James' Media

Link to evaluation

My evaluation can be found at http://jpicksleymediaevaluaton.blogspot.co.uk/

I have used a silhouette as it has connotations of danger as well as giving an effect of mystery. I wanted tk do this so that it would create interest from the target audience who are wondering who the artist is.

I have left a black space at the bottom of the frame so that the silhouette blends into it. I did this to signify the artist being unknown with this magazine being like a reveal of the artst to a larger audience.

I have used this font because when doing research I had noticed a few other magazines of the same genre using similar fonts.

Final Contents Page

I have continued with my black theme here. My contents page follows the main conventions that I discovered in my research. These are; the use of more than one photo on the contents page, a subscription offer on the contents page and a large number of pages in the magazine.

I feel I have moved slightly from a totally conventional contents page by having my contents split up into sections whereas some contents pages do this, others don’t.

Final Double Page Spread

I have allowed for a centre fold and stapling here and my choice of image is more invitational; this creates a good juxtaposition with my cover and perhaps gives a pleasant surprise after the hint of threat from the silhouette. My choice of font is rather daring but I think it creates a witty retro reference and a good colour contrast to my house style. I also used this font as it appeared like a computerised form of lettering, with a similar style to calculator numbers, which I felt was appropriate for an artist called SynthSync, especially as synth, being short for synthesiser, is an electronic instrument. It is rather understated because I wanted to get a reaction from the reader.

Preliminary cover

Here is the cover for my preliminary task

Front Page

For my front page I wanted to create a reason to make people look inside. My idea was to use an image and a tagline that would get peoples attention.

The photo I was going to use was this

But then I decided to try and create a silhouette of the artist, and after some editing, I had this:

I prefer the look of the second image but am trying to work on making the guitar more defined than it currently is.

Preliminary task target audience

The preliminary task of a school magazine cover has a target audience of the students who go to the school, and their parents. The aim of the magazine if to inform the readers of events happening around the school and other general information. I used and image of a sixth former working as the main image for the cover as this would appeal to other students, not only his peers, but also younger students who could see the person as someone to look up to. However the coverlines also give an impression of fun as well as work this combined with the smaller images of student having a bit of fun give a more relaxed feel than if it was all exam and revision tips.

Interview with artist

Here is a link to the interview with the artist I am using for my music magazine.

https://soundcloud.com/james13169/interview-with-beatsync

First Photoshoot

Here are the unedited photos from my first photoshoot.

I liked the layout of this photo but the projector, wall and ceiling would need to be edited out, I felt this was too challenging for me.

I liked this photo as it was a clear image with a simple background.

A very similar image to the one above, except that I felt the colour of the artists shirt and the projector are too similar in this one.

Here I have taken very similar photos so I could look at the lighting of each one individually.

I had contemplated with the idea of showing the artist while preparing to use a microphone, but this image was too busy in the background.

Plans

My plans for the next week:

Thursday- photo shoot for music magazine
Create a draft of my preliminary cover
Upload photos of my drawn plans
Annotate the photos uploaded

Friday- try and organise a second photo shoot for next week
Work on any of Thursdays plans that weren't finished

Monday- do more research on music magazines- focus on covers

Tuesday- do some research on music magazines- focus on contents pages

Wednesday- do research in music magazines- focus on double page spread
Put a questionnaire onto social media for feedback

Preliminary Task Photos

These are the photos I have taken for my preliminary task.

I decided to use some photos of a student studying to show that the magazine was based about a learning environment.

This image was a bit too untidy with the bag coming into the top of the image.

These images of schoolwork and text books were also taken to show the idea of being in a learning environment.

This photo wasn't used because the glare and reflection from the top of the table football stopped me from getting the desired effect.

Here I varied with camera heights to see what effect that would have on the photo, and how things looked from different perspectives.

These photos of students playing table football and card games were to go under the cover line that mentions taking a break and relaxing.

I used this image of the student studying because you can see his face which is friendlier than the other photos of him studying, I used a friendlier image because I wanted to make the Sixth Form appear welcoming. However I cropped the image so that the other student was no longer in it.

I didn't use this photo because it was a bit too light and the eyes of the student were shut.

Preliminary Task Ideas

For my preliminary task of the school magazine I though about who the primary target audience is; the students and their parents. Because one of the targets was the students I thought that it would be quite good to have a student as the main image for the cover. But as it is a school magazine it should be something relating to schoolwork so the image will be a student studying.

My next thought was that as the magazine would be targeted at older teens, specifically sixth formers, if it was all about study then they may think of it as boring. As a way around this I decided to have a couple of smaller photos on the cover of Sixth formers relaxing.

Media Magazine Image Ideas

For the cover I am thinking of using a medium shot, showing the artist behind a microphone on a stand with a couple of speakers by the artist, this would be similar to the conventions that I have seen on the magazines I've looked at.

Music Magazine Research

Here are some magazine that I have found on dubstep, a common theme that they have is use of a bold font. There is also a large amout of black on each of the covers, although RWD has significantly less. RWD also has a 'busier' image than the others do which breaks the trend a little. Woofah breaks the magazine convention of having the masthead in the top third by having it down the left side of the cover.

Audience Research

As the target audience for this is really 15-25 year old, maily males I am going to put a link to/picture of a flatplan onto social media and look at the responses I get from this.

Magazine Research

Here is some research I did about the preliminary task-

	Fearns Sports College	Hampton School	St. Mary’s School	Heanor Gate	Tallulah Falls	Victoria School
School Logo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Slogan	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No
Title Horizontal	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Title in the top third	Yes	N/A	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Title in the middle third	No	N/A	Yes	No	No	No
Title in the bottom third	No	N/A	No	No	No	No
No. of people focused on in the main image	1	N/A	N/A	N/A	1	0

From this research it was clear to see that the school logo was an important part of school magazines, the research also showed me that the convention is to have the magazine title in the top third of the page horizontally.

AS Ideas

For my AS work I have decided to do a music magazine. My first thoughts were to do a magazine on the music in the charts but when I thought about the genre of somebody I knew, I changed to doing a beatboxing magazine. Thinking that beatboxing is too specific I looked at where its roots are: Hip-Hop before finally choosing to do a dubstep magazine as this he performs a lot of dubstep.