Q1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Whilst creating my magazine I tried to adhere to the typical forms and conventions of other popular music magazines that have proved to be successful. I believe that my magazine successfully features many of the conventions already found in other magazines of the same Hip-Hop genre such as Vibe and Q magazine.
The masthead conventionally appears at the top of my front cover, Its is bold and stands out so that it is clear what magazine it is therefore attracting current readers as well as new readers also. The font that I have used for the masthead is quite square and ‘boxy’ of other different versions of fonts. I chose this particular font because it is different, it helps to reflect and signify the name of the magazine: 'Remix'. The main image I have used is a large medium close up image of the duo featured in the main article of this issue of Remix. The image is useful at signifying that they are the main component in this particular issue, as well as attracting fans of theirs who may not usually buy or read magazines but will because they are a big fans of the cover stars. I chose to include not only the English price of the magazine, but an overseas price as well to give the magazine global appeal. I have also made the magazine’s web address clearly visible on the cover to suggest that there is extra information on the site and to influence regular readers to check it out.
My contents page adopts many of the typical conventions used in similar magazine both through the layout I have chosen to use and the type of information that can be found on it, it is actually of a very similar layout to that which can be seen in the Hip-Hop music magazine Vibe. I decided that I had to divide my contents page in to sections to make it easier for the readers to find what they are looking for, these were: News, Features and a Artist Bio list (list of the artists/groups featured in the article and what page to find them on.).
I have also ensured that all of my articles have sub-headings underneath of them in order to give a brief description of what the readers will find in them and what exactly the article is about if they cannot grasp that from its title. An important thing that I have also done is to make sure that the page numbers are clear and easy to read so the articles are more accessible to the readers, and it makes it extremely easy to just flick to articles of interest, instead of having to flick through the whole magazine. I do not feel that I have necessarily managed to challenge the typical aspects forms and conventions of other current music magazine contents pages because the information that I have included is more necessary than optional, and contents pages really need to have an order to them so that the magazine is accessible, I felt that with too much experimentation with different designs for the contents page, I may have run the risk of putting some readers off because they would not find it easy to navigate the articles that they wanted to read.
I have also included subscription details for the magazine which are displayed clearly at the bottom of the page as well as different ways that readers can access the magazine’s contents from sites such as Facebook or Twitter, in keeping with the current zeitgeist of social media. I have also included an image of the cover star, as well as images from other articles to highlight the variety of artists within the magazine.
Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Whilst creating my magazine, it was my aim to try and appeal to an audience of both males and females aged 16-30 interested in popular Hip-Hop music. I believe that my magazine has successfully done this by attempting to represent certain social groups and attracting them to purchase and read the magazine. I think that the social group within my target audience is well represented within my magazine from looking at the front cover of the magazine, you can tell that the magazine is targeted at both males and females, this is mainly through the reasonably neutral colour scheme that my magazine employs (Yellows, White, Greys and Black) the colour scheme also helps to represent the fact that it is a British music magazine representing British teenagers because of the clothes the cover models are wearing.
The cover models on my magazine look dominant, and successful and superior on the page. They take over most of the space and a few sell lines surround the image. This suggests that they are well known to the readers of my magazine and is ultimately what is going to be the biggest selling factor of the magazine because they are important and influential musical artists.
I chose for my models to be wearing grey and black and white outfits during the shoot for the cover image, because I envisioned that as the connotations of black signify power and dominance to the audience suggesting that the magazine is all about them and they are the main selling point. Also as the main bit of black on the page, makes the image stand out to the audience/reader of the magazine.
Q3) What kind of institution might distribute your magazine and why?
There are two main sources of revenue for magazines. These are the cover price of the magazine, and the adverts within the magazine.
Advertising is the largest source of revenue for magazines and it brings in more money than the cover price of the magazine. In the UK there are two main regulators of magazines, 'The Press Complaints Commission' also known as the 'PCC' and the 'Advertising Standards Authority' also known as the 'ASA'. Each of these deal with consumer complaints and queries concerning articles and features in different magazines. However in the UK, magazines aren’t regulated as strictly as other countries. This is because there is free press right in the UK and theoretically magazines can publish whatever they want and whenever they want to. Surrounding the publishing of magazines there are four main magazine publishing companies; IPC Media, Bauer consumer media, Condé Nast, & National Magazines.
I believed that the most suitable institution to publish and distribute my magazine was IPC media, this is because of their previous and current success at distributing the music magazines NME and Vibe which has a similar genre and target audience to my music magazine ‘Remix’. However, I thought my initial idea through, and I came to the conclusion that using IPC media to publish my magazine may not be in my best interest, due to the fact that they already have to market and sell Vibe and NME I need to go to a different publishing company that will use new and different marketing strategies in order to try and attract my target audience and compete for success with other music magazines like Vibe.
I think that a possible suitable institution to distribute my magazine would be National Magazines. This is because at this current moment in time they do not currently distribute any music magazines. Therefore, I will not be faced with heavy competition from other well known music magazines such as ‘Vibe’, ‘NME’ and ‘Q’ who are currently distributed by IPC Media and Bauer Media.
Furthermore, another reason that I would like National Magazines to distribute my music magazine is that they are well experienced at distributing popular and successful magazines. I have taken into account that they have not previously and do not currently distribute any music magazine, but i believe that I can make this work to my advantage, as National magazines would want the first music magazine that they distribute to be very successful, and would then therefore work and strive very hard to try and achieve this.
Q4) What is your target audience?
I have decided that the target audience that I would like to aim my music magazine ‘Remix' will mainly be teenagers and younger adults, among the age range of 16-25, who are interested in Hip-Hop and RnB music. The social demographic class for my target audience would for classes. More specifically classes B-D as my target class, however social class can read my magazine as well if they wish or have an interest in Rnb and Hip-Hop music. I have chosen classes B-D as my target class because my magazine will not include large amounts of language within it, therefore making it easier and more interesting for people to understand and read.
Along with this, my target audience will also have other interests such as religiously attending live concerts, festivals, gigs , watching films and going to the cinema. They will also be interested in stars, singers and rappers on a personal level as well as for their musical talent. Which in turn will contribute to their want to buy my magazine because it will include articles and interviews about different stars on the music scene and give a little insight to their personal life.
My target audience will also have an interest in fashion and most likely wear named brands such as; Nike, Topman, Vans and Levi. They will also be a big part of social media and be registered to websites like Facebook, Twitter and Blogger. They will also be own the latest gadgets such as Blackberry smart phones, iPhones and iPads, on which they can view an online version of my magazine.
Q5) How did you attract/address your audience?
My magazine attracts its target audience in many different ways, the way being through the use of a gender mutual colour scheme, this consists of red, black, grey and white. I decided to use colours such as black, grey, red and white as i feel they can effectively reflect, highlight and promote the genre of music my magazine promotes as well as being appealing to both males and females.
Although the articles in my magazine consist mainly of males it will attract both genders as the people in the articles are portrayed to be big rising stars in the music industry. Also i have provided variety in the articles also, as some cover solo artists and others cover groups, this is to make sure there is something for everyone to read and enjoy.
As the target audience for my magazine are respectably young. I have ensured that my magazine is keeping up with the zeitgeist of today. I have done this by creating a number of different ways for readers to access the content of the magazine such as creating a Facebook group, a Twitter page which readers can follow and receive online supplements of my magazine. I have also created an 'App' that can be downloaded on to numerous different smart phones, apple products and Tablets. Furthermore my magazine has its own website www.remix.com. This is where readers can access the latest news, features and stories about different music artists without having to wait for the next issue of 'Remix' to be released. There is also an opportunity to become part of a mailing list which will email whoever registers for it a 'Remix Newsletter' which will keep them updated on what is going on in the music scene.
Q6)What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
During the construction of my magazine I used many different technologies in order to help me create a professional and realistic looking final product. Throughout the production of this coursework task I learnt a lot about the different technologies and software's available to me.
Firstly, I completed a photo shoot in order to gather images to use within my magazine. During this task I learnt how to use a professional camera and experimented with the different lenses and camera effects available to me. I managed to different ways to create various angles by either standing on a chair or lying on the floor to create a High angled and Low angled shot. By doing this I seemingly gave the models some sort of power over the readers. The camera I used for this task was a Cannon 550D.
Another form of technology I have learnt about is through software's like 'Photoshop', which was the main software I used in the production of my magazine. Through Photoshop I found that there are various ways of cutting out images with the tools it provided me with. Some of these being the 'quick selection' tool and 'quick mask mode. I incorporated both of these in order to create smooth edges of my photos when I was cutting my models away from the backgrounds. I also used the ‘refine edge’ tool to either smooth or feather the edges of the photo once it was cut out from the background. With all of these tools i ended up with very professional looking photo's as a result of how well I cut them out.
I feel that during the production of my magazine, the technologies that I have had access to have played a very important role in the finish of my magazine. Especially with the use of Adobe Photoshop, which has helped my magazine to look much more professional and the images look well cut out and the different effects I have used make sure that each sell line on my front cover also looks unique.
Q7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back to when I completed my preliminary task for this coursework project, it seems like that was ages ago. Looking back and evaluating and comparing the pages I created then and the pages I created for my final product I feel that my construction and production skills have improved drastically.
Firstly, the photos I have used in my final music magazine look far more professional due to the fact that I used professioal high key lighting and a white back drop. I also asked my models to pose in different positions to create more dynamic photos.
Also I feel my Photoshop skills have improved to a certain extent, I was already experienced with Photoshop however I feel I have made some small improvements.
Being asked to complete the preliminary task was a great help, and contributed to me finishing and completing my final coursework product to high professional standard. It allowed me highlight my mistakes and areas where improvement was needed, this resulted in my final coursework product.
