Amber's evaluation

Ambers Evaluation of the front cover. The artist on the front cover of my magazine has a pose in which she is facing straight ahead, symbolising that she is confident and serious about her career and her fans. When deciding on the pose of my artist I had to make sure that what she was wearing and how she posed suited the style of my magazine. This is because I knew the colour scheme f or our magazine and wanted to incorporate that on to my artist when I took the pictures of her. As a group we decided that we only wanted one image on the front cover of our magazine so I had to make sure that the pose of the artist was enough to catch the readers’ eye. When I was taking the photos the lighting was not so great so I had to edit the photograph once I had decided which one I wanted for the cover of my magazine. I did this so that the image would look effective and professional. By only using one image of an artist it made it obvious that she was important in this month’s magazine issue. The front cover targets our audience and represents them as I concentrated on naming artists which are popular within the R&B audience. I did this to draw in the target audience because the artists I presented on the front page are who they are going to want to read about. On the bottom left hand side of the magazine is a rough idea of what the magazine includes, for example the latest celeb gossip. I thought this would engage our audience as the majority of them are quite young and want to be in with what’s going on in celebrity’s lives. Another reason I added gossip is that during our questionnaire it seemed that people liked to read gossip as it made them feel involved with what the magazine had to offer. I wanted to represent our magazine as being very successful, so to do this I thought that it would be a good idea to state that we have the ‘first ever interview with Kayla Keys’ by doing this it creates the idea that our magazine is popular and that artists prefer to be interviewed by us than other magazines. This presents our magazine in a positive way because the audience will want to buy our magazine as they will think that it must be the most popular magazine due to the artists choosing us to be interviewed by. The cover line for my artist is ‘making it in America'. I think that this could relate to the target audience of my magazine as they are a young generation that look up to artists who want to achieve well. By presenting an artist on our magazine who wants to make it in America is could inspire the audience to also achieve and do better things in their life, a lot of people who listen to R&B come from disadvantaged areas so the music and its artists means a lot to them. The entertainment : The number of artists I have on my front cover represent interviews and reviews inside my magazine which provide my audience with information to entertain them, I have also added gossip and tips, these are usually factors that attract people to buy a magazine. To keep my magazine looking bold and attractive I stuck to a common colour used in many R&B and hip-hop magazines which is blue black and white. I used an uppercase masthead which was set to take up the entire top part of the page. I kept to the conventions of the magazines I had previously looked at in the Radial Analysis. I used one dominant image in the middle of the page which i thought was key in making the magazine look more eye-catching as it is the first thing the target audience would see when on a shop stand.

upper case masthead to keep to the conventions of other music magazines. saying that it is the first ever Interview it shows the audience That the magazine must be popular As they have chosen this magazine to be Interviewed by over any other magazine Barcode and price At the bottom of the Page so that it doesn't take up any space on the page that could be used for other important information Using utopian solutions By introducing excitement To the reader as they can Learn about the history of their favourite artists. The 50 hottest R&B Songs gives the reader Examples of the latest music that they should be listening to Explaining to the audience what artists are included in the magazine to Draw them in By saying the word Exclusive it shows the Audience that no other magazine has this information Making them want to buy the magazine to read the story I styled my artist In blue black and white to keep with the continuity of the house style that we chose

When creating my contents page I wanted to keep the conventions of previous music magazines that I had looked at. I took my ideas an FHM magazine; this is because the set out of its contents page looked simple and fun. The style includes a few images at the top of the from page with the information below it. There were coloured arrows coming from the images to the information that related to them, I thought that this was effective because it made the page look less daunting. I also liked the idea that the magazine stuck with the house style as that is my aim for my magazine. Whilst I was analysing contents pages within music magazines I realised that there were a lot of articles about upcoming acts, so I was inspired to use this idea on my own contents page. By looking at contents pages it also came to my attention that contents pages usually look very busy and full of images and information so I took a few images which I thought would tie in well with my magazine intending to use them on my own contents page. I represented the month's issue positively by including artists and upcoming events that I know are popular with the target audience and would interest the readers. The acts I included in the magazine fit all different eras of our genre music so that there is a variety of old to new acts which create the music they love. By including older artists such as TUPAC it shows that the magazine is not only using the new material, so there is a wider variety of choice for the audience. Creating a number of radial analysis’s of current music magazines allowed me to identify all the different styles used to make their features stand out and attract the targeted audience. 'A history of Hip-Hop' is a perfect example of targeting my magazines audience as it is a story of how the music fist came about, giving the audience a purpose for their music. I think this is a positive point because when researching earlier on into Richard Dyer’s theory he says that ‘ boredom is solved by introducing excitement into the lives of the reader’ which is what I have tried to do by including information a bout the history of the music. Ambers Analysis of the contents page

The issue number Is used to make the magazine look professional and to show that the magazine has not been out for too long but is already very popular. Such features as this give the reader new and exclusive information. By adding a page number which is bigger than the others shows that this is an important page of the magazine. I have added two coloured arrows from information to show that they relate to The two images on this page. Keeping to the house style on the front cover of the magazine By adding images I think it makes the page look more Exciting. By adding page number to split up the information It makes it more simple for the Reader to navigate around the magazine. utopian solutions has been used again here by adding a page where the audience can win a prize. When doing research I found that this was a factor which people liked. Adding effects Such as an outer glow It makes the page look professional

I dressed my artists in specific clothes that represent the genre of music my magazine creates. I dressed her in a black and white stripy vest top so that she looks good but comfortable at the same time; the colour of her top also fits in well with my colour scheme. My artist is standing with her hands on her head and has expression that shows her softer side this connotes that she is worried about the situation that she is in. I used a plain white background so that the main focus was on her; I did this because the interview is about her life and how people portray her. When choosing the size of the photograph, I made sure that it would dominate half of the double page as I knew that I wanted to include a title and some text. Before adding the picture onto the page I edited it to make the contrast brighter. I think that this made the image look more effective. For this page to appeal to the target audience I made sure that the pull quote I used would attract its audience; “People think I’m cocky and confident but really I’m just insecure”. To help this stand out I added an effect to make it look like it has been written in a news paper with each word being singled onto a black square. I did this to make sure to make sure the text would appeal to the audience and be relevant to their lives. I made sure that it would have the gratification of being entertaining as well as informing as they can relate to the article and take advice on what they can do to help if they are in a similar situation. My double page spread follows a lot of conventions of a music magazine. The house styles of all 3 double pages have been kept the same. For example, I used the same colours, fonts and effects from both the contents and front page. The use of the “exclusive to Funk” graphic helps inform and educate the audience as well as being an exciting article to look forward too. I used a heading above the article as I found it was a common thing to do and was well presented. To find a decent idea for the double page, I looked in vibe and FHM magazine. I used ideas from both magazines to come up a final template. Analysing the double page spread

Here you can see I have kept to the house style again. Exclusive to FUNK shows that no other magazine has been given the opportunity to interview this artist The large dominant image shows that she is important to this page. The page number makes The page look professional The pull quote is Normally what attracts it s reader so I made sure that it was relevant to what the article involves I edited the images And contrasted it so that it was the main focus on the page The heading shows the artists true Side. It explains how people can be misunderstood due to fame.

Analysing the Journalism of my double page spread The interview that I conducted for my journalism on my double spread page of my magazine was done in a way which made the artist seem very vulnerable, I did this and added a heading of ‘ people think I'm cocky and confident but really I'm just insecure’ to show people that the artist has another side to her, and to show that just because she is famous it doesn't mean that she isn't human. I made her writing informal in hope that the reader would feel in touch with what she was saying. To begin the interview I made a point to ask her a question about needing to be confident in order to be successful, which immediately created a positive effect for the artist as I am hinting that she is a successful woman, this also targets the audience because many of the readers are inspired to be an R&B artist themselves. I wanted to include language that would make my act seem friendly and not too serious about the questions she was being asked as I didn't want her to seem like a victim. By doing this I made her seem laid back, making the interview fun a easy to read. Talking about the positive outcome that has come from her negative experience of a break up shows off to the reader the artists talent and that she takes her job very seriously. She talks about being inspired by the artist Pink to sing about her emotions and feelings suggesting to the audience that they have a new album to look forward too. Overall the whole interview has been made pretty informal so that the audience feels closer to the artist as a person and see her as a friendly and outgoing individual with a fun personality as in the article I included laughter to make the article seem more realistic.

How I have improved since the preliminary task My skills have progressed dramatically from when I created a school magazine in January. Since then I have become more aware of the work needed to make a magazine look professional and the planning which needs to go into the project in order for it to be successful. When I first made a school music magazine I had no idea what programme to use or how to set it out. I made my preliminary on Microsoft word and used a basic image for my front cover. My skills have progressed from when I created the preliminary, since then I have become more aware of the work needed to make a magazine look professional and the planning which needs to go into the project in order for it to be successful and to look professional. To take the best possible photographs I could for my final magazine I used a friends Nikon camera which produced better looking photographs than a basic camera would. I chose areas which had decent lighting as I felt this would represent the music genre my magazine was for in a better way. To get an idea of what I wanted my images to look like i researched into existing magazines with photo shoots and could then expand on what i wanted from the photo shoot i was going to take. Even though I had decent lighting when taking the images I still had to edit the pictures that I wanted to use in order to make them look effective. To do this I had to use Paint shop pro as this was the best programme to edit and expand on my magazine. Before making my magazine I had never used this programme so I found it quite difficult to learn in such a short space of time but once I got the hang of using it I was able to make my magazine look as good as I could make it.

I used the text tool to create all of my text throughout my magazine. I edited a few of my texts with an outer glow background to give it an effect. The making of my magazine

I used many layers in my magazine for different effects. For example, I put the masthead behind the cover image. I could then merge all the layers together. By using the layer section, I could edit the cover image and text. I could also give effects to the texts. This is how I gave an effect to my text. I mainly used the outer glow option.

I downloaded my font at www.dafont.com .I extracted this font so I could use it for my front cover later on for my magazine. I used the lasso tool to crop around the picture to use for my magazine. After I finished cropping, I copied and pasted the picture onto a layer.

Photo shoot When taking our images we had to book locations and people who were willing to be styled for our magazine. In each case we planned the location (considering the mise - en - scene),and styled our actors and asked them to pose in a way in which we wanted.

Each issue of our magazine has been analysed in close detail by the both of us. We considered carefully how our magazine ‘Funk’ would fit into the existing magazine market today. By creating a new title, we wanted to follow the major conventions of a music magazine because the audience will feel familiar with the layout and we feel that it should appeal in a better way to its target audience. Conventional features include: Front Covers – Masthead across the top of the page, Large dominant image to show the importance, Graphics, barcode/ price Contents Page – number order of pages, grouping of stories, signs referring back to the front cover, large page numbers that relate to the two images on the page. The one difference in our music magazine would be the double page spread. It is different to the usual double page spread seen in a magazine like FHM. We wanted this page so slightly differ as we felt that by adding an interview to the page it made the magazine more exciting to read. We designed the double page spread so that there were one or more dominant images. Because of this we had to make sure that our images were of the best quality they could be. use Developing and challenging forms and conventions

During the making of this project we wanted to representation solo artists and groups as they both fit in with the R&B music. Both are very different but have similarities as they are both performers with a fan base and inspire many people. In our magazines we have tried to represent our artists as being glamorous and confident. We have done this by styling them in fashionable clothing that fits with the aimed music type and using our journalism skills to portray the acts in a positive light in hope that it will inspire its audience. For example, we represented the artist ‘Jessica Dean’ positively. We did this in a way in which she is explaining to world how she has just had a break up with her long term boyfriend but that she is using her negative feelings and turning them into something positive, showing the audience that it doesn't mean her life has to be over. And that good things can come from something bad. This makes her fit into the theme of R&B as we know that a lot of R&B artists have come from disadvantaged backgrounds and have had to pick themselves up from bad situations and make better choices for their lives. We feel that we have achieved at aiming towards our specific social group as the outcome of our magazine looks like that of another R&B music magazine. We managed to make our models look confident with slight attitude which is what is needed when being involved in this type of music industry. feedback from fans". Representation of social groups

Changes that were made since the planning Changing the colour scheme During the stage of planning we agreed on a house style and colour scheme of Orange, red and white. However once we had started creating our magazine and dressed the Actors how we wanted them we decided that these colours were not what we wanted for our Final magazine. This is because once we had done further research we came to realise that the colours of Red orange and white were mainly used on an indie/rock type music magazine. Therefore we Decided to change the colour scheme to blue black and white as we had previously seen this Colour scheme on a vibe magazine which aim at the same audience as us. Changing the name of our magazine When we first looked at names for our music magazine we had little knowledge on what would appeal best to our target audience and what would sound good. Our first decision was ‘ Seeing Funk’ but once we had looked further into magazines that were based on the Same audience as ours we realised that most magazines had a one syllable word that could fit across the top of the page. After realising this we decided to shorten our title to just The word FUNK. We felt that this had a much better effect as it was simple and not too much of a mouthful.

Distribution The final idea for our magazine is how we would distribute it to the target audience that we are aiming for. We decided as a group that we would distribute our magazine through IPC Media as IPC distribute over 60 iconic media brands. 1)Conventional Distribution This has been the most popular form of media for over 100 years and will be the main form our magazine will be distributed in. Our magazines will be transported by vehicles to major stockists like WHSmiths, Newsagents and many supermarkets. Conventional distribution WHSmith has been the most popular form of media for years and will mainly be where our magazine will be distributed in. Our magazines however will also be sent to newsagents and other supermarkets for distribution. New technologies As our target audience are of a younger generation and are more likely to use technology on a daily basis a website version of our magazine has been set up www.Funk.com for them to keep more regular and cheaper contact with the magazine. For our audience who read our magazine and are on-the-go to work, or school or do not have access to a computer a version of Funk magazine is available on any handset that you can download which is a great way of accessing our magazine through new technologies. .

During our case study into Cosmopolitan we were informed that they sent emails to their readers who had subscribed to the website. Although this is a good idea it works out expensive and would not be cost effective in the long run for our magazine. Instead of this we have decided to update our website each day informing our audience of any new details and information that they may want to read. Some readers choose to have their magazines arriving to them through the post, while others like it through email and some just wish to buy the monthly issue at the supermarket. We haven't got the sort of target audience that we could send our music magazine to in the post as again it would not be cost effective because we don't believe enough people would want to pay out for the magazine to be sent to them monthly. Distribution continued...

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