Media Evaluation

At first when we analaysed the 'NME' magazine we saw that this particular magazine used alot of forms and conventions, these help classify the sub-genre of a magazine. The sub-genre of our magazine is urban. Our magazine uses many real life conventions, just like many other magazines, such as a Masthead, a main cover line, barcode, price and issue date. The name of our magazine 'Swagga Magga' represents teenagers. It would appeal to teenagers as the term 'Swagga' is a slang word that is commonly used. To help appeal teenagers, we have included images of popular rnb celebrities. Our main audience ranges between the ages of 13 - 19.

media evaluation

We studied the generic conventions of magazines; what has to be on a magazine, we also had to make sure our magazine was appealing to our target audience. We aimed our magazine; our target audience, at females, who prefferably have a boyfriend who buys and reads 'swagga-magga' in order for the females to recieve 'bagga-magga' as its a special edition magazine. However our secondary audience is single males who recieve the magazine free and read the female edition. We followed the generic conventions very well, we placed a barcode on with the help from photoshop we also used a title, subheading and many photo's, we used photographs of celebrities such as j.lo, alicia keyes and christina millian, as most females look up to or want to aspire to be a celebrity such as themselves, and want to read about them. Having their picture there would also boost the readers self esteem if for instance it was a 3 page spreadout of the celebrities looking horrid or gaining alot of weight. This makes people feel comfortable at the fact that if they can do it so can you, thus to not put as much pressure on your every day females.
Our magazine represents an r'n'b social group, a more urban group, using an everyday photo as the main image

Photoshop (editing)

We spent this lesson editing and adding final touches to our magazine cover. We also took pictures off of google and moved them to our magazine cover, this was very effective because it made the readers want to read on because if they catch a glimpse of a celebrity that they like they would be intrested. We then added thease to a banner, also on this banner was the price and the bar code. This looked very effective but we still needed to make the page look more busy. In order to do this we added random phases on the page, but we made them snazzy and eye catching. For example in the background of the orignal picture their is steps, so for one of my phases we called it 5 easy steps for the best swagga.

Other things we did was change marikas eye colour to green, we found that this will just give her the edge and bois might be attracted towards it. We also did the same thing for miles but we added facial hair on his top lip an chin. We found that this will make him look more mature an also more hunky. in addition to these changes we air brushed both of their faces.

We found that thease changes made our magazine complete and look very profesional.

october 8th

This lesson we added our finishing touches onto our magazine front cover, and started designing the inside page, we chose to follow the black white and orange theeme that had been displayed on the main page. We used different photos inside to create a variation and had many sub-headings, we rotated our images to make them seem more eye catching and interesting rather than flat straight dull pictures. Making sure the font was readable from a certain distance and whether or not it stood out was another difficulty. We needed eye catching colours and photos and after using the shadow tool, we felt all of our problems wern't so bad.

october 6th

This lesson we split our group of four into two. Ashton and I were editing our magazine Bagga-Magga. First we airbrushed the photo; enhanced eye colour, made our skin flawless, even added facial hair. We then added the title and used 2 text layers and put them behind eachother to apear 3d. We then came across a problem, Miles' head was behind the text and as we'd used the original backround it took some time with our steady hands with the magnetic lasoo tool to enable miles' head to be infront of the text, this would make the photo stand out more.we chose the colours white and a deep orange, as the theeme.

monday 29th september.

This lesson Ashton, Miles, Khaledia and I we're given a camera to capture unique photos for our magazine cover. We had the option of choosing a unique backround and not transfer the persons face/body to a different back round. Or we could use the magnet lasso tool. When taking the photo we had decided we wanted to use steps as our backround, and as we were in a school environment we had decided to simply use the steps in school, thus stick with an original backround, this enabled us to write our captions on the steps to give our magazine an edgy look.

We took many pictures in all different locations to provide us with a variety and incase we had any ideas whilst in the later stage of editing to use other photos in a particular location. Our magazines both; Swagga-Magga and Bagga-Magga, applied the smart black and white classy theeme, and this was reflected in our style of dress. we wanted a unique yet casual photo that people could aspire to be/have, for example our chosen main image photo is of Miles and I appearing as an item, people may aspire to have a boyfriend one day. Or most people will relate to this. We chose a photo that maintained eye contact with the camera to appear that we are staring at the reader. This is scene as inviting and subliminally encourages buyers to buy the magazine.

media evaluation

in my magazine 

media evaluation

In my group, we designed a urban magazine named "Bagga magga" this is a special addition to the original magazine called "Swagger magga" which was designed by Miles an Khaledia. On the cover of bagga magga we decided to take very direct pictures to attract the reader an give a more person approach. Other ways we tried to catch the readers eye was by using a bright colour scheme, we found this very effective because the title and the advertisements were seen very clearly. Another method we used was by adding a a banner to the bottom of out magazine cover. Our magazine is aimed at urban teenagers. We found that teenagers are easy to please using magazines and that the do often purchase them. When I use the phrase teenagers, i mean in the ages of 13-19 education/work so the magazine has to be a reasonable price. We choose the price 1.20. Reasons for this is because we found that this is affordable price an considering you only have to pay this price once a month.

The gendered audience we are trying to reach in general is mixed, but this edition is mainly aimed at teenage girls this means that we are loosening out on the male market that purchase the magazine. However, we have made this edition aimed at more of a wider variety of audience an added a wider variety of swagga for example Smart clothing. The word "swagga" is a way for teenagers to express themselves through their dress code, this magazine therefore guides them on how to have the best swagga an also how to compare their dress code to other celebrities.

The institution that would distribute my music magazine would be east midlands allied press my reasons for this are that i feel that this magazine is found to have a good repetition also has produced a lot of well known magazines. Even though the main magazines that EMAP has distributed are urban magazines, we found that this would help us be a stronger more independent magazine. In addition, if the magazine was to be distributed by EMAP people would be more aware a purchase the magazine. However, i found that EMAP tend to distribute more music magazines, which our magazine does not offer the readers, but we do involve celebrity music artist so this will help bring the rating up.

Bagga Magga would be on sale in shops like Woolworths, super drug etc. in addition to that it will be sold in airports, my reason for this Is because teenagers will often purchase a magazine before they bored a plane so this will be very useful. The magazine will only have a limited number of distributions because it is a special addition. So after all the copies are sold out the reader would have to wait for next months addition, or order a copy for the site.When I was designing this cover, i found some useful skill using Photoshop. Before i made this front cover i did not have clue on how to use this program, but i can now confidently say i can use it. The part that i found most interesting was learning how to air brush, this helped me understand the concept of how celebrities can be transformed using this method. We found this very useful when wanting to add facial hair to miles on the front cover, this also help when getting rid of spots on marikas face. Another tool that i found useful was the blur tool an how if u put a picture on to the front page how u can make it blend it so easily.

If I were to design another magazine, i would hope to have more time to plan things. Firstly, i would have used another picture for my frount page and made the background for that picture more attractive. In addition, i would have taken longer to pin point my theme, a maybe have carried out a questionnaire to make sure i am hitting the write place in the market. With the actual design of the frount cover i would have made it look much more professional an maybe look at more magazines that are form the same distributer that i wished to used. This would have giving me a stronger overview of what our group was trying to aim for.
I feel like that outcome of my magazine was good. It took me an my partner a maximum of 3 lessons to complete our front cover an it was made to the best of our ability in the time that we had available. I enjoyed designing this cover and found that their would be many improvements if I was to design one in the future.

Media Magazine Evaluation

When analysing music magazines, we found there are many forms and conventions that make these magazines classifiable under the sub - genre of music magazines. We found that in 'NME' magazine, the average reader would be 16 - 35, male, single and looking, or having a girlfriend, would be someone who would be able to travel to festivals and performances regularly and be possibly working class. In my own spare time, I did an audience profiling for Vibe Magazine. I chose Vibe Magazine because I felt that Vibe Magazine is the magazine that is most similar to the magazine my group were going to make. My group's two music magazines (Swagga Magga and Bagga Magga) use forms and conventions of real music magazines. They both have a person on the front conver who are in, or are relevant to the music industry. Both covers have the people on the cover looking towards the audience, have the magazine name at the top and have sell lines to attract the reader who is passing by. We decided to use sell lines that would attract the reader, that included the latest stories and the biggest stars in the entertainment industry. The magazine covers include bar codes, issue numbers, prices and the magazine tag line. These are all conventions of real music magazines. Our magazine represents teenagers, as its title 'Swagga Magga' is something they can understand. Teenagers would realise that the term 'Swagga' is a slang term, and it would appeal to them, and to what many teenagers' way of living is. We have tried to make it as appealing to teenagers as possible, with pictures of their favourite stars on the front. We have used artists that would appeal to our target audience, the typical urban teenager who follows the latest in Hip - Hop, R'n'B and Urban culture. Our main audience ranges between the ages of 13 - 19, but our magazine has a secondary audience that stretches to 25. When making the magazine cover, we asked ourselves, 'What are young, urban UK teenagers looking for in a magazaine?' and 'How can we deliver this to them?'. We felt that our target audience are looking for a magazine they can relate to with the latest in music, fashion and T.V. We also felt that our magazine would be a good idea for a positive way to help / advise teenagers. Music magazines normally don't just offer a magazine talking solely about music. Music magazines push the boundaries of the conventions of a music magazine by including pages of the latest fashion, the latest film, or even in the recent case of Barack Obama, the latest political story. The media institution most likely to distribute our magazine are IPC Media, as they are based in the UK, but are owned by Time Inc. based in the USA, and they may see 'Swagga Magga' and 'Bagga Magga' as a magazine appealing to a similar audience as Vibe Magazine, which is a magazine they distribute, with a difference being that the audience of our magazines live in the UK. Our audience is addressed / attracted with bright colours such as black, yellow, red and white. Also, our audience is attracted by having a person on the front cover who is of similar age, and also through the use of slang. Also, we used ideas from other magazines (Young Vibes and Vibe Magazine) to see what is a convention that we can use that will appeal to the audience market we are aimed at. Through making our front cover, I have learnt that images can be easily manipulated. People who make magazine covers for a living can manipulate images in any way they choose, as we could maniplulate the images to a certain level, with a basic understanding of how photoshop works. I have learnt how to use some of the different tools in photoshop to edit and alter the images and put them in different places on the screen. Photoshop is a good program to use to take a simple image and twist it to make it appeal to the audience of your choice. If I were to make another front cover, I would have taken some of my pictures on a blank background, so it was easier to manipulate the image better. I would have also planned / pre - sketched my ideas to have a set idea of what my magazine cover was going to look like before I started. This would have enabled me to have used all the features and conventions of normal magazines more effectively. I felt that my group worked well in terms of coming up with ideas that were realistic to a music magazine, and a magazine that appealed the audience of our choosing. To conclude, I have thoroughly enjoyed making my music magazine, and would definately do it again.

Monday 29th September Media Lesson

In this media lesson, my group (Ashton, Khaleda, Marika and myself) were given a camera to take pictures around the college and the surrounding grounds. We decided to take the pictures on the highest floor next to the glass windows in the college so we had the background of the high rise buildings making it seem like we were in a high location. We also decided to take pictures on the staircase. We tried to get as many pictures with whoever was in the picture staring at the camera or pointing towards it. We felt it was necessary so the picture on the front cover of the magazine was attractive and attention grabbing. We also decided to take some pictures with a boy and a girl on the front to attract both men and women.

Thursday 9th October

During this lesson, my partner (Miles) and I were editing our main picture on the photoshop. We decided on this particular picture, because we felt it will help capture attention. To help us, i thought it would be a good idea if we looked at a professional magazine cover. We messed around with layouts, experimenting on different fonts and style. We decided that the font should be large and colourful to help grab the readers attention. After finishing out front cover, we then started on the contents page. We came to a decision as to which picture we would use on the contents page, the picture was a image of Miles. This particular picture had a busy background, so we had to cut Mles out of the original picture and put it on a new background. We done this by using the Magic Lasoo tool, this gave us many problems as we found it difficult to cut the image out precisely using the mouse. After several attempts we finally got it! We decided the background of the contents page should be black as it would compliment the front cover. Our contents page included what are the features of the magazine. Again, to help us we looked at a professional magazine's contents page to help us understand what it should include.

Thursday 9th October Media Lesson

In this lesson, we had to finish off our front covers to our magazines, and also complete our inside page. After messing around with the layout of sell lines and other things to attract the reader, Khaleda and I decided to begin working on our inside page. We looked at an example of a music magazine, and we decided to pick our picture, and cut the image of me out of it, to put it on a new background. So using the magic lasoo tool, we carefully cut out the unwanted parts of the picture, and dragged the rest of the picture onto the black background of our inside page. Then we added what was going to be in the magazine on the other half of the inside cover page. This was to go into more detail on what was on the front cover of the magazine. We felt it was important to keep the same colour themes from the front page to the second page, so that it looked like a real magazine that had its own unique colour scheme. We then added a quote from Miles Daley, so that it looked like a real magazine, which included the interview of a famous singer / actor.

Photoshop (designing cover)

After me and my partner recieved a brief we decided to choose an urban magazine called "Bagga magga". We imagined our magazine to be colourfull and very attractive. Also we were trying to appeal to the teenage community. We aggreed that the inside cover would be on things like whats new, an celebrities worst fasion mistakes.

When it came to designing the frount page we desided on a picture with a boy an girl on the frount, reasons for this is because we wanted to encopriate the fact that this magazie also involed females. The picture that we used was taken on steps, at first we didnt agree that the picture was suitable for our frount cover but then we went with our instinct an it came out really good. next we added a title called "bagga magga" this title was in red. We choose red for our colour because we found that this was a very attactive colour and contrasted to the steps on the original backround. After we had designed the title we decided to make another one, however this one would be on a layer infrount of the original an smaller font. This made the title more busy an therefore more attractive. We then jotted down other ideas for the frount page an aimed to complete them next lesson.

Monday 6th October Media Lesson..

In this media lesson we continued our work on our front covers of our magazines. My partner (Khaleda) and I worked on our second front cover whilst Ashton and Marika continued work on the first front cover. Khaleda and I were doing the front cover of the 'Swagga Magga' Magazine. We picked our front cover picture and then decided to get the 'Swagga Magga' title on the top of the magazine. We then decided to put it in a bright colour and then copy it but change it to black to give it a shadow and make it stand out. During this lesson we both felt that we were understanding how to use Photoshop better, and after Mickey had shown us, we cut out my head from the original picture, and put it on another layer so that we could put it over the writing, therefore covering some of the writing from the title. We then used the blur tool to make sure it was not obvious that we had edited it. We then added a barcode, and we felt that the front cover was beginning to take shape. We began to put writing on our cover to make it attractive. We decided to place our sell line in the middle of the magazine to attract the passer - by, and to put them in bright colours. We also decided to put it in red and yellow, which would contrast the grey of my clothing in the picture. We put different words in red and others in yellow, to change it up further. We began to add other sell lines to the front cover, to make the reader interested in buying our magazine.

Thursday 25th September Media Lesson..

Last Thursday in our media lesson we learnt about different types and genres of magazines. We learnt that genres are a type or category we use to classify something into a group, so in application to magazines, an example of a magazine genre is consumer lifestyle. Furthermore, in genres there are often sub - genres such as women's weekly, weekly celebrity gossip, music and men's health magazines. In groups we were given different magazines, which were all sub - genres of consumer lifestyle. The magazine we looked at was the 'Good Housekeeping' magazine. We had to analyze the front cover and see how it appealed to the audiences the magazine attracts. We believed that a typical reader of this magazine would be a female who lived at home and spent her time looking after and satisfying her children and husband. We also discussed that it would be very likely that for a typical 'housewife' a picture of flowers or of something relating to the home would be appealing and make them pick up the magazine. Also, the colours used, purple, white blue and green are all soft colours so they are less offensive to the readers eye and may be more attractive to the target audience of 'Good Housekeeping'. After this exercise, Lousida gave us another magazine, 'NME' which is a music magazine, which is a sub genre of 'Consumer Lifestyle' magazines. We learnt how the NME magazine is different to the 'Good Housekeeping' magazine in its layout, design, audience and terminology. We noted that in comparison to the 'Good Housekeeping' magazine, the 'NME' magazine had more dramatic colours like red, black and white to grab the readers' attention and also has a picture of a famous singer which would appeal to the typical 'NME' reader. After this we did audience profiling on the magazine and came up with the idea that the typical NME reader would be between the ages of 16 - 35, single and looking, or having a girlfriend, would be someone who could be able to travel to festivals and performances regularly and be possibly working class. Then our next task was to write a day in the life of the typical NME reader. My story was set as if the NME reader had had a get together the night before and had a flat covered in beer cans and clothes. He decides to not go to work and instead decides to sleep off his hangover and eats leftover pizza and beer for breakfast because he has no milk or bread in the flat. I decided to make my NME reader working class, and a smoker. After this was completed, we were then set our next task, to plan and create our own magazine covers, and to prepare for a photoshoot on Monday 29th September.

intro to magazine

During this lesson i was introduced to a variety of different consumer lifestyle magazines. We look at many different sub-genres targeted at different audiences. My group concentrated on the magazine "Good Housekeep" and we found that we was able to find the target audience easily. I found that this made it easier for me to profile a different sub magazines

into music magazines analysed them. i found this very usefull an it made it easier for me to a decision on what we was gonna choose for our gendre.

We then planed our own front cover and decided what sort of pictures that we was going take to fit our cover. We needed to talk about this prier to our photo session because our theme was smart so therefore marika and miles had to come in smart clothing. We also learnt different terms an planed wat we was gonna write on our mast head. At the end of this lesson we all said that wilst we are at home we should think of good ideas for our cover an all so look at other covers for insperation.

Planning

On Thursday morning; 25Th September, we were asked to create a magazine front cover and inside page, this involved taking photo's and a lot of  Pre-planning. For example we had to decide on all the different aspects that make up a magazine, our target audience, secondary audience and of course what makes a magazine sell. For instance we had to decide on the location and dress style, which props we were going to use, and of course the camera angle depending on how we wished to portray our magazine to our target audience. We revised all of the main parts of a magazine for example strap lines, banners, main image, and put our target audience into a category, we stereotyped them so that it would enable us to include things that appeal to them in the magazine; audience profiling. We chose the genre for the magazine as an urban r n b music magazine. We also decided that our magazine was a special edition women's magazine from the other magazine 'swagga magga' designed for males, how we created a special entry for females.

So here it goes.. This is my first blog on here, it seems quite fun, blogging and photoshop.. I'm surprised it's taken me this long to even learn how to do them. We're in Room 323 with Mickey and Marisa, they taught us how to use photoshop and do our first blog, which explains why I'm doing this now I guess. I think the whole class is moving really quickly, we have started the blogs and done all the photoshop tutorials and its not even 10 o'clock yet. In photoshop we learnt how to fill, fill with effects, transpose, put writing on our pictures and its helpful as I've wanted to learn how to use photoshop for years. Gone are the days when my friends are talking about photoshop and I'm sitting there not knowing what on earth transposing was let alone how to do it. I learnt about the Magic Wand tool and the other tools available to me and my picture creating needs. The most interesting part was putting the  butterfly in the lightbulb, and cutting Hannah out of her blue background and putting her in the scenery of the Tower of London, and the fill effects... To be honest I liked all of it, and I've been dying to do a blog for ages! Louisa is telling me I can't use LOL which is slightly upsetting, but hey its the rules I guess... I am generally excited about the magazine practical work, I've got a very good group of people who I get on with and we share similar ideas.  Hopefully everything goes well with it.

Photoshop tutorial.

This morning we were taught how to use the basic photoshop skills such as creating text boxes, changing font, cropping images, transferring sections of pictures, and creating new layers. and were told that it was important to create new layers as the can sometimes merge together. We also did photo minipulation and transposed different images to contrast another.

Photoshop tutorial

We learnt today how to use the photoshop method, the teacher talked us through step by step this mad it easier to understand and use. We first learnt the basics of using photoshop for example entering text and filling the background. The next thing we did was find out how to open two files in photoshop (one light bulb and one butterfly), he then showed us how to transfer the picture into the light bulb. I found this task this very easy and gave me a chance to understand how useful this tool is and gave me great ideas for my magazine. Lastly we learnt further skills that involved cropping,layering and how to change the order of text and images on the page.