Evaluation: How does your magazine represent a particular social group?

The artist I have used on the front cover of my magazine is in the 16-19 age range; this represents my target audience perfectly. He is also a black male, which connects with the genre of R&B/Hip-hop music, and represents the success of black artists in music.  The artist is wearing headphones, this fits well on the front cover of a music magazine and his NY baseball cap symbolises American’s influence on the music industry. The front cover advertises artists such as Rihanna and Flo Rida, again a further connection with the teenaged target audience. I have used a picture of the artist leaning against a graffitied wall, graffiti is iconic of youth culture and again the targeted genre of music. My artist is also wearing white trainers, which are a universal symbol of youth and energy.

Evaluation: Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Final Product

Preliminary Task: School Magizene

• On the front cover of my school magizene I did not inlcude standard conentions such as the, date, issue number and barcode. I made sure that I included these features on my actual music magizene. This taught me the importance of abiding by these conventioins.
•  Bettween creating my school magizene and my music magizene I learnt that using colours that are oppersite each other on the colour wheel helps make the front cover look a lot more professional.I have olny used the colour red in different shades on the front cover of my school magizene, whereas on the front cover of my final product I made sure that I used contrasting colours (blue & orange).
• On the front cover of my school magizene there is a white space at the top of the page, this looks unprofessional, and is raley seen in the press. This occored due to the fact that I had taken a landscape picture. Therefore on the front cover of my music magizene I used a portrait picture to ensure that it filled the front cover.



Neon Glow

• My photoshop skills have also improved, the images used in my school magizene were unedited, meaning they did not appear as if they were to professional standards. One of the images I took for my contents page looked dull and did not appear to suite my genre of music, to resolve this I added a neon glow to the photo.

Overall the front page of my music magazine has a far more professional appearance than my preliminary task, this is due to the fact that I have made good used of all the conventions that are used in the music press.

Photo #2

Prices of R&B/Hip-hop Magazines

Vibe is issued quarterly with double covers and costs £3.99. The magazine's target demographic is predominantly young, urban followers of hip-hop culture.

Double Page Spread

This is an example of how a baseball cap has been used on the front cover of a magazine to represent America's influence on the music industry.

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of existing magazines?

In what ways does your music magazine use

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

Media institutions

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Evaluation: Mode of Address

Mode of address

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Contents Page

Contents Page Images

I used the Plastic Wrap effect in Photoshop to improve the appearance of this image that I used on my contents page.

Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your product?

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

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Font: Octin Prison Free

I have used this font on the front cover, contents page and double page spread of my music magazine to represent my prison 'bars' theme.

This is an example of how the music magazine Kerrang uses shattered font to represent the rock genre i.e loud music shattering glass.

Evaluation: Target Readership

My target readership is aged between 16-19; they have a limited income, receiving money from their parents or a part time job. This is due to the fact that they are still in school or college, living with their parents; they would spend most of their money on fashion, buying urban clothes. Alternatively, they would spend their money on gaming, the cinema or gig tickets.  Many would watch MTV for diversion, as well as having it on in the background as they work, socialise or relax. They may also watch entrainment news which now appears on various channels, this would fulfil their need for surveillance, allowing them to find out what is going on in the music world. My target readership may also watch music videos on websites such as Youtube as this is a free source of diversion. They would be fans of first person shooting games such as Call of Duty or Halo. In current times stress form school or college is building up and the need for different types of diversion is increasing. As well as diversion, the readership would read music blogs or magazines for surveillance. Their main music interest is Hip-hop or R&B, with the majority of the readership owning at least one iPod. They own some CD’s, bought before the wide spread use of iTunes. However, now they get most of their songs by downloading. They have attended their favourite artist’s concert as well as having some memorabilia.  Finally, they would aspire to live a luxurious lifestyle, looking up to artists and celebrities who have made it big.

Photo #3

Flatplans for Music Magazine

Front Cover Idea

Double page spread idea 

Front Cover Idea

Contents page Mock-up

Double page spread idea

Double page spread idea

Photo #1

I took this photo with plans to use it in my double page spread. In this photo my artist, ‘LDN’ is standing in front of a gratified wall. Graffiti is iconic of R&B/Hip-hop and urban culture and holds connotations of crime. The image is a long shot which captures the whole of his body. The bright white of the artist’s trainers contrasts well with the gray mouldy wall and wet concrete floor. The photo is taken at an angle and appears to capture a moment in the artist’s life where he is listening to music, he is wearing headphones and seems to be mouthing the words of a song, as well as tapping the beat on his thigh.  

Behind The Bars

The genre I chose for my music magazine was R&B/Hip-hop, This genre has many ties to prisons and criminality. This link can be attributed to some of the biggest rappers constantly talking about their dark pasts and many artists such as Lil Wayne and T.I being mixed up in the prison system. This allowed me to come up with a unique concept, which I felt was well suited to the genre and appeals to my target market. The concept is prisoners meet Hollywood meets Brooklyn, with the latest reviews, and an emphasis on photo shoots and exclusive interviews.  The name that I thought represented this concept was ‘Behind the Bars’ with ‘bars’ being the focal word. ‘Behind the Bars’ also has a dual meaning, the more obvious one being, behind prison bars, secondly lyrics are often referred to as bars. Therefore, the name infers that the magazine goes behind the lyrics.

This blogs lists artists in the R&B/Hip-hop genre who are in prisons, further reason as to why my concept is well placed in this genre: Rappers we wish werent in prison