Front Cover Final

Contents Page Final

Double Page Spread Page One Final

Double Page Spread Page Two Final

Original Photos

I have uploaded all my original photos for my student college project and music magazine project which includes front cover images, contents page images and double page spread images. to visit my flickr account click on the link below: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakebooth-asmedia/

Evaluation: Question Seven

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

At the being of the course I completed a skills audit on how will I could use a Mac and programs on it, I was not very good at many of these tasks as I had never used a Mac before. However over the course I have learnt and developed knowledge on how to use a Mac and its programs. Compared to the preliminary task that I did of the college magazine there is a clear improvement, as I become familiar with the Mac and how to create a professional magazine. From the two magazine covers below you can see how I have improved and developed over time. In my preliminary task, the college magazine, i did fill all the spaces well as there are still a lot of spaces and I haven’t included a main story, however in the music magazine project there is no more space for any more taglines and I have included a main story that stands out and looks very professional. Also the colour scheme for my music magazine is much better than the college magazine as it’s got more than one colour and the colour links with the main image.  I feel I have learn how to use programs such as photoshop to a greater effect to create a more visual effective magazine. I have now been able to use websites like blogger, flickr, prezi and slideshare to great effect to present my project and having not used these programs before I picked them up very easy and will continue to use them and create more great work like my music magazine. 

Preliminary Task, College Magazine.

Music Magazine.

Evaluation: Question Six

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

Evaluation: Question Six on Prezi

Evaluation: Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?


One way that I address my audience is though social networking sites such as Facebook as from this i could upload images, texts and final outcome and get instant feedback from my target audience. This was good as it was really easy and also it kepted my friends and target audience wanting more as i slowly released the final outcome.
I also addressed and attracted my audience with my front cover:

Evaluation: Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 The target audience for my magazine ‘AMP’ would be both male and female, as my magazine is not biases to one specific genre, they will between the ages of 13/14 to early 20’s because this is the age when people start going become more interested in music and start to prefer one specific genre, so when they come to buy a magazine they will know if this one is for them and their personal taste in music. Their taste in music will be mainly in the genre of alternative, indie and indie rock, such bands as mystery jets, The Maccabees and the Futureheads. They would mainly watch comedy, action, horror and sci-fi films and enjoy watch channels such as comedy central and BBC Three. They would dress smart casual, normally wearing shirts or tees from shops such as Topman, burtons or designer names such as FCUK, Ben Sherman and Ted Baker, they would wear smart leather shoes or bight coloured plimsolls and have a individual look. They would spend their time at local and big gigs, going to house parties and playing sports such as football and rugby. They would also go to college or university and spend time studying and part time working to afford the gigs and parties they attend. If old enough they would go to the pub and clubs at weekends with friends. They would enjoy listening to music and listen to it whenever they can.   

Evaluation: Question Three

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

Before we started this project I created a case study on IPC, a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, selling over 350 million copies each year. The case study is in a previous post on this blog. IPC Media would be my best institution to distribute my magazine as my magazine AMP is a similar magazine to NME which is one of IPC Medias magazine. It is one of their most popular magazines that they distribute and if they can distribute my magazine as well as they have NME my magazine would do very well. Although they already have a magazine like this NME is not specific to alternative music and feedback about the magazine NME from alternative music fans say that NME isn't a magazine that they would buy as it deals with more mainstream music so I think there is a small gap in IPC Medias portfolio for my magazine. I think that my magazine would offer that a way to attract a different audience group as if someone doesn’t like NME they could buy my magazine and this would increase their sales of music magazines and widen their portfolio in terms of music genres, which could go on to distributing more genres of music magazines and could see them becoming the major distributor of music magazines in England. 

Evaluation: Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

View more presentations from JakeBooth.

Evaluation: Question One

In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media productions?

Evaluation on Prezi

Double Page Spread Deconstruction

Double Page Spread

Lesson Overview

In todays lesson I started on my Evaluation by completing question one, 'In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?', This took me half of the lesson to complete. For the rest of the lesson I started on the tweaks on my front cover and contents page with the help of feedback from the class and lectures, that hopefully will make my outcomes look much better and more professional.

Front Cover:
On my front cover I have changed 'the 50 best alternative albums ever made' from a box on the side to a banner along the top. This has made room more tag lines to be placed along the right hand side, I have also moved the main story tagline down a bit which has also made room for taglines. I have made the masthead of my magazine bigger so it would stand out more and have put music notes around the masthead to make it clear its a music magazine and also makes it look more appealing.

Contents Page:

For my contents page I have changed the background colour from white to a pastel green, which isn't overpowering but still gives it a bit of colour and makes the page look more full. I have extended the lines of the grid that separated the stories to make a complete grid which I think makes it look more clean cut and professional. Also I have changed the colour of the box that had the subscription advert in it to white with the same pastel green for the text and a image of my tweaked front cover.

Lesson Overview

In todays lesson I finished off my contents page by completing the writing for each story, I have also today printed off all my four pages of magazine off to get feed back so I can improve on them. They are not all finished yet as some still need to be tweaked to make them look better and more professional. I now need to start writing my interview on Brendan for my double page spread which I will do ever the next week so I will be able to put it onto the feature next monday. overall my work is coming together and starting to look professional and hopefully over the next few weeks will start to be completed.

Front cover, Contents page & Double page spread

Front Cover

Double Page Spread 

   

Contents Page

These are my front cover, double page spread and contents page so far, there is still a little bit of tweaking to be done till they are completed.  

Lesson Overview

In todays lesson I began to create my double page spread. I started by choosing an image, I chose the one I did because it was a good image of the musician and also because it has lots of room at the right for text. I used the same title for the headline as I did the masthead on the front cover so these to stories on the same person can be easily linked together. under the title I've added a subheading that will hopefully attract buyer s into reading this article. to make my double page spread more professional I've added the page number and date at the bottom of both pages as they do in the real music magazines published today. I have also added my name on the bottom right hand side of the second page to show who has written the article. I still have to write the text which the majority of it will be on the second, right hand, page and along with the text i will have a quote from the musician along the top of this page.

Double Page Spread Labeled Key Terms

Double Page Spread Proposal

The type of double page spread i intend to create is a interview style one. this is appropriate and relevant to my target audience because my audience are aged between 16 to 24 and at this age range people want to know more about the band then say younger people. so having a interview where i can ask question to the musician will hopefully for fill the need for information about the musician. I can incorporate original images into this double page spread a few ways, firstly i could use the original image as a background such as in this double page spread from the NME. Or i could use a large image next to the text, like in this double page spread in NME.

I will obtain information about my musician for my feature by siting down with him and asking him questions and writing the answer down, the images for my feature i will take at the same time so i will need to interview him in an interesting place so i can get the best quality pictures i can. i would like to achieve a professional, interesting and exciting visual style for my double page spread as this will make it more easy and appealing to read. finally i would like my style of writing to be understandable yet professional, use of proper English is a must as it needs to be understandable to a wide rang of reader and using slang words will isolate some people. but most of all my writing has to be informative so the readers get the most out of the article.

Double Page Spread Types

Interview

An individual or group are questioned and responses are written up usually in either a question and answer style or as continuous prose. This could be highly suitable if interview subject is from a band who is popular with 16-23 year olds. It would be best presented in question and answer style. 

Review

An individual or group are reviewed on a gig, album or song and the responses are written up usually in a continuous prose. This could be suitable if the review subject is about a band or individual who is popular with 16 - 23 year olds. 

Memorial

The double page spread goes over the achievements of a desist individual. The individual is normally a well known legend in the music industry. Usually written up in a continuous prose, it will go over there life and music career. This could be suitable if the individual is popular with 16 - 23 year olds. 

Countdown

This normally is a countdown of musicians or albums of a general theme, for example 'best albums of 2011' or 'the 50 darkest albums ever made'. usually written up in a bullet point style with extra information about the album or musician. 

Music Magazine Second Design

Lesson Overview

In todays lesson I moved on to create my contents page, I used images from live gigs that I've been to and also an image of my fictional musician. I added page numbers to all the stories and also have put titles of the stories, at the moment I am currently writing little extracts about the story for each feature. i haven't decided if I'am going to keep the back ground white or if i'll put an image as the background, i will think about it over the next few days and will also be looking at other magazines to get inspiration from them to make my contents page as professional as possible.

Music Magazine First Design

This is my first attempt at the front cover for my music magazine. I like the image I've used as it has space for my tag lines, title and extra information. Also the image is good as lines in the beach huts draw your eye to the centre of the image where the main article is. there is a few changes i will be making to my front cover to improve it, firstly I will move around the title and look at other fonts and colours as i've had feed back that the blue in the title doesn't stand out from the background as the beach huts have blue in them too, and also already published music magazines such as NME have a bold, recognisable title which I don't think mine is, so I will try and make it stand out and easily recognised.  

I posted the image of my front cover on my Facebook page to get feed back from my friends. All of them liked the front cover but not many of them put things that I could improve on so I had to go and ask people for there opinion and most of them seemed to agree with me that the title needed to stand out more and that I needed more tag lines. They also pointed out that the layout is good as everything is spaced out well and nothing covers the important parts of the main image.

Front Cover And Contents Page Flat Plans

Photo Shoot, January

In January I went out with my friend Brendan and took photos of him around Southsea with his guitar so I could get images for my magazine front cover. I've put my favourite two on here and have uploaded the rest to my Flickr account, http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakebooth-asmedia/. 

These two images are, what I think, the best two images for a front cover that I took on that day. They both have space at the top for a title and banner, if I wanted one. they also have lots of space along the right hand side for tag lines and also the images are of good quality. Having got feed back from my friends and media tutor I will go with the second image as my front cover main image, firstly because there is lots of room for tag lines, titles and other information and also because the image is more interesting and arty then the first one. further more in the first image the pose Brendan is pulling looks very unnatural which makes him look uncomfortable where as in the second image hes more relaxed which makes for a better picture. 

Music Magazine Title Ideas

The title of my magazine, I feel, should reflect the genre of music which will be represented. For example NME, New Musical Express, is a magazine about new up and coming bands and musicians, which from the title of the magazine you can tell. Also NME's name is a very formal name with how it’s laid out and the use of proper English which is quite old fashioned for a magazine as most magazines have adopted the casual every day talk into their title, this ‘old fashioned’ style of presenting the title can be seen as ‘retro’ which is a popular theme/style for the look of an indie/alternative magazine. 

I posted the six possible names I had come up with for my magazine, 'Alternative Music Press.', 'Alternative Music Broadcast.', 'The Alternative Press.', 'Live.', 'Live Music Press.', 'Backstage.' and asked my friends to comment there favourite.

Four people voted for 'Alternative Music Press', No one voted for 'Alternative Music Broadcast', 'The Alternative press' and 'Live.' got two votes, 'Live Music Press' got only one vote and 'Backstage' got eight votes. this feed back is good as I can get rid of the lowest voted names and keep the top two and decided  from them which one I will chose. The top two names were, 'Alternative Music Press' and 'Backstage'. Backstage is a good name as it suggests the magazine goes behind the scenes and can get exclusive information about bands and musicians, however the name doesn't suggest what genera of music my magazine is specialised in so if its not clear to the reader they might not buy it. Alternative Music Press, is also a good name as it clearly shows that genera of music the magazine will be about also it can be abbreviated to AMP which is also a word for an amplifier which is used a lot in the music world. having looked at both name my magazine will be called 'Alternative Music Press' as with this name I can do many things and create a title that will stand out and be recognised.  

  

Music Magazine Proposal

The genre of my magazine will be Alternative/Indie. I chose this genre because these were the two most popular genres chosen in my audience research questionnaire which proves that this is a popular genre and that there will be people to buy it. This is also a good genre for me as it is also my favorite type of music and this will help me create a popular and successful magazine based on this genre.

The target audience of my magazine will be male and females that like alternative music, which I think will be mainly between the 14 and 24 as this is the main age that attend gigs and follow bands to the extent of buying a magazine to read about them, also this age because this is the age when people generally have money to spend on items such as magazines.  

The title of my magazine should represent the genre of music that will be in my magazine. As my magazine will be about new indie, alternative bands and musicians my name should clearly state that that is what will be in this magazine. Having looked through many issues of NME I have a few ideas of what images I would like for my front cover contents page and the double page spread. My front cover and double page will have the same musician or band in the images as I will link the two pages, the contents page will have around 5/6 other images of gigs and other musicians to make the contents page more interesting and more professional. The fonts I will use will be clear and modern but also retro and interesting and a combination of these are used in NME and I think it looks more interesting then just one type of font and if it looks good on there magazines it should look good on mine.

NME Front Cover

NME Contents Page

I have looked at NME photos on their website, http://www.nme.com/photos , to get ideas on how my images could look and ideas for settings.  Also before I go and take my images I will research how to take professional looking photographs to make my magazine look the best I can

My double page spread will be about the musician on the front cover. I’ve seen a few double page spreads that I like from NME and they all have a large main image and writing along one side with quotes picked out from the musician made bigger to stand out, my double page spread will be along the same lines as this.

NME Double Page Spread 

NME Double Page Spread

 I like the first double page spread with the image taking up the whole space and the writing on top as it looks more flowing and interesting to look at, as the second double page spread the writing on the blank background looks very boring and almost news paper like. 

Lesson Overview Monday, January 10 2011

In todays lesson I uploaded the conclusion to my Student College Magazine Project, I completed and uploaded two front cover deconstructions of the magazine 'NME', and I have also written up my audience research questionnaire and will give them out over the week for people to fill out. Finally I have started on my planning on titles and music industry analysis which I will complete and upload at home, also at home I will take photographs that I can use for my front cover, contents page and double page spread. 

NME Front Cover Deconstructions