A. Main task: Finished products

A. Main task: Finished products,

Orginal Images

All these images are the originals and also represent my planning and ideas for my front cover and for my contents pages.

 

 

 

 

A. Main task: Finished products,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J. Preliminary Task: Finished Products,

Evaluation of Final Preliminary Products

 

The colour scheme that was used was blue, black and white. I decided on these colours as the background image would not have shown up any other colour of text. In areas where the text would not have been visible I have used a white highlighter to create a white back ground just for that area. I also got creative with the masthead as I didn’t have it going across the top centre just going vertically on the right hand side. I also had my own college’s logo on the right hand side to make my college magazine that bit more personal.

I think the way that the text has been laid out is successful as it looks fun and suitable for my target audience. The content pages the way the text has been written with lowercase and upper case letters also could be suitable as it almost replicates ‘text talk’ and the contents page follows easily from the cover page.

I have learnt from this preliminary task is that I should make sure next time that I don’t take my photographs in landscape format but portrait so that it fits A4 and is like conventional magazine. And also improve on my Photoshop skills as for instance the way that I have done my logo is very basic and doesn’t look professional, I need to get to grips with layers a little better.  

B. Evaluation: Forms and Conventions,

QUESTION 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 For my masthead I decided to shorten it down as I was using I-D Magazine almost as my template, but also while researching many other magazines I also saw that for my type of magazine everyone’s titles was either one word or very short, with exception of Dazed & Confused. So for mine I decided to have my mast head as ‘AV’ which is short for avant-garde, I decided to call my magazine this as the name speaks for itself and I feel that it was the most fitting. And then I made a selling line which reads the words ‘Music Arts Fashion Culture’ I decided on these words as I felt that those words are what my magazine represents. For my masthead I used the simple font of ‘Calibri (Body)’ as this was the most fitting font of all of them that I had found, I also made it bold so it helped it come subtly more heavy and strong.

Then for my main cover photo, I decided on this photo as it was the most striking as this what was extremely important for this cover as this is what I believe will be eye catcher for people to pick my publication off from the shelf. The code for my main cover image was that it had to be sleek if anything to fit with my house style, theme, and feel as this is the type of lifestyle that I hope my audience will have. This is also why for many reasons I do not have multiple images on main image as it doesn’t first with my style but also researching other magazines as well as doing, my own research I also found that this front cover layout was more appealing to my audience when asking ‘what type of layout would be more appealing’ a massive 59% saying ‘One cover image and minimal text’. The colours used on this issue played a massive part from the cover photo as the running colour theme throughout this issue were red, black and white, however while relating this convention Wonderland magazine don’t have set colour scheme but heavily rely on their use of font (their house style) to still make their magazine recognisable and this is what I have done as it was the colours featured in my cover photo that determined the font colour.

The cover lines which I eventually decided on were again chosen to be short and sleek, although there isn’t much to the main cover line I felt it more difficult as I had to sum up what the main feature article is about in 2 words, so I settled for ‘Complex & Visionary’. This is because the main feature article is about two collaborating artists who are going on to big things as they are launching an exhibition in Japan, so felt that these words were perfect as artists tend to be complex and of course visionary as this is their practical side of their art as well as their conceptual part. Again I kept to my house style by using the font ‘Prestige Elite Std’ which is the font that has been used throughout my magazine as this is our house style which also seems to be I-D use of font as well.

My use of white space has been made to be as little as possible by making my cover image as large as possible. The little space above her head was left as if I filled the image out to the very edge by just about fitting her on my page then it wouldn’t have worked aesthetically or photographically.

The journalist’s style of written content is extremely relaxed in the way that it has been set out in an interview. The context of the interview is very informal too as when research I-D Magazine, their interview questions were very relaxed and I liked how their questions were unconventional as they were asking their interviewees things that other conventional magazines would not ask. I think it’s important to be like this as you are then you are able to offer something different compared to what other magazines do. This also goes for the way that it has been set out, if you were to look at Vogue when they have interviews they set it out as an article which unless you have a deep interest in the person being interviewed then it can be very hard to follow, I have set mine out in the form of question for answers.





























The way that I divided my contents page up was by simply having the main subjects in sub-headings and then writing the feature titles with the page numbers. Initially I was going to have two images at the top of the page as I was closely relating my contents page to one from Dazed & Confused but decided to change it and make it my own by having just one image of the two artists features in the main article in the back ground but turning down the opacity so that the text is more visible. It was for my main feature article that was the only page which had multiple images, this was done so to illustrate the two and show them without the make-up on their faces as it was here that I illustrated the page with personal images. I based it around this image below in particular:





 

D. Evaluation: Institutions,

 

 

QUESTION 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 would most probably have IPC Publications to publish my magazine as there aren’t many magazines like mine that that they have with in their portfolio. When I say there aren’t any magazines like mine I meant in terms of content and audience, as the closest magazine to mine would probably have to be NME but with more focus on the art, fashion, photography and culture as a opposed to mainly just music. Condé Nast features a lot of magazines that would appear to rivals to my publication as all of their magazines are probably seen as the most popular and famous magazines as they hold the names of Vogue, GQ, Tatler, Vanity Fair and Glamour- that’s just to name a few. They also publish LOVE Magazine which has also been a key form of inspiration into my final product. Primarily getting published by Condé Nast would possibly be more fitting as it would be similar to all their other magazines that they publish as well as the target audience they aim to. However by publishing with IPC it makes sense to go with a publishing house that already competes against other massive publishing firms. If I did choose to go with a publishing house that already had similar audience then I feel that there would be less focus on the marketing of my magazine.

 A massive problem with publishing with a monster publishing house is that you can run into things such as a thing called Editorial Independence which is the freedom of the editor being able to make their own decisions without the owners of the publication being able to interfere. It is tested when for example if a magazine runs a story which may be inappropriate to the advertising clientele. And this is one thing that my magazine could face being with IPC as my publication is an art and culture magazine it possibly may feature quite controversial content depending on our current affairs and the way that AV may respond to these, but England is becoming an ever more free thinking country day by day so I think that I am keeping up the times with my magazine being able to have this possible content.

For the distribution of my magazine it is important that it gets to all corners of the country and hopefully goes across worldwide in time to come such as America especially as I think it has a market for what my magazine has to offer. To do this, this is when getting published by IPC publication would help as if I decided to go solo and self-publish my magazine I personally wouldn’t have the revenue backup to do this.

 

Because my magazine would appeal a lot to the fashion minded I think that being published by a big company is key for my magazine in the hope of it going forward, as it is increasingly difficult to keep a title going with as many as 4/500 titles failing with in their first 3 years. By going with IPC it will also give me a better revenue income as hopefully I will secure some top fashion designers such as V. Westwood, D&G, Chanel and Mulberry who would feel that my product is a suitable place to advertise but also I hope that some fitting high street chains could advertise as well like Topshop, American Apparel and Urban Outfitters as these would also appeal to my percentage of students who will read my magazine as the top end brands will possibly be slightly out of their reach but also count to be some sort of aim or dream when they do start earning a salary. These advertisers are important for a magazine as they form the mass part of the magazines revenue as well as the actual sales.

With the growing popularity of smart phones, iPads and other up and coming forms of media the use of having an online version of magazine would be beneficial for the distribution but also a cheaper way of making my magazine as this way it would cut down the cost of printing and the resources that make it. I could make an app for my publication as this is again another form that is growing massively, plus it would also fit in with my audience and their supposed lifestyle, these are a few of many means of synergy.

H. Evaluation: Skills development,

QUESTION 7: Looking back at your preliminary task of the college magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the full product?

My college magazine was extremely basic and rushed when I made it. The front cover had an image of some friends working together on some homework to give it the feel of a college environment, I then copy and pasted my own college’s logo on over the top of the image. Then for the font I used a type written style as I decided that it gave the magazine a bit more of a up-to-date feel as well as it fitting well with my model magazines which I got inspiration from. Then for my contents page I just had a block colour of sky blue and then had had bullets points with white written text but this wasn’t in a type written style of text. I decided on the blue background as I felt that it had better flow in conjunction with the front cover, and the white text was white so that it was easy to read. I also decided to have some lower and cupper case letters with in the words as I felt this would communicate better to teenagers although this is very much so a stereotypical thoughts as personally I hate it when I see on adverts for teenagers they use abbreviations or ‘text talk’ when addressing teenagers like myself.

So to improve from my first attempt of making a magazine that was my college magazine I made, AV (Avant-Garde), I did a whole host of things.

1)      For instance, the photograph quality and aesthetically speaking was a lot stronger as well and the quantity of photographs used throughout the magazine, not to mention that the camera I was using was also of a higher quality as well as being able to apply more technical methods to my photography creating the effects that I wanted and not the camera creating them for me as this is what happened for my college magazine as the camera was set to ‘auto’.

2)      The way I improved my second magazine was by having a strong inspiration model to work from as I felt this made my work a lot stronger and well as it having a lot more structure. So the layout this time round for me is certainly something that I have looked deeply into and so I chose minimalistic as this is the type of layout that cultural magazines seem to go for. I also learnt that many magazines will carry their colour scheme from the cover into the feature article double page spread but I also added my own twist by using the same photo from the photo shoot into all three of the cover, contents and feature article.

 

3)      I also learnt a lot about fonts in the way that it really does make a difference in the way that it speaks out to the audience as to what your magazine is about. I did initially think about using the same type writer font but I decided against it as it seems a bit try hard so I opted for something that was sleek and sophisticated, this is again very important as because there isn’t much on my cover everything that there is on my cover needs to be strong, bold and striking- this is when my chosen cover lines taps in I think.

 

4)      My need to research existing magazines was a must for me as I was venturing into something quite different room my class as I wanted to do a culture magazine as a opposed to a music magazine purely because it’s something that I find more interesting and from my photography point of view I would be able to be more creative and have fun more fun with it this way. So for this I looked at I-D, LOVE, Wonderland, Dazed  & Confused and POW- these magazines content provided just what I was after in the need of layout ideas, the way they use their language in articles which I found often was extremely laidback and cool, and the way they colour scheme. This is what was important for my final piece compared to my college magazine which was just a mish-mash of colour because it had no real direction, so for my final piece I settled on 3 colours which consisted of red, white and black which I think created the striking front cover that I was after.