Saturday 19 February 2011

Calendar to organise time

Deadline-Thursday 24th makesure Magazine is complete by then!

Week1 - Watched powerpoints on magazine conventions and used mark schemes to grade past projects
Week2 - Did the preliminary task, made a front cover for a college magazine on the computer and drew out a contents page
Week3 - Carried out research on target audience, institutions etc
Week4 - started creating my first draft of my front cover and contents page, collected fonts for my magazine cover booked the studio to take photo's
Week5 - Took photographs and then edited the photo's using photoshop
Week6 - Finished the first draft of my cover and contents page
Week7 - Started the first draft of my article
Week8 - Made changes to the first draft of my front cover and contents page, completed my final contents page this week
Week9 - Completed the final front cover and started making changes to the article
Week10 - Finished the final draft of article
Thursday 24th- Magazine complete
Tuesday 29th - Uploaded to blog

Reader Profile

The reader's of my magazine will be both female and male teenagers mainly 15-19. So most of them will be high school or college students and maybe working part time. These will be teenagers who are interested in R&B music and the life's of these artists, as they will want to read the magazine and find out information about these singers. The male readers will be interested in attractive female artists and they will be the one's who look up to the male artists as role models, and vice versa for females.
An example of my reader's would be

Farouk Patel
Age: 18
Profession: Student (Engineering course)
Hobbies: Listening to music, watching T.V and using social networks eg: Facebook
Favourite music artist's: Eminem & Christina Milian
Favourite Music: Gangsta rap





             Selina Khan
             Age: 17
             Profession: Student (A level's)
             Hobbies: T.V, going out, and using social networking site's
             Favourite music artist's: 50 cent and Rihanna
             Favourite Music: Pop, HipHop and R&B

Sunday 13 February 2011

Planning photoshoot

My idea for the front cover of my magazine is to have a female model who dominates the cover, she is going to be dressed in a hoody, jeans and a cap I am going to make her dress like this as this will make the magazine appeal to both genders. As if she was to wear a dress it would set the picture that this magazine is femanine. By making her wear a hoody it will make it appealing to the male audience as these kind of clothes represent R&B and the male's gender, also the model being female will attract the male audience. I think this will also work well to attract the female audience as I am going to make her look like a professional singer so they will look up to her as a role model.

For the contents page I am going to have a different model, who is going to be wearing a long dress, this photo will taken in front of a white sheet and she will be dressed in dark colours so it creates a contrast and she stands out also the writing on my contents page will be same colour as her dress so it creates a combination. I will be using low key lightin for this as I want the model look mysteriouse. This model will dominate this page however I will also be taking photographs of this model together with my other model's to put as smaller photographs onto my contents page.

For the article in my magazine I will again be using a different model, she will be dressed glamorous as she's going to be the main celebrity in my magazine. I will be taking a medium shot of her singing for the main phtograph of this article however I will also be taking long shot pictures of her for the smaller photographs will also be on the article.

Moodboard of images, colours, fonts etc

I created a moodboard to show which kind of artists inspire me to create a magazine for this music genre (R&B) and I included female andmale artist in my moodboard as I want my magazine to appeal to both genders therefor I will be making use of both male and female R&B artist's.

Name for my magazine

I wll be naming my magazine "R&Beat'z" I think this is a good idea as this name immediatly tells the audience this music magazine is about the R&B genre. Also this name will appeal to both male and female gender's this will be an advantage for me as my main aim is for this magazine to appeal to both gender's as this is one of my unque selling point's. However I also had a few other name's in my mind for this magazine, and to help me choose a name, I carried out a questionnaire.



After reading my questionnaires results I  decided to choose this name "R&Beat'z" as most the people chose this name and this questionnaire also told me this name would appeal to both gender's.

Equipment and Technology I will be using

To create this magazine I will be using a camera, as I wll need to take photographs of my model's most of these phtotgraphs will be taken portrait to fit onto the page. These photo's will be taken in a studio, so I will be making use of the white sheet, as my models will be standing in front of that and I will also be making use of the lighitng, as I am going to adjust the lighting to how I want the photo's to turn out eg: High key lighting.  I will also makesure the model's are dressed in a way which represents the R&B genre.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Feedback 9.2.11

Anisha, you need to speed up here. You must have the planning activies complete in time to start production work on monday. Next week you should be writing the first draft of the article and taking photos. Please see me if you need any help.

Mrs A

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Institution to produce and distribute my magazine

I chose the IPC institution to produce and distribute my magazine as they produce over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men, this shows it will be a good institution for my magazine as i'm aiming for the female and male audience and this magazine institution reaches both genders.  This institution sells different kinds of magazines therefor selling my magazine to them wont be a problem they also sell magazines with different price ranges so the price of my magazine wont have to be changed either. 

Analysing Band images

I chose to analyse the JLS band's Beat again album cover as I like the way it doesn't use a lot of colours and then in the middle of the background there's a band with colours as these colour's represent each person of the band, as they all have there own colours in this band eg: the Blue behind Aston represents him. This band in the background stands out as not much colour has been used on this cover and the band is the only bright thing there therefor it immediately catches the audiences attention. This album is mainly aimed at female audience as it has for male's on the cover, to catch females attention, if it was aimed at males there would also have been a female on it or the male band on the cover wouldn't have been dressed up as they don't want to be impressing the male audience.



I chose to analyse this album cover of Rihanna as I think this represent the R&B genre very well and it appeals to both genders male and female as this photo of Rihanna is very attractive and so it will instantly catch the male audiences attention, which will help to sell the album and it also appeal to the female audiences as they look up to her as a role model. I think the way they have made use of the different shades of Red really works out well as it makes it look different to other album's, and the colour red also connotes passion, and love so it gives the audience an idea of what kind of songs will be in this album and it gives Rihanna a characteristic in front of the public.

I chose to analyse this poster/wallpaper of T.I as it looks very attractive to the female and male audience because it portrays an image of a man who has witnessed and experienced alot in his life. Also, as we ccan see that his facial expressions are those which indicate, arrogance and superiority. In context of what he is wearing (Millitary jacket's) it shows dominance and authority. This is a typical R&B picture as most rappers have this kind of life. 

Used media theory to discuss target audience- project phoenix, Demographic and Psychographic Profiling techniques

My magazine is going to be aimed at teenager's both male and female's. The Socio Economic status will be middle class, this means it's going to be aimed at middle class teenager's who either go to college or work therefor they can afford to spend money on music magazine. Also i'll make sure my magazine will be at an affordable price. My magazine will tell the audience what the latest R&B song's are and include a lot of gossip about R&B star's. 

Sunday 6 February 2011

Questionnaire

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I produced a questionnaire with these question's to help me to understand what kind of music magazine the audience want. After ma questioners being completed I got the feedback that my music magazine should be £1.50 as almost everyone ticked that option and that it should be about R&B music genre. It also helped me to understand how I should design my magazine eg: make it colourful and use lots of photo's as after doing my questionnaire I got the feedback that people are more interested in magazine which are designed like this. Most people that filled ma questionnaire where 16 -17 therefor my magazine will be aimed at the teenage audience as my questionnaire's give me feedback on what kind of magazine this age range will like.


Analysis of download top 40

After carriying out a research on the top 40 downloads of this week and last week, I have realised R&B and HipHop are the most popular genres of music, as most the songs and artists on this table are from that genre. This table also shows that people have different tastes in music as there are songs in this table which don't belong to the R&B and HipHop genre, however because them two are the most popular genres in the top 40 downloads I think my music magazine being a R&B magazine will be popular and do well as most my researches show this is the genre under demand, therefor when people realise there's a new R&B music magazine people will want to buy it as it will have there favourite artists in.

Friday 4 February 2011

Circulation figures For Music Magazines


I researched the figures for music magazines to help me understand which magazines sold the most  and which one's are under demand etc. Below are the circulation figures I found:

BBC Music 42,810 (45,144)*
Classic FM 
32,534 
(35,751)*
Classic Rock 
71,242 
(70,301 / 70,188)
Computer Music 
17,427 
(18,261)*
Future Music 
10,862 
(10,860)*
Gramophone 
32,313 
(34,628)*
Hot Press 
18,394 
(19,387)*
Kerrang! 
41,125 
(43,253 / 52,272)
Metal Hammer 
41,777 
(46,004 / 50,269)
Mixmag 
26,116 
(30,159)*
Mojo 
98,484 
(97,722 / 100,507)
NME 
38,486 
(40,948 / 48,459)
94,811 
(100,172 / 103,107)
Terrorizer 
11,641 
(13,786)*
Top of the Pops 
107,576 
(119,739)*
Uncut 
75,518 
(76,526 / 87,069)
Word 
26,555 (34,280)*
Empire 194,236 (194,016)
Sight and Sound 
19,842 
(19,733)*
Total Film 
81,029 (85,031)


After reading these  figures I realised that the most popular genre of music magazines are Rock and R&B, therefor I am going to carry out a research on the top 40 downloads to help me investgate which musc genre is most popular.

Analysing a magazine article


I chose to analyse this article from a music magazine as it has all the conventions of a article/interview that would be in a music magazine. It has been spread on a double page as the first page has her photo on and the second page has the article. The interview has been typed up into 3 columns, this is how I am going to layout the article for my music magazine as this is a important magazine article convention. This article also has a title and subtitle, the heading title introduces the artist to us (the audience) it is written in capitals and bigger size font than the rest of the writing on the page so it stands out and grabs the audiences attention straight away making them wan to read on as Madonna is a very famous singer, so a lot of people would want o read about her. The subtitle helps to give us an idea what the article is about. Under the main heading it also acknowledges the names of who the article has been done by. There are also bits in this article which are written in bold this has been done on purpose to emphasise the point that these are important points of the article to the readers. I also like the way they have made use of pastel colours for this article as different shades of blue's are used for the title etc and the background for the article is white, and the photo also doesn't have a lot of colors as tin this photo she isn't wearing much make up, they might have done this to connote innocence and the type of songs she sing's eg: if this article was about nelly maybe hey would use dark colors and colors which connote teenagers, violence etc. This photo also looks attractive this is done so females look up to her and read the article and so male audience find her attractive and read it.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Analaysing a contents page


I decided to analyse this content page as it is from the magazine Vibe and I am aiming to make my magazine like vibe, therefor this contents page should help me to decide how the layout of my magazine contents page should be. However I think this contents page looks very dull and boring as it's mostly Grey and Black therefor its not eye catching, the font is also very small and black which I don't think will make the readers want to read it, I think they should have used less text for the information about what is on the pages  as this will make the audience read it as it would look less boring. However I like the way they have put subheadings like "features" and "fashion" as this helps the audience to find what there looking for quicker as they can simply look under that subheading. I also like the way they've put a famous celebrity from that genre on the page as people who buy this magazine will be his fans as his famous for singing in that genre. They have also made him stand out by placing a red heart where his heart should be, this really stands out as it's the only bright colour on the page, and the way they have a hand coming out from the back on top of that makes it really stand out to the audience as this is something unusual and the person behind isn't shown only the arm is therefor it makes it really different and engages the audience. I also think the way they've stuck to the theme of this magazine being vibe is really good, as they have kept the letter "V" in  big bold font this reminds the readers which magazine they are reading, however they have covered it slightly with the celebrity, this shows the picture dominates the page.
When I make my contents page I think I will be using this layout, as I want to keep a picture that dominates the page and the pages information on the side with subheadings, however I am going to try and make my contents page look a bit more attractive by using a lot of attractive colours and a few more pictures.

Analysing Magazine front cover

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I decided to annotate this magazine cover, as Vibe is a music magazine from the same genre of music that i want to make my Magazine about. 
The masthead is written in big bold white font this is done to make it stand out from the rest of the text on the page. The page is dominated by a very famous singer, Chris Brown, this helps the audience to understand what kind of music this magazine will be about as Chris Brown is famous for singing R&B songs. It also helps to attract people towards this magazine specially female audiences, as they could find Chris Brown attractive.This picture covers up part of the masthead which helps it to stand out, as it looks like the most important thing on the page, however its not covered the masthead up to much, so we are still able to read it and recognize which magazine it is.  They have made good use of colors on this magazine cover as they've used colours which stand out on the background they've used. They have also used a theme of colours green and White throughout the writing on this cover as it's like they've gave the words turns to be green and then white then green again. However to make the important text on the cover stand out from the rest of the text they have used other colours which don't combine with this theme, this helps them to emphasise the point that these texts are ment  important to the audience. It also uses direct addresss "i'm still a virgin.. in your eyes", it uses the word "your" therefor it's using direct address which helps to engage the audience. They've also made use of questions in the front cover to engage the audience "is that Chris Brown?" this engages the readers as they'll want to know the answer for which they'll have to read the rest of the magazine, so it will help sell the magazine to people. Also the bit of the question where it says "Chris Brown" is done in big bold capital letters, this is to make it stand out as Chris Brown is famous and people will have a lot of interest in him, by reading his name they will think the magazine has a lot of information on him and so will go onto read the rest of the magazine it hooks people to it.  

Sunday 30 January 2011

Feedback 30.1.11

Anisha, this is a good start but you need to do more from home. You need to add your sketched contnents page to the prelim task post. You then needf to analyse pages from real magazines. Work through the research tasks in your own time please. You must be ready to start planning by thursday.

Mrs A

Saturday 29 January 2011

USP

The music magazine I am going to create is going to be aimed at teenagers I think this is a good idea as  most people who buy music magazines are teenager's, therefor if I am successfull in grabbing the teenage audience to buy this magazine the magazine company would be making alot of profit. My music magazine is going to be based on the HipHop/R&B genre as this is a verry popular music genre in the teenagers and there are already alot of music magazines that exist for this genre eg: "Vibe" which are verry popular, however I am also going to try and make this magazine appeal to both genders male and female so ther's a wider range of audience for this magazine. Therefor the USP for my music magaznes will be that it's aimed at both genders.

Preliminary task

Firstly I had to research the conventions of a magazine, I then created a magazine for St Marys College as a preliminary task. To do this I had to take a professional picture of a student, and then use photoshop to cut the model out so a could change the background. I then thought carefully about what colour combinatons would go together, however I think this magazine cover I created would not appeal to all the students as, i've use bright pink and used a female student as the model for the cover therefor I think this magazine would appeal to the female audience as this cover would attract more females attention. I have made use of a my model by making her dominate the page however while trying to do this i think the image has become out of proportion as it looks squashed and stretched.As well as having a photograph which dominates the front cover I have also followed other conventions of magazine's eg: Taglines, date, issue number and barcode. However I could have made it look more like a magazine cover by adding a few more photo's or college logo, a few more tagline's and a price.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Initial Ideas

My initial ideas for my music magazine is R&B/Hiphop I am going to aim it at a teenage audience. I am going to make use of the colours Black, White, Pink and Red for the front cover of ths magazine, to help me to create ths magazine I am going to use the music magazine "Vibe" which already exists as my inspiration. For this task I am going to create a front cover, contents page and a double page feature article/Interview on a famouse singer from this music genre.

Magazine Conventions

All magazines follow the same conventions as they all have a front cover which is dominated by a celebrity or someone that the targeted audiences look up to, and lots of bright colours are used on the cover to make the magazine eyecatching. All magazine covers also have a title, slogans, and give us brief information about what that particular magazine is about. Magazine cover is almost like a shop window as it is selling itself. Magazines which are targeted for males would have a attractive female model/celeb on the cover to attract the male audience or vise versa, however a magazine that  is targeteg to the female audience might also have a female on the cover as this could attract females who look up to that model/celeb as there role model. Most magazines feature articles, reviews, photo's etc. Articles/intevriews are usually spread onto double pages in a magazine and are usually typed up into 3 columns on each page. There can be different kinds of magazine eg: monthly and weekly.
Music magazines would usually have a singer who appeals to that kind of music genre eg: hip hop, and would feature the latest hits, singer interviews etc.