Music magazine - High Voltage (Evaluation!)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My magazine follows similar conventions to that of Kerrange magazine but this is only done on the front cover page and the contents page but I veered away from the conventions for the double page spread. This is because I wanted to do it a way I thought looked good and not copy a real magazine. This was done by having four pictures and text wrap around it, instead of the Kerrang way by having a big picture taking up one page and then writing on the other side.

How does your product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is particularly for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19. The pictures in the magazine say different things about the attitudes. The picture of ADZ represents him being angry which coincides with the type of music he is involved with, which is electronica. Fake Fiction look more relaxed and care free, this also corresponds with the type of music they play, which is punk-rock.

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
Maybe as a second magazine with Kerrang because my magazine is very similar to Kerrang and I have use it as a sort of template for my magazine.

Who would be the audience for your product?
The audience for my magazine will be teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19 who like punk-rock music.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I have attracted them by the fonts on the magazine, the range of pictures in the magazine, the colour scheme and the language used in the magazine. I have addressed my audience with ‘teenage language’. What I mean by this is I have not used childish words to undermine them or have I used over complicated words.

What have you learnt about technology from doing the coursework?
I have learnt many things in Photoshop and indesign, including; resizing pictures, changing the hue and saturation of the pictures, how to change the pixels per cm, how to use indesign effectively, how to get the right level of gradient and how to enhance the pictures so they look better.

How did preliminary task help you to do the full product?
It helped me to get used to using Photoshop, using the crop tool successfully and generally getting used to the program so I was prepared to do the fully coursework. With the preliminary task it helped me find out how to use different things on Photoshop and enhance my pictures properly.

Comments
I believe I have done this coursework task very well, I spent a lot of time on it trying to get it as perfect as I could. I had difficulties with the front cover picture because the resolution would not stay at 300pix/cm. But I got round this problem and finished the task with sufficient ease. I like my coursework because I based it on Kerrang and that is my style of music which I love. I asked my target market if they liked it as well and they said yes and they particularly liked the theme of the magazine and the pictures in it.

Music magazine - High Voltage (double page)

The double page spread had me thinking for some time. I was wondering to myself many different things that my target market might expect or want. I have to think very carefully about; the layout on the double pages, the background, how much information should be on there, what sort of font will represent the band and the magazine and how many pictures should there be. Saying this, I only had to do two drafts of the double page spread because I liked the first one quite a lot and only needed to change a few things.



The background was simple, I chose a white background to give the magazine a little bit of diversity from black. This white background stayed the same for the second draft as well. The layout was rather easy to figure about as well. Sometimes in Kerrang they will have one whole page for a picture and all the writing on the other side. This is what I didn't want to do because I wanted the writing to be broken up but pictures so it wasn't in your face as much. This is when i started thinking about the number of pictures. I thought there should be one of each band member and one of them all together! this worked out well and also to my advantage because it broke up the text more. As for the interview, I asked them ten fairly simple questions and they gave their responses. This, thankfully, filled up the spaces that I had left for them. They did swear on occasions and, obviously, I can't post them on coursework but I did write the beginning letter and the end letter and then * the rest because in magazines, such as Kerrang, they would have out the swear word in. For the font for 'Fake Fiction' at the top left of the page I chose, yet again, HP PSG but this didn't turn out as planned and I changed this to AR DARLING which looked so much better and I think it fit in more with Fake Fiction's image. As always, I gave this page to people within my target market and asked them for their opinions. They all came back very positive and they said they found the colour scheme, which still followed the front cover and the contents page colour scheme, to be a good demonstration of creativity. I think this double page spread has gone well and I've enjoyed working with Fake Fiction to produce an end result that I am thoroughly pleased with.



Myroslava Terlecky

Music magazine - High Voltage (Contents page)

I started with the background of the contents page being completely black but then for my second draft I decided to change this so it was black with a gradient. This change looked more aesthetically pleasing and with the gradient it follwed the same sort of background as the front cover did. The font of the Masthead, 'Contents', was goudy old style. This, like the front cover page, looked too formal so I decided to it to HP PSG like the front cover to follow the same font. In the 'O' in contents I put a red lightening bolt to continue the theme of the title of the magazine, "High Voltage". The contents information was done so the page numbers were highlighted in red so that they stand out and the information in white. I thought this worked well and I kept this for my second draft. The red and white boxes at the bottom of the page was an experiment and when I found out that my target market liked the boxes I decided to make them more colourful and a bit bigger. The boxes have extra information added about what is on which pages. Again, at the bottom left of the page is the website address and on the bottom right of the page I have added a line that says there is an application of an Ipod, this branches out into a different market because if people looked at the application/podcast first and decided that they liked it then they would buy the magazine -therefore increasing profits. The picture of 'ADZ' is a clever use of manual focus, putting his finger out of focus and ADZ into focus. My target market have specifically said they really like this picture because they think the out of focus hand draws your attention straight to his face. I am extremely pleased with this page, it took me a very long time to get everything right.


Myroslava Terlecky


(There is an error with posting pictures onto blogger, as soon as this error is sorted out then my final contents page will be put on here)

Music magazine - High Voltage (Front cover)

For this year’s media coursework we had to design and produce a music magazine which had to contain a front cover, a contents page and a double page spread. The band I included on my front cover are the main feature of the magazine and therefore I have used them for my article and double page spread. I have known the drummer of the band, Tom, for many years and arranged a photo shoot with them. “Fake Fiction” are a punk-rock band and that is why I have decided to follow this theme for the entire magazine because it wouldn’t be correct to put a punk-rock band on the cover of a girly-pop magazine. The other reason I have done a punk-rock magazine is because I am a fan of that sort of music and listen to many rock bands, while also reading “Kerrang” and “NME” which have been the main inspiration of my magazine. The final draft of the front page has followed the same concepts as “Kerrang” magazine; with the masthead at the top, the main cover line at the bottom and with the kicker at the very top of the page. There were four drafts of the front cover; this is because I believed that the cover looked boring and not very professional.

The first background was gray, it looked plain and boring so in the second draft I changed the background to black and added a gradient to it. This made it look so much better but it still needed a little more black on it. This title was in font “Goudy old style” which looked too formal for a teenage punk-rock magazine, it was also too high up the page. The picture was also too high up and was quite pixellated without being 11pix/cm. For the second draft I changed the pix/cm to 300 but it came out with 28pix/cm. The “Fake Fiction” banner was too small, it didn’t fit the entire width of the page and it looked cartoony. This first draft wasn’t very good but it gave me a lot to work on. I have already talked a little bit about my second draft. I added two new things to it that the first draft didn’t have. I added a cover line of everything that’s happening in the issue but I believe that there was too much information on this. I also added a price and date line at the bottom with a bar code but this was a little hard to see.

As I proceed to the third draft of the front cover it was gradually coming together and looking much improved but there were still six things I had change, the title being one of them. I decided to change this because the audiences focus went to the main cover line (Fake Fiction) and not to the masthead (High Voltage). I have changed the gradient on the background so it was more black than white but I still need to change it a little because you cannot see the issue number. This is because the font for this is white but I do not want to change it to red as there will be too much red on the page, therefore it is the gradient must be changed. The resolution of the picture is starting to annoy me because it will not stay at 300pix/cm, this is crucial otherwise it will be pixllated. I need to make sure that it stays at 300pix/cm. I have added 'what is in the issue' to the left hand side of the front cover. This has a lot of information on it and is a little bit 'in your face' so i have to change this by taking most of the information out of it and only focus on the main points and maybe change the position of it on the page - I might in fact put it at the top of the page like Kerrang do! Adding the date, issue number and price to the page was a little challenging but this is only because I still need to sort out the gradient for the background by making it darker in the bottom right hand corner.


Moving onto the 4Th draft the main things I had changed; the font of the title and the size of it, the information on the left hand side and I have added two things; the website address at the top left and the 'full interview inside' bit. The font of the title was very formal for a teenage punk/rock magazine so it changed from Goudy Old Style to HP PSG which I think looks just right, I think it follows the theme well. Changing the information on the left hand side was a little tricky because, at first, I didn't completely know what I was going to do with it. I then thought more about Kerrang (which is the inspiration for my magazine) and decided to put a selection of information on the top of the page. Then I had a brilliant idea to separate the small bits of information by red lightening bolts. This is very similar to what Kerrang! do but they normally separate their information with starts. Where the information used to be, on the left hand side, i have put a little image of 'Fake Fiction' with 'full interview inside' next to it. I really do not like this and neither does my audience so I must change this in my next draft. The website address at the top left is too big at font size 30 so all I need to do to this is change the font size and that will be fine and will not need changing.

My final front cover changed from the 4th draft quite a bit, I have changed quite a few things. I think the most important thing I changed was the gradient. You can now see the date line, price, bar code and website address because this was changed. The gradient is very dark at the top right and left hand corners and as you go down towards the bottom right hand corner it gradually becomes gray while in the bottom left hand corner it is almost white. This, I believe is much better and my audience think this as well. I moved the website address to the top right hand side and made it smaller because on the left hand side I put a kicker, 'voted the best music magazine by you' - with emphasis on the words 'best' and 'you' by putting those words in red, this is so it stands out. After this I changed what was the information that went on the left hand side that said 'full interview inside'. I changed this to a quote from the interview itself, '"we believe everyone in the band is equal" - full interview pages 16 and 17'. This was probably the second best thing I had changed because I did not like what it was before and neither did my audience. I have shown this to my target market and they have given me some feedback, they have given me some very positive feedback. They have said they like the layout of the page and they think the information at the top of the page that is separated by the lightening bolts was a clever idea and a good way to put information. They also liked the angle that I took the picture of 'Fake Fiction'. I am extremely happy about how this front cover has turned out!


Myroslava Terlecky

(There is an error with posting pictures onto blogger, as soon as this error is sorted out then my final front cover will be put on here)