Daniel MullenCandidate number:Centre 33435 Aquinas collegeAS Media StudiesOCR G321: Foundation PortfolioBrief from OCR syllabus

Question 1

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Ideal Reader Mood Board

I have made a mood board using images and logos that would be aimed at my target readers. This includes the clothing styles and clothing brands I think would apply and attract the audience that I would want to read this magazine. This also includes pastimes such as riding bmxs, creating graffiti art and mixing their own dance music. With doing this I also had a look at other dance music magazines that would apply to my audience.

Before creating the magazine I created a survey on www.surveymonkey.com to find out who would be interested in reading the magazine I was going to create for the first question I got it to be a mostly male response so I used this to select what was going to be in my magazine. However I tried not to make it so that it was narrowed down to this to make the possible audience more diverse.

The next question asked about the features people would like to see, so I used this information to include an article about Warehouse Project which can be seen on the contents page, and as one of the features on the front cover there is an article about Bowlers as even though this isn’t the most selected it fits more with the genre of magazine.

The third question was a selection of artists and they had to pick the ones they preferred, Chase & Status and The Prodigy were the most popular. As they had been picked the most I decided to have my cover story based on Chase & Status and my double page spread as an interview with The Prodigy. By doing this it would allow me to attract my ideal target reader.

The fourth question was about the type of features that people would like to see in the magazine. The most selected was interviews so I used this to decide what was going to be on the double page spread. Then the next most selected one was artist features, gig reviews and technology reviews but as the most relevant of the three was artist features and gig reviews I used these two within the contents page.

The next question was about what they’d like to see as special offers, as the most selected one was tickets and then it was giveaways. So within the editors letter I included a give away of tickets for Hideout Festival as this festival has acts that fit in with the genre of magazine.

As I had decided for my mood board some of the clothing makes I thought my target audience would wear, I included Vans and Addidas as they are both popular brands. These two were also the most popular as voted by the people that took the questionnaire.

Not all of the questions were relevant to the dance music magazine genre, this meant that I didn’t need to include this when creating my magazine.

Q.1 Who would be the audience for your media product?The age group would be 16-26 year olds, but it is not a closed range; as this is the age of people would go to clubs, raves and listening to dance music as this is the genre of the music magazine that I have created. Within this genre there is various sub genres such as house, acid house, electronic etc. this means that the audience is less likely to be niche. It will be similar to mixmag and maxumi as these are both popular magazines in this genre, as they are popular they are both successful this means I can use their design to take inspiration from allowing my magazine to look as good as possible. The people I’m aiming my magazine would probably be lower/middle class and be in the c2/d class as this is where younger people are normally found, their preferred clothing would be something that would be seen as fairly casual.

I put together this spider diagram which shows the different things I wanted my magazine to contain to attract my target audience and who that audience would actually be.

Sub-Genres and Hybrid Genres

When looking at the other magazines in this genre they were specifically dance music, this leaves a gap for a magazine that combines dance music that involves the other subgenres more than the others. These other genres would be house/acid house and rave, with the main genre of dance, electronic would be the main partner to fit with this. As there aren’t many dance magazines around, or many that are popular, this increases the chance of this magazine being a successful one.

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular

social groups?

For my magazine to appeal to my target audience the magazine, the articles and the cover star would have to be something the reader could see themselves doing. As it is a genre of magazine that there isn’t a massive audience for, the cover star isn’t mainstream and isn’t something you would just glimpse past, also the cover star is a sort of anonymous figure so the audience could imagine it being themselves.

Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute

your media product and why?

To distribute my magazine I would distribute it using the company Development Hell LTD as they already publish mixmag, I think that Sound and mixmag would fit together well as they are both different types of dance magazine.

Development Hell LTD not only publish and distribute mixmag, they also own a company that promotes and organises club events called Don’t Stay In, this would help with distribution as a lot of the target audience would be going to clubs.

Sound is going to be issued monthly for £2.80 an issue as it is a new magazine, it is also a similar price to mixmag which is also issued monthly. This is cheaper than some magazines which are published quarterly. As it is a low priced magazine there will be a lot of advertisement in the magazine as this would make up in income for the low cost.

Mixmags Website

Mixmags website has a section for news which is relevant to the music genre so it will be about the different artists with up and coming albums or events.

Video, music and events all allow the different audience members to interact with the magazine in the way they want. This allows the magazine to have a wider reach as a lot of people will share them over social networking sites such as twitter and facebook.

Having a shop allows for the brand to sell it’s magazines but also any other merchandise they have such as t-shirts, hats and other clothes.

To get the name across so that the audience would know of the magazine I would use festival stages as they are seen by thousands of people, as so many people see it, it becomes known. The more people that know about the brand the more people are likely to buy it.

Having the logo placed here will attract more people to it as it is right next to the act that would be on and the name of the actual festival. Also it is in a bright colour so it is more likely to draw attention to it.

Merchandise

Question 4

• In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

Front Cover

These are three of the covers I looked at for ideas when making my front cover as I am doing a dance music magazine. I chose this genre as it is something I enjoy listening to, I found that mixmag is a popular magazine in this genre so I used it as a starting point. Using these covers I could see that they font for the masthead was big and bold however it was informal as it was more of a bubble writing style. The font remains consistent with the secondary headlines. The colour scheme of all the text will normally contrast with the background colour so that it is easier to read and also so it stands out more making someone more likely to pick it up and read it. Having the contrasting colours allows the magazine to be noticeable but the colours also reflect the style of music as dance music is commonly associated with these types of colours. From mixmag I can see that they have one main image that takes up the majority of the page, in the space that’s left over they normally have the other secondary headlines on either side of the page and the one pug and a few special offers. Whilst looking at mixmag I noticed that there wasn’t any pull quotes with the headline but in a smaller text size with information about the headlining story.

When I made my front cover I used some of the conventions that mixmag use as the genres are the same so it fits in. However I did include a secondary image as this makes it more interesting for the reader and make them more likely to buy it. If it just had the one image on the cover then the reader is less likely to look at it because there is nothing eye catching about it. I used the colours red and yellow for the colour scheme on the front cover not only because they stand out but because the colours link to the rave scene which is part of the sub genre I selected for the magazine. I decided to have the main image on the right focal points so that I could include a secondary image on the left so there it doesn’t have to be squashed into a corner. I put the barcode on the bottom right as I didn’t want to cover most of the secondary image, it only covers a small part of the main image and that isn’t somewhere that would cover a lot of the main image either.

Double Page Spread

Whilst looking at double page spreads for inspirations as what to include in mine I saw that there was a few different ways to lay out the text and image/s on way of doing it is to have one page to include a main image and a pull quote and the other page is columns of text which is the one I used for my double page spread. Or you could have columns of text with images in the background and pull quotes in between the paragraphs then finally like the image on the bottom right there could be a collection of images in the centre and then the text in a column on either side of the images and smaller columns along the bottom. They all have a stand first to give the whole article a context which is followed by a dropped cap, I used these to conform with the convention of double page spread.

With my double page spread I used one main image with a pull quote on the right page so that it would stand out if any were to flick through the magazine and catch the eye. Then to add to the text I added a secondary image so that there was more to look at as some people don’t like having too much text. I used two columns to give the text structure and to conform with conventions of other magazines in this genre. By splitting the text up between the interviewer and “The Prodigy” it makes it easier to follow as it they are split by colour. Another thing I did to match other magazines was to put a pull quote between the text in the column that was from the actual article.

Contents Page

For the contents page normally in mixmag there is a main picture with a page number on it so the readers know exactly where to look in the magazine for something that takes priority over other articles. Then there is a row with the features along the side, depending on where the picture is placed. Then along the bottom there is a section about the free cd that accompanies the magazine. I have used the picture and the column convention for my magazine. Above the features in mixmag they have a VIP section which is where they put the main features for the issue.

Along with using the main picture and adding a column for the features I have added an editors letter above the features. This is not typical of the genre as in the mixmag contents I looked at I couldn’t see any editors letters. This is normally something seen in other genres like rock and more specifficaly in kerrang. I also used something that isn’t seen in mixmag which is having a delivery option for a set price including the magazine. Along the bottom of the page there is pictures with the page numbers and if the article was in the features it would just be the page number but if not it would have the article name.

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I have addressed my audience by using bright colours on the cover with a text that represents the audience that I want to attract, it had to fit in with the genre and sub genre. As it is a dance music magazine with other sub genres such as rave and house music so I used a bold font that looked similar to a bubble writing. This fits in with the style of magazine as it is informal which as whole is how the whole dance scene actually, this means that the audience wont feel like that have to change any part of themselves to feel like they fit with the right audience. The cover star uses a direct mode of address to the reader as they are looking right at the camera.

Colour scheme is used throughout the entire magazine not just on the front cover. It is bright so it is eye catching so it will stand out.

Masthead

Features this allows people who don’t have enough time to read through to know what is inside.

Price

Barcode

Question 6

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

Cropping - Photoshop

Magic Eraser Tool - Photoshop

Paint Bucket Tool - Photoshop

Hue/Saturation - Photoshop

Question 7

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

From the aquinas magazine to the music magazine I used a more prominent colour scheme and added a background to it so that the blank space wasn’t as noticeable. From the music magazine the I had to pick a colour scheme that fit with the genre to make it more appealing. As it is a dance magazine I used the colours red and yellow as they are representing the sub genre of rave/acid house.

From the cover of the aquinas magazine cover to the music magazine cover I have improved a great deal with being able to lay it out so it doesn’t look unorganised. I also used the same prominent colour scheme that fits with the rest of the magazine, this allows it to look more professional. Also by having as little space left white as possible it makes the cover look a lot more attractive to the eye and it means people are more likely to pick it up. With the aquinas magazine there isn’t any real structure to it as it was just put together without much knowledge of the music magazine conventions.