1B: Sam Walsh: 2011

Friday, 15 April 2011

Finished Pages

Please click on images to enlarge:

Front Page

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Sunday, 27 February 2011

Evaluation

Media Evaluation powerpoint by sam walsh

View more presentations from Sam Walsh

Thursday, 24 February 2011

Audience Feedback

I asked 10 people 7 questions about my final piece in my media project. Below is the results of my audience feedback, there is lots of different answers and all of which are interesting.

The majority of the answers were similar in that the title suggests a music magazine, its young, trendy, modern and interesting. I generally found with the results that the people I asked found it easy to understand that the magazine was focusing on a mixed genre of music, they all said it was well layed out on a whole but in some places for example the double page spread its maybe a bit plain and not enough there. The general comments on the front cover was that it was very genuine and in some cases the comments say it could be mistaken for a real music magazine. In terms of the contents page the most common answer is that it informs all the information that it needs to and makes some want to read on. The article and the double page spread got similar comments also they were along the lines of its set out great and makes you want to read it, it reads like an article but there are grammar mistakes.

Friday, 18 February 2011

Finished project

Front Page

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

1st Draft of Article

This is the first draft of my article for my double page spread.

Tuesday, 15 February 2011

Equipment and Technology

In order to plan up and create my final piece I will be using many different pieces of apparatus including the lighting studio based at college and sony a200 digital camera to catch great shots. I am also going to use some new technology to me in the form of Photoshop and Indesign. I find both of these programmes relatively easy to use and understand them to a point at where I can get by and create a good piece of work. Below are some pictures of these prorammes and Equipment.

Mock Ups

Here are my mock ups of what I would like the layout of my magazine pages to look like.

Front Page

This is a layout of my front cover I am going to have close up mid shot of my artist,but no other images. It will have the title in the top left corner, with the web address and price on the right hand side. under the title is the date and below that will have some kind of news, as will the other side of the page below the price there will be two type of news about what is featured inside the magazine. Along the bottom of the page will be a banner almost featuring the artists that are covered in the magazine that week.

Contents page

This is the mock up of my contents page, I have tried to keep it nice and simple and to the point. The title is at the top of the page with pictures of the artists who are featured down the right. On the left running all the way down will be the Features and list who is in the magazine, what pages and what the story is about.

Double Page spread

This is my double page spread mock up, I have done the same here as what I have done with my contents page I have got straight to the point with the picture of my artist on the left hand side of the page taking up the majority of the page. Then with my article on the right hand side, it is simple but easy to read and understand.

Layout Inspiration

The front cover of this VIBE magazine is what has inspired my front cover and the layout of it. The reason for this is that I like how T.I. is looking into the camera and he is the main object on the front cover. I also like the way the captions of big things that are within the magazine are situated around his head. The only thing I would change on this front cover is the tittle wouldn't fully cover the top of the image up I would have it more to one side.

I like the layout of this contents page and this is what mostly inspired me when creating mine, as they have done here all the information is down one side and pictures of the bands/artists that are featured on the opposite side. I would take it from a different angle in that I would like the pictures to be smaller and I wouldn't have a review section but apart from that i would keep it along the same lines with a few things changes to my liking when I set them out.

This double page spread is in many ways what I would like mine to look like, this is because I like the layout of the picture on one side and the text on the opposite. This is how I would like mine to be layed out the only difference is that i would not have my title so out there like they have done in this one mine will still be eye catching but wont be as big and bold.

Colours

When deciding what colours to use in my magazine it is difficult because I am not focusing on one genre. If I was focusing on one genre then I could look at that genre, the colours associated with that genre and use them in my magazine. I am focusing on more than one genre and so there is lots of different colours thats could feature in my magazine. I decided it might be a good idea to do a survey on what colours would suit a mixed genre magazine the best. I asked 15 people the same question with five answers to choose from and below are the results of the test.

What colours would suit a mixed music genre magazine the best ?

Black and white - 9 people said this would be the best

Red and black - 3 people voted for this

A mix of blues and pinks - 0 people voted for this

Yellow and orange - 2 people voted for this

Pinks and purples- 1 person voted for this

Looking at the results it is clear that the majority thought that black and white would be the best colours to use in my magazine. After I asked them nine people why they chose black and white and all there answers were the same. They said that they chose it because black and white is neutral and I wouldn't be favoring one genre over the rest, where as if I picked another set of colours it might come across that the magazine is more concentrated one one genre than the rest. I liked the idea of this and so I think it would be best to stick with it.

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Names For Magazine

I have thought hard about what kind of names I could call my music magazine and below are some of the better choices I came up with :

CM (current music)

NUM (new upcoming music)

TMM (The Music Mag)

Beats

Music Matters

Top Tunes

MBS (Music Bands and Singers)

Out of this selection of names I feel that the best one for my magazine is TMM. This stands for The Music Magazine, I then went forward and did a survey on what other people in the class thought about these names. The results are listed below in a basic tally chart:

CM (current music) - 0

NUM (new upcoming music) - //

TMM (The Music Mag) - ///////

Beats - 0

Music Matters - 0

Top Tunes - 0

MBS (Music Bands and Singers) - /

It is obvious by the results that the majority of the class agree with me on the name and think that TMM would be the best name for my magazine. In total there was seven votes for TMM, two votes for NUM and one vote for MBS.

Target Audience

With my topic being a current music genre, and me covering the four main groups of genre in the charts at the minute my target audience is aimed at both sex's from the age of 11 to 18. This is because at this age this is when they are turning into teenagers and at the end of being a teenager, and so tend to like the music coming out in the charts. They start to take more notice an listen to music more, and because of this interest they have in it they will want to buy a magazine like mine that will cover different genres and not just one because then they can get news on all of the songs, artists and bands they like and not just news on one genre. And obviously with my target audience being that age the magazine wouldn't be expensive and would be set out so its appealing to that age of people.

Journalistic Styles

When a journalist is writing an article on a band/artist in a music magazine his job is to promote this band/artist and get all the good points across and try to keep the bad points minimum. When reading articles in music magazines I haven't yet come across one where the language used isn't positive or it doesn't promote the band/artist in a good way. So when writing my article I need to take this into account and make sure I use positive language and get the good points across about the artist/bans I am covering. I have also noticed the articles are written informally and this is because they are trying to appeal to their target audience. Im my opinion if the article was written in a formal format it would come across more like an email or a newspaper article and so wouldn't work as well. I have found a pattern that most articles I have read are set out in columns, I couldn't figure out why at first but then I found it when I went back to reading normally and not in columns that for me it isn't easy to take in the information and also a bit boring. So in my own case I think columns are better because they are more exiting to read than the layout of a book for example, It also allows me to take on the information better.

Current Music Genre Research

Seen as though in the charts there is a range of different genre's the research isn't based on one genre. So its basically research on the charts and which genre dominated the charts and when, also what genre is currently dominating the charts.

I would say there are four main groups of genre's in the charts, Hip Hop, Indie Rock, Rock & Roll and Pop. All of which are very different.

Rock & Roll for example has been around since the late 1940's and early 1950's. The typical rock band consisted of a rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass guitar, and a drummer, with the piano or saxophone as a fifth instrument or a replacement for the lead guitar. Rock & Roll due to its worldwide popularity has affected the lifestyle, fashion, attitudes, and language of generations from the late ‘40s to the present. Now the technology has moved on greatly and rock bands are on to using electric guitars and other equipment.

Hip Hop was thought to have developed in New York and consists of four main elements, rapping, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti writing. Some other elements added later on were slang, Hip Hop fashion and beatboxing. When hip hop music made a break through, it was based around DJs who created rhythmic beats by looping breaks on two turntables. This was later joined together with "rapping". An original form of dancing, and particular dress codes arose among followers of this new music. These elements experienced considerable refinement and development over the course of the history of the culture.

Indie Rock Music is short for independent rock, and links to a category of music where many artists are on small independent labels or even unsigned. In Indie rock bands they have a very strong do it yourself ethic and do not change their sounds to fit proper trends that are big at the time. Many early indie rock artists came from Britain, including The Smiths, The Cure, and The Stone Roses. This is where the main Indie Rock Music started from, from bands like The Smiths, The Curve and The Stone Roses.

Pop Music is very big today, especially for the younger generation I would say and I think it drifts more over to the girls side than the boys. Id say it is aimed more at girls but thats just my opinion. The word Pop is an abbreviation of popular, and this type of music is usually known to be commercially recorded music, its relatively short simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. It has took most of its influences of other forms of popular music and portrayed it in a different way.

Current Music Genre

I am looking at the Current Music Genre and by the phrase Current Music Genre I mean a mix of todays music listed in the charts.

Looking at the current charts I have noticed that there is a range of different artists/genres and so when writing my magazine I will have plenty of information and news to write about. Now I have looked at this and found that in the charts there is a different range of artists I can talk about I now know my magazine will work.

So below is Radio One's official current top 40 in the UK: