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. 














 

G. Evaluation: Technologies,

QUESTION 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

This image is copied from Google, but this is a reputation of the kind of set up I used. In the studio all I had was the back of a classroom which has a pull down white paper backdrop which although it catered for my needs, it was a pretty basic set up. As for the lighting it was something that I played around with a lot, as in the studio there were two different lamps, one with and umbrella and one soft box. So I made the most out of my resources and while experimenting and seeing what worked for this specific photo shoot, I found that by using both of the photographic lamps made my images a little too bright but if anything much too flat, in my photography I like there to be good balance between the shadows and highlights. To create this I used the soft box but dimmed down the strength of light it was giving out and this worked for my images and this is how I photographed throughout my magazine for the studio images. For this shoot I didn’t want to use a tripod as I can find them quite restricting sometimes when doing portraits and the camera I used throughout the magazine was a Nikon D90.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for the editing side of things I didn’t touch Photoshop CS6  too much as when photographing I made sure that everything was set up properly so that was nothing to edit. Usually if I go to edit things on Photoshop I only adjust the levels, shadows and highlights, because I made sure that these were perfect while photographing when it came back to uploading onto the computer it saved time and also stopped my images looking fake plus it would be improper to use it for the manipulation of my images as it is primarily a culture magazine that focuses a lot on photography and art. However when it was used it was to put text onto the image to create my cover, contents and feature pages, I did this by using the text tool and this allowed me to put text everywhere and anywhere I wanted over the image as if I were to use Microsoft Word this is when it would restrict me.

 

 


 

I didn’t want to use Flickr, ISSUU or Prezi as I felt that these ways of presentation were too fancy and complicated for me which resulted in being far too time consuming, plus for my satisfaction I also felt that if I were to use these ways of presentation that I could miss critical points when talking about my work. So when using Blogger as my blogging site I decided to manually write all my work out as I prefer this as I feel it’s more informative.  The advantages about using Blogger are the fact that you can easily edit analyses easily. The only disadvantages of using Blogger is that work could easily be plagiarised especially over the college network, and the way that Blogger is set out can be quite confusing but if you sat down with it for a couple of hours like I did you’ll get the hang of it eventually.

F. Evaluation: Adressing my audience,

QUESTION 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

My audience would buy my magazine as at the point of sale of it being on the shelves in WH Smiths or any obscure/high end book shops or a good newsagents; I have designed the front cover to be minimalistic and let the image do the talking. So the image that I photographed had to be striking and really stand out compared to other magazine shots, so I came up with the idea of photographing my two of my friends by painting their faces. One with white paint and the other black and then they both had the opposite colour from each other on their faces picking out their features. I photographed them in the studio with well thought out lighting to enhance the dramatic make-up by having a well-lit set but with the use of clever shadows. For the cover image I angled so that it gently lit one side of my friends face as I painted her face black but her eye brows are white and her lips red. I tied her hair up to show the make-up off as this is the focus of the cover and because the make-up is so simple yet dramatic she didn’t need anything else; it also keeps in with my minimalistic theme which I took inspiration from I-D Magazine. The way that my cover model is looking directly into the camera lens I also think makes it so much more striking, and it’s an amalgamation of all of these subtle but important things all put together for this shoot which makes the cover image so interesting as for this particular magazine there is hardly any text so it won’t be the cover line stories or competitions which help sell and get my magazine picked off from the shelf. My masthead that I chose would appeal to my target audience as the there is a minimalistic colour scheme chosen with the colours of black, white and red as these are the colours which are used on my front cover and decided that this was going to be the running colour scheme through this issue of AV. The font styles used were also slim lined, and again minimal as I wanted the front cover to look striking but sophisticated at the same time. I didn’t go for any cover lines or competitions etc. as this is not what would appeal to my audience, funnily enough it is my friends who I photographed for this are the type of people who I aiming this magazine to as if they were in a shop going to buy a magazine they would walk straight past these types of magazines with busy covers with the exception Vogue; if they wanted gossip or news they would in fact tend to go and buy a newspaper.  Also to back this up a minimalistic front cover came on top with the results from my survey when I asked the question, ‘’for the front cover, what type of layout would appeal to you most?’’ The answer came out as ‘’One cover image, minimal text ‘’ with a total 53.3%.

 

The content and language is appealing to my target audience as they would probably be intelligent undergraduates or post graduates and come from at least a middle class family and speak receive pronunciation (RP) but have all these quality’s but by still being cool and creative without the stereotypical snobbishness and so the use of language would mirror this style. For one thing it wouldn’t be formal written articles throughout which look almost laborious and boring to read. The contents of my magazine feature all things from music, fashion, art and photography as well as film and anything which is culturally related so this could feature politics or current affairs occasionally. My main feature article for this issue is on my friends pretending to be a new collaborative art coupling, who are exhibiting together in Japan and I interview them based on I-D online interviews which are really informal and simple but I like this as every other magazine tries to squeeze everything out of them which the people being interview probably have answered a million times, I-D have a fresh approach. The nature of this interview is relaxed because my target audience would possess this type of attitude which would influence their lifestyle and comes with the use of slang.

 

My unique selling point for my magazine is that people will be buying into a cultural magazine that would influence their lifestyle and educate them about the new up and coming things and so for my target audience meeting their want of being an individual and providing them the latest band or artist first. Not to mention that my front covers could also turn into a collectors thing as well as if the magazine was to continue then it would guest the world’s top photographers.

E. Evaluation: Target audience,

This is how I would expect my target audience to dress and look like. My audience is the sort of person who won’t change themselves for their lifestyle choice, music taste, fashion sense, or for anything else especially not for the pleasing of other people. However it isn’t just aimed at teenagers but professionals with in the fashion industry, with in the arts and primarily art students.

In terms of the demographics I would say that this magazine could cater from age groups ranging from 16-30+. As I don’t just want ‘hipsters’ to be readers, I also want people who have a say in the artistic world to be influenced. On the whole I would say that my magazine is aimed at females primarily but not subjected to women only, although if it were to be a male who was reading more times out of ten they wouldn’t be straight; although, it’s not to say that it wouldn’t straight men as it could with my magazine leaning slightly towards the music scene more but combining fashion with it as well because tastes in music I almost always find that influence a person’s fashion sense. I would predict that most of the readers would be people from big cities or people who have big dreams to live and work in the city; I think that would be the majority of my target audience. To put my audience in classes I would think that they would fit into classes A and B as they are most likely to be professionals with in their industry, or aspiring professionals (art/fashion students and interns or apprentices). I hope magazine is something that inspires people to want to carry on their studies in the creative field and hopefully achieve big with it so it attracts the individual, and because o this I think my magazine certainly has an indie quality about it.

 

My target audience are probably the type of people to shop regularly in vintage boutiques and possibly charity shops occasionally, as it is their style to find items which will set them apart from the crowd and not to save for outfits but buy them for as cheap as they can so like bargain hunters. However they also very much like to mix high-end designers with their vintage finds, so this is when my advertisers will interest my audience and get their inspiration to make their style their own. My audience would be interested in my magazine as it would give them up to date news on news music and up and coming bands/artists that are under the radar as well as up and coming designers. As my magazine is a culture magazine which includes, the arts, fashion and music it covers a whole spectrum for creative minded people so it is almost like an inspirational bible, being able to look at the photos and read feature and interviews getting to know the artists that the readers may look up to as really the aim of this magazine is to try and provoke creativity in each and every person who picks it up in some way.

 

In my magazine I would ideally have popular high end fashion brands advertising as well as well-known vintage stores and the odd fitting high street brand such as Topshop, American Apperal or Urban Outfitters as there is also a range of classes that my magazine reaches out to. The adverts would have to be appealing both to men and woman as it isn’t aimed at one or the other.

The images below are taken from Google images but show a representation of the ideal audience I have in mind

C. Evaluation: Representation,

My media product represents particular social groups by putting together things that I believe my audience are interested in, I also found out the specifics by carrying out a survey. I have represented the things which my audiences are interested in by featuring the things mentioned in the survey, such as Music, Art, Photography and Fashion. Sport also came out with in the top 5 but I decided not to include this as it didn’t fit in with the theme of my magazine as it it is a culture magazine and I felt that this it would be something that this social group would not look for in a culture magazine. I would say that my magazine is intended for an indie style group, but when I say this I think the idea of ‘indie’ has changed so much with the new stereotype of ‘hipster’ which I would say was more appropriate as they will usually be more pretentious and like to seem intellectual but cool and arty at the same time. This social group usually loves to drink coffee/tea, have a smoke and visit vintage stores to find the most original piece of clothing they can- my aim for this magazine is to give the hipsters inspiration, educate and be almost a staple in their outfit, a magazine that they would on purpose have on the table in a cute coffee shop, almost like a staple. So in my magazine which has taken inspiration from I-D Magazine, I have included a balance of music but features and interviews from more obscure bands and artists as this is what hipsters are in search of. My magazine is probably aimed for towards females but could also appeal to the male market if one of the issues were to have something that specifically appeals to them. I have represented them by the style and the nature of the photographs used for my magazine as they are put together, thought out, different and hopefully catch the eye of the consumer but also after being read it would also have the purpose of being loved and used again by being stuck up on the walls of my target audience. The choice of langue I have used in Avant-Garde is quite relaxed and simple although the ordering and some of the words and phrases used could be thought of as different and witty, but still understandable but not boring or bordering being too simple to read. I also had the same concept for the font, throughout the magazine which looks as if it’s been typewritten which fits in well with the artsy feel I’m going for as well as being heavily influenced from my model magazine I-D. The colours used for this issue won’t be the same all the time it will depend on the cover photo but the red, white and black all suited each other and so this theme carried on throughout my product while at the same time also having a reference to Q Magazine. I have in a way reinforced a stereotype by not including mainstream interests as this is not what my social group would be interested in, they are on the look for new so my features slightly lean towards music a little more heavily and these do not include mainstream artists although some mainstream powerhouses such as Beyoncé, Kanye West, Lady Gaga are thought to be icons and to a hipster group these would be acceptable to include occasionally in feature articles. I have also possibly tested the stereotype by containing some interviews and features with top fashion houses as the aimed social group probably wouldn’t initially look to buy their clothes it acts as inspiration and desire.