Kiranjit Jandu

Music Magazine Evaluation

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

Conventions of real media products?

Front Cover

A masthead is a convention that you would usually find on any type of magazine, this represents the magazine itself. I chose the bold type of font for the masthead because I think it goes with the RNB theme in which I wanted to create. The masthead is quite overpowering, as it is bold but also the colour of the masthead is obvious and bright which makes it stand out. The masthead is also overpowering because it is right over the top of the page, which is viewable to all. This certain style of this masthead was influenced by ‘VIBE’ magazine. I have used some elements of bright yellow and have kept some elements remain black, so that the colour yellow does not dominate too much.

(http://www.drizzydrake.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/drake_vibe_mag_cover.jpg)

On any magazine front cover you would most likely need a strong main image, showing what the magazine features and representing the genre of the magazine. I chose this certain image of Bella because I think the image is very dominating and it conveys the type of magazine I want to portray. The image consists of Bella looking to the side holding her snapback, showing off her tattoos, which looks a little rebellious. It shows that most RNB rappers/singers are quite carefree and laid back by how she has been positioned and by how she is standing in that certain way. This then draws the buyers’ attention in and adds curiosity. I think that the image also matches with the house style with the black clothes, chains, tattoos and black snapback, which most likely represents RNB in a way. This gives my magazine a better look overall as my colours are quite coordinated.

A barcode on the front cover of magazines is a typical convention of a magazine. However, I did challenge the convention by placing the barcode on the left side of the magazine. This makes the OVOXO magazine a little different, as it is something different to the eye.

The cover lines on my front cover are in yellow font, matching the black and yellow house style however, I did keep some of it white so it did not have too much yellow, and look tacky. Cover lines are typical conventions in which you find on a magazine. However, I did rather challenge the convention as I did not keep the cover lines on just one side of the page, but I spread them across the magazine.

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The name of the Band/Singer I decided to put across the front cover, illustrating the main band/singer that is going to feature later on in the magazine. I chose this type of font because it illustrated the band/singer that I wanted to portray, a handwriting ‘graffiti’ type of look.

The triple I have used ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ is effective because it shows the reader that this girl is rebellious. It also seems to be quite catchy. I decided to put this above her arm because when the reader is looking at the triple, the reader will also see the tattoos, which would represent that certain quote. I have used a PUG at the bottom of the page because it draws the reader in knowing that there is information on drake tickets that they might want to purchase, therefore they can read page 42 for further details. PUGS are typical conventions on a magazine front cover, with a purpose of convincing the reader, to buy the magazine.

Double Page Spread

The title of my double page spread is a different title to my front cover; this is where I challenged the convention, as it would be more appropriate to keep the same title as the front cover. The font is also different which is challenging conventions once again because its better if it remains the same font as the front cover so that it is easily recognised, however in a way it’s something unique.

The writing I chose to have the headings/questions in bright yellow and then the responses in white, in order to distinguish who the interviewer is and who the interviewee is. The questions of the interviewer are in yellow and the answers are in white. This differentiae’s the text and breaks up the text, so the reader is not overpowered with big blocks of writing. In this text, I have included a lot of information about the band/singer, including the songs that she has come out with, latest news and merchandise. The introduction of the singer is also included for readers to find out a little bit of background information before they carry on reading and for readers that are tasking a first glimpse at the singer/band.

The main image I chose was of Bella and Layla; this represents who else is in the band. I wanted to include one other person on the contents page to make it more interesting. However, in a way I have challenged the conventions of a music magazine as I have only used one main image instead of using maybe one or two more.

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Contents Page

For the title of the contents page, I just kept it basic and simple as I just named It ‘contents page’ this is because I want people to be fully familiar that what they are reading is a contents page and this is basically what the whole magazine features. Therefore, I didn’t really challenge the convention. However, I did challenge some of the format of the text as I changed it up and made it look quite interesting by breaking up the word. The size of the font is also quite big and bold as it’s in white and it goes well against the black background, which makes it easier to read for people.

The date is also included underneath the title which is a convention in any type of magazine saying what month the issue is being produced at.

The picture on my contents page is Bella doing the OVOXO sign so that people are reminded of the magazine and what type of magazine they are reading. This particular image gives the magazine a very unique look. Which shows I have been quite innovative towards the presentation of my picture on the contents page. I removed the background of the image because I think it blends in the background of the magazine as Bella is wearing black too, it automatically makes her a part of the magazine more and it fits in with the whole idea of the theme I have created. I think that the picture also matches the genre of the magazine I was going for.

The column on the left of the contents page consists of the main pages in the magazine. The colours for the font I used are white because I didn’t want to over use the yellow, however I did use a yellow border to highlight the features, as it has some importance. This part of the magazine features what the magazine will include and what kind of upcoming stories are around. I feel like I had to keep the white for the text so that the yellow didn’t look overpowering, as it could take the attention off the actual content of the text, which is more important to the reader than the colour, in my opinion.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Front cover

The social groups that are represented in my music magazine are the readers which you would expect to see purchasing an ‘up to date’ music magazine. Which are most likely the younger generation of people.

My magazine would mainly be targeted at people of the young generation like ages (16 – 20), teenagers

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who are interested in R&B music. However, I think the music magazine will mostly target the male gender but also female gender as I have challenged the convention by using Bella on the front of the magazine because most R&B magazines use a powerful male figure. Also, the ethnicity doesn’t matter; this magazine is aimed at anyone that is interested in this type of music. Any person from any class can buy this magazine, they wouldn’t get judged.

The gender which I am portraying in my magazine is a group called ‘OVOXO’, this group is not stereotypical in any way. The girl on the front cover is portrayed as strong and dominating. This is shown by the picture on the front of the magazine:

With Bella holding her snapback and with the powerful look she is fiving shows that she is quite rebellious. Bella is wearing clothes that normally a male figure would wear as that’s how it is stereotyped; however I have challenged that stereotype by using a female figure. This picture has been influenced by drake on the front cover of VIBE magazine as drake is giving a very fierce looking but he is also wearing quite ‘gangster’ looking clothes which makes him look tough, however I have used a female figure – the female gender does not look passive.

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

The music magazine will need suitable publishing companies to publish the magazine effectively. There are various publishers that publish music magazine, however choosing the right publication company is vital to ensure that the magazine is distributed well enough and that it reaches its target audience. Therefore, I looked at a certain distributor called ‘Spin Media’.

Spin media is a publication company that owns a numbers of pop culture websites including spin, buzz net, vibe and The Frisky etc. I feel like OVOXO could possibly fit into the type of magazines that spin media normally publish. As the target audience for the magazine is a younger target audience so this fits in with the Spin Media image. The company has a lot of experience in the market and would give my magazine a good advantage over other media products. As Spin Media is an established publishing company it means they already have a strong brand image. It is very significant that the magazine fits into the Spin Media image. My magazine is quite unique and is a new product which is targeting upcoming musicians and young artists and is aimed at attracting young readers. Also, I think that Spin media would be a good company to publish my magazine as it has already came out with the magazine called ‘VIBE’ which is what my magazine was influenced by.

Therefore, I think that overall Spin media would be a better option to publish the OVOXO magazine; this is because Spin media have a lot of experience in publishing magazines and are very successful in publishing the magazines. Also, I think that if Spin media has all the experience then they will have experience in publishing different genres of magazines, including the R&B genre.

Places OVOXO could be sold at;

Music shops: (HMV)

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Newsagents: (Co Op, WHsmiths)

Supermarkets: (Tesco,Asda, Sainsbury’s)

Who would be the audience for your media product?

These magazines all have a target audience of people who are:

Any gender

Targeted towards the younger generation (teenagers/young adults)

Interested in music

However, my magazines audience is a little different. It could possibly be targeted more towards teenage girls as the front cover; contents page and double page spread are all girls. Besides the images being girls, the girls are still dressed up in more of a manly way as the use of colours presents that and the style of clothes and accessories.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience to my magazine through the use of colours and font. I kept the same colour scheme throughout the magazine. I think that it was significant to keep the same colours consistent through the magazine because it looked professional because if you don’t then the magazine will look like each page belongs to a different magazine; therefore I used the same elements in parts of the magazine.

Kiranjit Jandu

I chose the main colours of black, yellow and white for my magazine. This is because the yellow really stands out on the black. The presentation of the magazine looks readable; this attracts the reader into buying the magazine.

I also attracted the audience to my magazine through the use of exclusives. The example of drawing the reader into my magazine was by the use of a PUG on my front cover. The sentence ‘Tickets selling now’ stands out to the potential buyer, however what stands out more is the word ‘Drake’ as Drake is a famous known rapper people will pay more attention as that word is what any consumer would like to see.

I attracted my audience to the magazine through the use of pictures; all the pictures in my magazine attract the audience because they all have a ‘rebellious ‘‘attitude’ ‘different’ look about them. Everything about all the images would interest the audience, wanting to know about these new upcoming artists. All of the pictures were edited on Photoshop, in order to make them look lighter as some of the images were a little dark, therefore I wanted to make the image bright so that the image was more viewable.

I also attracted the audience to my magazine through the use of language. For instance on my double page spread I used easy going language, the Q&A is very chatty, making it nice to read for all the readers. Also, having a lot of useful information inside, which will keep the reader interested.

I then attracted my audience to my magazine through the attitude. This is extremely important; it attracts the audience straight away by their body language. For instance on my double page spread the body language of the two girls is very laid back and relaxed, quite careless looking which is what R&B represents in a way. I think that for the attitude of the magazine portrayed this needs to be done on the front cover, because this is the page the potential customer will first look at for a music magazine.

I attracted the audience to my magazine by the masthead. I chose the name OVOXO because ‘OVO’ is what drake uses as his label which means ‘Octobers very own’ which is founded by drake as his birthday is in October. Drake normally collabs with ‘The Weeknd’ who is a singer and uses the label

Kiranjit Jandu

‘XO’ ‘which is the slogan of his and this stands of ‘Ecstasy and oxycodone’, which in fact are drugs, this then represents the genre as R&B normally is related to violence, sex and drugs.

The colour yellow was influenced by the ‘VIBE’ magazine which drake was issued i think the yellow against the black background is very strong, bold and it really stands out.

This masthead matched my magazine because the letters look like graffiti and has a very ‘ghetto’ style to it; this reflects most R&B bands. This links in with the audience which will be mostly people who are interested in R&B music and this masthead gives off the ‘R&B' look. With it being unique and ghetto looking.

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

Throughout this process these are the soft wares which I have used:

I used Photoshop to cut out the green screen background in my image; I did this by using the magic wand to eliminate any green areas so I could use my own colour in the background. I also changed the brightness and adjusted that on Photoshop to make the image stand out more and make it appear more realistic as if it was a real image going onto a real magazine.

I learnt how to copy and paste the image into Photoshop and erase all the background that I didn’t want. Then I made the image a little small to fit into my magazine perfectly, once I had erased all the background I placed it appropriately on the front of my magazine.

I didn’t use Microsoft for text; however I did use Microsoft for text for my double page spread as it was much easier because I had a lot of text for it. Whereas, for my front cover I just used text from Photoshop and inserted it in my magazine. Using the text box from Photoshop wasn’t as hard as I thought.

Blogspot.com was very easy to understand and a very quick process. It was simple and quick to upload work. When creating my three elements I worked in chronological order, I first produced the front cover, then the contents page and then the double page spread as it made sense to me to do so.

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

From the preliminary task I feel like I have become a lot more familiarised with the codes and conventions of a magazine, I have also more knowledge on the presentation of magazine and how

Kiranjit Jandu

they should be presented. I have become more of a creative person by using all sorts of software such as Photoshop, Microsoft, and blogspot.com. I know what to expect and not to expect in a magazine. My knowledge in the distribution of magazines has grown e.g. (SPIN MEDIA) (VIBE).

How is it like existing similar products? How is it different and why?

The OVOXO magazine is similar to ‘VIBE’ magazine. This is because the ‘VIBE’ magazine I looked at has the same type of look to it, as the colours are the same like the black and yellow. Also, the vibe magazine focuses on more R&B magazines. However, the magazine is quite different to mine as I have used Bella, whereas the’ VIBE’ magazine has used a powerful male figure like Drake, who everyone knows as a popular rapper.

Explaining editorial decisions why you used/didn't use some images.

I used certain images on the front cover, contents page and double page spread. For instance on the front cover I used a singular person on the front because I wanted the main upcoming star in front, so it was clear that Bella is the main subject and that the magazine features Bella mostly. However, for the double page spread I used two people as it represents that they are a group and that there’s not just one singer but there’s two. Also, I used two people on the double page spread because there’s a lot of text and a lot of information; therefore I think it’s important to have more than one image to showcase more about who the singer might collab with.

How has learning to use Photoshop been?

I did have some problems with Photoshop, I couldn’t manage to get some of the small sections of the green screen background from my image, so therefore to prevent that I zoomed into my image and used the eraser to eliminate it, so that my image looked right for the magazine. Also, another thing is that I would use a certain photo but it wouldn’t fit right, as the image was too big, therefore I tried to make the image smaller, but I think that as I did that the graphics of the image would be of less quality and that was a concern because I wanted my images to be of high quality so that my magazine looked proficient. Therefore, I used an image that didn’t have to be that altered. I would say that using Photoshop has been a good experience, because as I made mistakes I also learnt on the way of doing so.

How has your learning and understanding of media products come along since you made your school magazine?

I think that I have become more experienced in creating a music magazine as I had to create more complexed things such as a good heading, PUGS, loads of text and a barcode for the magazine. Also, what was difficult was editing my images in Photoshop and erasing every green bit from the image, to make it stand out and look professional. Whereas, in my school magazine I created it on Microsoft word which was quite basic and dull looking, I feel like I didn’t put as much effort and it looked quite tacky because the images were not even edited, so it made it look dull.