Evaluation

Working with existing forms and conventions

Firstly my collage & music magazines had to be conventinal in terms of target audience and if they would find it appropirate or not depending on who our target audience was. In terms of collage magazine, i would say that it my target predominantly is student at collage or 6th form between the ages of 16-19. And for my music magazine in my case it was for pop and hip hop lovers. I had thought about carefully about what age i would like and i chose it to be for like 13-25 year olds becuase those ages are more aware and frantic about music. This relates to other magazines, i had analysed what they had done in terms of house style and layout.

Predominantly in the images of the magazine i looked at the mode of adress, how the text was presented and if it was to informal or too formal. I also looked at the images to see if they where compatable. All of these where taken into cosideration with mine and i had asked my piers if my mode of address and my images where compateble and on many occasions i had changed my front cover picture so that it is conventianl.

Working in media production contexts

In my collage magazine, i approached it in ways of me asking different people of what they thought of my name and what they thought of my house colour style of the magazine it self. In terms of time management, i had me own copy of photoshop at home but i decided to take it slowly so i could do abit and upload it to my blog and ask my teacher and what the class thought about it. And when i had gatherd all my final peices of information i then sat down after i got home and done the whole front and contents page taking into consideration of the feedback i had been given by everyone else e.g. logo & name of the magazine. A very good example of something that i had to keep adjusting would be the main front cover. the 1st pictre i had, there was too many things going on in the background that where not conventinal and had nothing to do with my collage. At many occasions i had tried to edit it but decided to take a whole new picture that had nothing in the background. in terms of organizing the people i wanted involved like the girl on my front cover, i took the pictures of her during collage in my spare periods, we took many different pictures before i chose out wihch one would be good enough.

In terms of my music magazine, they way i had apprached i was much more dificult. I thought of the denotatin and contations of the pictures i had taken and what my target audience would think and whether it would be approriate for my target reader. i had read many different magazines to get examples and in my front cover and contents page i went with the style of a clash magazine that i liked. in terms of time i had made sure i had made all my reasearch and then began to design my front and contents page. I think time became on my side with the double page spread, becuase i didnt have any ideas of what to do. but i finally came up with something in the last couple of days. I had to redesign it many times to that it was conventinal and that the font was readable in my second page of my double page spread. in terms of all my images used i had to edit them to make it look prefessional and glossy enough for it to look like a bevliable magazine. I organized the someone to take pictures of the featured artist on my front cover, at the end of the school day in our dark room. I had to orgazine the rooms and see if they would be free. 

To me, doing drafts of both magazines was a good thing becuase as i had mentioned before, it would be good to get feed back from class mates and people in school to see what they think and what could be improved. I had learnt that if i had submitted my 1st dratfs of both magazines, they would not have gotten any good marks. Time management was soomthing that i learnt that was significant becuase, without it i wouldnt have been able to manage the different photoshoots that i needed for both magazines and the text that i used etc, let alone the editing of the different pages.

Using technology

In terms of DTP, this enaabled me to do many creative things, even things that i did not now how to use. I think it. I had noticed that using DTP was different in some aspect becuase the ideas that innatially came up with either came out better than what i wanted or i just changed my mind in ideas and decided to do something much more better. Something that did stop me from suceeding what i wanted was the fact i had to use 3 different types of photoshops in order to choose what effect looked better on what but at the end of the day, they all helped me achive my final product.

Thinking about audience

Thinking about the audiences i had to make different decisions in both tasks. In my music magazine, i had to read different types of magazines and look at how they addressed their audiences. I looked at top selling magazines to see what made them to be top selling magazines and how i could relate their ideas to my project. In terms of my collage magazine, it was much more easier in a way becuase i was sorrounded my collage students and i could easily ask them what their opnion on my work would be and how they would like for the magazine to adress them. Through the feedback of my adueience i think i was able to come out with a better product and in terms of my music magazine i think it shocked alot of people and may have hit my expectations.

FINAL

I have made some small minor changes to my final product after asking many people what they think. On the contents page i added the logo of my magazine there and i changed the pictures of "Two" & "Justin Bieber"  around to balance the images out. i then changed the 1st of my double page spread i added a title and kind of changed the text. And on my final double page spread i made sufficient columns of the Q & A and got rid of one of the CD covers for there to be more space. I wanted to make the design more mine so under every CD cover i added a quote from "Phantomz" and what he had to say on it.

Double page spread

This is the draft econd of my double page spread. It was meant to be the first but then i asked some of my people who are doing media and they told me it would be better if it was the second part of my double page spread

BEFORE

and this is the final product

AFTER

Final

This is my final front cover, i went along with the clash magazine and took some pointers from it

I asked people what they thought about  it and they had said that more writing needed to be on the front cover, i added some more writing and had come up with this.

Some females had said that they think the blue was to "noisy" and they think that i should change the colour. Some said that i should have kept the colour of my image instead of changing it black and white.

I later on went to do my contents page...

Homework.. Research

I have decided to read the double page spread interview/article on dizzie rascal from the the "lash" magazine. The language used in this is quite formal and has a mixture of sometimes inappropriate langaue. I think that is quite good to keep the reader sucked into the article. 2 examples of language is "i wanted to make music that would make people get up, move and jump about instead of standing around and wanting to f*%^ing kill each other" & another example of more formal is "it would be easy to forget mills' myriad brushes.."
In terms of this article appealing to the target audience i think it is quite good because the way they have portrayed Dizzie on the front page was mind blowing because a person that listened to his music would pick it up. The way the whole interview has been presented was good because it added humour and on the other hand it was quite serious. The article discusses how Dizze got to where he is and what he has got planned for the future etc. The pictures in the article that i think are quite significant are the fact that it shows Dizzies discography and how much work he has put in and the article also mentions his number 1 singles etc.

Gratification

I have thought about questions that would be effective and what would be required top gratify the reader. i have added a link about what uses and gratification theory means...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_and_gratifications_theory


1. What information is provided about the music magazine?
On the front page of my music magazine, i have made sure that i have added a catchy title and in the title, something smart that will make my target audience know that it is a music magazine, i have made sure that the main image of the band is very clear that we are talking about.

2. How does your school mag promote a sense of belonging as a part of a community of readers?

In  my school magazine it promotes a sense of belonging to a person that would be interested in art and media and would be interested in going into a media based subject in University etc.
In my magazine it promotes news band called "3" and their new anticipated album.

3. What sort of entertainment does the mag provide for the reader?
In my magazine, there will be different entertainment and information from different artists and competitions and also some juicy gossip.

Picture

Last week i went out and took some pictures of my fictional band "3", i had to set it up and set dates that we could take pictures.

ideal reader

This is Princess, she is a 17year old model from Essex. Her parents are quite urban as apposed to the typical essex femal who is spoilt etc. The way she dresses is quite casual but she likes to stand out. she is a very straight forward girl and likes to have fun with her friends. She goes shopping in causal places like Primarni etc. in her spare time she listens to all types of music and sings but her 2 passions are hip hop and pop. Se is open minded with her music.

i think my music magazine "hip-pop" would appeal to her because it is based on both hip hop and pop and yet there is a wide range variety of different music.

Research

I have thought about the reasearch of who my target audience is for my music magazine. I have had to consider many things for my target audience. This is:

Age: 15-18
Gender : Male & Female
Ethnicity: All Types
Social Class: Middle Class
Religion: All types

These are the types of things that i have to consider when i am designing my music magazine.

Reasearch and planning

Today after Church i went to Sainsburys to go and check some different magazines for my planning and reasearch.

What magazines are placed where?

Gossip magazines where placed in the middle.
Camera and gadget magazines where on the right hand side
Fasion was on the left

I asked myself why was it arranged like this and i aslo asked myself, where the hell are the mens stuff then i turnt around and it instantly hit me.
They had seperated the mens mags and i also noticed a subheadings such as "womens intrests" where i saw fasion and gossip magazines.

i listed some names of magazines

Hobby/Intrests: SLR
                         iPhone App Directory

Celeb/Gossip: Love It!
                      Now
                      Pick Me Up

Sports: AutoTrader

            What car?

i found it quite hard to find sports magazines so i listed cars

Music: X Factor
           XXL World Wide

And so i left Sainsbury and went to a news agent to investigate music magazines as sainsburys where sold out and i took some pictures of them and looked who was on the front cover

Chek

i was messing about today and look what i came up with, this is FAR from my final but this is suttin i have in mind and dont in 2 mins

Planning and research

In the last couple of lessons, we had started to do a flat plan for our magazines. a flat plan for the front page, contents and te double page spread to help give us a faint idea of what we wanted our final product to resemble or look like.


Aslo what we done was that we took a look at other music magazines and got peices of information from them. i looked at Classic rock. We wrote our findings down on paper:

Titile - Classic Rock
Price - 4.50
Publisher - Future
Frequency of publication - Monthly

What mode of adress was used on front cover - the whole front cover was quite striking and caught my eye.

We then looked through the magazine to tally how much music promotion, lifestyle adverts & classified adverts there was and i came to a conclusion that there was more music adverts than anything else and that made sense.

Lastly we focused on the amount of text and images there was so it could help us get an idea of what to add to our product. Focusing on the text part we checked the used of slang and the way it was written, wether it was informal of formal. this would be vital for when we started our double page spreads etc, becuase we would have to write in a way that it would be intresting and trap our target audience. So this meant the quality of writing, if it was humouruos or serious etc. We then focused on the artist that was on the front page, wehter the artist was being promoted etc.

We had been asked at the end of the lesson, who would buy the magazine that we focused on and i decided that a rock frantic or someone that throughly enjoyed rock music would.

We also done flat plans of what our magazines would look like or at least an idea:

Magazines i like

Compare

In this hip hop magazine, the predominant picture is 50 Cent as he is the major feature in this magazine. The text  is quite bold, and stands out and there is clear text and most of the text is white apart from others. Some of the mast head is hidden by 50 Cents head but the mast head is quite big etc.

The predominant picture in this pop magazine is Britney spears as she was quite huge in her time, the colours used in this picture is quite girly and she is dressed quite childishly to appeal to her younger fans. The text is quite fun colours and they all match with what she is wearing. The mast head is quite childish like with symbols etc.

Here

after 5 weeks i have decided this is my final product :)

pheww, there have been some changes and i have considered the information i have made to come up with these 2.

How can i communicate to my audience effectively?

In lesson we had to think about the best way to communicate our magazine front covers to our target audience and in this case the target audience would be Collage/ 6th Form students.


- Style of language
they style of language used on my magazine used is supposed to be quite art based becuase my College is a media based school.


- Use of slang
There is no use of slang on my covers apart from media based words.



- Is it written formal or informal
i think my covers are written informally.



- The quality of what is being written

Final contents

i have added some minor adjusments to my contents page

Uses & Gratificaton Theory

I have thought about questions that would be effective and what would be required top gratify the reader. i have added a link about what uses and gratification theory means...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uses_and_gratifications_theory


1. What information is provided about the Collage?

On my college front page, i have made sure that i have added what type of collage it is and in this case it is a media and photography magazine. and i have made sure that it is big on the front page so that the reader knows. on my front the main image shows a student looking quite serious and is wearing uniform showing that it is a serious school. the person also looks focused.

2. How does your school mag promote a sense of belonging as a part of a community of readers?

In  my school magazine it promotes a sense of belonging to a person that would be interested in art and media and would be interested in going into a media based subject in University etc.

3. What sort of entertainment does the mag provide for the reader?

In my college magazine, there is entertainment in a way of adding competitions so it hooks the reader in and question themselves if they would like to partake in the magazines and quiz's etc.

Questionaire

I have asked the people in my household about my 1st draft and they said this!

Me: What would you like to see?
Step-Dad: Another picture on the bottom because it is the same as the contents

Me: How can i improve both?
Mother: Match colours like the borders

Me: What would make you buy this?
Uncle: I would buy this if it had an eycatching headline

Unfortunately, that was the questions i could ask because the amount of adults where limited. I asked 3 different adults these questions.

Finals?

Contation - The picture of the boy taking a picture shows that he may be hard working and highlights part of the Collages profession which is photography. The red may symbolize a warning for the reader, prehaps that they should pick up the magazine and read it.

Denotation - This contents page has white hands, and there is a constant pattern throughout, the font is red and and in capital letters, the smaller letters are in lower case. There is a picture of a boy taking a picture. There is a logo that is red to match the restt of the magazine, and there are 2 stars, one red and one white and the background is black.

Conotation - Again the significant picture of the girl shows a sense of seriousness and that the school is hard working and focused on their status and profession of the school. The flowers may be there so symbolize the arty side of the school. The 3 pictures showe snap shots of other things offered at the school.

Denotation - The front cover has 1 significant picture of a girl taking a picture of flowers. The other 3 pictures show media related things like using the computer etc. The red hand is significant as it is the same as the contents background. The logo is bigger than the contents page to reveal the name of the magazine. The red borders around the picture matches the colour coordination with the rest of the magazine. The 2 other headlines show the paterns of the colour coordination.

Check out these 2. I'm hoping they are good and i have taken on board advice that Ive been given. Tell me what you think please and I'm hoping they are good enough!

CONTENTS PAGE

Here is my first draft of my contents page. i think this is alright as i have taken my feedback into consideration

Lesson goes on...

In today's lesson, sir gave us a chance to try and research who our perfect for our magazine would be. So we done several exercises in order to find that and we had answered many questions.


This is an example of the magazine cover and a short paragraph.

Bob is a rock star frantic who is 25. He eats sweets for breakfast and he drives a flashy car. He lives in a 2 bedroom house. He drinks quite alot of alcohol, and he watches music channels quite alot. He obviously likes rock music and he regularly eats junk food. He does not watch sports as he does not care what happens. He tries to keep up with his fav rock artists so he goes around the world and he does not vote.

As you would have noticed i used very blatant stereotypes to define a person that listens to rock.

We then made our own questions that would appeal to my age group (Teenagers) :

What was the last website you went on?
What was the last album you listened to?


Now we have to use the questions to see who our perfect reader would be.

Romeo is a teenager that has just started collage so he is 17. He does not eat breakfast in the morning as he does not have time to. He does not drive, he gets public transport. He lives at home with his mum. He drinks just about anything sweet apart from alcohol because he in underage. He watches quite alot of music channels in his spare time when he is doing school work because it helps him concentrate. Ho doesn't have a fav meal, there is too many. He watches alot of sport. He is currently not single. He goes sometimes to Europe independently. He does not vote because he is underage and does not really care. The last website he went on was Twitter and the last album he listened to was "Phantomz - Phanstruction EP"

Yesterdays lesson!

In yesterdays lesson we focused on the different stereotypes of people that we would aim our collage magazines to. We then thought about REPRESENTATIONS. We found out that that this meant how the media represents individuals, groups, events and issues. This linked back to me, because it made me think who my target audience is and who i am representing and the people that i was representing was collage students.

I thought about the typical stereotypes and the archetype was.

We also learned that representations can change over time.

My Mag

Today, we analyzed my draft of my teen magazine. We had come to a decision that where it says "picture perfecct" it might not be needed to be there as there is no point unless it is a headline and it is white and the reader cant really see what it says. Also we talked about the main photograph and if it was good.

So when i get home i better idea of what to add to my final project.

Researching Film Posters

First of all in this film KIDULTHOOD, these teenagers are represented as stereotypical youths of the present London. The use of weapons in the film poster highlights the violence used in the film and shows shows that they are of no good. The whole layout of where they are is quite dark and gloomy to symbolize negativity of their personalities. The tag line "before adulthood comes..." could show that these are teenagers that will be up to no good. This is a VITAL stereotype.

Secondly in this film 17 AGAIN the teenager is presented to be quite flashy, probably rich because of the clothes he is wearing. This could possibly highlight that he could be a school rebel because of how his tie is placed, and the text is in bright red and black to symbolize danger. Lastly the whole facial expression he  has in his eyes is quite arrogant. The image is used to shows that the person could not care about his surroundings. The way clothes are under him could again show that he does not have regard for his surroundings.The whole tag line used "who says you re only young once" could back up my theory that he could be a rich, spoilt rebel.

In this film poster HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3 these teenagers a represented as quite successfull because of what they are wearing e.g. typical graduation outfits. The only image used on the film poster is the students jumping with joy, due to the fact that they have graduated. The comments that can be made is that the whole clothing they are wearing matches the text and the font that is used is quite striking and will catch a persons eye. There is no tag lines used.

Lastly in all the film posters, they are all different in a sense and that shows me that there are many stereotypes of teenagers. This for the creator will catch different target audiences eyes e.g : thugs, emos, goths etc.

This has highlighted to me that the way i present my final piece will be vital and i have to look into what types of teenagers this is reaching out to.

MEDIA 1

Okay this took me like 45mins because my photoshop froze and i had to start again ¬_¬ . tell me what u think please!

BARE in mind this is not the original quality, i had to reduce it because it was taking a long time to upload. Enjoy

Analysation

I have been searching the net of other collage magazines to compare to mine and see what i can change. Also i have added some final touches to my name of my collage magazine but i will discuss that later.

This is a good example of a school magazine as i focused on the name of it and what was effective in genaral. I think that the name was good becuase it stood out and the use of the 2 coulours which are green and yellow match togeter and they do not  contrdict each other. There is nothing messy as in another coulour, they all match each other. Which would be good for the reader.

L.I.F.E.

Okay after yesterdays analysing of my work, i have hit photoshop and i have come up with a new topping for my magazine...

Tell me what you think this is just the open document in photoshop, im trying to think of what else to add to it

And after like 15min later, this is my final product....

Please tell me what you think

Picture Perfect

Okay so i just got back from taking some pictures around the school as i have decided that my school will be called "Vincent Banks Academy of Photography & Media" and so i went out to take media and photography related pictures.

I haver been asked to upload some pictures so i am going to show a possible picture that may be used in my final project. The reason why i think this would be good is becuase it highlights that yes it is a photography collag etc and from looking at the exampler i think that it is a good idea to put on a front page.

Feedback On My Title

In my media lesson my teacher showed my 1st draft of my title/design of my collage magazine.

"Colours Vibrant"
"The title is good"

Those are what people said



The majority of the class agreed that the name of the magazine was good for A collage magazine because in Collage or 6th Form you do all of the things e.g.  independance etc.

Some people had said that the colours of the logo were good becuase they all matched and it wasn't messy.
Apprently it looks like a music cover :S, but i dissagree becuase it looks more formal as the target audience is 16 year olds to 19 year olds.

New Idea!

So today i had a double photography lesson and we had been given a fashion project (yes i know this is not relavent but trust me it is!!)
I took some amazing pics at my schools dark room and when i was just eating my dinner it HIT me!!
Instead of me doing a music collage magazine i think that a good idea for a collage or a 6th form magazine wud be a media and photography collage!

i think that is the perfect idea and i have some spontanius pics i have taken and more i plan to take and i look to get other people involved in my pictures.

Here is an example of one of the pictures i took ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Now these may not appear in my final project but there cud be a possiblity.

What do you think ?

1st Draft

Alirhgt last night as soon as i cme home from studio, i hit my computer and started desiging for the top of  my school magazine. this is my first draft.. i really do not know what else to add but yeah this is is

Tell me what u think lads.

Beloit!!

Okay check this, i was on google and i just saw an example of a

magazine for a Science College, and  i liked the fact that it was

quite simple but yet sophisticated in its own way. But the thing that i had highlighted the fact that we needed 4 pictures and there was only one on the front. Well who knows, tell me what you think??

*DRUMROLL*

I have literally jst got back from surveying many people on the name of what my magazine should be and one of the poeple that i approached was my head teacher.

The names and results where...

1. L.I.F.E.
Learning, Independant, Foarward and Excell [7 People Said Yes)

2. BOOM [2 People Said Yes]

3. Presidentail [ 0 ]

4. Success Magazine [ 1 Person Said Yes ]

Above is a quick graph i done.

So in decision the new name will be L.I.F.E.  (i already said i would do this before lo) but yeah and the resons why they all said yes was becuase it was quuite educational and t made very much sense becuase in Collage, you: Learn, you are independant, you move forward to getting A Levels & going into Uni and you excell!!

So thank you very much Lads and Ladettes

Pharda

Well....

NOW i have thought about how the hell im going to get started in making the magazine and luckily i do photography and im getting a digital camera tomorrow so yeah it shuid be nice. im gnnah start organising photoshoots to choose the pics i want for my front cover.

BUT 

i really need a name for it and the ones that i have come up with is that the school is called "PHANSTURCTUON School Of Music & Media" the emblem will be comming soon as i jump on photoshop and that will be very soon ;)

& Finally the  name of the magazine is....

*DRUMROLL*

"L.I.F.E"

"Learning, Independant, Foarward and Excell" 

(but that may necasarilly not be the name but yes its a possibility lads!!)

Yaaaay

Woooohooo!!!

i have just found out that my blog is unblocked in school now :D
LOL
On with the media coursework
Pharda

Hmmm Media Much?

Alryt, as you all know, aswell as a music artist and an actor, i also dop graphic designs...
Whoop Whoop :D

as part as my research i fliked through some of my old stuff such as old coursework from film studies and things i have made myself and me and my teacher discussed what was good about the stuff and how we could link it bk to AS media and the coursework we had been given to do.
Also i had a look at some other media AS coursework done by someone who is doing A2 media. Some very facinating stuff lol. i wount reveal now, but i think i have some sort of an idea that i can literally blow my teacher of his tiny totts lol.

Pharda

The start of armageddon!!

Today the whole process of coursework had begun and we had sat down and discussed what was expected and what we had to do to get the band of high marks.

The teacher then hit fronter and showed us some A* work ( i think i could do better) ;) .
But i have to say they are ALRIGHT, but thats just me, ima cocky person.

Tell me what you think ?