Music MagazineBy Tanzeela Qureshi

POSER

Cover Page

ContentsPage

Double Page Spread

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products ?

Cover Page

For my cover page I used similar colours to keep consistency within my magazine. I organised my Layouts by giving all my input a lot of space so that the whole cover doesn’t looked overcrowded or vacant.

I used only three colours that would clash and make the magazine stand out more; Green, White and Black, this combination doesn’t make the magazine seem flat.

To retrieve the “Urban” look of my R & B Music Magazine

I didn’t use too many cover lines but I used a silhouette of myself in a Michael Jackson pose to ensure it represents the cover story, also to help keep the consistency of the Michael Jackson theme.

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The main influence for my front cover came from Vibe Magazine. As I wanted to do my Article on MichaelJackson. It made sense to base my cover page on that Michael Jackson style too, so to achieve that look I took A hint off Vibe Magazine as Janet Jackson has the same look that I wanted, so to keep that relation to my Cover page look IDecided to manipulate some of that influence in to my own pose except my facial expression is full of attitude,As you would see in most hip hop magazines.

I liked the idea of holding the hat as well because as part of one of the “Michael Jackson pose” holding the hat is essential and I wanted to maintain that consistency of professionalism in order to meet the provision of a real media product.

I tried to use the Michael Jackson style in a range of Poses such as this one

The style of my magazine is really Urban yet cool and fullOf careful outburst of the main colour I used, which wasGreen. I liked the consistency of the colour Yellow for The masthead and cover lines on Vibe magazine, so I usedThat regularity on my front cover. This triggers off the sense Of ‘cool’ which is dominant in my target audience.

Contents Page

I decided to do my contents page a little different to what most music magazines would have in terms of layout. I used the Linear Gradient background but used the same black and white colours. I also used the same Green, White and Black colour to maintain the consistency.

I put only four of the contents features down To prevent the page from being overcrowded.I used two images underneath because each tells a different story, without overcrowding the contents page.

The same font was used for the Mast head of my Cover page and also in the contents page, I think the ‘Graffiti’ font would stand out and maintain the Urban Style.

The contrast of the fonts and colours matches my imagery because I have the dark and light clothing and skin tones here.

This also links to the social groups of my product,Such as teenagers who are interested in theUrban lifestyle.

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For the main image of Contents page, I decided to use aTwo shot with near and far depth, as you can see my influence came again from Vibe magazine except in mine I did a back to front sort of style as well. The big masthead diagonally placed behind all the images and text is creating the “Graffiti on wall” type of effect which really suits my contents page and creates a direct link to my Cover Page, also maintaining the ‘Graffiti’ effect reflects the target audience as young people who read this magazine could relate their urban lifestyle to thisI used a “Century Gothic” font to complete the other context because too much graffiti would make the whole product look overcrowded and messy. I used whiteGlow on my two main images because this makes my images bolder and not fuse into the background.

Double Page Spread

I decided to use a Near and Far depth for my Article on double page spread because it seemed effective and links with my contents page, I maintained the Graffiti font for the heading and used the normal Tahoma font for the rest of the writing.

I still maintained the Green, black and white colours, in the image in the background I used a dim lighting effect to make the two models the subject of the page.

Most headings would be considered to be at the top of the page but I experimented with mine and thought It would look most effective at the bottom of the page, where it stands out from the black and white image behind.

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In my heading I used little and big fonts on the same line to create an advanced Graffiti look. I liked this idea from the magazine on the top left because it creates more attention, however the article keeps the main theme of Michael Jackson that I originally intended to use. The combination of the colours with the image makes the page look professional yet simple and seems to make the audience more aware of the page.The text overlaps the image and because the image is dark and my writing is black I decided to use drop shadow on the text to make it stand out over darker areas, this gave it a smooth outer glow in green.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My Media Product has the Urban chic theme to it, the progression is fitted in with the layout and fonts and even the imagery used, also the colours inside my whole product conduct a different code for most of the social groups.My product was targeted at those who are aged between 16-20, this includes mostly teenagers. Teenagers are an easy target audience because of the “Urban” style, which is applied in the font and imagery and layout. Ultimately the relation of having teenagers pose for my magazine is a direct link to attract the teens who are my target audience. Cover lines such as “No ones got SWAGGER like me” reflects teenage language used in today's society and shows off a personality, a typical teenager would possess along with the attitude. Another example of this is “WIN Copy of MJ’s MASHUP remixes” again the phrase “Mashup” is a indicationOf some of the teenage language used today. This sort of language promotes a direct status of who teenagersAre.

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The main purpose of me using the Green, White and Black colours was because my product was targeted at those who mostly listen to R’n’B and Urban music and this rounds up a certain race and in this case its Black and Asian people, and the Green, White and Black represents some of their country flags, that’s why the models in my pictures are also black and Asian. Because of the young people used as my models the social class for my magazine is targeted at students, so it would be those who are underclass-also you can tell this from the price of my magazine which is £1.99 This is a more affordable price for students and teens.The gender is most likely to appeal to females, firstly because of the fashion show advertisement on my contents page. Also my models are females and their stance would mostly attract females. However because of the genre of my magazine it could be suitable for males too, but only a small percentage of males would pick this magazine up

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

Having looked at other magazines, Vibe maintained more control over my media product. Vibe was a main influence to my magazine text, because it controlled the construction and layouts in the process of developmentMy media product relates to Vibe magazine mostly because of the similar genre, this assisted me as I knew how different sources from a magazine text grabs different attention of youngsters. As Vibe is a popular marketing product in the R&B section of music magazine it triggered off all the elements as to what makes a good product.

Vibe shares the same culture of my magazine and to advertise my magazine I would use a Social Networking website to gain more attention from my intended target audience such as Facebook and Twitter, not only does it Promote a product with the number of ‘likes’ and ‘become a fan’ on Facebook,more information is added by other users as well, which then rounds up a lot ofPeople including my target audience.

Who would be the audience for your media product ?

The audience for my media product are mostly teenagers all between the age of 16-25 as they relate to the genre of my magazine, this is because R’n’B and Hip Hop or Urban sustains a ‘cool’ effect and is easily fed to a younger audience.

The dress style of my models are also targeted at a younger audience, because the clothing props are a direct stereotype if not statement of teenagers would wear today. Judging by the colours I used consistently through out my whole magazine, teenager boys and girls are likely to acknowledge these for the reason that the vibrant colours make a statement, and a teenagers attitude relies on what they wear because they also want to be dominant and make a bold statement.

I kept the title as simple as ‘Poser’, for the reason that, today’s teenage girls are interested in photo shoots and they take a lot of pictures of themselves and put them up on social networking sites (due to my research) this was part of my influence as I used this interest of theirs to my advantage, and made my magazine about music, fashion and artists that girls today like.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Mainly through the colour consistency throughout my magazine, and the young models, also I kept the interest of my young audiences artists, because the R’n’B artists that young girls love so much are included in this magazine.

The sale line of my magazine is used as the pick up line for young girls especially:‘TOMORROWS STAR TODAY’This continues with a direct message to teenage girls about some of their favourite celebrities and makes a dominant remark, of what the magazine includes or is mainly about, it is a stereotype that the nature of females in general is gossiping so this internally speaks out to female

However my article is about two teenagers, inspired by Michael Jackson formed a dance group. My article shows a mixture of interest to my audience even those n their 20’s, the article involves some inspiration for young readers and might interest people who are still thinking of their careers and these could be those who are still in University, so the age reference in my article is for anyone who is interested in performing arts.

However the gossip of artists is a major thing that attracts young girls today as they like “discussing” what artists are up to these days.

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

I learnt to use different type faces to match my target audiences interest such as ‘Justaiiiittteeee’, which is a Graffiti font and this directly links to my audiences backgrounds and what makes a specific teenager who they are. I learnt to align my font with my pictures so that they don’t inter link or replace each other, but I did this through different layers.

I learnt (which also maintains a professional skill) of how to edit, crop and use other tools on Adobe Photoshop. I learnt how to make a image stand out More by desaturating and saturating the image, as well as feathering the image after cropping it and using glows to make different areas stand out. I also learnt how to saturate and desaturate an image in order for it to be the centre of attention

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the

progression from it to the full product ?

I made my preliminary task on Microsoft Publisher, it was easier to use on that programme because it was all on one page and it wasn’t really hard to experiment with different pictures, however on Adobe Photoshop I had to create lots of different layers in order to make sure my image wasn’t too bright or dark or my text still created the same standing out effect. I learnt to use text in a different areas by means of manipulation etc.

Adobe PhotoshopMicrosoft Publisher

I experimented with:

Fonts

Images

Cover Lines

Puffs

Selling Lines

I became skilled at creating shadows to make text stand out more, and glow around pictures to make them seem bolder along with strokes in Adobe PhotoshopAnd as you can see ‘Poser’ magazine made a better magazine. The journey from Microsoft Publisher publication to the Adobe Photoshop publication, shows a great progression route because the Microsoft Publisher publication seems overcrowded and unprofessional and there isn’t a theme which controls the colour schemes either, however in the Adobe Photoshop publication you can see how neat it looks and a theme is controlling the font, layout and colours which maintains professionalism and realism.

Audience Feedback

Before I made my final production I made surveys and handed it out to 25 people, which provided me with data and information about their music interest, which gave me a main outline of what my magazine should consist of.

I made plans of my production and asked people which one they preferred and then made my product according to that.During the production of my magazine I had a few people overlooking at my work, I received criticism and admirations of my product, which made me tweak a few things and emphasise a few things about my product.

My estimated admiration was for the photography along with the colours which was successfully approved by teenagers, as it showed me that my product really interacted with the audience and that I was successful in using the combination of them images and texts.

I decided to do my evaluation on PowerPoint for the reason that it shows clearly the links between my work and other media products and gives me room to briefly assess my work, also the custom animation allows theViewer to professionally observe my progression route smartly.