G321 Foundation Portfolio in Media

Evaluation

My magazine as a whole• My music magazine represents particular social groups by interacting with young people and for some social groups, they can

relate to my magazine. As a young person, they may want to have a future just like the new artists in the magazine I have created. The social class which will read my magazine will most probably have the same characteristics, which will mean the word of mouth would come useful for a magazine like this. My double page spread will represent this as it has an interview of a fresh new artist which all young people with the same talents can relate to.

• I believe that my magazine I have created, will challenge forms and conventions of real media products as there are hardly any other magazines like this one created. All of the magazines I have personally read or seen, are all about celebrities and about their lives and the top gossip. None which actually people can mainly relate to. I hope as I have tried, that my magazine includes all of that.

• I think the media institution that may distribute my magazine, will be certain websites or like a pop-up on websites to advertise my magazine. To be specific, I think it would be suitable for fashion websites as a lot of young people shop online or just go on a certain shop websites just to look at clothes. The websites I would expect it to be advertised on will be, River Island, H&M, New Look, Topshop/Topman, Hollister, Urban Outfitters, Fred Perry, All Saints, House Of Fraser and Monsoon, as this magazine is also for boys. I also think that it would be advertised in all magazines which young people also read, for example, Hello, More, Bliss and Pick me up.

• The audience for my magazine will be for young people, from ages 14/15-20.• I have attracted my audience by planning my photography well and clear so it will be obvious for my audience what the

magazine is generally about. I decided to photograph young people, because that is the audience for my magazine. I have made sure I used the colour co-ordination well so that hopefully I would draw my readers in. I decided to stick to basic, modern colours, as I was looking to create an edgy effect. For the front cover, I had included lip graphics, which I think makes the magazine look younger and funner. I have also used fonts which I think would be suitable and really match the design I was looking for.

• From the process of constructing this product, I have learned that technologies are a massive deal in media, in all sorts of ways. The communication from the media to the audience is a big thing to think about and have many techniques to consider. Things like the industry and cultural aspects are considered within the technology of media.

• Also thinking about what sort of social class are involved in the media. Whilst producing something for the media, you have to think about everyone and who consumed in the media. For example, ethnicity. I have also learned that technologies change all of the time. The way a website is changed, the way adverts are produced differently and how there is even a trend with music videos. New products within the media are always being updated. This means that producing a product takes a lot of thinking on the technical side. I had also learned a lot about technology whilst producing my whole magazine. I have never been confident writing my own blog or even using Photoshop as I didn’t really know how to use it. Even though I may have used the simplest tools, I now know how to create a magazine. The advantage of Photoshop is that it is very clever and can do a lot of things, but the disadvantage for me would be that it is very time consuming and is very difficult to understand.

• From thinking back to the preliminary task, the whole creative side of it was quite worrying, especially for me, as I am not good on Photoshop or any programmes like that. But as I had done the front cover, I got on well and thought into a lot more detail when it came to designing the contents page and the double page spread because I got an idea of how to do things. But I have definitely learned that the more unique your product is, the better the outcome is. So I have tried to succeed that within my magazine.

• To be specific about my audience, I would say that my magazine would be aimed at a little bit of a working class person and even those at the lowest level of subsistence. It would also be for self actualizers as they are independent, as my magazine is all about individuality. It would also be for Innovators, Esteem seekers and Strivers. As being a young artist are risk takers, seeking new different things, and find image important, aspiring to what they see are symbols of success and being wanted within their peer group.

• The gender for my magazine I would like to be for all young males and females, but the way I have produced this issue of my magazine shows that it would only be aimed at females. As I am trying to make all young people interact with my magazine, I would include more issues which would be concentrated on boys if I had carried on with producing this product. As all of my photography is of girls, this would be a big impact on just females.

• The images themselves do prove the whole of the magazine, the reason for this is to show that it is all about fresh new artists which are at a young age. I made sure that by the ages of the models in real life look their age, instead of doing their make-up completely different to the age group they’re supposed to be representing. For example, the model on the front cover is of age 17, so this is why I had lipstick and dark eyes on her. Whereas my other photography on my contents page and double page spread, the model is age 11, so she only has a little bit of eye make-up on. The reason I had even put a little bit of make-up on her, it is to indicate that fame will do that to you, so that all famous people look good at all times. For all of my images, I had let both of my models hair fall naturally, this to me reflects on the age. By experimenting this in all of my photo shoots, letting the hair fall naturally was the best I thought.

• The music genre I have chosen is any music. The magazine itself is only about proving young artists and what is new. Going by the artist in the issue, the magazine would be designed in that way. In this issue I have produced, the genre is just normal which is just ‘Molly Stevens’ singing all sorts of songs and playing a guitar. But if I chose to involve someone that is a rock singer, I would still have the magazine looking edgy, but would make it have a lot more of a rock theme in it. Like maybe have skull graphics instead of lips, and if it was country, I may have flowers.

• The most appropriate magazine institution my magazine is a lot more like would probably be independent production. The reason for this is because I haven’t copied any other magazine or made sure it looked similar. I had designed it myself from scratch especially my front cover.

My Front Cover•For my front cover, I wanted to do it in my own way without copying any other magazine. Even though I may have been inspired by a lot of magazines, I chose to do it on my own to see how it came out. Once I had finished with it, I only had to make a few small changes by changing fonts and colours. I really thought that something different to do, was to do the whole image in black and white, and make one part of the photograph stand out. So I decided to have the model wearing red lipstick so I could make her lipstick be in colour. I had a few troubles with the lip shape, as it turned out it was just the way the models lipstick was put on. Because the lips are very bright, I wanted to keep the rest a lot more simpler. I decided to stick to plain modern colours as I think it was the best thing to do. I used black, white, grey, red and pink to emulate the modern look. I chose that style of title because I thought the font itself looked very bubbly and because I was trying to apply the ‘edgy’ look, I thought it resembled this because of the letters not being in line together. The reason I chose the subtitles to be the way they are, is because I thought they would indicate to the audience exactly what will be happening inside the magazine, and I have highlighted which would be the most important pages. As it is obvious, I made sure that by double page spread page had shown some boldness. I chose to add the lip graphics as I thought it would make the front cover look fun, girly and would match the theme to what I had done to the models lips. To make sure the audience understand that it is a music magazine, I had the model wear headphones to show it. I didn’t make them too obvious in the picture, as I would like to show that the magazine shows fashion as well. The model is of someone young, which I feel will draw more young audiences in, as that is my target audience. This was also the reason why I would sell this magazine for only £1.50. This sort of magazine can go in supermarkets, onto websites and placed in a fashion shop. The reason for this is because it is suitable for anywhere, and it is where most people go. I think that I have challenged myself with this front cover, as because it is plain, a part of me thought that some audience may think it is boring as it doesn’t involve much about the magazine. But I didn’t want the front cover to be too over the top and give the wrong impression to the readers. I personally feel that the simpler the front cover, the better. As it doesn’t include too much, but doesn’t say nothing.

http://til-matilda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/my-front-cover.html

My Contents Page

http://til-matilda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/contents-page.html

•I really enjoyed designing my contents page, as I had a lot of ideas and really wanted to use the image I had taken as I thought it would really indicate my edgy look. I thought I would use a picture of the artist I am focusing my magazine on as the main image for my contents page. The reason I had done this is because I thought I really liked the idea of involving a quote from the artist. I thought having just one side of the model’s face would be really effective as it separates the colours apart from the white and has built a casual contrast. I think that if I had a background colour, it would look too over the top for just the contents page, and the text and image wouldn’t be the centre of attention to the reader. I really like the font I used for the titles, as it gives of the edgy side to the magazine and matches the colours I had edited the image into. I had used the modern colours for the contents as well as the front cover because I think it looks more professional. I had added a little bit of information underneath the subtitles because I think it would make the contents page look more classy and my readers would know what to expect in the magazine. For all of the subtitles I had tried to make the language fun and entertaining to read, as my audience is for a young age. If I were to change something about this page, I would have definitely added a header and footer, but as I was producing this contents page, I thought it would be a bit too much for the amount of text and the big image I had included. This contents page was very straight forward, as I wanted it to be modern and quite plain. As I had said in my research, there was one magazine I had found which really inspired me, therefore I made my contents page modern and classy, as the contents page in a magazine I don’t think is the most important page, as a lot of people just like to look through their magazine and not read the contents page. This is the reason why I had added a big image, so that maybe this would draw the young readers in to read the contents page. This is another reason to why I had made sure that the title of the pages were persuasive and make the young readers want to carry on reading through the magazine. I didn’t have any technical difficulties within the making of this contents page, as I had learned everything I needed to know when making my front cover.

My Double Page Spread.

• I really was looking forwards to creating my double page spread as it is the most important page during the production. As I am really trying to get my edgy theme across, I made sure that everything was dark and included all the colours I would be expected to see on a edgy magazine. I done this by the photographs I had taken. Even though in the interview I had created, I decided to make the artist in the picture to not look very innocent. Then in the interview act the complete opposite. The reason for this is to really communicate confusion to my audience, and express that they don’t know what they’re expecting from this brand new young artist. I kept everything on the page black, white and grey so this can carry on the confusion of mixed emotions to the readers. I have used the same font as I had on my contents page to keep the flow going, as it then shows that this font indicates the artist, as it is on every page the artist is. I included a quote in the same font, but made it the opposite colours and so it included more white than black, as even though the pages themselves do still look quite bland, I think that it wouldn’t look great and would just look duller. I included the ‘new fame’ in the top left hand corner to make the magazine look more professional as that is what most magazines involve to just show the whole meaning to the magazine. This is generally used on every page, but I thought I wouldn’t add it on the contents page as I didn’t think it would look right. I edited the image into a darker black and white to the image on the contents page but added shadows, as I thought it would be interesting to do because it is a full close-up portrait photograph.

• I had found some research on double page spreads and analysed them a lot so I could get clear ideas of what I should include on my double page spread. For example, I have used a big image to draw the readers in, included text and included a noticeable title. Although I wanted the title to look a lot different as I wanted it to be right in the middle, on the top of the page, but as I was stuck on Photo shop, I just done what I could. I don’t think it looks that bad, but I know I could have made it a lot better. I also think that I should have added some small pictures in the gap on the bottom right hand side as I do think that even though there is a quote there, it sill is quite boring. I didn’t want to add a lot to the double page spread as I had included a big and really dark image which covered the whole of one side. I tried to give this page a lot more of an older look to it, as my magazine isn’t for all very young audiences. As this issue is about a very young artist, I didn’t want to make it really old and turn it into an adult magazine I had found in my research. As I wanted my magazine to be different, I tried to keep it flowing as my own design.

• I really wanted the whole interview to be really chatty so the reader can be entertained, and young audiences can really relate and the artist can be known for a role model. I think I had done just the right amount of writing, as if I would have done more, I think my audience will get bored easy as they are of a young age and don’t really like to read a lot.

• Overall, I do think that I had produced my pages well even though I faced a lot of struggles. I made sure I thought about my target audience well, and considered them all the way through the making. My favourite page I made I think would be my contents page!

Inspiration.• I got inspired by quite a few magazines, and these were my favourite.

I really liked the huge title as a quote. But I chose to do it a bit different. I did get the inspiration from the type of font used.

I really like the big image, so this is what I done for my double page spread.

This is the magazine I got the classy, modern colours and ideas from. This is what I tried to prove all through my production.

This was the magazine where I got the colour co-ordination from also, as I loved it!

This was the magazine I got my inspiration for the lips from, as I was going to do the same, but I thought I'd do it my own way.

I really loved the whole face idea from this magazine. This is where I got my inspiration for just doing faces in my magazine, instead of including full body.

These contents pages were my biggest inspiration throughout the whole production as these were my favourite ones I found in my research. I had copied and mixed up all of the colours from both of these magazines except for the pink and gold.