Conventions diagram

Magazine Character profile

The Filth reader: Jason is 18 years of age, a passionate Hip-hop/rap fan. Jason is currently in his first year of university studying music. During his spare time he writes a lot of Hip-hop lyrics and practises his rapping in his friend’s studio to see how he sounds and to make improvements on his style of rapping. Jason sees music as something he was born to do and finds it very inspirational. Famous rappers such as Jay-z, Nas and Giggs have inspired him to pursue his dreams. Jason is from a Caribbean and African descent and grew up with Hip-hop music as his older brothers are very passionate about music as well and often listened to it. He enjoys reading ‘Filth’ magazine to stay up to date with the latest music and to find out more about his favourite rappers, he enjoys reading emotional stories about rappers life’s before they became famous as this motivates him a lot. Jason is currently making tracks for his first mix tape and hopes that he will get signed by a record company after its release.

I would target my music magazine to Jason by including a lot of information his favourite rap artists such as their concerts dates; album releases and songs that are on the top of the charts. Also I will include stories on how they became a rapper and what their life was like before they became famous. I will also include competitions to give my target audience a chance to win tickets to see their favourite rap artists so that my target audience will continue to read my magazine.

Audience research

Evaluation question 7

Question 7: looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

I have learnt many skills that have helped me to produce my final product, since doing my preliminary task. One very useful skill I learnt is learning the conventions that magazines use to make a professional magazine, this has helped me improved my magazines quality and it has also helped me make it look more realistic. The first preliminary task I created lacked use of magazine conventions and result of this my products was of poor quality.

Another very useful skill I have learnt from the progression from my preliminary task that has helped me produce my final product is how to use Adobe Photoshop which was something I found very hard to use when creating my preliminary task. Adobe Photoshop was the software I used to create my final product which has improved the quality of my music magazine and was able to adjust things that didn’t make my magazine look more professional. Whereas in my college magazine I wasn’t able to adjust things I didn’t like as much as I lacked convention skills.

My preliminary task only had a front cover and contents page where as my final product had a front cover, contents page and a double page spread, this shows my progression from my preliminary tasks as it was my first time creating a page that was vertical and was different to the front cover and contents page. I also learnt how to work on an A3 canvas to produce my double page spread.

The progression from my preliminary task to my final product has taught me how to attract my target audience and how to address a particular social group which was the aim of my music magazine and was something I lacked knowledge on when making my preliminary task. My college magazine had a wider audience so I had to addresses a much wider audience whereas my music magazine only targeted a smaller audience. This shows progression as I had to be more selective and do research on how I could address the audience that my magazine would attract.

Evaluation question 6

Question 6: what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the process of constructing my final product I have learnt a lot about technology that helped me improve and construct my magazine. The first thing I learnt in the process of constructing my magazine was how to use a Canon E0S 400D camera to take pictures of my models for my magazine. Though i used the same camera for my preliminary task i didn’t know how to create the image i wanted but in the process of creating my final product i learnt how to do it. I used long shot photos so I could fit all my models in and also so that once I put it on Photoshop I would be allowed to crop unnecessary things that I did not wanted. 

Another useful technology I learnt is the use of Photoshop, before i created my tasks my knowledge of Photoshop was very little but through progression it has improved a lot. I used Photoshop CS5 to create my music magazine, this is because it had more features then cs3 and I found it much easier to control my images and the layers. I used many different tools to construct my magazine, one tool I used was the Polygonal Lasso tool so that I could select my model and could make the contrast brighter or darker without having to change the contrast of the background. I also used the patch tool to make one part of my background the same colour as the other so my magazine would look better.

Another technology I used was the internet. I was told to create a blogger account to submit all my media coursework in and it recorded the time you posted your work also. To upload images onto blogger.com I would have to save the image as a JPEG file before attempting to upload it. I found many problems using this website for example, sometimes when I would copy and paste the text into the new post box and then publish it, there would be a white background covering my writing which didn’t allow the text to appear. Another problem was when trying to arrange the images into your desired position, when uploading a larger picture it was very difficult to place it next to a smaller picture that you have already uploaded in the new post box though there was space for it to go there. Another problem was that the formats of the text would change when you previewed the post before you published it. However through the process of using blogger I overcame all of these issues and published my work in an organised fashion.

Another technology I used was google.com. I used google.com to research everything I needed to know about magazines e.g. the conventions used in a real magazine; how a real magazine design was laid out and what sort of topics magazines discuss. I also used Google images to get magazine front cover images for my textual analysis. I also used Wikipedia.org as it has a very detailed explanation of the thing you want to research about and to research about companies that published the magazine that I wanted to distribute my magazine to for question 3.

I used Microsoft software’s such as Microsoft word 2010 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2007. I used Microsoft word 2010 to write up all my written tasks such as textual analysis and to use its spell-checker so my grammar was correct. I used Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 to upload the screen munchies of my audience research so I could organise it in a way that I wanted to and to save it as a JPEG so I could upload it onto Blogger. 

Evaluation question 5

Question 5: how did you attract/ address your audience?

I attracted and addressed my audience in many different ways. the first way I attracted my target audience was through the magazine front cover which I think was the most important way of attracting my target audience and determined whether they would buy it or not. The model I used for my front cover was dressed in known brands such as Nike which represents the genre of music that my target audience listen to. Also my model is quite attractive and which helps attract my female audience.  The jewellery that my model wears such as ear rings and a ring also relates to my targets audience as many young people wear them.

Another way I attracted my target audience is by concentrating on the U.K. rap/hip-hop scene which is what my target audience would like to read about, I used cover lines to make it obvious on what the magazine would be about and the topics in the magazine that are discussed. I also used popular U.K. rap artist to attract my target audience for example, one of my cover-lines say “Giggs new album was a flop” this would attract my target audience as Giggs is a well know and liked Rap artist and people generally enjoy his music but because someone harshly criticized it my target audience would want to know why someone would say this. I also included a competition which would appeal to my target audience as they are tickets to see a very well-known U.K. rap artist.

I used different fonts and different font colours to make my magazine look more interesting which I think attracts my target audience as it shows that the design of the magazine is creative.  The masthead of my magazine also attracts my target audience as it’s a different font to all the other fonts in the magazine which makes it seems unique as its named ‘Filth’ as the magazine has dirty secrets about famous U.K. rappers and also the streets of the U.K. especially London are grimy and filthy so this relates to my target audience

The colour scheme that I used for my music magazine also attracted my music magazine. The colour scheme was mainly based on blue, white, black and grey, the black represents the dark topics that my magazine discuss such as knife crime but the other colours give a relaxed feel to the magazine. The colour I chose for my magazine are also closely linked to the colour clothing that people of the genre of my music magazine wear so this creates attraction as it suggest the magazine relates to them. I used Standard English throughout the whole magazine because if I used slang the older people might not have understood the concept so I used Standard English so young and old could understand the topics in the magazine.

The layout of my contents paged attracted my target audience as it was very organised and looked neat which makes it clearer to read and so my target audience find trouble reading it.

Evaluation question 4

Question 4: who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience is aimed at people who are aged 14-25 British audience. This is because Britain and have a very strong Hip-hop/rap scene, British rappers such as K Koke, Giggs and Sneakbo are very popular in Britain and other European countries.

There are a number of reasons why I chose such a young target audience. Firstly the Artist featured in my magazine are relatively young so they can relate to the young people of this generation. Secondly the topics that my magazine discusses relate to young people such as knife crime, swagger and raves. Thirdly because young people are familiar of new and upcoming artist so they can stay up to date on all their latest tracks mix tapes and albums.

Although rap and hip-hop are associated with black people my magazine does target all races and both male and female. My magazine targets and audience who would like to know more information on the artist they normally listen to which could make them feel closer to them.