Post Evaluation Production

After doing my evaluation I realised my magazine needed improvements and these are the final changes I have made. After making these changes I am a lot happier and more confident with my products as I think they look more professional and realistic. They also follow more conventions of house music magazines than my old products.   

Front Cover

On my front cover I changed my masthead to make it look more professional and follow the conventions of other house music magazines and by doing my research it looks very similar to the Mixmag masthead, I also found out how to put my subjects over the masthead which is a convention of well established music magazines - you don't have to see their mastheads because they are so well known. I also changed the colour scheme of my magazine and added more vibrant colours to make it look more attractive to the audience and also follow conventions of other house music magazines because they use dark colours but also include vibrant colours like yellow and pink. As my front cover image would appeal to women I used a light blue so it had an element to appeal to men. I text wrapped my plug and added another one so my magazine would look more like existing magazines and look more aesthetically appealing to the audience. I made the layout of cover lines and anchorage text more similar to those that Mixmag has so they would stand out more and look more professional than having them all in boxes, I added more cover lines so my magazine looks like it has more to offer as before the right side looked a bit bare. I added a drop shadow to all my text so that it could be more eye-catching and make the audience be able to see it better. I added a weblink at the top of the page because it would appeal to the audience because they are up to date with the latest technologies and would be able to easily access the website due to having smartphones, laptops etc.

Contents Page

On my contents page I changed the images on my contents page as they were not original images and from doing some research I found that on most house music magazine contents pages they don't include a lot of images apart from the main focus of the magazine so the audience are drawn to the main image rather than the other smaller images and instead added more pages to my magazine so again it could look as if my magazine had more to offer. I changed my colour scheme to match my front cover and making the headings more clear and eye-catching to the audience. I changed the page number and subheading fonts so that they weren't as big and the page now looks less bare. I changed the way the 'contents' was laid out so it could stand out to the audience and not look as boring and looked more aesthetically pleasing. As I changed my masthead on my front cover I had to include the new one on my contents page to continue to house style. I removed the lines and grey part of the contents page as it didn't look very professional and looks a lot better without these.

Double Page Spread

On my double page spread I only made some minor changes. I changed the main image to one that uses direct mode of address so it would engage the audience more, I also changed the colour of the second page so it would fit more with the colour of the picture. I moved my pull quote as part of the columns because it is a convention of other music magazines and it made the title of the pages the focus instead of the pull quote. In the title I made the name of the artist bigger so the audience would be clear on who I was focusing on and it would stick in their mind. I removed my web link as it wasn't in proportion with the banner and didn't look very professional. To continue my colour scheme and house style I changed the colours of the questions and the byline. 

Question 7 - Looking back on your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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

Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

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

The target audience will be a mixture of males and females and their average age will be 17-25. This is because this is the type of age group that would listen to house music, older people probably wouldn't be interested in house music and younger people would probably be more interested in chart music like pop instead of house music. Another reason would be that peoples exposure to house music would be often due to the club scene and even some 17 year olds could go to clubs and as people often over 30 don't go to clubs they wouldn't be used to house music so may find it irritating and prefer music that they liked when they were younger.

They have a high disposable income and a tendency to spend it on: nights out, clothes, songs, the latest mobile or mp3 player.They're the most informed about new singles and upcoming artists, they spend their weekends going out (rarely stay in). They take time to socialise either on the internet via smartphones or on nights out. Generally speaking most of my intended audience would own a smartphone as on other house music magazines like Mixmag it isn't just a magazine it has many apps and a website connected to it. 

Another reason they would have a smart phone would be that house music is more easily available on the internet on websites such as Souncloud and Youtube and not as easily accessible through CDs however recently there are more and more house related albums getting released so they may have money to spend on CDs. They are always updated with the latest trends, singles and are up to date on the latest fashion and also use this to show off their taste in music some also use makeup as a way to show this. 

As most of the readers for other house music magazines are male they keep the magazine quite masculine with elements that appeal to the female readers however in my magazine I have appealed to women so more of them would be interested in buying the magazine.

My audience would fit on the JICNAR scale and I think my audience would be in social classes C2 and DE which is people with skilled manual occupations, semi-skilled and unskilled occupations, unemployed and lowest grade occupations as most would be students so would have less time for a full-time job and be focused more on part-time work. 

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

Question 2 - How does your media product represent social groups?

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Created with Padlet

Final Draft Music Magazine

Production Feedback

Double Page Spread First Draft

First draft - article

DL on their rise to stardom

By Dani Pidgeon

Two best friends from Birmingham - Danielle Pidgeon and Lucy Gray have quickly risen to fame in the last year in their dynamic duo ‘DL’. Two years ago they were stuck playing gigs in small clubs and pubs to audiences of sometimes 15 people but they were determined to be successful and did anything they could to get their music heard by wider audiences. Their album ‘Bodymusic’ topped the house music charts only a week after its first release. Despite all of this they’re still two down to earth girls who just enjoy making music.

TT: How are you feeling about all this?

DL: We’re just in shock at the moment to be honest; it’s all just so surreal to us and how all of this has happened like a few years ago we were just playing gigs to a few people that didn’t even really care about our music and now we’ve got people in high reputation clubs just jamming to our music and cheering us – it’s amazing.

Why choose to make music?

We just love music and the way it makes people feel, we like to make people dance and feel good and we like to show this through our beats and vocal samples.

Who do you get your inspiration from?

We love almost every kind of music and there are many artists that inspire us from Nicki Minaj to Ed Sheeran, but there is so many artists making music of the same genre as us that we think are amazingly talented and aspire to be like them and make the quality of music that they make.

Did you always think about being famous?

(Both laugh) We still don’t see ourselves as being famous! From a very young age we both knew that we wanted to be successful and we knew that we just wanted to make music since we were 14 doing music in school and going home and making music outside of school. We knew we had to work hard and that’s what we did, we just wanted to be remembered.

I know its early days but who would you really like to work with?

Oh god – there’s just so many!! But we think Disclosure are absolutely amazing and talented so it would so great to work with them. Their most recent album ‘Settle’ is just so good.

Do you put your emotion into your songs and does this make you feel exposed in any way?

Although we’re doing this interview right now, we both are actually really reserved when it comes to talking about our feelings,  I think that’s one of the reasons we both wanted to make music as it lets so much of your pent up emotions out and just releases stress, it’s just so relaxing getting to a computer and making a sick beat.

Double Page Spread Layouts

Research and Planning Preliminary Feedback

Analysis of a Double Page Spread

The analysis of a double page spread layout in Mixmag magazine so that I could look for the conventions used in the music magazines of my genre so I can take this into account when creating my own. 

I also analysed the language so that I can get a feel of the style the articles are written in and how to appeal to my audience when writing my own article.

First Completed Draft: Front Cover and Contents Page

Front Cover

I’m pleased with my main image on my front cover as I think it looks very good quality. I think my magazine follows some conventions of the magazines in my genre.

One of the problems I encountered with Fireworks was making images have a transparent background however I have come across this problem by creating a transparent background on Microsoft PowerPoint. Another problem I found was trying to transfer my main image onto my front cover without it being in black and white, I overcame this by print screening my image and transferring it onto Fireworks that way.

I hope to redo my anchorage text to make it look more professional. I would also like to improve my masthead and remove all of the white bits surrounding it as this would also make my front cover look professional.

Contents Page

I am pleased with my masthead and the title of the contents page and I am happy with the layout of  it, I am also happy about the quality of my images. I think it looks professional and follows the conventions of other music magazines in my genre.

I didn't encounter any problems with Fireworks when doing my contents page.

I need to redo the page numbers to make them an equal size and make sure that my writing for the features is equally spaced apart.

Contents Page Mock Up

December/January Feedback

Hand drawn Contents Page Layout

Contents Page Layouts

Magazine Front Cover Photos

Created with flickr slideshow.

Contents Page Moodboard

Contents Pages

What is usually featured in a music magazine?

• News about new albums/singles coming out
• News about specific artists 
• Interviews with artists
• Reviews of albums/singles
• Competitions for readers to enter
• Charts
• Events that readers would want to go to 
• Events hosted by the magazine
• Columns
• Culture
• Films?
• Fashion?
• Tickets/information about gigs and festivals

What does the layout of a contents include?

• A main image
• Certain page numbers and information about what will be on the page
• Small images
• Plugs/puffs
• A title
• Number of issue
• Date

Analysis of contents page:

Magazine Treatment Plan

Photo Planning

I'm going to have me and my friend Lucy Gray posing as a musical duo for my media magazine. I have asked and chosen these people as we have the right kind of style that would fit in with the usual clothes worn on the cover of house music magazines; we also have similar styles of makeup as people I have seen on my genre’s magazine. I have chosen the female gender because the usual gender seen on house music magazines is male and this could attract a new audience and get more females reading this genre.

The shots I would want the most are medium-long shots with some using eye contact, this is so the makeup can be clearer on the eye I also want some without eye contact as it can capture more of a natural look rather than looking too ‘posey’.

There is a typical style of how people who read the magazine would dress.
Some examples of appearance:

Me: Dark long length straight hair. I want my make-up to appeal to the reader and could look like I am going out to a club ect. E.g. Dark lipstick (red/purple/dark red), dark eye make-up (nude to black eyeshadow), foundation and bronzer.

Clothes: Adidas Hoodie, black/blue jeans, bucket hat, trainers.

Lucy:  Light brown medium/long length straight hair. I also want her make-up to appeal to the reader and could look like I am going out to a club but her makeup will be lighter than mine to fit her skin tone. E.g dark but slightly lighter eye make-up (nude to brown eyeshadow), foundation, bronzer or blusher, brown lipliner and natural colour lipstick.

Clothes: Supreme t-shirt/Trapstar t-shirt/Calvin Klein t-shirt, black/blue jeans, bucket hat, trainers.

I think the styling of makeup, hair and costume fits in with the style of house. We will look pretty similar to give off the impression that we are a duo but still looking ‘cool’ and original like other house artists.

Everyone in my magazine will be young adults/teenagers, representing them as having fun and being original. They will be female even though male is the dominant gender for most house magazines it can draw in new readers and can appeal to both genders. There will be a range of facial expressions used for example: smiling, looking away from the camera, serious/pouting looking directly at the camera or making ‘silly’ faces.

The shots will be taken either inside in front of a white wall so that we can stand out, or by graffiti to look interesting and show that the people who read the magazine are ‘street’ and ‘hip’ and could also appeal to the audience of my genre.

Magazine first edit

Front Cover Hand drawn Design