Evaluation- Looking back to my preliminary task and what I have learned in progression from it to my full product

Lookingback at my preliminary task, have improved my creativity and photoshop skills. The photos in my full project are of much clear, this because learned that outdoor lighting helps acheive better quality photos. I also learned that colour is very important when it comes to designing a magazine, on my preliminary task I used dull colours yet my target audience were teenagers, the dul colours did not really reflect on and attract my target audience. I also learned that a lot of magazines prefer to use articles instead of question and answers. Overall I that my full project was more successful than my first, furthermore, iy had a better audience response

Evaluation- What I have learned about new technologies

I used Photoshop, Adobe fireworks and Microsoft powerpoint to edit my magazine. Although Microsoft powerpoint allowed me to do some basic croping and colour edititing, it did not allow me to do complex editing such as cropping around text. Fireworks provided a lot of the features of Photoshop however it caused my photos to come out quite pixilated. I found that photoshop was the best software to use to edit magazine, this is because it allowed me to tone, enhance abd change the appearance of any model. Despite all of the features offored by photoshop, fireworks and powerpoint, I still had to press a physical ruler against the computer screen to check measurements which goes to show that technology may not always be accurate and easy to use. I also had to re-do photoshoots using a different camera showing that not all new technology would be suitable for creating a magazinw

Evaluation- Attracting and addressing my target audience

I have used bright colours such as yellow and pink on the cover on my magazine which will instantly catch the eye of any reader. Not only is the colour yellow eyecatching but there have been a lot of R&B songs recently where rappers are expressing there attraction to the colour yellow e.g. Wiz Khalifa's song 'Black and Yellow' and Chris Brown's song 'look at me now'. The use of colour yellow is more than relevant in the R&B industry at the moment.

The use of bold and colourful font also adds to the attraction of readers. Despite having used simple font, in contrast to the extravagant jewellery and lifestyles of R&B artists, the font has to be simple as there is a lot going on on the page and complicated text could lead to the magazine looking crowded and unattractive. The language I have used in my magazine allows my audience to relate to it, the use of slang almost represents a secret language used in Hip hop culture. The mise en scene of my double page spread involves a brick border representing 'the blocks' or 'the ghetto' this also allows a lot of my working class audience who may live in blocks to relate. In most of the images
I used, the camera angle is tilted to look up at the model to insinuate dominace and make them look powerful, this should hopefully attract people who pick up a similar attitude and want to feel dominance.

Evaluation- The audience for my magazine

In terms of the demographic of my target audience,  I am mainly aiming at young males and females aged between 16 and 25 and a few slightly older readers. this is because the most popular R&B artists at the moment are quite young and I gathered that there followers tend to be of a similar age or younger. Despite finding out that a large number of older people also enjoy this genre of music, I still that my magazine would be mostly purchased by young people because I think older people are more likely to buy magazines on lifestyle, not music. I am also sure that my magazine will be purchased by people younger than 15 because there is a growing number of 15 and 14 year old fans of R&B, furthermore, as my magazine is only £2.50 it means that is affrodable for younger readers. As the editor of the magazine I would prefer for younger readers not to read the magazine because the revealing images of womn may influence them in a negative way.

I am aiming my magazine at a working class audience, that is why I have given it an affordable price. However tried to mis the magazine with both 'ghetto' and sophisticated to encourage a wider readership, this can hopefully attract middle class readers. I doubt however that many people of high class would purchase my magazine. The sophisticated language and appearance of my magazine will hopefully attract some proffesional readers however I am mainly targeting students because they are the most likely to want to find out all the latest gossip.

The main audience of my magazine would b black and mixed raced Afro-Caribbeans, this is because R&B music is mainly dominated by black musicians however due to the rise in white and asian rappers and R&B singers such Eminem, Cher Lloyde and Jay Sean there has been a growth in hybrid idnetities meaning that white and asian males and females can also mix in and be a part of R&B and Hip-hop culture. The readers of my magazine are likely to have a ifestyle involving partying and or be aspiring musicians who may think its a good idea to read success stories of artists and how they made it 'big', hence why I ahave chosen my feature article to be about an upcoming artist. The attitudes of the readers may be quite strong and feirce, this is because R&B music promotes dominace.

Evaluation- What type of media institution may might distribute my magazine

It is most likely that an independant publisher will distribute my magazine, preferbly Harris Pub which is the same distributor which publishes King magazine which is an R&B and Hip hop magazine. Harris Publications specifies in black culture meaning that it would know exactly how to target and attract its audience, it would also know exactly where to sell the magazines

Evaluation- How my magazine represnts a particular social group

My magazine mainly represents afro-carribean and mixed raced R&B artists, this is because there are not a lot of white, asian or corcasian R&B singers and rappers. This may be because R&B was traditionally performed by black Americans in the late 1930s however the term R&B did not come up until the late 1940s. My magazine also represents hip hop culture.

My magazine represents females as sexual objects as the majority of the time the women are wearing clothes that expose some part f their body, mainly their bust. This is a method that is very commonly used in R&B magazines to attract men and even women who aspire to have bodies like these women. Looking back at my R&B mood board we can clearly see that all of the women are wearing near to nothing, which connotes that they are a type of sex object which is quite a negative representation in contrast to men who are allowed to be fully clothed or undressed in a way which still allows them to have dignity- this suggests that men are represented in a more positive way than females. However, I would go as far as to argue that females are represented in a positive way as the camera tends to always be slightly tilted up at them to make them look more dominant connoting that they are in power.

Similarily, other media platforms in music such as music videos also represnt young females in a sexualised way. an example of this is Nicki Minaj's R&B music video "Massive Attack" which features women in tight revealing clothes, some of them are even made to appear as chinese barbie dolls. On the contrary, Nicki Minaj's video does not only represent black males and females but also chinese females.

Above: Link to Nicki Minaj's music video

Evaluation- How my media product (magazine) uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products (magazines)

Like most magazines I have kept to a maximum of 4 colours in my main colour scheme (pink, yellow, black and white) as this is the convention. This is usually done by magazines (especually R&B magazines) to avoid it from looking too chaotic, it also helps the magazine have a constant hpuse tyle. I personally chose pink, yellow, black and white as colour cheme because it was the most popular amongst my target audience- this was proved by my market research. I beleive these colours will alo help my magazine stand out on the shelf and go quite well with the summer/spring season in which my magazine is set to hit the stores.

I also kept to a maximum of three fonts, magazines do this because it helps the magazine look more organised. The variation in font size and colour helps the magazines choose which text they want to stand out (signaling importance). In my magazine I tried to use quite sofisticated yet still quite 'street', 'slang' language; this is because I wanted my magazine to attract a variation of R&B lovers. Furthermore, in the world of R&B, slang words are quite commonly used. I used words like 'blocks' intead of 'estate', this challenges the ususal convention of keeping magazines quite formally written, howver it means that my target audience will be able to relate to it more.

I went for a very comvetional front cover layout which only included one image, this is to prevent it from looking to cramped and disorganised. I did however challenge the usual convention of only having one image on either side of my feature article because I had two ob both sides, I developed the and had two images cropped around the text on both sides of the page. I also challenged the convention of having a page title either layed out horizontally or vertically, instead I decided to have the tile of my contents pafe crossing itself by making half of it cross horizontally and the other half vertically; this lead to the two words which make up the title meeting at the letter 'O'. This did however work in my favour as it made the title work as a border yet still stand out as a title. I genrally think that thwarting this convention worked well, another magazine that tends to do this is Vibe magazine, instead they split up only one word in a different way. I beleive that bypassing some of the convetions can attract customers who may be tired of looking at the same old thing.

Above: Image taken from Vibe magazine

After looking at a printed copy of my previous contents page I realised that the font was to big and did not look proffessional, as a result I reduced its size and added discriptions to each heading. I then used a ruler to check that my contents page was devided imto two equal columns. The line in the middle of the columns is used to give the contents page a more 'blocky' feeling'; I noticed that a lot of magazines tend to use lined and boxes to devide their contents page.

To make my magazine more more attractive I added two photos to compliment my page and link with some of the pages.

In my next draft I changed some of the headings to match with the model's lips and carry through pink in the colour scheme. The use of the colour pink also seperates the tiles from the headings below.

Above is the first draft of my contents page, it was originally supposed to be my flatplan but I ended up liking it. I asked a few people what they thought and got a positive response. Like the contents pages I observed, I only used one image and kept things quite clean and organised. I made sure to keep my main colour scheme running through the contents page.

I noticed that a lot of R&B magazine content pages used the same font for their contents page as the one they used on their front cover; I took this into consideration when it came to designing my contents page. I found that most R&B magazines had a very simple, ‘clean’ layout only used one photo in their contents page in contrast to indie and rock magazines where they tend to use more than two photos to support the text. With this research I decided to use one main image on my contents page.

I came to realise that my text was too large, as a result I reduced the size to 11pt. This then allowed me to fit my large quotation in-between my text which made it look more professional and conventional. I outlined my text with the colour yellow, I did this in order carry on a constant colour scheme throughout my magazine. The last thing I had to do is measure accurately to assure that my double page spread was in equal columns as the convention for magazine articles is that text is laid out in equal columns.

After about an hour of cropping my text around my model with a few technical difficulties I I added a quote from my article on my models dress, I chose this particular area because I had no more space anywhere else on my article. Moreover I think that the quote worked well with the models dress.

I tried to encorperate another photo but this time I made it look like the model was blowing this title in the same way a kiss is blown. After asking for advice I chose to keep this layout.

I wanted to make my double page spread have a unique title, as a result I tried to encroperate a photo of my model  into the letter 'L' however I thought it looked too crowded so I did not take it on.

I then used adobe photoshop to crop around the two images, this is so that I can crop text around the images. I basically used them as borders for my text.

As I had a new artical I decided to go for a completely different yet still conventional feature artical layout. I began by picking two photos which I devided half way down the middle of the page, this is because I wanted to have two photos on either side so that the text in the center of the page, making it the center of attention.

Above is my finished front cover. I showed it to some potential customers, they all really liked the new and improved front cover and said they would definatly pick it up due to the use of colour and photos

My front cover looked like it was almost ready but I had to do one more thing, measure every corner to assure all that everything is in line. I tried to use the rulet and grid provided on adobe photoshop however they were not very accurate so I used a physical ruler.

From my research I noticed that a lot of R&B magazines such as 'The Source', 'Vibe' and 'Echos' magazine. I liked the addition, it also allowed me to give my target audience more infomation on whats inside my magazine.

When it came to adding my final puffs to my magazine cover I decided to stick to three types of font, (Agency FB, Impact and Palace Script MT) this is because I noticed that R&B magazines try to look organised by  not having too many types of fonts (including sizes). I made sure that noone of my puffs were covering my models face, I hoped that this would give them full focus allowing there gaze to be on her face and body. I assured to have the barcode, price and issue number layed out in the conventional bottom corner however I added a twist to it by rotating it (this is becoming very popular in magazines). My puffs included oppertunities for readers to win an Ipad, this was only one of the methods I used to encourage readers to pick up my magazine. I made celebrities names large so that when readers see the names of their favourite artist they will start to read the puffs and be eager to find out what juicy story the magazine has in store for them.

My New Feature Article

I did not think that my feature article was very good, some of the people I showed it to thought it was too short and simple, as a result I decided to re-do it completely by coming up with a new (more interesting) storyline which I would write up in article form, rather that question and answer form as I did previously with the other one.Although my storyline was different, I still wanted to keep the idea of bricks in my head because most of my favourite shots featured a brick background, as a result, I titled the article 'Back To The Blocks'
Below is my new article:

Keeping in mind what I learned from my target audience's colour choice, I created a faded diagonal yellow and white background which worked perfectly with the models pose as the yellow cut right at her arm. I chose this particular design as my final one because it followed the 'Z theory' and the yellow coming from the top left hand corner also insinuated sunshine giving the front cover an upbeat feel which would hopefully attract young lovers of R&B music.

I also tried a pink diagonal background; I took the pink in the background from the my model's dress and lightened it up to show some distinction and define the difference in layers. I also thought it would be effective to include a diagonal banner across the model to create another layer. The main reason for the use of diagonal lines in because I wanted to emphasize the 'Z theory' and encourage the readers eyes to travel across the page.

I tried to come up with a more sophisticated front cover due to the reaction of my target audience; I believed that it would would be best to completely start again. My first move was to add a gold-ish tone to my model's skin tone as well as some contrast, I did this because my target audience suggested that the models colour looked quite washed out. I also used Photoshop to enhance the colour pink on in the model's dress and jewellery so it can stand out on the shop shelves as the new colour is much  more eye-catching.
I first started with a basic black background because I thought it would be the easiest colour to work with however I did not like the way it blended in with the model's hair, furthermore I did not think that black would make the magazine stand out on shelves against its compettitors despite the bright pink accesories on the model.

The second layout I used was very similar to the last however it had two images, I added another image because after asking some people what attracts them to reading a page, a lot of  them responded saying that pictures attract them to a page be it a book, magazine, newspaper or leaflet, as a result I added an image in-between the text. As seen in double page spreads I analysed, the first word of the article (excluding the tile) is different from the rest of the text, and is always bigger. With this information I made the first letter of my cover story match the one of the title.

I put my article text into two basic layouts. The first layout I tried was similar to ones I had previously looked out with the picture on the right hand side and the article on the left. I used  the same text I had used on the tile on my front page for the tile of my article, I did this so that I could keep the house style running through the pages in my magazine.

I chose to use the photo with the brick background to match with the title  ‘Another Brick In The Wall’. I this image is particularly powerful as it connotes heavy emotion because the model is looking down at the grown, way from the audience as if she is thinking, the models gaze is indirect making her seem slightly more powerful than the reader who is curious to know why she is looking away and what she is thinking. 

My Cover Story

Using the idea of the bricks in my cover shot, I wrote up a draft cover story making sure to incorporate the bricks. I titled it ‘Another Brick In The Wall’. I chose to right an introduction then do the rest of the article in the form of Q&A so that the readers can get a full taste of the Artist being interviewed, I thought  that the readers would prefer to read questions and answers as it would be easier for them to scope the text if it was in this form.

Below is my article:

Reaction Of My Target Audience

Unfortunately my target audience did not have such a positive reaction to my front cover design, thought that the cover shot was perfect however the model’s colour looked quite pale and washed out suggesting it lacked some tone. My target audience also believed that the lighting was too low and the brick background should wither be enhanced or removed. They did however like the 3D effect of which made the background look far away and the model appear as if she is coming out of the page. I was also advised to change my font because it did not really look professional and the yellow did not really fit in despite the fact that my target audience voted for yellow, pink and white as their preferred colour scheme for an R&B magazine.

Unfortunately my target audience did not have such a positive reaction to my front cover design, thought that the cover shot was perfect however the model’s colour looked quite pale and washed out suggesting it lacked some tone. My target audience also believed that the lighting was too low and the brick background should wither be enhanced or removed. They did however like the 3D effect of which made the background look far away and the model appear as if she is coming out of the page. I was also advised to change my font because it did not really look professional and the yellow did not really fit in despite the fact that my target audience voted for yellow, pink and white as their preferred colour scheme for an R&B magazine.

The new thicker title font defiantly looked better and stood out more, it also gave the magazine cover a modern feel.

I found it very hard to work with the brick wall because I found that I could not move my model freely around the page as she was attached to the wall in the background, I decided to completely ditch the brick wall by cropping it out. After cropping out the wall I thought that the magazine cover looked quite plain, I also felt that it had lost its slightly ‘hood’ feeling.

This was my first try at making my R&B front cover, I chose this particular picture because it looks to be coming out of the page with a deep shadow which gives the page some depth. I assured that the model’s head was over the title as this is a very important convention used in most magazines.

I chose to use ‘Old English Text MT’ font because it is the type of font has always been used in newspapers up to now, this connotes that my magazine is the source if news (or in other words gossip), it suggests that if you need to know anything about what is going on in the R&B world, all you need to do is read Dominate Magazine. Using this ancient text also suggests that my magazine is timeless and is dedicated to bringing its readers information and entertainment year after year.

When I compared my magazine to the the others I had looked at, I realised that this font was far too complicated for the type of magazine I wanted to create, I noticed that all the other magazines I had looked used quite bold yet simple texts, as a result I decided to try out a different font.

The final photos I took at a party in the dark with the assistance of my camera’s flash. As my friend was ‘Djing’ at a part I thought that I may somehow be able to involve her in my magazine e.g. ‘hottest female DJs 2011’

Photo-shoot Four

For my third photo-shoot I got a couple two friends to pose as if they are kissing (pretending to be completely unaware of the camera), I then got them to pose as if they were shocked that they had been caught by paparazzi.  I wasn't completely sure what I was going to use these photos for but I knew that I would be able to make an interesting story out of them e.g. a celebrity caught cheating.

I took these pictures in natural light because I wanted them to be as clear as possible and I realised that photos taken indoors tend to be quite gloomy if there is a lack of professional lighting.

This particular picture being taken in broad daylight could suggest a happy couple.

I believe that these photos will attract my target audience to my magazine because it gives them surveillance allowing them to look gain insight in the lives of celebrities. Romantic photos of celebrities is a commonly used method in the magazine industry as it makes readers eager to find out what celebrities are getting up in there private life; these photos also allow emulators to benchmark themselves with the celebrities and their partners.

Photo-shoot Three

I thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of the walls the brick walls I used in my photo shoots in case I needed them in the editing process; having them at hand would save me having to travel back to the location of the shoot to recapture them if something went wrong in editing. It would also be better than taking photos of brick walls off the internet.

Photo-shoot Two

In my second photo shoot I chose to have my model dressed in another tight dress, this time a black one. I chose this particular dress as its tight (as most R&B artists tend to like their clothes tight to show their curves). The dress worn by the model slightly exposed her bust and showed her legs, this because in this genre women are very sexualised.  I think it was a good idea to also make my model pose in a black dress in case I decide to change my colour scheme later on in the production process, for example if I chose to take pink out of my colour scheme and use any other colour, the black dress will still be appropriate. However I still made my model wear some gold and pink jewellery in case.

For this particular photo shoot, most photos were taken outside in the dark with the use of a flash camera, I thought that this would give the images a cooled feel.

Re-doing My Photo-shoot: New Photo-shoot One

Having replaced my 3.5 megapixel phone camera with a 10.5 megapixel digital camera I was ready to do my photo shoot.

As my colour scheme is pink, yellow, black and white, I decided to dress my model in a pink dress and black coat for some of the photos, she also had pink nails and pink jewellery which I would hopefully be able to make use of during the editing. I also made my model wear a lot of golden jewellery  just like the other R&B artists do to represent wealth, I also hoped to pick out in with some yellow text or background.

As many R&B artists tend to refer to the ‘hood’ and the ‘blocks’ I thought it would be a good idea for my model to pause in front of some bricks in some of the photos, I picked 4 different walls, a plain white one, and three types of brick walls, one very rough, another slightly rough and a plain white brick wall. The rough white wall is to represent  the imperfectness of many R&B starts and how they have ‘built’ themselves through rough pasts or upbringings.

After cropping my picture I realised that it was slightly pixilated due to the fact that the picture was taken on my phone. I also realised that the colour in my image was a bit washed out, as a result I decided that I had to use a higher quality camera and maybe try a different lighting e.g. Natural light.

I chose to use a female model as my magazine is new and I believe using an attractive female model would attract readers. I assured that my model  was curvaceous in order to fit in with the rest of the models in the other R&B magazines.

I also tested out a few poses so that when I come to do my actual photo shoot I have an idea of what I am looking for. Below is one of the images from my first shoot.

 As seen below I tried to use one of the poses used by one of the most popular females in R&B (Nicki Minaj).

After analysing my picture I came to the conclusion that it was slightly pixelated due to the fact that the picture was taken on my phone. I also realised that the colour in my image was a bit washed out, as a result I decided that I had to use a higher quality camera and maybe try a different lighting e.g. Natural light.

More Market Research

When it came to doing my photo shoot I had to think back to my R&B mood board and how women in R&B were portrayed. I remembered that  women are often sexualised in and showing quite a lot of skin, especially bust; the females are also enhanced during editing to make them look more curvy, otherwise they pose in ways where their waste looks small and their bottom half looks ‘thick’. If I use to use a female in my photo shoot I had to assure that my model wore tight clothes which bring in their waste, I also had to make sure they do poses that make them look dominant. Another important thing that I looked at when I was doing my photo shoot was that my model looked wealthy, I decided that heavy exaggerated jewellery was to be present.

If  I used a male model, I ha to make sure that they were also wearing very heavy jewellery, maybe showing their chest and abs (if these parts are shown I may have to draw/paint a tattoo onto my model’s body as most R&B singers have these to show they have been through a journey, remembrance or love of a significant other, to fit in with the stereotypical R&B look, fashion or strength etc).  Other things that my male model could wear include baseball caps, designer clothes, designer sunglasses and an expensive looking belt.

With these photos I hope to represent classy young to middle aged fans and also the young females who emulate R&B artists.

Above are some potential poses that I may use; although R&B is very sexualised, I have to make sure that my magazine is not too sexualised as it may put off some of my more professional (female) readers.

EXTRA: My aim is to have several photos with the models at a range of height levels e.g. on the floor, standing up etc.

It was important that I designed  a flat plan for my front cover and double page spread, this would help me to have an idea of what my magazine was going to look like. A flat plan gives an idea of hw the layout, colour scheme and text will work together so that when it comes to doing the real thing I will find it easier to create my magazine.

As shown below I have tried to use the same colour scheme I used on my front cover in my main article, this is allows the two to connect. My house style is R&B, I would describe it as quite a mature and sophisticated style with a slightly street undertone, this will be my USP (unique selling point). I decided to create my magazine  with this style because I wanted it to be a bit different to the other  R&B  magazines which are usually very ghetto and may usually attract the same kind of audience. I hope that with my slightly posh R&B magazine style I will also be able to attract more middle class audience as well as the normal audience of R&B magazines. I am targeting both males and females so I will alternate the gender of my front cover model.

EXTRA: I may have a band going across the bottom of my magazine (front cover) which will let the consumer know what other exciting things are in my magazine, this is helpful especially if I do not have much room for puffs.

From the information I found from the double page spreads I analysed I decided to annotate the main key features in a double page spread to get a deeper insight on the codes and conventions used.

Below is my annotated diagram which concludes the main features of a double page spread:

I looked at the layouts and articles in some double page spreads in major R&B magazines for ideas on what my cover story should be about, how the page should be laid out and the kind of language I should use. Below are three double page spreads which I analysed.

I noticed three main layouts, the main layout consisted of  a main image taking up half the article text taking up the conventions of the page along as a few images with captions surrounding it, this seemed to be the most popular layout throughout all of the magazines I looked at. Another type of layer that I picked out consisted of one large image on the right hand side with a large block of text. The problem with this kind of layout is that the large block of text may put off readers as it is tiny and plainly laid out, however the way the image is cropped into the text complements the page. The final type of layout I identified is a very unique one as it features a large picture of the artist that the article is about in the centre with the text wrapped around it, the text was also set in small columns which makes it look like there is less writing; I believe this is a good idea as it may attract more readers due to its colourfulness and the way the text is wrapped around the image.

I thought it was important to do some market research before I began creating my research, as I had already don’t some secondary research by looking at some other magazine covers I decided to also do some primary research. I wanted to find out which colour scheme and magazine name my target audience preferred. As I was targeting young to middle aged R&B fans I surveyed 20 males and 20 females who enjoy R&B.

The two most popular colour schemes were OPTION 1 and OPTION 2, I believe this is because of the hit R&B song titled ‘Black and Yellow’ by the rapper Wiz Khalifa. The most popular magazine name was dominate. I think that this is a good choice because R&B is all about the artists trying to dominate the whole music industry.

I was very happy with the feedback and decided to have a merge my two most popular colour schemes into one (black, yellow, black and pink), this was I may be able to win over both groups which voted for the separate colour schemes. I decided to go with the name that my target audience suggested as it fits in very well with the genre.