Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression?

Evaluation Q6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Q5 - How did you attract/address your audiences?

http://goanimate.com/videos/0qnAuiLyhrRs

Evaluation Q4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Q3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your product?

Evaluation Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?

FINAL Double Page Spread

This is my final double page spread of my media music magazine. I decided that it should involve an interview of the artist Kira Owen because I thought it would grab the attention of the reader more than other articles that do not include an interview, for example. I used a black font with a white stroke/outline. This makes the artists' name stand out bringing the readers attention to what they are going to reading about. I have kept the purple theme going by using the word "interview." This allows for the magazine to be linked altogether and brings the magazine together as a whole. I researched that the writing of the whole article had to be in size 11 font and therefore I had to keep adding more to my article in order to fill room that wasn't there before when I had bigger front. This was very time consuming as I wrote out each bit of text in a separate text box meaning I had to change it all around when I realised about the size of my front. I used an image if Kira that goes across both pages so that the article would look more engaging from a reader point of view. As well as this, the use of her purple hair cooperates with the purple and black colour scheme and this was one of the reasons I chose to use her as my model in the first place. 

FINAL Contents

This is my final contents page of my indie pop music magazine. I liked the idea of keeping the darker colours as a theme throughout this media text because it gives the magazine a sense of personality. From all the drafts that I have done and from my preliminary task for my contents page, I came to a conclusion that the page below best fit the genre of my music magazine. I used mostly darker colours however, I wanted it to seem more interesting with a splash of the colour purple. This particular colour is used on my front page cover as well because of Kiera's hair most of all. I included a colour as well as having dark colours portrayed in order to show a recurring theme throughout the magazine. I found this concept works in successful magazines such as Rolling Stones and therefore I wanted to try it out, furthermore, it worked in my opinion. When taking the images for my magazine, I had to make sure they looked individual and different from normal pictures that are being taken. This included visiting certain places with people in order to reach the best look possible. We were asked to include at least 12 sections of writing that appear in the magazine, so when I thought I had finished I had to revisit the writing on the page, make the font smaller and add a lot more. This process took a while but it was worth it for the finishing product. For the title of the page, I found that with other magazines, they used their first initial of the name of the magazine and then laid out the word, "contents" next to it. I liked how this aspect looked on a page and this alluded to including it in my own magazine. 

FINAL Front Cover

This is my final front page cover of my indie pop music magazine. I looked at what worked and what didn't within my drafts and came to this front page as a conclusion. I knew I had to take a new picture and one where the background would fit in with the magazine front cover. I found that by looking at other successful magazines, this looked most like a real magazine. I put a banner at the top to portray what kinds of aspects will be included in the magazine. I needed to make the key words short and snappy so that they would be remembered when the public would be reading inside. The masthead changed to serif font because it is proven that it is easier to read than not-serif front. As well as this I made the letters a darker colour with a white outline to make it stand out. The front of it is also quite large to show its importance on the page. I made all the taglines and other text on the page, the same dark colour as the masthead or just plain white. This highlights an 'indie' feel as one wouldn't see this mixture of colours on a typical pop magazine for example. I made the top of the artists' head appear above the masthead and therefore covering the 'R' and 'G.' I found that this technique occurs in music magazines a lot and would benefit me more if I used it to. 

Drafts of my Front Cover

For my original draft of my indie music magazine, I started by taking pictures of some of my peers that go to my school in order to see if any of them would fit the look of "indie." The first draft that I experimented with was this page below.

 I started my first draft by taking a picture of a guy with a guitar because I thought he looked "chilled out" and individual. Nevertheless, when editing him on Photoshop I couldn't quite get the layout right and therefore had to disregard this image overall. I used the magnetic crop tool to cut out the background of the image from the man, however, I had a problem with it and it didn't crop everything I needed out, therefore I went back and cropped more but it took parts of his arm off. This definitely did not look real, although I did learn a lot in how to use that specific tool for when it came to actually making my real music magazine. I also found that the position that the artist was in did not really work that well with the whole lay out of the magazine. I chose this grey coloured background because I thought it would fit in with the indie genre although when looking at other indie pop magazines, I realised that grey was not the colour to use. I liked the masthead because it looked unique but in my opinion it was too stretched out when I look back at it and it had to change. I liked how the taglines included names of artists as it would grab the attention of the reader nevertheless, I think it needed a caption of what the article would be about inside the magazine.      

This was my second draft of my music magazine and in my opinion it was only a little better than the first. I decided that the image of the artist in my first draft wasn't working out because of the position he was in, as well as the camera shot, so I then took some new pictures of others that I thought would look the part of an indie pop star and I placed all the artists in this way on the page. I figured that when I had just about finished my second draft, I realised it looked like a pop magazine rather than an indie pop one. I wasn't happy with it so I had to start again. Although I wasn't happy with the positioning of each artist, I did like the masthead that is portrayed here. It made the page look less pop and more independent and unique. I liked the font and I knew it was the best option to bring it forward onto my next draft. Another aspect that I want keen on within this page was the colour of the writing "Jack Murphy." I realise now that the 'Y' is really hard to see as it is sitting on the hair of the female artist and that needs to change when making the next draft. I loved the way I positioned Yasmin's name and with the font and colour of it. It really stood out and portrayed to the audience that Yasmin will be a main feature in this magazine. I experimented with the words of "Exclusive" and "New" because when I researched what makes a good magazine, I found that using phrases such as these would attract the readers attention, forcing them to buy it. I used the colour of blue from my preliminary task on the phrase at the bottom because blue is a "cool" colour and would make the reader feel relaxed when reading it, and this is the effect I would like to have in my reader overall.



This was the third draft that I made and I realised out of all three front covers, it was the best one. This is because of the black background most of all in my opinion. I realised that other colours for a background didn't really work as it made the magazine look more pop than individual. As said before, I want my readers to feel relaxed and chilled when they go through the magazine and a black background with white writing has that effect as well as Alfie's top conforming to the concept of 'chilled out' with the use of his blue top. I brought in the font of the masthead from the daft before because I liked how it looked on the page, however, I squeezed the word when editing it to make it look longer. I chose a different artist to the ones before on the other drafts because I thought the reason it wasn't working was because of the artist and I think I was right. Although, I was still struggling to make the outline of each persona real. I came to a conclusion that I had to take a picture of an artist with a background that would be close to black, so that I wouldn't have artists on my magazine that didn't look real.  

Magazine Layout Plan (double page spread)

Below is a layout plan for my double page spread. As one can see, I mainly want there to be writing on bot pages in order to make the reader continue through the magazine smoothly. I want to have the artists name on the top left corner going into the centre of the page with an enlarged and unique font. Next to the title of the article, I have written the word "interview" and this is put there to convey to the reader that an interview is taking place on this page so they can decide then whether to read it or skip it. In the same way with the other pages to my magazine, 'interview' is written in purple against a black background. I wanted to keep the colour scheme present throughout my music magazine so that it keeps its identity to make it individual.

The writing would be written in the colour of white as it is the most visible to see when on a black background. I want to make sure the writing doesn't cover the artist which is underneath, so I will make it go round the sides of Kira so that it would look neat. This brings me onto the picture of the artist. Her hair is the same colour as the text at the top therefore reinforcing the colour scheme of the magazine. Kira is laying down which causes her to go across two pages and initially spreads out the article making it more interesting to look at. The picture on the right of the article is completely different to the article and this breaks it up making this double page spread easier to read.   

Magazine Layout Plan (contents)

This is a layout plan for what I want my contents page to look like within the magazine. I decided that the title's font should be quite large and visible with a colour of grey as the background would be black. I have chosen to include an "M" before the word 'contents' because when I did my research, I found that multiple magazines used this technique and I like the concept of it as in my opinion, it gives the magazine some identity and would make it different from any other. I still like the idea of the purple and black theme and therefore I made "features" and "Every Month" to be portrayed in purple to continue with the colour scheme of the magazine as a whole.

I decided to have writing on the right hand side and some images of artists on the left as it looks better on the page. It give the reader some understanding of what will appear in the magazine and it will therefore make them want to continue to read it. At the bottom, under all the images, I decided to have a note to promote the world tour that Counted have been on. By saying that there are pictures on the Margin website makes the target audience do further research into the magazine in order to find out more. This would create hype and buzz and they would get excited about their favourite artists.      

Magazine Layout Plan (front cover)

This is my layout plan for my magazine front cover. In the image below I have explained each part of what is on the page and its relevance for why it is there. I decided I wanted the artist to be on the right hand side of the page with the masthead behind the top of the artist. This would make the artist stand out and would therefore make people purchase the product even more than they would without having the artist standing out on the front cover. For this particular plan, I decided to involve the tag lines on the left of the page that would include some images of other artists, however I thought I would change this later on when making the magazine.

I put the price at the top left corner of the page but then after some research I realised that it having it there would draw attention to the price and would result in lesser sales as people may find it too expensive, so when I actually made the front cover, I put it as the bottom and it smaller font so it would be less obvious. I decided I wanted the barcode on the bottom right corner, nevertheless, this changed when I was using Photoshop as it ended up on the other side of the page with a website, the date and the price all surrounding it in smaller font. This makes the magazine look more professional and would reinforce more sales for that particular music magazine.

Shotlist

In order for my magazine to appear successful, I had to decide on which shots to include and also where to put them within the front page, contents and double page spread. To decide on which camera shot I should use, I experimented with many different people as possible artists by taking images of them with different backgrounds, then I gathered them together and chose which angle would be best from there. 

I mainly used mid-shots because from all the research that I have done, I found that most magazines use a mid shot to portray an artist rather than any other shot. I figured that the reason for this was to show to the reader who the person is and half of what they are wearing to show their individuality. I wanted to see what the mid-shot would look like when portrayed on different people and I realised that it did make a difference due to showing different styles of artists as a whole. 

I gathered up two people and created a two-shot in order to see if they would look right as a group of individual artists. I liked how this shot worked, as it appears different from any other that I had on the page. I liked the fact that they look young as if they are in their youth because this would appeal to the target audience for being a similar age to them and therefore would increase sales to my magazine.

I took a full shot so that, if I used it on my magazine, the reader would be able to tell which style of magazine it will be due to their clothing and the way they are standing. I also took images that include close-ups of the artist and this is to show the artists face. People buy magazines because of the artists that are included in them and therefore, I would need a famous artist to appeal to the readers in order to get sales.      

Choosing a Masthead

Every magazine needs a masthead, whether it is magazine on food or music, therefore I wanted mine to stand out and be different from all the others, hence the indie genre. For this task we were asked to find the names of similar music magazines that are published and are popular already and from there we found synonyms of the words in order to pick our favourite that we, and our peers liked most.  The title that I picked, Margin, come from the word borderline, which is a music magazine that has an individual genre. There were other mastheads that stood out to me such as "recounter," and involuted but after much thought and some audience feedback from some peers, I found that "Margin" was the name that worked the most. It's unique to other titles and therefore reinforces the indie genre in being different to everything else. This concept would then create more sales on my behalf due to the fact that when the public would see Margin on the shelves in the shops, they would understand that it would be different from any other magazine surrounding it and would coincidentally make more money.  

Possible Props/Locations/Costumes for the Images

Possible Props:                        Possible Locations:

-Guitar                                      -At a Park (sitting on a bench, laying on the grass, sitting on
-Lights                                                        the grass with a guitar and singing, standing by a
-Microphone                                               tree looking out).
-Music Books                           -In School (in front of either a coloured wall or a white wall,
-Sheet Music                                              sitting on the floor in the corner).
-handbag                                 -On stage (standing on stage in front of an audience with a
                                                                  guitar and singing into a microphone, Looking into
                                                                  the camera with a handheld microphone sitting on 
                                                                  the edge of the stage).
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I found that I needed to make a props and locations list so that I would be more organised for when the day actually came to taking all the images for my music magazine. I started off by researching which locations would look best to have a photograph taken there for the background to the images in the magazine and these locations above were the most realistic locations that I could see myself using as a backdrop within taking the images for the front page, contents page and the double page spread. I used the same strategy when finding out which props to use for my images, for example, I researched different music magazines and found the props listed above were the most used in successful indie music magazines and therefore these were the ones I decided to shortlist and then pick out which ones I like best out of them all. 
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Costumes for the pictures in the magazine would include: 
-Jeans and a jumper
-shirt and trousers
Overall any kinds of clothing would work in the pictures for my magazine as long as they looked individual and unique so the readers would understand that it is an indie pop.    

Audience feedback for a front cover image

Before making my magazine, I wanted to be prepared in a way that I took a sample of shots with a couple of different people in ad then I asked 20 people to tell me which one they liked the most. I was not sure if I wanted a girl or a boy on my front cover and I wanted to find out which gender would fit my genre of indie pop more. As well as this, I decided to only take images of a younger age in order to appeal to my target audience of 15-20 year olds. By doing this take I was hoping to make a clear decision of which picture to use for my front page.

From doing this, I have made my decision as to which picture I am going to use for my front page of my magazine cover. I came to a conclusion that I will use image number seven. One of the reasons is because this particular image got the most votes as being the best and I like to listen to the audiences feedback as that is how people achieve the best results possible. As well as this, when I spoke to the audience about why they liked it so much, they said the hair of the girl stood out and makes the picture seem more "indie." As this was the look I was going for all along, it reinforced my reasoning to choose this picture over the others. I asked a source why image 1 only got one vote and they said it was because it did not fit the individual genre as much as the others. Also, when I researched indie music magazines, all their front covers involve a mid-shot of the artist(s). I decided that the safest aspect to do was to go with a close-up/ mid-shot of a girl. I have learnt that audiences normally have a liking towards different things and that one must choose the correct images for the majority of the people who like it the most. I will remember this and take it on board when doing my contents and double page spread also.

Audience feedback for cover lines

As we are getting closer to making our own music magazine, I thought it would be a good idea to get audience feedback on some cover lines for the front cover in which I made up. As I hadn't had any experience before in magazines, I decided to research to find out what would normally go on the front page of a music magazine. After this I asked 20 people in total to pick a cover line in which they liked most and what would look better on a front cover of a magazine. This was the result:



I based my decision of what I wanted to appear on my front cover with the amount of votes that each feature got. With this on mind, I decided to choose numbers 4,5,7,8 and 9. Although other features got some votes, I went with the numbers that had the most votes. From doing this task, I have learnt that consumers who would purchase a music magazine want to see features that stand out. This includes using the word "Exclusive" and "Embarks on world tour," for example. I now know that cover lines are a big part of magazines in general as it contributes to making a sale. I will remember this when coming to make my front cover of the magazine so that it will look realistic. 

Audience Feedback on a Masthead

Starting to think about making our magazines and planning the lay out, I found that an aspect that has a lot of importance is the Masthead that appears on the front cover. It gives the magazine a sense of personality, for example, NME magazine mostly portrays rock artists and therefore could make the reader feel 'edgy' because of the title 'NME' and the fact that when this particular masthead is dictated by someone it sounds as if they are saying 'enemy.' Looking at this title made me realise that it would catch the consumers attention straight away. With this in mind, I made a spider diagram with some of the most successful titles of music magazines that are out there already that relate to my genre. After I wrote them down, I then found similar words to each title to see which masthead would have the most impact on an indie genre.
   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FEQEgDS95o



When I had finished shooting, I considered the names that each person said and came to a conclusion after a lot of thought that "Margin" would succeed in being a better name than any other. From doing this task, I found that different people like different things, and therefore one cannot make their magazine appeal to everyone. With this in mind, it is important to remember that in any magazine you would have to pick a targeted audience in order to sell the specific articles to.