After researching many different music magazines of various genres (using internet, shops and school library resources) I developed a strong idea of what features were necessary in order to create a conventional and possibly successful music magazine. In context to media codes and conventions, of course it is compulsory to have certain

features such as a masthead, puff piece and either a top or bottom strip, but as I have come to learn it is much more than this which creates a unique magazine. It is the way in which the house style is constructed and remained – and

which house style you choose of course! It is about the principles of the magazine itself and which ways it can impact on not only the readers but also the world of music. It is the way it represents itself and the artists it is promoting.

Bearing all these points in mind, I found the most difficult stages of creating this magazine was those that begun the whole process – the planning stages. The flat planning, choice of images and most importantly choice of genre. This was an extremely difficult decision for me to make. I brainstormed the conventions of what each genre’s magazine

would typically contain, thought about how I would make mine similar to one of which. For example, if I was to imitate and put my own stamp on a Rock magazine such as Kerrang or NME, it would be most likely that my cover image

would be that of a band – typically their pose would be stern, colours would be strong and most likely dark, it would have attitude and real music inside. But then I thought to myself, do I want to imitate? Is this what the whole world of media is about? Evidently, no? In the world of media, to be noticed, it is all about being unique and different as it is a very, very competitive world to be successful in, so after a tedious thinking process on how I could make this work, I come to the conclusion that my magazine would be MULTI GENRE. This way, I could incorporate all the codes and

conventions of all genre magazines and make almost a “super magazine”, uniting all genres of music and their readers. Not only does this challenge all typical forms and conventions of magazines, but it is also setting a trend, a

trend that could make a difference if practiced in the real world of magazine publishing. There would be something in my magazine for everyone, every music lover could enjoy and relate to each other about the same thing - no

differences, no divides. Not only is it unique, but I also believe that it could be truly inspiring. It would challenge and hopefully abolish all the possible stereotypes that are associated with music magazines - because let’s face it, it

happens. For example, take Top of the Pops magazine. We immediately think, young, innocent girls. Bright colours and aspects. Even though this isn’t a negative stereotype, it is a stereo type all in all. The only group that I am aiming my magazine at is anyone of a particularly young age, preferably the age bracket that starts at teenagers and young

adults and this is not done in any ageist way whatsoever, it is simply because I feel that not only is my magazine different, but it is also cool, young and trendy – in design and content.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products?

My magazine cover has aspects from all different genres :

Black background - black is often associated with Rock.

Bright coloured gradients and house style – stars can be

associated with R n B as it is generic to the whole idea of superstar rich and famous

glamour, and the choice of bright colours in general can be

associated instantly with either R n B or Pop.

The contrast of bright and dark colours – this can be associated with ANY genre, Pop, rock, grime

- the list goes on!My front cover has all the good aspects picked out from each genre, it is not so targeted or

specific as these examples are.

Most magazine creators could answer this question quite easily, constantly referring to the set stereotype that they have based the content and design around, however in my instance my answer is a lot broader. This is because of the main moral of my magazine, and what message I am trying to put across. The whole concept of me creating a multi genre magazine was to eliminate a certain stereotype, to catch attention and to try and show that not all music is associated with one set type, by doing this not only will I have a much broader target audience, but also a much more positive outlook on music tribes in general. The social group that I am trying to represent in my magazine in general is

the youth of today, and for once in a good manner. I am trying to show what music artists of today are really are about, and how something as influential as music can

sometimes negatively divide groups of people due to prejudices associated with certain stereotypes, but how it can just as easily unite people everywhere – especially if they are all reading about their artists in the same place! It represents all types of people.

But overall it is just a youthful, unique and fun magazine, and I am more than happy to say that I am representing anyone in any social group possessing these qualities. I

understand that it is extremely important to have a certain target audience to aim a magazine at for it to be successful, but the idea of targeting everyone in the same place at the same time with all the different things that they individually know and love seems like a much more exciting, revolutionary and intriguing look on the world of music and how it is represented in magazines and moreover through it’s fans, the way they dress

act and overall live their lives.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In order to fully understand how the full production of creating a magazine works, it was inevitable that I researched the institutions and distribution stages. From this research I established that it is the big companies with the instantly recognisable

trade marks that hold the key to all the success. They have their trade mark stamp on hundreds of different products in different mediums of media that as a

subconscious human, we probably do not even recognise without a close watch! In the instance of “Seein Sounds”, I thought long and hard about which institution

would be best to distribute my product and the first institution that came to mind was BBC, this was because of how well known this company is. However, after I

researched into the current products that they have distributed in the past and are currently distributing I found that there may be a stereotyped attached to this

distributor, this stereotype was pop. This is because of the huge success that they had with the magazine, website and television show Top of the Pops. After this

elimination, I had to think of a distributor which represented many different artists, forms of media and genres and the perfect distributor for “Seein Sounds” is Sony.

Sony is a worldwide success, they have a multi million record label Sony BMG which has signed hundreds if not thousands of artists from all over the world who come from completely different genres – some of which are featured in my magazine. I highly admire this record label as I feel they are trying to portray the same values that I am with my magazine. However, in today’s day and age, technology plays a

huge part in peoples lives, and it just so happens that Sony are today’s king of technology, producing mobile phones, televisions, laptops and many more other

technological products which take up many hours of our lives! Because of this, I feel that these products are perfect to promote Seein Sounds, for example through the

feature of Bluetooth advertising on Mobile Phones, Internet Advertisements and also Television Advertisements, and in turn “Seein’ Sounds” could advertise Sony and all

it’s products creating a huge circle of media success.

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

As mentioned earlier, I am trying to steer “Seein’ Sounds” away from having a specific target audience as the whole aim of my magazine is to

eliminate the stereotype, however it is necessary to have a target audience in some sense even if it is very vague. After considering this key

factor and after research I discovered that the majority of music magazines are aimed at and purchased by youthful people who are either

teenagers or young adults and decided that this was not labelling or grouping anyone and was probably the best group to aim my magazine at

- following in the foot steps of many successful magazines such as Kerrang, NME, Vibe and so on…

The main way of attracting and addressing my many target audiences was through the form of content. This is because I have decided to incorporate many different genres typical conventions into my overall design, therefore I can not say it is aimed at any specific group. In context to content, I tried my best to

include as many different artists from as many different genres as possible. For example, I feel as though I am pushing boundaries in general by including a grime artists in my magazine, this is because you do not

see very many grime magazines at all, you do not see non commercialised grime videos on television either, this is because it is an underground genre. Basically meaning that it is unknown and has its faithful fan base who follow on the basis of hearsay and sheer music love, a genre similar to this is Dubstep. So by featuring a not very commercial artist it has come across as being an exclusive. When we hear the word “EXCLUSIVE” we immediately think GOSSIP, and it is common knowledge that young people – my target audience, just love gossip! This would be a lure in itself to a certain amount of young people – my main

target. On my cover image, the lexis that I used was addressing the reader in a personal manner, making them feel as though I am having a conversation with them. Because of this, I am trying to make the

language chatty and informal by using terms such as “the ins and outs” and “all the gossip”, I make them feel involved by the magazine in things such as the strap line because I use words such as “you” and

“your” to give them the feeling that it is them and them alone that the magazine are trying to cater for. For those who were not interested in the inside scoop of grime, there were also many other genres and

teasers for them to be attracted to. For example, the heavy metal band Bring Me The Horizon were featured exclusively, but not much information was revealed – but just enough to make them want to read more. It becomes obvious that the youth of today are always after something for free (this can be taken in both a good and a bad way!) and they are obviously going to be intrigued by the lure on the bottom strip

saying “Exclusive Giveaways”. The lure does not specify exactly what the giveaway is, but it is just enough to get them interested enough to purchase the magazine, even though they are spending their own money

on the magazine itself – by giving them something in return it is giving them the impression that we are giving back, moreover, they are getting more for their money! I have tried to relate my magazine to my

“target” audience as much as I possibly could by using bright colours, featuring contemporary artists and using informal language to an extent.

Personally, I feel that the biggest gain that I have got from this experience is technical. Straight from the preliminary task, I was told that I had to use Adobe InDesign to construct my magazine – yes I was still

allowed to use Adobe Photoshop to edit my pictures but the magazine itself could only be constructed on Adobe InDesign, a programme that I was completely new to, a programme that I have never used

before. My front cover was the first technological hurdle that I had to overcome, the first thing that I had to do was make my cover image unique and different – and this was done by using the Polaroid effect on my images. This was a very technically challenging task to do and took quite a bit of practising to master

the process. This process is shown step by step on my blog. After putting the Polaroid effect on my image, I then had to figure out how to add many more effects to make the picture look professional, this was done using things such as Drop Shadow and Bevelling and Embossing. After editing this particular image, I then had to repeat the process several times on the different images that I am using on my

double page spread and contents page. The main new skills that I have learnt from making this magazine on Adobe Photoshop have been the effects side of things, yes I had to magic wand, colour render, crop and lasso many images to create the desired effect, but these are already skills that I

possess as a result of other previous projects. The new things that I learnt were the added extras such as adding outer glows in different colours, and adjusting the opacity on this glow so that the rest of my text was visible. The front cover was probably the most difficult because this was the first ever project

that I have created on InDesign, because of my unfamiliarity it did slow down the process slightly, but it only sped up the process on my next contents page and double page spread. I had to gain the

knowledge on how to insert and edit text, place, and resize images, this was a lot more complicated to do on Adobe InDesign than it was Adobe Photoshop and this is because it is a lot more technical and

accurate in terms of placing. The contents page was a lot simpler because I had already mastered the process of creating different coloured gradient stars on Adobe Photoshop, all I had to do was do this in

different colours and simply place my title and image on, an overall simple process to complete.

The double page spread was the longest design process to complete on Adobe Photoshop and this was because I had to construct the whole layout and background myself. The norm for double page spreads is to either have a rather large central image and to have the text map out around it, or it is a plain background with quote boxes to add splashes of colour, however being as I wanted “Seein’ Sounds” to push boundaries, I wanted my double page spread to look as though it was in a setting,

to give a sense of location almost. When deciding that I was going to have a notice board as my background, I thought I could simply copy one from Google Images, this was certainly not the case. After hours of searching, I come to the conclusion that I would just have to create one myself. The first thing I did was fill the background brown, then I textured it, to give the feel of a cork notice board. I then saved images of typical items that you would find on a notice board such as lined pieces of paper, post it notes, notice board pins and paper clips. These were then colour edited,

cropped, resized and placed onto my notice board along with the edited Polaroid pictures to give it a natural look of unorganised chaos. The title then had to be edited in the same way as the title on my

front cover to keep the house style generic. After I placed this JPEG (Converted File) on InDesign, I then added my main article, and even after editing the glow, some of the text was not visible, no

matter what colour I changed it too. So I decided that because the sheets paper that I used on the notice board were white, I would place another one behind the text so that it would be more visible. After trial and error and many different placing of the pieces of paper, I finally created the perfect layout so that all of the article was visible. Even though this process was strenuous and very out

stretched, the final outcome was worth it because you can immediately tell the difference from an amateur and more professional piece of work, this is proved in my Polaroid images – the

transformation from those used on my School Magazine to my music magazine is unrecognisable. Overall I feel a huge sense of personal achievement because I have learnt a huge amount

technically.

Personally, looking back at the school magazine that I produced, I feel that I have learnt huge amounts and have gained a lot of attributes personally and academically. When my first AS preliminary task was set, I looked at it as a huge impossible task, but the

sense of great achievement that I got was unbeatable. Back in the production stages of my school magazine, I felt that the ordeal of producing such coursework was too much, and I was actually very impressed with my finished product and the lengths that I went to, to create it. For example, something as simple as researching conventions. But then after I had the opportunity to look at many other professional industry produced school

and music magazines and after I had received my audience feed back, it became apparent that my coursework was not up to the standards that I had hoped for in my flat

plans. This then gave me the determination to do even better in my real coursework task. Because of this incentive, I decided that it was not only the production tasks that

add up to having a successful project – it is also extensive planning, research and evaluation. So before I even began to produce my magazine, I felt it important that I found out a lot of background information on different genres of music magazine, the

appropriate codes and conventions. It was also important that I knew about the institutions and distributors so I could decide who is appropriate for my own project.

After many long hours of hard work, under strict deadlines I feel that I have learnt to be a bit more patient with myself and my work, and I have also understood to huge extents how important a deadline and schedule can be, especially with strenuous work such as this. I am extremely happy with the finished product, and I am also extremely happy

about the feeling of personal achievement that I have gained as a result of this.

Because this magazine is a re entry to last years coursework, I felt a huge sense of achievement when I saw the progression of

last years magazine to this years magazine, and here is the dramatic difference.

Last Years Front Cover

This Years Front Cover

Last Years Contents Page

This Years Contents Page

Last Years Double Page Spread

This Years Double Page Spread