#1) Who would be the audience for your magazine?

My audience will consist mainly of males aged 17-26 (students)who have an attraction to house music, dance music, partying andthe nightlife. Some of their favourite artists may include Avicii,Sebastian Ingrosso, David Guetta, Axwell and so on. The will alsohave an appeal to technology, art and striking/inspirationalimages. The features of my magazine would draw these factors tothe front of the readers personality. I hope my magazine wouldinspire most of my audience simply by the use of effective colours,images and language. As my magazine is a new edition in theindustry, my audience may already read other magazines such andDJ or mixmag. Therefore I have looked at these magazines in myresearch and chosen images appropriately to relate to the existinginterests of my audience. As my audience is primarily students, theuse of penetration pricing on release of my magazine can be used toleap in front of the competition. This involves under pricing mymagazine at first, then raising the price once a market/audience hasbeen established. This will work as students tend to be on very lowincome. Therefore may opt for my product. Once the price hasbeen raised in the future, my magazine may grow an olderaudience with a more respectable and expensive feel.

My audience is primarily males aged 17 – 26. To attract this target market I have used a number o f techniques.

First of all my artist is a young male aged 18 who has had success in the music industry. This relates to my audience as he is very similar. With luck, this artist my inspire my audience to accomplish their goals and aspirations.

Second, I have used a famous lyric from a song produced by the artist, Usher, named Rest Of My Life. This links closely with my audience as many young boys think this way. Usher is a massive artist and this song has had much success. By using this lyric I have tied not only with NeORIX’s fans, but also Ushers. This could be taken as a sign for future collaborations and used as a hidden hint within my magazine.

#2) How did you attract/address your audience?

My Masthead has been designed to look interesting and unique. The name itself, PULSE, links nicely with todays generation of dance music as I mentioned in detail when researching Mastheads. The font has been chosen accordingly as it is bold, almost “in your face.” This stands out as many of todays youth does. I think it would attract my audience as it would seem familiar to them, given the nature of the music genre. Therefore, drawing them into the magazine and wanting to read on…

My ideal Music Magazine will be aimed towards the age range of 17-26. My magazine will be aimed at males for the majority, but also cater for females. The reason for this is that I believe Dance music (party music) does not cover just one gender. My audience should enjoy Dance music as well as the "Nightlife". Advertisements and Responses for local and distant clubs, strips and bars will most likely be included in the magazine. Favourite artist may include: Avicii, David Guetta, DJ Fresh, Nicky Romero, Axwell and so on. These all play a part in their lives, listening to music everyday. I feel the audience will have an attraction to art and technology, creating my magazine to fit these style may include adding lasers, vibrant colours and striking images. I believe the most important factor to focus on, is... What would I look for in a magazine, and does this magazine act me to buy it. I think if I produce a magazine that I would actually want to buy, then hopefully others of similar age to me, and with the same music taste, will also do the same.

Made to look artistic

Many young people can be attracted simply by the use of a free item. Therefore, I have researched real magazines and decided to follow in suit by including one myself

My staged image used on my cover page is of my artist. Their body position has been used to create a sense of hidden identity.I wanting to link closely with my own personality when taking this image. Therefore, this pose gives a sense of Shyness, hidden secrets and anxiousness involved with my artist. This attracts the audience by making them think. I believe nothing “sells” well unless it makes its audience think. By using this feature it makes the audience wonder what’s behind my artists exterior. They will hopefully want to purchase my magazine and find out. By not looking at the camera has meant that my artist is not addressing the reader. This is the effect I was looking for, which means the reader almost has to find out for themselves, what NeORIX is all about.

My tagline is designed to draw in the audience. “The World’s Best” gives it a sense of exclusivity and belonging. Almost stating that this is the real thing and the competition is inferior.

I have chosen a professional layout which follows the trend of existing magazines. I kept the images to a minimal on the contents page in fear of it becoming overcrowded. My use of shapes and design/layout has been thought out to attract a younger audience by making it interesting and effective on the eye. Although there is a lot of text. The text is most short and snappy (to the point). This means readers of a young age can pick up and find exactly their interest without reading a block of text.

My use of text “DOWN AND DIRTY” has been designed to appeal directly to my audience of 17-26, majority male. Keeping it catchy and meaningful means it creates a version in their mind. Hopefully sticking in their mind making them remember this magazine. Once again using lyrics from popular dance tracks has also helped the overall synergy with my magazine and its audience.

The use of language used has been written to create a sense of involvement with the magazine and the artists journey. Eg, above the use of short paragraphs linking to the artists life, as if he is speaking to the reader has been greatly effective with fellow class mates whilst reviewing my work. This theme continues throughout the magazine to help the reader understand my artists journey, start to finish.

Again I have included advertisements on the page to the left. This has created a more professional looks whilst offering advice and deals to my audience who primarily may be looking to book their first holidays away with their mates. This would be an ideal solution for NeORIX’s fans to catch him in action during their holiday. Not only that but my magazine would receive funding for doing so.

Including a “TOP TRACKS” section is something many music magazines include. Therefore, including one in my magazine was obvious and realistic. My text is separated in paragraphs meaning the reader can begin reading at any point. This is valuable as my audience may not be interested in great columns of text. Perfect Pulse has used word play to appeal to the audience and relates neatly to the story behind my artist.

#3) How does you media product represent particular social groups?

As I have decided to appeal to a more male audience, I have decided tofeature a male artist as my main feature for my magazine. I have tried torepresent my artist through the choices I have made – a male, interested indance music who has recently been successful, has a love for technologyand art yet has a hidden personality and story.

Before I started taking images or pictures for my magazine, I research realartists like Avicci, to see how they dress. I found the main theme is usuallycasual clothing like tops and jumpers. Therefore I would feature my artistwearing this type of clothing. Hats and caps are usual a popularitem/clothing accessory in dance music and Djing.

Across the images that dance artists appear in, they’re dressed in a certain style. This is usually plain colours: blacks, greys, whites and most feature the common DJ accessory, headphones. All these have conventions of the male stereotype in society. Particularly dance music artists, blacks and grey are associated with quite shady characters. As dance music was seen to be going against the norms when it first came about, this ties in nicely with the artists themselves.

Their posture and facial expressions also give away a greatdeal about their personality, showing their strength orweakness. Their tendency to stare down the barrel of thecamera during stages images almost suggests they’remaking eye contact with the viewer of the image. Thiscreates a powerful, almost semiotic atmosphere.

The postures used in the images often create a sense of rebellious youthfulness. This may be created by the use of clothing, posture or direct eye contact with the

camera. This could be a form of ideology behind the image and could be used to create quite an

effective magazine like I have attempted with my

design. The simply use of colour in clothing and the

styles of clothing create and ideology that is hard

to ignore. This can change the way people think

about dance music and the way the chose to listen to it and the circumstance they

listen to it.

The fact the my artist is staring at the ground rather than the camera, together with the position of the camera (over looking the artist with a angle position) gives an impression of anxiety and hidden feelings with my artist. A stereotype of Males and dance music is that they’re often quite forward and to the point. They can be rebellious and unforgiving. For my artist, I wanted to go against the norm and stereotype and create and interesting story which would provide my audience with a meaningful read, offer them inspiration and teach them a life lesson.

The use of the cap has been used to create a “shadow” across my artist (not literally). This again hopefully adds to his hidden thoughts and identity. I have followed the clothing scheme associated with the male social group and dance music by featuring my artist in jeans, jumper, coat and cap for the main image. Having my artist sat down has given the effect of a laid back social atmosphere. A calm environment soon to be uplifted with his passion of dance music – DJing.

The titles I have used on these double page spreads represent the social group and theway in which they think. I have tried to create a shady whilst comical impression of themale dance music industry. “DOWN AND DIRTY” and “HITS BACK HARD” andrelate to the male stereo type of “Macho men” and dirty minds. The pages inthemselves are about NeORIX sharing his experience through a club guide to thereaders, and his bounce back to fame as an inspiration to the reader.

#4) What have you learnt about technology making your magazine?

One example of technology involved with media that I have used and studied is Photoshop. Photoshop has allowed me to uniquely edit my photos to improve light, edit shape and shading, remove defects and remove backgrounds to name a few. This gives an overall more professional look to my final magazine product.

In the example to the left, we where given a test image of some bottles and where asked to remove one of the bottles. This technique involved using the clone tool which can replace pixels with selected pixel from another area in the image. Other test images involved spot removal and simple cropping to make the image seem more “lifelike”.

Here is a clear example of some of the things I have been able to achieve in Photoshop. For this page, I had to take three separate images to achieve my desired effect. I also wanted the artist’s face and actions to be dominant in the image, therefore I have featured my artist wearing a black T-Shirt. I first has to delete the background from my original images using the selection tool. This allowed my to separate the background from the foreground. To position the images together I had to create three layers with an image on each. Then I created a layer on top of them and faded the image with a soft, black brush tool. I wanted an artistic look so I used filters to change the aesthetics of the image. This gave me my desired outcome which I felt was effective on the page.

InDesign is another example of technology that I have been able to use for my media product. This allowed my to create a professional design with minute tolerances with alignment. This meant it closely represent a real media magazine out in the real industry. On the left are examples of plans I created when thinking about my contents page. These where previously shown on my blog. You can see that my final design is not an exact copy of any of these original plans. It is actually parts of each design, put together. By planning my design in InDesign first, allowed me to evaluate them on the spot of put together my best ideas. For example, my heading for my final contents page takes the initial idea of the middle image on the left and put together with the design of the word “contents” from the bottom image. An example would be that I included 3 columns from my first two designs and included the red arrow from an idea of staggered images from the first design.I feel InDesign was a platform to create my magazine on. I have learnt many tips from the software like creating drop heads and inserting picture frames to allow for the initial plans.

Prezi is another use of technology that I used for my evaluation and third party opinions. This allowed me to create a wall, similar to Padlet. I could then annotate around images inserted to the wall and create a “second” blog.

I was able to the import my Prezi wall into my blog. This will allow people to view my evaluation of Question 5 interactively using the mouse to navigate. This technology has taught me a great deal when creating innovative pieces of work. Here I have used it for an evaluation, but it could be used for presentations, demonstrations, designing etc.

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

http://prezi.com/qjvr-m1mjdr6/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

#6) What type of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I think the most effective way to distribute my magazine would be the electronic market, with it being a new product. The electronic market is where buyers and sellers can trade items over the internet without face to face contact.

One method could be the use of my website.

On my page folio I have included the address for my website. This follows most conventions of a real media product. By having my music magazine available online it is likely to grow in the market place, faster. Word of mouth would be likely to spread the PULSE name throughout my audience creating a media/public stare. People can be attracted to the website from hearing about it, stumbling across it, seeing it in my magazine and from various links on advertisement websites.

Another way I could market my product is the use of the App store on IPhone, IPad and Android. The “in” phone at the moment, or the “in” product seem to be smart phones and tablets, especially the Apple products. On all Apple products there is also an app called Newsstand. Here you can purchase or download previews of magazines. This would be an ideal place to market and/or sell my product as it provides me with a wider audience or market range. This also appeals directly to my audience age range as students most need smart phones or tablets to assist in their work. With the electronic market growing and becoming an ever more effective way of selling. This may also save on fixed but mostly variable costs to my magazine business. If, eventually, my magazine sold via the internet. This means less hardcopies of the magazine would need to be produced, reducing costs (output). Therefore the profit would be raised considerably.

Finally, my audience are often known as the “Playstation Generation.” Therefore, another method of marketing could be to include in-game marketing strategies. This involves place a virtual advertisement in a computer game. Eg, Barrack Obama had “Vote Obama” placed into the Need For Speed games on a road side bill board. I similar strategy could be used to market my magazine.The genre of game would be important. For example, I could include an advertisement in RockBand, or Guitar hero which are popular music games. I could also include an advertisement in Grand Theft Auto which only appears when the gamer switches on the Dance Music Radio Station in game. Therefore I can ensure that I am appealing directly to my audience and specifically, the right age and genre. Of course this costs money, so this may have to be a method of advertising later on in the life of the business. However, all three could be adopted for the ultimate marketing and distribution.

#7) Looking back at your media product, what have you learnt in the progression from Aquinas magazine to the full product?

Drafting:

I found myself working on my contents page first. I thought this would be an appropriate place to start as my complete product can then follow the colour scheme used here. I felt the contents page was the best place to create a powerful and effective page which drew the reader into the magazine after the initial front page.As you can see my initial drafts varied quite a bit. I said in my blog that I wanted to investigate all areas of design. Therefore I have looked at a plain design, a more text based model and one featuring the majority of images. Drafting has allowed me to asses the direction in which to take my magazine further. For example, I was able to conclude that my text based design looked the most professional and linking with my genre. Therefore I was able to take it to the next step, Editing…

Editing:

The editing stage allowed me to play around with my initial draft in order to create my desired effect. On the left, I have advanced the draft by adding my magazines title. This I found was common in real media products found in my research. I wanted to stick with a 3 column design which is again common in real media magazines. On the left is another draft (not mentioned in the previous slide) that I felt could be useful. Instead of my left column being images, I decided to created an index for readers to associate with their favourite artists. This would hopefully increase the selling point of my magazine, if my audience are able to see their artist. I also decided that the heading looked interesting being aligned to the right. And therefore edited my design. After playing around/editing with my final design I created a look which I felt was suitable for my media product. You can see the progression from initial drafts to my final product across these two slides.

Design:

In my design specification, I stated that my design should include vibrant and striking images that link with my target audience of students, the majority being male. I feel I was able to achieve this not only with my choice of camera angles, shots and artist poses, but I feel my use of layout and background design has played a useful part. For example, the shapes used in the pitch perfect page has been designed to catch the eye of the reader. I wanted to create a sense of movement, as the eye is naturally drawn to movement, I feel I have achieve this with the shapes used and pose of my artist on top.

The design of my Down and Dirty page was originally different. Instead of 3 columns, it was 2 and it was written, blocked text. Studying my research, I found this was not a good way to keep the audiences concentration. Therefore I followed the norm and added 3 columns. Then I changed my text into small paragraphs to divide each month. This allows for the user to start or finish reading where they please. For example, if the user was only interested in a particular month. Therefore, I was able to enhance my design using previous ideas and research.

Photography:

I wanted to show 3 sides of my artist, his DJing, his personality and his ability to perform to a huge audience. Therefore I constructed his poses (above) in such a way to demonstrate these factors. My previous attempt allowed me to achieve better results in the photography stage of my media product by making me aware of the key factors with photography: lighting, colour, costume etc.

I wanted a striking image for my ARRIVALS double page. From my previous task and research I found that blurring or smudging certain areas can draw greater attention to other areas of the image. Therefore I have added a small blurred and smudge effect to the background behind my artist, also on his feet and parts of his jacket. This brings him out of the background more, making it seem 3D.

I have used various angles, eg: eye level shots, low angle shots and high angle shots. On my PERFECT PULSE double page I have used a low angle shot to give an impression of power and superiority to my artist. On the page to the left, I have used an eye level shot to allow the reader to feel a connection with my artist, feeling his emotion and lifestyle or personality.

Brand, Genre and Audience:It was important that I kept a continuous Theme, Genre and audience throughout my magazine. To keep a continuous Theme or Brand I have used a house style and branded colours. For example, I have used the circles cut out of title as a running theme to link my magazine pages together. This appears in the Masthead, Contents and my Down And Dirty information and advertisement page. This ensures the magazine is tied together with a running theme that the audience can relate to. Another use of house style I have used is the “x” featuring in my artist’s name, NeORIX. This has a large point on the bottom left. I have incorporated this into every title involving his name. Different effects have been used to keep a variation on the pages, whilst still continuing the theme. For example, the X breaking through the text on my perfect pulse double page is different to my “This was the best by far” double page. Not only in colour, but position and

background was the norm in media magazines, with black text. As yellow would not be very legible on white, I decided to use red text. This was second to yellow and black in the most legible text. Therefore I thought it would be a sensible choice. Some magazines in my research showed a completely different house style in their contents page, however I wanted a link between mine. Therefore I decided to include my colour scheme in a subscription section.It is important to have a constant target audience as to much variation can lead to the magazine actually targeting no one. Therefore, my use of language, colours, images and shapes have all been designed to keep my target audience (17-26, young students) constant and attracted. As students tend not to have a high income, I have included free offers. This I hope will appeal to my audience and hopefully encourage them to purchase my media product.

that yellow on black or black on yellow was the most legible colour scheme. Therefore I decided that this would be the most eye catching design to attract my audience. This meant that my main front page would feature these colours and the rest of the magazine would follow. However, for my contents page, I had to change it slightly. Research suggested that a white

fading. My use of colour has also allowed me to use a continuing/flowing style. It is important to chose the right colours in order to give the magazine the right impression. For example, gold may give the impression of an expensive product. Red screams “pick up and buy me” and yellow is most noticeable and legible form a distance. After conducting research, I found

Marketing, Distribution and Advertising:

It is important that the marketing, distribution and advertising of my media product is done right. This ensures that the magazine will sell when it is released. Marketing/Advertising:Various products are marketed in different ways. Ultimately, It depends on your target market. My target market is 17-26 year old students. Therefore I have to think what a typical student of that age would do. For example, they may play games, have smart phones or tablets, watch a lot of tv, and browse the internet regularly. Therefore it would be an idea if I marketed my product around this. For example, now that I have identified where would be appropriate to market my product, I can now think, how? If they use a lot of smart phones, then an online downloadable preview from the app store will be a good idea, so that the reader can store it in the newsstand app. Alternatively, I could use in game advertisements to draw the audience through mobile games. For example, Freemium music games such as magic piano or garage band could be a good place to start. As these are music apps, the audience would already have an interest. Therefore it would be a good suggestion to advertise my magazine here. Finally, my magazine could be advertised in other media products. Such as related magazines or my featuring artists album or music video. This would appeal to my audience directly and increase sales by feeding them information about my magazine, supported by their favourite artist.

Distribution:Distribution is an important area of the magazine life span. Poor distribution would result in poor sales. Mention previously under marketing, one method of distribution could be online. My target audience would largely own smart phones and use the internet regularly. Smart phones feature an app called newsstand. This stores virtual editions of magazines. With the online marketplace becoming an ever bigger/increasing market, this would be a sensible suggestion as a place to distribute my magazine. As it ties in with my audiences interests, it is likely to make larger sales. As it is viral I could also release it as a Freemium package. For example, the first story could be free, however readers could then purchase the rest of the magazine if they wish to read on. This could create an even larger audience for my magazine as students are often strapped for cash.Obviously another method would be to sell hardcopies in music stores such as HMV, and smaller stores such as Martins or magazine shops. The disadvantage to this is that the magazine actually has to be physically produced. This costs money. The transport and storage of the media product then means that all this starts to cost my company money by raising the fixed costs, and therefore will decrease my potential profit. Online distribution avoids this as there is no physical product. This may appeal more to my younger audience.