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

Looking at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a considerable amount of new skills since then in photography and graphic design. In my preliminary task, my objective was to create a clean, professional looking magazine, and I feel that I did this. I know that when I was making it I was using simple skills to create a simple effect for what it is representing and also the consumer. The photograph used didn't have any fancy effects added, it was a clean image which presented the school in a positive way (something I intended and I feel I succeeded in).

However I knew that when I got to my music magazine I wouldn't be able to use the same skills that I had used to make my preliminary task. My ability to take interesting photographs with more aggressive lighting developed during the making of my music magazine and i took advantage of it. From researching the other magazines in the market I also developed my graphic design skills.

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

In my coursework I have developed skills concerning photography, photoshop and online blogs.

Prior to my coursework I had experience in photoshop and photography, however I developed these skills by honing them into a project, rather than abstract work. I developed my skills in portrait photography, refining my understanding of photos used on magazines. After researching particular photographers such as Rankin, I learned to appreciate the use of lighting and contrast a great deal.

Here is the first draft of my music magazine, in comparison to the final product:




I think that the two different versions show real progression with my skills and how they have developed during the course of my main task.
My photoshop skills have been developed when concerning graphic design with a music magazine. After researching the industry and other publications I was able to consider my own style and portray it using photoshop. Initially I thought complexity would make the work look more professional, but I found that the simpler things are, the better they look. the clean, professional look is a lot more appealing than a busy, cluttered look. Again, I think the two images above show real progression from a cluttered look to a cleaner look.

I had no real experience of using online blogs before, but now that I have used it as the primary output for my coursework to be displayed, I have found it very effective and a lot better than writing an essay. My ability to include images with ease allowed me to show my progression.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The audience for my product would be a 18-25 year old age range - male and female. I wanted to get a magazine that would target the young adult demographic as this age range is a prime target for people who visit clubs, bars, usually have some form of income and therefore provide an audience for a contemporary music consumer. Making a magazine that deals with contemporary music has to consider the primary audience, and I have considered this with my magazine.

I carried out a questionairre (paper based, 30 surveyed) about what an 18-25 audience would want in a magazine, and the results showed:

What would you expect in a dance/techno magazine? (tick as many boxes as you agree with)





I made my magazine with the results in mind, and I found it a great help with trying to reach my key demographic.

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

I think that an appropriate publisher for my magazine would be "Development Hell Ltd."(http://www.developmenthell.co.uk/) This is because they publish the "mixmag" magazine. Mixmag, being a successful dance magazine, is similar to my magazine audience, so having a publisher who understands that audience would benefit my magazine.

Comparing a product like mixmag with mine shows how I would expect Development Hell to publish a similar product with a similar audience.



In the world where the internet is so widely accepted as the norm for information today, I would have to think of a way for my magazine to sell despite the fall in popularity with magazines.
Subscription via post is a theme that is available with many magazines, so I would imagine offering a service like this.

I had consider the price of my magazine, and if the magazine was on the market i would have to find a price so it could cover paying for production, manufacturing, employee payment and also profit, but then I wouldn't want to put the price too high, or the consumer would be detracted from purchasing the product.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups used in my magazine are mainly young adults 18-25. The images used are of a 18 year female and a 21 year male. Females are under-represented in techno music and whilst there is a rise in the popularity of acts such as Lady GaGa, I thought creating a article about a made up female artist would reflect this rise in popularity.

The music artist I wrote the article about talks about her music, her fears surrounding it and her hopes too. This is the same way that any other article would approach representing her.
I have represented the "techno/trance/electronica" scene in positive light as they would be an audience I would target if this magazine were on sale. being nice to people is a very effective way of selling copies.

According to a questionairre i carried out, when asked what social groups were misrepresented in dance magazines, the reply was (survey of 30 people through paper based questionairre):




(Results: Women 23, Men 2, Blacks 3, Whites 1, Other 3)
Clearly, the vast majority of people thought women were misrepresented in dance magazines. This seemed to be, not because women weren't mentioned in them, but shown as the people "on the dancefloor", rather than highlighting the talented female musicians of this genre. I decided to represent a female from the outset from my own view of dance magazines misrepresentation, and this questionairre backed my work up.

In What Ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In the magazine I have designed I think that I have followed some of the conventions expected of a trance/electronica magazine. What do people want to read in music magazine? Information about latest gigs, upcoming albums from popular artists, upcoming artists, interviews with current singers. My magazine follows these conventions because they are obvious traits that all music magazines should follow. Every music magazine has this information. They are used as a publicity medium for the music industry.

For nearly the entirety of the magazine, I have followed conventions set by the magazine industry.This may seem like there is a lack of originality in the magazine, but a consumer isn't interested in a magazine being unique. Not from initial glance anyway, it makes them shy away from buying it. A consumer likes things fitting the current status quo. Sudden change of a formula doesn't work in the media so deviating from what works would be foolish. The consumer wants the information, they want to delve into their voyeuristic fantasies of famous people. Providing interviews is a perfect way to meet these two quotas, so I took advantage of that.This is prevailent in all magazines, as the below examples show:






The true originality of each magazine lies in the image, and the subject. i talked about this in the previous blog post, and whilst i was inspired by a photographer, interpreting it into a trance/techno magazine was the most unique element of my magazine. I have followed the conventions of existing magazines, as it is effective and ultimately the best way to approach this form of design is with the motto "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Front cover image inspiration

Photography in magazines is the most important aspects to consider, as a front cover is essentially what sells it to the consumer. The success of sales that issue depend on several factors - the text layout, the font etc. but the photograph remains the most significant element of the magazine. It is what the consumer sees first. Cosmopolitan may have Keira Knightley on the front, Vogue may have Michelle Obama, Mojo may have Mick Jagger. The image reflects the contents of the magazine, and if this is done successfully then consumers are more willing to buy it. Western society today is quite voyeuristic, so having an impressive image of someone taps into people's desire to gaze upon people. This is particularly prominent with women who desire male celebirities. A modern example is of the Twilight actors, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. However, Male Fetishism is also quite prominent. Nuts and Zoo magazine delve into the increasingly acceptable amounts of flesh shown in magazines. Each genre of magazine clearly house their own style to attract their audience. Music magazines however are unique in that they are one of the most difficult ways to portray what their talking about through visual representation. A fashion magazine is all about seeing "beauty". Music is aural. How does someone photograph sound?
The answer obviously is that they can't. They instead use the acts that play music instead. Magazines use images of bands, singers etc. to make the audience become visually appealed to the artist. A girl may be visually attracted to, say, Usher, but his voice becomes irrelevant when voyeurism takes hold.

When concerning my magazine, I wanted to get a striking image of someone that would dominate the front cover and catch people's eye. I looked at famous photographers, Annie Leibovitz, John Rankin etc. and found that Rankin the most interesting style. His high contrast, close up images make the subject stand out incredibly. Below is an image of Emma Watson that he took (from emmawatsonweb.com).

There is a very high contrast used in the image, and there is also alot of desaturation used too. I think that if this image was used on the front cover of Cosmopolitan it would be very successful that month.
I was inspired by Rankin incredibly, his portfolio ranges with some of the most famous celebrities to date, as well as politicians. When looking at my photo, the inspiration is clear.


Obviously I didnt want to completely mimic the style used, but I was keen to use the ideas of high contrast images. I wanted to retain more of the colour in the image to give the face more life. The image is not as animated as the emma watson shot, so desaturating it any more would make the image lose all vibrancy, something that i wanted to retain, even if it was a hint.

Also, I thought the framing of the image was appropriate to the magazine as I was able to use the text to surround the image and make the actual design of it work better as a result.

Researching this has really developed my conceptual eye for photography and I think has benefited my coursework as a result.

Final draft of Madhouse double page spread

This is the final draft of my madhouse magazine double page spread. I have designed it in my own way but with inspirations from the Mojo magazine. I thought that an interview would be the most appropriate form of media for the artist and would be able to give the reader the most pertinent form of information about the artist. I used a masthead to inform the reader that it is an article about Trancette.

I used a comfortable, but formal style of conversation so that the reader wouldn't feel intimidated by the text. I wrote the text in a style that would make it seem fairly unedited and this would make the reader believe that it is an authentic piece of text. I have asked questions related to music and also about the artist herself, something a genuine magazine would do. However, I haven't deviated so much that it would seem inappropriate for the magazine to talk about.

The images used in the article are reflective of the style of magazine. I found that it is a lot easier to use an image to show what type of instruments the artist uses rather than having to explain it in a paragraph. The representation of using these images shows the artist as a multi-talented artist, rather than the stereotyped knob-twiddling technician. Having the white box captions informs the reader more of the context of the images being there. Using the album image on the double page spread is a form of advertising, which enables the reader to know what the album looks like and when they see it on the shelves in the shops they will want to buy it.

Final draft of Madhouse contents page

This is the final draft of my contents page for my magazine. I have split the articles into the main articles and also the other articles shown on the front page into two separate pages. Usually the most important thing shown in a magazine are the main articles so having it separate is an easy way for a reader to find that article and then read it. I also used images of the artists of which the articles are about.

I have used the same font for the magazine title as i have on the front cover for synergy across the different sections of the magazine. It creates continuity, so reassures the reader that it is a quality magazine. However, I did change the layout of the title, as I thought it more effective for a contents page. It balances the layout of the page, because otherwise all of the content on page would cover the left of the page.

I have used an advertising technique for heinz by creating a logo to be used in the corner. It not only encourages readers to look into the "madhouse manchester" event as it expresses sponsorship and that increases the quality of the event. It also endorses the heinz product line and then a reader may want to buy one of their products.

Final draft of Madhouse front cover

This is the final draft of my magazine front cover. I spent alot of time working on my front cover with the image of trancette on the front. However after looking at the mixmag front cover with Calvin Harris i decided i wanted a different image. When i took the photo i wanted a high contrast image of "Ink Creed" to give the magazine cover more impact. I have maintained the text colour scheme as the last draft because I thought that it was suitable for the image and also worked well with the style of the magazine.

I also changed the design of the magazine title. After looking at a variety of magazines, I decided that I preferred the name to be in the corner rather than covering the width of the magazine. It was more through preference rather than consistency with other magazines. I think the most important thing about the change is that now it looks cleaner and more professional, and when I asked peers about the change they agreed it looked better.

I also removed alot of the other items from the front page. I wanted to make it a cleaner aesthetic which I think make it look more professional and less cluttered. The puffs uses do not interfere with the image but still inform the reader of the contents of the magazine.

This is the contents page of mixmag. the design style is simple with a main image covering the majority of the page. This page breaks conventions by using a unique text font for the page number and also for the title "contents". But it does create a unique style, and gives the magazine individuality for breaking standards.

There is information about the free CD that comes with the magazine at the bottom. This is a mini article at the bottom, but it works with the contents page as the CD only needs a little explanation, the best thing to do with a CD is listen to it, and this is what it is advising.

There is also a image of calvin harris in the right top corner. These two examples show a link between cover, article and contents page. This is something I intend to replicate in my magazine.

This contents page will influence the design of my contents page, as it is the same genre of magazine.

The double page spread in mix mag conforms to the colour scheme found on the front cover. The use of yellow, white and black is an attempt to try and make it look "hazardous". The main title of the article is "We were all so off our trees it was doomed." this is an attempt to make the article have an element of excitement and unknowing. The article uses quite taboo language to give it a hard edge, and discuss the downfall of rave music.

The text on the left has highlighted areas, this is to simplify the message behind the whole article. It is an attempt to sell a new book. There will be some information on the topic (on the right), but the main reason the magazine is printing this article is to sell the magazine.

The photograph used is showing an image of people dancing or "raving", this is to reflect the content in the magazine.

This is the front cover to mixmag. This is a dance magazine that i intend to get inspiration from.

The colour scheme on this magazine is very dynamic and eye catching. The use of red is unnecessary in the text since the background is so vivid with use of oranges and reds.

There are plenty of buzzwords used on the magazine, such as "blew up" and "Budget" and "Plus" to name a few. These, like most magazines, try and promote the magazine and try to express that there is alot of content in it.

The anchorage of the magazine is "Calvin Harris". This is the biggest text on the page apart from the title, and is used to inform the reader of the most important content of the magazine. They have split his name into two colours. This is to keep in style with the inhouse colour scheme for this edition.

I Think that the target age for this magazine is 18+ as the contents of the magazine includes hints for where to go clubbing, and also the style of music is for an age of people who aren't into indy music.

The contents page for the magazine mojo is very clean and professional, conforming to it's in house style. The information displayed is very clear and concise and this makes it easy for the reader to know where to go inside the magazine. The magazine uses a birds eye shot of someone from the specials. This is another long time running popular band. By using a single image of someone it makes it look professional and the colour red used brings attention to him.

The fonts used are clear and simple fonts. this is used in line with the magazines ethos of being clear and professional. The busy look wouldn't work for the magazine so they have steered clear of that. There are no promotional features on the contents page of the magazine, again probably to keep in with it's house style. The magazine logo is at the top of the page, and takes up about a 1/6th of the page, and is fairly dominant. This is probably used for the non-dedicated readers, so that it sticks in their head what the name of the magazine is, so they would buy it again if they liked it.

The double page magazine spread from Mojo magazine is about the band "kiss". They are a very popular long time running band. This is in line with what the magazine style is. This reflects the target audience of over 25's. The double spread gives the impression of a clean, professional look giving respect to kiss. The interview dominates the majority of the page, which a collage of images about the band. The language used in the article gives the impression of a polite and relaxed conversation. The magazine is clearly wanting to have a more intimate discussion with the band members to find out about who they are, rather than alot of focus on their music. It is clear that the magazine is being written for an audience who already follow kiss.

The colour used is black and white. This is probably used to retain the professional look of the magazine, and to have the articles easy to read, and could possibly be being used to reflect the face paint that kiss are famous for. The article is ultimately being made for the reader and by using a polite, relaxed type of conversation it maintains the aura of comfort when reading it.

The pictures are a reflection of the story of kiss through the ages. This reflects the type of magazine that mojo is. Discussing the bands history, and where they are going now.

The magazine double page spread i have analysed conforms to the front cover, and the style that mojo is trying to portray.

The magazine i am analysing is the Mojo magazine. It is a rock magazine based on successful, long time going bands, as the front cover shows, like Pink Floyd and U2. The issues that are going to be up for discussion are either going to be current events that bands are going to be facing or retrospective discussion on their past problems in music.
I see that Mojo is probably aimed towards a target audience of 25+. The music that they talk about is from an older generation and therefore a following of the bands talked about are required.
The main appeal for the front cover is roger waters on the magazine. The main selling point for this months magazine will be the interview with roger waters. Using a straight medium portrait shot of him is very definitive and to the point. He is looking at "you" and the magazine building a relationship with the reader by doing this. By looking straight at the reader it implies that the magazine wants you specifically to read about roger waters.
The anchorage text says "Pink Floyd! Exclusive interview! Why does the wall still haunt roger waters?"
This question is used to entice the reader to go on further to find out why the album haunts roger waters. It implies about the artist that he has troubles about his past concerning music and he is willing to discuss them in this magazine.
There are plenty of buzzwords used on the front cover of mojo, like "triumph!", "ultimate", "steroids!", "inside story!" and "exclusive". These are used to exemplify the importance of the articles in the magazine.
The buzzwords are used inside the puffs to make them more attractive to the reader. Everyone wants to get something that is value to their money and making the magazine look like it has alot of stuff in it makes people want to buy it. Using puffs with buzzwords in makes it not only look like there is a lot of material in the magazine, but it is of high quality and is exciting.

There aren't many colours used on the front cover of mojo magazine. This is to make it look more professional and target an older audience, rather than it looking too busy like something like NME. using red, white, grey and black are timeless successful colour schemes to attract the audience and remain professional and not boring. black white and grey are used to make the colour scheme look professional whilst the red makes it stand out and gives it the look of importance. Red is a commonly used colour because it stands out so significantly against other colours.
The fonts used are simple but effective. They are clean, professional looking fonts so that it is clear to read from a distance and not overwhelming to the reader, which makes it more attractive to buy.
The magazine Mojo uses a very successful front cover to try and attract its target audience. I shall be using this front cover as an influence to the design of my own.

This is the third draft of my music magazine front cover. I have changed it significantly from my second draft after serious consideration of the colour used in it. I have also removed alot of the content from the front cover, as before it looked very cluttered, and now it has a much cleaner and professional look. I have still used red as a significant colour on the magazine to highlight the femininity of the image but i thought that eliminating the purple and green would make the magazine look alot more professional and highlight the colour palette of the image. Magazines usually adjust the colours of the magazine cover in accordance to the image and its colours.

Although initially i didnt want to use black and white, i changed my mind after realising that alot of the image is dominated by black and white that using it would be appropriate.

This is the mock up for my preliminary task contents page. the concept behind my design is clean and friendly. I often find that magazine contents pages are very intimidating and infact puts alot of readers off looking at them. having one that is clear and accompanied with an image is alot more enticing to the reader.I asked my peers if they agreed with this idea and they did. After showing a few of them my contents page mock up they thought that it would be a better approach to a contents page than current formats.
I would have a white background for the page, and then use the same font and colours for the school name as i have used on my prelim front page.
I used an advertisment to fill the bottom of the page as a way to make it more aesthetically pleasing. The advert would be related to a school product and this would be more beneficial to the reader rather than something that isnt relevant to school.

This is the second draft of my music magazine front cover. As you can see it has changed dramatically from my first draft. the colours used on my magazine cover are very significant to the message that is being portrayed. If you look at the magazine, the most eye catching colour is red, but this is associated with the background to the text used. The only other place red is used is on the lips of the girl in the image. i wanted to highlight her lips to place significance on her femininity, as in the trance music industry girls are a huge minority. I dont need to say "This is a girl who's made it big in the trance industry", when firstly she's already on the magazine, but instead highlight the feminine features of her instead, and place importance on it.
Red is the perfect colour for this as it has so many different associations in symbology. aggresssion, love, passion, fire etc. are all important messages that are conveyed in this magazine, using just that colour.
I used purple and green alot on my magazine to match with the masthead, to reflect the topic that it is writing about. As mentioned in my last post, purple and green are commonly used colours in this industry.
I tried to keep the font variation to a minimum on my magazine, as i think that using too many makes it look unprofessional. however, i felt the need to use three was appropriate. I would have kept it as two, but i decided that the top of the magazine that advertises the contents of the magazine should have a different font, to place importance on what is being included in the magazine and then entice the reader to buy it.
I was inspired by DJ mag to use the text on a slant as opposed to horizontal, as trance is a deviation from normal music genres, and the best way to show deviation is through a literal "different angle."
the red backgrounds to the puffs on the cover are angled, rather than curved - this is to express the message that the magazine is "cutting edge", so the reader knows that it is modern.

The decisions i have made would attract the target audience, which i think would be a 16-35 age range. anyone over 35 is unlikely to be visiting clubs as much anymore and so trying to appeal to over 35's would mean losing the message of the magazine.
Please post comments on my magazine, suggestions, problems, successes or any other posts would be highly appreciated. Thanks!
I hope to upload my next draft after some feedback.

Magazine cover first draft

This is the first draft of my magazine cover. Rather than an attempt to throw myself into creating a magazine cover in one go, i wanted to put the magazine title and a conceptual mast head and puff on there to see what it would look like. I also added a barcode, just for conceptual design at the moment. The use of black as a background is useful for more colourful texts with this magazine (a trance magazine) as the colours used in the text are associated with lights used in dance/trance clubs. the white was used more as just a simple background to the text so i could focus on the design of the boxes behind the text, it is not the colour i intend to keep in my final coursework piece.

The magaazine i have chosen to analyse is a DJ magazine. This is similar to the magazine i wish to create for my main task. Looking at the magazine there are several features that are used to entice readers into buying it. DJ magazines usually have a very exclusive audience, so trying to expand the market is a difficult task. Clearly, DJmags have tried to keep their magazine contemporary and imitate the styles of Q magazine and Rolling Stone. They deviate from normal magazines however by consistently using a slanted font, to try and express the style of music that they are associated with. Trance and Electronica magazines would probably have a similar style to this type of magazine. DJmag also conforms to many standards of magazines by using only two or three fonts. using too many different fonts makes the magazine look unprofessional, but DJmag conforms to these standards and it succeeds because of this.

These are the basic ideas for the title of my music magazine. I have looked at several different text styles and colours to try and find an appropriate text.

As I have looked into this more, I found that whilst some of the texts were never going to be used, some had the potential. I cut my list down to three, as can be seen below:

The three I chose here I thought stood out the most as appropriate magazine name titles.

I also decided to merge the colours as purple and green work well together and they reflect the style of magazine I wish to design. The final design shows that I only reinforced what I want the magazine to be about: I included a hand over the "o" to represent a DJ spinning a vinyl, which is reflective of the type of magazine i am making.
My final design for my title is reflective of the style of magazine which i wish to do. The purple, green, black outline and the hand on the O makes it seem busy but not over the top. I think that making an electronica magazine with this name and design will be effective.
If anyone has any suggestions to change the design or feels that it might work better with something else, please comment, thanks!

This is the fourth draft of my preliminary task. I am unlikely to make many changes to this magazine cover as i feel that adding much more would make it cluttered and lose its professional

look. I have transferred my image to photoshop and as such i have made the image more aesthetically pleasing. I rounded off the edges of the text boxes to make it cleaner and more approachable as a magazine to pick up. I removed the "Congratulations" from the red explosion and put it behind the masthead to amplify what the mastheads message is. I thought that the "Congratulations" made the front cover less professional and clean.

This is the third draft of my magazine. It has changed considerably after researching magazine covers. I realised that images used are composed in such a way that the top is usually clear of any detail when making them for front covers. This enabled me to make the Deyes High title clear and more professional looking. I also included a new masthead, and a "Congratulations" sign to enforce the success that the school has had. I used the colour red as it is dynamic and has associations with explosives. I also used it to match with the colours used in the school logo. I have also included a " Free Edition" puff. This is a technique used to entice the reader into getting a copy, and if they enjoy what they read or are more interested they may want to pay for the next issue.

This is the second draft of my Preliminary task. i decided to change the colour of my puffs to blue so they stand out more. I also removed the masthead. If anyone has any good suggestions for a decent masthead, please post what you think. Thanks.

AS Prelimary First Draft

Here is my first draft for my School Magazine. I took the photo of the student myself in order to fulfil the requirements of an original image. I followed the conventions of photography, using rule of thirds and depth of field. I also used neutral lighting to focus instead on the student and his environment. I chose to get a picture of him in the school library to reflect the purpose of the magazine and the masthead.I decided to make the appearance of my magazine clean and professional to reflect the appearance the school wants.At the moment i only have a low res image of the school badge, but i intend on getting a higher res image to make the front cover look better.I initially researched another school magazine from "St Ambrose Barlow" , but was unsatisfied with the design as i felt it was lacking in much intelligent design.

I feel that the design is trying to replicate the feel of a newsletter, rather than a magazine, and its appearance comes across as cheap and made of convenience, rather than intelligent thought out design style. This is why i have decided to try and create a more aesthetically pleasing front cover for my school magazine.

Media Blog

Hello. Welcome to my Media Studies AS portfolio. I am going to update this blog frequently so please visit often!
Please post messages on my blog, but do not use obscenities.
Thank you.