alexanderhofe’s Blog

For my media coursework I had to create a music magazine, which must contain a front cover, contents and a double page spread. My initial ideas were to create a music magazine based on contemporary music that was bright and fun. Planning the layout helped with formulating design ideas and developing my magazine’s style. I looked at other magazines that fitted similar genres and music I wanted to include in my magazine to help get an idea of the mode of address and attitudes used. This also helped me to make my magazine look more professional. I chose a colour palette that appealed to my target market, which is young men 16-22yrs old; I used colours that would be attractive to males, such as white, blues and greens. I kept the colours light to keep with the bright theme. Fonts and photos are also “manly”. I designed a questionnaire for my target market before finalising my magazine; this helped with my choices of design.

My media product uses forms of real media products well, as it follows the same codes and conventions. My contents, for example, follows similar patterns, as it contains listed page numbers and has the heading “regulars”, which most magazines contain. Special and new information is highlighted and listed under “specials”; it is bolder and slightly larger to make it seem more important. The layout of my front page follows the same conventions as a music magazine that you’d buy, the background image of the main subject is central with information and blurbs spaced around it. The title is placed at the top and is large so it stands out, many magazines do this to show their name off and make it eye-catching. The colour palette is kept limited so the page doesn’t look too over crowded. I used a black font on a white background to create contrast and make the words stand out and easy to read. It follows forms and conventions of real media by having puffs and even a competition to draw the reader in. My media product challenges forms of the traditional music magazine by being more fun and creative; it uses styles and colour to attract the reader. This is not very common as many music magazines rely on puns and slogans to gain the reader’s attention. I used ideas from real media product to help develop mine, for example I have included a competition for the reader to enter.

The particular social group represented by my media product would be young rebellious males, interested in music, art and fashion. This social group is represented by using popular new London DJs as the front cover and double page spread focus, these characters are also dressed in a similar way as my audience, so they can relate. The name “ultra naughty super bad” sounds fun, rebellious, and hip. It represents this social group by having cool laid back feel. There is a header across the top of the front cover “SUMMER FEST special” this appeals to the social group, being interested in music festivals and exhibitions. The colours are bright and light; there are no gloomy colours, which helps portray the happy, relaxed image of my particular social group.

Media institutions would distribute my product to promote new bands and to appeal to people also interested in fashion and art. The music industry is very large and my magazine would build an interest in smaller genres of music instead of following the large names and bands. This would appeal to media institutions as it covers a different area to the majority of music magazines. I think that a magazine with similar codes and conventions such as “NME” would want to distribute this magazine as it covers a new range of music and may appeal to their audience.

The audience I chose to aim my media product at were young men, aged 16-22yrs old, interested music as well as fashion and art. My magazine would inform them of latest trends, exhibitions and most importantly all the latest bands and artists that are up and coming.

My magazine has a relaxed and cool feel which makes it attractive to my audience. The characters on my front page are innovative DJs who are dressed in a similar way to my audience, they are also of similar age, and this makes them more noticeable to my audience and appealing, as they can relate directly. The themes and colours also fits to my audience, attracting men by using blues greens and white, and having a creative graphic style also appeals by being artistic.

During constructing my media product, I developed my image skills and knowledge, learning how to shoot photos, lighting and focus, I also used Photoshop extensively to edit and add text. This software is very useful when creating projects like this as you can change and edit photos very easily, for example it allows you airbrush faces and skin to make it seem almost flawless and smooth. My Photoshop skills developed considerably and I am now very confident with using it. After studying and researching magazines, I gained a good knowledge of what is required to create this media product and the code and conventions of it.

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that my skills have improved well. With my preliminary task the layout was poorly structured and I had trouble keeping the same themes throughout. As my ability developed I now have a good knowledge of the codes and conventions required in this media product which helped when creating it. Improvements in my final magazine compared to my preliminary task are noticeable the layout has better order and everything is clearer. I concentrated on keeping the conventions of my magazine consistent which makes it look better and links the pages well, for example I kept with one font through-out and made sure the mode-of-address was in an informal style all the way through. In my previous task I over complicated it with too much colour, I have learnt that sticking to a specific colour palette improves the appearance of my media product as it the colours will fit better and be more pleasing to the eye. My header wasn’t clear enough in the preliminary task so I made it simpler in my final product I also put it on a white background to create contrast and make it stand out better. The composition of my preliminary task good I used the rule of thirds well and the outcome was a good eye-catching shot, composition is important as the arrangement of objects in your photo will show change how they are represented, for example a large central image has a much greater dominant and powerful effect then a small image in the corner. Lighting in my preliminary task was poor so I made sure for my final task that I took my photos in enough light and also edited the brightness on Photoshop to make it look better. In my first task I used a strong central image to grab attention, but for my final task I made it less direct to create some mystery about the band, this is good because successful bands need an image.  

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