Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Research and Planning: 3. Preliminary Task Evaluation
My task was to make a cover page and contents page of an educational magazine, including a masthead, medium close up of a student and appropriate text.
I looked at several different types of magazines to decide on the layout and brainstormed on different styles of logos. When I was happy with my logo I drew a rough copy of the cover page on a sheet of paper.
I then moved on to designing the actual page using Adobe Photoshop CS3. First I decided on what background colour to use. I chose a light blue gradient that was slightly darker in the bottom-right corner. I then chose an orange colour for the masthead that would contrast nicely with the background. For the main cover lines I used a pale yellow which would also contrast while not sticking out too much, and a sharp shadow. Sub headings were white. Then I got a picture of the Kinetic Theatre logo and a picture of a Scottish hat from home and applied it to the page. I wanted part of the picture in front of the text and some of it behind it, which wasn’t possible, although I could erase the parts of the hat’s ribbon that overlapped the letters to make it easier to read. In the top right corner I placed the Kinetic Theatre logo along with other small texts each with a different font and colour to add variety. Finally I added a picture of myself taken with a friend’s camera to the background, resizing the image to be a medium close up.
For the contents page I took the two shades of blue from my background for the text on the contents page, using the orange I used for the masthead for the CONTENTS text. I did this to keep the style of the cover page while having the page white, as I think this would look more professional and better suited to a mature audience than a brightly coloured one. Most magazines don’t have pages in full colour like the background of the cover page. I added images from home relating to the content of the articles and spaced the list out irregularly making it seem rebellious and different.
Overall I think that these pages are well-designed. Comparing it with other kinds of newspaper it doesn’t seem as detailed, but at the same time is doesn’t seem cluttered. It is still appealing and eye-catching; although to improve I could have added more images from home.
I looked at several different types of magazines to decide on the layout and brainstormed on different styles of logos. When I was happy with my logo I drew a rough copy of the cover page on a sheet of paper.
I then moved on to designing the actual page using Adobe Photoshop CS3. First I decided on what background colour to use. I chose a light blue gradient that was slightly darker in the bottom-right corner. I then chose an orange colour for the masthead that would contrast nicely with the background. For the main cover lines I used a pale yellow which would also contrast while not sticking out too much, and a sharp shadow. Sub headings were white. Then I got a picture of the Kinetic Theatre logo and a picture of a Scottish hat from home and applied it to the page. I wanted part of the picture in front of the text and some of it behind it, which wasn’t possible, although I could erase the parts of the hat’s ribbon that overlapped the letters to make it easier to read. In the top right corner I placed the Kinetic Theatre logo along with other small texts each with a different font and colour to add variety. Finally I added a picture of myself taken with a friend’s camera to the background, resizing the image to be a medium close up.
For the contents page I took the two shades of blue from my background for the text on the contents page, using the orange I used for the masthead for the CONTENTS text. I did this to keep the style of the cover page while having the page white, as I think this would look more professional and better suited to a mature audience than a brightly coloured one. Most magazines don’t have pages in full colour like the background of the cover page. I added images from home relating to the content of the articles and spaced the list out irregularly making it seem rebellious and different.
Overall I think that these pages are well-designed. Comparing it with other kinds of newspaper it doesn’t seem as detailed, but at the same time is doesn’t seem cluttered. It is still appealing and eye-catching; although to improve I could have added more images from home.
Research and Planning: 4. Music Industry Research
What relationship does the UK Music Industry have with UK Music Magazines?
There are about 74 notable magazines according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_magazines.
The most popular among them are Q, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Blender, Alternative Press, Paste, Vibe, NME and Spin.
The target audience for Q from the beginning were a minority of people who were buying CDs which was a new technology at the time.
Q has a circulation of 130,179 copies sold monthly in the UK as of June 2007 bringing it to an average of 43393 sales per year. Rolling Stone has a circulation of 1.4 million issues sold bi-weekly each issue in the US.
The Magazine Q is owned by Bauer Media Group, as well as Kerrang! and its sister magazine MOJO. Rolling Stone is owned by Wenner Media LLC.
These magazines make money by advertising music artists with news, interviews, photo shoots, reviews of concerts and records and a cover mount which is a compilation of tracks from different artists featured in the magazine.
Record companies get publicity for recording artists and enforce copyright protection for them. If a song belonging to that company is played without paying credit to the artist or the company, it is taken down to ensure that the artist always gets paid for their music.
There are about 74 notable magazines according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_magazines.
The most popular among them are Q, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Blender, Alternative Press, Paste, Vibe, NME and Spin.
The target audience for Q from the beginning were a minority of people who were buying CDs which was a new technology at the time.
Q has a circulation of 130,179 copies sold monthly in the UK as of June 2007 bringing it to an average of 43393 sales per year. Rolling Stone has a circulation of 1.4 million issues sold bi-weekly each issue in the US.
The Magazine Q is owned by Bauer Media Group, as well as Kerrang! and its sister magazine MOJO. Rolling Stone is owned by Wenner Media LLC.
These magazines make money by advertising music artists with news, interviews, photo shoots, reviews of concerts and records and a cover mount which is a compilation of tracks from different artists featured in the magazine.
Record companies get publicity for recording artists and enforce copyright protection for them. If a song belonging to that company is played without paying credit to the artist or the company, it is taken down to ensure that the artist always gets paid for their music.
Research and Planning: 6. Photoshoot Planning
The name of our band is Plutopia. The name was thought up by my family who are more creative with names.
I am the MC who deals with most of the vocal roles of our band, singing lyrics to the songs or stirring up the crowd for songs where I am not needed. My dad is the lead guitar player and secondary vocalist. He tried to start his own music career 8 years ago and had little luck. Now he’s back with his revamped songs that he will sing. James is the technical man who has had the most experience with music software and will provide the synthesised parts of the songs which cannot be made with our conventional guitars. He plays the keyboard which plays the main music track and he plays the main riff himself on the keys.
Our music is mostly Drum and Bass but with some Electronica and a little bit of Trance, so we deal with synthesised music with added guitars to make the music more effective.
We want to convey a powerful but welcoming image by looking confident but not intimidating.
I wear a black beanie and a headset to show that I am the MC. James wears his headphones and sunglasses to convey his image as an artist that he has used for a cover of one of his albums.
Our props are a couple of my Dad’s guitars and keyboards that we have in the background to show how we make our music.
I am the MC who deals with most of the vocal roles of our band, singing lyrics to the songs or stirring up the crowd for songs where I am not needed. My dad is the lead guitar player and secondary vocalist. He tried to start his own music career 8 years ago and had little luck. Now he’s back with his revamped songs that he will sing. James is the technical man who has had the most experience with music software and will provide the synthesised parts of the songs which cannot be made with our conventional guitars. He plays the keyboard which plays the main music track and he plays the main riff himself on the keys.
Our music is mostly Drum and Bass but with some Electronica and a little bit of Trance, so we deal with synthesised music with added guitars to make the music more effective.
We want to convey a powerful but welcoming image by looking confident but not intimidating.
I wear a black beanie and a headset to show that I am the MC. James wears his headphones and sunglasses to convey his image as an artist that he has used for a cover of one of his albums.
Our props are a couple of my Dad’s guitars and keyboards that we have in the background to show how we make our music.
Research and Planning: 7. Response to the Photoshoot
I made no prior preparation to the photo shoot. I had the idea of taking my shots at home using my family as the band rather than doing everything at school. The rest of the class did well by establishing how they were going to do this and who would be in their group. I think I have taken an interesting path of how to do this which may be more difficult since it isn’t at school and I have to find my own time at home, so this may just be a good exercise to help me hone my skills in getting things done and being good at setting goals and deadlines for our group to follow in advance. If I can’t do this then I will stay trailing behind in the work, and I want to avoid this.
Taking pictures at home I didn’t explain fully what image I wanted from these pictures, so my family went by their own idea of the band they were starting rather than me and so this may be communicating the wrong idea.
Taking pictures at home I didn’t explain fully what image I wanted from these pictures, so my family went by their own idea of the band they were starting rather than me and so this may be communicating the wrong idea.
Research and Planning: 8. Concept, Treatment and Evaluation
Concept
The title is Elec; it’s short and rolls off the tongue. It connotes to energy and outlines the genre that the magazine is based around. The previous title was simply DnB, but it was changed since Electronica was a better range of music that I like to listen to so the name covered the wrong range and it sounds way too generic anyway.
This magazine deals with Electronica bands such as The Prodigy and Pendulum as well as our own band. It also deals with music software such as Reason and Record, and synthesisers such as the MiniMogue and their history with Roland the first synthesiser maker. It focuses around the genres of Drum and Bass, Dubstep, Techno and Trance. It can also relate to earlier genres of computer music such as keygens and chiptunes.
It’s Purpose and Aims is to catch the interest of Electronica fans and give information about the Electronica music sub-culture, artists and cheap/free music software to encourage people considering a career in electronic music.
It’s aimed at bright 16 year old males and females who are less interested in mainstream pop music and more interested in certain bands such as The Prodigy and Pendulum, and other artists featured on the UKFDrumAndBass YouTube channel such as Netsky and ShockOne, or new Electronica artists starting their career.
Treatment
The cover page will feature a picture of the band Plutopia as the dominant image. There will be a few articles mentioning the band as well as Top 10s of Electronica, Drum and Bass and Trance etc and articles on cool cheap/free music software for music artists. It will include a flash because they are an effective eye-catching feature.
The contents page will look like Windows Media Player listing the articles like tracks. If there is space in the text there will be small thumbnails of things to the right of the text relating to an article such as the band Plutopia.
The double page spread will feature a review of Plutopia with a stripe going across a point just above the middle page showing a close up of the three members close to each other. Text will be below in solid columns with a few pictures amongst the text.
The tone is laid-back and informal to appeal to 16 year olds. The language will be simple enough but won’t seem like it’s patronising by being too simple. The text and images will be somewhat scattered and not in a regular arrangement, but not completely, to present an interesting Kerrang!-like layout to the viewer without it being too hard to navigate the page layouts.
Justification
I have arranged the magazine’s format to something similar to Kerrang! That is an interesting and unusual format having unorganised layouts and large images with colourful borders. It breaks the convention of how text is written on paper as straight and organised in rows and columns. The text will be randomly spaced out and slightly tilted to present an interesting and different layout to read.
This magazine will appeal to its target audience because its content will be very similar to a magazine such as Kerrang! but will focus on a musical sub-culture that mainstream musical magazines tend to overlook. The people who write music of the target genre are widespread throughout the Internet, so giving certain obscure artists some lime light will mean that the target audience can check out new artists to satisfy a need for more variety in their music library.
The challenges I may face in production may include emulating the style of a music magazine as I have not seen many. I will need to make sure I do enough research to be able to include enough content and pay attention to detail.
The title is Elec; it’s short and rolls off the tongue. It connotes to energy and outlines the genre that the magazine is based around. The previous title was simply DnB, but it was changed since Electronica was a better range of music that I like to listen to so the name covered the wrong range and it sounds way too generic anyway.
This magazine deals with Electronica bands such as The Prodigy and Pendulum as well as our own band. It also deals with music software such as Reason and Record, and synthesisers such as the MiniMogue and their history with Roland the first synthesiser maker. It focuses around the genres of Drum and Bass, Dubstep, Techno and Trance. It can also relate to earlier genres of computer music such as keygens and chiptunes.
It’s Purpose and Aims is to catch the interest of Electronica fans and give information about the Electronica music sub-culture, artists and cheap/free music software to encourage people considering a career in electronic music.
It’s aimed at bright 16 year old males and females who are less interested in mainstream pop music and more interested in certain bands such as The Prodigy and Pendulum, and other artists featured on the UKFDrumAndBass YouTube channel such as Netsky and ShockOne, or new Electronica artists starting their career.
Treatment
The cover page will feature a picture of the band Plutopia as the dominant image. There will be a few articles mentioning the band as well as Top 10s of Electronica, Drum and Bass and Trance etc and articles on cool cheap/free music software for music artists. It will include a flash because they are an effective eye-catching feature.
The contents page will look like Windows Media Player listing the articles like tracks. If there is space in the text there will be small thumbnails of things to the right of the text relating to an article such as the band Plutopia.
The double page spread will feature a review of Plutopia with a stripe going across a point just above the middle page showing a close up of the three members close to each other. Text will be below in solid columns with a few pictures amongst the text.
The tone is laid-back and informal to appeal to 16 year olds. The language will be simple enough but won’t seem like it’s patronising by being too simple. The text and images will be somewhat scattered and not in a regular arrangement, but not completely, to present an interesting Kerrang!-like layout to the viewer without it being too hard to navigate the page layouts.
Justification
I have arranged the magazine’s format to something similar to Kerrang! That is an interesting and unusual format having unorganised layouts and large images with colourful borders. It breaks the convention of how text is written on paper as straight and organised in rows and columns. The text will be randomly spaced out and slightly tilted to present an interesting and different layout to read.
This magazine will appeal to its target audience because its content will be very similar to a magazine such as Kerrang! but will focus on a musical sub-culture that mainstream musical magazines tend to overlook. The people who write music of the target genre are widespread throughout the Internet, so giving certain obscure artists some lime light will mean that the target audience can check out new artists to satisfy a need for more variety in their music library.
The challenges I may face in production may include emulating the style of a music magazine as I have not seen many. I will need to make sure I do enough research to be able to include enough content and pay attention to detail.
Evaluation Question One: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
1.The Title of the Magazine
The title is fairly conventional in that it is very large and in the top-left corner. The text is Agency FB which is small and blocky and has been stretched out to emphasize it and suggest a man-made theme. The L in the title is replaced by a lightning bolt which is unconventional as it replaces a letter that the reader has to figure out. The magazine is shown as a fairly early issue and obscuring the title is only conventional around much later issues. The lightning bolt is a clue to the meaning of the title as it can make them think of electricity. The title has a metallic texture to show the man-made electronic theme.
2.Mise-en-scene
The Mise- en-scene is not conventional as there are a few different types of shot but it clearly shows that it has been taken in the same room, so there is not much variety. Strangely enough though each of these pictures has their own tint which looks interesting even if it means it isn’t consistent. Some of the pictures are taken at a variety of distances and some do not make eye contact. Each shot has a different facial expression giving different moods, but mostly a moody and confident one which is a rather conventional mood. Overall I think the Mise-en-scene is good, and a not entirely conventional but I could have gone for better settings.
3.Costumes and Props
The costumes and props are not entirely conventional. The people are wearing casual clothes of purple and green which are not considered conventional colours of music magazines. Darker colours such as black and brown are more conventional. They are wearing jeans which are more conventional clothes. In the background are a couple of keyboards and a computer screen with a synthesizer on it. This challenges convention as it gives the impression of a studio while the people give an impression of posing for a magazine cover or live performance. This is a combination of images which is not conventional in music magazines.
4.People
The people in my magazine are unconventional because they are part of a more diverse age range than normal. Conventional ages Electronica artists are around 20-30, while this shows more of a 17-40 range. The people are all male which is thought to be both conventional and unconventional because females are known to be in bands but there are many bands who are all male. This may not interest the target audience of 16-25 year olds, but it challenges the convention of age while still trying to have the appeal of more conventional bands.
5.Title font and style
The Title/Main Cover Line of the magazine is conventional as it is large and thick and shadowed to make it noticeable. It is the second biggest piece of text on the page which is conventional among magazines. It uses the font Hobo Std which is slightly curvy which conflicts with the square metallic style of the Masthead. The inconsistent theme challenges convention while presenting an interesting and varied layout.
6.Written Content
The written content is conventional as it is informal and is directed at the general youth. It talks about the bands and how and when they began and upcoming albums. These points of discussion are conventional among music magazines meant for young adults.
7.Music Genre
The music genre of this magazine is Electronica with a mention of Drum and Bass, and Trance. The Masthead suggests electricity and metal. The genre is mentioned in the cover lines of the front page and in the contents page. The fonts used in these pages are sans serif giving an impression of computer text rather than handwriting which gives the man-made metallic theme.
8.Layout
The layout is mostly conventional on the cover page. The text is spaced out and easy to take in. There is a lot of text on the cover page so it doesn’t seem sparse. The colours blend well together giving an aesthetically pleasing and inviting look. It features several conventions such as a barcode, a flash, and date and issue number. The layout is also conventional on the double page spread as the text is in justified columns that go down the page and are spaced out and interspersed with quotations from the article and images of the band. The top of the double page spread features a lot of smaller images to add content and not make it look empty.
9.Contents page
The contents page is less conventional than the other pages. The lines are spaced out randomly to challenge the convention of the straight grid layout that is present on most contents pages of magazines. It contains a subscription box and editor’s note. These are conventional features of a magazine.
Evaluation Question Two: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I will compare these photos of a member of the band SAWA – Hizmi, and one of me included in my double page spread. It represents musical composers as there is musical equipment in the background. The clothing is informal, including jeans. They are holding the guitar upward to show that they are engaged in composing. Hizmi is not looking at the camera, breaking the convention of eye contact, which may suggest a rebellious part to the youth demographic. There is a difference in posture and facial expression, which gives a different impression on the attitude of the two bands. Plutopia is more powerful and overt, while SAWA is more cool and reserved. Hizmi’s hair is longer, while my hair is short and obscured by a cap. The pictures of SAWA are taken outside with natural light while my pictures have been taken in one indoor setting with artificial light. Overall I think that my magazine represents youth in some ways but not entirely. Not every convention of music magazine images were taken into account and implemented into the photo taking process, but the content of the magazine will still appeal to my target audience.
Evaluation Question Three: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think that this magazine is interesting for a media institution as it is meant to be directed towards people with more obscure and different tastes in music than just pop, with some technical content. This means that for whichever institution would want to publish my magazine, there would likely be a gap in the market which it could then fill.
Evaluation Question Four: Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my magazine is 16-25 year old males and females, trying to have an equal amount of appeal towards both sexes. This magazine is meant to appeal to people are disinterested in modern pop music and television and more interested in different forms of entertainment and musical sub-cultures such as Drum and Bass, Electronica and Trance. They don’t worry too much about their appearance and opinions that are different to the majority of people who like pop music and in fact pride themselves on their unconventional tastes. They would shop anywhere not minding the local reputation of the store. They would buy things that are cheap with no concern for keeping a social image with expensive brands, and only buy things at a modest price that are functional, only occasionally buying something of a higher price and quality as a treat. They like bands such as Pendulum and regularly browse the UKFDrumandBass channel on YouTube for new songs by artists such as NetSky, ShockOne and Sub Focus, or remixes of pop songs by artists such as the Brookes Brothers.
Evaluation Question Five. How did you attract/address your audience?
This magazine’s content and layout is unusual and can therefore appeal to people by introducing new places for them to look for good music of their favourite sub-culture, in the form of artists online, such as Syrsa and Esselfortium, or people who made music for a game but also make their own music, such as Alexander “Siren” Brandon and FlashyGoodness.
Evaluation Question Six: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have developed a good knowledge of Adobe Photoshop CS3 when creating this project. Using this extremely versatile and potent piece of software has been exciting and rewarding for me.
I used my personal SanDisk 4GB Cruzer Micro to keep backup files of my documents and pictures so I can upload them to my blog at home.
I used Blogger to create a blog with which to store this information, the magazine pages and all the written work beginning from the preliminary stage. I have been used to using Blogger and so it wasn’t hard to do, and Blogger itself is very simple.
I used Microsoft Word for the majority of typing up my work, while using Powerpoint to store the images of my Main Task Magazine Prototype. I have had these programs on my own computers for years.
I used my personal SanDisk 4GB Cruzer Micro to keep backup files of my documents and pictures so I can upload them to my blog at home.
I used Blogger to create a blog with which to store this information, the magazine pages and all the written work beginning from the preliminary stage. I have been used to using Blogger and so it wasn’t hard to do, and Blogger itself is very simple.
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I used Microsoft Word for the majority of typing up my work, while using Powerpoint to store the images of my Main Task Magazine Prototype. I have had these programs on my own computers for years.
Evaluation Question Seven and Audience Feedback
Since my preliminary task, I have learnt about Photoshop a considerable amount. I have learned that colour schemes are an important factor in the attractiveness of the magazine. In my preliminary task I have used light blue and many pale colours with not very notable variation. In my main task I have made something that is more eye-catching, and things in different colours are large and notable. I have learnt about what conventional features and little details go into a magazine to make it look professional and authentic. My preliminary task has a minimal layout – it hasn’t got many different fonts or conventions. The images and text seem somewhat sparsely placed. My main task includes a lot of magazine conventions such as a splash, a bar-code and an editor’s note. There is also a range of different fonts. The page doesn’t look lacking in content and detail and this makes it more attractive and professional looking.
Audience Feedback
After completing my magazine I devised a questionnaire and asked 20 people what they thought of the magazine. I asked them about the layout and the content and whether it would appeal to them or not. After getting answers from 20 people, these were the recorded results:
This shows that the majority of people are happy with the layout, appearance and the amount of content. While not all of them buy magazines, they still expressed positive feedback with my magazine.
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