Magazine Evaluation

My magazine cover represents the hip-hop, rap and rnb listeners because that is in fact the theme of the magazine. The front page contains a top banner which informs the reader that the information they should be expecting is related to the 3 similar genres. Although it could be said that the younger generation is more likely and expected to buy this sort of magazine, some of the older public may also be interested in whats new. Since my magazine only comes out monthly, i think it will more likely be distributed in small, everyday-use shops such as corner shops or supermarkets. The magazine isn't really targeted at upper class people because they don't really seem to interact with such genres so the magazine is affordable and can be found locally. Due to this factor, I can suggest that my magazine cover is targeted more at a young audience, or those interested in the type of music information it regards. The public can be attracted to my magazine cover because it has a catchy name, and me and my partner made it stand out by giving it an opposite background color. The title is in gold, which could signify power or wealth. This can make the reader feel bold and controlling, despite the fact that the magazine is aimed at middle and lower class audiences. The title of the magazine is BOUNCE and in the top banner, there is a sentence which reflects upon the title using the verb 'bouncing'. This gives a unique effect because it brings the magazine into a real life situation in where the reader themselves, can be bouncing along with the magazine. In the progress of creating my magazine cover, I learnt how to use Photo shop. Although I had never used photo shop before, I am familiar with computers so there were some basics tools and buttons which I could and knew how to use. When I received the Photo shop introduction, I became more aware of the unique abilities Photo shop had to offer to create exclusive pieces of work. If i was to create another front cover, I would first develop my understanding and knowledge of photo shop to create one better than the one I created without an experience of having used photo shop.

Thursday 9th October

We started the lesson, once again, in t he MAC computer room. Nathan came to class late so I had to begin work on the front cover which was nowhere near complete. I began making duplicates of the microphone image which we first obtained and placed it around the page. I decided to make them into small sub-boxes where i would put small details about the contents of the magazine. When Nathan finally arrived, he didnt like the idea so we started again from where we had previously left off. We continued to gather ideas of coverlines to put on the front. The lesson wasnt very long so by the time we had completed setting out the page and thinking of cover lines, the lesson was soon over..

Monday 6th October

Prior to the lesson me and Sly were finding hard to implement our own pictures. We began to be unsure as to weather we even wanted to use them. We began opening the various pictures we had taken, cropping, rotating and then dragging them on to our front page. Out of the blue, i came up with the idea that we could be artist(Sly) and I(Producer), as the pictures we had could be portrayed in that way. I began duplicating and fading in both pictures. The lesson was successful as we were able to overcome a problem we had experienced from the start; using our own pictures.

Evaluation of BOUNCE girls edition by Vanessa

In what ways does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real magazines?
The magazine which was created by me and my partner Caz uses some conventions of a real magazine. For example it has a masthead BOUNCE , cover line WIN A FREE IPOD NANO and main cover image which is looking straight into the camera to attract and connect with the audience. However unlike some conventional magazines are one is somewhat different in the sense that it doesn't have a banner at the top or bottom of the page by doing this is challenges the conventional magazine . To add, our magazine doesn't have texted boxes instead we put an image on the front cover in a star shape. In the bottom left hand corner we used a home made bar code with the similar information which would normally be seen on bar codes for example it possesses the date , issue date and the price of the magazine. Also similar to some conventional magazines we used exclamation marks and slang language as a mode of address to engage the targeted audience.

How does your music magazine cover represent certain social groups?
Our magazine represents a certain social group because of the colours used in the magazine , we used pink in the title BOUNCE because we was doing a girls edition whilst Nathan and Sylvester targeted a male audience. Also the headphones and microphone on the front cover are also pink. Also i feel as though this magazine mostly appeals to the female audience because on the front cover it says All the latest gossip from the MOBO awards and gossip is mostly preferred by girls.

What kind of media institution might distribute your music magazine cover and why?
I think that the magazine would be best distributed by EMAP (East Midland Allied Press ) because it is a well known media institution with twenty of its local contemporary music radio stations based across the north of the United Kingdom and it has 59 magazines in its business to business portfolio which i think is good because people tend to buy a brand that is well known over a brand that is not quite known.

How did you attract/address your audience?
We attracted our audience by using bright and contrasting colours on our front page for example green and red. By doing this we hoped it would stand out on the shop shelves and make the reader want to buy and read on. Also we used some slang language drop the hottest track and rock the charts in the contents page to attract the mid-teens.

Who would be the audience for your music magazine?
I think that the ideal audience for our magazine would have to be mainly females ( however it may attract some males who love music and gossip) perhaps early teens to late teens. Also the audience targeted would probably have an interest in music such as r n b, pop or hip hop. They would also be students in full time education who buy the magazine to catch up with the latest gossip and new comers on the music scene. What would also appeal to them most would perhaps be the price because they would get all the ins, outs and exclusives from the music industry without having to pay a fortune. They would be an average teenager that goes concerts and parties whilst finding time to socialise with their friends.





Whilst working with Adobe Photoshop i have realised that a lot of time and effort goes into the making of a magazine inparticular the front cover because that is the page the reads see first and dertermines whether or not they buy the magazine. Also i learnt how to cut out images and put it on a different background and how to make a magazine look professional.

If i had to make another front cover i would perhaps plan before i got started rather than make it up as we went along. Also i would perhaps look at other magazine smiliar to the one i am making to see how theirs is done and see what to do and what not to do. I would also perhaps get more props in the images and make it look more realistic rather than just an ordinary image used on a front cover. Lastly i would have perhaps manipulated the front cover to make it look more attractive.

Monday 6th October

The register was taken and then we went straight into the computer room. Myself Sly and my partner Nathan began to work from were we left off. We began to insert pictures of ourselves onto the front cover but it took quite a while for us to be satisfied with the outcome. We started by opening the image in Photo shop and saving it as a separate file. This was to avoid ruining the original image which meant we wouldn't be able to work with it again. After this quick process, we used the Magic Wand tool to get rid of the unnecessary background in the image. This helped us to be able to blend the image into the front cover. After Magically making the backgrounds disappear from both mine and Nathan's pictures, Nathan had a sudden idea to duplicate the images and give an effect to the cover. We placed out images at the bottom of the page and made it seem as if we were working together in partnership as songwriter and producer. We then made it seem as thought the pictures were fading into the distance because as we duplicated them, and gave them a new position, we also added and sunbracted opacity from them. After it was completed to a good-enough level, we began thinking of the coverlines we were goin to have on the front cover. We could think fast enough and by this time, the lesson was over..

My Evaluation Of Our Music Magazine

Using photo shop was not new to me or difficult, but taking the pictures we needed to incorporate into our music magazine proved to be a challenge, and it showed. We struggled to find a picture suitable for our main cover image. Conventional magazines use main cover images that make sense of their main story and stand out, drawing their intended audience. Our magazine front-page challenged this. Instead of us relying on our main cover images, we chose to depend on what I was good at in photo shop. We went for a sophisticated and professional look illustrating the shift we noticed amongst Rap & Hip Hop Artists. We acknowledged that the “Hard Man Look” from the nineties and early 21 century had vanished amongst most of the leading Hip Hop/Rap Artists who are picking up the more respectable businessperson look. For example, P Diddy known for wearing baggy tracksuits in the nineties nowadays prefers to wear suits. We wanted to portray this through our magazine cover and therefore went for more dim but stylish colours in black and gold, instead of the usual bright colours. As a result, our magazine attracts the usual Hip Hop Lovers, as well as, those just looking for something stylish and respectable to read.

Moreover, although I must admit we did intend to use a main cover image, I believe our front page is still as attractive and eye-catching. We used a picture of Ashanti (a well-known artist) attracting readers and meaning our advertisement stood out. We also advertised her single as a (free) gift drawing in both Ashanti Fans and those just seeking a bargain. In addition, we also included our own images which took a lot of discussion between us, as we was not so sure as to whether it looked better with or without us. After fiddling around with our front cover and almost scrapping our front page all together and starting afresh, we had an idea. We thought that we could sell ourselves as new artists to the scene and entice buyers by leaving them with a quote from the interview, which they could read of inside the magazine.

I believe our Music Magazine would sell on any high street as it has the urban feel to it in the sense that we used ourselves, as well as, Ashanti. However, I also feel our magazine would sell in particular outlets in the city due to its classy and more modern look.

If I was to make another front cover, I think I would be more prepared and really think about the types of shots and pictures we would need for our front page. We took random pictures with us having no idea how we would use them or how they would fit in with our main sell line. Personally, I think I would take time out with my group jotting down what our magazine would be about and what we want our pictures to represent, instead of just taking pictures of the sake of it. However, they have been some positives to take from this. For example, I learnt that although we both thought differently about how the magazine front page should look, I learnt to compromise and our front page is a mixture of how we both imagined it to look.

Thursday 2nd October

A couple days after our photoshop intro, me and my associate nathan, began to practice our photoshop skills. Firstly, we began by searching on www.google.com for other magazines related to our genre to get a common idea of how magazines are set out. After browsing around for a while, we decided to focus on our magazines theme. We first used the Paint Bucket tool to make the background black. Then Nathan found an exclusive image of a microphone and placed it as the centre image on our front cover. We played around with the image and with some of the tools from our photoshop knowledge. With the gradient tool, we made the image stand out by selecting the colors to black and gold. This was effective because we then created the title which we also made gold. We decided to call our magazine BOUNCE. We thought this would reflect the contents of the magazine because it will keep the reader entertained. Soon after we adjusted both the title and main image into place, we created a banner which we placed at the top of the page. The banner read "KEEPING THE UK BOUNCING WITH THE LATEST IN RAP, HIP-HOP AND RNB". We made the word "BOUNCING" stand out by making it italic and changing its color to gold like the title and the image of the microphone. By this time, the lesson was done...

9th October 2008

On this day me and caz had a complete change of mind about the magazine because although it was bright and colourful we felt as though the colour was somewhat childish and could perhaps target little children rather than teenagers , so we decided to change the colour of the magazine background and make it one colour. We then used the original picture of me with the stairs in the background rather than cut it out. Also because our magzine was practically done we just focused on re arranging the captions so it didnt cover my head etc. This was all done in the first part of louisa's lesson . In the second half of the lesson we began to make the contents page which we took our inspiration from another real magazine. In our contents page there is another image of me , nathan and caz and we are collaborating on a new song. Also in our contents page is a part about 'DJ nathan' and pages such as EXCLUSIVE WITH KITTY and BAD LASHES VS THE GIRL BAND. In this course of the lesson the assignment was completed entirely.

6th october 2008

Me and caz are back in the photoshoot room adding to our magazine. However in the short course of time we had now decided to use a magnet format and cut me out the background with the stairs and put me on the half bue half pink background. In this lesson we also mainly focused on the main cover image making sure it was properly cut out and postioned in a suitable place. Then we began to add the sell lines ' WIN A FREE IPOD NANO' . However we experienced a down fall when we realised that the captions didn't really stand out against such a bold and colourful background so we then had to copy the caption but make it all black and make it the shadow of the original caption so that it stood out . Also we pretty much finished the magazine we have our images off the internet of an ipod,headphones and microphone. We also have a barcode which was specially made by caz in her own time and our captions and sell lines are also on the magazine. The next thing to do is our contents page in louisa's 3 hour lesson.

2nd October 2008

After the photoshop tutorial we went into another room to start making our magazine.In the photoshop room me and my partner caz began to choose out of the pictures we have taken to seen which one best fits the magazine genre. At first we chose a wide long shot of the four of us but we later decided to change it because the shot was not close enough and some of us were not engaging eye to eye with the camera. Next we came across across another picture but the lighting was all wrong and very dark .So the picture we finally chose after flicking through so much pictures is a picture of .....ME!! sitting on the stairs smiling and it was official that this was the picture because we knew we could do a lot with it for example use the stairs as a place to put the captions and sell lines. In this lesson we also named our magazine 'BOUNCE' girls edition which was inspired by nathan and silvesters magazine which is 'BOUNCE' but targeted mainly towards boys.

Evaluation Of "Bounce: Girl's Edition"

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?
Our music magazine front cover does not have a banner, which challenges the conventional music magazine front cover. However, we do have the basics, such as a masthead, straplines and main cover photo. We used graphics, such as the star-shaped photo in the bottom corner, the photo of the iPod which was to be the competition prize, the three musical notes at the top, middle and bottom of the page, the microphone in the top corner and the headphones under the masthead, all of which use normal forms and conventions of real music magazines. We also use a home-made barcode in the bottom corner on top of the star-shaped photo, which includes with it the issue date and number, and the price of the magazine. We use no boxes, text or otherwise, instead putting the text directly onto the background image, using the stairs in the image as a sort-of set of guidelines. Most of our front cover uses the basic forms and conventions of real music magazine covers.

How does your music magzine cover represent certain social groups?
Our music magazine cover uses the colour and wording of the title “Bounce: Girl’s Edition” to draw in and represent girls who would read “Bounce”. The cover photos are both “successful female artists”, which appeals more to teenage girls than teenage boys, as it shows that girls and women can be just as successful as boys and men. This appeals to a large female audience.

What kind of media institution might distribute your music magazine cover and why?
This magazine would probably start off in smaller, less well-known shops, like local newsagents, but then might move into slightly more mainstream shops like general newsagents, finally ending up in places like WHSmiths etc, whilst still being sold in the general newsagents. Though, I suppose that’s what any “newcomer” might say about their magazine.

Who would be the audience for your music magazine cover?
The typical audience for our music magazine would probably be female, early to mid-teens up to mid-twenty’s and more likely to be a student than anything else, possibly with a part-time job. They and their friends would probably be classed into the same sorts of categories, preferring R’n’B-style music above all else, and possibly going to dance clubs on Friday/Saturday evenings. If they are students, they probably don’t care as much about their work as they should, and therefore don’t always achieve their potential. These people probably sing a little, or rap/mc to impress their friends. Most would probably own a bike, or use public transport to get around, one or two might own some form of run-down, half-broken car. These sorts of people would probably think McDonalds or KFC as the heaven of food, and may not look much further for their meals. As for TV shows, they probably watch the basic soaps and TV dramas like Eastenders, plus the music channels like The Hits. The younger members of this audience would almost certainly live with their parents, probably in a flat, but possibly in a house, their room being a sort of shrine to their favourite artists; the older members are probably more likely to live in student accomodation if they’ve made it to university. They are probably less likely to go out and get horribly drunk every night, but they may still on occasion. Favourite drinks would probably include some form of caffeinated energy drink. I think the furthest away these people would go on holiday is probably somewhere like Manchester rather than a foreign country, unless they have family elsewhere.

How did you attract/ address your audience?
The pink in the title would tend to attract girls rather than boys. Also the sub-heading “Girl’s Edition” is more potent to girls. The images are more suited to girls, as they are all feminine in one way or another.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this magazine front cover?
I’ve learnt that Photoshop is the best image editing program in the universe! Using this program, I’ve learnt how to make an image look more professional than I have been able to using somewhat cruder ways of image editing (i.e. MS Paint and MS PowerPoint).

If you were to make another front cover, what do you think you would do differently next time?
If we were to do this all again, with the knowledge I have now, I think I would make sure everything was more organised for the photoshoot, so that we actually had the right props with us, and were wearing the right clothes etc. I’d also make sure we had one or more spare camera batteries with us, as the battery in the camera we had stopped working, as did the spare we went to collect. I would probably also ask for a better camera. I would make sure we knew roughly what sorts of photos we wanted for the magazine, both for the cover and the inside page/s, and then be sure to take those photos. As far as photoshopping it all together goes, I think it went alright this time; however, next time I would make sure to look at the front cover of a magazine more often for a better sense of what a real music magazine looks like, as I don’t buy or read magazines, and therefore don’t really know what the cover of a magazine is generally like. Of course, with the knowledge I have now, producing the cover on photoshop would be a much faster task, as I actually know how to do it, mostly, and know a few tricks that can be useful. If I had enough time the next time I did this, I might try my hand at writing an article rather that going into default and doing a contents page, but only if I had enough time.

 

Front Cover

Contents Page

Thursday 09/10/2008

During the course of our three-hour lesson today, Vanessa and I were able to complete our asignment entirely, with the exception of the evaluation. This means creating an inside page from scratch; we chose to do the contents page; and editing our front cover as we decided that the original looked too busy and childish. This time around, we decided to make the original main photo the entire background, and have the various straplines across the photo itself, particularly on the stairs of the photo.

The contents page is laid out like the contents page of a music magazine that we borrowed for inspiration. The original photo that we chose for the contents page didn't seem to work well, so it became the smaller photo at the bottom of the page. Instead, we chose and used a new photo, and made a new story to go with it. Interestingly, the contents page was easier to make than the cover page, as it involved a lot less photo manipulation, although I have found two spelling mistakes in the text on the contents page, which I will correct as soon as I can.

Monday 6th October

Back in the computer suite. Me and Sly had more ideas for the magazine, such as the title and strap line ("Bringing you all the latest news in Hip Hop, R n B & Rap"). We named our magazine, "Bounce" as we believe it related to the urban music we intended on advertising and urban life style of our readers. We got a picture of a mic and had the idea of our magazine adverting some sort of talent show. I included a shape to border the image we found. The image and its border was placed in the center of the page, so it stood out and we captioned it, "Who would take the main prize at this years BET Awards." Our magazine was beginning to look very professional. However, we were still struggling to use our own images and when we did it didn't seem to stand out. We also realized that maybe our color scheme was not as effective & eye-catching, as we frist thought We knew we may have to use brighter colors to attract our urban target audience; but we was out of time and decided to make changes next lesson.

Thursday 2nd October

We were taken into the computer suite opposite the class where I, and my partner Sly put our photo shop skills into practice. We began by Google searching images of other r n b/hip hop magazines. We wanted to see what was common in the magazines to ensure our magazine would meet the standards of music lovers.

We created a A4 sized front cover in photo shop and make template sectioning where various parts of the magazine would go. We bordered the spaces and labeled them, "title", "strap-line", "main image", and so on. We then opened the images we had taken from the previous lesson and cropped, edited and sized them. However, we had difficulties choosing the best picture for our magazine so decided to leave it to last. We chose a color scheme being a black background with gold and/or white writing.

Monday 06/10/2008

In today's lesson, we continued the work we were doing in the last lesson we had (Thursday 02/10/2008), adding to and editing our magazine front cover. Using the three images I edited last night, and changing a little of what was already there, we managed to finish our magzine front cover. This took us a vast mjority of the lesson, so we were unable to begin the inside page of our magazine. Howeve, I am proud of the front cover we have managed to produce, and hope to be able to produce an inside page to the same standard.

Sunday 05/10/2008

Today I did a little extra work to make the work I do in the lesson tomorrow slightly easier and faster. I copied two photos from the internet, one of a microphone and one of a set of headphones, and gave them both a plain, light blue background, which will enable me to delete the entire background much easier when it comes to putting them onto our magazine cover, currently supporting a pink-and-black theme. In giving these two photos a new, complete background, I will be able to select that colour and erase it when on photoshop. Irritatingly, it's taken me several hours, as I've had to use the program "Paint", meaning I've painted over the backgrounds in a new colour.

Also today, I have researched some bar codes online, and made my own, also on "Paint". This includes the bars, numbers, issue number, month and price. Since our magazine is the same issue as the boys' magazine, but the girl's version, I expect they may want to use this same barcode for their magazine, which is fine by me. All three of these images are now on a USB data stick, to be taken into my lesson tomorrow.

Thursday 02/10/2008

During this lesson, we had an introduction to photoshop, which I shan't go into detail about here, as I wrote about it in another blog entry. We also learned how to use this site to post our blog entries about this task.

After break during this lesson, we moved to the room opposite to use photoshop to begin editing our photos to put on the cover of the magazine. We picked out a few of the best photos, and started to cut and edit them onto an A4-sized "page" in Photoshop. Our magazine, as a whole, is called "Bounce". However, Vanessa and I have decided to do "Bounce: Girl's Edition", which is aimed more at girls than Nathan and Silvestre's version of this magazine. So far, we have found one picture on the internet that we are going to use. It is a set of sparkly pink-and-black headphones. We feel this will suit a female audience, but definitely not a male one. Using photoshop properly to achieve the look we want takes a lot of time that we may not have. In light of this, I hope monday's lesson will be somewhat faster-paced.

Monday 29/09/2008

During this lesson, we took photos for the front cover and inside page of a fictional music magazine. Our last lesson had ended with no-one in our group really knowing what we were going to do; however, thanks to the genius that is "MSN Messenger", we managed to figure out a little more over the weekend. Although not as well-planned as we'd have liked, we managed to take some interesting photos for our magazine, first in the basement with some instruments kindly lent to us by the music department, and then on the stairways. This took all the time we had, as the camera batery kept playing up, and then went out all together, meaning we had to go back to the media department in order to get a new one, which also played up quite a lot. However, at the end of this tiring ordeal, we ended up with some very good photos, thankfully.

Thursday 25/09/2008

To start off with, in this lesson, we looked at different sub-genres of consumer lifestyle magazines, such as: Men and Style, Women's Glossy, Home Interest, etc. We were then put into groups, and each group did an audience profile for their sub-genre. Our group decided that the typical reader of a woman's glossy would probably be women aged between their 20's and late 40's. Their job would probably be more like a housewife or receptionist, etc, though may be well-educated.

Then we had an introduction to music magazines, and analysed the front cover of "NME", learning and identifying different forms, such as: masthead, sraplines, sub-headings etc. After this, we were given the task to analyse a different magazine cover, our group was given "Rock Sound" (September edition). The cover was dark blue, with mostly yellow or white writing. The font changed at various points to emphasise the bands and artists being advertised. There was one, large picture of a man with a guitar occupying a lot of the space on the front cover.

We were then given the rest of the lesson to plan out a photoshoot that would take place on monday morning. The photos would be for a music magazine front cover and inside page. Our planning session didn't go as well as we'd have liked, considering we left the lesson with next to no idea what we were going to shoot, nor what costumes or props we'd need.

25th September 2008

Last week we looked at different magazine genres and consumer lifestyle magazines such and 'Men and Style'. We then went to look at the sub genres. After we look at  an analysed  cover terminology on the magazine 'Music'

and were put into groups of 4 and were given a magazine to analyse in detail.

Thursday 25th With Louisa

Within the course of the lesson, we got through quite a bit of work.  To begin with we did an intro to magazines & consumer lifestyle magazines of  where we discussed how some magazines cater for particular types of people.   

We then looked at sub-genres, were we put various magazines into categories.  For example, in my group were looked at "Okay" which we said was a woman's weekly, which catered to all ages but more likely to be read by someone who has the time of the day.  In addition, we did audience profiling on the magazine which was us making assumptions on who our typical reader will be. We assumed that our typical reader would be between their early 20's to 40's, and would probably do clerical work. 

Photoshop Introduction..

We learnt how to use Photoshop on Mac. Firstly, we was shown how to fill in  the background color of the page we were about to use. Then we created a text box where we learnt a quick way of scrolling through the fonts. After, we added image silhouettes of our choice. Cropping was another straight-forward tool that we learnt how to use. Apart from these simple techniques, we also explored unique features such as transposing an image into another. This was done with an Elliptical Marquee tool by highlighting a specific section of an image and moving it into another. Part of this task was to use the Magic Wand tool which allowed us to get rid of an unwanted background in an image so that we could blend it into another, making it appear realistic. Another Photoshop tool that we used, was the Gradient tool which mixed a variety of colors to make an outstanding background.

02/10/2008 - Photoshop Tutorial

Photoshop Tutorial today! Woo! Finally understand Photoshop (at last!) thanks to Mickey.

Played around with a few photos, cropping, magic wand, colours, gradients shapes, text, opening documents, change fonts, general photo manipulation, transposing, layering, changing the order of the layers, etc. It all seems relatively easy after that.

02 October With Micky

Kept the class relatively interesting whilst he taught us how to use photoshop.  I already knew how to use photoshop, meaning all the contents of the tutorial were not new to me, although it was good revision.  He showed us the basics, from changing font, layering, and cropping to using an elliptical marquee; transposing images on to backgrounds.  

photoshop tutorial

Today we were taught how to use the photoshop. It was alrite but little bit confusing. mike taught us how to change backgrounds- and make it into different colours, photo manipulating- cutting out picture and adding it onto other pictures,transposing. We also learnt how to crop photos and open documents, how to use layering and change the order of the text.