Monday 20 December 2010

Evaluation questions

1) In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing music magazines ?


my magazine is mostly inspired by "vibe". it uses very similar conventions for the cover in particular
"vibe" magazine also appeals to the target audience i have aimed to appeal to me in my magazine "afro-caribbeans" and so i used techniques and styles from vibe and interpreted it into my mag, however still keeping it relevant to what i'm promoting in my magazine. however i challenge the genderisation of  colour  schemes use on magazine, i use many different colours so it doesn't single out a specific gender.









2) How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?


My music magazine represents a young black youth culture from afro caribbean backgrounds, within the ages of 16 -25 , This is my targeted market audience. i  aimed t reach out to people who are interested in young peoples crisis, events shows, the music scene aspiring and etc.


my feature article also reresents the up and comming music scenes and genre aspiring from these young people interested in this type of music, the interview with "gaza truely" most highly voted for at teen reggae show awards, represents the social group of her fans, and relates to their lifestyles and situations. Ths social group i aimed to appeal to is mostly afro-caribbeans therefore also helping me to appeal to my target audience. The two groups are roughly similar the readers can also learn new thing, and look forward to feeding of positive vibe within the target audience , giving them something to look up too. This would postively abolish the media stereo-type they have attached to the black youths of the uk.




3) A good institution to distibute my music magazine would be through cd / dvd's , local convienient stores, outside colleges, raves and concerts/events. This would mean my magazine is easily accessable to my target audience , and could be found in specific areas my target audience may be situated. my magazine could also be advertised, in venues where they play the music which is fitted with the genre of my magazine, to find people who will have a key interested in the specific type of music.

 These are just some of the places my target audience may be found.


4) The targeted market audience for my magazine would be young people aged16 -25, who have an interest in an urban styled genre of music , with reggae mixes, bashment african music and grime , with a 21st century twist, so my magazine is of a popular interest to them. my music mag, appeals to my audience by teaching the broadening their knowledges about a the specific genre's and features of it.  Which appeals to them most i believe is the fact that most of the arist in the content of mymag are also young themselves, making the young people more enticed to read it . the idusrty my mag is based on is one where they encourage young people to aspire for goals and achieve higher, also supporting them get into the music buisness.


The demographics my magazine provide information about the typical member of my market target group. My mag is a unisex magazine, 16-25 , of afro-caribbean decent. i also had to research the physcographics of my target audience, for example what stuff they would be interested in ? what stuff they like ? what they do with their spare time ? e.g hobbies,food, music, clothes, style , educational interest, and etc. with this information i came up with a mood board , to represent my target audience visually.




5) How did you attract/address the audience for your music publication ?

To attract my audience, i asked a my peers that were from the same social group , within my college and outside, what they found was, a common interest within the genre of afro-beats. From the results obtain , i found that they believe the newer artist established in the genre of afro-beats was that the mode of address that the artist's use for example slang languages and pautwa this appealed to them and made the genre more interest to them as it appealed directly to them. By using the worded results ( not tabulated) i decide to have a special section in my mag, called "one voice" the aim of this section was to obtain the voices/comlpaints of the readers, d for them to comment on what is mostly successful out a the whole magazine, what specific features they would like to see is the next couple issues. 
Also to relate to my audience i had chosen to write about artist from the genre that had recently been awarded for their musical talents in the vma's and etc, to show my magazine was highly up to dat.




6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?
from constructing and building a magazine front cover and contents page in photoshop, i have learnt how to use, useful tools in photoshop, such as;


-The lasso tool


-linking layers


-adding affects 


-drop shadowing 


-Changing colouring of text





-Crop and rescale


- fading and etc


By adapting these different skills into my production process, i have learnt how to make my magazine completely unique, and made it different from other peers in my class with similar ideas to mine. It made it look more sophisticated, yet succesfully fitting in with the theme of my mag and genre.




7)looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do u feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?


 I think that from the preliminary task i learnt that the layout used for my front cover wasn't very original and unique, it was just a standard layout. My main image wasn't shaped very much, or edited in Photoshop, it had been slight faded and colour base change but it could hae been worked on a lot.


 I feel that i should have attempted to use more skills through photoshop like i did for my actual final music magazine front cover. my prelim task doesn't look like a real mag, however with my developing my skills through out the term i have adapted my knowledge into my production task and made my front cover and contents page look like an actual magazine that could go on sale.


I also see on my prelim task i lack in a vary of different styles font and typography,  it was pretty basic and didn't really fit in with my audience, however in my final production i made an effort to research different type of fonts, and research the meaning and reasons why certain font were used for specific types of magazine. This gave me a clearer idea of which form of typography would be best suited to my mag, and if it relates o my audience.


For my contents page i neatened up the look of it , rather than having scattered images all around, i had certain sections for my image and the caption, this way it makes my magazine look more organised and sophisticated. Finally with my main image , i made it be more relivant to the contents of my magazine, i thought hard about why it was there and what message it put across, and i feel it better portrayed my final magazine, better than the image used on my prelim front cover.







school+magazine.jpg

Wednesday 15 December 2010

First Draft of Cover, Contents and Feature Pages



For my front cover, i have used a vibrant colour scheme of reds, yellows and green , the reason for this colour scheme is that these colours represent "reggae music" and colours of the native flags of the caribbean and africa. Which my magazine is targeted at people from these nationalities. the main image i had used shows a scene of students getting ready for a vibrant culture festival, as u can see by the country flags they are holding, these students would all be classed in the target market aim. the image shows the audience what type of content would be inside the issue. also i have listed around the border of the front cover what other special features and exclusives will be included in that months issue.





Sunday 5 December 2010

Inspiration For My Feature Article





My attention was automatically grabbed to this feature article , due to the spectacular  layout of it, along a double page spread., the main images being as a backgroud to the whole feature article i feel is very creative and good, to show the audience immediatly what the main focus of the articles is. the images are big taking up most of the double page spread , however they have been faded and look slighlty sutle, giving the article a bold look, but however not overpowering .

Sunday 28 November 2010

Inspiration for my contents page



What idea i liked from this contents page is that the layout really enthasises the image of the artist in the main feature, showing a big connection. they make each section very clear for the reader to see and understand. i also like the consistant colour scheme through the contents page.

In this contents page i used the  idea of big numering for the pages and seperating them from the text beside it , this almost make the page numbers more noticable and easy to find. The subheading are useful as they show different sections within in the whole mag, but group then with content in the mag that are sumilar ir relating to the same issues/things.


From this contents page i adapted the technique of  croping the images to fit inbetween aand around the text, this shows different dynamics of the muic magazine, and shows the audience a sneek-peak of what they will be seeing in a specific article. the colour scheme used was also very eye catching as i felt the colours used were very coherant to eachother and when all colaged as one , it really make the acticles jump of the page and look more vibrant and fruitful, this i feel successfully grabs the readers attention.

Saturday 20 November 2010

FLAT PLAN OF MAG

[image]


For my front page i decided to higlight my main image, which was coherant with my main feature article in the mag, this imediately gave me a clear structure of framework for my front cover. I also added each feature of my mag e.g. interview , exclusives and ect.


[image]


for my contents page i deside the layout should be more indetailed and well designed, as if it had lacked this it could become difficult to understand. Therefore i took into acount of the spacing, colouring,  text style and font size into account, so it showed a sign of concistancy in patern but also mode of address.


[image]


for my main feature i interpeted in to my own, the technique of main quotes, in centre pages throughy my feature article. during the iunterview i woul elborate on the artist points by highlighting them in 'main quotes' in an amoungst the text. i also used main imagery to capture the reader eye, however making a point/ refering to the topic using the image.

Sunday 7 November 2010

WE R YOU !!!

What artist do you like ?...  What appeals to you ?... Whats your favourite music genre ?..  WE WANT TO APPEAL TO YOU YOUNG PEOPLE, AND IN ORDER TO DO THAT WE HAVE TO BECOME YOU !! share your interest and hobbies and views on life .. :)

I'VE JUMPED A STEP FURTHER IN OUR RESEARCH METHOD, AND DONE A PERSONAL QUESTIONAIRE, ASKING MY TARGETED AUDIENCE WHO THEIR FAVOURITE ARTIS WERE AND HERE ARE SOME THE MANY SUGGESTIONS THAT POPPED UP OVER AND OVER , THROUGHT OUT MY RESEARCHES.

IN AID TO MY RESEARCH I ALSO SEARCHED UP URBAN, HIP HOP , AFRICAN AND REGGEA CHARTS AND GOT SUGGESTED ARTISTS FOR MY MAG :

American artists in high demand;
Trey songz
Rihanna
Drake
Lilwayne
Nicki minaj
Chris brown
T I
Caribbean/Reggae artist in demand;
Mavado
Vybz kartel
Machel mantano
Gaza kim
Destra garcia
Black ryno
Bob marley
&& more
African artist on demand;                             
2face idibia
d'banj
9ice
koffi olimide
justine
magic system
&& more
Urban uk artist on demand;
Tinie tempah
Giggs
Professor green
Mz brat
Ndubz
Griminal
Scorcher
Tinchy strider
Donaeo
Chipmunk




                               





                 



Thursday 4 November 2010

Planning For Publication

Today in lesson we discussed analysis of music magzine front cover and how itz applys it design techiniques, colours schemes and mode of address, to suit its target audience.

This was neccesary to help use with the planning for our music magazine as, we needed to know ways in which to attract the audience wanted for our publication.




^^^^^    ^^^^    ^^^^^
This is plan for my media publication

In this task we used a mind map to plan idea about my own media product. this included what style genre my publication would be taking

                                   Mood map



Then using the ideas we gained for our own media publication we made mood board, a visual representation of our target audience for our music magazine publication. Containning pictures of  items, accesories and music icons that my targeted market audience would be interested in.

Friday 22 October 2010

Prelim Task, Magazine Cover






My original photography





i had change the toning of my original image by brightening up the white tone, in the background, and givin it a daylight glow, this enable my cerius pink masthead to stand out amongst the rest of the freming for the mag.i also rescaled the image in order to make it look an aproriate size for a front cover.

The way in which i did this was;



i canged the level of emboss by 25% reduction, giving the image a faded washed out look.


i also rescaled the size of my image, this is how i adjust my imagery to fit with the magazine

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Prelim Task, Contents Page


I think by using contrasting colours such as black, pinks ad white, it really accurately target my audience of 14-21 year old girls. Pink is almost always seen as a more femininne colour along twith the white gives it a passive, fresh tone. I have also kept my main layout font of the front cover as it gives the mag a real sense of consistancy. My page numbers and articles are clearly presented, so the reader understand what page goes with each article, and so they are aware of the content in my mag.


This image i took has bright colours and shows and side of excitement and fun inside acland burghely, it shows different elements of education, e,g through performing arts and ect. i think it is a good image to use on my contents page  for my school magazine as it is familiar surounding for students in the school.



this picture shows education and learning in aclandburghley as a bright, good experience, the vibrance and natural brightness shows the positivity that i am trying to portay through the curiculum in acland burghley, givin it a very good overview for the readers of the magazine.


This picture i put on my contents page for humour, to show the element of imaturity and school day, this shows a fun side to school life, and will heavily relate to my targeted audience.



This picture shows the sort of clubs and workshops acland burghley school take part in, and what they heavily believe in is recycling and taking care of the enviroment in which we live in. Its shows the passion and intensity of comittement the school has in this area.


This picture is mainly to show students that attend the school, and to show the enjoyment they have attending school.

Friday 15 October 2010

Magazine comparison

i've annotated VIBE magazine; urban selection aimed at hip hop and RnB listeners. The generic music convention codes emploed by the magazine suggest the target audience are young people on the go and enjoy having fun.  The main image on the front cover is of a well known American rapper artist 'T.I', He is of african american decent, which tells me the mag is aimed at a multicultural target audience.  The main colour schemes used is black, red and white, which are usually seen as male colours, the colour red is also a very vibrant colour, this infers to the reader that it is a energetic males magazine.
The layout of the image Is shown to be the most important as it symbolises a sense of youth.
The typography and mode of address, is more of an informal (slang) type of address, e.g. " aint no such thing as a secret snitch" this is appealing to a certain group of people young people's of  african american decent.








The second magazine I chose to annotate in comparison with VIBE is 'KERRANG' magazine.
The particular front page i chose to study has a band named Machine head', i can tell that the magazine is aimed at an audience that prefer the genre of rock music because the artists on the front page look ruthless and out of control. The poses strike the eye of the reader the most because one member of the band is grabing the othere with his arm and they are all staring at the camera with madness and intensity. Also the artists are wearing gothic make-up which tells me as a reader that they follow a fashion trend that the stereotype would wear. Aswell as the band, there are many other images reflecting tasters of whats inside the mag, whereas, in Vibe magazone there is only the one main image used. 


Saturday 9 October 2010

COMPARISONS OF BLOGS

For my personal value i researched a wide variety of different blogs such as Film blogs, Music blogs and Scientific blogs, this could give me a better idea of the things contained on blogs:
Film blogs I looked at:
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/
- http://www.fadedglamour.co.uk/

Music blogs I looked at:
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog
- http://www.buzzinmusicblog.co.uk/
- http://www.livemusicblog.com/

Scientific blogs I looked at:
- http://scienceblog.com/
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog
- http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/science_blog/

One thing i found common among all of these blogs was that the layout was very easy on the eye. I think his is a good quality to all of these blogs as they were easy to read and configure. I also found that the blogs had adapted to their genre of the blog. For example, the live music blog had theme colours of red and white to show the vibrant feel of live gigs, but white so that the text on the blog was easy to read.

By looking at these different blogs, I have learnt that the blogs that had more hits and were more interesting were fairly plain, with detail highly related to the purpose for the blog. Using this information I know that I should keep my blog simple and informative but with the information I need, laid out in different ways.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Uses And Gratification Theory

Uses and Gratifications is broken down in to four different parts. These justify why people feel a need for media and why it is consumed so much.

Diversion - A form of escape or release from everyday pressures (e.g. Movies (cinema), T.V, Consoles, Facebook, Radio)

Personal - Comparing your life with characters or situations on screen (e.g. Big Brother, Tabloid News, I'm a Celebrity get Me Out Of Here)

Personal identity - Looking at someon else's situation and comparing it to your own, looking at different outlooks on the world (e.g. celebrity lifestyle, chased by paparazzi)

Surveilance - Information about 'What's going on in the World' (e.g. e-mail's, Facebook, News, Gig guides)

All magazines use these to base their purpose on as these are the reason's for consumtion. When producing my magazine, I will consider all four of these and remember that reader's will consume my magazine for any of these four reasons and so to make a successful magazine, I will cover all four considering all possible reader's and their reason's for consuming my publication.

Sunday 3 October 2010

MASTHEAD RESEARCH

For my masthead research i have studied in detail the mastheads of four magazine publications. the magazines i have based my masthead analysis on is 'Top Of The Pops' , 'MixMag' , 'Vibe' & 'NME'. I chose these because they all show very different styles of masthead of music magazines.





Top of the pops uses a simple form of typography, bubble writing which gioves it a sense of softness and a layed back attitude (not formal). This therefore will appeal more so to the audience of a younger generation 16 and under. The lettering is curved and round almost hinting a sense of fun and safety, innocence in a sense which will also appeal to children. The colour of the typography is pink and yellow, these two colours are stereotypically know as "girlie" colours, that usually appeal to young girls in there early teens, roughly targeted at an age group of 8-14's.
The language used is very informal, adressing in a commen manor, plus the masthead also 'clearly' indicates the genre as pop, making the reader aware that it will be featuring artist that belong to the popular music genre.





Mixmag masthead typography is very similar in a sense of the rounded curved shape of the lettering, both publications have used bubble writing on their masthead. however even thought they are very similar the two music magazines do not appeal to the same market. This is evident as mixmag's content contains long , detailed articles and features that will appeal to an older generation. Even though mix mag doesnt have a very formal approach in language used in articles and things advertised , mixmag is still said to be one of the high market music magazines and is retailed at £4.20 per month. This mag most likely appeals to people in A - C class spending brackets.

Mixmag uses a simple block of colour for its masthead every issues, to represent the mood of theme for that month, however most commonly its masthead is white, representing to the reader a sense of freshness and something, but also bold and eyecatching. With a lack of heavy detail, it symbolises simplicity and maturity and complex designs and wide ranges of colours are usually found in teen or young adult targeted magazines.





NME uses the the colours red, black, and white. These are all commonly found within rock magazines and has over the years created itself a colour theme that when seen it may be associated with the rock genre.  

The typography used is a simple block capital format yet still has an eye catching vibe through the majority of the colouring used is red. The font may have been kept to a simple tone to prevent the the masthead being over crowded with gimmicks.  This can also hint that the target audience is of a mature nature and do not want to be shown a magazine masthead that over shadows the information produced on the front cover about the contents of the magazine. 
 
 
 

Thursday 30 September 2010

Gender Representation In The Music Press

In class we have been looking at gender representation in the media, we were analysing different music magazines to see if there is a clear division between magazines and the targeted (gender) audience



It is evident from the statistics above that the majority of all top selling music magazine target a wider male audience than that of female. The graph shows that 6/7 of the music magazine genre to be rock, rock is usually seen as a more male orientated genre. As the music is in some ways agressive , and usually loud , consists of quite a quick tempo and overall lyrically very confruntational and obseen. often found offensive. This sort of behaviour is not one of female nature. Stereotypically this is not of a females common nature to listen to this type of music however, alternative cases can include women who enjoy listing to this brand of music and therefore enjoy reading the above publications yet,  the percentage still remains incredibly low in comparison the the percentage of male readers.

Music magazines tend to not cater for the female market as much as male however they still do have a range of female music magazines, which as special edition's to the original males mag. eg. "vibe magazine" male version & "vixon magazine" is the female version.

women prodeminately tend to have an interest in lifestyle magazines e.g heat, closer, grazia and now, as they more cater to a female audience.

Wednesday 22 September 2010

In my media as class we have been looking at and analysing the content in two specific music magazine. My choice of magazine were 'NME' and 'Top Of The Pops', one of which is a pop magazine and the other a Indie/Rock, i have been evaluating the content in both magazines and tabulating my results into visual graphs. 

Below is a tabulation of results that shows the content of the magazine through a pie chart
Top of The Pops:
Advertisements: 1 Page - The Hole (New Film)
1 Page - Always (Cosmetics)
1 Page - Tampax (Cosmetics)
1 Page - Street Dance 3D (Competition)
1 Page - Mobile Wallpapers
1 Page - Mascara (Cosmetics)
1 Page - Sims 3 Racing (Computing goods)

Advertisements in Top Of The Pops Magazine fill up 7 of 56 pages.




Features:
1 Page - Pixie Lott
2 Pages - Justin Bieber
2 Pages - Selena Gomez

The features in Top of The Pops take up five of fifty-six pages.

In total, Top of the Pops featured 2 Pages for new albums & three pages for small advertisemants (Mobile screensavers)





NME:

Advertising:
4 Pages - Halo (Computer Game)
1 Page - New Album
1/4 Page - Film
1/4 Page - New Album
1/2 Page - Stop Torture (Charity)
1/4 Page - Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. (New Album)
1/8 Page - Crinderman (New Single)
1/8 Page - Plants and Animals (New Album)
1/4 Page - Memories of Loss (New Album)
1 Page - Yazoo Drink (Competition)
1 Page - New Album
5 Pages - Concert/Gig Dates and Venues
1 Page - Orange (Mobile Advert)
1 Page - Sold Out Tour

(The Quarter and Half Page Adverts have had to be compressed to make one)
Overall, NME advertising takes up 15 &3/4 pages out of 200.



Main Features:
- 1 PageFront Cover
- 2 Pages 'How to Save 'Rock 'n' Roll''
- 4 Pages Arctic Mokeys Interview
- 2 Pages Festival Poll 2010
- 1 Page New Manchester Riot
- 5 Pages The 'XX'
- 2 Pages The Joy Formidable
- 2 Pages Zola Jesus
- 2 Pages Edwyn Collins
- 2 Pages Rediculous Is Nothing To Be Scard Of
- 2 Pages We Do Things Our Way

In total, NME had 25 pages on festures out of 200.

In total, NME featured eight T.V and Radio adverts and six and a half pages of small ads i.e concert dates.

These show me that advertisements are very effective in magazine's, but also that the bigger the magazine, the greater the amount of adverts to both recieve funding for the magazine's producers as well as filling th pages within the publication

Monday 20 September 2010

I am an AS student , attending Acland Burghley, Laswap 6th form. I am emarking on a 2 year AS/A2 course on media studies. I've have studied media studies for one of my subjects in GCSE. i enjoyed learning about media for 2 years so i decided to take it up at A-level.
 My blog "blackstar-riddimss" is to advertise my new urban music mag 'blackstar' which bases it criteria on the demands of its public. My magazine focuses on the the new and up-coming music genres and artist that are sweeping the uk urban nation by storm. Biggest newcomers on da dubstep hype, Biggest raves that be poppin on the funky house and bashment/ dancehall Scene.

My blog mainly focuses on the raving scene and culture of older teens aged 16 -19 years, in the uk. Post will be uploaded frequently during the month, giving you the coolest updates on new artist, music info on giggs, raves and special event!!!, and plenty of great offer up for grabes!

Whatever the month is, you can count on "Blackstar-riddims" dropping the maddest carnival tunes. Bashment, soca, reggae, funky house, dubstep or even R'n'B - what we play gets the girls excited and the party started... so stay posted !

Wednesday 15 September 2010

blackstar* calipso-carnival collage


blackstar* dance fusion from carnival 2010
 madest performances at notting hill carnival a collage of traditional and cultral dance and festives, over 20'000 it's Biggest youtube exclusivee !!!