During the planning and production of these media products i encountered a variety of problems but have also learned a great deal of amount information about existing magazines and the media community in general.
During the planning i decided my magazine would be based around the genre of metal similar to "Metal Hammer" and "
Kerrang"and would be aimed at males around the ages of 14-24. I do believe in away that my magazine does follow the existing conventions of real music magazines through the use of colour usually involving black and white and red, as most of the magazines aimed at this music genre are usually dark, and bright to catch the eye of the reader. The image i used for my front cover i believe it follows the conventions as well with a close up of a band member holding a guitar in a gritty corner with graffiti to give the impression that this magazine is in tune with the gritty going's on of the underground music network, but also has the news of the more famous bands out there, i think is appealing to my target audience.
The front cover i feel follows other conventions of media products as at the top of the page there is a banner stating there is a free CD included with the purchase of the magazine and also the names of the bands who will be on the CD with the names separated with a small black star. The colour i used for the banner is a mixture of black and red i used this colour effect throughout the magazine especially used to effect on my contents page also. I used two different fonts on the banner alone the font i used for the "Free CD" was Harlow Solid Italic and for the band names i used Lynx. My logo for my magazine stands out in a red colour i had originally planned to graffiti it across the wall but after much consideration i felt it was unnecessary and i could get into trouble with the authorities. So i just decided to add the text through a DTP
programme called Windows Publisher, i decided upon a font called
haettenschweiler the rest of the text on the
front page was also put in the same font to keep it consistent. The main feature of the magazine is an exclusive interview with a
guitarist by the name of "Jake Paul" the location of the text on the page is just below the head of "
Jake". There is also another banner at the bottom of the page stating there would be an exclusive competition to win a copy of an established bands new album the band chosen for this was "
Megadeth".
The contents page lists all the features in this months issue effectively which is norm in the type of magazine which i am designing, the images used on this page are of males performing which makes this more of a male orientated magazine, the colours mainly used on the contents page are white,red and black I used three images on this page 2 of which i took myself and another i found on a royalty free image site of a man performing a solo on a guitar, below the main features of the magazine there is a preview of another feature in the magazine entitled "Album Reviews" rating albums out of 10. On the right hand of the page there is a column wrote by the editor of the magazine this convention is also used in the "Metal Hammer"magazine where i got idea from. I think the text is similarly used in other existing media products.
The double page spread feature included in my magazine is an interview with a musician commonly used in most music magazines usually containing one image and a lot of text. On one side of the double page spread is of Jake Paul screaming which is norm with most metal musicians, on the 2
nd page i used a checkered effect for the background with the put in times new roman in the colour gold for the questions to help it stand out more clearly and red for the answers so not to cause any confusion, Also at the top of the 2
nd page i wrote "An interview with Jake Paul" in a font that closely resembles handwriting i would say this gives it more of a personal touch.
I think my media product represents people who like this kind of music i.e. metal heads,Goths,rockers and skaters. As the majority of locations i used are in grotty urban areas covered in graffiti and an overall industrial feel to it. The common stereotypical view of those social groups are that they have piercings and
tattoo's and listen to there music very loud in open areas, buying this type of magazine is supposed to make them feel
as part of the same social grouping, so there not only buying a magazine they are buying apart of popular culture.
The main target audience's for this media product would also be the same social groups as i said before, Metal heads.rockers.etc, aged between 14-24.
The type of media institution that might distribute my product would probably be an unknown media group, but in the case of "Metal Hammer" they are distributed by Future Publishing a special interest media company that also publishes another music magazine called "Classic Rock"and "Total Guitar" both of these magazine are highly established media products. I would like my media product to be distributed by Future
plc. as most of there magazines are highly successful and i would like to ensure a certain amount of success on my own media product.
During the designing and production of this product i have learnt a high amount of information about the methods of producing magazines. I have discovered most of this throughout the use of digital photography and photo editing software. I realised the importance of
mise en scene the hard way as I soon realised you can't just roam about with a camera snapping up random pictures without some degree of planning and presetting the camera to the way you want to be straight away. I would also say i have built up a greater knowledge of "Windows Publisher" i programme i used throughout this project and and also of a editing software called "
Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9" to which all ready i certain amount of knowledge as i used it during my
GCSE course of media studies.
As i look back at my preliminary task i feel that i have learnt a great deal from the progression of my college magazine to my full product, such as i have learned that you have to plan everything with the greatest detail otherwise you will expect a certain amount of disappointment, for example during the preliminary task I started off just taking random pictures of students doing there own thing without any planning at all but i feel i got it in the end as i started to plan my project with some detail.
In conclusion i think overall that my media product attracts and addresses the right audience effectively, and allows the reader to browse easily through the magazine, throughout my use of red,black and white colours and my use of respectable fonts which make it easier to read.
After finalising my product i asked a member of my target
audience of what they thought about my magazine, "I like the colours used throughout these pages, it uses a strong consistent dark orange theme that fits in with the type of music this magazine follows". This is what i was hoping to hear when i asked him what he thought about the magazine, however some of the colouring ideas were incidental and i
didn't know they would fit so well with the genre of music.
wil
