Construction - Development of Front Cover for music magazine.

For the front cover I believe that this was the most changed and developed part of the magazine as it took many decisions with colour schemes and where to place everything. Durung this task I learnt a lot of techniques and tips on how to sconstruct a well presented and formatted front cover applying the right conventions.

 Here is my first draft of the front cover, as you can see I decided to first try the colour purple, I liked this colour as i thought it linked in with my target audience and believed I was thinking about the genre. Here I chose to put a smiley on the front, however this doesn't fit to the normal conventions of a music magazine therefore I took it out to make it appropriate to the task.

After scrapy the purple coloured background I decided to try the blue that I was going to use from the responses of the survey. I also started to place a photo in at the side to mirror my draft that i had drawn out, applying what I had seen from different female targeted magazines.

After careful thought and consideration I chose the colour pink for my colour scheme of the front cover that would lead through to the contents page and the double page spreadsheet. I also started to add some text in and applied the rule of 3 collumns with the barcode and two other text boxes. I also decided to add a strip of colour behind the magazine, again applying the knowledge of female targeted magazines with small titles at the side room for the picture to display on the opposite side. Here I had also chosen a Arial Font as I didn't want anything to wacky for the front cover that wouldn't suite the genre of my music.

Here I had changed the magazine quite a lot at this point as I decided to have the main image in the middle of the page. The reason the image is in the middle of the page and is a midshot is so that the image is more personal to the audience when one buys it. I have learnt that music magazines are extremly different to gossip magazines as music is a more personal subject that holds great value of connection to their audiences. However with Gossip magazines they are not so personal and do not hold a higher level of connection with the audience, I mirrored this image from the magazine 'Q' which is a very popular music magazine.

Here is a copy of a Q magazine, here we can see the eye contact you hace straight away with the reader that views it and also the midshot, to make it close and personal to fans. I also took the idea of a coloured strip behind the text from this magazine as I believed it gave the magazine more of an image rather than a plain title.

 

Here is the one of the screen shots that shows a very close finish to the contents page.

Construction - more use of technologies

For the use of technologies I had learnt how to place a photo within the programme and alos how to resize, re shape and how to re fit a photo to its original form, making a picture suitable to use for my contents page.

On thwe left shows how to start the process by going into file and pressing 'Place' or a shortcut to use on the key board for placing a photo on the document would be 'Apple/Cmnd' + 'D'.

 After selecting the photo that I wanted out of my memory stick I then placed it somewhere on the page ready to be edited.

 

 After that I had to hold down the 'alt' button, then using my mouse, resizing the image from a diagonal corner and dragging it diagonal making the image smaller. Then when I got the size of photo I wanted I let go of 'alt' and let go of the click of the mouse. However the main focus of the female in this photo is almost gone.

 

To re fit the photo to its orginal form without making the photo back to its original size I used the tool of 'fit to proportion' this tool enables the photo to refit in proportion to the original one.

After applying the 'fit to proportion' tool, I ended up with a good result of the image that made it appropriate to use.

After re sizing and adjusting the image to how I wanted it, it resulted in the image I wanted which was a short midshot of the model.

Construction - Use of Technologies

  In design: When Constructing my magazine after planning and collecting all the right images for my magazine I was introduced to a new software that I had never used before called In design. I used In design to construct and produce the products I needed to produce such as the Magazine itself - Front cover, Contents Page and the Double page Spreadsheet. Using this programme I have learnt how to produce a magazine product and also learnt how to use the different tools within the programme like inserting images correctly and enhancing images giving them different effects such as drop shadows and enhancing different pieces of texts such as adding a box, applying a colour to it then arranging that box - moving the coloured box behind my text making the text visible. In design, after a couple of times on the software, was relatively easy to use and helped me produce the products of my magazine.

PS, Photo shop: Photo shop is another software I learnt how to use whilst constructing my magazine. Photo shop was extremely useful as in order for my magazine to be enhanced properly when the final product had been made, photo shop allowed me to enhance the photo's by being able to change them to CYMK format in order for them to be used properly. Also photo shop can be used to edit any photo's making them distorted or even different colours or shades such as black and white or just brightening the photo's themselves. If I could improve my magazine photo's I would most definately have enhanced my photo's more to give them more life. I have learnt that photo shop can be useful for picking out little things such as red eye, I used this tool on photo shop that was called the 'Red Eye Tool' which I had used to improve my image that I had used that had originally had red eyes.

 Also on photo shop I have been able to enhance my main image for my front cover of the magazione, by cutting out the main focus of the image that I wanted to use, and cutted the image out of the original background, I have done this by using the quick selection tool. This tool enables me to easily cut around the person (in my case) so that just the person is selected.

After applying the quick selection tool that is up in the top left, this then results in a cut out of the person, leaving me with the only part of the image I want. However I didn't think that this tool was appropriate when working with the image for a second time, so to enhance my image I used a different tool.

The tool that I used, which was on photo shop was better to enhance the quality of my image, this was done by a technique of clicking and dragging a guidance line, this was better for my image as it was better to handle the different curves around the hair and the clothing, resulting my image to be more enhanced and more refined and smooth compared to the image above.

On the image above, we can see that there is a date printed on the image which is not acceptable, therefore I imported my image into the photo shop and used a tool called 'Stamp'.

On the left is a screenshot of the selected tool which looks like a stamp and has the highlighted square around it. I learnt how to use this tool by holding down the 'Alt' button and simply clicking on a clean area of the cardigan. After I used up and down actions by clicking and dragging the mouse, I had successfully stamped what I had cloned onto the date. I continued to do this and took my time on it so it properly blended in with the cardigan.

Finally after using the tool 'Clone  and Stamp' it has left me with a perfect cover over the date that shows a neat blending of the cardigan, making it look as if there was never a date. I learnt how to use this tool very quickly and I found it very effective for the purpose of the task.

iMac: Before starting the preliminary task or the Music magazine, I learnt how to use an iMac for the first time. iMacs at first were complicated as it is a very highly advanced peice of technology to get to grips with. Using the iMac I learnt how to use In Design and Photo Shop. Also with the iMac when on the Indesign software I learnt how to use the iMac keyboard to my advantage. I learnt different shortcuts to make my work more efficient and quick to do my work without making any mistakes. For example I learnt how to import a photo quicker than just using the mouse by holding down the 'apple' button, or it is called 'command' and pressing the letter 'D' which then brought me straight to the area in which I would collect a photo from. Also I leant how to do two different types of screen shots. The first screen shot I used was a screenshot that captured the whole page, I did this by holding down the 'command/apple' + 'shift' + '3'. The second screen shot I learnt how to do was 'command/apple' + 'shift' + '4', and this screen shot then allows you to select a specific area on the page to take a shot of by drawing a box around the specific area with the mouse.

Survery Monkey: Survey monkey was introduced to me before the beginning process of the construction for the magazine. Survey monkey was relatively easy to use and was very helpful for my thinking and planning towards the music magazine. Survey Monkey was a really useful way to 'connect' with some form of audience before making the product of the magazine as it gave people a chance to say what they really feel and not feel that they have to conform to it because they may be a friend of such, which let me judge my results from the survey appropriately. I learnt how to construct a 10 questioned survey and also how to actually make one online, going through an easy step by step process and chosing a colour scheme for it aswell, and also being able to log into survey monkey and find out where I can review my results and see how many people had responded.

Construction - Beginning and Development of Spreadsheet

To begin the process of my spreadsheet I have made sure that I indicate where the centre of the spreadsheet will be by clicking and dragging my mouse out from the left to make the centre line appear.
This is so that when placing everything on the page and applying columns there is equal space on either side making this a double page spread.

Here I have shown on photo shop how to use the red eye tool on a photo for my double page spread. Firstly I have selected the tool with the eye on.

Here you can see on photoshop that the red colour in the colour section towards the right is on red, therefore I had to change this to black to ensure that i wasn't making my pictures eyes more red.

After ensuring I have selected the correct colour, with the tool brush, i click onto the red eye part until it is as black as i want it. Completing the tool of the red eye remove tool.

Here is my first draft of my spreadsheet, I have took main focus on this image on this page as my main image for this feature, and I have done this by making sure that this image counts for one of the three columns on the left page, however from this image it shows that I haven't applied my text to three columns but i will ensure that I do have three columns on both pages.

 Rectangle Tool: On my double page spread I took an inspiring idea from a kerrang Magazine that had coloured strips around the edges of the written feature with rips of white through them ( similar to the title of the kerrang magazine) so I decided to structure this idea however not have the rips of white going through as I thought I wouls challenege this and adjust it to my targeted audience to see if it fit. I started this process on In Design and clicked on the tool 'Rectangle Tool' shaped as a rectangle.

Then with the mouse I drew out a rectangle and re sized it to the size I wanted.

I then clicked on the colour selection on the right which gave me the option to chose the colour I wanted, I did this by remebering throughout the whole process of the task what my C.M.Y.K had to be and applied it to the rectangle.

In result of this, it had successfully highlighted the whole rectangle strip the colour I wanted. After doing 2 of these and resizing them to make sure they fitted around the page where I wanted them I had completed the easy steps to making the coloured strips.

The above picture is the result of the coloured strips within the double page spread.

 For the double page spread it is important to apply the rule of 'collumn of 3' when constructing the magazine feature. Therefore I had to insert collumns to that my magazine followed the correct conventions.

After a pop up will come out that gives you the option to select the size of margins and how many collumns , I put in the number 2 in the collumns as for both sides of the page I had applied photos for one of the collumns, as from my research planning my results showed that people like to see more photo's than writing, so I made sure I applied this to the double page spread sheet.

After clicking ok, you will get a result of 2 collumns to write in, as shown here and then a seperate collumn already formed for the main image for the feature.

  

In result to applying the right conventions to the double page spreadsheet, this is my final draft of the double page spread sheet.

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

Whilst working on my music magazine, I had to think about what institution might distribute my magazine and why. I looked at various media institutions that would possibly distribute my magazine and also ones that wouldn't.

Firstly I looked at Bauer Media, started in 1875 for some magazines but on more updated detail its 1953, this institution is well known for publishing magazine genres such as cars, lifestyle, and photography. Therefore I can already argue that this media institution would not be appropriate for my publishing magazine as my genre of magazine is on music not any of these genre's. However in further research it has shown that this media institution publish music magazines as well, for example Kerrang have dedicated themselves to this institution. This media institution has a few big selling publications, these are 'Heat' with 470,475 sales, 'Closer' 539,911 sales, Empire with 189,619 sales. Despite the good sales that this media institution has held, this institution still doesn't hold enough of background on music magazines, therefore this would now be the best institution to produce my product.

Secondly, I have looked at IPC Media, founded in 1963, the genres that this institution publish are genres like food,drink,home & lifestyle, women, trade, real life,gaming, music, mans and turf. This institution may possibly be a good institution to distribute my magazine as one genre within this IPC Media is music, also this magazine publishes women, which strongly links in with my magazine aimed at females, however may not be the same age range. IPC Media produces other media such as gaming websites. However the magazines that this institution produce are of a much higher class, and my magazine is aimed at middle/lower class, therefore my product would not be appropriate if contributing to IPC Media.

And finally Future Publishing, this institution was founded in 1985 by Chris Anderson, very well known for publishing magazines of genre's such as games,crafts,films,music, technology,cycling and auto motives. Again arguably I can say that this is a possible institution to distribute my magazine, also because of when this was founded, more recent than the other two making it more valid for my time era of genre. This institutions' best selling publications were Classic Rock, T3 and Total Film, despite the fact that my genre is not rock music, and that it is pop, Future Publishing utilize new technologies using iPhone apps. For my target audience and genre of music, this could be a good way to make my product more popular, in a sense of an iPhone app for the magazine weekly issue and other information on iPhones, as compared to the other two they do not utilize iPhone apps. Therefore I have decided to go with this one as i think it would be best to distribute my product.

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

From the preliminary task I have learnt how to use technologies such as In design and Photo shop, I have also learnt the main principles when creating and structuring a magazine. I have also learnt that everything that revolves around the magazine has to be strongly linked to the audience - as it all depends on the genre and audience to create the magazine. I did a drawing plan of how I wanted my magazine to look when structuring it using In Design, I did this to allow myself to have some sort of plan, however from the preliminary task I did not have a plan therefore I have learnt that having a plan allows me to have some form of structure and idea's allowing me to have something to look back on.
I didn't do research into my preliminary task - however for the main task I researched into magazines such as Kerrang and NME, and took conventions and challenged them to my own genre which was pop music. I did not do further analysis into pop music magazines, however I mainly focused on Kerrang and NME because I felt that by challenging other conventions from different genres magazines I could possibly improve my grade, however if i was to do this task again I would do more research into different magazines that have a pop genre style and audience. In which from this I have learnt that providing research for this certain task has helped me to plan ahead and construct idea's around the task and not think from a blank mind, having something to look back on and allow new idea's to thread together for my magazine.

I feel that I could have improved on some elements whilst developing my music magazine, I think I could have aimed it at both genres and had more unisex images, because if a magazine is aimed at both sexes of the audience the better sales it would have realistically, also I think I would have taken better images, possibly outside rather than inside to create the kind of innocence I was searching for when taking pictures of my model.

Evaluation - How does your media product represent particuar social groups?

On my front cover my model looks very innocent with the almost leaning forward shoulders, this represents a teenage girl, possibly shy or a teenage girl that has something to hide which i have linked in with the saying "females being pretty little puzzles" which fits the general stereotype of an ordinary teenage girl. The light smile on my models face shows a nice warming person again representing the majority of teenage girls. Also the makeup represented on my model shows an important significance to social groups, with my model wearing and displaying a "normal" and more socially desired way of wearing the make up represents the social group of typical teenage girls - which is essential to my targeted audience of female girls. This in my eyes holds connotations of a well attitude female, that doesn't represent or show aggression or discomfort to be approached in the street. Also the name of the artist displayed is displayed as an original name, but not boring, has character, rather than something like in the media today "Ke$sha" which is very odd and wacky, this represents this young artist and the magazine to be enjoyable and comfortable to read.
Also the pictures within the feature represent young females as being 'expressive' showing that innocent girls can have a feisty side to them and are not always nice, showing a little cheeky side representing this female artist to have a bad side. This is also represented in the subheading used - 'i hate her!' representing negative thoughts through this female artist. However the use of language used within the feature shows how females will speak in proper English 'standard english' - this shows the representation of females not always speaking in slang, however within a different area of social groups the slang maybe things like 'init/ennit' 'blud'

Here this photo this photo represents the social group of females in their teens to be aggressive, showing a wide flare of the teeth which is a typical image for anger, also the dress is essential to this representation as it represents females as being ones to like to dress up and make themselves look presentable which represents females either being 'hot' or females that take care of themselves.

This image shows a social group of teens, very laid back, full of life and laughing. The social groups of teenagers tend to live for the moment and don't care what other people think of them, especially when alcohol is involved teenagers tend to think that drinking is cool and everybody does it, showing that this particular social group is conforming much like other social groups will do, as they all want to be like each other.


Looking at social groups I have learnt that it is important to consider what social groups there are and also what social group I personally may be aiming at or edging towards so that I understand publically what they represent and how they should be represented.