Ollie's AS Media Coursework : 2015

Evaluation Task 1: How does your media product develop, use or challenge media conventions?

 

My music magazine challenged conventions typically followed by real media products as my front cover is far more minimalistic in design in comparison to most music magazines. For example, magazines such as NME are graphologically very complex, utilising numerous mastheads and page elements at once. My magazine on the other had is more minimal, with it’s complexity derived from precise typography and page harmony as apposed to just the sheer number of page elements used. However, this is arguably an example of my magazine developing/following recent media conventions, as minimalism and simplicity in design are becoming increasingly popular within the media industry.

 

As my magazine is called ‘Oscillate’ it conforms to the typical conventions followed by music magazines because its name relates to music and sound terminology. For instance, many music magazines are named using words drawn from musical lexis, such as ‘Loud + Quiet’ and ‘Noisey’. Oscillate means to 'move or swing back and forth in a regular rhythm', but is also used in physics to describe wave frequencies and vibrations, which links to sound.

 

Additionally, my magazine challenged conventions followed by media products as it’s colour scheme is exclusively black & white across all 4 pages. In music magazines it’s fairly rare to have a product that’s solely black and white. However, when you consider the audience and genre of my media product, the use of a black and white colour scheme was appropriate as it corresponds with popular trends within that scene.

 

Regarding camera work and the framing of images, my media product complies with traditional media conventions as the images I used were mostly portraits. The poses my that my models pulled were also pretty typical (head tilting) and can be observed in most other music magazines. I also used a variety of different shots within my magazine (15 in total), each with the models pulling different poses. Despite this, I chose to keep the shot distance from the subject/s the same as I felt this added continuity to my magazines aesthetic.

 

When it came to my article I chose to write it a register that was neither too formal nor too informal as to appease my target audience (young adults and late teens). This is in line with common media conventions, as most magazines manipulate the register of their discourse to match their target audience. Because my Magazine belongs to the genre of Music Magazines, I decided to include music and sound terminology such as ‘floor filling rhythm’ and ‘deep synthesised sound’. This brings my magazine’s article in line with most other music magazines as most music magazines implement musical jargon within their discourses.

 

As to fit with my magazine's genre and colour scheme, I decided to dress my models in simple clothing that was either black or white. For Josh (front cover model) this meant wearing a white Comme des Garçons shirt, and for the double page spread a simple black shirt. For Rhiana and Emma (contents page models) I got them to wear a black turtle neck and a black Calvin Klein shirt respectively. This fitted with my magazines genre as I chose to implement high fashion as my style. This is yet another example of a way in which my magazine conforms to real media products, as models and artists often wear designer clothes for photoshoots.

 

 

Evaluation Task 2: How does your media product represent a certain social group?

 

In order for my magazine to become a successful media product I had to ensure that my magazine accurately represented my target audience’s interests. Seeing as my target audience consisted of young alts, typically male, that strive to live urban and contemporary lifestyles, I felt that it was important that the aesthetics of my magazine represented this. This included everything from the styling of my artists to the actual design of my magazine itself.

 

I feel that the continuity between the minimalistic fashion of my artists and the page aesthetics represented my target audience accurately as minimalism and contemporary fashion go toe to to toe with each other at the present. This can be observed in amongst many other magazines that have the same target audience as mine, such as surface and i-D.

 According to research that I conducted on UKtribes.com, the main audience for my magazines would be 'young alts' and 'Hipsters', which I feel my magazine accurately represents. For example, my magazines main artist Cris Von Haase produces music of an alternative electronic style. According to UK tribes, the musical interests of hipsters as of present varies between contemporary guitar music and most importantly; electronic music. So in this aspect I feel my magazine represents indie scenesters to some degree.

 

 

Evaluation Task 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 

When taking into account the genre and target audience of my music magazine, I believe that Vice Media Inc would be an appropriate institution to publish my magazine. Vice is a multinational media conglomerate that operates various media networks and publishes several magazines. Some of these include its arts and culture magazine; Vice Magazine, and its fashion magazine 'i-D'. Vice magazines and media networks are quite popular amongst youth and alternative culture, with vice’s twitter account having over 2 million followers.

For this reason, vice would be an appropriate media institution to publish my magazine seeing as they’re popular with my target audience. According the research from UK tribes, the social group 'hipsters' is 'epitomised' by Vice magazine. Seeing as one of the target audiences of my magazine is hipsters, I believe that vice would be a well suited institution to publish my magazine for this reason,

 

Furthermore, Vice Media would be suitable as they do not currently publish a music magazine despite operating an online media network dedicated to music called ‘Noisey’. My magazine Oscillate would be the perfect magazine to fill the gap in the vice’s magazine line up, and would also appeal to vice’s preexisting audience.

 

 

Evaluation Task 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

The audience for my media product based on audience research would be hipsters and young alts aged from 18 - 25. According to audience research conducted on YouGov UK, the type of person typically interested in alt artists such as FKA twigs and King Krule are male aged 18 - 24, live in London and are interested in art, culture and fashion. For this reason my magazine fits this target audience perfectly as my magazine adopts a graphological and fashion style that’s popular amongst that scene. I also previously stated in my research and planning that I wished for my magazine to be published in London and Tokyo primarily, so this works well seeing as my target audience primarily live in London.

 According the research that I conducted on UK tribes, 'hipsters' are also an audience which would be drawn to my magazine as they are apparently 'epitomised by vice magazine', which my magazine draws inspiration from. Due to similarity between the fashion implemented by my magazine and magazines like i-D, this also means that there are similarities in our magazines audiences.

 

 

Evaluation Task 5: How does your product attract/address your audience?

 

My media product attracts my target audience in numerous different ways. Graphologically my magazine attracts my target audience as minimalism and simple design is popular in art and fashion at the moment, which audience research has shown my target audience has interests in. My audience research also revealed that my audience is interested in different cultures. For this reason I decided to include Japanese script within my magazine, as this is the classic choice that many magazines opt for in order to make their magazines appear cultured. I also chose to use Japanese script within my magazine as it translates certain aspects of my magazine for Japanese readers. This helps attract my Japanese audience and in my research and planning I mentioned that I wished for my product to be distributed in london and tokyo.

 According to my market research that I conducted on UK tribes, the main social group that my magazine targets is 'hipsters'. According the UKtribes.com 'hipsters' are epitomised by vice magazine and i-D magazine. Seeing as my magazine drew heavily upon magazines such as vice and i-D for inspiration, this means that my magazine would probably attract that social group if it were ever released. The reasons for this can be traced to its minimalistic design and fashion which all align with styles that both vice and i-D implement.

 

 

Evaluation Task 6: What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

To construct my magazine I used a variety of different technologies, ranging from photography lights to photo editing software such as photoshop. Through this process I went from having no knowledge of how to use photoshop to becoming almost proficient. This included learning about photoshop layers, rasterising and editing images and just getting a basic idea of how photoshop operates. I also learnt how basic concepts of good photography (e.g image framing, rule of thirds etc). During the process I feel as if I have developed my photography skills to a greater extent, as I learnt how to take images with an SLR camera as well as how to set up and adjust professional lighting equipment.

 

For photography lighting I learnt that photography lights have to be adjusted so that they’re level with the model in order for the model to be evenly lit, thus producing a professional looking photo. I also learnt the lights had to be placed equidistantly around the model to further achieve even lighting

 During the coursework process I also learnt how to use a number of ict technologies and editing programs, such as photoshop and animoto. At the start of my magazine creation I was completely clueless when it came to using photoshop and had no prior experience using the software. However, this has changed as I now feel that I'm proficient in photoshop. The coursework process really helped build my skills and aided me in my understanding of how editing software works. This involved doing things like rasterising and editing photos, and tampering with exposure and light settings in order to enhance the photos that I embedded in my magazine. 

 

Evaluation Task 7: looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

 

When looking back over my media coursework and comparing my final product to my preliminary, I feel that I’ve improved significantly. I believe this is due to various skills and concepts that I’ve learnt about magazine creation over the coursework process. One of these concepts being the concept of genre and target audience. Over the duration of the process I’ve become increasingly aware of how important it is to have a set genre and target audience when creating a media product. Having a target audience and genre aided me in the creation of my magazine because it helped me understand how I should design my magazine e.g what images I used, minimalism.

 

Looking back, I also learnt about the importance of what editing software to use when designing magazines. For my preliminary magazine, I used a desktop photo editing program called ‘picsart’ which was pretty basic and limited in what it could. The limitations of picsart then manifested themselves within my preliminary work. For example, picsart doesn’t provide any page guides that allow you to perfectly align page elements, which can be seen on my front cover as my page elements are all mis aligned and wonky.

I i However, for my draft magazine and final product I decided to use photoshop as it's far superior to picsart in its capabilities and has almost no limitations. Despite the steep learning curve, I feel that this was an important decision as I probably wouldn’t have been able to create the product I have done using pics art. Another thing that I learnt was how to use several of photoshops features such as its alignment tools. These tools helped me achieve my minimalistic style by aligning my page elements perfectly, which is typical of all my magazines.

 Throughout the process I have also became increasingly aware of how important font and typography is in the creation of a media product, as well as many other graphological features. This is the reason why a main effort of my research was graphology and minimalism, in order to gain a better understanding of what makes a magazine look aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Overall, I'm fairly happy with my draft work and I would like my actual magazine to look like this. However, I think that one major improvement that could be made is the image I used for the front cover. For some reason, that I can't put my finger on, it just doesn't look like it follows the same design principles as the other images that are present on my draft. The model's skin would also need to be improved with airbrushing or make-up for the real cover. For my real magazine I also need to take my own photos for the contents page as the ones used in my draft are just placeholders. However, they are similar to photos I plan to take.

The Japanese typography utilised within my draft serves both a practical and a stylistic purpose. Practically, the Japanese typography serves the role of translating major headings and info into Japanese for Japanese readers. This is necessary as I intend for my magazine to be an international magazine, which is to be published in London and Tokyo. However the Japanese also serves a stylistic function as it makes my magazine look professional, cultured and stylish. The synergy of English and Japanese within my draft takes inspiration from Anglo-Japanese magazines such as Popeye which are published in Japanese and English.

When it came to the design of my draft I took inspiration from magazines like Vice, Surface

and i-D. All these magazines follow a minimalistic and bold approach when it comes to designing their products which I really like. However the biggest influence on my work was probably American Apparel adverts. They follow a really professional/neat looking design philosophy which I tried my best to emulate within my own work. American Apparel adverts also implement the font 'Ariel Bold' throughout their products, which inspired me to do the same as I think Ariel Bold is the best looking font out there.

Other improvements that I need to make are the sizes of the pages as they're not uniform. I also need to write my article for the double page spread as the one currently used by my draft is just a placeholder that consists of gibberish. It also looks a tad plain in just b&w, so I might experiment with colour in future versions.