useful websites i have used to help make my final product

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/interface-tutorials/how-to-make-a-highly-textured-site-layout-in-photoshop/

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

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

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


I hope you like all of my work and let me know what you think!

My preliminary task- progression to the real one!!

You have probably read about all of the things i have learnt from my preliminary task to my real one but here is the progression that is visual!!

Distribution

www.bauermediagroup.co.uk As i have discussed my distributor throughout my evaluation i thought i would provide the website where i got most of the information from!!

Information can also be found on Wikipedia- when the type in Bauer media group.

My audience

As you have probably noticed i have already discussed my target audience in my evaluation of my front cover. Do you think my magazine has been successful in appealing to the indie rock genre/audience? but also to people those who love trance music? let me know what you think about my special trance edition... thankyouuu!!

I have also used the questionnaire to address my audience which i posted when i first started my preliminary task.. i also looked to this for inspiration.

Evaluation: Final double page spread; Trip Hazard

In this evaluation of my final double page spread I will be answering the following questions:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How did you attract address your audience?

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

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

This is my double page spread which features the indie rock band Trip Hazard- you can find them on http://www.myspace.com/

My article starts off in drop capitals, one of the common aspects of all magazine articles, not just music ones. This is so the reader is immediately drawn to the article and the lead paragraph, also a convention of music magazine articles. My article does not challenge this in any way, i feel as though it fits with the normal codes and conventions as i had wanted it to. I have chosen to compare it to the Q magazine double page spread of shakira. As you can see both the articles have a bold headline, mine is in yellow to co-ordinate with yellow the text whereas Q's is in white to match the white text, keeping to a main colour scheme, this is a common convention of music magazine's.

I have noticed that magazine's try not to use too much text and always display a clear picture, this is important to get across the clear anchorage between the text and the picture. My magazine has clear ideology and anchorage as the text discusses four famous teenagers and the picture of them performing live shows this. The same is true of the Q article, the image shows Shakira, the famous singer/artist working in a busy studio/office and the headline reads "danger shakira at work!" and the article also discusses her being hard at work, the image and the text must always co ordinate, so there is no confusion for the reader.

My headline saying "Trip Hazard"! differs to the layout on the Q double page spread as it is placed on the bottom, rather than on the top before the article, this challenges the conventions of music magazine's, as i wanted it to look different and appealing. My article includes a quote which is separate from the main text, this is placed in the gutters. As you can see Q magazine also does this so the article is more eye catching, this is a code and convention of modern music magazines. My article does still match the front cover as mention "Trip Hazard" on one of the puffs, most magazine's always mention the artist/band on the front cover before the article on the double page spread.


Obviously the most important convention is the centre image, mine is a long shot whereas the picture of Shakira is more of a medium close-up. I wanted this effect as so to include the image of the whole band, particularly the female singer as this can be linked to Laura Mulvey's theory of feminism, women are no longer subordinate to males, the female is the dominant lead singer, this shows how things have progressed in the media since the 1960's. I will discuss how i decided on this picture and how i took it later on in my blogging.

The text i have used is in the form of an interview, taking inspiration from articles such as the doves one, and Q magazine's article on Shakira. The interview starts of discussing the band "Trip Hazard", it is in an informal tone just like the articles in Q. The first lead paragraph introduces the band using words such as "one million pound record deal", this explains the fame they have gained and draws the reader in. The article then goes in to an interview, with me being the inerviewer. I use alliteration such as "softly smile" to portray the down to earth nature of the band. The band then get asked a number of questions, by me as the interviewer. This differs to the style of Q as the article is mostly written, with just a few quotes added in to personalise it. This is how magazine's differ in their styles. Mine takes the style of an interview form, i use colloqiual langauage such as "yeah", to give an informal tone. In the gutters between the text i have included two quotes from the band (as mentioned earlier), just as Q magazine does, to personalise the article, this is often a convention of articles, i chose the colour red as this connote "danger" and "warning" this could be portraying what they are saying is important and lair the audience into reading this, i also placed this in a circle to highlight this even more.

I have noticed how the style of language differs in different music magazine's the doves article uses much harder words such as "pound" whereas mine is more relaxed using words such as "softly smile" and "I and Paul had always dreamed of forming a successful band" this draws in the demographic which is mainly young people. Mine portrays the band as being just like typical teenagers. perhaps even representing teenagers. Whereas the doves article is more "hard" and "Manly", with the band being all male, representing that "rugid" look.

The magazine article I have produced requires no prior knowledge as i tell the audience who the band are and what the current situation is. However I suppose you could say this is true as prior knowledge of the artists is always needed as you would not really read about them if you were unaware of who they are, this is common for music magazine's and could be classed as a convention.

As mentioned earlier, this article and picture could be said to be representing teenagers as a whole, throughout the article they are friendly and lively and people may associate teenagers with this, which is a positive image which I feel is always best to get from an article. The colours used are bright and the title of the band is also in bright colours- I wanted this to represent that teenagers and young people have bright personalities and they should not always be compared to "thugs" as this is the image given to them by the media these days.This also represents indie bands/culture as the band performing are an indie band i used a lot of research about indie bands from:

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

In the process of making my double page spread I have learnt how to actually make it on photoshop. I discovered that the page must be set to A3 landscape, so the full image and text can be seen, this can be chosen by using the settings at the top of the page and by changing the pixels. The text was easy to do as I just typed it into the text box and then chose the font I wanted, which was myraid pro, as I had previously used it on the front cover.

From my preliminary task i discovered the things i have talked about earlier. I will post another blog showing this.


The demographic here has to be indie/rock music lovers! the band is an indie/rock band and the article is an interview with them so it is aiming to mainly appeal to them, using all the conventions and techniques i have discussed, which you can also see i have used!!

I have placed pictures at the top of the article showing where i got my inspiration from for the article, hope you like them!!

Final contents page:

This is my contents page, my final draft that i am very pleased with!

This evaluation covers the following questions:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How did you attract/address your audience?

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

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




As you can see i tried to stick to all of the normal conventions of a contents page. I used sub-headings a masthead, a small icon of the magazine in the corner and bold text.

I used the inspiration of the NME contents page i have analysed earlier on, i liked the idea of a centre image with headings placed around it. I have found that headings in block colours are a common convention on a contents page, as they stand out and appear bolder. Here is no different, the headings are on a black background to highlight the gray text. Headings are usually placed down the side, so they look more organised and professional i have tried to keep to this style.

Perhaphs the biggest convention and code of a music magazine is the centre image, the main attraction. Q magazine's main image on one of there contents page's was James Blunt (seen in my blog), so therefore i knew that i needed to have a main image. The image will always reflect the genre- james blunt reflected the image of indie in Q magazine, whereas my magazine is a special trance edition but i wanted to still keep the indie/rock feel. I decided this close up of a microphone would be perfect, it is very indie/rock as this kind of music involves bands and singing, but the picture of the front cover placed at the top would remind the audience that this edition is a trance one, this was inspired from NME magazine, as you can this is one of there conventions and if my magazine where to be published i would want this to become a main convention of mine.

Another popular convention of a contents page- music magazine is a quote from an artist/band usually the one on the front. I have included one on mine to draw attention to the fact that the magazine will still mainly be about trance music, this is a quote from a trance DJ- announcing the comeback of trance music. This is in bold text and is placed at the top so it is easy to see.

Perhaphs my contents page does challenge normal forms and conventions of other music magazine's as it only has one main image, whereas the likes of NME and Mojo often have more and feature images of the band/artist. I thought by not including more images on the contents page i would draw more attention to just the one image, which this makes people want to buy the magazine even more as you have to turn over to see more pictures.

Contents page's usually have a main colour font throughout- NME uses the colours black and yellow on this particular one. I decided Grey and black would be useful as they contrast against the black background, this is just further developing codes and conventions of other music magazine's by using the same, but yet slightly different techniques.

Of course the page numbers are down the side to inform the reader. The page numbers are bolder for the more important parts. The magazine masthead is still present to inform the audience of what they are reading and so this name will stay in their minds. This is a regular convention of contents page's.

Even though the magazine is representing the social aspect of trance music as a whole this particular page seems to represent indie culture more. I have researched indie culture/music as part of my preparation- you can see this on my blog. Indie culture has become very popular and this style is also continued on my double page spread. The contents page often represents what the double page spread will be, mine represents the indie/ rock band Trip Hazard. The mis-en-scene of the microphone i think suggests immeditely an indie band will be featured inside. The microphone could be described as unkempt looking which indie bands are often associated and sterotyped with, as this is there look, also younger people are also associated with indie/rock music so you would expect the magazine to maybe represent younger artists, even though this is very stereotypical. I will discuss the representation of my double page spread later on.

I have already mentioned who the demographic is for my magazine, and i would say the same comes across for this contents page. What do you think? i have posted a blog about "My audience" giving information and asking for feedback. Do you think this contents page allows room for indie/rock fans aswell as trance fans?

Obviously having made my front cover first i did find the contents page alot easy to make as i had got to grips with photoshop. I found it interesting actually how simple it is to just draw a rectangle and then chose the colour black to get the block effect for behind the page numbers, i found most magazine's use this so i wanted to try and devlop this. The image of the microphone was taken after watching a performance from the band i have used "Trip Hazard", i opened the picture up as if it were the background and worked around that. I adjusted the levels of brightness, i learnt that you often do need to brighten pictures but also keep the contrast down to even it out. I also learnt more about the rule of thirds here, using a ruler on photoshop at the side of the page allowed me to line the pictures and the text up evenly, i discovered this by trying out the editing techniques with the icons at the top of the page. I also discovered that if you what they grey text to be placed on the black rectangle you must make sure that the text is placed after the rectangle using the right hand side of photoshop, where it allows you to see each step you have taken. You can lock layers together to make sure they are secure.

As you can see from my blog my preliminary task mock up contents page is completely different from this one. My practice contents page was just basic, using Microsoft Publisher. I have now advanced to Photoshop and learnt many techniques that i have mentioned earlier. Most importantly i have learnt that the contents page needs to be as professional as the front cover as this is what you see when you first open the magazine.

Final magazine cover

In this evaluation of my front cover i will answer the following questions... (extra information may be in a separate blog)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How did you attract/address your audience?

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

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

This is my final magazine cover, I am very pleased with it after many changes and difficulties making it I am really happy that I have learnt how to use photoshop.

I am going to take you through the decisions i have made for my magazine and how it compares to other magazine's i have previously talked about.

As you can tell form the image of my magazine cover I have went for a completely different image that i had originally wanted. After taking my main photograph i looked at the style of it an thought it still looked rock/indie but would be better to be labeled as a special "trance edition" due to the style of the original image. This seemed better suited but i decided that this would just be a one-off edition and the main article would still have an indie/rock genre to it, other music magazine's often make special editions such as NME's Christmas edition. I will explain all the details of how I found the effect for the picture later on.

First i am going to look closely at the codes and conventions of my magazine in comparison to the coldplay one, which was the genre I was originally going for (indie/rock). First of all the conventions of my magazine compared to Q magazine look completely different at first glance. The Q cover is a lot more subtle with the black and white painted image whereas mine grabs your attention more with the bright colours. My cover also has a lot more puffs compared to the Q one. I try to capture the readers attention by using phrases such as "he dives into the world of trance", whereas Q has a more relaxed feel saying "and now for something completely different...". This is also one of the reasons why i chosen to do a one-off cover for my magazine as it allows the look of it to be different and more unusual looking which is main convention of trance magazine's compared to the contemporary look and convention of indie/rock magazines, as they use more subtle colours and a more relaxed layout/modern.

Some conventions of the two magazines and mostly all magazines are always the same. As you can see a bar code is featured on the two magazines, this is always apparent on every magazine.
The masthead's on both magazine's are in bold: "Q" and "Newbeat", they are usually placed at the top so the reader can immediately see what magazine it is, this is the same here. The text is bold for both the masthead's so it stands out and is one of the main features, apart from the picture. The picture is also a main convention of a magazine, music magazine's always display an artist/band. The Q cover's main image is more natural than mine and looks more relaxed whereas mine looks "posey" and displays a DJ type image, which is obviously a convention of a trance magazine and not an indie/rock magazine which is why the images differ.My inspiration for a trance image came from: http://www.rave180.com/uploaded_images/rave-trance-744824.jpg

Both covers also have a strapline, which most also do. Q's strapline or "sell line" is "Britain's Biggest Music Magazine", whereas mine is "exclusive trance edition". To inform the reader that this edition will discuss trance music. A normal convention of magazine's is that strapline will usually inform the reader, as mine does. The strapline's are usually in smaller text and this is the same of mine, this a normal aspect of a music magazine, and as we deconstruct its conventions this appears to be one.

Perhaps the most important convention of music magazine's is the demographic they try to appeal to. Each one has a different look so it can appeal to its own audience. Obviously, mine has that "dance" exciting look that will appeal to trance music lovers. And Q has the indie/rock appeal but i think the coldplay edition particularly appeals to older people just by the relaxed style of it and there are not many puffs and additional information. I decided to keep the puffs mainly about indie/rock artists/bands so the demographic would still be the original indie/rock audience as well as people who like trance music.

My magazine could be said to represent teenagers. As many teenagers are associated with trance music and known to like it as a lot of it is often played in clubs/bars which are also associated with the younger generation. However, this is just a typical stereotype as i actually know a lot of older people that also enjoy trance music, so my magazine could be said to be representing them also. As my magazine also has puffs that include the indie/rock genre it could also be said that it represents indie bands/artists, it represents how successful they are as in this day and age they are mentioned on most music magazine's around the world. This could be portraying that indie/rock music is becoming a very successful genre, and is not just popular for the younger generation, but for any generation.

I think you could relate my magazine cover to Laura Mulvey's theory of feminism. Even though i did not want to portray this image but it seems my magazine has a domineering, successful male on the front of it. From this we can infer that males are still shown in this way. I did not want to portray this effect as i do not agree that females are passive to males. However i feel this magazine if it were to become a full 30/40 page one, would feature females, and portray that they are equal and as successful as males.

I am sticking with my decision that the Bauer Media Group would distribute my media product. They are a very successful worldwide company, and i would like my magazine to be worldwide. I have previously researched the Bauer Media group and it appears that they own music magazine's such as Q and Mojo. These are very popular magazine's and both appeal to the indie/rock demographic, which is why i have chosen the Bauer Media Group. I also think this "special trance edition" would be a good promoting product for the media group because it suits there style as an indie/rock music magazine but also promotes a one-off style of trance music, which is something different.

Whilst making my front cover i have learnt many different techniques. I started off by getting my picture to take this i used an apple mac book laptop, which has a special editing technique called comic book which create a bright effect that makes the picture look unusual. I then put this into photoshop and edited the picture and changed the brightness levels and the contrast to get the effect you can see on the front cover. At first i found it difficult to move the picture into a magazine size but after practicing for a short while, i soon got the hang of it. Photoshop on the whole was very hard to get used to as i wanted to make my magazine look as professional as possible. I spent quite a few days getting the text right for the masthead and the strapline as i didn't want it to be over the top, it needed to be realistic. I found the text in photoshop similar to use as word, i decided on the text "myriad pro" to make the text quite big for the masthead i needed to type in a larger size instead of just selecting one.

I feel that my I.T skills have developed more as photoshop was different to any other programme i have used before. I learnt that you have to use the tools on the left hand side, these helped me to draw shapes and text. On the right hand side of photoshop there are icons you can use to make borders around the text, which is what i have used for the "DJ JOE T" text to make it extra bold and appealing to the reader which most main titles of music magazine's also do.

When taking my picture i learnt about the rule of thirds, that the picture must be able to equally divide into thirds i have also learnt through research on the internet that this is one of the main aspects of photography, and makes a picture a good one. I have also learnt through others in my class that to take a good picture you must line it up and there must be no bright light behind the picture as this makes it unclear.

From my preliminary task to now i have learnt many things. When creating my preliminary task it was easy as i was using Microsoft Publisher, so i actually liked the challenging aspect of using photoshop. As you can probably see my preliminary task looks completely different to my final magazine cover. I think this is because of the technology of photoshop allowed me to edit the picture (its brightness and contrast) and use more professional text. Most of all i am pleased that my photoshop skills have developed, from starting off learning how to put a picture in to making it look realistic and adding text and puffs.

I found this website useful for learning how to use photoshop: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/interface-tutorials/how-to-make-a-highly-textured-site-layout-in-photoshop/

Let me know what you think of my finished product!!