My final pages

Final pages presentation from Sam Williams

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full product?

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

In what ways does your media product use from Sam Williams

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

What kind of media publisher would distribute your product and why?

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

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

 

During the course of this main task project, I have expanded and built upon skills I learnt during the preliminary task. In the preliminary task I used Adobe InDesign for the first time, and now in the main task I have continued to use it and develop my skills on it.

 

As the main task has to be more professional, I have had to perfect my skills on InDesign in order to make the magazine pages look as though they belong in an actual, genuine magazine. I also adapted the skills I already have in Adobe Photoshop CS6. In order to get my magazine images to professional standards, I applied levels to the photographs to increase the contrasts and overall image quality. Then I used the lasso tool to cut out the image of my main model, as I didn't want him on the fence background. This was a challenge, as it was something I hadn't done in detail to this degree before. It took me many attempts, however I eventually got there with a good finished edit.

 
The advantages of using Photoshop is that it is the most advanced photo editing software on the internet, therefore it is the best choice for editing and cropping images like I have here. When editing my images I applied adjustments such as curves and levels in order to bring out the contrast which in turn gives them a better quality, and in essence a more professional quality. The disadvantage is that the lasso tool is very precise and intricate, meaning it is very easy to make a mistake and have to start again, which is what happened to me multiple times in the process of trying to crop out this model from the background.

 

 

In terms of InDesign, I have used it to make my work more professional, compared to how professional it looked in the preliminary task. The advantage of InDesign is that it is professional, and it t is what all the professional magazine editors use to compile the content when constructing their magazine pages, therefore it was the perfect choice for me. However, the disadvantage is that I am still not 100% skilled in InDesign, meaning I have spent lots of times undoing and reviewing work that I have gotten wrong as a result of not doing it right the first time, simply because I do not have much experience in it.

The advantages of using slideshare and prezi is that they are more exciting ways of getting my content onto the blog, without the need for just basic blog entries. The disadvantage however is that these are put online for anyone to see, which means there is potential for someone else to copy and plagiarise my work, in turn infringing copyright.



How did you attract / address your audience?

Double Page Spread :

Double page spread annotation from Sam Williams

How did you attract / address your audience?

Contents Page :

Contents page analysis from Sam Williams

How did you attract address your audience ?

Front page :

Front page annotation from Sam Williams

How did you attract / address your audience?

In order to answer this question, I will produce annotations of each page I created (Front page, contents page and double page spread) on different blog posts. In order to make it more creative and more interesting, I will create each one on  Microsoft powerpoint, and embed it into the blog via slideshare.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

As previously stated in my coursework blog, my target audience are 15-30 year olds, interested in Rock n Roll and pop music (because this magazine is based around Pop and Rock), liking bands such as the Beatles and Coldplay. They would read the magazine because it makes them happy that they have learnt something new about pop rock and the people within the community. It also shows they enjoy reading about the latest news regarding pop rock music, that they are interested in this genre. They read it to keep up to date with the latest goings on of the rock and pop community.

This is further outlined in my brand eye research task, which I created in the research and planning stage of my main task. I created this to understand more the type of people that would read my magazine; my target audience.


As well as a brand eye, I also created a target audience analysis to pinpoint exactly who I aimed my magazine towards. I believe I have tailored this magazine towards my target audience, and this will be further explained in detailed annotation on the upcoming evaluation blog posts.

In my target audience analysis I detailed such things as the clothes they would wear, which in this case would be mainstreamed clothes, seeing as pop rock is somewhat seen as a mainstream music genre, the type of genre everybody listens to, without much defined, eccentric culture to support it. Therefore the types of clothes they would wear are items such as shirt and jeans, just typical everyday wear. Seeing as the target audience are 15-30 I presumed that the majority of the audience would not be in a position of seniority or management yet, therefore they have more low level jobs such as retail.

Evaluation

I will begin to evaluate my main task over the coming days and weeks to round off my project so far.

The questions that I will be answering and discussing include;

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract / address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Seeing as the evaluation is a creative task, I will try to present mine in different, interesting ways. These include, prezi, podcasts, screen recording software etc.

Pictures used

This is a contact sheet made up of all the pictures I shot that I would use for my contents page.

Final Pages

House style for Anthem

I have decided that my colour scheme will be red, black and white. The red has connotations of power, passion and courage. With my magazine I aim to express passion, in this case a passion for pop rock music. The red, black and white colour palette is reflective of Q magazine, which is known for its iconic red black and white colours used. Q is also a pop rock music magazine, therefore this shows that this colour scheme will appeal to the pop rock target audience, as I know that Q is successful.

 

 

I will not have a logo as such, but instead a powerful and iconic "ANTHEM" masthead in either red or white text, the font of which will be Haettenschweiler as that is a powerful and dominant font style which is helpful as I am aiming to convey power with my magazine, as the people reading it will want to achieve some sort of power within their lives.

 

The location of the barcode, issue date and issue number will be found on the bottom right of the page because that is where it is conventionally found, such as on this magazine :

 

 

 

Contents Page Design

I am currently designing my contents page, and I want it to contain a line at the top with the name of my magazine, Anthem, to feature somewhere along the line. This is to take inspiration from this magazine:

 
 Here is the first design of the line at the top,

 

 

However, I have decided to use this line and masthead combo as the red stands out more.

 

Magazine Name

I have decided to name my magazine: ANTHEM .

This is because anthem is synonymous with music, and my magazine is a music magazine. More specifically my magazine is based on pop rock music, and anthems are common with rock songs and concerts. Anthems are used in big stadiums and venues in rock concerts or sports games, and they are powerful. Everyone joins into the anthems and chants together which creates a sense of community and togetherness. This is what I am attempting to create with my magazine, a powerful sense of community, which brings all the fans of pop music and rock music, together.

Front cover decisions

 

This front cover has anthem in red which is conventional in pop rock magazines, as red has connotations of passion, anger etc. The masthead is pushed to the upper left hand side because that is where mastheads are conventionally found on magazine covers, and this is a good place to put it as it is where the human eye is naturally drawn to.

 

However, this is the front page I will be going with because it subverts typical front page stereotypes. This sets the tone of the magazine, that it is different and doesn't follow the crowd, which is something that my target audience will aspire to do. The white masthead stands out more than the red one which draws the eye to the page more than the red does. The image is pushed over to the left which makes it more interesting to look at, and holds the audience's attention for longer than it would have been has it been centred like in the first picture.

My Pop Rock magazine Target Audience Analysis

 

Audience Profile

 

Gender : Unisex

 

Age : 15-30 year olds

 

Clothes they wear : Pop Rock isn't as expressive a genre as say punk rock or indie music, therefore the clothes are average and somewhat mainstream, such as t shirts and jeans. The model on the front cover is wearing a shirt and tie to reflect the older pop rock era such as the Beatles. The fact that the shirt has a tie and is done all the way up conveys eloquence and a smart vibe. However the shirt is untucked which also shows a rebellious side, and that not everything is as it seems which is synonymous with pop rock music. Pop rock is the balance between the jovial innocence of pop and the rebellious extroversion of rock music.

 

Jobs they have : Seeing as the target age demographic is 15-30, a small percentage will be 15-18 and may be in full time education, therefore they may have part time jobs such as retail or stock room. The majority of the target audience however are over 18 and therefore presumably in a job full time, and seeing as this genre is somewhat mainstream and not niche, the audience will have normal, average jobs such as teachers, nurses, retail workers etc.

 

Market Segmentation

 

Demographic : The age range is 15-30 therefore they are of a young age and will presumably have busy, time consuming social lives. This means that this magazine will be read when they are enjoying a brief stint of free time within their hectic timetable.

 

Geographic : Due to the audience not being niche and alternative (which would suggest a catchment area of trendy locations such as Camden, Shoreditch, and Hackney) the areas in which they live will be average and normal such as Manchester, London, Birmingham, Newcastle etc. The mainstreamed genre is the most played on modern radio, therefore there will be an abundance of fans in every city or town in the UK.

 

Psychographic : These audience members will presumably be avid clubbers and drinkers due to their young age. However also because of their young age they may be somewhat tight with money as traditionally young people don't have lots of money as they have not been working as long as people 2-3 decades their senior.

Behavioristic : Mainstreamed audience that listen to pop rock music everyday. May also listen to other genres such as indie and punk. Want to be successful but in their own fields, not necessarily aiming to develop a fruitful career in the pop rock music industry.