Section 2) – Evaluation

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

The magazine across the 4 pages repeats Steve neals codes and conventions from magazines that I have picked such as XXL magazine for inspiration and ideas to use for my magazine. I copied some codes and conventions from XXL magazine to my magazine. This includes having the same colour scheme from the front cover of the front cover of XXL magazine to my magazine. And this means I need to be carrying on the same layout from the front cover to the double page spread. The colours that I have used is a light shade of grey and black. For the front cover I made sure that I have used the main codes and conventions such as the date and price, issue number, main image, headline, strapline, cover line, unique selling point bar code and a master head. I have added most of these features as the magazine really needs theses codes and convention.The codes and conventions that I have carried onto my contents page is page numbers, web link or even any social media links so that the consumer can read more on the subject or even just to visit your social media or the website, sublines and more. There needs to be another image of the same person from the front cover to the contents page but a different picture with a different pose or I could use a different model depending on what I want to show. The most important part of the contents page is the editorial as it tells you about your self, on my magazine contents page I spoke friendly and professional as I am trying to only address the audience and none else.

The double page spread that I made has loads of information's and also loads of argumentsthat keeps and audience interested as this reveals the conversations of the Hip Hop music magazine. As I started off this music magazine I added a black background to my magazine as I was using XXL magazines codes and convergence but after the research I done of the front covers of the Hip Hop magazines I decided to pick black as people say the colour black relates and looks better when its black so I decided to change the background. I also moved my heading from the bottom to the top as it looks better below the master head and also it looks better blending in with the background. The double page spread was very conversional as I have made most of my question and answering clear as I have colour coded the interview and also I have put the name of the person that’s asking and answering near the text so that it will be clear to the audience who is talking at what point of time.

I added the names of the interviewer and also the name of the person I interview and added the image in the middle of the double page and then I added social media and also website links where to find us at the end of the interview and also I have added the link to the celebrities website to so that the readers can go and check them out.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups that are represented in my media product are people in the typical 16-24 year olds as that's what fits in with media product. As my media product is hip-hop based this will appeal to males more as there's nothing really in the front cover that a female would like unless they liked the artist or any thing else that is portrayed in the product so therefore I would say that this media product will be suitable for males and females but more aimed at males as things in the magazine will Appeal to them more. My target audience is 16-24 but mainly students, this is because that particular age group usually have the disposable income to purchase my magazine and also students have allot of time in their hands to read a magazine. I have things in my magazine that is appealing to all types of social groups such as students, rappers, aspirin(up and coming), music producers, rap critics, DJs and shop owners. But this list is only for Hiphop magazines overall whereas for my hip-hop magazine I think that rappers, music producers, students and teenagers is best for my magazine as my magazine has popular artists and exclusive interviews. I have added some artists from other music genre such as drill ( hard-core hip-hop) the reason I have done this is because it will attract different readers and would pick up my magazine from my target audience and also others to as I have added different kind of music genres to my music magazine. As Hiphop has beats and lyrics that are catchy and does not need allot of thinking or Anyang added to into it, it is easy to remember some works and other staff from the lyrics are they are said more than once throughout a song so therefore it means socio –economics groups such as B, C, D and E would like my magazine and would be attracted to my magazine in some kind of way. The reasons for this could be because it will be more understandable for any age as it won't be to complicated to understand and also Some things are repetitive so therefore it will be easy for the reader to understand and even when listening to hip-hop music so therefore I think that it will be suitable for them. And also I'm mainly going to socio economic groups of C, D and E but mainly C because people that are in the group C are skilled manual workers such as electrician, carpenter, and the reason why I have picked this group is because they have jobs have require doing manual work so basically doing the same thing again and again so therefore it will be repetitive so therefore my magazine can act as an diversion(Katz) so they can focus on something other than their life so therefore I could pick up the magazine and read it. And the group D are students and teenagers and they will definitely buy my magazine as many teenagers in this society are into hiphop and love listening to hiphop music and teenagers would want to know and get new on what's going on, on the hiphop industry so therefore they will go to the stores to get my the raid magazine because as said scene kids will often go to buy hip hop magazines to see, the reason for this is because it is very often in today's society that it will help teenagers and students to become social climbers (Maslow) meaning that they want to stay on top of popularity so you know what's going on and that you don't miss anything important out.

“Harris Publications is one of the nation’s largest special interest media companies operating over 75 brands with print, digital, mobile and live event platforms. For over 35 years, Harris Publications has produced magazines that educate, entertain, inform and inspire. The company has a strong culture of innovation. Our titles are category leaders that engage millions of readers each month. Quality editorial, beautiful design, targeted advertising, expert curation and high production values are hallmarks of Harris magazines and digital properties.”

The media institution that might distribute my magazine the raid may be harries productions as they are the publishers of XXL magazine and I have made a similar magazine to them when the same content. They may publish my magazine because I've use most of their codes and conventions onto my magazine so therefore I think that they may distribute my ,magazine. My magazine has allot of synergy and cross media convergence , which will allow all my readers to connect in so many different ways as in my magazine has some areas where it links you to mine and the magazines social media website so there can get more information about the magazine. This has been added throughout the magazine such as the contents page, double page spread and also the front cover, there is also some website links. The main reason why I have picked this distribution company is because they have experience in distributing a Hip-hop magazine which is vibe so therefore I think that this is going to be more appropriate for my magazine as I have picked the same genre As them.

What kind of media institution (Publisher) might distribute your media product and why?

Who would be the audience for your media product and why?

According to Hartley's seven subjectivities, the target audience for my magazine “The Raid” is the age group between 15-25 as they read magazines the most and are interested in Hip Hop magazines as they have disposable income to spend so therefore teenagers have a higher chance of buying my magazine. My magazine would mostly be for the ages between 15-25 mainly males (Hartley) as my magazine features things that are manly based and my target audience are men as my magazine have features that will attract males as there are stars that will attract the same gender which is males (Hartley) as they are the ones that will be interested in the Hip Hop genre.

According to Katz’ users and gratification theory males would find it much easier to create a personal relationship with them as they will be interested in the genre that I have picked and this may appeal and attract females to my magazine to depending in what they are into for example the things that I have featured onto my magazine.

According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs “social climbers” this is when a reader wants to be updated on the social trend from my magazine for example the latest news and new social trends. For example a reader will read my magazine to get the latest news. The reason why they do this is because they want to be ‘informed ‘ and also want to be ‘educated’ (Katz) on everything that was new for example on my magazine the latest things are new albums releasing and new interviews with the stars that have been introduced in the Hip Hop industry. Also the working

How did you attract/address your audience?In order to attract my intended target audience is to give them what they want to see such as

competitors and latest news that's going on in the hip hop industry and all the other good staff that a magazine reader would want to see in the magazine. In my magazine I have quite allot of unique selling points that can be easily seen. From the feedback I got from my peers I can tell that they where interested in my magazine from the colour schemes I used and also the competitions that I have included in my magazine and that's what will make my target audience to pick up my magazine and read all the interesting bits that are on there.

I have used words such as "Exclusive" and "win" in my front cover that will attract a wide range of audience including my target audience so therefore this will be a unique selling point for my magazine as I'm attracting readers from the language I used in my front cover. Form reader seeing these words they would want to pick my magazine 'the raid' up as my magazine has a value to it and also has a value to the audience and will attract them to buy it as they can gain something from my magazine as my magazine will offer readers an opportunity to gain something out of my magazine.

My magazine has loads of codes and conventions such as having the editorial in the contents page that will appeal to my target audience as I'm addressing to them and they will feel part of something which in this case it's my magazine and will build a personal relationship with the editorial and the magazine and this will defiantly attract the target audience. Me using words such as we and you will make the reader of the magazine be part of something and will build that relation like said at the start. The advantage of this is that this personal relationship between the community and the reader will attract the reader to buy the next issue of the magazine as they may fee, part of the community and would keep buying the next up and coming issues.

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

The new things that I have learnt from building the magazine 'the raid' is that I learnt how to use Photoshop CS4. The reason why I have used Photoshop is because it had loads of tools that will help me build my magazine such as altering the colour or saturation and contrast of the images I used to put in my magazine and using the tools of Photoshop really helped and it was quick and easily to learn how to use each part of the tools and I built my knowledge as I went on building my music magazine. The main thing about Photoshop is that it allowed me to pick any fonts I wanted to use for my magazine and also choose the place where I wanted to place them. I didn't know how to use Photoshop until I made my first magazine which helped me to gain some kind of knowledge of using different tools such and the brush tool, pen tool, rubber tool and also learned how to change the size of tool and the colour I wanted and it gave me a range of colours with different shades of colours. I learnt how to build layers and how I can make things over lap and also learnt how to hide things that I don't need to the moment and this has helped me to gain knowledge throughout the process of the magazine. I learnt how to take an image and put it inside a letter and I have done this in my front cover and contents page. For example in my front over I used the USA flag to go inside of the letters I used which was 'The Raid'. That's the main thing that I had done in my magazine throughout the whole proses. The eye told which is the hide tool allowed me to test out different images for my front over as I had more than five pictures and I didn't know which one to use so I used the eye tool to hide all the images except one and if I didn't like that I would just delete it and don't the same to the other pictures until I actually liked the image. This was really helpful as it save me allot of time as I didn't have to do it individually and done it all in one with out a problem thanks to Photoshop and these are the main reason why I used Photoshop to build up my magazine.

I went on the defiant and cool text website to check out some of the fonts but I didn't find any of them ingesting so therefore I just used of the fonts on Photoshop that looked really clean and professional. I tried more than one fonts on Photoshop 'repetition' (Steve Neal) to see what fits with my preferences and than I used the one I like and I added an image inside of the text to make it look like more of an hip hop magazine and make it look professional. In order me hitting my target audience with my magazine I had to use a dark background as hip hop is know to be dark and I also darkened some of my images for this purpose as it needs to be done as I'm targeting my target audience which is males in the age group between 15-25. I used the rubber tool to get rid of unwanted white dots and other things that was in the image and I also used the stamp tool to get a clean finish for my image so that it looks perfect without any kind of mistakes.

Overall I think that I have learnt allot from my experience in using Photoshop as I was a beginner when the music magazine started so therefore I think that I have progressed throughout the lessons that I have been in and self thought my self in using Photoshop. This has thought me how to edit images and make different kind of fonts and use the right colours with different colour overlays and other things such as learning in how to use things such as the stamp tool and the contrast In the colours that I have used in the music magazine.

Photography Planning – Front Cover

Sample picture

Final

Image

The planning for my front cover photography went well as I tool various amount of images such as close ups and mid shots and I tried each one on Photoshop so see which one suites best for my hip hop magazine front cover and I didn't like any of it as it didn't look nice close up so I decided to go with a mid shot and a long shot and that turned out well as it fitted perfectly into the front over without me changing anything. I took some pictures in different clothing to, to see what fits best with the front cover. As you can see on the right there are three types of pictures I took for the front cover with different clothes on and the reason why o wanted to do this is because I wanted to see what suites best for my target audience and the magazine it self and it should attract the hip hop readers so therefore I picked the right picture that will do the job and after I did it fitted perfectly as I thought . Throughout the whole process of taking pictures I used a white sheet of background so that it will be easy to edit of Photoshop so it will give me an easier job and do and also it will be me loads of time to edit the pictures out. I tried taking pictures from different angles but that didn't work as you can see that it would have been hard to edit as there are too many objects around the model so therefore I took other pictures and that picture didn't turn out well any ways as it didn't really show the face and wasn't a good image. The reason why I went through all this for images is because from the research I have done on other hip hop magazines they where taken professionally with a mid shot or a close up so therefore I did the same to make it similar and it make my magazine look as I wanted it to look.

As you can see below there are seven images that I had tool overall and out of all of these main pictures I picked one main one from testing them on Photoshop which was my final image as you can see on the left hand side below. I took more pictures that this but I only picked only six images that where relevant for this page as I didn’t want to add too many pictures onto my course work. So therefore I picked pictures that I tested out on Photoshop.

As you can see from these images I got the model to wear different clothing so that I get a wide range of pictures that I can pick from with different clothing and also different poses from the model that is going to be on my magazine front cover and double page spread.

Photography Planning - ContentsFor my contents page I wanted to add a picture of someone that would fit in with the theme and background of the contents page so therefore I didn’t use the person from the front cover because I didn’t think that he will look/fit in with the contents page so therefore I photographed one of my other friend and added him to my contents page and as you can see I didn’t just take one picture, I took more than one so that I can pick out of all the pictures I have. I had to keep taking a picture till I get a picture that I liked. First part of the photos I thought that I may as well go in the contents page and then I had a change of mind to put me and my friend and then that didn’t really look good as the scale of the picture does not fit into the contents page as the image was way to big and there was no editing too that I could use to make the picture small that fits into the contents page so therefore I took some pictures of me and my friend to see which One will be good for use for the magazine and I came to an conclusion that I am going to be using myFriend as it looked good. The picture down on the right had side was my final picture that I used.

I had my model doing different poses to see what's best for my magazine and after seeing that the Both hands in the pocket looks good and fits a little bit for the Hip Hop genre so therefore I just used That pose throughout the pictures as I liked that best and then out of all the pictures that I had tookI just picked a picture that I liked and adding them onto Photoshop and edited at least 3 pictures andI picked the best one that looks good and that was the one I picked as my final image for my contentsPage on my magazine. Editing my last picture was kind of hard as it was not the best quality so there-fore I decided to put the completion of the picture a little bit dark so that that quality of the picture doesn't pop out too much so I made it had and also hip hop is a dark colour so it kind of adjusted to the theme of the magazine.

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The pictures on the left are the ones that I really didn’t use but I edited it to see how it will look like overall after edited.

Photography Planning - InterviewFor my contents page I wanted to add a picture of someone that would fit in with the theme and background of the double page spread. I first used my self for the interview page to see if it looked nice but then I decided to use the one on the right hand side and then edited it to the best ability and used it but then I had another idea for a picture so used the model (Henry Uffoh) from the front cover to the double page spread as he is the main story of the magazine so that’s the reason why I had to change the pictures is because the story has to carry on from the front over all the way to the interview page as that’s how its meant to be so therefore I took some sample images out and just kept it for editing to see if it fits in but it kind of did so I just used my friend from the front cover, as you can see on the right hand side on theTop I have my friend posing for the last image for my double page spread and this is the picture that I actually liked from the sample pictures below as the picture quality was not good quality enough toGo onto my double page spread so therefore I used a Nikon camera which gave me a high quality Image and it looked better from all the other images that I had. The next day I got my friend to wear Some clothing that will represent the Hip-hop genre and that turned out well as I liked this and usedIt as my final image for my double page interview.

The main reason why I have picked this image as my final piece is because it fits in with the overall Hip hop genre and also it will attract my target audience as it fits in with hip hop and that is what itIs supposed to do and that’s the reason why I have picked this as my final image and after me Editing the image it looked much better so I just kept this in the double page spread as it fitted.

Sample Pictures Sample picture of model from front cover

Final Image

Analyzing my Front Cover

Bar code

Date and price

Master head‘The Raid’

Strapline

Cover lines

Promotion – win £50

Main headline of the magazine

Website

Convergence- The master head is behind the star

Cover line Additional things to the magazine

Issued year

Analyzing my Contents PageSame version of the master head from the front cover to this but smaller

Main image

Social network sites

Issue number/ Date

Strapline

Editors picture

Editors letter

Sections

Anchored numbers

Page number

QR Code Editors signature

Analysing my Double Page spread Interview

Smaller master head from the magazine so that each of the pages are noticeable

Introduction of the star for the interview (Richard dyer)

Main Image

Quotes

Page number

Social network sites Website

Question in a different colour style (italics) and colour to differentiate from answers which are in blue and red

This is for the credit to the photographer and also the stylist and also the editor.

Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Music Magazine

School Magazine

From my preliminary task I have learned allot of things such as learning how to use Photoshop and other things that will help me improve my music magazine as I knew what I had to do to get the grade I want I have learnt how to use different tools to edit pictures and create a magazine that will suite the genre that I want it to fit. I have learnt how to manage Photoshop and the things that I put into it such as the image altering the image such as the effect of the image and see which fits the magazine best.

The preliminary task really helped me to gain allot of knowledge on how to layout my music magazine as that gave me an idea of how to get the sizes of the page and also the colours that I should and should not use for my magazine. I found it hard editing images at first but after editing more than one image it kind of got easy and gained me some knowledge on how I could edit pictures for my music magazine and also how I could make the picture better looking than it is for example changing the colours and brightness of the picture so that it stands out. I also found allot of nice fonts on Photoshop that I will be able to use for my music magazine and I ended up using it with a image behind the text which made my magazine e better and gave the magazine a clean finish.