This is now the beginning of my music magazine task. I will update my blog with new work and I will update and add pieces of work in progress giving you, the examiner an insight into my production steps.
I will also post developments of work and post stages of my work in process to show the production stages.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Evaluation.
Evaluation:
In my magazine, I tried to make it look as professional and expensive as possible, by conforming to the idea of a convention magazine. All the magazines in which I have looked at have a mast head that is at the top of the magazine. This is a typical feature of a magazine so; I decided that I would also do this as this makes the magazine look professional.
I also noted that most magazines have barcodes on them, usually on the left hand corner or sometimes even on the back but because I felt that my mast-head had something missing so I decided to place in on the side of my title. This is unusual for a magazine but considering I had no space in the bottom left hand corner, I decided to place it in a more convenient place for me. This also broke a convention of the past as usually, barcodes are situated in the bottom left hand corner so this change was good.
Another convention, in which I conformed to, was placing most of my text onto one side of the magazine. I decided to do this because I felt that it made the magazine look more professional and organised. By putting the text and topics in which were going to be discussed in the magazine onto ONE side, I felt that it was a more tidy way of doing things.
Usually, text does not overlap on the cover person’s face but because I had to go by the guidelines of having only one person on the shot, I felt that by placing text over the other person’s face would make the person irrelevant. I didn’t want to crop the photo because I felt that having two people in it would make the photo look as if it is in a friendly community.
By having two people in the shot shows that they are in a homely and friendly environment. The fact that both of the people were Asian doesn’t necessarily mean that they have their own specific cliques. It shows friendship and reassurance that people any race and any ethnicity can come to the college. It also shows that if you feel comfortable being within a certain social group, you can be accepted into that group with no problems at all. I followed a key convention of other magazines by making the two girls look happy. I wanted to depict a friendly and fun environment.
I didn’t make the girls dress in any particular way. By doing this, I feel that I showed the diversity of clothing and free will to wear what you want (as long as it is acceptable) to college.
By placing my text in different fonts and colours, I felt that this would catch the audience’s attention and would hopefully make someone want to pick it up. I used subtle and calm colours so that it isn’t too striking but, I also used some eye-catching elements. I put the title in bold and gave it a white shadow. By doing this, I feel that it makes the title a bit more attractive. I decided to use Standard English for my magazine because I felt that by using slang, it would limit the audience of the magazine to people who speak slang. This is not what I wanted to do, I wanted my magazine to appeal to everyone so bearing that in mind, I decided to use Standard English.
The girl in the photo with the blue scarf is dressed in an ordinary manner. She is wearing clothes in which anyone could wear. She has a white t-shirt on with what seems to be a heart on it, which a grey unzipped hoodie and a blue scarf. In college, you are bound to see many other people with the same dress sense and you will probably see someone wearing similar clothing. I feel that this depicts that students can wear what they want. Also, the student’s hair is not so neat. I did this deliberately to show that however you look, you can still join the college community and that people are not singled out because of the way they dress. It shows free-spirit and also shows that other students needn’t be conscious of the way they look.
In my magazine, I tried to make it look as professional and expensive as possible, by conforming to the idea of a convention magazine. All the magazines in which I have looked at have a mast head that is at the top of the magazine. This is a typical feature of a magazine so; I decided that I would also do this as this makes the magazine look professional.
I also noted that most magazines have barcodes on them, usually on the left hand corner or sometimes even on the back but because I felt that my mast-head had something missing so I decided to place in on the side of my title. This is unusual for a magazine but considering I had no space in the bottom left hand corner, I decided to place it in a more convenient place for me. This also broke a convention of the past as usually, barcodes are situated in the bottom left hand corner so this change was good.
Another convention, in which I conformed to, was placing most of my text onto one side of the magazine. I decided to do this because I felt that it made the magazine look more professional and organised. By putting the text and topics in which were going to be discussed in the magazine onto ONE side, I felt that it was a more tidy way of doing things.
Usually, text does not overlap on the cover person’s face but because I had to go by the guidelines of having only one person on the shot, I felt that by placing text over the other person’s face would make the person irrelevant. I didn’t want to crop the photo because I felt that having two people in it would make the photo look as if it is in a friendly community.
By having two people in the shot shows that they are in a homely and friendly environment. The fact that both of the people were Asian doesn’t necessarily mean that they have their own specific cliques. It shows friendship and reassurance that people any race and any ethnicity can come to the college. It also shows that if you feel comfortable being within a certain social group, you can be accepted into that group with no problems at all. I followed a key convention of other magazines by making the two girls look happy. I wanted to depict a friendly and fun environment.
I didn’t make the girls dress in any particular way. By doing this, I feel that I showed the diversity of clothing and free will to wear what you want (as long as it is acceptable) to college.
By placing my text in different fonts and colours, I felt that this would catch the audience’s attention and would hopefully make someone want to pick it up. I used subtle and calm colours so that it isn’t too striking but, I also used some eye-catching elements. I put the title in bold and gave it a white shadow. By doing this, I feel that it makes the title a bit more attractive. I decided to use Standard English for my magazine because I felt that by using slang, it would limit the audience of the magazine to people who speak slang. This is not what I wanted to do, I wanted my magazine to appeal to everyone so bearing that in mind, I decided to use Standard English.
The girl in the photo with the blue scarf is dressed in an ordinary manner. She is wearing clothes in which anyone could wear. She has a white t-shirt on with what seems to be a heart on it, which a grey unzipped hoodie and a blue scarf. In college, you are bound to see many other people with the same dress sense and you will probably see someone wearing similar clothing. I feel that this depicts that students can wear what they want. Also, the student’s hair is not so neat. I did this deliberately to show that however you look, you can still join the college community and that people are not singled out because of the way they dress. It shows free-spirit and also shows that other students needn’t be conscious of the way they look.
Contents
This is my contents page. I didn't want to put photos it because I felt I would go against the typical conventions of a contents page.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Final front cover piece.
This is my final front cover piece. I feel that it looks better and can now appeal to more people both females and males. Making the colours and texts different from the other pieces of text on the front cover reminded me of how a real magazine would look. I looked at a real magazine front cover and tried to base my work around that.
My first draft for my front cover.
This was my first draft for my magazine front cover.
I used several texts and colours to try and catch the readers attention. I also thought that the fonts were too bright and distracting so I have decided that in the next one, I will make the colours more subtle and calm so that it is eye catchy but yet, not too distracting.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Draft 1
"Update", is not as appealing as "The Lick" and "CTK Life" because the headlines are very ordinary. I didn't give this magazine front cover good headlines, but I still think that this magazine will attract other because of it's bright and bold colours that I have chosen for it. Out of all the 3, this draft is the one that I dislike the most.
Draft 2
For "The Lick", I tried to make it appeal to both male and female, by using an incorporation of different colours and text types.
The colour scheme I have chosen for this is more vibrant and eye-catching.
I have used a male as a centre image as I want males to think that they can read this magazine.
I really like this magazine front cover so I have decided to make one as a final project.
Thursday, 15 October 2009
Draft 3
With CTK life, I made the centre image a girl and I added alot of stories around the sides, to draw attention to the magazine. Also the words "WIN!" are big on the magazines to attract and draw the anudience in.The colour scheme that I have for this magazine is very subtle and not as bright as my others. I feel that this magazine will appeal more to girls although, I wanted my magazine to appeal to both genders.
The title of the magazine is big and is behind the image of the girl, as the girl, is the more dominant feature of the magazine.
I tired to make all the important subjects of the magazine appear in BOLD so that they can draw the attention of the audience.
Research results
I constructed graphs to help me with my product research and also to help me form my magazine. I asked various questions and recieved different answers. I then tallied these up and made graphs to make it easier to understand and interpret.
In this chart, I asked this question to get a general idea of the ratio of boys to girls in my class. Although, I didn’t ask everyone in my class, I got a general gist of information from both boys and girls. I tried to make it so that I got 5 males to do the questionnaire and 5 girls to do it also, but had to settle with 8:2 as there is not a lot of males in my class.
In this chart, we see that the majority (70%) of people that I asked are 16 and 30% are 17. I asked this question to understand what target audience the college magazine could be aimed at. Obviously if I had asked people around the college, ages would vary but I got an idea of what ages the magazine could be aimed for. I also thought that although the 17 year old are not that much older than the 16 year olds, there would be different ideas about having a college magazine.
This question helped me gain an understanding of the amount of people that would want a college magazine. This also helped me gain a general estimation that 1 off 10 people would NOT want a college magazine which is good as, the people who would want one overrules those who don’t.
I asked this question to get a generalisation of the different type of magazine that people like. As you can see, 16-17 year olds are mainly interested Celebrities, Gossip and Music more than Sports, cooking and fashion; all things in which benefit their lives and things in which are essential. By these results, I would try to incorporate the more popular genres into the magazine.
By this question, I wanted to get an estimation of how much people would be willing to pay for a college magazine. A you can see, a majority of students would want it for free but 50% would also be willing to pay for it. Because it is a college magazine, it would/should not be expensive, so with this information, I could do another survey telling the audience to write the exact price in which they want it to be, but with the option of having it free, obviously many people would take that option.
With this information and the information from the “What genre of magazine attracts you the most”, I can get a general idea as to what students want in their magazine. It also gives me the idea that instead of the magazine being mainly filled with one genre; I could mix it up so that it suits everyone’s appeal and everyone’s needs/likes. Once again, music comes up as one of the most popular genre’s so that would be in the magazine.
With this question, I wanted to find out whether mixing the genres would be a good idea or if it would benefit some. I also had to think this through because if I had decided to add a price to the magazine, it would make it difficult to apply this price to the online version. This creates a problem as; it would have been a good option. I have to decide, whether to make the magazine free and have it to be both on the internet and in paper form, or make it only available in paper form, and it has a price
I wanted to know how students would prefer to receive their magazine and I learnt that the Cafe Tois and the Diner are the hotspots for free periods and free periods would be a good time for students to read the magazines. Also, the cafe and the diner are areas in which are mainly in use. An disadvantage of this is that the Diner and Cafe Tois close at a specific time, so would also distribute them in the LRC as, it is the second highest place.
I asked this question to gain a general idea of how it would be useful to students if the magazine was both on the internet and in paper form. I thought this would be useful if students happened to misplace their paper copy, it would be available online as well.
I found out that the brightness draws attention to a magazine, so with this information, I will try to make my product bright, but not too overwhelming.
In this chart, I asked this question to get a general idea of the ratio of boys to girls in my class. Although, I didn’t ask everyone in my class, I got a general gist of information from both boys and girls. I tried to make it so that I got 5 males to do the questionnaire and 5 girls to do it also, but had to settle with 8:2 as there is not a lot of males in my class.
In this chart, we see that the majority (70%) of people that I asked are 16 and 30% are 17. I asked this question to understand what target audience the college magazine could be aimed at. Obviously if I had asked people around the college, ages would vary but I got an idea of what ages the magazine could be aimed for. I also thought that although the 17 year old are not that much older than the 16 year olds, there would be different ideas about having a college magazine.
This question helped me gain an understanding of the amount of people that would want a college magazine. This also helped me gain a general estimation that 1 off 10 people would NOT want a college magazine which is good as, the people who would want one overrules those who don’t.
I asked this question to get a generalisation of the different type of magazine that people like. As you can see, 16-17 year olds are mainly interested Celebrities, Gossip and Music more than Sports, cooking and fashion; all things in which benefit their lives and things in which are essential. By these results, I would try to incorporate the more popular genres into the magazine.
By this question, I wanted to get an estimation of how much people would be willing to pay for a college magazine. A you can see, a majority of students would want it for free but 50% would also be willing to pay for it. Because it is a college magazine, it would/should not be expensive, so with this information, I could do another survey telling the audience to write the exact price in which they want it to be, but with the option of having it free, obviously many people would take that option.
With this information and the information from the “What genre of magazine attracts you the most”, I can get a general idea as to what students want in their magazine. It also gives me the idea that instead of the magazine being mainly filled with one genre; I could mix it up so that it suits everyone’s appeal and everyone’s needs/likes. Once again, music comes up as one of the most popular genre’s so that would be in the magazine.
With this question, I wanted to find out whether mixing the genres would be a good idea or if it would benefit some. I also had to think this through because if I had decided to add a price to the magazine, it would make it difficult to apply this price to the online version. This creates a problem as; it would have been a good option. I have to decide, whether to make the magazine free and have it to be both on the internet and in paper form, or make it only available in paper form, and it has a price
I wanted to know how students would prefer to receive their magazine and I learnt that the Cafe Tois and the Diner are the hotspots for free periods and free periods would be a good time for students to read the magazines. Also, the cafe and the diner are areas in which are mainly in use. An disadvantage of this is that the Diner and Cafe Tois close at a specific time, so would also distribute them in the LRC as, it is the second highest place.
I asked this question to gain a general idea of how it would be useful to students if the magazine was both on the internet and in paper form. I thought this would be useful if students happened to misplace their paper copy, it would be available online as well.
I found out that the brightness draws attention to a magazine, so with this information, I will try to make my product bright, but not too overwhelming.Survey and target research
In the first stage of my College magazine production, I decided to create a survey in which will enable me to find out what students in the college would want in their college magazine. The survey asked several questions, in which you will see here:
In this survey, I will be asking a number of questions which will inform me on how, what and why people would want/not want a college magazine. Please put thought into answering these questions as they will be useful for me in the production of my college magazine.
1. Are you male or female? (Please circle appropriate answer)
Female
Male
2. How old are you?
16
17
18
19+
3. Would you be interested in a college magazine?
Yes
No
If no, please specify your reason:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. What genre of magazine attracts you the most?
Music
Sports
Cooking
Gossip/Celebrities
Lifestyle
Cars
Men’s Health
Other (Please specify) ______________________
5. How much would you be willing to pay for a college magazine if it included what you chose in question 4?
None, I want it for free
£0.00 - £2.00
£3.00 - £5.00
£6.00 +
6. What do you think draws an audience into buying a magazine?
Brightness
Name
Information in which it contains
The person on the cover
Celebrities
7. What would you want your college magazine to include?
Sports & Lifestyles
Achievements of students
General info about college
Music
Performing arts
Other (Please specify) _________________
8. Would you like your magazine to be a mixture of genre’s ranging from music to sports, or would you prefer it if it was just one genre?
Mixture, it’s more informative
One genre, it’ll be to busy
9. How would you want your magazine to be available?
Tutor giving it to you in your tutorial Pick it up by reception
Students handing them around
In the Diner/Café Tois
Learning Resource Centre (LRC)
Other (Please specify) ___________________
10. Would you like the magazine to appear online as well as in paper form?
Yes
No
I used many closed and multi-choice questions and answers, as I didn't want written opinions because I found that it would be difficult to construct statistics from them.
In this survey, I will be asking a number of questions which will inform me on how, what and why people would want/not want a college magazine. Please put thought into answering these questions as they will be useful for me in the production of my college magazine.
1. Are you male or female? (Please circle appropriate answer)
Female
Male
2. How old are you?
16
17
18
19+
3. Would you be interested in a college magazine?
Yes
No
If no, please specify your reason:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. What genre of magazine attracts you the most?
Music
Sports
Cooking
Gossip/Celebrities
Lifestyle
Cars
Men’s Health
Other (Please specify) ______________________
5. How much would you be willing to pay for a college magazine if it included what you chose in question 4?
None, I want it for free
£0.00 - £2.00
£3.00 - £5.00
£6.00 +
6. What do you think draws an audience into buying a magazine?
Brightness
Name
Information in which it contains
The person on the cover
Celebrities
7. What would you want your college magazine to include?
Sports & Lifestyles
Achievements of students
General info about college
Music
Performing arts
Other (Please specify) _________________
8. Would you like your magazine to be a mixture of genre’s ranging from music to sports, or would you prefer it if it was just one genre?
Mixture, it’s more informative
One genre, it’ll be to busy
9. How would you want your magazine to be available?
Tutor giving it to you in your tutorial Pick it up by reception
Students handing them around
In the Diner/Café Tois
Learning Resource Centre (LRC)
Other (Please specify) ___________________
10. Would you like the magazine to appear online as well as in paper form?
Yes
No
I used many closed and multi-choice questions and answers, as I didn't want written opinions because I found that it would be difficult to construct statistics from them.
Texual Analysis
Before I could start to construct my college magazine, I had to analysis an exsisting college magazine. I found this was helpful for my actual magazine cover because I also found that a magazine cover can convey many different messages.
Analysis of College Magazine:Ridgewater College.
Ridgewater College’s magazine cover is one of brightness and its front page is packs with information about the content of the magazine. First of all, we see a young Asian lady as the centre image. The cover of the magazine shows, a warm and good atmosphere. In first instance, we connote that the lady is a student and it attending Ridgewater College.
She is in room which seems to be a like a common room or a chaplaincy. We see a lot of chairs surrounding her own which connotes to us that she is in a community area and it also brings in a sense of society. Also because the lady is not of Caucasian decent, it brings in the idea that the college is culturally diverse and will offer places to people of different cultural backgrounds.
The background is bright and has high-key lighting to emphasis the warm surroundings and the happiness that the college will bring. Also, the lady has a smile on her face, to show that she is happy and maybe to express the joy that she feels for attending Ridgewater.
The background is bright and has high-key lighting to emphasis the warm surroundings and the happiness that the college will bring. Also, the lady has a smile on her face, to show that she is happy and maybe to express the joy that she feels for attending Ridgewater.
The lady in the centre of the cover is dressed casually which connotes a relaxed atmosphere and a chance for students to feel accepted by the community; no matter what they wear. Although her clothes expose some skin, she is still appropriately dressed which also sends out the message to other students to dress appropriately. The lady is an ordinary student, which connotes to the target audience that anyone could be on the front of that magazine.
Props used in the image are the use of the chair in which the student appears to be sitting on, also the lamp in which is providing light to brighten up the scene. The room also has plants and lamps which make it more homely for students so that they feel free to relax and also so that they feel as if the college is like their home. The globe is also present in the image showing that not only is this a room for relaxation, it could also be used as a resource room or a room for studying.
The image is in the centre and is mid-shot as we can see the lady’s face and part of her body. The angle of the camera is slightly raised as the lady appears to be looking forwards into the camera raising her head and eyes to contain full eye contact with the camera. The focus is soft as we can see the sharpness of the image taken.
The title is written in Times New Roman text and is big and easily catches the attention of the audience. The font is white and seems to stand out amongst the rest of the text because of the size. When things are written in Times New Roman, they are usually meant to be serious and by this, we can tell that although the magazine connotes a warm and loving atmosphere, it is also wanted to be taken seriously. The text also looks old-fashioned which connotes to me that the College has been running for a long time and is probably well known and old. The sub-headings for the college are in more warm and inviting fonts as it does not have the seriousness of Times New Roman. The words “GLOBAL WARMING” is bold and express that it is an important subject which, is going to be looked at in the magazine. The rest of the magazine has very limited and small writing.
The lady, is seen to be smiling which shows that she is happy with the choice that she has made to attend Ridgewater College, and could also mean that everything is going well and is running smoothly in regards to her college life. Her body language connotes that she is relaxed and comfortable in her surroundings as she has her arms over one side of the chair and her legs are placed in a “relaxed” manner. Meaning, she has no hostility against the people in which surround her.
Fenetta Agyemang A.S Media StudiesMr Jadeja.
Fenetta Agyemang A.S Media StudiesMr Jadeja.
Introduction
In my introductory task, I have been asked to create my own College magazine front cover and contents page. In the process of making my magazine, I will update the stages in which I am going through, to give you an insight of my production process.
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