Name: Mathew Petit Candidate number: 2805Centre: 33435 Aquinas College

AS MEDIA STUDIES OCR G321: Foundation Portfolio Brief from ocr syllabus

QUESTION 1

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I aimed my magazine at..

16 / 25 year olds

Live in city / suburbs

Like to party

Go to festivals

Spend money on..

Know what music they like

I feel my magazine would be similar to Mixmag / NME and I aimed my magazine to take influence from them. The influence from Mixmag is around all areas, from the style of music to the types of colours used and more. However the influence from NME takes more from it’s layout, colour scheme and conventions, but with more focus on dance / electronic music. It’s aimed at both genders (mainly anyone who loves the music) and is mainly based on young people aged 16 – 25.

Fitting with my Sub-Genre Much focus in my magazine was put on fitting with the sub genre which is dance and electronic music. There are many ways in which I tried to achieve this.

I made use of props in my main image by showing my cover stars holding music production

technology.

Emphasis on festivals hinting at a party lifestyle which attracts fans of dance music and my age group

I deliberately used a font style that fits with the style of music and that might be used to represent the type of music in other publications.

I used examples of producers / artists who are popular with fans of electronic music to gain interest e.g: Benny BenassiI featured female DJ’s as well as male DJ’s using the article ‘FEMALE DJ TAKEOEVER’ and an image of two female DJ’s looking mischievous to reach out to everyone and promote equality in music production. I advertised social media websites in which fans can get in touch with the magazine as many will use these sites as they’re young and into technology.

Primary audience The primary audience of my magazine relates to

those who it’s targeted at. The age group is based at young people (16-25) who are interested in dance and electronic music. My magazine is aimed at both genres and may attract people who are interested in technology. I focused on trying to determine the character of my audience, for example they may spend money on records, going out to clubs / parties and clothes and they might watch TV related to the culture of dance music.

The secondary audience for my magazine represents other groups of people who might be interested in the magazine. One example could be parents / family of the young people who initially may buy the magazine, to see the type of things that they have been reading about and listening to. As dance and electronic music has such a wide spectrum and relates to people not just in todays generation but from other decades such as the 70’s/80’s/90’s and therefore older people may want to buy the magazine because they also like the music. As well as this, the magazine may reach out to people in the business such as club owners. Those kind of people will be looking for opportunities to advertise their business or to get artists and fans of the artists interested in them.

Demographic

The demographic for my magazine is basically those who are interested in club / party lifestyle. It would point out new club nights / festivals and where’s the best to go. It would also be aimed at people interested in dance music. for example how it’s made and the evolvement of electronic music. This may aim the magazine at producers / DJ’s as it would feature equipment that they would be interested in and what’s the best to use.

Similar Products An example of a similar product to mine would be Mixmag, as this product would feature similar content and feature similar people to my magazine. As well as this it may have a similar colour scheme as mine – contrasting light and dark colours such as black and white with yellow or red and using many bright colours to represent party and rave culture.

Mixmag is dispersed widely across the UK and my magazine would challenge it’s conventions and be like a related product that could challenge the product in it’s position in the market.

Audience idols

There are many different audience idols available on offer for my magazine. I mainly looked at big DJ’s / producers that people look to as big at the minute and have been big in evolving dance music. I took focus from producers such as Daft Punk, Justice, Benny Benassi, Calvin Harris and producers big for evolving certain genres of dance music such as Chic and Nile Rodgers work on disco or Kraftwerk’s use of synthesizers and electronics in the 1970’s. I would not feature artists that don’t fit with my sub genre, such as other genres such as Jazz or Rock. There would however be pop music in my magazine as I think so much of what is popular music today is electronic / dance music and the style is very popular.

Ideal readers An ideal reader for my magazine would be someone interested in the lifestyle associated with dance and electronic music and the music itself. A possible producer / DJ who is interested in the broad amount of genres that are included in electronic music and someone who spends time and money listening to and making electronic / dance music.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For my music magazine it was important to make my cover stars appeal to my target audience, this meant relating to features of an ‘ideal reader’ who would be interested in the music and the lifestyle surrounding the music. I tried to make my images look appealing through colours used, props, expressions, clothing and more.

The following slides should show how my chosen cover stars fitted my target audience and particular social groups that would enjoy my magazine.

The use of musical technology attracts those readers who are interested in making music. Those interested in the art / technology behind the music and that particular social group.

Dark colours connote the mystery behind the music, trying to invite people to look into the meanings of the music.

Black / leather is suited to alternative culture. ‘Clubland’ font represents the style of music and the clubbing lifestyle.

Festival promotion suits party / clubbing culture suited to my social group.

White background relates to the ‘purity’ and ‘innocence’ of youth / young people. Direct eye contact

with the audience.

I tried to make my cover stars fit with a particular social group of being young and interested in music and technology but also being into the ‘party culture’ that dance and electronic music provides. Technology is a big theme in my magazine, as with the title ‘GLITCH’ and I think it was key to promote this idea through my cover stars by showing them using the technology. I think a lot of younger people can be quite impressionable and when they see something that looks cool they want to have that image and look, and this could very well appeal to people like that. This is followed through with the pull quote “I like listening to stuff that other people think is weird” which can represent young peoples alternative ‘hipster’ or ‘outsider’ culture.

I think the type of style I wanted to evoke in the particular social group who would read my magazine would be quite a rebellious and youthful image as well as mixing with the technical side of dance music (e.g. The technology used)

I tried to appeal to young people who like to party and enjoy dance music with their friends by using a festival feature in my banner.

I think as well as capturing the party image the polaroid pictures give off a real artsy feel which may go well with an audience who like things that look cool. As well as this an ‘exclusive guide’ may be something that people will use to plan their summer with and this might make young people come back to the magazine for future features that help them in a similar way.

Considering the summer is such an anticipated time amongst young people who are in school or college the aim is to use festivals and party culture promotion in the magazine to attract these younger readers.

My cover stars aim to represent other dance / electronic artists who are either inspirational or upcoming and in the limelight at the moment.

Notice how all of these are duo’s – just like my cover stars.

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

To distribute my magazine I would choose development hell Ltd. Who also publish Mixmag who I was influenced by. I feel that they would have experience promoting my sub genre and my magazine could act as a sister product. - I feel my magazine could work well alongside Mixmag as they compliment each other through the style of the magazine. - I would try to challenge the conventions of Mixmag as my magazine would try to cover much of the history of dance music rather than contemporary electronic music. And also heavily feature festivals as well as club nights.

Glitch magazine would be a monthly magazine. Issue price would be around £2.50 each issue. My magazine would feature advertisements and also feature technology and musical instruments that would be available to buy. I would try to advertise the brand through the internet as well as publication. There would be a glitch website, twitter and facebook feed where people can get in contact and give their views.

As well as publishing my magazine through print I would be interested in having a website for my magazine similar to the Development Hell Ltd. website for Mixmag. The website would include news, reviews and images to relate to these features. There would be links to social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and more. As music is so easy to promote online today it would be much more accessible for people to find the music that they like through the website. As well as the conventions from the magazine being included on the website, there would be much more media included. Such as videos where people can watch interviews / live shows without just having to read about them.

Merchandise

Festival promotion

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

Front cover My magazines sub genre is based on Dance and Electronic music of all types, and in fitting my magazines style with the style of real media products that also conform to this sub genre it was important for me to use similar conventions, colour schemes and features in my front cover in order to make it look real and believable. Two magazines in particular that I took influence from were Mixmag and NME. Mixmag is more fitting to my sub genre and it gives off good ideas as to the type of things that fans of electronic music are attracted to.

On the other hand NME had a more broad spectrum of music included but in terms of front covers I think NME always makes them bold, stand out and adds detail and conventions where they’re needed. Both of these magazines also had similar conventions that I wanted to include in my front cover.

Conventions The masthead for my magazine takes influence from both Mixmag and NME in that while being bold in colour and font, it also relates to the sub genre in which the magazine is based on – ‘GLITCH’ being based on both technology and the musical genre.

The main image of my magazine features a musical duo with some of the technology used to make their music. This is similar to what you might see in Mixmag or NME as bands often use musical instruments as props in main images for magazines.

The house style and colour scheme of my magazines front cover mainly has colours such as black and white along with colours such as yellow and red that add slight dashes of colour. This spans more from NME and the colours that magazine uses, but in challenging this further I could have included more bright colours to contrast with dark and pale colours.

The banner of my magazine works similar in the way that a pug would as it has an offer added onto it which is a guide of electronic music festivals. Highlighted in yellow the banner takes influence from colours that you may find in mixmag, and Polaroids are used to make the festival photos look appealing and more real as they almost look like photos you may see on websites such as instagram.

The cover star in my magazine has a gaze to show that he is addressing the audience and it hints that he is the frontman.

I used bold fonts that stand out for my header and sub headings and in particular for my strapline the font ‘clubland’ is used to suit the sub genre.

The barcode, issue price and date is there to present the product as a real magazine and make it look purchasable on a stand such as NME and Mixmag would be.

Contents pageMy contents page sticks with the same principles as the two magazines that I was influenced by do. I was interested in how mixmag in particular shows images of live events, shows and parties to fit with the lifestyle associated with the sub genre.

Both of the magazines I took influence from use bold colours such as black, white and yellow behind brightly coloured images which is something I took influence from in my contents page. Conventions such as features and bold page numbers next to pictures are used in the magazines I was influenced by.

As well as this I wanted to use images that represented the target audience I had in mind and also featured the technology used in electronic music.

Conventions

I took influence from mixmag in using a brightly coloured image from a live show in a club that is suited to the sub genre in which the magazine revolves around.

The stories featured in my contents page are laid out according to News, reviews and features in chronological order, which is typical of many music magazines.

My contents page uses bold colours such as black, white and yellow which stand out and are similar to what mixmag and NME may both use in their contents pages.

I used a subscription section at the bottom where fans of the magazine can buy it for an annual period.

I used advertisements which is useful for many magazines to boost their reputation through media.

I included a free promotional mix from a current producer similar to what mixmag does.

The reviews section is critical of the sub genre in which the magazine is based on.

I used strong female DJ’s to relate to my magazine being for EVERYONE and challenge any inequalities in the dance music industry between men and women.

My headings are clearly laid out so readers can easily find what they’re looking for in terms of news, reviews and features throughout the magazine. I used page numbers on both my stories and images to indicate where to find certain articles.

Double page spreadMy magazines double page spread is a typical interview layout, which is something

heavily featured in many music magazines. Similar to the contents and front cover of my magazine the house style is bold and doesn’t add too much detail that is distracting from the main purpose of the article. The pull quote and strapline is situated in the middle to draw attention to the reader and it promotes being ‘weird’ which is free of discrimination and also promotes the idea of an ‘alternative’ or ‘hipster’ culture which is existent within the age group / target audience of my magazine. My double page spread has quite a minimal layout, fitting with the style of my magazine. I didn’t want to go overboard by adding unnecessary detail and simply wanted my double page spread to be bold and clear.

Conventions

Pull quote relates to ‘alternative’ culture and promotes the idea of being weird which is free of inequality. I used props such as technology to fit with the audience of my magazine and make it clear the type of band that are featured.

I used simple bold colours such as black and white and a dash of yellow over my pull quote to add detail and express the importance of the quote.

My heading is in a bold font and is spread across the top of the page, expressing it’s importance and showing that it sums up the article.

I used clearly laid out columns for my interview that line up and are spread across one side of the page, while the image takes over another side. This shows how my magazine is clearly laid out and allows room for people to explore it’s details.

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract an audience who are interested in dance music I used features that fans of electronic music would be interested in. Examples being upcoming producers and DJ’s, festivals and club imagery, upcoming events, technology and more. My cover stars are an electronic duo who are promoting the magazine by making the audience interested in them. The idea is for the audience to be intrigued by the look of the band, the technology they’re using, the things that they say (such as the music they’re interested in) and other things. My cover stars are a similar age to the audience that I am trying to attract and I think this helps when making an audience connect with them.

I also tried to address my audience through the font used in my magazine, for example I used a ‘clubland’ font which is relevant in terms of the type of music and aims to create a visual attraction on the front cover.

Due to the fact my magazine is similar to both Mixmag and NME due to the style of music and layout I can gain an idea of what I need to do to improve my work.

Masthead

Eye contact

Banner

Features

Selling point

Barcode

Colour scheme

Cover stars

Gender: My magazine is aimed at both genres, although my cover stars are just male. This issue can be aimed at both boys and girls through the bands and artists featured, the colours, images and festival features. Although the use of technology and the music interest trying to be provoked could just be aimed at general music lovers.

Age: The age of my cover stars are similar to the age of my target audience. They are young, interested in music, partying, style and more.

Genre: My cover stars represent my genre as they are the type of band to be featured in my magazine, and they also use the technology related to dance music.

The ‘clubland’ font attracts readers as it’s suited to the style of music, and it also claims that the cover stars have made a ‘new wave’ which would attract readers as they would potentially get to listen to something new.

The features used are suited to dance and electronic music, and are all new/upcoming artists that provide interest for readers.

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

Some of the technologies I used in my music magazine include:

- Adobe photoshop - Microsoft publisher - Windows photo viewer / photo gallery - Internet explorer (i.e. blogger) - Digital SLR camera - Paint (for my masthead design) - Green screens / white backdrop - Key lights- Tripod

For the main image on my front cover I combined two images together to create the overall image using photoshop.

I first selected the area I wanted to delete using the Rectangular marquee tool (M)

I could then delete the part of the image I didn’t want to use

I could then add another image into the area that the original was deleted from to make a full image that could be used on my front cover

Photoshop

For the main image on my double page spread I firstly took a photo in front of a green screen with my cover stars using a digital SLR camera. I then edited the photo in

photoshop by using the magic eraser tool to erase the

background. I then used the posterize tool and the black and white tool to edit to colour and saturation of the image.

Finished edited image

I used the site http://www.polaroin.com/ when creating polaroid images for my festival feature section on my front cover.

I chose the file I wanted to upload from my disk. I then cropped the image, chose a filter/editing feature and then clicked the ‘Polaroize it!’ icon.

Before I knew it I had polaroid images I could use for my festival feature section in my banner.

Microsoft publisher

I used microsoft publisher to construct all three pages for my music magazine; my front cover, contents and double page spread. I also used tools such as adobe photoshop and internet explorer alongside publisher when creating certain detailed parts of my document, such as font/wording and constructing images (erasing backgrounds and using filters).

An example of Microsoft publisher: Constructing my contents page.I first created my heading font for my contents in the same font I used for my masthead (century gothic) and added this to my document, and then added an all black banner including the issue date on using the shapes tool.

I then added an image I wanted to use in my contents, a description of the image and an ‘exclusive’ banner on the image. I also added a ‘clubland’ font that I constructed on Adobe Photoshop.

I constructed a black background for my banner and used icons for social media sites such as facebook and twitter that I got online. I used a variety of different texts in my contents rather than just one all the way through.

I finally added my stories, page numbers, headings and other text to round off my contents page, I chose to keep the page background white so that other colours could stand out off of it and I chose to use black lettering on white backgrounds and vice versa.

Since then I’ve simply added more images along the left side and moved all my stories to the right.

I’ve added black backgrounds across my headings and coloured the font in yellow.

I’ve added page numbers to all my images and lined up all my page numbers of my stories so they’re in order and fit together appropriately.

I added some new stories including my ‘FEMALE DJ TAKEOVER’ story and added images to associate with these stories.

I think overall my contents page looks a lot better than it did now that I’ve made these improvements.

Looking back at your preliminary task (Aquinas college

magazine) what do you feel you have learnt in

progression to the full product?

I feel my music magazine has progressed a lot since I did my first aquinas magazine drafts. I have used more conventions in my work, and experimented with more fonts. As shown in my front cover I have used more effects such as banners and made my stories my outstanding and bold as well as making them more short and snappy to stand out. As well as this I think my images look much better as I’ve used more filters and effects.

I feel my Photoshop and Powerpoint skills have improved and in general I think I’ve used technology to my advantage better with my music magazine.

My Aquinas magazine looks a lot more plain compared to my music magazine which experiments more with colours.

I found it better working on a specific genre with my music magazine as I knew more about who I wanted to aim the magazine at and what type of audience I wanted to attract. Whereas with my Aquinas magazine although it was obviously aimed at students it was hard to know what those students might be interested in and students are a very broad group to aim at.

Similar to my front covers I think my contents page construction has improved in terms of using fonts and colours to my advantage to make my magazine look more interesting. My Aquinas contents page looks quite plain in contrast to my music magazine contents page which I think looks more informal and is suited more with it’s genre. I also think my music magazine looks more like something you would actually pick up in a shop whereas I think my Aquinas magazine looks a bit less professional and more amateur and needs more work put into it.

One thing I’ve learned through the construction of both of my magazine contents pages is to put less information and more stories. My Aquinas contents page in particular seems to have a lot more information put into it and rambles on a bit whereas shorter points and more stories will make readers want to turn to the story more.

I think my music magazine contents takes better consideration of social media using facebook and twitter icons to promote the magazine’s online presence.