As Media Music Mag. 29.09.08

To follow on from the previous lesson we were set a music magazine practical assignment which needed us to produce the front page of a new music magazine. We were set into groups, my group included Kirsty, Oyin, Catherine and myself. In our groups we brainstormed our ideas of our front page. While discussing amongst one another possible genres for our magazine we realised that RnB (Rhythm and Beats) was the main type of music listened to by the group so we decided to make this the genre of our magazine. After intense thinking and failed attempts for our title (such as fusing our initials together) Oyin came up with the idea of using an acronym. This was D2E which stood for Down To Earth, we all agreed seeing as the group consisted of ‘down to earth’ girls. The frequency of our magazine will be quarterly; this led to the idea of each issue being designed for a specific season. Catherine will be designing summer, Kirsty will be designing autumn, Oyin will be designing winter and I will be designing spring. Continuing from this idea we began to plan our photo shoot.
· Summer costume: shorts, vests, sandals, sunglasses
· Spring costume: bright colours to symbolize new life.
· Autumn costume: neutral colours; brown, cream, beige, green, (in co-ordination with leaves)
· Winter costume: hoodies, scarfs, gloves, umbrellas etc.
I enjoyed the idea of taking individual pictures as ‘Hip Hop Connection’ did, so the locations for our photo shoot will be plain contrasting backgrounds, where we can then add a background of our choice on Photoshop.
Since the group is female based we decided for our target audience to be young 16-24 year old females with a passion for RnB music. Pursuing this idea we started to plan the contents of our magazine since this is what our cover lines/ sell lines will refer to. To attract our target audience we decided for the magazine consist of ‘hot’ male RnB artist and female RnB artist that act as the role model type they can look up to. We also decided for the magazine to contain a section on the ‘latest’ fashion.
In the second half of the lesson we were on the Mac room and was given a brief/introduction to Photoshop to help us use the program when putting our magazine front cover together. This included instructions on how to cut, copy and paste an image into another one, add a background, text, etc.

WRONG!!!

INTRODUCTION AND PHOTOSHOP KIRSTY

The first thing we did today was to look at existing magazine covers and think about the conventions of the magazine such as cover lines, strap lines, pictures, what the different things connote. One of the things we thought about was, if the main picture was partly covering the title, this could mean that the person on the front means more than the name of the magazine and therefore contents is more important than brand. I looked at MOJO magazine:





We looked at their strap lines, their colour scheme, what they were giving away and all the features that make people want to buy it. We then had to get into different groups and think about our magazine.


The Title of the magazine which we decided to call D2E (down 2 earth). we chose this name because all the girls in our group are down to earth people, and D2E is catchy.


Then we chose the genre of the magazine, we decided RnB because we all listen to that genre of music .


Then we decided to make our magazine a quarterly magazine because we liked the idea of having issues based on the seasons: winter spring summer autumn.


We decided to make the target audience for our magazine teenagers , so the contents will be mixed (explained later).


so, we then decided who will get what season, i got autumn, oyin got winter, catherine got summer and michaela got spring. we then went on to decide what costumes we are going to wear for the photo shoot, so we based the costume around the seasons i.e shorts, vest and sunglasses for the summer edition.

The contents of our magazine is going to be male and female RnB artists, this is because we want our magazine to appeal to both sexes. The latest songs and their lyrics, discounted gig tickets and all the latest information on up and coming artists and already famous artists.


We are also going to give away free gifts that correspond to the different seasons, for example, sun glasses for the summer, scarf for the winter, etc.
We then moved into the editing suite to learn how to use photoshop on the I-MAC'S to edit the images we are going to take in our photo shoot on thursday. The first thing we did was to create a folder to save out documents into. We then learnt how to apply colour to a blank background, then how to apply different graphics and shapes to the background. The different fonts that you can apply to the writing and how to navigate them quickly.



We then went on to put pictures onto the page. we put a picture of a girl onto a picture on tower bridge. we did this by cutting out the background, so that only the girl is cut out, we then transformed the picture of the girl on to the picture of tower bridge and made it look like she was there.

Music magazine practical

Today we sat in our groups to discuss on what we are going to do for our music magazine. The first thing we done was follow this piece of paper that had bullet points based on all the steps we had to do and brainstorm it.

Firstly, we decided on our music genres which was RNB and Slow Jams featuring mail RNB singers, our title of the magazine is Down 2 Earth,  our frequency publication is quarterly,  the contents of our magazine is based on fashion featuring female singers and male RNB singers, and our target audience is aged 16 - 24. 

Once we finished all of that we had to do a brief talk about our idea to the class, then finally we went to the edit sweep for media and we learnt how to use photoshop, as in edit backgrounds of a picture, get a picture and place it on a different background and use different tool bars, Then we also discuss on certain backgrounds that we have to use whilst taking pictures so we can edit it on photoshop easier.

magazine analysis

Th first thing we done in a group was analyse a magazine with the whole class, so we no the main key points that we have to look out for whilst we are looking at a front cover. When we finished what we was doing, the teacher split us up in to groups which has 4 or 5 people in it, then we started analysing a magazine cover which was called mogo, it was mainly about a band called queen, which was placed in front of the cover covering up the master title, showing that the band is more famous than the magazine name alone. The magazine was also promoting a free cd that they was giving out whenever you buy

As Media Studies 25/08/09

As a class we analysed the music magazine front cover of ‘Hip Hop Connection’ on the interactive board, discussing the conventions of a music magazine and how these attract and entice the readers. The key features we studied included; lighting, graphics, colour and font used, and the target audience. The ‘Hip Hop Connection’ magazine front cover used a big-bold red Sun Serif font as the mast-head; this was spanning the entire width of the page. The big-bold red font makes it stand out amongst the other music magazines on the shelf. It is also made the magazine recognisable and different from other music magazines (because no mast-head of a music magazine should have the same font). Overall the main colours used were red, black, and yellow. On an everyday basis these colours are seen as unisex colours but in analysing a music magazine we saw that these colours coincide with the conventions of a music magazine aimed at men (seeing as the majority of music magazine readers are men). The use of colour and the main cover image (which included a group of male artists and DJ’s from different races and cultures) also suggested that the target audience was men but also men from a wide range of cultures and races. One thing that I particularly found interesting to learn was that the main cover image was edited on Photoshop, what I mean is that the picture was put together on Photoshop. Because you see a mutual connection (through music) in the group of men you would assume that the picture was taken as a group photo, however this was single photos of each artist/DJ that they edited and put together on a street background using Photoshop. (The street background acts almost as a convention of/ connotes the “Urban”/ UK Hip Hop genre).
After this we were set in groups and was handed out a sheet consisting of the cover terminology, such as;
· Masthead - title of magazine
· Strap line – ‘sub-heading’
· Main Cover Line - insights/clips of inside articles. Also known as ‘sell lines’
· Mode of Address – question marks, exclamation marks, use of second person pronoun etc
· Main Cover Image – main image on page
· Graphic – often used to highlight a special offer
· Banner – a strap across top or bottom of page.
With this in mind and our knowledge from analysing ‘Hip Hop Connection’ in our groups we then had to analyse music magazine covers. These consisted of Q, MOJO, NME (New Music Express) and Rock Sound. My group analysed ‘Q’. Once again the mast-head and overall colour scheme was red, black and white; suggesting the target audience to be men. The mast-head was justified to the right in bold red so that the first letters can be read if the magazine is overlapped on a shelf. The main cover image had a sepia effect of a head to shoulder shot of a man looking in the distance; this created a sense of mystery. As with the mast-head the price was also in red, the highlighting of the price indicates that the price is a really good deal and purchasing this magazine is a secured bargain. The strap line “Britain’s Biggest Music Magazine” shows that this is a very popular, well anticipated magazine. The strap line persuades you to buy the magazine because they want you to see what all the ‘hype’ is about and join this greatness.

MAGAZINE ANALYSIS

We analysed a magazine front cover from HIP-HOP CONNECTION.  we then got into groups of 5 and analysed an individual magazine front cover MOJO.  Our magazine front cover was based on the band QUEEN. We had to indentify all the possible features that the magazine had to intise people to buy the magazine. We had to go into great detail about all the cover terminology such as, Masthead, banner,cover lines, strapline, etc. We also had to think about who would buy the magazine, gender,age,ethnicity. We did this by looking at the different colours of the magazine and the language used, and the pictures on the front.

First Media Blog (Group 1 - Oyin)

Today we analyzed a front cover from two magazines. As a class we analyzed ''Hip Hop Connection'', and we then got put into groups of 5 and we analyzed ''Rock Sound'' . We had to identify the key features that make the magazine e.g . the colors, the pictures, the font etc...

We also had to identify what we thought the target audience for this magazine was, and we had to state why we thought they were the target audience. There were also other groups and they had different magazines to the one that my group was given. Magazines such as NME - New Music Express, Queen, and Q.