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

Front Cover

Looking at my preliminary front cover straight away you can see lots of space and lots of flat generic colour when you compare it to my music magazine. In the preliminary piece there are large areas of purple and green that don't have anything on top and it leaves a huge space where as on my music magazine I have a lot of black background but it's got details on top of it wether it be a list of articles, the social media plugs or the masthead. The music magazine has more conventions of a real media product such as the barcode and the price tag however my preliminary piece does have the issue number but it doesn't give a date like my music magazine does. The typography is better chosen on the music magazine, especially the construction of the masthead; it's detailed and visually more impressive than plain text underlined like that of the preliminary. The badge on the music magazine is a good detail that just adds more professionalism and a clear difference between the two is the amount of effort and care taken in the layout and piecing together all the components of the front cover. It's easier to see a house style on the music magazine; you have the masthead section cut off by a red bar and the bottom section cut off by the vinyl and red bar whereas on the preliminary it doesn't look like you could replicate the style and yet change the contents.

Contents

Looking back at my preliminary contents page, it was very flat and lacked depth. It also lacked detail where as I believe my music contents page is a more realistic design. The music magazine I believe is more in line with the brief where as the preliminary doesn't seem to portray the correct theme. The music contents page has more thought behind the design as it resembles a music festival lineup where as the preliminary just seems thrown together with minimal editing. My music magazine looks much more like a real magazine with the subscription offer however my contents page from my preliminary could be in a leaflet, a book any real media product, it doesn't have a sense of belonging.

Photos

My preliminary task photos were taken using my smartphone; HTC One V whereas for my main task I used a Canon 7D DSLR Camera for much higher quality photos and the DSLR also allowed me to shoot different photos and gave me more flexibility. Also I only took 5 photos for my preliminary and didn't think much about the location, props or gestures the model was making however for the main task I took over 50 photos in a planned location (the subway) with specific clothing on the model and doing specific poses to tie in with the target audience. The actual editing of the photo was a process which took more time on the music magazine as I had more of an idea of what I was doing and what I wanted to produce where as for the preliminary I cut out the background and then changed the saturation slightly, I certainly learnt more about photo manipulation.

Conclusion

Overall I feel that what I produced for the music magazine was leagues above over what I produced for the preliminary, with a clearer theme and a better replication of real media products the music magazine shows more skill, time and precision in production and is more complex and developed as a result. Some of the feedback I got here http://jackgirvinasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/preliminary-task-peer-evaluation.html on my preliminary task is that it didn't really do the purpose that it required whereas I feel my music magazine is much more reflective of a real music magazine.

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

Equipment
I got my Canon 7D during the process of constructing this product and had never used a DSLR before the photoshoot for my main task, I shot the photos of my preliminary on my smart phone. I learnt to tweak all the different picture styles and aperture to create more developed photos.


Software
I used photoshop to construct my magazine pages, before doing the product I didn't know much at all about photo manipulation but did know my way around photoshop where as now I know how to change; saturation, brightness, contrast, light curves and more.


Websites
I'd had no previous experience with blogger and now I've used it to present my foundation portfolio online and also flikr which I used to upload my photoshoot to. I used YouTube too to upload a peer evaluation of my preliminary task.  I also used slideshare to embed my powerpoint presentations within my blog, it means I can have variety in how I present information, I had never previously used slideshare. I also Prezi as an alternative to slideshare, it's a more dynamic version of slideshare that presents using zooming in and out of "slides" rather than the traditional powerpoint presentation, Prezi was much harder to master but gives a better end product and was fun to learn.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The front cover colours scheme of red and black is quite striking which draws you in. The large photo of the subject with his hood down facing the ground is quite mysterious and draws you in to find out what his story is and who he is. A brief list of the main articles on the front page will also draw the reader in if they see an artist they recognise on the front cover, it also gives the reader an indication of the genre of music this magazine is aimed towards. The social media plugins helps to drive traffic towards the "Pulse" brand by building a larger community behind the magazine. The badge on the left indicates that is a well established magazine as it says it's been going for 5 years, this would draw in new readers as it shows a prestigious reputation.

The contents page is very clear and makes it easy for the reader to find the page number of an article and it also makes readers interested in the other articles. The subscription offer of a 50% saving is very appealing and will drive the viewer to visit the website, call the number or text the number to subscribe. The "And More" is a teaser into the whole magazine and invites curious readers to actively read through the content available.

The photo on the double page spread is quite comical and it also instantly draws your attention to the quote which is quite inspiring and interesting which then in turn draws the reader to read the whole article. The use of 5 photos on the double page spread also makes it quite appealing on the eye as there is little text to read too, so it's a quick article that is very appealing. The diagonal separations between the photos are dynamic and draw you in. The subtitle of the article also is a small reveal into what the article is going to be about and acts as a teaser for the readers. The main photo is looking into the camera which draws the reader in and also establishes a connection, a key convention in a magazine structure. Photos pull the viewer in more than a block of text which is why I made the decision to include 5 photos on the double page spread and allocate a small amount to the article.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

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

Firstly, I'll be referring to the research into institutions I did here: http://jackgirvinasmedia.blogspot.com/2013/01/main-task-research-into-institutions.html

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

On my front cover I implemented a bar code  price and Issue number all into the bottom right hand corner. Two out of the three music magazines I analysed included a bar code with the price tag just above the bar code. Also if you search Google images for music magazine front covers you can see that the majority of them have bar codes in either the bottom right or bottom left hand corners. This is another way how my music magazine follows the conventions and themes of real media products.

One way that I challenged the conventions of real media products is that I incorporated social media onto the front cover, I did not notice this on most real media products however I felt that because of the coming of age, new technology and the dominance in social media and its use for marketing I thought it would be an appropriate inclusion on the front cover. I also showed my focus on the digital age with the use of a website address above the masthead.

My masthead follows real media themes and conventions as most music magazine publications are single "impact" words. You can read how I came up with "Pulse" here:  http://jackgirvinasmedia.blogspot.com/2013/01/main-task-discovering-magazine-name.html 
Combining the word pulse and linking it to the beat of a song similar to a heartbeat, I used a fractal image in the background to make it look like the flow of blood (Also the article header on my double page spread refers to "Young Blood"). I've also made the word bold and used a font that is wide as most real media products do so that it spreads the width of the page.

On my contents page I included this offer which I found in my research of other music magazines. Two out of the three contents pages I analysed had an offer which promoted the subscription to the magazine on their contents page. Therefore I thought it would be absolutely essential to include it in my own contents page to make it follow the conventions of real media products.
I challenged conventions of real media products with my contents page which you can read up on here: http://jackgirvinasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/main-task-contents-page.html

On my double page spread I placed a large quote on the photo, I did this because during my research I noticed that most articles have quotes that are very visible, it draws the reader in with an interesting quote so that they then decide to continue reading the whole article. Also relating to the main article it is a single column which is quite common for magazines to be dominated by photos and then a small amount of text.

I have a page number in the bottom left of the double page spread which is an obvious feature that is included in every magazine. I followed the same house style colours that I've used throughout my pages; black and red.







For the photos I dressed the model in a hoodie and tracksuit trousers. The location was also in a subway. These two components to the mise-en-scene of the images helped to create an urban, underground movement style magazine piece and also helps to identify a clear target audience; the young, modern individual. 

My music magazine conforms to how they suggest the genre of music with the content. The broken vinyl represents DJs, the hoodie and trackies of the subject on the front cover shows underground and urban which already has now ruled out many genres of music. Then the use of artists names on the front cover so people can identify the type of music that the music magazine focuses on. The black and red colour scheme also shows it's quite modern and informal. The use of social media; Facebook; Twitter and Google+ on the front cover combined with a QR code and a website this all targets towards a younger, modern audience that is aware of new technologies which complements the genre of choice; Electro / Dubstep which is very much a modern genre that is produced, in some circumstances on laptops in people's bedrooms. Double page spreads often are largely dominated by a feature photo and then a small selection of the 2 pages is used for the article, my double page spread also features a small article and is mainly comprised of photos to follow such convention.

Main Task: Double page spread

Main Task: Front Cover

Main Task: Contents Page

 For my music magazine contents page, the main inspiration for the design was a festival lineup. I wanted to created a contents page that looked similar to a lineup of artists and musicians. 
 Once I had done a column of the artists in my magazine, I re sized them all to be the same width. I then duplicated a layer from my front cover with the broken vinyl to add some continuity to the contents page so it would be recognized as from the same magazine.
 Adding the page numbers was a bit more complicated as I had to ensure you could still read the artists names and also easily see the page numbers, otherwise the contents page would be rendered pointless.
 Lastly, I noticed from my research that often contents pages have offers on their subscriptions to their magazines so I decided to do my own version of an offer with the same inclusions as the real magazines (website, phone in, text). Features like this make the magazine seem more real and professional.

Here is an example festival lineups:

Main Task: Construction Choices

Front Cover:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94299619@N02/8652407965/

Contents:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94299619@N02/8653510384/

Double Page Spread:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94299619@N02/8652446433/

Those 3 links will take you to annotated flickr images of my final pieces showing you how and why I made certain aspects of my music magazine.

Main Task: Creating the badge

I wanted to create a badge as I'd seen it on a previous front cover. I was going for the formal "award" style badge. With that in mind I wanted a serif font.

Step 1; Create the text "Celebrating 5 years of Bass, Beats & Talent", I chose "Palace Script MT" as the font and then made it bold. I put the text on a slight angle too.

Step 2; Create a black circle behind the text

Step 3; Duplicate the black circle, make it slightly larger and change it to a white circle.

Step 4; I applied a black stroke of 16 px to the white circle.

Main Task: Creating the Masthead

Main Task: Editing the double page spread feature photo

Main Task: Editing the front page photo

Original:

Edited:

Following changes to the background:

This made the background darker. I also raised the contrast slightly and lowered the brightness slightly and then lowered the saturation slightly.











Following changes to the subject:
I used the saturation tool and selected the hoodie and then increased the saturation to give a much bright blue that stands out. This blue also matches the blue in the middle of the vinyl used on the front cover.

Main Task: The best photos

Here are the best photos from the shoot:

Front page: 

Double page spread:

Main Task: Photoshoot

Here are all 54 photos from the shoot I did for the music magazine front cover and double page spread on flikr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjEs5LBF

I will choose 6 of the best photos to use on my magazine:

• 1 for the Front Cover
• 1 feature photo on the double page spread
• 4 additional photos on the double page spread

I carried out a risk assessment which you can find here http://jackgirvinasmedia.blogspot.com/2013/02/main-task-photoshoot-risk-assessment.html and also I did not need any permissions to conduct my photoshoot where I was as it was a public place.

Main Task: Photoshoot Risk Assessment

Hazard	Risk	Controlling risk	Record your findings
Travel to location: Broadway	Walk down - could get hit by a car or trip and twist ankle on the curb.
Access	Busy main road	Staying on the pavements	Staying on the pavement ensured I wasn't hit by a car
Environment	Broken glass in the subway.	Staying far away from the glass and identifying where all of it was	The subway didn't have glass everywhere so was still usable for a shoot.
Trip risks	Large curb in the subway where it divides cyclists with pedestrians	Ensure that the model and photographer were aware of the curb at all times and didn't put themselves in a position to be vulnerable.	Nobody tripped on the curb as we made sure not to be near it.

Main Task: Double page spread article

In today’s music industry it is key to get a foot in the door and get your music out into the clubs, gigs and everywhere possible. However in today’s time the internet is a powerful tool for up and coming musicians for example YouTube, Soundcloud and more allow for greater sharing and expansion of your music. One prime example of this, is the revolutionary music network based online called Monstercat, they act as a record label for electro, house, EDM, dubstep and more. They offer promotion for their artists. Their YouTube channel boasts 100s of millions of views with close to 1 million subscribers, individual artists can apply to become a partner with the network to gain access to their promotion and partner features on YouTube. One artist, Will Moyse, wishes to join the network in his dreams to become a professional, record-selling, DJ and believes MonsterCat is the way forward.

Main Task: Mock up design sketches

Main Task: Research into Institutions

Main Task: Primary Questionnaire

Questions:

1. Age?

2. Gender?

3. Interests?

4. Favourite music?

Results:

These results indicate that my target audience is between 12 and 24 and is not likely to be older than 35 at the maximum. It is also predominantly targeted at males (70%) however the fact that almost a third will be females they do need to be considered during the design. The main interests were gaming, film & TV and sports with little to no interest in cooking or theatre.  The main music genres are Dubstep, Electro and Pop with this in mind I’m going to focus my magazine on Dubstep music. In summary, my target audience is male, aged 12 – 24 and is interested in Gaming, Sports and Film & TV and listen to Dubstep.

Main Task: Discovering a Magazine Name

I started by brainstorming words associated with my chosen genre of music; electro/dubstep. So words such as decibels, music, sound, dub, drop, bass. I then went to www.thesaurus.com and entered all those words to find out synonyms. I also liked the idea of "Pulse" as it refers to a heartbeat which is a constant beat which is also similar to the constant beat in a electro song. It also reminds me of a blood flow as if music was flowing through the body if I pair that with a red colour scheme it could work quite well.

Main Task: Researching Double Page Spreads

The first thing that jumps out straight away on this double page spread is the giant red letter "L". I personally find it distracting and think it draws away from the content of the article and would make it hard to read, however it is very striking and engaging and paired with the grayscale photo of Lady Gaga. The layout is very stylish and elegant, with the fonts they've used which contain serifs, this contrasts with the semi naked/revealing/ provocative photo of Lady Gaga, this sends out mixed messages. The camerawork featured is a medium shot of the subject, just showing her top half.

The black background on the quote match with Lily Allen's very striking eye shadow and black hair. The double page feature is mainly used by the large photo of the subject. Her red shirt matches the colour of the secondary font colour. Most of the font is black as it stands out on the white background but some text is red.The large quote is made to look like a newspaper headline and its purpose is to attract the reader to read on and read the whole article. The camerawork used in this photo is a medium shot covering her top half and the subject's pose is showing an attitude.

The title of the article stands out the most and is in a Serif font, the colour of the question mark matches the colour of her sunglasses. The white box in the centre of the 3 columns highlights a specifc engaging quote extracted from the article, the 3 columns are also formatted around the white box breaks up the solid block of text and makes it easier on the eye. The colour scheme used in this double page feature is again simple, very slick and stylist with just the use of black and white with a hint of colour, in this case it's a light blue. The layout is somewhat cluttered with a lot of content featuring on the left hand side but with just the medium shot photo. The subject in the photo is looking up and to her right which is inline with the headline of the article, by her looking that way the audience is also drawn to where she is looking (the headline) which grips the audience.

Main Task: Researching Contents Pages

This contents age features a full shot of the featured band on a hilltop, there is also a caption below detailing an article about the band. The layout is neatly organised with a column of contents down the left hand side leaving a large amount of space to be used by the photo. The colour scheme is simple and they don't overuse colours, they simple have important text highlighted in red with a black masthead at the top. The fonts used are all the same with the masthead just being in a bold and enlarged. The caption at the bottom "The world's biggest and best music guide" indicates they're trying to convince the audience that this magazine should be your number one source for music information. In the bottom left corner is a template which features on every month's issue. It shows the featured articles that appear every time which is trying to pull the audience in and get them familiar with the magazine layout.

This layout is far more cluttered than the previous contents page, it has a comprehensive list of bands down the left hand column. They advertise subscribing to the magazine, which is a stream of revenue for the magazine, with an offer. They also have a short section of a article in the magazine that couples with the full shot photo. This contents page has a lot of text rather than featuring a large/many photos, down the right hand side they have a few selected featured articles with captions detailing more about what the article is about. The colour scheme is very simple with just reds, black, white and yellow being used, this means the layout isn't garish but at the same time contains enough colour for it not to be too dull and maintain trendy. The full shot photo is of a live performance from the featured band, the lead guitarist and lead singer are very engaging as they are performing the music as the photo is taken, this therefore engages the reader as they aren't just stood still and boring, they are active.

 

This layout is in contrast to the previous contents page, the previous one was predominantly text based however this magazine contents page is full of images. The photos are a mixture of close ups and medium close ups. There is one larger image and 8 minor images accompanying the larger one. Each image has a page number and a caption with the image. This colour scheme is made up of black, white and yellow. The yellow and black complement each other as the yellow background features black text and the black background features yellow text, this keeps a consistent look throughout the page.

Main Task: Researching Front Covers

The colour scheme used in this front cover is a vibrant pink with white and black. The camerawork used in this front cover is a full shot image containing all the subjects taking up the majority of the front cover as they are the featured item of the magazine. The language used is targeted at a younger, trendier audience with phrases like “Why they will own 2012” and “Bored? Skint?” .The layout of the magazine is somewhat cluttered with a lot of the main headlines featured on the cover in the bottom third of the magazine where as there is not much information near the top third where the heads of the “Maccabees” take precedence. The tone of the magazine is high energy with featured items such as “Exclusive new track” and “Win! Noel Gallagher Tickets” trying to draw the attention of the reader.

The camerawork on this magazine is an extreme close up shot of the subject. It is very eye catching and draws you in due to the nature of the subject with his gold teeth and gold rings in the forefront. The colour scheme used a simple one with only white being used on the text and then the colours in the background image with gold and red. The typography used in this magazine is in three sections. The masthead is a simple sans serif font, whereas the headline is a much narrower and is a serif font then in the bottom third is sans serif too. The layout is very spacious with not a lot of text due to the photo being the dominate feature that draws people in. The subject is wearing a vibrant red hat and the bright gold rings on his fingers and the gold teeth catch your eye as it’s a very striking image.

The camerawork used on this magazine is a full shot, the subject isn’t wearing any clothing which immediately strikes the eye, and the magazine is probably aimed at males as their eye would attract more to the photo. The bright red lipstick, red nail paint and bright hair contrasts and stands out from the white backdrop which creates this elegant and simplistic layout, the layout is ordered too with the masthead in the top left corner then the headline and coverline in the centre of the magazine, building on this there is a lot of space around the front cover with just a masthead, headline and a coverline all of which are in black. The headline is in a serif font and is very artistic in the way it resembles a signature or handwriting. The language used is simple and clear on what they’re saying.

Preliminary Task: Peer Evaluation

Preliminary Task: Final Pieces

Preliminary Task: Editing the Photo

Editing the Photo:

(As blogger does not support transparent pngs, the second image now has a black background, however for the actual piece it is transparent)

1. I started off by masking out the background to obtain a transparent background using the quick selection tool in Photoshop. The masking around the face could be done better as it's left a slight white outline.

2. I lowered the saturation on the subjects face as it seem very red, so to make him look more comfortable I lower the saturation and increased the contrast slightly.

3. Lastly I increased the saturation of the hair colour and gave it an ever so slight red tint as it looked quite drowned out in the original image (left).

Preliminary Task: Photoshoot

Photos:

I took a selection of 5 photos on a white background wall that had a spotlight directly above it, the reason for this is so I could mask out the background for on the cover of the School Magazine.

The first photo was the best, and the photo I ultimately decided to use for my front cover.  In the second, the subject was looking the wrong direction and exposed a lot of the whites of his eyes, thus making a disturbing image. The third photo I felt wasn't a suitable representation of the Sixth Form so therefore eliminating it from my decision. The fourth photo was slightly blurry and out of focus. And finally the fifth photo was ruled out due to the subjects face being in shadow of his head and therefore darkened.

Out of the series of photos the first photo stands out from the rest as the most presentable, good quality image, suitable for a front cover.