Friday, 30 December 2016
Location 2
My second location isn't actually a location but it is an idea that I photograph my model and then crop them out of the background as accurately as I can, and place them on a plain white or another light coloured background. This is because this technique is becoming increasingly popular and it looks professional and clean if it is executed properly. I will likely use this for at least one of my pages. A risk assessment for this wouldn't be necessary because the picture would likely be taken in a class room and then crop out the background.
Location 1
Thursday, 29 December 2016
Tuesday, 13 December 2016
Other Online Tutorials
Kyra's chosen tutorial (seen top) is a much more basic tutorial, which is really vague and I already know how to do almost all of the things listed. However, it is a good tutorial that a beginner can use to get to grips with the software.
Alex's chosen tutorial (seen second) is more detailed than the one that Kyra has chosen, it is very detailed like my chosen tutorial. There are things amongst it that I didn't know and I would use it to help guide my progress on Photoshop. -
Online Tutorial Analysis
This online Tutorial is very in depth, and goes into a lot of detail on how to manipulate lighting within a photoshop project. Personally I will be using this tutorial to guide me through editing my own picture for my magazine. Despite these facts, there are certain parts of the tutorial that are fairly vague.
Tuesday, 6 December 2016
Contents Page Mock Up
This mock up of my contents page is just a preliminary design, containing the basic layout of what I want to include. These are things such as a logo, the date, page number and advertising. Then also the basics such as the main image, the contents itself and the masthead.
Friday, 25 November 2016
Tuesday, 15 November 2016
Monday, 14 November 2016
Analysing the audio focus group
In this task we set out to get more open responses to that of what we got in the questionnaire, similar to those in the social networking section of the research. Kyra, Alex and I worked together to come up with a list of questions that we could ask our target audience. We then also asked other questions which we thought of at the time. Over all it was very successful because the students we asked were within our target audience and although our feedback said that R&B appeals mostly to females, we asked a female student of a similar age group to join in on the questions which gave us a slightly wider range of answers. The students were able to speak their mind; giving us unscripted, open responses. The first question we asked was "What type of music magazine would you most likely buy?" interestingly, we didn't get any responses that were for R&B however we did receive 2 responses that were of pop music because of the colours you could experiment with and the fact it is mainstream. The other response for this question was an independent music magazine, which relates to the product we would be creating. His reason for this choice was because they're interested in new and upcoming artists - this backs up our questionnaire responses as we had a large proportion say they'd like to see new and upcoming artists on the front cover of a magazine. We then asked "what price would you consider reasonable for the magazine?" and we got responses ranging from £1.50 to £3.99 and the reasons were because the price shouldn't put off the audience (because money is usually tight with students) and other reasons were for profit. Following this question we asked the interviewees "Baring that price in mind what would you expect to gain or receive from the magazine?" one response was simply a lot of content within the magazine. The other responses were stories on new and upcoming artists. The next question asks the students whether a male or female should be on the front cover and the female student thought that a male should be on the cover for the "eye candy" whilst the two males thought that it should be a female because it is unconventional and something different to seeing famous male artists on the front. The next question, relating to the previous question, we asked "should they be attractive?" the responses were generally very similar, being they should be attractive however not too attractive because it could pressurise younger audiences to try to look like them. After this we asked "what stories are you interested and what would you expect to see in the magazine?" the feedback received on this question revealed that our target audience aren't too interested in gossip, but are interested on new and upcoming artists, music stories and upcoming events. "Which features would you consider most important?" This question was a very important one as we received some very helpful feedback - the first response was the main image should be eye catching and colourful otherwise she would not likely buy it, the next response was that the contents page should be well structured and clear, in order for the consumer of the magazine to not waste their time flicking through, trying to find the relevant page. Finally the last response was the structure of the front cover because a well structured front cover is very successful compared to a front cover with small letters in the corner of the page.
Monday, 7 November 2016
Sunday, 6 November 2016
Analysing the Final Questionnaire
Question 1:
The first question was a multiple choice question about what age does the questionnaire fillers think the target audience would be for the magazine which averaged out to be 18 years old, which is what we were aiming for and this backs up our research.
Question 2:
Question 2 asks the responders which colour pallet they would expect to see and order them 1 to 3, as we predicted, bright colours ranked lowest and the darker, grey scale colours ranked higher.
Question 3:
All of the responders thought that the magazine should be visual or all text which follows through from the pilot questionnaire, nothing has changed.
Question 4:
The fourth question asks the language that they would expect to see in the magazine and around 75% said that they expected colloquial language to be used and none expected formal language.
Question 5:
This question proves to us that we should be using more rebellious fonts over formal as 80% of the recipients said that they expected informal typography.
Question 6:
This question further expands on the previous question, it asks if a serif font or sans serif font should be used and the same proportion, 80% said that they would expect sans serif, whilst the rest said they'd expect serif.
Question 7:
Question 7 asks the responders whether they thought that R&B magazines would appeal to men or women and unlike in the pilot questionnaire the majority thought that it appeals to men.
Question 8:
Despite the fact the majority of the responders thought R&B magazines would reach out to males they still thought the main image should be of a male which suggests a female on the front is unconventional and perhaps something we could break away from.
Question 9:
This question asks the recipients of the magazine on whether new and upcoming artists should be shown on the front of the magazine or if popular artists should be shown. 70% thought that popular artists should be shown however I think that giving new and upcoming artists a chance to become famous is more the root that should be taken.
Question 10:
The final question asked if the image on the front should be provocative and if that would make them more interested on buying the magazine, the majority, around 90%, said yes. However we can't put this on our magazine because it has to be within the regions of our school uniform.
The first question was a multiple choice question about what age does the questionnaire fillers think the target audience would be for the magazine which averaged out to be 18 years old, which is what we were aiming for and this backs up our research.
Question 2:
Question 2 asks the responders which colour pallet they would expect to see and order them 1 to 3, as we predicted, bright colours ranked lowest and the darker, grey scale colours ranked higher.
Question 3:
All of the responders thought that the magazine should be visual or all text which follows through from the pilot questionnaire, nothing has changed.
Question 4:
The fourth question asks the language that they would expect to see in the magazine and around 75% said that they expected colloquial language to be used and none expected formal language.
Question 5:
This question proves to us that we should be using more rebellious fonts over formal as 80% of the recipients said that they expected informal typography.
Question 6:
This question further expands on the previous question, it asks if a serif font or sans serif font should be used and the same proportion, 80% said that they would expect sans serif, whilst the rest said they'd expect serif.
Question 7:
Question 7 asks the responders whether they thought that R&B magazines would appeal to men or women and unlike in the pilot questionnaire the majority thought that it appeals to men.
Question 8:
Despite the fact the majority of the responders thought R&B magazines would reach out to males they still thought the main image should be of a male which suggests a female on the front is unconventional and perhaps something we could break away from.
Question 9:
This question asks the recipients of the magazine on whether new and upcoming artists should be shown on the front of the magazine or if popular artists should be shown. 70% thought that popular artists should be shown however I think that giving new and upcoming artists a chance to become famous is more the root that should be taken.
Question 10:
The final question asked if the image on the front should be provocative and if that would make them more interested on buying the magazine, the majority, around 90%, said yes. However we can't put this on our magazine because it has to be within the regions of our school uniform.
Friday, 4 November 2016
Thursday, 3 November 2016
Tuesday, 1 November 2016
Analysing the Pilot Questionnaire
Question 1:
The first question asks about colours in R&B magazines and which colours they would expect to see in R&B magazines, 75% of recipients said that they would expect to see black, white and grey. Which backs up our conventions research into R&B. The remaining 25% expected to see bright, flamboyant colours.
Question 2:
Question 2 asks for opinions on whether the magazine should be a lot of text and reading over visually appealing with pictures and a lot less writing. 75% of the people who took the questionnaire chose visually appealing.
Question 3:
The third question asks about the typography and half of the people said slang should be in the magazine and the other half expected to see abbreviations in R&B magazines because generally it is seen as 'jargon' for the genre.
Question 4:
This question asked the participants if provocative images on the front cover would appeal to they younger adult and everyone said yes. This could suggest that such images are the unique selling point (USP) of R&B magazines. However we will be subverting away from this because it is inappropriate, it also stereotypes and pressures women generally.
Question 5:
All applicants to fill the magazine agreed that they would expect to see sans serif over serif in an R&B music magazine. This backs up our research into conventions of R&B magazines, serif fonts are generally traditional whereas serif is modern and contemporary.
Question 6:
Question 6 asked the people taking the survey if they thought the audience reading the magazine would be male or female and the majority said that they expected females to be reading and consuming these types of magazines. This surprised my group and I as we expected males to be more into rap culture.
Question 7:
According to our results, readers do not mind whether a female or male is on the front of their magazine but I think with more results there would be a definite answer progress.
Question 8:
All of the people who took this questionnaire said that a masthead which stood out and caught their attention would be immediately interested in the magazine which could suggest this is another USP.
Question 9:
The final question, we asked for feedback on the questionnaire itself and we received a lot of positive feedback but also some constructive criticism on how we can improve the final questionnaire.
The first question asks about colours in R&B magazines and which colours they would expect to see in R&B magazines, 75% of recipients said that they would expect to see black, white and grey. Which backs up our conventions research into R&B. The remaining 25% expected to see bright, flamboyant colours.
Question 2:
Question 2 asks for opinions on whether the magazine should be a lot of text and reading over visually appealing with pictures and a lot less writing. 75% of the people who took the questionnaire chose visually appealing.
Question 3:
The third question asks about the typography and half of the people said slang should be in the magazine and the other half expected to see abbreviations in R&B magazines because generally it is seen as 'jargon' for the genre.
Question 4:
This question asked the participants if provocative images on the front cover would appeal to they younger adult and everyone said yes. This could suggest that such images are the unique selling point (USP) of R&B magazines. However we will be subverting away from this because it is inappropriate, it also stereotypes and pressures women generally.
Question 5:
All applicants to fill the magazine agreed that they would expect to see sans serif over serif in an R&B music magazine. This backs up our research into conventions of R&B magazines, serif fonts are generally traditional whereas serif is modern and contemporary.
Question 6:
Question 6 asked the people taking the survey if they thought the audience reading the magazine would be male or female and the majority said that they expected females to be reading and consuming these types of magazines. This surprised my group and I as we expected males to be more into rap culture.
Question 7:
According to our results, readers do not mind whether a female or male is on the front of their magazine but I think with more results there would be a definite answer progress.
Question 8:
All of the people who took this questionnaire said that a masthead which stood out and caught their attention would be immediately interested in the magazine which could suggest this is another USP.
Question 9:
The final question, we asked for feedback on the questionnaire itself and we received a lot of positive feedback but also some constructive criticism on how we can improve the final questionnaire.
Monday, 31 October 2016
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Thursday, 27 October 2016
Monday, 24 October 2016
Genre Research
Firstly, R&B stands for Rhythm and Blues. It is a music genre originated from African-Americans in the 1940's.
"R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, and sex. The term rhythm and blues has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. In the 1960s, several British rock bands such as the Rolling stones, The Who and The Animals were referred to and promoted as being RnB bands; posters for The Who's residency at the Marquee club in 1964 contained the slogan. This tangent of RnB is now known as "British rhythm and blues". By the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". It combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop and dance. Popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_and_blues
The background explains why the term Rhythm and Blues can relate to some forms of rap music, because nowadays the term R&B doesn't relate back to blues, soul and funk. 'Contemporary R&B' is the explanation for the evolution of the genre. Men in R&B are very often portrayed to be violent, using gang hand signs or showing their tattoos etc, this links to the men and violence theory brought about by Earp and Katz. Women in the genre are generally dressed in a very provocative way, assuming that men are the majority of the consumers. They are dressed this way usually because of the male gaze theory(Laura Mulvey). Alternatively Janice Winship's theory, that the women enjoy being look at in this way could be an argument to the reasoning behind the costumes.
"R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, and sex. The term rhythm and blues has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. In the 1960s, several British rock bands such as the Rolling stones, The Who and The Animals were referred to and promoted as being RnB bands; posters for The Who's residency at the Marquee club in 1964 contained the slogan. This tangent of RnB is now known as "British rhythm and blues". By the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". It combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop and dance. Popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_and_blues
The background explains why the term Rhythm and Blues can relate to some forms of rap music, because nowadays the term R&B doesn't relate back to blues, soul and funk. 'Contemporary R&B' is the explanation for the evolution of the genre. Men in R&B are very often portrayed to be violent, using gang hand signs or showing their tattoos etc, this links to the men and violence theory brought about by Earp and Katz. Women in the genre are generally dressed in a very provocative way, assuming that men are the majority of the consumers. They are dressed this way usually because of the male gaze theory(Laura Mulvey). Alternatively Janice Winship's theory, that the women enjoy being look at in this way could be an argument to the reasoning behind the costumes.
Progress update
After undertaking a few textual analysis' with my group members, and looking into the lives of some influential figures, I have had a brief brainstorm on what I want to include in my magazine. A few ideas include using sans serif throughout my text in the magazine, because it is a convention for the genre. Furthermore, I prefer the look of serif fonts. I am not yet sure of the layout or colours however I am sure I want to keep it to 3-4 colours because too many makes the magazine looks messy. For the representation, I am not yet sure on whether we will be using a female or male for the main image but we would be commenting on the representation.
Sunday, 23 October 2016
Influential figures
A list of influential figures that have peaked my interest include, Rihanna (artist), Eminem (artist), Drake (artist), Dr Dre(artist), Kanye West (artist), Datwon Thomas(Editor-in-chief of Vibe magazines), L. Londell McMillan (publisher of The Source magazines) Vanessa Satten (Editor-in-chief of XXL magazines), Spin media (media conglomerate which publishes Vibe magazines), Townsquare media (media conglomerate which publishes XXL magazines).
XXL: www.xxlmag.com
Vibe: www.vibe.com
The source: www.thesource.com
Townsquare media: www.townsquaremedia.com
Spin media: www.spinmedia.com
To begin, Eminem is a very inspiring figure, with a very poor background and upbringing and constantly being told that he is a joke because he wasn't black, but a white rapper and battling depression he still managed to climb to fame and become what people are calling, the greatest rapper of all time. https://youtu.be/JC90mFc1Ppg Next, Rihanna, sold clothes with her father on a stall in a street and she had a rocky relationship with her father as he was struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine. She had to endure a large amount of CT scans because she suffered from excruciating headaches which doctors believed to be a tumour. When she was 14, her parents divorced and she began to sing. Her career began properly in 2003 where she managed to get an audition with Evan Rodgers and it took off from there. Continuing onwards, Dr Dre is not only an artist and song writer but is also an entrepreneur - where he is the founder and CEO of Beats electronics and Aftermath Entertainment. Artists such as Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg would not be where they are now without Dr Dre, https://youtu.be/XSj5vyDAyyA he has been an active artist for 32 years now and is still one of the most popular rappers alive. Datwon Thomas is the editor-in-chief of vibe magazines and the former editor in chief of its rival, XXL. The fact that this man has had the highest ranked jobs of the two highest ranked R&B magazines shows huge succession, and this is in the job line which he loves. SpinMedia, formerly known as buzz media, is an American digital publisher which owns many pop culture websites. Buzz media was created to collate many pop-culture music blogs. It had acquired spin media after spin magazines had to shut down. the company was transformed and it acquired vibe magazine along with many other pop-culture companies.
XXL: www.xxlmag.com
Vibe: www.vibe.com
The source: www.thesource.com
Townsquare media: www.townsquaremedia.com
Spin media: www.spinmedia.com
To begin, Eminem is a very inspiring figure, with a very poor background and upbringing and constantly being told that he is a joke because he wasn't black, but a white rapper and battling depression he still managed to climb to fame and become what people are calling, the greatest rapper of all time. https://youtu.be/JC90mFc1Ppg Next, Rihanna, sold clothes with her father on a stall in a street and she had a rocky relationship with her father as he was struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine. She had to endure a large amount of CT scans because she suffered from excruciating headaches which doctors believed to be a tumour. When she was 14, her parents divorced and she began to sing. Her career began properly in 2003 where she managed to get an audition with Evan Rodgers and it took off from there. Continuing onwards, Dr Dre is not only an artist and song writer but is also an entrepreneur - where he is the founder and CEO of Beats electronics and Aftermath Entertainment. Artists such as Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg would not be where they are now without Dr Dre, https://youtu.be/XSj5vyDAyyA he has been an active artist for 32 years now and is still one of the most popular rappers alive. Datwon Thomas is the editor-in-chief of vibe magazines and the former editor in chief of its rival, XXL. The fact that this man has had the highest ranked jobs of the two highest ranked R&B magazines shows huge succession, and this is in the job line which he loves. SpinMedia, formerly known as buzz media, is an American digital publisher which owns many pop culture websites. Buzz media was created to collate many pop-culture music blogs. It had acquired spin media after spin magazines had to shut down. the company was transformed and it acquired vibe magazine along with many other pop-culture companies.
Friday, 14 October 2016
Last lesson.
My last media studies lesson was a very unproductive hour towards my work, the computers were down and I couldn't sign in to get at my work or get online to analyse any other work for research. To make up for this I had to spend a few hours at home researching into the front page which I was analysing. I caught up with the work that I was doing and I am now beginning to analyse a contents page.
Thursday, 13 October 2016
Second thoughts!
A change of heart with 2 other class mates has resulted in the three of us teaming up. Their names are Kyra-Mai Green and Alex Bowles. Collectively we have decided to shift the genre to the middle of which genres we all wanted to, and ended up doing R&B. Kyra wanted to do Urban whilst Alex and I wanted to do hip-hop/rap so the compromisation was to get as close to the middle of these as possible. As the genre stayed fairly close to the original one that I wanted to do, the target audience has stayed the same.
Monday, 10 October 2016
Response to brief
The brief I have chosen to do is the Print brief. The description reads as follows;
"Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.
Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style). Maximum four members to a group. All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate(s), minimum of FOUR images per candidate."
www.ocr.org.uk/ My initial thoughts on doing a music magazine are between the rock music magazines and rap, however through some consideration I have chosen to go through with the rap genre. I have chosen this because I really enjoy listening to this and find I can really relax when listening to it. Also I feel that there is always something to be added to the rap world and that I can be really original about it. On first consideration the target audience I am aiming for is the 18 to roughly 30 age group, working class and those which have a genuine love for rap. From looking through some other media texts I have noticed that "XXL" www.xxlmag.com/ has a slightly more appealing look about it.
www.ocr.org.uk/ My initial thoughts on doing a music magazine are between the rock music magazines and rap, however through some consideration I have chosen to go through with the rap genre. I have chosen this because I really enjoy listening to this and find I can really relax when listening to it. Also I feel that there is always something to be added to the rap world and that I can be really original about it. On first consideration the target audience I am aiming for is the 18 to roughly 30 age group, working class and those which have a genuine love for rap. From looking through some other media texts I have noticed that "XXL" www.xxlmag.com/ has a slightly more appealing look about it.
Monday, 12 September 2016
Tuesday, 30 August 2016
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