Friday, 11 April 2014
Thursday, 10 April 2014
Question 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
During the process of creating my product, it was important to make sure that I maintained a good sense of continuity. In order to create my house-style I researched into similar products such as Kerrang! and Rocksound to get ideas for colour schemes and layout to make my product look as professional as possible by making it conventional. I achieved this by using the same text fonts for certain parts of the magazine, for example using a bolder text for page titles and a smaller font for paragraphs. I also used the same colours and layout styles keeping the main images connected and articles linked. Following these features through the three parts of my product helped to keep a consistent look making the pages instantly identifiable as being related to each other. Black, purple and white are the main colours used as they stand out well. Black and purple are also very conventional of this genre as they are dark and reflect the ambiance of the music type. I also based it off the costume of my main model as I wanted the house-style to fit well with the main images and mise-en-scene.
Whilst creating my products I made sure to include the generic conventions of magazines of this genre such as plugs to make information stand out, having an effective main image and using capital letters to place emphasis on titles, a convention I found used a lot in my research. I also looked at elements such as placement of page numbers as my research showed that page numbers were shown in sub-headings on the contents page and the double page spread would be later on in the magazine rather than at the beginning. I researched appropriate font types and aesthetics which would be appealing to my demographic such as my title font which would not be considered an appropriate convention of a pop or R&B magazine.
My product dosent stand out in any areas as being unconventional or challenging/pushing boundaries of common conventions. In order to appeal to a wider audience of readers it sticks to popular conventions used by other successful magazines and generalizes a wider genre in order to sell to a mass market.
Ways in which my product uses conventions:
During the process of creating my product, it was important to make sure that I maintained a good sense of continuity. In order to create my house-style I researched into similar products such as Kerrang! and Rocksound to get ideas for colour schemes and layout to make my product look as professional as possible by making it conventional. I achieved this by using the same text fonts for certain parts of the magazine, for example using a bolder text for page titles and a smaller font for paragraphs. I also used the same colours and layout styles keeping the main images connected and articles linked. Following these features through the three parts of my product helped to keep a consistent look making the pages instantly identifiable as being related to each other. Black, purple and white are the main colours used as they stand out well. Black and purple are also very conventional of this genre as they are dark and reflect the ambiance of the music type. I also based it off the costume of my main model as I wanted the house-style to fit well with the main images and mise-en-scene.
Whilst creating my products I made sure to include the generic conventions of magazines of this genre such as plugs to make information stand out, having an effective main image and using capital letters to place emphasis on titles, a convention I found used a lot in my research. I also looked at elements such as placement of page numbers as my research showed that page numbers were shown in sub-headings on the contents page and the double page spread would be later on in the magazine rather than at the beginning. I researched appropriate font types and aesthetics which would be appealing to my demographic such as my title font which would not be considered an appropriate convention of a pop or R&B magazine.
My product dosent stand out in any areas as being unconventional or challenging/pushing boundaries of common conventions. In order to appeal to a wider audience of readers it sticks to popular conventions used by other successful magazines and generalizes a wider genre in order to sell to a mass market.
Ways in which my product uses conventions:
Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back through the process of making my first magazine cover, the first thing I noticed was the amount of planning that I put into the drafting and editing of the magazine. I took only around 5 shots for my college magazine cover, compared to 18 for my music magazine, not including secondary images. I used many more conventions on my music magazine and did more research into similar products to make it attractive to the target audience. My use of layout and colour is not as good on my college cover and due to this, my music magazine looks a lot more professional and attractive. "HYSTERIA" is laid out as a conventional music magazine, where as "Wyke College Weekly" lacks many conventions and looks as though it has not had much work into it as it looks empty and the text is too large and the feature at the bottom does not use colour to stand out. The text is also not placed well as the feature at the right side needs to be against the right side of the page. The text is also not that easy to read as it blends in with the main image. Researching into the conventions of magazine covers and looking at similar products really helped me in making my final product as I got a better idea of layout and using different elements to use the page space to it's full potential. I also found that making more drafts helped me to develop ideas and change elements in order to achieve the desired effect, making it aesthetically pleasing and appealing to the target audience whilst fitting in with the genre.
Preliminary task college magazine Final product music magazine
During the process of making this product, I learnt many new skills with PhotoShop, including how to edit photos taking away the background from images, removing unwanted parts of an image and editing colour levels to make my images look as good as they can. I learnt more about the conventions of a magazine covers, and how to use these to adapt my cover to a certain genre as well as how to use colour well to make images and text stand out, and have an effective house style which draws in the intended audience. I also learnt the following areas:
Terminology such as - masthead, skyline, plug, base line, featured articles, secondary images, main image, tag lines date line and banner.
Photography skills such as - shot types, shot lengths, depth of field, composition, framing, rule of thirds and lighting.
Photoshop skills such as - eraser tool, brush tool, magnetic lasso, layer formation, blurred lines, soft edges and colour levels.
Composition skills such as - layout, colours, image placement, text font, image/text size, writing style and use of conventional elements.
Research skills such as - LIIAR analysis, mood boards, similar products, conventions and research into target audience and their ideology.
Looking back through the process of making my first magazine cover, the first thing I noticed was the amount of planning that I put into the drafting and editing of the magazine. I took only around 5 shots for my college magazine cover, compared to 18 for my music magazine, not including secondary images. I used many more conventions on my music magazine and did more research into similar products to make it attractive to the target audience. My use of layout and colour is not as good on my college cover and due to this, my music magazine looks a lot more professional and attractive. "HYSTERIA" is laid out as a conventional music magazine, where as "Wyke College Weekly" lacks many conventions and looks as though it has not had much work into it as it looks empty and the text is too large and the feature at the bottom does not use colour to stand out. The text is also not placed well as the feature at the right side needs to be against the right side of the page. The text is also not that easy to read as it blends in with the main image. Researching into the conventions of magazine covers and looking at similar products really helped me in making my final product as I got a better idea of layout and using different elements to use the page space to it's full potential. I also found that making more drafts helped me to develop ideas and change elements in order to achieve the desired effect, making it aesthetically pleasing and appealing to the target audience whilst fitting in with the genre.
Preliminary task college magazine Final product music magazine
Here I show which conventions I used in my college magazine cover and my music magazine cover. As you can see many conventions were missing from my college magazine, but after researching conventions in similar products I have made sure that these conventions were included in my music magazine cover.
During the process of making this product, I learnt many new skills with PhotoShop, including how to edit photos taking away the background from images, removing unwanted parts of an image and editing colour levels to make my images look as good as they can. I learnt more about the conventions of a magazine covers, and how to use these to adapt my cover to a certain genre as well as how to use colour well to make images and text stand out, and have an effective house style which draws in the intended audience. I also learnt the following areas:
Terminology such as - masthead, skyline, plug, base line, featured articles, secondary images, main image, tag lines date line and banner.
Photography skills such as - shot types, shot lengths, depth of field, composition, framing, rule of thirds and lighting.
Photoshop skills such as - eraser tool, brush tool, magnetic lasso, layer formation, blurred lines, soft edges and colour levels.
Composition skills such as - layout, colours, image placement, text font, image/text size, writing style and use of conventional elements.
Research skills such as - LIIAR analysis, mood boards, similar products, conventions and research into target audience and their ideology.
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