Evaluation

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

Before i started to design my magazine in PhotoShop i did an extensive research on the conventions of the House music magazines by looking in deep at real magazine. Then i started to do rough sketches of the front cover on a blank A4 paper of the ideas that i had. I have been doing this in order to be more secured on what i was going to conventions. Afterwards i look at the audience of these magazines and tried to realize what the really want. All of this research has really gave me a hand for the design of the magazine.

• How does your media product represent a particular social group?

In these magazines of house music the content of the picture is always representing a gay or a girl of the age (19-25) mixing music in a club. They are almost always represented with their hands up with massive headphones and sun glasses in order to give us the connotation that to be a DJ is kind of cool. Therefore i decided to keep the same connotations on my magazine in order to be sure on what i had to do.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

I think that in order to finance my magazine i should look out at media institution like Emap that will help with the establishing of the magazine. I would say that to have Emap as a media institution will afford me to stay and survive on the market as they are one of the biggest establisher in Europe. However if the magazine wont be create any profits it will no longer be financed.

• Who woudl be the audience of your product?

My media product is a music magazine with House/Techno/Minimal music conventions. This type of music is played at discos and clubs therefore this music magazine appeals to people of the age group (17-30) due to the fact that they like clubbing and dancing this kind of music. In the magazine there are picture and contents that can only be appreciated by this age group therefore people from other age group will not be confortable with it.

• How did you attract/adress your audience?

Firstable i have been looking at real magazines that are out in the market. While i was looking at them i took notes of the connotation. However the main thing that i have been doing in order to attract the audience were the pictures of the DJs whit their hands up, wearing sun glasses giveing an attractive look, therefore attracts the audience as well. Also in order to adress the audience i have been asking a large amount of people of all ages what were their opinion on the media product and from their answers i based my audience wich is on the age group (17-30).

• What have you lernt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have been using two main design software in order to process the magazine, PhotoShop and InDesign. I used PhotoShop in order to design the pictures and the backgrounds therefore i have learnt how to crop, resize, pixel,transport images. Also i now know how to change the effects of the picture e.g. Black and White and how to give shadows and angles grade to the texts. However i have been using InDesign in order to create the double spread page, from this software i learnt how to design an A3 picture and how to insert text around the edges of the picture.

• Looking back over the year, what do you think you have learnt in the progression from the preliminary task to the full product?

I would say that since i have done the preliminary coursework i have learnt much more about a progression of a full product. Now i know how to represent connotations using pictures and how to make contents and a double spread page. The preliminary coursework has been very useful in deed as it gave me the basis for the full product. I have also learnt how to address the audience for the product and how to represent particular social groups in the magazine.

• Comment

In my opinion i would say that the preliminary task has helped me much with the progression of the magazine as it gave me the basis of using PhotoShop. I think also that the making of this magazine has reinforced my use of connotation and understanding of the audience. However above all i now know how to use the two software PhotoShop and InDesign properly and is the main advantage that i proceed from the coursework.

Media Coursework INFINITY Magazine

Introduction
My AS Media Studies coursework was to create a music magazine of four pages, front cover, contents page and a double spread page. I chose to create an House/Techno/Minimal music magazine because i am really into this type of music, therefore i thought that i would be more creative doing this type of magazine rather than another. The magazine appeals to people of the age range (17-30) due to the fact that they like clubbing and dancing this kind of music, which is getting even more popular.

Front cover

First able i design a sketch of the front cover which is the most important page of a magazine as it needs to be eye catching. Down here there's the sketch that i made.
Then i make few changes while i was making the actual front page using Adobe Photoshop.This time i didn't have any difficulties using Photoshop as i learnt most of the functions by doing the preliminary coursework.

The title that i choose for the magazine is "Infinity" in order to describe the music and to suggest people that it is a great magazine of clubbing music. The font that i used is Kouzuka Mincho Pro 150 pt. The color font is red so that it is in contrast with the black background and can be easly recognised, apart from the 'T' that it is in white font, this because it gives originality to the style of the magazine.


I placed the selling lines just under the title of the magazine so that it is easier to viewers to see what it is in the magazine. The font used to make these selling lines is Trebuchet MS 18 pt and the color font is bright gray so that it is in contrast and can be easily read. Then i used the same font to insert the date and price. the date is situated underneath the "IN" of the title and the price underneath the "Y" so that it looks clear.


Then i took i picture of me playing this music. I wanted to show a mid shot of my body from the picture taken so i cropped out the useless bites by cropping it with Photoshop.
The picture is showing me as a Dj with one hand up and the other on the headphone in order to suggest the audience how good to be a Dj is and the passion he has for the music. I used the sun glasses and a white shirt on the picture to tell the audience that to be a Dj is cool and possibly profitable.


Afterwards i design a graphic of dices on photoshop in order to make more effects, to desing the picture the way i did i had to ask my teacher how to do it. I chose this design as it is combined with the style of the music and state the magazine design. Therefore i named my self DJ Dice so that it is related to the graphic picture and before to go to the next step i inserted the barcode so that the magazine look realistic.


Contents page

The next task i had to do was to create the contents page with a list of all the subtopics of the magazine. However this time i have been using InDesign software rather thanPhotoShop, in order to create the contents page. this is because in InDesign is much easier to enter texts even though it is not really good to design pictures. Down here there is the contents page that i made.






As you can see i have been using the same background and color font of the magazine title as i wanted to keep the same design and create a smart contents page. The font used for the title "Contents" is OCR A Extended 87pt and in my opinion this is the best font for me to give a connotation of music to the audience. The picture that i used for the contents page has been taken by me in a disco back home in Italy. I designed it black and white because it is catchy and makes the magazine to look more classic at the same time. The design of it did not take me lot of time to make it with Photoshop.



I colored the title of the contents page in white as it emphasis with the background and i used a red font for the number page of the subtitles so that it catches the eye of the viewers and gives style to the magazine. For the subtitles i have used white and black color font, so where the picture is white i used the black and vice-versa, in order to allow the audience to read them. This gives also more originality to the magazine that is main aim is targeting audience that like listening and clubbing house/techno music.



Double spread page

Then after i finished the contents page i started to design the double spread page. This took me a lot of time because i was not sure what to do and which software to use. In order to get ideas on what to design i have been looking to real magazines double spread page. Afterwards my teacher told me to use InDesign software again in order to do the double spread page and explained me more functions of the software so that it could have helped me with the design of it.

Next thing i have done after looking at real house music magazines was the shoot of a profesional DJ in a real club. Then i decided to design the picture taken on Adobe PhotoShop as with InDesign i was not able to design my picture as i wanted to be. So i designed the picture above to be the backgroung of the whole A3 page. Firstable i have change the colors of the picture into black and white and then i have been playing around with the shadow lights untill i got the same as the picture above. As you can see i have exalted the white shadows in order to get a contrast that it is really eye catching.

The writing font that i used for the title is the same one used for the contents page OCR A Extended 58pt in order to show that this is the writing font of the magazine. the color font is purple as it can be easly recognised by the eye and it also give originality. The page number has been design with the same writing an colour fornt for the same purpose. Finally, the last thing i had to do in order to get my double spread page done i had to insert the text. I decided to insert an interview text of a DJ talking about his life and his emotions for the music. I used the same writing font as the title with a grey color font, so that it cannot be confused with white shadows of the the picture.

Preliminary task

The main purpose of the preliminary task was that we could learn how to use Adeobe photoshop in order to do the four spread page magazine coursework. This preliminary coursework consist on the creation of a school prospectus front cover. We have been told by our teacher to choose our school (St.Edfmund's college) as a topic for the front cover page.

Before starting working with PS, me and my class, we have been taking a lot of pictures of the school both from the inside and the outside. Afterwards we uploaded all the pictures taken on the computers and choose which picture was the most suitable for a A4 page.

Then after we had our pictures our teacher spent two lessons on teaching us how to use the basic functions of Photoshop by showing us clips of it on the smartboard. the lesson after i started to do the prospectus of the school. i choose to do it in a landscape form because the picture of the school was too wide to put it into a Portrait form. This was not hard to do as i was told how to do it from the teacher the past lesson.

However the complications came afterwards when we had to insert a picture of a student into the background picture of the school. I took a picture of my friend and i opened it with Photoshop so that i could crop out the parts that i did not want to be included. It was really hard the first time i did it as i could not find the tools to do it, therefore i asked my teacher help and he showed me carefully how to crop stuff unwanted out of a picture. The tools is called "magic tool" and it is found on the right where you have all the list of tools you can use.

Afterwards i inserted the picture on the background and inserted the title in order to finish the design of the cover. The title is in a white font this because it is in contrast with the background therefore is more eye catching.