Final Product

Evaluation Question 1 - In which way does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 1 from gracepage15

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 4 from gracepage15

Evaluation Question 5 - How did you attract and address your audience?

https://vimeo.com/203273750

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

Question 6 from gracepage15

Evaluation question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression to the full product?

Developed Final Designs

On my DPS I have made the font smaller and added a drop shadow on the images. This makes the page come together more as due to the smaller font, it does not take the attention away from the rest of the elements of the page.

Developed final designs

Since reviewing my audience feedback, I have altered my final designs.
I have only altered the front cover and my DPS, as I did not get any feedback to alter my contents page in any way.
This is my updated contents page and DPS.

I have made the word 'JAMIE' larger to make the featured artist stand out more, as I searched front covers and the majority of them did have the name of the featured artist in the largest front on the page.

Feedback of my final design

This is the feedback I received from my peers.

Common feedback was that the font on DPS should be smaller and the photoshop skills and photography was very good. It was also mentioned that the word 'JAMIE' on the front cover should be made larger and I should add drop shadows to the images on my DPS.
I will not take all of these comments on board and will relook at my final designs in order to improve it all.

Final Designs-Double page spread

Final Designs-Contents page

Front cover development

On the front cover I realised I have challenged the codes and conventions of magazines as the text is on the featured artists face and hair. Although it follows the codes and conventions of being the largest tag line on the page, I realise I need to change the size and placing of the word "JAMIE'.

I also added an arrow at the bottom of the page which points from the special edition footer to the red circle to show that they link and to attract more attention to the extra feature in the magazine, to give it a unique selling point.

Also, I decided to keep my background a simple block colour based on inspiration from my previous research of 'RnB magazine'. This is because their magazines have a more artistic and contemporary style, which I think fits the genre more appropriately.

Final Designs-Front cover

Beat Magazine

Click here to have a look at Beat Magazine.
This magazine follows slightly different codes and conventions to other magazines. They adopt a more artistic and minimal approach in their magazines.

Examiners report review

We went over the examiners feedback, and after reading it I have learnt and gained ideas on how to make my magazine more successful.
I know to include things such as:
-price, date, page numbers, website
I also know to keep certain parts of the magazine consistent, such as:
-the house style, font, colour palette, layout consistent

Front cover development

I have began to start to add tag lines and a masthead to my front cover.

I choose to use the masthead font which was the most popular from my questionnaire as it suits my genre the best as well as proving to be the most appealing to may target demographic.

I have also chosen to use the colour red for things which I want to stand out, such as the word "exclusive", due to it standing out and being a feature colour on the jacket.

For now I have also made the background grey, however I will experiment with this to see what looks best and continue this development.

Front cover inspiration-Q magazine

I saw this magazine cover from Q magazine which stood out to me. It has a limited colour palette as it just uses white, red and black for everything around the image. It also has a sophisticated and professional look as it states all of the main features within the magazine on the cover, as well as not making it look too busy and therefore messy. The typography is also continuous on the whole of the cover, except for the name of the artist to make it stand out, which gives the magazine a sense of continuity and a house style.
Q magazine are also making it clear that it is an 'awards special edition' by saying it near the mast head and making it stand out on the cover. This gives the audience another reason to want to buy the magazine as it is for an occasion, and since the magazine industry has gone down the past few years due to technology, this helps to give the magazine a selling point. From my focus group it was evident that if a CD or magazine is about a particular favourite artist or event, people are more likely to buy it to keep for sentimental value, like a souvenir. So by making my magazine a special edition it gives the audience more reason to buy it and therefore make the magazine more successful.

Coloured background tutorial

I used another Photoshop tutorial to learn how to add a coloured background to a portrait. The model of the example tutorial wears a bold red dress, so the background colour is all red.

The model on my front cover wears a bold green jacket, which is the centre of the photo as it is so eye-catching. So I tried using green as the coloured background so it links with the jacket. I followed the tutorial and this was my result.

As this was my first attempt I was fairly happy as it tuned out how I wanted it to.
Click here to see the tutorial I used.

R&B research for DPS information-Chance The Rapper

Click here to read the Billboard article about Chance The Rapper.
I found this article very helpful when planning what to write for my article on my double page spread as it enabled me to gain a better understanding about R&B culture and background, as well as to give me inspiration on the background of my featured artist to make it more accurate and appealing to my target audience.

Magazine sales research

Due to magazine sales evidently decreasing over the past years (as shown in the graph below), I decided to conduct some research in order to see if there is a way to ensure my magazine would be successful.

I found a book called 'Marketing Research' , published in 2007, which included sales of the media and magazine industry.
 
It was very helpful in secondary research to see if my idea of creating a special edition magazine would be more successful in terms of sales, due to it having a unique selling point. I found that the research proved that for a particular magazine, owned by Time Inc., managed to sell more copies of the special edition magazine in comparison to their regular issues.

Due to this finding, I have decided to make my magazine a special edition issue to be more successful and interesting to my target audience.

YouTube tutorial

Click here to watch the tutorial which I followed in order to create a rip in the image using Photoshop

I followed this tutorial to experiment with my from cover. This was my first attempt at trying this out and I am fairly happy with the result.

As this was a first attempt at something like this on photoshop I am happy with how it turned out due to my previous little knowledge about different photoshop skills. The tutorial was hard to understand at first, however with the subtitles on and going through it slowly the skills were a lot easier to learn than I first believed them to be.

However, it was not very popular compared to my there images on my questionnaire so I will not use it. I can however use the technique I learnt somewhere else in my magazine.

R&B fashion

Click here to read the article I found about top R&B fashion stylist Ty Hunter from Teen Vogue.
He styles R&B celebrities such Beyonce and John Legend, so anyone interested in R&B will know of him and would be interested in reading about him, therefore making my magazine more appealing to my target audience if he was to be a feature of it.

There are also articles about him on Cosmopolitan, click here to read.

Focus Group

Name: Ross Bermon

Age: 17

Occupation: School (A Levels) at Southend High School for Girls

Hobbies: Loves music, playing rugby, socializing with friends

Music Industry: Ross accesses all of his music through the app Spotify; he pays £9.95 per month. He also occasionally buys CD’s if it is his favourite album and it as a meaning to him so he therefore wants to remember it and have a hard copy. He does not often buy music magazines but he said if he does, it will always be ‘Q’, like the CD’s, he will only buy a copy if the feature artist is someone he really likes and wants it for a memory, as otherwise he can access it online for free. The only concerts he’s been to us Example and he went to Vfestival in the summer, he said he would like to go to more, it is just very expensive to go.

Name: Aimee Gras

Age: 17

Occupation: School (A Levels) at Southend High School for Girls

Hobbies: loves swimming, music, socializing with her friends

Music Industry: Aimee accesses all of her music through Apple Music for £9.99 a month. She says she does not buy CDs as she only has a speaker which works via Bluetooth and her laptop is a Mac which does not have a space to insert a CD/DVD, so she therefore does not see the point in buying them. She says she does however regularly buy ‘Billboard’ magazines to keep up to date with everything going on and collects all of the issues. The only concerts she has been to is Vfestival as she also thinks they are very expensive and hard to get hold of tickets.

Name: Sam Latcham

Age: 20

Occupation: Assistant manager of The Anchor pub in Danbury

Hobbies: loves cars, football, seeing his friends, going to festivals in the summer

Music Industry: Sam has a Spotify subscription, which costs him £9.95 per month. He also is car obsessed so either uses his phone to play music on long journeys via Spotify by using Bluetooth, or plays his favourite Coldplay or Ed Sheeran CD which he purchased as he felt it had more sentimental value. He also loves going to Brownstock festival every year with his group of friends. He has gone every summer for the past 5 years due to the appearances always being people he is interested in, as well as for the social side of the festival. Sam said he never purchases magazines as he feels that they are not as important anymore due to all of the information being online, so rather than spending the money he would rather save it.

Name: Millie Steel

Age: 16

Occupation: School (A Levels) at Westcliff High School for Girls

Hobbies: loves football, netball, playing and listening to music, socializing with her friends

Music Industry: Millie accesses all of her music through Apple Music Family sharing for £14.99 a month. She says she does not buy CDs as she only has a speaker which works via Bluetooth and her laptop is a Mac which does not have a space to insert a CD/DVD, so she therefore does not see the point in buying them. She says she does however regularly buy music magazines as she took A Level music, so buys them reguarlly for extra reading. The only concerts she has been to is Vfestival as she also thinks they are very expensive and hard to get hold of tickets.

Lexicon of R&B words

Questionnaire results

Question 1:  

From these results it is evident that my option 1 was the most popular image as it received 81.8% of votes. This shows that it would appeal to people more and would make a successful front cover, so I will therefore use this image.




Question 2:

 The results from my questionnaire successfully showed that the majority (45.5%) understood that the genre of my magazine is R&B based by the images previously shown in question 1. This therefore means my images represent the genre well.




Question 3:

There was a clear majority vote that the name "Jukebox" is more suitable for the magazines header. The name relates to music in general and the word is commonly used in R&B songs to represent the origination of the jukebox. So to use this as the name of the magazine is a good idea as it links with the context and is also different and interesting so it will appeal to my target demographic.





Question 4:










Option 1 had a 72.7% majority so it was clearly more popular than the other fonts. It is a decorative font which links to the R&B genre as it is creative and artistic, which the R&B genre is commonly associated with being. It is also clear and easy to read as well as being fun.



Question 5:

From this question it is evident that not many people buy magazines very regularly, the majority of people buy magazines yearly (40%). To address the issue of magazines not being as popular anymore, my magazine will include exclusives and things which people will not be able to access anywhere else.



Question 6:

100% of my responses said that my target audience is teens, which is who I aimed my magazine out. This shows that from the images it is clear who my audience is which means it will appeal to them more and therefore be more successful.



Question 7:













From my results 54.5% of people voted that option 2 would be the most suitable image for the contents page of the magazine. The model in the image is positioned well so there is room for the article. it also sticks to the genre as it continues as it continued the R&B theme.



Question 8:

From my results it is evident that 63.6% of people preferred the edited image without a filter, compared to the others , one of which was black and white and another was a blue ombre effect with a photoshopped tear in the page. This shows that maybe a colourful and original photo may be more appealing to my target demographic. The black and white one was the 2nd most popular with 27.3%.

Q magazine- Media pack

Here is the link to Bauer Media about the statistics behind Q Magazine.
Q have an ABC1 profile, which is the same demographic I was planning on aiming my magazine at as they are consumers from the 3 highest social and economic groups, which consist of people who have more/higher education and better-paid jobs than those in other groups therefore meaning they have money to spend on magazines.

BillboardBiz- Media business matters

Click here to read an article published by Billboard in May 2013 about the business of media.

Before and after-edited photo

The image on the left is the edited picture I took, the one on the right is the unedited original photo.
It is clear to see that even with a small amount of editing on iPhoto, it makes a huge difference on the image. I enhanced the image, which adjusted the levels, making the image automatically looking improved. I also used the retouch tool to touch up any blemishes which were visible in the original picture, which gave the photo a cleaner finish. I also used this tool to remove the lines from the background in the photo, which makes it look more professional.

Planning-contacts sheets

These are all of the images I took today, there were a total of 350 images in total.
I was very happy with the images I took as a lot of them I would be able to use in my magazine.
The quality of the images were also very good- I used a Cannon 1600D.

InDesign tutorial

I used an YouTube tutorial for InDesign in order to learn all of the basics on how to use it.

Click here in order to see the tutorial I used.