Q. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazine?
My music magazine 'Streetz' uses the obvious conventions that any other music magazine will use for their front cover. These conventions include the Strap line, Masthead, date, time & bar code and lastly the way they attract their targeted audience. Before I could start constructing my own music magazine, I had to carry out a research on existing music magazines in order to find out what features they had, so that I could base my magazine around the conventions they had used. The research stage of my music magazine consisted of de-constructing all the features which make up a music magazine. After de-constructing theses features, it was easier for me to analyse them in more detail. One of the main features in a music magazine cover is the Masthead. My masthead is mainly used to advertise the name of my magazine. This is the same for all music magazines. Carrying out secondary research helped the production of my music magazine very much as it all helped form my music magazine. It also gave me an insight on how other music magazines looked and what they featured. This was helpful as it allowed me to make my music magazine look different and unique in order for it to qualify as a competitor in the huge music magazine industry.
The layout and design of my contents page stays consistent with the music magazine. This tends to be the same with most real music magazines. The content page also includes the name of my magazine; 'Streetz', the tag line; 'From rap to hip hop we have got the lot' and lastly the date, which for this addition was; 'November 2010'. The font style and font colour also stays consistent. The only thing that differs on the page is obviously all the things that a contents page would consist of that the masthead wouldn't, for example, a title saying 'contents' which remains in the same font style and colour as well as all the pages and page numbers. My main aim was to make sure my magazine related to my target audience as the main way in which magazines are produced and distributed depends on the audience’s life style and spending pattern.z
Q. How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?
Streetz represents the social group of young adults aged 16-21 who are interested in rap and R&B music. My music magazine does this effectively through the use of the dress code of the artists in my magazine and also through the consistency of the fonts used.
Streetz represents the social group of young adults aged 16-21 who are interested in rap and R&B music. My music magazine does this effectively through the use of the dress code of the artists in my magazine and also through the consistency of the fonts used.
The different font styles and colours used for the font gives my music magazine front cover an artistic, unique look that relates to young people who are interested in rap music. On my contents page I have picture of my artist on the background which represents my page and keeps the style consistent. There are certain pictures that show the powerful and youthful side to my artist. The picture on my front page shows that the artist is thinking and in control of his life. The colours used on the page are all the colours from the background images I have used on featured rap artists. This represents the genre of my music magazine.
Q. What Kind of institution might distribute your music magazine and why?
The main places and businesses that may sell my music magazine would be local newsagents and HMV. I think areas like Central London, Camden Town. As for HMV, my music magazine might be sold by all their stores throughout London. Other shops which sell magazines such as Borders may also be a good place to distribute my music magazine. This would be a huge advantage for my music magazine as it will be selling with other well known magazines which aren't only sold around the UK but world-wide. This will also be beneficial for my music magazine as I can publish news and artists/bands which aren't just from the UK but all around the world such as America. Having a link with world known magazines like in America could help the success of my music magazine because my audience will see that my magazine doesn't just consist of news and artists based in the UK. This would work extremely well because magazines like 'Vibe' (which is an American magazine) has worked it's way to selling successfully in the UK in many sole-traders like newsagents, corner shops etc. The reason for this is because the magazines understand the concept of psycho-graphics and demographics of their target audience.
Q. Who would be the audience for your music magazine?
The main audience of my music magazine will be a youthful and mainly male audience. The reason I say this is because mostly boys like rap music and it is rare to find girls that like rap music and would spend money on buying a music magazine about rap. I have also chosen a youthful audience because Rap music is mostly listened to by young people. By aiming it at this audience I will have played against my strong points. This should make my music magazine very popular amongst my targeted audience. The picture to the right is the type of audience I expect to be interested in my magazine.Q. How did you attract/ address the audience for your music publication?
My music magazine attracts and address’s my targeted audience in a number of ways. The front page of my music magazine is very modern and stylish which appeals to young people as soon as they see it. This gets them interested into the magazine. And my strap lines and images are also very interesting from a youthful audience. This is because I have many interviews with young people’s role models and the latest and greatest rap artists. I don't think that there is a magazine the same as mine so my magazine is unique. This makes more and different types of people interested in my magazine. Lastly the masthead is very important to any magazine an as for my music magazine I had to make sure my masthead was unique and that it stands out. I had a chance to research different mastheads and what they convey about a magazine. Below is a link of some masthead research I have done on some popular music magazines.
http://adammediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/09/learning-in-class.html
Q. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
http://adammediastudies.blogspot.com/2010/09/learning-in-class.html
Q. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt many things while using the different types of technology to create this magazine. I have learnt how to use Photoshop to edit, create and manipulate images. I also have learnt many ways to make text and images more effective and appealing to the human eye. I have also learnt how to present information in different ways by using the internet. As you can see below I started off with the photo and cut it out from the original background using the magnetic lasso tool this then allowed me to use the photo on another background to make the picture more effective and appealing to the consumers eye. Lastly the finished magazine has come along way from just the picture and i think everything I have learnt has been shown in my final magazine piece.
Q. Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When starting off creating the front page of a school magazine I was very unaware of what you can do with the different types of technology I had at my disposal. But as I learnt and tried out a few things I progressed very well seeing as it was my first time using the certain types of software. I though that the school magazine I created was very good for a first time production. I then started to progress onto my final piece of production which is my music magazine. There was a gap of days in which I could play around with Photoshop and other software. So I was ready when it got to creating my music magazine. When I started creating my magazine I was still kind of unsure on how to use Photoshop to the best in order to create a successful magazine. With time I started to get the hang of editing and manipulating pictures to make them look effective and appealing to a youthful audience. As you can see from the preliminary task I have come a long way with using photoshop and challenging and using certain conventions.
Below is the masthead i first created for the preliminary task and also the masthead i used for my music magazine. As you can see there is a lot of difference as my music magazine masthead looks like it has been thought about much more then the school magazine. The streets masthead looks urban and almost dirty from the black dots on the text. This shows that the masthead has been thought about.
Lastly the video below is a powerpoint presentation of all the questions.
Below is the masthead i first created for the preliminary task and also the masthead i used for my music magazine. As you can see there is a lot of difference as my music magazine masthead looks like it has been thought about much more then the school magazine. The streets masthead looks urban and almost dirty from the black dots on the text. This shows that the masthead has been thought about.
