For my Foundation Production, I have created a music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread using original images that I have took myself. I have used conventions real music magazines and I have analysed other music magazine front covers, contents pages and double page spreads using the key concepts of LIIAR (Language, Institution, Ideology, Audience and Representation).

Music Magazine Evaluation

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

All three of my media products represent and follow the typical conventions of Rap/Hip-hop/R"n"B magazines instead of inverting them. I chose to follow them in my magazines as I believed that it was the most effective way to present and promote my magazines. The genre of the music magazine is mainly Rap and Hip-hop. The audience would easily be able to recognise my magazine as part of the rap/hip-hop genre therefore will be able to familiarise themselves with it. I studied many other music magazines, similar to what my own music magazine genre is, such as XXL, Vibe and The Source.

In my Research into existing magazine layouts for my front cover, I came across an edition of Vibe which I quite liked. I used this example from this edition of vibe to give me the foundation of my ideas for the three pieces I created.

This Edition with TI as the main artist, follows many of the main conventions of typical hip-hop, rap and R“n”B magazines. Such has the main sell line placed on the left hand side of the page and having the main image fill the whole page.

Within my media products I have included all of the typical conventions such as placing the important sell lines to the left of the page as that was where the audience’s eye would go first on my front cover.

The same can be seen in this Edition of Vibe magazine. The main sell lines are kept, again, on the left. This signifies the importance of the actual sell line.

On my double page spread, I have also kept many of the common codes and conventions you usually find within a typical rap/hip-hop genre magazine such as having a Pull Quote just under the page heading or to actually have to as the heading, to attract the audience into reading the article, to appeal to them by making it sound more interesting.

As shown in this article of Vibe magazine, the pull quote is also used as a heading and placed in one of the first places the audiences eye will go to. Its also in a larger font size to stand out from the rest of the article.

Other conventions which I used include Mise-en-scene. It was essential that I used effective mise-en-scene to portray the genre of the magazine, allowing the target audience to be drawn to the magazine.

As with all magazines on sale in the media today, its important to make sure that every edition of the magazine follows and keeps the brand identity of the whole magazine its self. In my front Cover, Contents page and Double page spread, I have made a brand identity and kept it going through all three of my media products through means of the colour scheme and layout design. Through each of these pieces, I have kept the background colour the same, the colour scheme in the fonts and layout of the page numbers

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

The magazine I styled my magazine around was Vibe magazine, when looking at this magazine I researched the publisher. The publishing house of Vibe is Inter media. They also own many other media companies such as Access Network, Uptown Media group and BlackBook Media. After purchasing Vibe magazine in 2009, they have successfully ran it from then on. Based on this I believe that my magazine would benefit most if it was distributed by Intermedia as well.

Since the publishing houses distribute their magazine through retailers to actually sell the magazine I also choose which retailer I believed would be a good choice for my magazine, this is also where Vibe is sold, WHSmith is recognised as the main magazine distributor. Furthermore, my I think that my audience would be attracted to my magazine through it being sold at WHSmith as those in my target audience bracket who do not want to subscribe online to the magazine can head over to their closest magazine retailer which would most probably be WHSmith.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I believe that my music magazine, “MixTape”, which portrays the market of the rap and hip-hop genre, would be successfully aimed at the audience of 16 – 26 year olds. I feel that my target audience breaks the classic stereotype of 16 – 24 years which associates them with drugs, violence, crime and swearing. As not all teenagers and young adults are like that, I believe that my magazine helps to aspire young artists or anyone with in that age bracket to follow their dreams as they can read other young artist’s stories like “ J-Soundz”.

•Gender: Male•Age: 16 – 26 •Nationality: British and/or American•Ethnicity: I believe that my magazine would appeal to all people from different backgrounds, a mixture of black, white and Asian readers. There are a few ways in which I have tried to appeal to all Ethnicities, by having different artists from different backgrounds feature within my magazine, such as Chris Brown and Jay Sean, both of their songs are in the same genre however they are from different backgrounds.•Interests: The general interest of my target audience will be that they will have a thirst for the hip-hop and rap genre, and this magazine should fulfil that need greatly and further widen their knowledge of the genre and the industry.

My target audience, of the 16 – 26 age group, are usually the people who like to spend their money on items like music magazines. To find out more about the potential readers of my magazine I created a questionnaire to help me produce my magazine and fill it with content to attract them. The questionnaire were all answered my a male audience, from school pupils as well as some music magazine customers, this was which gender I was aiming at. Knowing that 16 – 26 year olds are more interested in mainstream music and the popular music genre that my magazine represents than any other age group shows that this was the most fitting audience.

How did you attract/ Address your audience?

I believe that I have attracted my target audience through the use of sell lines such as “ We got gifts, Page (25)” . The fact that the items are available to the reader for free will entice them more into buying it as we like to receive free stuff. Also as this magazine is published monthly as opposed to weekly or bi weekly means that if they do not buy the magazine they “ free gifts” may not be available to them until the next month or even 3 months away.

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

Throughout the process of making my music magazine I have learnt many new skills which will help me on later in life. As I am not the best at using various photography editing software and technology, doing this task has helped me expand my knowledge and get a general grasp on how to use new programs, edit and enhance images and successfully produce, in my opinion a good hip-hop magazine which would appeal to the 16 – 26 age group.

•Programs – Whilst making my music magazine, I has to use different programs to develop and enhance my images and final products. Programs such as Adobe Photoshop Cs6 and Light-Room Cs4 helped me make my magazine as professional as possible. •Adobe Photoshop Cs6 helped me enhance, alter and remove the backgrounds in my images to make them look as eye – catching as I could. •Adobe Lightroom helped me enhance certain qualities of my images to make them standout more by adding effects and brightening areas where needed this also helped me to do the same with me text .

•IT skills: By doing this task I was able to build on my IT skills and use different websites such as “blogger” and “slidershare”. Firstly using a blog was new for me as I never really got into it before so it was a good experience learning about this and has expanded my knowledge. Blogger allowed me to make posts and create pages expressing my work in new forms of media such as uploading videos from YouTube and using moviemaker to also create videos and presentations by using slideshare, could embed PowerPoint presentations like this one to my blog.

•Uploading + Downloading – As I never had a blog before, uploading things on to blogger and Slideshare was completely new to me, I even had to ask one of my friends to help me with this but after that I was read to go on my own. I also learnt how to embed different presentations on to blogger.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that this experience was a work in process from which I have learnt many new skills and developed my understanding and my current knowledge about the production of music magazines and the depth of research behind it all.

Taken on board the feedback I got after making my school magazine front cover and contents page, and through giving out questionnaires for my research into my music magazines, I believe that I have progressed along the way in the completion of my finished media product. Now I have a stronger knowledge and understanding on programs like Photoshop Cs6 and lightroom, also Blogging and how to edit posts upload and covert files.

Overall I feel that I have greatly developed my knowledge in these particular areas.•A developed understanding on how to use Adobe Photoshop.•Expanding my knowledge on other adobe products such as lightroom•Learnt how to use a blog- Create and updating posts.•Learnt how to fully use slideshare.•Learnt the importance of continuous saving to prevent my work being deleted