Evaluation

1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Title of Magazine: I thought of a variety of names to use as I title but decided I wanted something short and memorable.


Mis-en-scene of images: In most of my images I decided to have a on stage setting. For example, my front cover main image I actually took photos of a friend whilst he played on stage in front of an audience. This made the setting more realistic rather than looking fake and set up.
Costumes and props: I asked the people I used in the photos to dress in certain ways. For example, the person I used for the front cover I asked to dress wearing red and black which I thought reflected my audiences dress wear.
People: I used the people I thought looked like they could be in a band. I also used a friend who is actually in a band which my audience would like therefore I anticipated that I would be able to take action shots of him on stage.
Title font and style: I looked at a variety of fonts during the research of magazines (see research) and decided on a font called “Defused” for my title font as I thought it resembled the Kerrang title font which I liked.
Written content: For my double page spread instead of writing my own interview I actually asked another member of my friend questions via windows messenger and asked her to reply as she would in person fillers and everything. I did this in attempt to create a more realistic interview as I could actually ask about their band and their music.
Music genre: My music genre is mainly light rock and I reflected this through the people I used and I also through other images such as the fist on the front cover suggesting that the audience have a love for music. The fact that the Leeds Festival is advertised at the front is a real example of the music genre due to the music that is played their being the type of music that a Nero reader would like.
Layout: I tried to make a lively looking front cover through the use of rotations of text and slanted boxes from the corners of the screen. I also tried to make sure I had no empty space so that there was enough information to interest the reader.



2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

I have chosen Future Publishing as being the best media institution that might distribute my media dues to the institution being experienced in different types of magazines. However, if Bauer didn’t have Kerrang as one of their magazines which would have caused competition under the distributor I would have chosen Bauer as my institution due to Kerrang being so successful and Kerrang also being a very similar magazine to mine both in audience and style.




4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of my magazine is aimed at older teenagers and adults in their early 20’s. My magazine is also aimed at those who like a variety of genres but are mainly interested in “light rock”.

These two people are examples of my target audience.








5.How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience through use of the colours black, red and yellow. The red and black colours being the most likely colours that would be the audience’s favourite colours and the colours they would dress in. The yellow to contrast with the red and create a lively appearance which would be eye catching to the audience. I also used the main picture of a teenager of their style and personality playing guitar on stage to attract the audience I aimed for as they could relate to the pictures and would know they like the style of music presented by the main image.




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

Many different kinds of technology are used throughout the process of making a magazine. Some of these may be online or basic computer technology such as BlogSpot, Photoshop CS4, Publisher, Facebook and also PowerPoint.



I learned how to use a camera in different locations.


I also learned how to use the camera whilst it is connected to a lighting facility.



7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?


Looking back at my preliminary I can see that firstly my knowledge of using Photoshop pro has improved because at first I felt very limited to what I could do on it as I had never used it before. I have learnt a lot of things such as the 3 colour rule, making sure that my font and colours are legible against the background and also the positioning of different parts on the magazine. After I had finished making my magazine front cover I changed the text of the leeds festival advertisement because before hand it wasn't legible when it had been printed. This is an example of how I have learned from the prelim.






8.How has feedback helped?

Feedback has helped a lot because if I was to change anything about my magazine I know have the opinions of others and how they think I could improve my work. I recorded a few people discussing my work.



I also have comments from facebook about my work.


Front cover





Contents Page





Double Page Spread

Double Page Spread Progress

I first made the background completely black to match the black ground on the contents page. Then I imported this picture from the pictures I took of the band. I felt no need to edit this as the lighting made it look effective enough. I did however put a red border around the picture to contrast it from the back ground and make it look more 3D.

I imported the front cover .gif file of the Articles and placed it slightly covering the main picture.


I found that some magazines gave a one or two word introduction to the pages so I put “The Interview” into a red text box and placed it in the top left hand corner above “The Articles”.



I cropped a picture of each band member and then imported them into the double page spread. I resized the two band members giving the interview to large pictures and the other two band members to smaller pictures. After putting the same red border around the pictures, as I did to the main one, I positioned them to form a rectangle on the second page.








As on the contents page I imported the magazine title as a small picture and created a text box containing the page number and date. I made sure that the page number corresponded with the page the contents page said it should be on.


Instead of making my interview seem fake by making it up, I actually interviewed two friends who are band members of “The Articles”. This made the interview seem more realistic. I made the introduction bold so that it differentiated it from the rest of the text and I also change the font colour of the questions to red to fit in with the red and black scheme.




I took quotes from the text and made them large and in speech marks so that they stood out against the rest of the text. The point in them is to direct the reader’s attention and interest them. A lot of magazines use these.

Contents Page progress

I used the font “defused” which was the same as the front cover title for the title of the contents page. I used the phrase “What’s new?” which I thought was an effective way of describing the whole of the contents page. For this I also used reverse out typography (white writing on black background).







I used the rectangle tool and the polygon tool (which I stretched) to make a tab from the side of the page. I linked the polygon and rectangle together then duplicated this seven times so that all the tabs were equal in size. In these tabs I wrote subheadings of different sections in the magazine.







Between the subheadings a wrote the numbers of various pages down the side in font size 19.77pt and then next to them wrote the band name and other features in font size 9.88pt. Both the numbers and features I wrote in the font Franklin Gothic Demi and in white.








I used the rectangle tool to create a red box in the corner of the page. In this I decided to place an advertisement for a competition. I used the font Stencil Std to write “WIN!” which I rotated and then duplicated and changed the font colour to white rather than black. I then created another text box and wrote a description of the competition in the font Franklin Gothic Demi as I used for the contents strip down the side.





I then put pictures I took of different people I thought looked like they could be a member of a band both behind the scenes and on stage. I used photoshop to edit the pictures such as making their complexions better using the spot healing tool. I also used the clone stamp tool to remove someone from the back ground on the picture of the girl screaming at the camera. The picture of Jack Black that I have used I took whilst I was at Leeds Festival 2008 and I thought this was appropriate as it could be featuring a gig in the magazine. This picture I had to crop and use the sharpen tool on so that Jack Black was clearer and so that I could achieve a closer picture. Below is a picture of me at Leeds Festival.

















I thought the advertisement at the top looked a little plain so I took a picture of my guitar and then background eraser tooled all the background around the guitar on photoshop so that only a guitar remained. I then created a .gif file of the guitar and then imported it onto my front cover and placed it so that it overlapped the advertisement and the top picture on an angle, meaning that no writing or the artists face were covered.

I created text boxes and entered in font size 35.34pt the page numbers of what the pictures are featuring in the magazine. I also made these numbers bold so that could be seen on top of the pictures and also so that they were large and stood out making it easier for the reader to know which page the picture features.







I made another red box in the bottom right hand corner which I decided to be a subscription advertisement. I made a small black box which I rotated slightly then created a text box inside and in the defused font wrote “subscribe?” which directly addresses the reader and therefore interests them. I then created another text box and explained the subscription in it with centre aligned text. I also imported the Nero title on the front cover and replaced the word Nero in the text with the picture Nero.




I created a .jpg of the front cover and imported it into my work. I resized it to fit into the box where I wanted it and then duplicated it twice to make three copies. I then overlapped these duplicates and rotated them to be on a slant.









I wrote an editors note at the bottom of the page and used the common beginning “Don’t you” to start it off. I also found a font that looked like a signature “Celine Dion Handwriting” and underneath that wrote “EDITOR”.













I used a small version of the title on the front cover in the very corner of the page along with the page number and date which I put into a thin red box.








I created another small text box and wrote in the issue number of the magazine.

Front Cover Progress

I used different tools to adjust this picture such as crop and Gaussian blur. I then sharpened the band members in the picture. I went to Image – Image rotation – Flip canvas horizontal to make the image face the other direction and make space for the title of the magazine.


I used the font Cooper Std for the banner.




I used the rectangle tool to draw a red rectangle and a slightly smaller black rectangle which I placed on top of the red one. These I then merged the layers of then rotated on a slant. I then created a text box and used the font defused in yellow to write “Nero” which I thought to be an effective, short, snappy magazine name. This layer I duplicated once and changed the colour to red. The red layer on top I nudged down and to the right using the arrow keys to create a 3D effect. I then merged the two text layers and put them on a slant on top of the other slanted rectangle layer.

I used the same layering technique as the magazine title for the photo strip.I then did a photo shoot with people I thought looked like they could be featured artist/bands in the magazine. Here are a few examples:




I then used the text box and the font Rockwell Condensed to write the names of the bands/ artists. I put these names on top of a red rectangle which fitted inside the photo strip so that the letters were legible.

I made two red rectangles and overlapped them after rotating them to make a cross. In this I created a text box and wrote “Poster Special” to explain the pictures in the boxes.



I created a pentagon shape in red and stretched it so half of it was off the screen. In this I wrote about something featured in the magazine.




I used the rectangle tool again to create two more boxes which I again placed on a slant at the bottom of the page to advertise the other features in the magazine.






These other features I typed out with a text box using the font Trebuchet MS and I separated them with small yellow rectangles I created with the rectangle tool.





I also put the bar code in this box to the side as other magazines I had looked at had done.



Next to this in small writing I wrote the date and price of the magazine – I had to rotate this to make it parallel with the bar code.







In the other red box I used the layering technique I used for the title with a yellow circle and a slightly bigger black circle. I took a photo of my 2008 Leeds wristband whilst making a fist and edited it in photo shop using the clone stamp tool to make it say 2010. I deleted the background surrounding my hand and the wristband using the background eraser tool and saved the image as a .gif. I then used the font Officer Down to advertise about Leeds Festival in red text.

I created a red rectangle using the rectangle tool and then using the eraser and a spray brush i erased parts of the edges of the rectangle to create a torn effect. I then created a text box and using the font Broken Ghost I typed “The Articles” which is the main band featured in the magazine.


I then created another rectangle and rotated it. This I placed on the corner of the first rectangle. I created a text box and wrote “An interview with...” in the font Note This and rotated this also to fit into the second rectangle.