Front Cover Photo Analysis

Specific Analysis
Looking at the composition, colours and framing of the front covers and the feature pictures in order to attain a better understanding and idea of the front cover I want to present...

Specific Analysis of Front Covers and the Feature

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First stages of Front cover and contents feedback

First stages of Front Cover and Contents Feedback

Below is a powerpoint presentation of my feedback, containing both pictures and videos/ audios of me documenting my feedback and analysing the changes that need to be made to my work.

Front cover and contents feedback powerpoint

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Evaluation Question 6

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

Prior to this course I was not familiar with anything to do with Apple Macs or Photoshop. I had no idea how to use many of the programmes featured on the macs and Media lessons have helped to majorly advance my technological skills, especially when using Photoshop and Indesign.

Below is a link to another post which displays the progress of my front page in order to give more examples of the technologies I used throughout.




http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3138161771538533354&postID=3512130410057273199

 I think I worked best within Photoshop. If I'm honest this may be because I had longer to become accustomed and familiar with all the tools. Photoshop is a complicated programme and on few occassions because somewhat frustrating. This often occured during an episode in which I wished to use the 'magnetic lassoo tool', because the slightest move you made wrong meant that you lost your curren progress. But eventually I grasped the concept of using it properly. I had a couple of small struggles when trying to use InDesign, the programming differed quite a bit from Photoshop and the icons and their uses at times became quite confusing.

These are my front covers. If you look closely enough at my Wilmington Weekly page you can see that I had used magnetic lasoo to cut out the main girl in the picture. The contrast is very obvious and does not look natural or proffessional. Whereas I used the feather tool in my completed task. This tool definitely makes the magazine cover look a lot more proffessional as the hair and hat blends effortlessly into the background. Also you may notice that the contrasting tools have been used in both. The difference being that the clarity, clearness and definition looks a lot better quality in my completed project in comparison to my school magazine project. I feel my use and placement of font in regards to layout has also improved. The cover lines on the school magazine are quite randomly placed and don't work strategically with the rest of the page.

I also used a variety of websites and programmes to create my research blogs and evaluation. I used a website called 'goanimate' to help display my target audience. In which you create your own character, choose a background and write in your text that your characters speak. I also often used powerpoint to present my pictures and feedback from my fellow classmates. For a long while, one of them wouldn't work because I had embedded a video and audio within the powerpoint. So my skills improved as I attempted to overcome this problem.

Below is a video of some of my Website Medias used.

                

Technologies everything used pp

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Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

GoAnimate.com: Media Video by bj.beth

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com.




http://goanimate.com/videos/0fWgPhNHYEjA?utm_source=linkshare






PICTURES 

As stated before, I mainly wanted to target women as, as specified in previous questions, many Indie based music magazines are generally aimed at men rather then women. But I wish to exclude neither, in both cases I am targeting the Indie-rock genre and there is a particular style that is connotated with this type of music.
One of the biggest selling 'Indie' typed clothing shops is Urban Outfitters. It has a section named 'Urban renewal' which basically means that the items of clothing are pretty rare and almost completely unique. This shop sadly, is quite exspensive, so some Indie stylists turn to charity clothes for their vintage look. When we picture Indie, we often get the idea of baggy jersey tops, or big 'grandma' styled cardigans embellished with patterns, the outfit tied together with a pair of skinny jeans and numerous bracelets, garnished with gig names and places. But as style is developing so is fashion as it slowly continues to become more abstract and unique. My magazine however tries to promote the more laidback style of clothing as depicted in my two pictures. The girl with more wild unkempt hair and laidback styling, garnished with the usual bracelets and a large bulky necklace. The boy wearing the now trended large thick black rimmed glasses, high buttoned shirt and rolled up leather jacket.

I have already posted some of the music within my genre, below is a link to these posts.

http://bethreaderwgsbmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/Magazine%20Research%20and%20Planning?updated-max=2011-12-01T12:37:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=2&by-date=false

But developing from that all of the bands/artists featured within my magazines are generally seen as 'Indie'. For example bands I've included such as Florence and the Machine and Example, they are bands that play at festivals and concerts such as Reading and Wireless. Stereotypically Indie people are idealised as rebellious, and often pictured wearing 'different' clothing, excessively drinking and sometimes smoking. They would most likely not often be seen watching tele, but really that would all be down to personal preferences, though they would most likely be depicted as only watching mainly music channels.

Evaluation Question 3

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

The magazine industry is currently dominated by several different music magazines, below is a table of the most popular and their circulations/year on year comparisons.

Music Magazines: Jan-Jun 2009 Year On Year Comparisons
Title						Publisher	Jan-Jun 08	Jan-Jun 09	Actual Change	% Ch
Classic Rock						Future Publishing	66,632	70,301	3,669	5.5
Kerrang!						Bauer Consumer Media	60,290	43,253	-17,037	-28.3
Metal Hammer						Future Publishing	48,540	46,004	-2,536	-5.2
Mojo						Bauer Consumer Media	106,367	97,722	-8,645	-8.1
NME						IPC Ignite	56,284	40,948	-15,336	-27.2
Q						Bauer Consumer Media	113,174	100,172	-13,002	-11.5
The Fly						Channelfly Enterprises Ltd	105,212	107,771	2,559	2.4
Uncut						IPC Ignite	86,925	76,526	-10,399	-12.0

Here is an example of an NME magazine front cover, the pictures both share the same genre, style and general unique connotations, which is a large bennifactor as to why I feel my magazine would best be published by a company like IPC. Also noting all the other aspects annotated in my above image you can see the both subtle and obvious similarities between the magazines.


The Socio-Economic System and Groups must also be classed within deciding upon my magazines, in both the pricing and those who I shall target, like aspirers etc. 


Below is a definition found on a website which evaluates many of society's structures, explaining Socio-Economic groups:
Market Research agencies often divide the population into different groupings, based on the occupation of the head of the household, for the purpose of drawing comparisons accross a wide range of people - it is used to see how people in differing socio-economic situations react to the same stimuli. The groups are most often defined as follows:-

A- Higher managerial, administrative, professional e.g. Chief executive, senior civil servant, surgeon

B - Intermediate managerial, administrative, professional e.g. bank manager, teacher

C1- Supervisory, clerical, junior managerial e.g. shop floor supervisor, bank clerk, sales person

C2 - Skilled manual workers e.g. electrician, carpenter

D- Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers e.g. assembly line worker, refuse collector, messenger

E - Casual labourers, pensioners, unemployed e.g. pensoiners without private pensions and anyone living on basic benefits

I priced my magazine as I did, so younger unworking teens (possibly working part-time or have left full time education) could afford to take this amount of money off of their guardians to purchase my magazine. 

IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults – while our websites collectively reach over 20 million users every month.
IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women.

 So to conclude I have picked IPC Media as my chosen publisher. I have chosen this as due to all the information above I feel it best represents my magazine and my magazine best mirrors the others published by IPC Media. I have edited my magazine here with two other magazines who are published by IPC. I feel my magazine fits in well with these two. Looking mainly at the housestyle and layout.

Schedules and deadlines

Schedules and Deadlines 

Our deadlines were all posted together on our shared blog:

Monday 5th December - photos for front page, contents and DPS

Friday 14th January 2012 - Front Page complete

Friday 27th January - Contents

Friday 3rd February - DPS article draft

February 24th February - DPS Complete

Friday 2nd March - Evaluation questions 1 and 2

Friday 9th March - Evaluation questions 3 and 4

Thursday 15th March - Evaluation question 5

Friday 23rd March - Evaluation question 6

Friday 30th March - Evaluation question 7

In order to keep to all these deadlines, I prepared schedules. It was difficult at times to keep up with these due to other work and classes but mainly I did and have gotten all of my work in on time. There were difficulties with the first one, as my model lived quite a long way away and so if my photos weren't suitable I would not of had another chance to get them. Thankfully, my pictures were said to be suitable and I didn't need to re-take them. I finished my DPS article on time also, but I had to go back and make some minute changes,  like taking out some of the bad language in order to keep it consistent with my chosen target audience

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media project represent particular social groups?

The above photo of my model Poppy Clarke was used on my contents page, the photo next to it is of Rihanna from 'Q magazine'. I chose these photos as they had quite a few subtle similarities.  Both photos are medium close ups although the photo of Poppy is slightly closer. Both Rihanna and Poppy have their shoulder at a slanted angle and their gazes are faced outwards, staring directly at the reader. Both have serious expressions on their faces though Rihanna's is slightly more aggressive and passionate. Despite the obvious difference in hair colour both have their hair parted to the side and it is fashioned into a natural wavy 'just got out of bed look'. Both of them have unique clothing on, Rihanna dressed in a loud sequined outfit that mirrors the attitude in her expression. She is also adorned with large pieces of jewellery and a speakerphone which also leads us to the conclusion that she is a very loud person. Her bright coloured hair, noticeabley unique outfit and props all tell us this. Poppy has this same attitude but in a more discrete and laidback fashion. Her eyes have a look of sullen passion, her hair is volumised but not overstated and her stance conveys attitude. Both pictures can be related to their genre because of the aspects featured above. The genre of 'Indie-rock' has a very unique and individualistic style which both Poppy and Rihanna present in different ways. Rihanna portrays the more extreme side of the style, wearing an outfit that is not often seen being worn around your average town. You can tell the photo is trying to make a statement which screams 'speak up!' to those who are used to just blending in. Today's society and media is constantly trying to promote individuality, whereas previous society's didn't often offer this oppurtunity. Poppy's outfit is far more understated and yet speaks the same message. Her passionate expression perhaps displaying a need to be unique. There are many different social groups in our developing society and I feel this best represents the 'indie' genre and style. I also feel these photos promote the message I want to send out to my target audience (15-19 year old females), these women are making a loud and clear message and I feel they provide as good role models to young women, in order to encourage them to be loud, dress as desired and to act out as they feel right. Though obviously I didn't want to exclude the male reading public, so obviously the models are attractive and many of the bands and singers featured appeal to a largely mixed audience.

 This picture is also featured on my contents page, here she displays a kind of 'cocky' attitude, which screams confidence. Her gaze is focused outwards towards the reader and lips are slighty parted and pouty. She's wearing a simple shirt, I used her understated indie clothes as I wanted my readers to view a look and style which they could achieve themselves, yet has a unique quality. Her head its tilted at an upwards angle. This can be compared to the two adjacent photos which share similar poses. One wearing much more embellished clothing, one wearing more casual 'rock' type clothing. I believe that all three appeal to their target audience and present their genre, as each has displayed their own personality through their clothing, stance and facial expressions. I found that my phots can closely be related to those of real music magazines, despite my photos being much more understated due to a much more limited price range for clothing. I feel that the poses and expressions I got Poppy to model show character and capture the essence of 'Indie'.