'How does your media product represent particular social groups?'

There are many reasons for how my media product represents the social group of indie music fans, i have shown some of them here below.

MODELS

One way in which i have represented my social group is by the photography i have used. For instance in my front cover, i have two models and photos used. The first is the cover shot, which is a medium close up of my model, posed in an aggressive manner. I believe this represents my social category because it shows the passion that this model has, and by using a prop of the speaker, you can see that this passion is for music. Another way in which my model represents my social category is that it seems angry at the world, this is a recurring feeling that i believe a lot of my readership will feel, because a lot of them are males, who range from teenagers to late twenties. You can also compare my photography to other shots of artist that fall into the indie genre that my readers will be familiar with and so will instantly recognise that and this in turns represents my social group

I have also used a second model in my front cover who i believe represents my social category; this is the girl in the top left hand corner of my magazine. This is because my second model is a girl, who is representing the female readership of my magazine. Also the way she is dressed is representing the social category my magazine is aimed at, this is because she is wearing a stone roses tee-shirt. The stone roses are an English idie-rock band, formed in the late eighties and working through the nineties, Ian brown is also the frontman. They are a very influential indie band and all of my readers will know who they are. Another way in which my model is representing my social category is by the way she is looking extremely cool by conforming to the indie stereotypical dress sense; with a band tee shirt on, with skinny jeans and accessories. A final way she is showing my social category is the fact she is wearing headphones, this shows my social category as music fans excellently. This is because she is wearing them on her head, as an accessory which symbolises that music and listening to music is important to her. This represents my social category because it represents how they also feel the same way, and shows a link between the model and the readers  

COLOUR SCHEME

I have also tried to represent, my social category in the colours and colour scheme i have used. This is because my house style is red, blue and red, none of these colours fit into a generic gender stereotype colour, for example pink. So the colours don’t suggest a male or female only magazine, they show a unisex magazine, which is what my social category is. Another way is the way that the colours i have picked are bold and make the magazine look exciting, this i believe works well to promote the magazine and the music in it, which is what the audience reads it for.

So all in all i believe i have addressed my social group and the category of indie music fans. I believe there are elements in all my magazine which addresses them and that they will be happy with if they choose my magazine to read, also for those who are looking through and unsure whether to buy it, i believe the features i have used to address my social category will win them over

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The front cover for my preliminary task

This is my preliminary task's magazine front cover, since finishing this i have learnt a lot about the processes that go into making a magazine and how to produce one. I believe this development can be seen when looking at a comparison of both my school magazine and my music magazine, this comparison can be seen below

I feel i have learnt a lot from doing my preliminary task and then my final music magazine, one of these things is how important a masthead is on the front cover of a magazine. My school magazine's masthead is extremely poor in my opinion looking back, this is due to the masthead being essentially the same colour as my background, thus making it camouflaged  and blending in. This means that the masthead is very hard to make out and read. However i feel i have learnt from this in my music magazine because i have deliberately made my masthead stand out here, this is managed by using an unconventional text and bold image inside it.

Another way in which i feel i have learnt from the progression in magazines is about photography. In my first task my photography is of a low standard, making it look extremely unprofessional. For instance the model itself is looking sideways on the cover, this is going against a convention as one convention of successful music magazines is having the model looking into the camera when the photo is taken, this makes the model look at the reader who picks up the magazine. I have learnt from my school magazine that this side view doesn't work and i don't like it, so in my final product i have over come this problem and shot a canted angle of my model, holding a boom box and looking aggressive. However unlike my preliminary task the model is facing the camera. Also in my school magazine the cover shot hasn't been edited much, i took the shot and in paint cropped the head out, meaning it wasnt edited to remove skin blemishes, or sharpen the image, or brighten up the face as its looking dark. On the other hand this realisation was good for me because it meant that my final product was as i made sure i edited it heavily, to make it look like a more professional image.

From comparing these two covers i can also see that i have learnt to use the boxes, which house the straplines more effectively, in my preliminary task the shapes are big and bulky and just dont create a higher standard where i have used them. However i have learnt from this and in my music magazine chosen much greater shapes by just picking rectangular boxes and adding text to them. To make them stand out more i have used alternate colours form my house style, to increase the simple effect. In my opinion i can see that less is more when it comes to the layout, a more neater and simpler design makes for a better cover.

The contents page for my preliminary task

This is my preliminary task's magazine contents page, since finishing this i have learnt a lot about the processes that go into making a magazine and how to produce one. I believe this development can be seen when looking at a comparison of both my school magazine and my music magazine contents pages, this comparison can be seen below

After looking at this comparison i have learnt quite a lot about contents pages themselves, and how they work and how to make them effective.

For instance you can see that the layout for my preliminary task wasn’t that well planned, it also didn’t work. To build on this i researched this a lot to find a layout for my contents page that would work. I came across the older layout for the NME music magazine, and thought that i could use this layout to model mine. I believe by doing this i have learned how to essentially make a really effective contents page, which is easy to understand and easy to follow, also looks good for the eyes of the reader.

I have also learned that a contrasting house style colour scheme, like mine works quite well. Because the bold blue works with the red to make the text inside the boxes stand out. This i have learnt also makes my contents page look more professional and ultimately clearer when reading.

Oh the whole i have learnt that there is a lot on time, planning and preparation that go into creating a magazine. I have also learnt that to have a successful magazine you need to get sort out the brand identity, house style and target audience before you start to produce your ,magazine as this makes the overall project easier due to you knowing how to approach your magazine. Anotther thing i feel i have learnt from the progression is that you need to make titles and subheading clear , and stand out to make the contents page more effective.



My double page spread

My final double page spread

My contents page

My final contents page

My front cover

My final front cover

The creation of my masthead

The masthead

After i had decided on my title of my magazine i decided that the masthead had to be bold and stand out due to the nature of m magazine. I thought that having an iconic masthead is also a convention of a music magazine, so i decided to look at other magazine titles and mastheads.

 This is Q magazines title, it is a simple design which works and is recognised by every music magazine reader who reads q or doesn’t.  It is just a simple white capital Q in a red box; however it is effect in drawing the reader’s attention because it is bold and the colours used make it stand out because the red symbolises the passion the magazine has for music and the readers love this!

This is the rolling stone magazine logo; this is a more complex logo and masthead, it consists of a main red text, with fancy features like the elongated ‘R’. It has a white border around the red text and then in the background it is a three dimensional effect which is created, with the shadow being mainly black with white stripes, starting at the white border of the letter to the edge of the shadow. In my opinion this title masthead is effective because it is bold and unusual as a text, it is easy to see why this is such an iconic masthead. Again the colour red and white is the main colours of the text which a common feature of most mastheads.

This masthead is the logo for the magazine NME or the New Musical Express. It features in bold letters the title of the magazine in red and a white and black border around the font. The font is a military style font, like stencil, and creates a sense of importance by this choice of font. Again like Q magazine and Rolling Stone magazine the main colours of the masthead are red and white, this shows that it is a conventional magazine masthead in my opinion, and so shows the general public exactly what the magazine contains and in turn shows their target audience as being music listeners

By researching a lot of mastheads I have found that a number of music magazine’s mastheads are made up mainly of the colours red and white. So to make my music magazine more conventional and more concurrent with other magazines like it i am also going to incorporate red and white in my masthead. I have also found out that the designs range from simple to complicate in how they are presented so i am going to use a font which replicates this and go for a more abstract font than something like Q. However the most important thing i have learnt from my research and planning into mastheads is that the masthead to be iconic has to be bold and so i am going to make my masthead as bold and out there as possible.

I then went and looked at a lot of potential fonts to use as my masthead and these are a few that i shortlisted below

After looking at a lot of ideas i found a cross between two fonts i like and decided instead of just having it red and white to incorporate something different into the font, after looking at a lot of things i could use i came across a picture of a union jack and thought that would be perfect as my music magazine would aim to promote British indie bands and artists. Also as my target audience would be British indie music fans this would be a great idea in showing that.

Once i found a font i like i decided that to make it even bolder and stand out i would reproduce a union Jack flag inside the text itself to do this i would use publisher to make the font transparent and then take a picture of the British background and place it behind the font. I will then make this a picture by pressing print screen and transferring this file over to paint and adding the final touches to it there.

In paint what i did was to neaten up the edges of the text and go over where the black outline is, i then made the union jack more clear and the finished product is here

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

What kind of media institution might distribute your

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