Front cover plan

Plan for my contents page

Plan for my double page spreadl

This is my magazine I done for 6th form I done a while ago but didn't get round to posting it on the blog.

This magazine is based around rap, I noticed this by looking at the person they use on the front cover. He is wearing 2 small chains and a hat. Vibe is largely based around Rap and Hip-Hop so that also helped me understand what this magazine was about. I think what they have tried to do is get us the reader to know that Drake is on the same level is us, no better than anyone else. They done this by showing just half of his body and his face in line with the reader directly looking at them. What this does is when someone looks at the magazine they won't be looking down at the front image or looking up at them thinking they're any different.

Another thing I think they tried to do is make sure the reader knows the big names involved in the magazine. I.e Drake is in a bigger font to the other names, this shows the reader that Drake is the main person on this magazine, being the front cover image also shows this.

The way that they have made the magazine is that it is simple but effective. They haven't tried filling up the front cover with a lot of text and pictures, they've just sticked to using 3 colours and main words that would attract a teenager. The reason for this is because most teenagers wouldn't bother wasting their time reading information, they just care who's in the magazine and big names they recognise.

Evaluation.

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

I have structured my magazine to make it look professional; I tried to make it simple with just the main information. I done this by using 2-3 main colours so that each page looks similar, I’ve seen some magazines before that have multiple different colours and it just doesn’t go well together. Also I have tried to maintain 2 fonts so that the magazine looks clean.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The group I chose for my magazine is teenagers. The main reason is that I think this is the biggest group that listen/read about music. By putting the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West and Eminem in my magazine instantly rules out most children and adults. I also think if a teenage rap music magazine is successful then it will have a better chance of getting noticed that having a magazine mainly for adults due to the use of the internet and how information about new things can get around.

Who would be the target audience for your products?

The age range I went for is 15-21. The majority of people that like rap are teenagers and as I’m a teenager and like rap, I thought it’d be best for me to do a rap magazine as I know a lot about what people like. Also teenagers have more time in their life do sit around listening to music/reading magazines so this was another reason for my choice.

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

I think my magazine would most likely be showed on 4music, MTV and VIVA as they show a lot new songs that are big hit and a lot of rap songs from well-known people, so this is ideal for my magazine to be shown to teenagers. I also think that American people might have a chance of seeing it due to Jazy-Z and Eminem being on the cover. They’re 2 of the biggest rappers in the world so everyone knows who they are.

 

How have you learnt about technologies?

I had to use blogger when posting the work so I was unsure on how to use this site; I never used it so I had to slowly learn on what to do. For the first week I couldn’t post work or just get the grip of what I was doing but slowly I learned how to post my blog and move pictures from Word to Blogger. Photoshop was another thing I was unsure about. I had heard about it before but never tried it. When using it I didn’t know how to crop, blur or even smooth out the edges of my pictures to make it look clean. This also took a few lessons on learning the basics. After getting help I can now Crop out backgrounds and smooth out the edges so I just have a plain picture with no background. In the last few weeks I have progressed a lot of technologies.

What do you feel you have learnt in the progression in the 2 tasks?

What I have learnt is taking a good photo with a background that fits the picture, before I just took a random picture when I wasn’t ready and most of the time the picture was blurry. I have also learnt how important the person getting the photo taken needs to be involved, looking directly into the camera and looking like a professional. If someone is looking away and giggling as if they’re not ready then the magazine doesn’t have any visual impact on the person that’s looking at the front cover. I have learnt about colours and I thought the more colours the better as it stands out on the shelf from the rest but I gradually learnt some magazines are better with a plain background and the photo being the main thing about the cover. The person in the photo needs to fit the pattern correctly so they fit together, I.e. Having a picture of someone just standing there with no expressions wouldn’t fit any magazine, they have to have correct clothing and look like they listen to the genre you’re working on. I think I have also learnt how to plan on producing my work. I.e research other similar magazines and see how they structure there layourt and certain colours they use to make images/fonts stand out. Before I would use multiple fonts and colours and it would just be a mess that I haven't planned out, but now I am confident of what colours go well together and how to make images stand out.