creates a sense of superiority between the readers and the band members as they are laying down looking up at the readers making them feel superior to them despite their success. After all, the readers are their influences.
My music magazine is aimed at indie/rock stereotypes aged 14-25. This magazine is aimed at people who are located in the social demographic scale of B-D. This is done because I believe my magazine is affordable for all. My media product represents the specific social group of indie/rock in several ways. One way is the costume style of the people in my main image; this reflects the selected target audience well as they are wearing stereotypical indie clothes such as: black leather jackets, skinny jeans, band t-shirts and dresses. The body language of the two band members also represents the ideology of the magazine audience. Their ideologies consist of being “laid back”. This magazine reinforces their laid back ideology as I framed the band members to be standing quite calmly and freely to give out a sense of having no worries. I was also trying to create a sense of the “unappreciated music” that my magazine consists of. Indie/rock fans can receive judgements of their taste all the time and may lack self-confidence, to reinforce the realism of free will, within my feature I chose to use a few images of the band laying down looking up. Therefore this creates a sense of superiority between the readers and the band members as they are laying down looking up at the readers making them feel superior to them despite their success. After all, the readers are their influences.
Here is an example of what my target audience would be.
The type of media institution I would use to distribute my media product is by an independent distributor. This is because most indie music magazines are distributed by independent companies. Examples of magazine that are/have distributed independently is “Art rocker” and “Plan b” I would also distribute it independently as I believe it will somehow send a message out to the readers that it “isn’t following the crowd” and success can be achieved from independence. Although the magazine may have to deal with low financial income support they will distribute their product through record shops, gigs and festivals. However, the editorial team would have a lot more control of what is contained inside of the magazine therefore there will be a real sense of freedom. I believe this would help because my magazine can also experiment with new ways to attract a wider ranger of audience without going from one extreme to the other. An advantage of using an independent distributor is that the magazine itself can use networks that are established by other Indies.
How did you attract/address the audience?
To attract/address the audience of my magazine I used a visual representation of the stereotype I’m aiming to attract through the image of my music magazine cover. This was done by placing the models in skinny jeans, leather, and dresses, band t-shirts etc. Therefore this will attract this specific audience as their identities are similar. I also advertise a competition of winning an “annual gig voucher at the o2.” I did this as it’s a music magazine and therefore the audience will be attracted to this especially those that are found in C2 of the social demographic scale as they may not be able to afford gig tickets at the o2 due to a low financial income.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst producing my music magazine I’ve gain knowledge in areas of technology such as: photography, photo-editing, blogs etc. I’ve also developed my skills on programmes such as Publisher and Fireworks. When producing my images for my magazine I decided to alter the background on a few of the images so it continues following the pattern which was identified throughout my magazine. To do this I had to use fireworks and this helped me develop my photo-editing skills. I also had past experience on publisher but from since then till now I’ve had develop several more skills when designing a magazine using this programme. When uploading my magazine to the internet it was the first time I had used a blog therefore I learnt many new skills. These skills including learning how to upload new posts, arrange them into alphabetical order and just to browse other peoples blogs.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
There were two main aspects of both my preliminary task and full product which was the main image and the masthead. Both of which were fully developed in my full product and made better. One aspect was the masthead. When choosing a font style for my preliminary task I placed little effort into it. The masthead was very small and simple as it lacked emphasise of the magazine genre and did not follow a conventional form of being big, bold and taken up most of the page. However, when producing a font style for my full product I took a lot more ideas into considerations. It’s the biggest font of the page therefore it stands out and the style of it is also unique as its different font style for each separate word. Another aspect was the main image of each magazine. The main image of my preliminary task lacked excitement as I believed it was a very plain coloured image and the pose of the person looked too pressured. However, when positioning people for my main image on my full product I put a lot of consideration into it. I wanted to use props within the image so the genre of the magazine would be reflected by this. By doing this I used things such as musical instruments, vinyls that decorate the wall in the background and the costume. Therefore I believed that I developed my image successfully when developing my full product.
Preliminary task
Full product
