1. The student created a music magazine called Tempo that conformed to conventions of real music magazines like Billboard and Mixmag in its design, layout, and features. However, some aspects like the cover photo challenged conventions.
2. The magazine represented the social group of classical crossover musicians, both real artists like Lindsey Stirling and fictional ones the student created.
3. The student proposes that Bauer Media would be a suitable institution to distribute Tempo since it publishes similar magazines like Kerrang! and does not directly compete with Tempo's genre of classical crossover music.
2. 1. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
I created my magazine to conform to the typical conventions of music
magazines, using existing magazines as example guidelines and inspiration for
design, layout and feature. Billboard and Mixmag were the 2 magazines I loosely
based mine on, as the style and content was the closest match to what I was
aiming to achieve. I constantly used these existing magazine pages as references
while creating Tempo, to make sure my design stayed realistic and the theme
style worked well.
3. I also analysed various pages of other magazines, as well as an in depth
analysis of a Mixmag issue. These analysis helped me to identify the consistent
conventions of magazines, such as masthead position and style, contents page
layouts, and double page spread text orientation.
4. A way in which my magazine conformed to existing conventions is using
Mixmag as a reference. For example, the text box idea came from this
Mixmag cover – The 3 colour scheme and black boxes worked very well
in the end, solving my problem of trying to work out how to overlay text
due to my photo’s colour and brightness.
5. Also, by doing the in depth analysis of Mixmag, it inspired me to make
an introductory double page to the main article which was a full photo. I
included the same text features as the Scuba article did: a large heading
with a smaller subtext in a different font.
6. Billboard acted as my main inspiration for the design style of the magazine.
For the essential masthead, I find that I was very inspired by Billboard’s –
using a curved sans font to convey the modern and sleek style of the
magazine, in turn appealing to the audience and creating a theme.
7. However, despite using existing products as guidelines, some of the features of
Tempo challenge the typical appearance of music magazines. For example, I
originally aimed for a cover photo with a dark or plain background like most
magazines have. However, my main image was light and very saturated in
colour, making it difficult to establish a colour scheme. Fortunately, using
inspiration from other magazines and some experimenting with shadow effects
and colours, the end result was effective considering it wasn't like usual
magazines.
8. My contents page also didn’t really
conform to conventions of existing
products, as I didn’t have a page to
use as reference. I vaguely based it on
magazine contents I had seen before,
but most of it was experimentation
with layout. Despite this, I am very
pleased with the end layout and
design, except it could probably do
with some extra colour boxes for text
to organise or highlight content more.
9. 2. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
The social group for music magazines would be the musicians or artists
featured in the content. For mine, these had to be artists that related to my
chosen music genre of classical crossover. In the magazine, I included names
of existing artists such as 2CELLOS, Lindsey Stirling and The Piano Guys
which I summarised in my original planning stage.
10. However I also needed to several of my own imaginary artists, using existing
bands or musicians as inspiration basis. Lois Olivia was based on Lindsey
Stirling - the music she creates is a classical instrument mixed with melodic
dubstep and EDM. I also used Lois' actual name instead of a stage name, as it
suited this persona, just like Lindsey Stirling. When on the photoshoot I also
found inspiration from photos of Lindsey Stirling – in a nature setting, and
experimented with holding the instrument in an unusual way. I also used a
brush effect text as Lois’ logo, just like Lindsey Stirling's is sometimes written.
11. I had to create several ‘fake’ musician names to fill in content for the magazine,
but also allow me flexibility to include pictures without infringing copyright (I
couldn’t get pictures myself of the actual groups). IVY was also loosely based
on Lindsey Stirling due to the fact it is a violinist, whereas Reble I made as a
parody of Clean Bandit. The bandit name gave me the idea for ‘rebel’ which I
then merged with the musical term ‘treble’ for a pun intentional name. This
group would have been an indie-pop type group that sample parts of classical
music and record classical instruments as a key part of the modern music.
12. 3. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
I would chose something like Bauer Media to distribute Tempo. It is a European
based publication company that manages multiple media products worldwide. It
is known for being the publisher of Kerrang! and Q music magazines – this means
Tempo would fit in and not be a competition threat inside the publisher company.
It has links to other platforms in the music industry so may also be a good way to
promote Tempo, or at least the music genre. Q is quite a sophisticated all round
music magazine, whereas Kerrang! is a rock-specialised younger audience
magazine. Tempo doesn’t relate to either of the genres so there would be room
for another music magazine of a completely new and different genre.
13. 4. Who would be the audience for your
media product?
I wanted to aim my magazine at young people as this would put classical in a more
interesting and exciting light – it is often seen as boring for young people, so by finding
ways in which it is part of the modern world it could bring youth to find that it is
interesting afterall. The target age I chose was 13-25; this covered the teenage and
young adult spectrum. I didn’t want to make my magazine too young, or too mature,
but I wanted to be relatively sophisticated.
In the early planning stage I created a reader profile after analysing Mixmag’s – showing
the rough age and interests of what I saw as my target audience. I also think that the
audience would be relatively global; most of these artists are internet sensations or
started out by making YouTube videos, now doing global tours, so it would possibly have
a widespread audience.
14. In the early planning stages I created a survey using Survey Monkey. I aimed
the questionnaire primarily at youth who were involved with classical music in
some way – this would mean they were more likely to want to read a
magazine about it. The questions covered standard demographics such as age
and gender, but I also included several psychographic questions regarding the
way they are involved in classical music, and if anyone liked the artists I had
identified as classical crossover. The overall answers helped me to decide that
I would go forward with choosing it as my genre, and that the rough target
age was teenage to young adult.
15. 5. How did you attract / address your
audience?
Mainly while designing I wanted the design aesthetic to stand out, but not be too
bold or immature. I went for a sleek modern look, but with the help of my images
and feature fonts it helped to make it a lot more quirky with some kind of mood.
Another feature designed to attract an audience is a plug, which is found on
almost all magazines. Mine was the chance to win tickets to see 2CELLOS, a
renowned duo that are known for being amazing live performers. I repeated this
twice on the contents page also, to give the realistic content of a competition
being bold and promoted all over the magazine.
16. 6. What have you learnt about technology from the
process of constructing this product?
For the music magazine task I have used a much larger range of media and
technology than the original preliminary college magazine. Most notably I have
learnt a lot more about Photoshop, effective use of it, and useful effects and
graphics to create. Also, it is my first time using a DSLR – all of the shots in
Tempo are taken with a proper camera, rather than a basic digital one like the
college magazine, yet I am still slowly learning how to use it.
17. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to
the full product?
Since the preliminary task, I feel I have greatly improved I many areas,
regardless of the time difference given for each task. My final piece for the
college magazine task didn’t look too bad at the time, and now looking back all
things considered, it was understandable. Since then, I have learnt how to use
Photoshop more effectively due to being able to use it in lesson frees and
graphics – this subsequently has allowed me to discover new tools and effects
that I could apply to designing the magazine.
The College magazine was quite unprofessional as I actually used Pixlr for most
of the editing, because I hadn’t had chance to learn Photoshop to a competent
enough level to make it look right. Now, I know how to use Photoshop well
enough, so this is certainly something I have progressed on. I also think I
understand the conventions and features of magazines a lot better than before,
so I could apply them toTempo to make it more effective and realistic.
18. I feel that the main progress I have made is due to learning how to use
Photoshop, and having had more chance to analyse magazines to base mine
on – both consequently making my magazine more realistic and professional.
19. Also, since the preliminary task, I have been using a Canon DSLR for my photos
as I got a Canon 700D for Christmas. This has vastly improved the quality of the
shots I used, therefore making my magazine pictures a lot better visually,
adding to the overall aesthetic quality.
20. CONCLUSION
I think my magazine has been successful, as I have made vast improvements
since the preliminary task and have received positive feedback on the final page
designs. Since the preliminary task I have progressed a lot, through learning how
to use Photoshop, using a proper DSLR camera, and looking at existing products
in more detail to help shape my own magazine.
However, I feel there would definitely be room for improvement using ideas from
the survey feedback. For example, I would probably adjust the content layout of
the contents page so that it made the right articles stand out and look like a real
magazine, or take a wider variety of pictures on the photoshoot to experiment
with different ideas.
Overall I feel that my magazine did reflect real media products, appealed to an
audience, that it looked convincing and professional, and I have improved and
progressed a lot since the preliminary college task.
