this is my AS Media course work inside you will see how i progressed from my preliminary task to my final music magazine and all the research i have done to make creating the front cover contents page and feature page of my music magazine possible.,
"Quest for Knowledge: An Exciting Journey Through 40 Brain-Bending Questions ...
Jerome Blake A/S Media Coursework
2. KING Magazine
I have decided to use KING magazine for my research. I chose
this magazine because it is successful and it is relevant to my
the genre of my magazine being Hip-Hop.
King is a monthly men’s magazine who’s target audience is
African America and urban. It features articles about hip-hop and
R&B, as well as articles covering sports and fashion. The
magazine is published by Harris Publications. This magazine
was a spinoff from the magazine XXL, which ceased publication
on March 31, 2009, because of a reduction in sales due to poor
economic circumstances. KING then released monthly
instalments soon and It resumed publication, this time as a
commercial magazine, in late 2009.
The magazine is mainly features high quality photo-shoots, of
women wearing little to nothing followed closely by an interview
from the featured model.
3. CLASH
Another magazine I decided to use for my
research was Clash I also think this is a
successful magazine I chose to research this
magazine because the target audience I am
aiming my magazine towards is young black
women, this magazine has elements which
cleverly depicts on its target audience being
teenage women.
And it is a combination of this magazine and
king I plan on using to make a hip hop magazine
which is targeted at young black women.
Clash is a popular music and fashion magazine
based in the U.K. Its published every month and
the very first issue was released in June 2004
4. Conventions of music
magazines
• Masthead
• eye catching images
• Taglines
• Bright, eye catching
colours
• Uniform colour scheme
• Busy front cover
• Bold text
• Often a picture of an
artist/celebrity or band
(celebrity endorsement)
• Taglines
• Left third
• Cover lines
• Use of bar codes
• Image bleed
• Eye catching cover lines
• Splashes
5. Magazine front cover ideas
I took inspiration from both Clash and KING the reason
I chose to research these two magazines because I
believe by following the codes and conventions of
them both and combining them I can target a unique
target audience in a genre that doesn’t normally target
this audience the audience I am targeting is young
black women through a hip hop.
I chose Clash as I particularly like there stylistic layout
and use and placement of codes and conventions, I
chose to research KING magazine to get inspiration as
to the different ways I can pose my model; I also like
the use of typography used in the mast head and
selling lines of there magazine.
My intentions is to take the classy look from Clash and
the urban look from King and merge them together to
portray young black women in a different way then
they are in hip hop and show that women do not have
to be so revealing to appear attractive.
6. My ideas and influences
This image shows a magazine front cover of previous issue of
“Clash” and “KING” magazine. As my target audience is young black
women I need to include particular conventions of other women's
magazines. From my research women are attracted to “pretty”,
“vibrant” and “eye catching” colours and tend to pick up a magazine
which looks appealing
On “clash” magazine I particularly liked the general colour scheme
and in particular the box advertisement in the bottom left hand
corner of the page, I figured I this could use this to add celebrity
endorsement to my magazine, in order two follow the “two step flow”
theory. So my magazine being the source of mass media I could
use celebrity endorsement to put across my message to my target
audience.
Since the magazine I am creating is a hip hop and R&B I decided I
like the use of font and typography in the masthead as its bold
effective and stands out and this is a convention that is seen
throughout “KING” magazines
7. Contents page ideas
This is the contents page for a
previous edition of Clash
magazine along with its front
cover I think this contents page
is very effective and works very
well with the front cover.
because
• the colour scheme is
consistent in both the front cover
as well as its contents. In this
case its, green, pink, the only
variant is the background of the
contents is white, but it is clear it
is from the dame magazine.
In my opinion this contents page
is very effective as it follows the
general scheme of the front
cover whilst following codes and
conventions
8. In what way does my media product use,
develop or challenge conventions of real
media products?
My intention is to create a magazine where the outcome
will be a combination of conventions of two separate and
established magazines the first is “clash” the second is
“KING” the conventions I will take from each is the use of
font in “KING” and the generic layout and colour scheme
from “clash” the colour scheme I will use will not only relate
to my target audience but my genre of music as well
my music magazine challenges other magazines on the
market, by depicting on a target audience of young black
women but portraying them in a different way than most
hip-hop and R&B magazines portray them to give them a
positive reading on the media text.
In doing so I believe I can expand the target audience of
this magazine to the young black male as by reading my
magazine they will have been given a different outlook on
women as to be respected rather than just sexual objects.
9. How will my media product
represent different social groups?
My intentions are to have my magazine
represent young women aged 17 –20.
I would like my magazine to have a
positive representation of women
unlike many representations of young
women in magazines and the general
media today .
My magazine will represent women as
being independent, confident, sexy and
respectable. I will do this through the
pictures I take and the quotation I
choose to display in my double page
spread.
10. What media institutions might
distribute my product and why
Since I am using both KING and Clash magazines for
my inspiration I done some research as to what media
institutions publish them , and out of the two of them I
believe The XXL Media Group would most likely publish
my magazine as it XXL tends to publish urban hip hop
and R&B music magazines which is the category my
magazine falls into.
I also believe this as I am following similar conventions to
from KING in my magazine.
The reason I don’t believe the Art8amby would distribute
my product as they tend to distribute pop music which
isn't the genre of my magazine and the only conventions
I am following from Clash which is distributed by the
Art8amby is the bright colour schemes and the generic
layout to bring depict on my target audience being young
black women.
11. Who will be the target audience
for my media product?
My music magazine is aimed at young
black women aged 17-20, who enjoy hip-
hop and R&B and are itching to know what
new music is to be expected .
As well as young women who generally
like reading and knowing about celebrities
lives and what inspired them
12. Stages of development part
1
(original photo)This is my original
photograph of my model the location is my
front garden.
I had my model pose this way to fit into the
genre of hip-hop magazines as it displays
her assists
I took this photograph at night in so I could
use the Flash setting on the camera to
highlight features of the model.
I had my model dress in leggings a loose
but translucent top and heels to fit in with
the genre as women in hip hop magazines
reveal features of her figure
I had her dress like this and not wear less
clothing as I felt that would be
inappropriate and I could still get the same
effect whilst having my model fully clothed
13. Stages of development (photo)
(edited photo) Secondly I edited the
photo changing the colours my model
was wearing once I decided on the
colour scheme of my magazine I
added jewellery to the model
I did this also to fit my model in closer
relation to the design of the magazine
as a whole and the hip hop genre as
well.
models in hip hop music magazines
are either coated in jewellery or in the
case of women dressed in very little
clothier which shows the model to be
very revealing
14. This is me refining and
experimenting with different
fonts, when I decided on a
suitable font and name I tried
the different colours at
different stages
15. Stages of development (front
cover)
(Front cover development)The title pulse
came from me brainstorming appropriate
names for a hip hop magazine
This version is just a stage of development
I made the masthead large in font size in
order to see different ways in which I could
arrange it
The image of the model has been poorly cut
out but I only quickly added it to get a feel
weather the magazine would work like this, I
felt it didn’t so I changed various aspects of it
such as the colour scheme and location and
size of the model on the design
16. Stages of development (front
cover first draft)
(magazine first draft)This is me further
refining the main image as well as
adding selling lines and cover lines to
the design in order to bring my design
in closer relation to magazines in
general.
The background is just an image off
the internet I do NOT intend to use this
image as my background. It was just a
basis so I can see how my magazine
could potentially look.
17. How will I attract my audience?
I will attract my target audience by making sure that the
colour scheme is consistent throughout my magazine.
I will attract my audience by using bright colours, eye
catching images and bold text.
On my front cover I will have a strong masthead that
stands out , a unique and interesting background and a
complimentary picture of my model.
On the contents page I will make the writing informative so
the audience know where to look into my magazine to read
what they want , I will also make this page visually
attractive by following the general colour scheme of the
front cover but with a unique and attractive layout.
On my double page spread I will have several images of my
model posing against shapes and text in, this I believe will
work well in keeping the reader interested
Once I have done this to the best o my ability I am sure the
target audience will be attracted to my magazine.
18. Stages of development
(background of front cover)
(original background photo) This is my
original image that I have taken into
photo shop this photo was taken in the
day at 3 O’clock I made it black and
white in order to be able to manipulate
the levels of colour to fit exactly what I
have in mind .
The reason I took this photo in the day
was simply because I can see more of
the graphic features of the wall itself
My plan with the photo is to have my
model pose against it and I took photo
of this suburban wall to fit in closer
relation to the hip hop genre because
from my research I was the
backgrounds of magazines used real
location .
19. Stages of Stages of
development (background of
front cover)
My plan with the photo is to have my
model pose against it and I took photo of
this suburban wall to fit in closer relation
to the hip hop genre because from my
research I was the backgrounds of
magazines used real location
This is my original image that I have
taken into photo shop this photo was
taken in the day at 3 O’clock I made it
black and white in order to be able to
manipulate the levels of colour to fit
exactly what I have in mind.
The reason I took this photo in the day
was simply because I can see more of
the graphic features of the wall itself
20. Stages of development
(background of front cover)
The location of this photo is a suburban alley
way two streets away from my house I took
images of other walls but I decided to go with
this one as it was in my plan to have the
model pose against the wall
This was me developing the back round wall I
used a technique called due tone on photo
shop this feature make an image two colours
where I am able top freely adjust the levels
I chose mix between purple and pink as one
of the colours as it relates closely to my target
audience of females.
The second colour I added was black to
highlight key details of the photo I took this
photo before I took images of my model I had
to de them seperately as I didn’t want my
model to be displayed in the duo tone effect.
21. Stages of development (front
cover second draft)
(second Draft) this is my second draft for my
front cover I changed the colour scheme as I
felt red didn’t stand out in contrast to the
background that I have now made up my
mind on.
I then changed the size of the masthead in
order to have more room in the design as a
whole as I felt the sat head was previously
too big and didn’t follow the generic codes
and conventions of magazines.
I added a selling line at the bottom of the
design along with the date, price and barcode
to add to the authenticity of the design.
22. Stages of development
contents page (part 1)
the first thing i did was take a picture of
the globe in an atlas i had at home,
secondly i took the photo into photo
shop and used duo tone with purple and
black to follow the colour scheme of the
front cover.
with this as the basis of my contents
page i now had to add relevent images.
23. Stages of development
contents page (part 2)
these are the three images that
feature on the contents page when
i had my photo shoot i had my
models take several pictures as i
knew i would need more than one
image to be able to create my
magazine, also magazines tent to
feature the cover model and other
models in the magazine several
time over; so i decided to follow
this convention
24. Stages of development
contents page (part 3)
This is my final draft for my contents page as you can see it
features the photographs I mentioned earlier and
the background of the globe that I edited using Photoshop.
creating the contents page wasn't as challenging as the
front cover as I already
knew the color scheme I had to follow so that saved allot of
time.
writing the contents took very little time to I simple wrote
down what I wanted
to feature in my magazine in a word document and copied
and pasted the text into the design,
then manipulated the style and scale of the font.
I made the page numbers stand out as the reader will need
to know what page different content is on.
the selling line I’ve added at the bottom I made in using
"adobe InDesign" I crated two circles and the
yellow strip the pulsating lines are several little line which
vie layered and arranged to look the way it does.
25. Stages of development double
page spread (part 1 )
creating the double page spread was
abit more challenging than the
contents page I started off with a black
background in "Photoshop" and added
an effect called lenses flair.
I did this because I felt it brought my
magazine in closer relation to my
target audience of young black
females, fancy effects like these keep
the reader interested.
26. Stages of development double
page spread (part 2 )
secondly I added several purple
sphere's initially I then thought to have
my model pose along the different
spheres as if there are solid objects, the
same principle applies to the "N" in
canace being elongated on the last
stroke of the letter the "exclusive
interview with" was something I decided
to put there simply to follow the codes
and conventions of magazines.
from my research I realised that the
typography used in the top left corner of
double page spreads tent to stand out,
so the reader can understand what the
page is about without having to read too
much.
27. Stages of development double
page spread (part 3 )
The interview questions i had
scripted a while ago and
interviewed my model on the 18th
of January 2012.
The interview went smoothly my
model gave very open responses
to the questions i asked her i then
typed up the interview on microsoft
word the very same day and
pasted the interview into the
design
28. Stages of development double
page spread (part 4 )
this stage was reletivly simple aswell i
simple used other photo's i took of my
model on the day of the photshoot this
was something I had in mind from
before which is why I have had her
pose this way, in order to fit amounts
the shapes. I think this adds a nice
effect as it shows different view points
of my model and engages my target
audience.
this in turn further adds to the point of
what my model said in interview that a
female doesn't have to were next to no
clothing to be considered attractive.
29. Analysing my final front cover
for my music magazine three smaller images to
advertise other features in
the magazine
Masthead – the main title of the
magazine. Normally Including
the date and price of the Strapline – this is a
magazine. The font used on the smaller headline
masthead is “Horizon BT”, I
which gives a
chose this font because I think it
relates to the genre of my general summary of
magazine and is visually my magazine .
appealing The font is Space
bd BT
The left side –
Strong
makes the magazine complimentary
easy to recognise in main image- I used
shops as it is filled this image to attract
with interesting text my audience. The
model is the main
that varies in size focus of my
magazine
30. Analysing my final contents
page for my music magazine
The colour
scheme relates Different pictures of the
to the front model are used to make
cover of my the reader want to read on
magazine further.
I placed the text in
columns to follow
codes and
I included the editors letter
conventions because I think it is effective
if the editor speaks to their
audience. As It makes the
reader feel important.
31. Analysing my double page
spread
Head line – shows the reader
what or who the page is about.
I decided to use purple as it
stands out on a black
background, bold writing in
lower and upper case because
It stands out to the reader,
especially the background
Quotations to show the reader what
the person in the double page has said
as it may interest the reader making
them read on
eye-catching photo’s
to keep the reader
instructed as it looks
appealing visually
32. Feedback Contents page
I took my front cover to
Facebook for feedback
to be able to improve it
a lot liked the colour
scheme but disagreed
with the placement of
font.
But the page number
was missing
33. Feedback feature page
I took my front
cover to
Facebook for
feedback to
be able to
improve it a
lot liked the
colour
scheme but
disagreed it
had grammar
errors
34. Feedback front cover
I took my front cover
to Facebook for
feedback to be able
to improve it a lot
liked the colour
scheme but
disagreed with the
placement of font
35. Magazine Final draft
This is my final draft after
taking into account my
feedback I removed the text
that covered my model and
simplified the earpiece in the
corner of the design as I felt
the word “free” didn’t need to
be there as it was self
explanatory
36. Final draft contents page
From my feedback I changed the
page number to “2” as the
contents page is the second
page in a magazine and I
increased the brightness on the
third photo and to make it clearly
visible as my reviewers said.
37. Final draft feature page
The changes I
made to this was a
simple case of
grammar
punctuation and
colour coding I put
the questions in
pink so the reader
can easily
distinguish
questions and
answers in the
interview.
38. My improvement
On the left is my
preliminary task for a
school magazine since
then I feel I have greatly
progressed.
In my Photoshop
techniques and my eye
for designing as I whole,
the clear difference
comes from my
improved understanding
of codes and
conventions of
magazines and through
extensive research.
39. My improvement
On the left is my
preliminary task for a
school magazine
And on the right is my
final music magazine
40. What have I learned from the process
and construction of my media product
In the beginning of the course I had no knowledge, ideas, or
experience with the program Adobe InDesign have never I worked
on producing a magazine before.
But never the less I have discovered it takes a great deal of time,
effort and planning to put a magazine together.
I have learnt that with InDesign you can cleverly manipulate text
and the placement of images on a page InDesign has probably
helped substantially without it I would not have been able to of
created my magazine.
Photoshop was simple to use as I have worked with it in another A-
level subject Graphic design and it is a useful program to edit and
manipulate photo's have found Photoshop very useful when editing
my photos. Without it my images would not stand out or have any
kind of effect