Evaluation Question 7

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

I feel as though my understanding of conventions has vastly improved and why the use of certain conventions are important in creating an authentic looking magazine for example, the inclusion of a barcode is one of the main features that I included in my final magazine and not my preliminary work, this is an example of my progression in knowledge of magazine conventions. 

I used my preliminary task as a learning experience as the finished product was uneasy on the eye due to the colours of the text and the clothing of the model clashing, this helped to teach me of the importance of pre-planning and choosing a suitable colour palette that prevents colour clashes whilst also looking interesting and suitable for the theme of my magazine. In my preliminary photo I cut out my model and put the picture over a green background, I felt that this looked tacky when looking back on it and so for my final music magazine I chose to pick a background that I would like on my magazine, I also chose not to have the background cover the entire magazine and instead condensed the photo to a small box to make my masthead stand out more against a white background. My preliminary work was also completely self thought out and did not take inspiration from existing texts, this meant my final result didn't look authentic, however when I came to do my music magazine I drew inspiration from a number of existing magazines and emulated their styles to create a visually pleasing text. The shots used for the cover on both magazine were mid shots from a mid angle, I chose to stay with this shot type for my final product as I grew to learn from my magazine research that this was a generic style of shot used to showcase the star on the cover and allow the image to be noticeable from a far to potential buyers. My contents page for my preliminary work was very basic and contained little information, on my final magazine I had developed my skills and created a very informative and categorised contents page. The font choice also vastly improved from my preliminary work as I chose basic and common fonts that weren't attractive and would not increase audience appeal, in my final magazine I chose to pick more unique fonts as they are more interesting for audiences to view.

Evaluation Question 1

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

During the research and planning stages of my magazine production I chose to work in the indie/alternative sub genres and therefore acknowledged the forms and conventions associated with this style of music. My finished magazine product not only uses and develops existing conventions of both indie music magazines and music magazines in general, but also challenges certain forms and conventions as I will demonstrate in this essay.

The first aspect of my magazine which I will discuss is the title of my magazine and how it is presented as a masthead on the cover, I chose to name my magazine 'VINYL', after the vinyl records that preceded CDs and cassettes as ways of purchasing a physical copy of an artists music. Whilst it is easily assumed that a title referencing items or ideas directly related to music is a generic convention of music magazines, it is actually quite uncommon amongst top music magazines for the name of the magazine alone to offer any indication as to the subject of the product. 'NME - New Musical Express' and 'Classic Rock' are the only two magazine titles with a direct reference to music in the list of the top 10 music magazines in the UK based on number of copies in circulation over a 6 month period as posted by 'The Guardian', and so it is clear the name itself does not follow conventions, however it does not challenge conventions either as similar magazine names do already exist in real texts such as 'Record Collector'. One way in which my title is conventional however is the length of the title, popular existing titles as they appear on the front of the magazine include: NME, Mojo, Kerrang, Uncut, XXL and Q, the majority of these titles are very short and one word long, this is something I took note of and mimicked when deciding on my own title, by using this convention I was able to create a sense of verisimilitude amongst my audience.

Various fonts were used throughout my magazine, each selected with a specific purpose in mind, generally my font use is very generic and uses conventions of existing magazines, especially those with a focus on indie/alternative music such as my own. All fonts used in the magazine were downloaded from a website called 'dafont.com', the font used for the artists name on the front of the magazine and also for the header of the double page spread was called 'bebas neue', it is a very slim but bold font similar to what is seen so often on the front of 'Q' magazine, it allowed me to fit a long header into a small space on the double page spread and also allow me to put a lot of text in a short space on the cover. Other fonts used include 'lumberjack' a typically common looking font resembling mainstream fonts such as 'arial' and 'verdana', this was used for the main bodies of texts including the article on the double page spread. Again this is very conventional as it is similar to what can be seen in magazines such as 'Q' and 'NME', the decision to use this convention came from the desire to have an easy to read font in order to make the article more favourable to the audience.

The layout of my magazine pages must also be considered when debating the conventional or non-conventional aspects of my product, I developed conventions surrounding the placement of my masthead as it is traditionally imagined that the masthead should be located in the top left of the cover as is seen with 'XXL', 'NME' and 'Spin', I however chose to develop this convention by placing my masthead at the top of the cover but in a central position, this is because of the simplistic style I chose to adopt for the cover page that means a more central masthead appears as more aesthetically pleasing.

Costumes my artist wore for the photo shoots were carefully considered, I chose to dress my indie music artist in non-branded clothing, across all shoots the artist wore jeans with a plain white or black t-shirt and a green or brown bomber jacket. This used conventions of how indie artists are styled when purposefully appearing in the media such as can be seen with how band members from 'The Courteeners' are so often pictured, I chose to use this convention as I wanted my artist to be as convincing as possible and I believe that this would not have been possible if I chose to challenge traditional conventions.

 

 

 

Photographer, Graphic Designer and Magazine Creator

Photographers:

RUKES: RUKES is an international music photographer and works mostly with DJ's, he prides himself as being the best DJ photographer in the world. He has worked as photographer for Deadmau5, Avicii, Skrillex, Swedish House Mafia and at many concerts, gigs, raves and festivals. Rukes is highly acclaimed as the best DJ photographer in the world.

Graphic Designers: 

David Carson: As art director of music and lifestyle magazine, Ray Gun, David Carson became the most influential graphic designer of the 1990's. His unconvential 'grunge typography' style was a new era in design. He brought to the graphic design scene the belief that each designer needed an intuitive design sense that they must listen to.

Magazine Creators:

Theodore Ingham: Theodore Ingham created the music magazine 'NME' in 1949, he created the foundations for a magazine that would go on to become the most popular British music magazine. He sold the magazine for £1000 to Maurice Kinn moments before it was to officially close. Despite being creators of the magazine, these individuals do not often play big parts in the production individual issues.

Analysis of existing magazine titles

After reviewing existing magazine titles I have concluded that the most successful magazine titles are short, I will therefore also choose a short magazine title. I have decided on creating an indie music magazine which I will name 'Vinyl'. I have chosen this name as it has musical relevance and is short. The design of the mastheads for all the magazines are bold and tidy fonts, I will also think of this when designing my magazine.

Examples of other texts

All of the texts above are a mixture of published content from current magazines. I have picked these magazines because they are all aesthetically appealing and have elements I am considering using for my magazine. I like the close up profile photos used on the covers because they give a clear indication of who the artist is and also all have complementary colour schemes which I want to include in my magazine. As for the double page spread, I like how despite being across two pages the photo joins them together, the large quote from the article attracts the readers attention and is something I will definitely seek to mimic when designing my own magazine.

Magazine Analysis

Media coursework analysis from davo28