Name: Jacob Crompton

Candidate Number: 2247

Centre: 33435 Aquinas College

AS Media Studies

OCR G321: Foundation Portfolio

Create the front cover, contents and double page spread for a new music magazine

Question 1: Who would be the audience for your media product?

I aimed my magazine at

People who listen to

Go to concerts

Live in16-24 year olds

Males

Influenced

I think my magazine would be similar to Kerrang! and their target audience. I also think that

many rock magazines focus on the older rock artists instead of present rock artists.

This issue of Kerrang tends to use dark masculine colours to attract their

target audience. However, dark colours may not be

based on gender but could be related to the genre,

for example, dark colours would be conventional in

the rock genre.

Primary Audience

The primary audience for my magazine would mainly be males as the rock genre is considered quite masculine.Although the magazine could appeal to females, I think the design and colour scheme of the magazine would be more aimed to a male audience, so I would consider females a secondary audience. The age range for my primary audience would be teenagers to young adults as I believe they would be the main ages that listen to the current popular rock bands.

Similar Products

An example of products similar to my own in the market at the moment would be Kerrang & Rocksound. This is because these two magazines tend to cover popular modern day rock bands.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My star represents a stereotypical fan of rock, with the use of mise en scene. Her costume connotes a dark side and could be considered rebellious This is stereotypical as the rock genre is associated with various dark themes such as death & anarchy.

To gain an idea of a rock artists appearance & performance, I have taken a rock artist, Matt Tuck, and seen how he dresses in his performances.

Matt Tuck tends to wear dark colours like blacks and greys which can often be associated with themes like death & darkness that are often associated with the rock genre. He wears denim & leather clothing which are often worn by metal artists. Another common part of appearance with rock artists is long hair, this is because rock stars would often ‘head bang’ during performances and longer hair would look better.

Majority/all wearing denim or leather

In the photographs of my star, I tried to make sure she would be relatable for the readers. She is the same age as my ideal reader and dresses the same in some of the photos. The mise en scene of my star represents a rebellious young female who has a dark and light side.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your product?

I’d choose Bauer Media Group to distribute my magazine as I believe Kerrang & Distortion would be able to mix well covering the variations of rock.

Bauer currently produce Kerrang! one of the worlds largest rock music magazine. Kerrang! Also has its own website, radio station & TV channel in which they show music videos of rock bands voted by the public via text messaging.

Distortion would be a weekly magazine priced at £2. This is a

similar price and release as Kerrang! but is cheaper than

Kerrang!

There will be a balanced mixture between articles and advertisements in the

magazine.

Bauer Media Group’s Kerrang! website

A news letter, a way that readers can be informed of the latest information either daily, weekly, etc.

Radio station, TV channel & Podcasts allow for increase in gaining a wider audience and sell more.

Provide tickets and possibly clothing for rock bands.

A way to increase brand loyalty and is considered as a gift from the publishers for continuing to purchase the magazine

Question 4: In what ways does your media product use, develop

or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products.

I think my media product uses forms and conventions of real media products as it is quite similar to media products based in the same

genre, rock.

My front cover is a large masthead at the top of the page with a large image of the band/artist that the main article is focused on to tell the

reader who my magazine is mainly focusing on this week.

I decided to have my cover star look towards the camera as this could be as if they are giving direct attention to the reader. This could also act as a unique selling point as the particular band or artist may have

many fans willing to buy the magazine. I also added various other bands that are featured in the magazine either on the right side of the

magazine or at the bottom, these bands could also attract more readers.

I decided to add possible prizes and free items such as posters & competitions they can enter like many music magazines do on each of their covers, this could also be used as a unique way to grab the readers attention. The competition prizes and free

items tend to be related to the genre i.e. win tickets to see Green Day live, free amazing rock posters.

I added a quote from the cover star onto the cover that would be in part of the interview, giving an

insight of what the artist may say about the topic.

Here are a few other magazine covers I based my media product off.

Direct attention

Other featured bands at side or bottom

Artist/band name in large text, brief stand first

Use of Free item & competition prize

The contents page for my media product also uses various conventions of rock magazines. I decided to

use a large picture of my cover star again in my contents page to keep showing who the main focus is on this week. I also added in various other photos near the cover star to attract the reader to the other main articles as well. For each of the articles with pictures, I

added the band/artist title, a brief about what the article is about & the page number.

For my contents page title, I decided to use the same style of text for my media product title as well as a

similar style text for ‘contents’. This is an unconventional style of placement as most titles tend to be at the top of the page or possibly not added as it

may take up too much space. I decided to do this to separate the main stories (the top half) from the other stories (bottom half) and draw more attention to the

top articles.

My Contents page is mainly based on this Kerrang contents page as it has a unique layout compared to other rock contents pages.

For my magazine arrangement of articles, I decided to keep with the conventional layout

with, Features, News, Live Reviews, Competitions, Upcoming Gigs & Posters. Other magazines may decide to have more or less

articles.

I decided to add brief insiders of articles in the Features, News & Concert reviews sections as the reader may be more interested in knowing what they talk about or why they are in the article. I

also added what the prize is for this week in the Competitions part, it is conventional to list the whole prize or the main part of the prize during

the contents section.

I used a variation of colours on the contents page to make it look interesting but still kept with

dark versions of the colours as the rock genre tends to be related to dark topics such as death.

Rocksound use their contents page mainly for the features. This could be due to draw more attention to these articles instead of the common articles i.e. Competitions

This contents page is quite unconventional and decides to have all text in similar size, colour & style instead of using variation to draw readers to certain articles. They still use pictures to possibly emphasise the importance of some articles.

Here are some other contents pages I looked at to base my contents page off.

Both of these use their cover star as the main background.The right contents page only lists the main features in the magazine and one large image of the cover star, this is unconventional as they tend to list more articles as well as have more images.

The left contents page tends to follow the more conventional layout of a contents page, having lots of articles as well as various images but don’t use variation to draw attention to specific articles.

For my double page spread, I mainly decided to keep the layout of the page as an interview between the artist and the interviewer as well as a few pull-out quotes from the

article as a conventional double page spread technique.

I decided to have the title of the interview as the artists name to show the reader who is currently being interviewed, I also added a large pull-out quote from the article beneath the title to give a rough idea about the questions that are asked in the interview. Some

double page spread interviews with rock artists tend to use a pull-out quote from the interview as the title in large text to instantly give an idea to the reader what the article is

about and only add the band/artist name in the stand first. I decided to put the artists name above the pull-out quote to show the reader immediately who the interview/article

is about.Double page spreads from Kerrang!

The colour scheme for my double page spread is mainly dark tinted colours. I used a black background with a dark red and a grey/blue, this was mainly to show a difference between the back and forth questions between the interviewer and

artist instead of using conventional methods of using Q & A or separating the two with paragraphs.

I have also used these colours because a majority of songs in the rock genre tend to be about quite dark and depressing topic and the colours could connote dark thoughts i.e. red represents blood. This is an unconventional method as most

double page spreads tend to use colours to attract readers to the page by using a majority of black & white on the page so the colour would stand out to the reader.

For my artists image, I decided to place it on the right side of the page in the upper corner. This is due to there being a lot of

empty space on the right side of the page and it is best to be able to see the artist clearly without most of the text covering

them up. This is using conventional methods of real life media products as

most double page spreads tend to show the artist/band so the readers can see who

the interview is about.

Question 5: How did

you attract/address

your audience

When planning my cover, I researched into various real life media products to see various codes & conventions they used to attract their audience.

Using this example from Kerrang!, I noticed that they used a range of colours to make sure the page didn’t look bland as well as making certain key points i.e. bands names or strap lines (Plus, Free, Win, etc.) stand out from the rest of the page.

I also noticed that the cover star, as well as their band or own name, are the largest and most noticeable items on the cover. The star also tends to be super imposed over the magazine title to connote they are more important than the magazine.

Looking into more covers, I noticed that the font colour tends to change through out. Most of the colours used tend to be a mix of bright colours like vibrant pinks & blues, where as others may use a darker mix of colours. This could connote to the reader that the cover band/artist is dark and depressing or happy and joyful.

These are two magazine covers both from Kerrang! and has the same band as the cover star. The difference between colours could be due to the fact My Chemical Romance were classified as an ‘Emo’ band and their songs were considered dark, where as the latest songs from My Chemical Romance are less depressing and focus on less dark topics.

Masthead

Extra Images

Unique Selling Point

Strapline

FeaturesButtons

Eye Contact

Fonts

Colour Scheme

AGE:

The target audience is around 16-24 year olds. This is within the cover stars age range so the audience can relate to her and the issues within the magazine.

GENRE:

The genre is rock/metal. This is portrayed through the cover star’s expression and pose. Also, the names of other artists in this genre are labelled on the strap line.

A button placed to the side so the readers would see it. The blue/gray of

the button stands out on the dark background of the magazine and is eye-

catching.

The masthead is large and bright to be eye-catching and stand out to the audience but I have allowed the cover star to slightly cover the title, this is to imply the star is bigger than the magazine.

This could draw readers in as it is the best rock magazine that you will manage to find. This is towards the top of the page and made bright so it could stand out to the reader.

Other artists on the cover can show & attract the audience the other artists the magazine has to offer.

Article sections such as ‘Features’ and ‘News’ have a large text title as well as a colour that will stand out on the page so the reader doesn’t get lost.

Pictures emphasise the importance of the main articles and could gain more attention than the other articles.

Offers, competitions and free products can increase the brand loyalty as they can be considered as gifts from the publishers for buying the magazine.

Repetitive colour scheme of dark red, black and white.Black and dark red connote dark themes such as blood and death, commonly associated with the rock genre and also considered masculine colours which suits my audience.

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I believe I have learnt a lot about the technology I used in this project as I was able to experiment and test certain tools to see the effect on the photo.

For my cover photo, I believe most of the photo was okay as it already shows a quite rebellious theme, the only problem was the colour of my cover star. As I wanted to keep a dark theme with my rock magazine, I went into Photoshop and used the colour replacement tool. With this, I managed to make the star darker in order to suit with the rest of the photo.

The next step was to create the cover for my magazine. For this, I used various design ideas to create an interesting looking cover for a magazine as well as looking at various covers from magazines such as Rocksound & Kerrang!

I first started by creating my masthead. I used a large white text font so the masthead would stand out on the page. I then used warp text to manipulate the masthead to look slightly curved, I would have used more to make the masthead look more distorted but the text would look odd and take up a lot of space.

I also added a layer mask to my masthead. This was so I could remove parts of my masthead that the cover star was behind to make my cover star look super imposed and more important than the magazine.

After creating my masthead, I continued

adding other designs to my magazine.

I first started at the bottom of the page by adding a strapline. Looking at other rock magazines, the strapline tends to use bright colours so it can stand out from the page, it also has a large plus sign next to it to show the reader other bands & artists that are featured in the magazine. I started off by placing a rectangle at the bottom of the page and a circle on the left side of the page. I then moved the circle to fit with the rectangle and removed the curved edges on the left and bottom sides.

I used a large solid black box to make my centre text stand out from the rest of the page. I used this for other items that can draw the audience in i.e. free posters, competitions etc.

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (Aquinas College magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression to the full product?

Looking back at my Aquinas College magazine work, I believe I have improved in several ways

over the course.

My first magazine cover is less detailed and bland. There is little mixture of colour as I

tried to stick with using Aquinas colours. The cover

design is quite plain as I use little ways to draw the reader

to certain eye-catching features.

Examples of how Kerrang! draw the readers attention

My final music magazine cover is an improvement as I have

experimented more with a mixture of colours but also considering

colours associated with the rock genre (dark colours). My design

has also improved as I have made the layout more eye-catching for

key articles i.e. Large pull out text/more design showing what

the main article is about.

Magazines show other band/artist names to offer other artists featured in the article to attract the reader, they could also include a brief about their article.

In my Aquinas College contents page, I tried to use a wider range of colour variation instead of just red and black like my cover. I also tried to use spacing between all the text on the page instead of

making the page seem claustrophobic. The amount of

space used in contents pages can vary.

Kerrang! put two other featured articles with the main article to attract the readers to other stories featured in the magazine.

In my contents page, I tried to show a division between the main stories and the remaining other articles. To do this, I placed my

title in the centre to act as a barrier between the two areas. I

also tried to use separate colouring on either side to have a variation of colours (blue on the

lower half, red on the upper half).

Used to separate the page

Main focus in issue