1. Music Magazine Evaluation Muhammad Zeeshan

2. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real music magazines? My magazine uses the typical ‘Bookland Ean’ barcode with extra 3 digits. I did this to develop the codes and conventions of real music magazines into my own music magazine. This in turn improves the quality making the end product look more real and professional. My main image is the most dominant image on the magazine which is another music magazine code and conventions. I did this to portray the power and superiority of the artist, something which all artist and magazine strive to achieve. Front Cover Cover lines are an essential part of any magazine front cover. The cover lines are a conventional code which I developed and absorbed into my own layout, this helped me create a new unique layout which helped me attract more audiences. Freebies are a significant way into attracting and hooking your targeted audience into your magazines. A well placed and well designed freebie lure is the difference between a bought magazine and a shelf wore magazine.

3. Front Cover The box out is like the fishing line of the magazine. It advertises various freebies to the targeted audience due to the bright colouring and placement of the box out. Red represents danger and screams ‘take notice’ at the readership. I found this during my research. I found that magazines are stacked on shelves with only the left third of the magazine viewable. I believe this makes a significant difference in where I decided to place my box out, and as I embedded this code and convention as you can see, I have created a much better magazine with a higher rate of selling to the targeted audience. Similarly to what I have mentioned before, the continued use of my house style and colour palette has enabled me to create a better magazine as a repetition of these colours created a sense of mise en scene within the minds of the readers which automatically related these colours to my magazine. Mast head and Strap lines are basically for engaging and interesting the audience into buying the magazine. As I have found out a well placed Mast Head (which is mostly at the top of the magazine) followed by a strap line is enough to interest the targeted audience into buying my magazine. I developed this by finding an appropriate font and building the mast head according to the genre chosen. I believe the font I chose is relative to the genre as it is interesting while still looking ‘cool’ and ‘sick’ ( both words mean really nice [slang term]). The gold represents wealth, status and power which my audience will aspire to and buy into.

4. The top and bottom strips are the bill boards of the magazine world. They advertise various things to the audience. For example – advertisement of Exclusive Backstage pass of a concert. The main purposes of these devices are to hook the audience into the magazine once and for all. I developed this by using contrasting colours between the top and bottom strip making them independent of one and another. I did this to increase the chances of the audience catching he bright top/ bottom strips. Due to this increased chance I will have more chance of selling a magazine and making profit. I also noticed as before that house styles and colour palettes are used within many of these codes and conventions, repetition of these are they way successful designers and editors make a much more professional magazine compared to a ‘rookie’. Front Cover

5. Contents The main image of the contents is not necessarily the image of the main band artist, however most of the time the featured article artists or band images are placed on the contents page. I found this as I looked thorough some magazines of my chosen genre and of other genres. These are Hip-Hop Connections & …… . I used the main image of the contents page to further enforce the ideals of this artist portrayed. However I modified and challenged some codes and conventions of music magazines as I repeated the image of the same artist twice as the main images of the front cover and contents page. I did this to set the stage for the main artist within my band. I did this by having quotes of the artist sound snappy, strong and meaningful, at the same time I portrayed him as second to the one by having the main artist have a leather jacket, the only character within my magazine images to have a jacket, moreover I placed the main character in the middle of the group image on the contents page. And as I have mentioned before I did this to set the stage, or to say ‘created the foundation’ for the main artist. This effect will portray the main artist as a diamond from the rough, perfect for creating a lifestyle to advertise and market.

6. Contents I placed the date, issue number and contents to help the audience identify this page as the contents page while keeping up with the date of release, and the issue number. I did this as it is one of the codes and conventions of the magazines which I followed and developed. The clear and clean position of the Date, Issue number & contents help the audience buy the magazine issue they want, navigate to the articles they want. This little detail will help keep my readers on track of articles and issues. Moreover due to this the cover lines and articles will keep the reader on their feet, trying to buy and read the latest issue of my magazine. This may be due to different factors, such as news, scandals & facts and featured interviews. These are simple things the magazine readers are expecting and thus providing these will keep my readers busy which effectively increases my profits and distribution.

7. The featured articles and cover lines are the menu of the magazine world. These are one of the most CRUCIAL parts of the magazine, so crucial in fact that without featured articles and articles that there is no magazine. I came upon this in my research which stated that the audience should be able to differentiate between the main featured article and the other articles. I developed this idea by having my featured articles having a different colouring scheme than the normal article. However I still insisted on using my house style palette as it helps me create a better magazine while the audience will relate these colours: red, white, black and gold to my housetyle. Contents

8. Heading and Introductory comments are for hooking the audience into the magazine. I developed and challenged this code and came out with this result. This will help me attract and interest the audience into buying the magazine. Moreover the heading and introductory comments are for hooking the audience into the magazine. This will help me attract and interest the audience into buying the magazine Double Page Article

9. Images & Quotes define and enhance a magazine article. Due to this reason I had to develop them in the correct way for them to be successful in creating meaning of the article. Through out my research I saw how artist’s images evolve to create different lifestyles to market to the targeted audience. Moreover due to my research, quotes of artist’s especially hip-hop artists are quite snappy, interesting and cool. Due to this I used the quotes, images and the article to create a set image for the artist for the reader to follow and aspire to. Furthermore I had to make sure that I took into consideration what I was writing for a quote and ensured it was appropriate and of the right register.. Due to this I was successful in creating better quotes to represent my artist’s properly. Finally having said all of this I believe that I developed my images and quotes in the appropriate mode of address. I used the correct codes and conventions, such as continuous use of house style fonts and palettes to make my magazine look more professional. Double Page Article

10. The feature article is the main ingredient of the dish we call a music magazine. The feature article is one of the main commercial instruments of a magazine. I developed this idea by having an article which is relevant to the genre and what the article is initially about. I made sure it targeted my audience and held attention and interest throughout. Double Page Article

11. House Style In my research I noticed many patterns which are within the codes and conventions, however its was none other than house style and palette which attracted my attention due to it’s establishment within magazines. I used this knowledge to develop my own house style and colour palette to help my magazine further create a unique nature which will immediately entice the targeted audience into buying the magazine and identifying and recognising it. The yellow arrows illustrate the font and colouring used within text and the magazines. As you can see I have used the same colour scheme through my magazine as this is a code and convention to do within magazines. Due to this I will be able to create a much better magazine The green arrow represent the use of colour scheme to create box outs and other background with the related colour. As I have mentioned before this repetition of colour allows me to create a better magazine as the readers will automatically relates these colours with my magazine The blue arrows are for the use of a house style font to illustrate the magazines numbers. This will help me create a magazine

12. How does your music magazine represent particular social groups? My magazine represents the targeted audience (Teenagers / Young Adult) by various codes and conventions present within my magazine and other magazines I have researched upon. Firstly the colour palette for my magazine is specially chosen to convey certain messages within the magazine. The colours are: red, white black, and gold. I chose these colours for their attributes and conventional stereotype within the world. For example, the colour red can signify negative connotations such as blood, violence and power while at the same time represent love, affection and trust. Colours such as these contain numerous meanings, due to this fact I used them as they will interest individual minds. Moreover the colour white is for purity while black may signify the defiled and damned. I used these colours as their contrasting abilities compliment other colours I am using, for example the colours white and gold would represent pure wealth or hard earned wealth, something that each individual strives to achieve in their lifetime. This will create a feeling that the targeted audience will try to relate to allowing me to access the minds of the targeted audience which will then in turn help me create better magazines which have higher chance of being sold. Moreover the colour gold represents status, power and wealth, while also representing corruption and greed depending upon the situation they are used upon. I used my gold colour to create the image of exclusivity, of power and wealth being an open chest to those who strive and work hard within their life. This as I have mentioned before gives the audience a goal to achieve, a target to relate to. Secondly, the fonts are one of the bases of the magazine, as the magazine will reach a higher state of marketing when it has a genre and specific audience compared to one that does not. I choose my fonts which relate to the hip-hop genre. I did this as I have mentioned before to create a magazine which is extremely efficient in selling the magazine to the targeted audience. However if I the fonts I had choose were unclear and unreadable, the likely hood of my magazine being sold would have dropped through the roof. The essential nature of such a crucial code and conventions makes it so the designer and editors use the correct font to illustrate their product. Furthermore the font I created is related to hip-hop genre as the colour and design of the font is something that the audience would immediately portray as Hip-Hop.

13. The images and costumes are important are essential in conveying the right messages. I used my images and costumes in precise detail to portray a hip-hop artist through the use of jewellery, fashionable clothing and poses. These are important as certain codes and conventions of real life are embedded within society, certain colour, pose, language and clothing are related to certain subculture. Due to my research I was able to pick the right clothing for my photo shoot, allowing me to create a magazine which was more specific in targeting its audience. As I have learned the figure must illustrating the embodiment of power, wealth while keeping his humble nature present. I did this as I link my colouring and images to create a montage of quotes and images, which all together related my images to the hip-hop social group. The colour used was gold while the picture of artists in the magazine is of fashionable, rich clothing. This enforces the code and conventions of hip-hop by conveying the message of wealth and power. This helped my images be more related to the specific subculture I am aiming my magazine at.

18. Furthermore on my magazine I advertise other famous and new artists and bands, this will attract the target audience as the fame of these artists would likely attract the targeted audience. The articles are another device used by me to create a web to trap my targeted audience within. The use of interesting articles would most likely attract the audience. I used the pictures of male artist to attract the female target audience, this is due to the of ‘attraction’ of fit boys to attract and hook the targeted female audience into the magazine. Also boys would aspire to be him and be attractive and cool to the girls. Teenagers who are part of the hip-hop subculture would buy this magazine due to the fact that familiarity within this magazine is like home for them. The language, costume and proxemics makes them relate to our magazine’s lifestyle. The price of the magazine is cheap considering the quality of the articles provided in the magazine

19. What kind of Media institution might distribute your music magazine and why? The media institution that might be interested in distributing my magazines are too large in number to mention, however the main institution I think would distribute and market my magazine is IPC Media. As I undertook Media institutions or to be specific, magazine institutions research, IPC Media seemed the most likely institution to market and produce my product. IPC Media have a large diversity of media interests. Some of these are IPC Inspire and IPC Connect. IPC Media distributes NME, a well known music magazine, due to this I believe the unique nature of my magazine would be an appealing investment to the institution. Further more due to the international fame of IPC Media is a good starting point in selling my magazine. Due to this fact, my magazine would be able to gain advertising and publicity in other magazines and TV adverts. IPC Media uses its own products to advertise its own products, the synergy at this level would mean that the advertisement and marketing would be from the same institution. This is good as IPC Media would be able to market and advertise my magazine through their magazines, TV adverts, texts, cinema adverts and web sites. The divisions of IPC Media is a huge force of different technological convergence. IPC Media owns Time Warner Inc. which is especially interesting due to the fact that my artist’s would be successfully advertised through the use of Music Videos, Music Albums, T.V., Mobile Adverts, DVD’s and Music Sale. This will in turn help to sell my magazine which will be due to the fact that the exclusive interviews of my artist are held by my magazine. This will in turn increase my magazines fame, rating and sales

20. How did you attract and address your audience? I used the colours and the mise-en-scene of the magazine front cover to portray the lifestyle of the artist’s portrayed in the magazine. I did this to attract the audience to the magazine making them feel part of this universe of celebrities, making them aspire to be like the celebrities portrayed in this magazine I used the relevance of the magazine to the targeted audience to catch the attention of the targeted audience, I used the language and lifestyle to address the audience. Using them to attract the audience into buying the magazine. ‘ The face of streets & underground music’ I used the lure to attract the audience, this is to illustrate to them that STREETS is the magazine to read which allows you to access the ‘now’ of fashion, life and everything else there is to be accessing. The mast head is used to attract the audience due to the sheer size and space it takes up on the magazine. the mast head also address to the audience that the magazine is related to the streets from where they derive.

21. The box out and comment attracts the audience as the comment of the artist. due to the comment ‘I’M the King’ portrays you as a superior being making the magazine readers aspire to be like the artists. The main image is attracting the audience due to the sheer size and the dominant position compared to everything else on the page. This is to create and sell a lifestyle to the targeted audience. The image portrays some who is powerful and significant, like I said before, the artist is someone who aspires people The use of scandal and facts to interest the audience is due to the nature of humans, being inquisitive, into other people’s business. I used this to attract the audience who are interested in hearing the celebrities slip up which makes them feel superior as some one else falls as well as enticing them to believe that they can be as successful as my main feature stars. The use of artist to attract the audience is basic due to the fame of these artists, for example ‘Tupac’ is a famous artist within the subculture which easily helps me attract the targeted audience with little work. The audience is attracted to the magazine due to the fact that hip-hop fans are interested in the wealth and power the celebrities have accumulated and aspire to be like them, they live vicariously through their idols. I used the ‘Cribs’ of artist to successfully interest and attract the audience.

22. The use of beliefs and religions within my magazine article allows me to create a lifestyle which I will be successfully market and advertise to the targeted audience. Moreover the use of mode of address or language to make the audience feel at home, further enabling the magazine to attract the target audience. Furthermore I used the large fonts to catch the attention of the audience. This will hook them into the article through the use of language, fonts and images.

24. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I learned the slight change of colour will drastically change the mood of the magazine, which was important as certain moods are related to certain music tribes, for example the Emo subculture is known for the emotionally sad motif of their magazine. Moreover I also learned the control of lighting, the use of mise-en-scene within a photo shoot, and the effects of these changes. Considering my preliminary tasks in creating a school magazine had refined my knowledge and skills in creating a magazine. This in sense helped me create a better magazine layout, better fonts applied to match the genre, language acquired to create an article. I had learned critical procedures in Photoshop, other soft wares and hard wares. That helped me create a better magazine in my final product. It is really important to target your specific target audience and music tribe to create a sense of aspiration and belong which makes people buy the magazine Further back in time when I was creating my media school magazine, I also learned about the language and the mode of address. I learned that the target audience would like to read language of their level, you would not use formal sophisticated language in a magazine towards primary students. As I was able to retain this crucial information, I was able to use the right mode of address which allowed me to gain access to the relaxed conscience of the reader allowing me market my magazine according to the needs of the reader. Moreover the use of colloquial language enabled my magazine to sound friendly which automatically allowed me to easily advertise my artist’s to the targeted audience Mood changes from gloomy to bright. Language familiar to the targeted audience

25. During my research I researched about various music tribes which allowed me access into the world of each music tribe. This in turn allowed me to gather resources for when I had to construct my magazine. I learned a lot about different music subculture. However at the end I was able to choose one single music tribe to use within my magazine above all others. Hip-Hop I choose Hip-Hop as it seemed the easiest for me to construct as Hip-Hop is one of the largest music tribe in the world, the changes within its codes and conventions were easy for me to research as the Hip-Hop subculture is all around me in the 21 st Century. This made it easier for me to build my magazine are ideas and thought upon this tribe were around the corner to me. Due to this I made my magazine in the Hip-Hop Genre. Technologies I have come across while researching and working for my As are too numerous to name, some technologies are so casual in fact that I did not notice them as I worked day to day. Working for my preliminary and main task I have successfully used some of these technologies. One of these I am going to mentions is one of the most significant one of the technologies. It is InDesign. InDesign is a software developed specifically in making published documents. This software was created to minimise the mistakes made by the designer when they created such documents, a purpose I soon learned to love and respect. I learned the use of a small addition when creating my magazine. A margin, a small edition which makes a lot of difference when it comes to aligning text and images in InDesign. This margin helped me align my cover lines to the right margin which helped me create a professional magazine with one less production mistake

26. While the progression of time took place as I undertook media as, I noticed certain changes within my behaviour & characteristics. I noticed how I was able to research and back-up my views and ideas using hard evidences found through my research, as I write now I back-up my thoughts and ideas using other magazines as a basis for me to create new ideas from old ideas. As I glared at a magazine I looked at how the psychographics must have been used during the research and planning process for this person to create this magazine, how he must have used all the codes and conventions to construct this magazine. I noticed how I organised my time when it came to research, planning and producing however I admit that I did ‘mess’ about during my days of work. Yet I still believe that all this has made me realise that it’s a new world, where hard work and determination will be your guide. I learned about photo shoot, how the are constructed to match the criteria of the photographer, my skills increased as I became better with a camera, I was able to create much better images with different angels. However I also admit that at the beginning, I had made failures and hit rock bottoms while working which only resulted in my improving I learned about portable studios, about setting up the canvases, lighting and how to create the best quality pictures with the limited resources present. My skills as a creative thinker increased, I was able to use more different Photoshop tools with little hesitation. Furthermore I learned about the different types of files for example. PNG are files which can be made with transparent background, this helped me create a better magazine with less flaws. Me creating the basis of my bottom strip. And here is my bottom strip placed at the bottom. Also me creating a PNG file as the background is transparent in InDesign Gradient with a tiling effect, was my background for my music magazine double page article. Here is me using the canvases and studios to create images with different lighting effect to see which best fits my magazine. This will enable me to use the best image to attract my target audience.

27. Continuing from where I left off, during my research and production, I learned to use the music tribes psychographics, fashion and music preferences to create a magazine well suited for a specific target audience. As I mentioned above, I will identify the synergy between the music tribe I have picked for constructing my magazine, the music genre and my magazine. I am doing this to show how I have developed my ideas, for I progressed through my thoughts to come to the conclusion. The most significant find I found through my research about my music tribe was the costume of Hip-Hop artists. I knew that it was a exceptional find as research with other music subculture have pointed to a similar directs. Moreover the way a man dresses defines his character within his company, that is a similar message to Hip-Hop Subculture, as they proclaim to dress in fashionable clothing while still retaining powerful status and wealth. In addition to what I have said above, the magazine designers having a purpose to advertise and market a lifestyle with the way they construct their magazine using various codes and conventions. I used this to my advantage. I used the previously mentioned conventions of images that I have to retain throughout my magazine as I created my music magazine with the choice of genre. Additionally when I looked upon the music that my magazine and my magazine artist were based upon, I found lyrics that influenced my thoughts about the images, costumes, proxemics and mise-en-scene of the artists. Consequently the images I used within my magazine portrayed characters, who have a sense of fashion, power, status and wealth. This helped me fulfil my requirements for my magazine Low angle from the reader illustrating my use of proxemics to portray power Clothing of the character depict him wearing expensive clothing, this is done by the show of chain, ear stud, jackets and tops. This illustrates the wealth of the artist while depicting their sense of fashion which suits them best. The fashion is depicted through the use of a single glove, a new craze on the scene of hip-hop The facial expressions portray a happy yet humble artists, this emphasise their true nature to be true to themselves and their past. Something unlike the usual artist, I used this to challenge and develop codes and conventions The use of proxemics portray their relationship with each other, their brotherhood trust, something which is quite common within the hip-hop subculture. I used this to develop my magazine further, creating a much better suited magazine which is perfect at attracting the targeted audience.

28. In addition, during my preliminary task I got reviews of the media school magazine I received some feed back from my friends who helped me progress by helping me realise the excellence and not so excellent part of the school magazine I had created. I used the feedback I just received in making my final product better, using better colour schemes to construct the magazine to be more efficient in interesting and attracting the audience in buying the magazine Here you see the text in crystal clear quality as suggested by Judah, the use of colour gold emphasis the Exclusive nature of the backstage passes further. This helps me interest the target audience through the use of fonts and colouring As I progressed I learned the importance of feed back that you receive, how it will help you improve your magazine, point out mistakes that you might have made. Due to me learning this lesson in the preliminary task helped me construct a better magazine for the final product