Week 1-2: Working on Front cover of magazine.
Week 3-4: Working on contents page.
Week 5-6: Working on feature article.
Week 7: Making final improvements to my three products.
Thursday, 12 March 2015
Wednesday, 4 March 2015
Target audience
Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience are
interested in ‘indie’ music and will also be known as ‘indie’ because of how
they look and act individually.
To be individual from
everyone else they wouldn’t usually dress at mainstream shops such as ‘Newlook’
or ‘
They are likely to wear shoes
such as Doc Martens as they are durable and won’t get ruined when frequently
going to gigs and festivals.
Often ‘indie kids’ will wear
bright clashing colours, patterns and furs to stand out or on the other hand
wear more dull colours to look more grunge.
The ages of my audience will
range from around 16-25 as ‘indie’ music and style usually appeals to a younger
audience, although it does sometimes also appeal to older people too.
‘Indie kids’ are
stereotypically quite lazy as they would rather just be chilling our or at the
pub having a good time. Due to their laziness they often dress quite sloppily
and also many have dreadlock as this means they don’t have to wash their hair.
A typical outfit for my
target audience would be a band top (as they are so passionate and influenced
by music), a quirky shirt undone, a denim or leather jacket, baggy trousers or
jeans and boots such a s Doc Martens or Kickers.
Six possible advertisements that could feature in my
magazine:
Rough trade – Website that
sells records and CD’s at discounted price.
·
Doc martens –
Durable shoes suitable for gigs ect.
·
Ebay/Amazon –
Good for finding vintage or different clothes that other people may not have.
·
Fast food – Too
lazy/not enough time to cook proper food.
·
Gig venues –
‘Indie kids’ are avid gig goers as its all about the music.
·
Coffee shops e.g
Starbucks: Need waking up after late nights at gigs.
Skills development
Looking
back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
procession from in to full product?
On the left hand side my preliminary task is on top and underneath is my finished magazine cover. You can see straight away from looking at the
two that my finished product is a huge improvement from my preliminary task and
is a much better quality product.
The most obvious difference in the two is the main photos.
The photo on my preliminary task is a very bad quality so it is not clear and
doesn’t look professional. Also, the photo is not big enough for the magazine
so it doesn’t stand out and there is too much empty space on the cover so it
looks bare. The image on my finished magazine is very clear as it is good
quality which automatically makes the magazine look a lot more professional. The
image also sticks to the convention of two thirds so that it takes up most of
the page so there isn’t too much empty space, but leaves room for the cover
lines ect. Although my preliminary task has direct address and my finished
product doesn’t, this is something that I did purposely because I wanted to
challenge the convention. Another big
difference between the two is the mastheads and cover lines. On my preliminary
task it is obvious that they do not stand out at all, this is because the font
is not bold enough and it is grey on grey which really doesn’t stand out and
would not catch anyone’s eye if it was on a shelf in a shop. I made sure that I
chose a very bold font for my mast head on my finished product because I knew
it was very important for it to be bold and readable. Also the cover lines on my
finished product stand out a lot more than on the preliminary as they are in
caps which is easier to read at a glance and also they are in bright colours
which stand out on the page. The cover lines feature a lot of artists and bands
that are popular with my target audience and will catch their interests.
Whereas my preliminary task does not have any artists or bands on the front so
therefore it is not very likely that my target audience would be interested in
the magazine. The background of my
finished products is bricks but originally they were a lot brighter and they
took a lot of the attention away from the text and image so I learnt of
Photoshop how to fade them out slightly and add a green tint to them. This
makes the cover more aesthetically pleasing and makes the image stand out a lot
more so it looks more professional. 
On the left is my preliminary task and underneath is my
finished contents page.
My finished product is a huge improvement from my
preliminary task in many ways. The first
way is the content. The preliminary task is very vague and doesn't give much
information about what is in the magazine. Also, the content wouldn't appeal to
my target audience, whereas my finished product does such as bands and
festivals. In addition to this the text
on the preliminary task is covering the image which makes it hard to read; the
image is not a good quality and is not relevant. But my finished products
images are relevant to the content of the magazine and are good quality. The
reason the preliminary tasks image Is such bad quality is because it was taken
on my mobile phone, but I made sure that I took my images for my final product
on a good quality camera which made a huge difference. Another thing that was a
bad decision for the preliminary task was the colour of the back round. It would
have been better to of had the background all black because where it fades into
white it makes it very hard to read the text. The text on my finished product
stands out really well as it is white on blue and the reader would have no difficulty
reading this. When creating my finished product I learnt how to use the
‘stroke’ tool which outlines the font, this really made my text stand out more
and as you can see looks a lot better than the preliminary tasks font as I did
not know how to do this then so that shows how learning more Photoshop skills
really helped with creating a successful product. The advertisement of a chance
to win Reading festival tickets at the bottom of the page relate to my target
audience really well as they are avid festival goers therefor this is likely to
appeal to them.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Institutions
What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
After researching all the
major publishers, I decided that I think IPC media would be the best media
institution to distribute my magazine. I think this as IPC media cover a divers
print and digital portfolio and produce over 85 iconic media brands meaning
that they are very successful and experienced in this field. Although they
already publish ‘NME’ which is a indie/alternative music magazine, I think they
would still be successful in publishing my magazine as there is a gap in the
market for this type of magazine and also mine is very different from ‘NME’ and
is slightly more niche. Also as they already publish a similar sort of magazine
this means that they have knowledge and experience in selling music magazines
meaning that there is a higher chance of them getting my magazine well known.
At first I thought that Bauer
Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine as they are one
of the most influential publishers and reaches over 19 million people. But as I
researched what magazines it distributes I realised that it publishes quite a
few magazines that are similar to mine such as ‘Kerrang!’ so I don’t think this
would be the best institution to distribute my magazine as it already covers
the market that I am targeting.
Representation
How does
your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine
is mainly aimed at the ‘indie’ counter-culture, but there are also quite a lot
of ‘alternative’ content as these two groups are normally combined or thought
of as the same thing. The age group that my magazine is trying to target is
teenagers and young adults a roundabout 16-25 year olds. Also, it is targeted
slightly more at males then females but I did incorporate ‘girly’ things into
the magazine, such as including bands such as ‘The 1975’ that are very popular
with girls.
When I
first planned my magazine I thought that I was going to aim to aim it at quite
a niche market as I wanted to only include indie and alternative music. But as
I did some research I realized that I would reach a much larger target audience
if I also include some punk music as well. But this worked well as the people
who belong to the ‘indie; count-culture tend to listen to all three of these
music genres.
The good
thing about ‘Aesthetics’ magazine is it covers a wide variety of contents bands
and music which means that it would appeal to quite a wide range of people and
counter-cultures.
Thinking of
demographics and psychographics into account; I needed to show this ever
growing counter culture in terms of style, attitudes, interests, and
lifestyles. To the right is a picture of the band ‘Neck Deep’. They are a pop-punk band
who is very popular at this moment in time in the ‘indie’ counter-culture. I
tried to imitate their style with my models in my magazine, while incorporating
the more traditional ‘indie’ style, like the band ‘Peace’ underneath. The
reason that I didn’t have my models very traditionally indie looking was that I
wanted to reach a wider audience and having the models look more neutral then
made them look quite ‘alternative’ as well as ‘indie’, fitting into both groups
nicely. 
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Monday, 23 February 2015
Thursday, 12 February 2015
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