Q7.Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

I approached the two tasks completely different because the preliminary task I took my time playing around and not taking the task seriously and because of my stupidity i didn't have enough time to make a decent front page and contents page my first piece of work was very poor, and I was not satisfied let alone happy with my work.

I also tried to keep up to deadlines as in the first task I waited to the last few days and rushed all of it and I did not have time to make a good standard of a front page and contents so i definitely knew in the second task I would have to manage my time effectively. As my images were not up to scratch even though I did not really research images because I did not manage my time well as I did get criticism for the whole magazine which made me pay attention and be alert in the second task. I also took my pictures using a blue screen with props unlike my first project which I used a skyscraper as the background. The cover lines, masthead, selling line and realism where in different fonts or looked amateur so you could obviously see it was rushed and not done to high standard..

I have learnt many different technologies while doing tasks from cameras, editing software’s, basic media rules, terminology etc. While doing this product I also learnt how difficult it is to produce a magazine of a high standard and try and take your target audience opinion into consideration and then try incorporate those ideas into your magazine and make sure their is something for everyone in your magazine.

So when I started creating my music magazine I was giving advice to go to a certain website to download fonts which were appropriate for a music magazine and where also free so that is another way how I progressed because in the first task I used fonts from Adobe Dreamweaver which were very basic and unattractive to my audience, while on the topic of Dreamweaver I had difficulties during the first task so i decided to watch videos on YouTube of how to use Dreamweaver which helped me a lot as my models who were aged 16 and 17 where facially marked wit pimples and scars so Dreamweaver airbrush and blender helped to make them look top notch and appealing to the small majority of women who are attracted to my magazine.

The strengths of my magazine is that my target audience said I got my UK Grime magazine look spot on as it meant to have a rough style but still look professional. Also that my teacher said there is a major improvement from my first task which gave me a lot self esteem.  A strength was that my colour scheme was very surprising an attractive in my double page spread as it is very bold.

The weaknesses in my opinion is that their could have been an improvement on my contents page with the images on the strip but it was very difficult to get images into the shape I wanted. And I put the images in different place to make my contents page more effective and more attractive. Another wekness is that I could have put more time into my questionnaire and made my questions more specific so I could get a more detailed feedback.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
This feedback was very important as I would use the results of this questionnaire to direct me on how my music magazine will look.

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When doing this coursework I had the chance to use many different technologies first piece of technology I used was "Blogger" which is an online website that allows you post blog on a online website. Because this was the first time I had ever used a online blogging website i found it difficult to use as i did not kno how to put more thean one image in on blog post and this became  annoying issue for me as I had to do more than one post for a single topic and the fact that if you have an image and want to have in a very large size a colum oin the left on blogger will block part of the image and in my opinion makes my blogger untidy which is irritating.

I also used Google and Wikipedia which are search engines and used these two websites to help with my case study and images to help with nearly every piece work I have done so far for this piece of coursework I also gave me a lot of information about how magazine layout looks which have a similiar genre to the one I have made and helped with terminology when I was doing my textual analysis.

Furthermore i used Word and Excel which are programs that help you with essays, articles, graphs, formulas etc. And these where very important programs that I had to use becasue the grapgh and the essays or case studies I had to do.

Then there was a program called Adobe Photoshop which I had to use for the pictures I had taken so i used to program to edit my pictures and get the layout of my magazine on par. Also put effects and airbrushed my models photos to make them appealing to opposite sex so i could get a miniority of females buying music magazine. 

And after learning how to use these different tecnologies I have become more sufficient with my time as I know what to do and I could improve even more if I was to do this again.  

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience with a medium close up image with two artists one is 17 years old and the other 16 which is already says visually which target audience I am targeting. My models are wearing expensive clothing (Armani & Ralph Lauren) so this will attract a high status audience and relate to my audience and they get the latest trends. The Props I used as well are a microphone and headphone so any young teens that are into technical stuff or want a home based studio.

My models are well groomed fresh haircuts no facial spots, so my magazine might get some female attention. Also the colour scheme was four colours so I had advantage to not use the full effect of my other two colours in my double page spread.

 

 I also attracted a different audience by the technical aspect of my music magazine with the different technical equipment which will appeal to a different audience and I done this for specific reason and the reason for this was normally the resom for using a mic are mainly people who can sing and people who can rap and then the headphones appeals to people who are DJ's/general public listening to music/musicroducers and aspiring music producers so this already gives me a range of different audiences that my music maagazine will appeal to and then their is general public so there is alot.
Furthermore i attracted my audience with the most common trends in clothing as most teenagers like to wear the the most popular clothes and the most popular trainers and as teenagers are gullable they would buy my magazine.

And in my opinion my double page spread would attract differnt audience because it has a one one interview with an undergrouond audience who has nearly made it on the mainstream scene so people would be aspired to work hard in their own situation to reach the highest they can.

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Because my magazine is UK Grime & HipHop magazine it target are international mainly young rappers and HipHop artists and is main audience is in America and England due to the fact these are the two countries where artists who are interested in my genres or want to make a living in music industry might not be singing or rapping but music producer, because my magazine gives an insight on music technology and the quality.

I decided to aim my magazine at 16 - 25 year old and the reason why I chose this age range is because younger people can relate to the events, music and swagger that is shown in my magazine as it always keeps up to date and the older percentage of my audience that look at my magazine can look at the technical information and the events especially DJ's.

My magazine targets people who love music and see it as more than music it is a part of their life it is their soulmate or people who make music aspiring to be a mainstream artists or people who have a music associated swagger who were certain items that are associated with music such as G-Shocks, Ipods, Dr. Dre Beats headphones. 

Evaluation Q3

I decided to chose a company called "Bauer Media" as a magazine oublisher to distribute my magazine it would be an advantage over some of their main competitors as i would give this company a different dimension as it does not focus on these three different types of genres.

  I would distribute my music magazine in WHSmith and Newsagents and the reason why I chose these two shops is because they are very common shops where people go locally to buy magazine and newspapers especially WHSmith also i would distibute my mmasic through the online website "Q" but I you would need a subscription as the company would need to make profitand because of genresof my magazine it would attract a different type of audience.  I would also try and do subscription as technology has changed and is very mordern research shows a good majority of the genreal public shop online and to miss out this chance to get my magazine more known i try and put it online thriugh " Bauer Media".

So i chose this company because of the images bellow you can see their main focus is rck and not the whole world listens to only rock so by this company disrtibuting my magazine it would be beneficial for both parties and maybe some if their reader like different genres but buy other magazine but by having my magazine they would make more profit which is a bonus.

Evaluation Q2

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Many members of my audience were excluded as females are not into UK grime so females a are excluded also members of the audience who do not like UK Grime and Hip Hop are also excluded from my target audience as there are two main genres my music magazine focuses on.

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

The reason why I chose Baver Media publishing company is because this publishing company does not target the same audience my music magazine does completely the opposite music genres of the publishing title, furthermore it would make the publishing title more popular as a whole and would also have an advantage over it’s main competitors. Because they only have Mojo, Kerrang and “Q” which is mainly on Rock which the brand distributes approximately nineteen million UK adults so by my magazine focussing on UK grime and Hip Hop it will give the publishing company a different dimension/advantage.

Evaluation Q1

Q1. In what ways does your media product use to develop or challenge forms of conventions or real media products?

In the beginning of this coursework i analysed an American based Hip Hop & R'n'B magazine  by evaluating the connotations and denotation of the cover of the music magazine so as my front page is revealed at the botton you will see there are similiar conventions taken into consideration from the VIBE magazine and put into my vey own magazine so my target audiencecan be atracted to a typical Grime and HipHop and R'n' B magazine.

 
When creating my media product I took a lot of conventions into consideration with my front page, double spread and contents page. As I wanted it to be unique to separate it from other magazines as well, so it stands out and attracts my target audience.

Firstly, I will start of with front page. On my front page I followed the typical classic convention of putting my masthead at the top in the centre of the international size front page, I used a sans serif font which shows I want my magazine to be modern and keeps up to date with 21^st century and also shows which target audience I want my magazine to target. As you can see my masthead has a disoriented effect and the reason why I chose this effect is because my main genre of music is grime and UK grime is rough and explicit and I wanted to replicate this type of effect in my music magazine.

Cover lines in my opinion is a convention I had to follow even if my masthead is the biggest piece of text on my front page I used cover lines on the left and right side of my music magazine to make my magazine more attractive and eye catching and because I chose to have four colours in my colour scheme I took full advantage of this and used green and white with a blue background to make my cover lines stand out and grab the audiences attention.

Dateline/barcode is another convention I followed as it is a compulsory part of any magazine to make my music magazine more realistic that is the reason why I put a dateline if I did  not it would look unprofessional but because when doing my questionnaire my target audience preferred my magazine to be  released every month/season.

When making my selling line I challenged the conventions of a media product as I my selling line isn’t a short description but more of a slogan to make my audience remembers my magazine with a catchy phrase.

With my main image I had to take a picture which is less professional but rough to get that grime type of look so it has its own unique type of style. In my opinion I had to follow the typical conventions of putting my main image in the middle of my front page but I used a medium close up with two people in the picture instead of close up which is preferred type of picture used for music magazine and the reason why I used two people in the front page is because I wanted my magazine to have as much of an impact as a close up would have but using a medium close up.

My main cover line follows the typical convention of a media product as it is the largest cover line on my front page and the purpose of this was to display and promote the main featured article in the magazine.
Contents page
My main image is a mid shot which in my opinion is challenging the conventions of a media product as my research shows that magazine contents page usually we a medium close up image according to my research from American Hip-Hop and R’n’B based on the layout of my contents page was going to be similar to the stance of one of my models in my contents page I wanted the topics/ different sections to be aligned with my model body.

Double Page Spread
In my double page spread the first convention I followed was obviously to put my double page spread on A3 size paper/landscape then the second convention I followed was the using a mid shot which is very common in my music magazine but I challenged forms of conventions as the two artist on my front page and double page spread are not a band but two individual artists but I tried to challenge the conventions of a media product because normally magazine either have a band or a solo artist and the double page spread is focused only on them so my audience gets the best of both worlds.

Double Page Spread

Front Page

Contents Page

Graphs for Questinnaire 12

Q12.  Would you like competitions and prizes in a college magazine? I wanted to know from the randomly selected students in my college if they would like competitions where you can win prizes in a college magazine. The reason why I asked this question because you can easily get bored of images and text so I asked this because I can easily put e.g. crosswords, Sudoku or even quizzes something to keep their brain ticking.

So my graph shows they would like a competition where you can win prizes or an activity where they can have fun doing something interesting so probably in the back pages I will have a game section where they can do crosswords.

Graphs for Questinnaire 11

Q11. What do you think is the most eye catching colour? I asked this question because I wanted to know from the randomly selected twenty pupils in my college what colour would catch your attention and attract you to read a college magazine.

As you can see from the graph the majority of people I randomly asked to fill out my questionnaire would be attracted to a college magazine if one of the main colours was blue and red so I will use these two colours and one more to make my college magazine eye catching.

Graphs for Questinnaire 10

Q10. Do you prefer images in a college magazine? I asked this question because if my magazine was full with images pupils of my college probably would not read my magazine or take any interest  so this was a good incite on what the students would prefer to look at or read.

The graph above shows a vast majority of people that I gave my questionnaire to would rather read a college magazine with lots of images to keep entertained with text also. So I will definitely take these results into consideration when designing the front cover and layout of my college magazine.

Graphs for Questinnaire 9

Q9. Do you think a college magazine is compulsory? The reason why I asked this question is because if people think, a college magazine is compulsory they would be more likely to pick up a college magazine.

The graph shows that 11 pupils think a college magazine is compulsory and nine people do not which is not a vast difference but it still a good result so the majority of people that I asked would make time to read a college magazine.

Graphs for Questinnaire 8

Q8. If yes how much would you be willing to pay? The reason why I asked this question is because if I was to take up this college magazine further than this it would be good to know how much student would be willing to pay.

By looking at the results in my pie chart graph you can see that a majority of the people in the graph would buy the magazine from the price ranging from (£1.50-£2.00) which is a decent price for a college magazine.

Graphs for Questinnaire 7

Q7. Would you buy a college magazine? I asked this question because I wanted to know how many students would buy a college magazine because if there was more than half the majority that said they would buy, I would probably sell it so I could make profit out of my college magazine.

But obviously that was not the case the majority which is 65% of people asked would prefer a free college magazine which is the route I will take and see how my college magazine is received by the students.  And by the magazine not being sold at a certain price more people will pick up my magazine and it will become more popular.

Graphs for Questinnaire 6

Q6. When would you like the college magazine to be released? The reason why I asked this question because if my college magazine was released every week some people would not be bothered to read the magazine so it was good to know how often I should release my magazine.

As you can see from my pie chart shown above the majority of people asked said they would prefer if the magazine was released every week. Which is good thing and a bad  thing in my opinion because if I was to release my magazine every week there might no be enough topics to discuss about and by not having that the standard of my magazine will start to decrease.

Graphs for Questinnaire 5

Q5. What would you like the main topics of the college magazine to focus on? The reason why I asked this question is because I wanted my magazine to discuss or elaborate on topics that students in college can relate to, and enjoy reading and maybe give advice on certain situations.

So by taking these results into consideration music is the main topic students in my college like to read about or find interesting so I will definitely have a music section but I will also try and discuss different topics that other students would prefer to read about. So my college magazine is not dominated by one factor but has topics for everyone.

Graphs for Questinnaire 4

Q4. Would you rather the magazine be more entertaining or educational?  The reason why I asked this question is because I wanted my magazine to be interesting and grip students to the extent where if they had not finished reading my college magazine they would take it home, and read it to the end not because they liked the pictures but because it had topics on what they are going through and something they could relate to.

Graphs for Questionnaire question 3

Q3.  What is your gender?  I asked the gender of the people taking my questionnaire because there could be a correlation between the sexes as the males could agree on one thing and the females could agree on another. This is important to me because by taking their answers I can decide which will attract them to read my college magazine.

Out of the 20 people I asked 11 of them were males and 9 of them where females so I roughly got an equal proportion of both sexes so my results can be accurate and get a broader answer of results. Plus I gave my questionnaire out at random so my answers cannot be dominated.

Results of Graphs Question 1 AND 2

       Audience Research Evaluation

Q1.  What is your name?  The first question on my questionnaire was what is their name?  This wasn’t a real important question that is why I put optional as it is not a key factor on how my college magazine will look.

Q2. How old are you? The reason why I asked how old are you, is because I wanted to see if there was any correlation between the ages of people I gave my questionnaire to because of their age they could mostly agree on one thing and this could be a good thing to take into consideration so when designing my college magazine I can satisfy the majority of people reading my magazine.

As you can see from my pie chart for this question the majority of people I randomly gave my questionnaire to was 16 year olds (60%=12 people), 17 year olds (20%= 2 people), 18 year olds    (20%= 2 people) and no 19 year olds. And I made sure I gave out my questionnaire randomly so my results were not dominated by one factor, which will give me accurate results.

Questionnaire

The reason why I have made this questionnaire is because I will shortly be making my own college magazine and wanted to know what the pupil’s thoughts are. 

1.       Name:  …………………………………………………………………………. (Optional)

2.       How old are you?     (       )  16       (       )   17     (       )   18   (       )   19 

3.       What is your gender?  (       )     Male     (       )  Female

4.       Would you rather read an Educational or Entertaining magazine?

                   

 (       )                                Entertaining   (       )    Educational

5.       What would you like the main topics of the college magazine to concentrate on?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

6.      When would you like the magazine to be released?

               (       )     Weekly          (       )  Monthly     (       )    half term        (       )       Every Term

7.       Would you buy a college magazine?

         (       )   Yes        (       )       No

8.       If yes how much are you willing to pay?

 (       )   50 - £1.00    (       )      £1.50 - £2.00   (       )      £3.00 or more

9.       Is having a college magazine good?

     (       )     Yes       (       )      No

If yes give a reason why?  ………………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

……………………………………………………

             

10.     Do you prefer images in you college magazine?

             (       )        Yes       (       )        No

11.   Which colour do you think is the most eye-catching?

Red     (       )      Orange    (       )   Blue   (       ) Black   (       )     Green   (       )        

12. What do you think about competitions and prizes in college magazines?

 Yes  (       )   No  (       ) 

Thank you for your time and filling out my questionnaire your choices are surely appreciated and will go a long way, in helping me design my first college magazine.

Publishing House: VIBE

Case Study: VIBE Magazine

In this assignment I will be analysing an American based Hip Hop and Rhythm and Blues [R ‘n’ B] Magazine called “VIBE” magazine, which is a publishing house. In addition discuss why it tries to target different audiences.

VIBE is a music magazine which was launched in 1993 and founded by Quincy Jones and partnership with Time Inc. The magazine focuses on two genres of music which is R ‘n’ B and Hip Hop, which contains a variety of music artists, actors, actresses and other entertainers. The reason Vibe is one of the most successful magazines is because they were able to capitalise on their strengths and resolve their weaknesses which in turn made it possible for them to out think their main competitors which are “XXL and The Source”.  By having a circulation of approximately 800,000 advertisements and also streaming its magazine into fashion houses to various cognac brands they are able to attract different audiences with every edition they release. They have also been privileged in having the ability to release countless books relating to hip hop culture and hip hop was even made, which is another idea which is not done by many other magazines that are in the same category as VIBE.

 I initially looked at their global online website and the first thing that struck me was their slogan underneath there masthead which says “Redefining Hip Hop” which says a lot about VIBE as a whole. They want to look at Hip Hop and its culture in a different way and take it to another level. They have plenty of different topics and sections on there website from news, music, movies or TV, vixen, photos and blogs. By having these different topics they are drawing attention from different target audiences which will enhance people interest in their magazine.

In addition, they have news feeds, videos, fashion and culture and with these different sections they will attract young teens who are into hip-hop and love music and when one teenager find the website helpful they will inform friends and the cycle will go on and the same goes for he fashion and even big names will look at fashion as everyone will want to keep up to date with the latest trends an so that brings in entirely another different target audience.

Towards the bottom of the screen they have different associates that mainly focus on the music, but are not as big as VIBE so those ‘small time’ companies get a good opportunity to get known and get attention from different target audiences.

VIBE publishes countless different editions of the magazine and take a variety of entertainers  not only from the music industry to attract audiences attention, they also do front cover on different topics which are big in America such as Barack Obama run as president and dedication to iconic figures, which can once again attract consumers of a different demographic and psychographic, for example people that have an interest in politics and the economy may decide to buy the magazine, when is has a picture of an influential man. This is beneficial to VIBE because once you are able to attract a new customer, the next process would be to retain them, and making sure you cater to their needs.

Finally, the reason why they try to target different types of audiences is because it will allow them to bring in more capita. Showing their versatility implies they are concerned and want to please those that do buy their magazine. Also, targeting different types of peoples means they are willing to take risks and make swift progress, unlike their competitors.

Overall, VIBE demonstrates from their reputation that they work hard to make sure they provide for their buyers needs. This assignment has analysed “VIBE” magazine and discussed why it tries to target different audiences.

Audience Profile

Because my music Magazine Is a UK Grime magazine I had to think of a certain target audience that would already listen to Grime artists such as Ghetts, Kano, Giggs and Krept & Konan. These artisits that have been in the underground scene for quite some time artists that have come from the same background as the youths of today. So youths of today can relate to their songs as they have went through the same struggle.

So I have picked two images that suit the type of audience that my magazine is aiming at who have a interest in the Grime scene as this genre is not a mainstream so not a lot of people in the UK have a interest in this type of music that was the main reason why I chose to do a magazine influenced by this music as it will the top magazine as no other magazine does the type of things my magzine does.

The two images above are just pictures to illustrate the type of audience my magazine is aiming to target as they probably listen to Grime as they are youths of today.

Moodboard

This is just a moodboard of pictures that have a influence on nmy tardget audience and also what type of products my target audience is interested in from the other documents and graphsin in my other assignments you will be able to the specific age of the audience my UK Grime magazine is aiming at.

My Audience

Profiling your Audience

The magazine I chose to analyse for my profiling audience is ‘The Source.’ In this assignment I will analyse the online magazine and take note of the layout of the online magazine and mainly focus on the ‘demographic profile’ of the target audience for the magazine I intend to produce.

By looking at the website I have concluded that the target audience for this magazine is the age ranging from 13 – 30 years of age as the main focus is the music genre of Hip-Hop, Rap and R ‘N’ B. By looking at the fashion section that they display on the right and left hand side of the magazine they targeting teens and young adults who are into pop and hip hop culture.

In my opinion the source is for people who very into music as they do mainstream artists who have made a name for themselves in the music industry and also underground artists who are still trying to make names for themselves and produce mix tapes that are on the streets who are soon to blow.

So by looking at this website I will take into consideration the layout of the magazine and also how it targets its audience. The colour scheme they use is Red, White, Black and Grey two very bold colours which are eye catching and two dull colours so the contrast is very attractive. But coincidently on all the front page covers of nearly all there monthly editions they use a mainstream artists and if they use an underground artists they put him with a mainstream artists (Wiz Khalifa and Rick Ross).

Also “The Source,” has different sections which target different ages e.g. Culture, Politics, Sport and Technology. In my opinion the reason why they added these different sections is because they wanted to have a broader range of different people who would be attracted to there magazine even though the U.S.P (Unique selling point) is the depth music.