In this response I will look at and compare my front cover
to a professional magazine that I feel relates and links to my genre. I have
chosen ‘Q’ as it is the closest on the market for my target audience. You can see a similarity with both of the
master heads here. (My master head is indicated with the number 1. indicated to
the right) Both magazines using the red and white to stand out with a slogan
placed directly underneath. I chose the name MUSE, as music is many peoples
release and muse so I seemed this to appropriate.
My cover lines (indicated by the number 2.) are also placed on the left hand side. I did this because if it was to be published and put on shelf in a shop, it’s usually the left third that is visible so it’s important to catch the reader’s eye. Q on the other hand do follow this pattern but they can afford to use the other side too because of their well established name and brand meaning that loyal customers would by this magazine because they know what to expect from previous issues.
Numbers 3 and 4 on my front cover are the main cover line
and the tag line underneath (number 4.) to add to the main cover line to give
an insight to what MOD SPECIAL might mean. The difference and possibly the improvement
I could have made here is by making the tag line underline slightly smaller
just like ‘Q’ have with ‘Beady Eye Kick Off’.
The barcode shown on both Q and my own media product are
typically seen on all magazine covers and makes mine look like an authentic
magazine as it’s something that is always used and shown as the item is being
sold to the public and is used by wholesalers. Obviously mine is positioned in a different
place to ‘Q’s as I didn’t have the room in the bottom right hand corner, but I
feel that mine is tucked away nicely in the top corner to not take any
attention away from the main focus of the main cover line and main image.
I took this front cover of ‘Q’ as my inspiration for my
front cover image (Number 6.) as I looked the stance that Liam Gallagher is
positioned in and gives out the right image to the audience which just the same
how I want my audience to feel when they see my product. I put my model in sunglasses;
stereotypically ray bans which are associated with indie/MOD style. And also
the focus shot just from the shoulders upwards.
Another similarity would be the colour scheme placed all
around the magazine. You can clearly see my front cover used the red white and
blue theme to represent the British colours like the flag and the stereotypical
MOD colours. Q has used red white black and a yellow/green throughout that
would carry on through to their contents page to support the colour theme
throughout this specific issue.
QUESTION TWO.
QUESTION THREE.
For this question I have decided to answer it though a series of questions and present them as an interview such as a radio interview but to clarify what the questions and answers were, they're posted below.
Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
1.
So tell us what your magazine MUSE is all about?
·
It’s all about the music
·
Mod theme
·
Reinforcing Brit Pop
·
Highlighting key parts of Brit Pop history
contrasting that with new acts
·
Latest News
2.
Who would you ideally like to publish your magazine?
·
Bauer
3.
And why’s that?
·
They’re well established and well known
·
Expertise in the music industry
·
They own hundreds of magazines
·
Music magazine include Q, Kerrang, and Mojo
·
UK’s biggest selling music magazine
4.
Isn’t Q quite similar to your magazine?
·
Yes and No
·
They both have a similar genre and focus on similar
types of music and artists, but where Q is very current mine is different
because it’s going back and republishing music back from the 1950’s onwards and
correlating that with new acts with a MOD taste. It’s also very British and
highlights Brit Pop which would be brilliant to get on the shelves before the Olympics
so when the Olympics does happen it would reinforce and show the world what
great artists Britain have produced.
QUESTION FOUR AND FIVE.
QUESTION SIX.
What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?
In this essay I will express my understanding of technology
used throughout my project with references to the choices I made and what
worked best for me. I will breakdown each programme, give a brief explanation
to what they do and if it benefitted me, and whether I was successful or not.
Blogger
Blogger was the first technology that I was introduced to.
This would be where I would post all my work for this media product. I found
that this programme was very easy to use and that I could easily create pages
to organise my Blog so it’s clear for the examiner to view and find their way
round and go back to a page if necessary.
Google and Safari where two key programmes for my project
when it came to the research and planning area as I needed access to the
Internet and a search engine for all my preliminary tasks and research tasks.
To look at other media industries and other magazine covers, it would have been
a lot harder without the available access. It also helps when I need to power
Blogger and it’s necessary for me to access the internet at home to at least
access my Blog even though I don’t have the programmes to edit my final drafts
of my cover, contents and double page spread as I do not own a Mac at home. The
outcome of both these programmes are vital because without them, I wouldn’t have
been able to complete this project.
Grab
As I have been using a Mac throughout this project, to print
screen my work I’ve had to use a Mac programme called Grab. This is where you
can select a frame of your computer screen, save it as a JPEG image which is
compatible to post on to your blog which was very useful when it came to
posting and uploading things that were in progress and when I needed to
annotate screenshots in my evaluation. This was a successful programme, and
very easy and efficient to use.
To design and edit these photos and produce my front cover,
contents page and double page spread, I used a Mac programme called InDesign. At
first I did find it a little confusing and difficult to use because of the
endless possibilities and different tabs to help edit your work but as I
progressed week by week it became much easier. My outcome would be that it
would useful to have some training in this programme and on the Mac’s to help
get off the starting mark a bit quicker next time.
I used Microsoft Word to help construct my written work in
both my preliminary tasks and my final project. I did this as I was used to this
programme, which I was comfortable to use and work around. PowerPoint was also a
programme that had frequently used and I was told at the beginning it was very
easy to upload PowerPoint’s to you blog. My outcome for these would be that I
could easily use it and it was available at hoe so I could carry on working at
home and making sure my spelling and grammar was correct.
These were the two programmes I used to express and export
my presentations. I used Prezi to answer one of my evaluation questions in a
creative way and SlideShare to present my PowerPoint’s and post them on to my
blog. In my research tasks and evaluation stages. I found the Prezi was quite
confusing and hard to use in the beginning but once I got the hang of it I fond
that it was quite easy to use and edit. SlideShare was also good to use to
embed my presentations on to my blog.
This programme was used for me to post my audio response to Question
3 in my evaluation stage. It’s a programme that is ideally used for file
storage and the links work fine when I posted it to my blog. It was slightly annoying
having to make an account and verify email before you could even start to look
around your profile, but once I was registered it took literally 30 seconds to
upload my MP3 File. I feel that this programme benefitted me as the previous
sites I tried to use were much more complicated and hard to use.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what
do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I think that I have improved since my preliminary task and
that I have learnt a lot and progressed with using the Mac’s more this year. At
the beginning of this year I hadn’t even logged on to a Mac and within the
first weeks we were asked to produce our preliminary task which is quite hard
with the little experience I had, so obviously I do think I have come a long way
from that first task.
I experimented with PhotoShop in my preliminary tasks but I
felt that InDesign catered to all my needs and it was a lot easier to use. I
also used the Grab programme a lot on the Mac to print screen and post my ideas
on to my blog as it was easy to use.
Strengths.
I think that my strengths would be my main images and the
images I took for my double page spread as I actually took the time and effort
to go out and photograph properly the tribute band featured on my double page.
I also think that the article on my double page is relevant and hold a lot of
information because it’s based on true facts and is a detailed recall of my
experience. I also think that I chose a
suitable colour scheme that reflected my current theme throughout.
Weaknesses.
I think that with more time I could have played around with
the editing more and it would have been beneficial to try out new ideas and see
if a different design approach would have been better. Another weakness I think
that if I had more time I could have improved on is my contents page background
and tried using a block colour background instead of trying a a picture
background. One final weakness would
have been my time management and that I could have managed it better in this
evaluation stage, but it’s been difficult with current exams taking place.
Opportunity.
I would have liked to have tried some different photo shoots
for my cover and if given the opportunity be able to go up to London and
actually take some pictures in Carnaby Street and iconic MOD landmarks.
Threats.
The only threats and problems I had with this task was the
time slot and getting everything finished to the deadline. Due to media being
an AS and my other subject being A2’s, its been hard to divide the workload and
treat each subject equally.
