Mohamed Cyuzuzo

Research on existing magazinesResearch on existing magazines

I mainly used RWD magazine to inspire my magazine layout because RWD deal with the same genres that I put across in my magazine being grime and rap, I also followed the codes and conventions due to the fact that their target audience is quite similar to the audience I'm appealing to.

I slightly followed RWD’s magazine’s layout for my front cover and contents page because I thought it looked attractive and suitable for the genre of my magazine. It contains less information and more images because the audience is quite young and don’t have a lot of time to read, but it also makes the magazine more interesting to look at by including more appealing images.

I took a more different approach on the front cover by making it look more sophisticated by reducing the amount of Puffs and advertisements thus making the cover look less cluttered and simple.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The genre of music for my music magazine is grime/uk rap music, so to create my music magazine front cover, I looked at RWD the reason why i only chose RWD because the other magazines deter from the specific genres and go onto pop and r&b so i picked a particular issue that seemed more underground.

I avoided making the picture brighter in order to represent the genre, it is a quite underground type of music so I avoided using bright colours for the model.

For my masthead I used a bold font to make sure that it stands out, it also links to the genre’s my magazines about, in the music scene the genre’s are seen as unique and they stand out because although we have U.K rap it has a twist to it that makes it different to normal rap which also explains its current success in the charts. The colour of my mast head is black and yellow this seemed appropriate as the colours represent the fact that UK Rap and grime are still underground genre’s hence the black, but they are also the next new thing rising and they are soon to shine to the world the genres the genre grime is also a quite hype and vibrant type of music hence the yellow.

I don't have a sell line but i chose that for every issue the reader has a chance to win something and for this issue it is: ‘ Win tickets to see swb at the O2’ I chose this because it appeals to my target audience because in the survey they showed that the majority attend concerts and gigs but it also shows that the majority are unemployed which means that they are less likely to have high access to a lot of money to purchase tickets for events so by offering a chance to win tickets for a different event every issue it makes it more appealing. I used a bold font in order to avoid making the page look unorganised and messy.

I laid out my main headline similarly to RWD but I chose yellow for my headline because it stands out against the background, it also links with the colour thus making it look more organised and sophisticated which also links with the main image on the cover; I used a pull quote from the article for my main cover line as I have seen this on the RWD covers because it makes the reader want to find out what that quote is about, so they would have to purchase the magazine to read the article. I Also, used a different colour to the masthead and headline to differentiate it from the headline.

I have kept the conventions of a music magazine by using a mid shot image of my model as many music magazines like RWD use them on their covers to attract attention front cover images also have the model looking directly at the camera making it look like the model is looking directly at the reader so I chose to mimic this technique, this also makes the magazine seem more personal.

My model is wearing a grey suit, white shirt and a black tie this corresponds with the colour scheme completely. I chose these colours because they go with the chosen colours for house style thus making it look more organised reflecting on our intended audience because they are getting to an age where disorganisation is not an option.

I have put the text over the image but not flooding the page but just allowing the image to be seen clearly. The masthead is on top of my image which follows conventions of magazines like RWD who have the masthead like this on some of their issues. But the readers aren’t familiar with it and so need to be able to see the full name but this is the only way the image wouldn’t work out.

I have followed codes and conventions on my contents page by using the same layout design as RWD Magazine use on their contents page. I decided to use this because it appealed to my intended audience, from the survey I discovered that my intended audience preferred more pictures and less text.

I used a similar technique with the colour coding system, i decided for each type of article consisting of grime rap swag and exclusives they all have a particular colour so the reader can distinguish what genre the article is from a look at the page number colour.

I have used similar layout with the images by using an image of the artist looking away from the reader to give a sense that he's a serious rapper, and then the second image of him laughing getting interviewed to show the readers sees a more fun side of him and make the audience see him from all angles and make him more likeable.

I found that a lot of the double page spreads I have studied use one whole page for an image of the featured artist and write the article on the other page so i decided to mimic the technique that rwd used for their double page spread with Griminal.

I used a similar technique to summarise the article but i put a black box behind it in order to highlight it and emphasise its importance to the story. I also used that technique for the questions in the interview it differentiates it from the answer thus making it easier to read.

The articles are written in columns so I used this in my layout to follow codes and conventions.

I have used RWD’s idea for the ‘CONTENTS’ text but using the colours and fonts of my house style to keep it consistent.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group I have represented belong C2DE, social grades. The social group of 16-18 year old males and females , is represented through the house style for my magazine; the colours I have used for my house style are yellow, white, black and grey these are alot of colours but they go together with yellow being the odd one out, this is to keep a simple colour scheme without over powering the magazine, also its a way to use a lot of colours without patronising the readers as they are young adults and not kids. My questionnaire showed that there was an equal split with the people who liked grime and the people who liked UK Rap so i decided to give the genres an equal split in the magazine rather than giving one genre a majority. I used the font Impact consistently with a few other minor fonts but the majority was impact because it stands out as bold thus representing the reader as well, because teenagers are also seen as rebellious in society and they stand out.

The image on my front cover represents the social group because being at the top range of the teenagers you have to start working hence “Back to business” and the fact that he’s wearing a suit. People aged 18 are getting ready to go university so maturity is needed and this is shown through the suit he’s wearing. On the double page spread, You can see the same model is wearing a hoody which is quite stereotypical for teenagers in London nowadays which is usually frowned upon by society because they say it leads to crime but i showed that it doesn’t mean that by making him wear a suit and he is working hard with his music which gives the young people a good image and appeals to the target audience rather than seeing the bad stereotypes plastered all over the media. Like when the London riots happened the young people were blamed when the statistics show the majority who looted were all adults.

Baseball jacket is what my intended audience are likely to wear.

Snapbacks are the newest trend to the UK and especially to my intended audience

Beads are a new accessory that my intended audience are starting to wear so I made my model wear it in order for it to appeal to them

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk

This company usually publishes rock and indie music magazines which is the reason why I would choose them. They publish music magazines which are quite different and unique in a sense where the people who listen to their music are quite different and in my case my magazine is for a genre which isn't the same as lot of genres its unique underground and haven't got that much promotion in the mainstream. They also don’t have any magazine similar to mine so it’ll be a good idea to publish something new and different rather than repeating the same genres.

I think Bauer Media is the more suitable institution to publish and distribute my magazine because it hasn’t published a music magazine like Nxt-ting so it’ll be something different to what they got rather than just repeating the same type of music magazines consistently. so adding my magazine to their production would increase sales because there aren't a lot of major Grime/UK Rap magazines in the UK market and it’ll also branch out the music genre which needs more exposure.

Final Choice of Publisher and Distributor

Who would be the audience for your media product?

From my results from my market research I found out that there are an equal amount of preferences for UK Grime and Rap therefore I will feature both genres in my magazine in order to appeal to the intended reader ship. Also the majority are students so I will be giving out each issue of the magazine for free for those who have less money due to being unemployed and in education.My magazine is aimed at young boys and girls aged 16-18 who are mainly in education because from my research that was the majority in the survey results. My magazine is called NX Ting I called it that due to the music it represents being Grime and UK Rap, these two genres are the type of music young people are listening to and the type of music the artists get big from thus being the next best thing everyone will be listening to

People from my magazine social group

The type of music I represent is made by young inner city black youths for inner city black youths that’s why the models I chose for the images are young black men and it’s a predominantly male genre.

image conscious and focus’ on looking good, they enjoy live music and like creating music. RAP and Grime are a more serious genre compared pop where it’s all just fun and bubbly.

How did you attract/address your audience?I decided to add a banner advertising the chance to win tickets to see swb at the o2 i also gave it a black banner with white text in order to make it stand out and putting it at the top makes it the first thing the reader sees as people usually read for top to bottom.

I used informal language makes it easier to relate to the reader thus making it genre specific because most of my intended audience use slang

and slang is also used in the music .

In the results it showed that alot of audience are mainly attracted by the mast head so i decided to make it big and add the colour yellow, a bright colour that stands out when taking a quick glance.

Seriousness on the models face represent the seriousness of the genre

Using a young black male makes the audience see themselves in the model thus making the audience have a connection with the magazine

The majority of my audience pays around £500 on average a year so i decided to add a whole section dedicated to clothes being “swag city” this would appeal to my audience letting them get ideas for new looks but would also appeal to advertisers.

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

I used Photoshop CS5 to create my magazine and from this, I learnt how to create an effective, attractive magazine cover, contents page and double page spread.

I learnt how to manipulate the layers in order to hide unwanted parts of an image.

I learnt that Photoshop is a very good software when wanting to resizing an image in contrast to other programmes like microsoft publisher which will just distort the images quality.

For the text i used a drop shadow to make it stand out and look more bold instead of leaving the text looking plain.

I also learned pixelate and use it in order to blur out obscenities.Before After

I used zoomerang to create a survey and successfully collect results

I learned how to share my survey on social networking sites like facebook and twitter, in order to draw in more results for the results because I have a decent amount of following on both twitter and facebook. Also my intended audience use social networking sites and are in with new technology.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I named my preliminary task magazine “NNL” I used a variety of different colours ranging from purple to green in order to keep a more upbeat and lively theme because by having more colours it looks more bright and fun rather than having boring dull colours that’ll not interest the readers at all. But I recently learned that too many colours over power the magazine and make it look unorganised, although it is for young people it is a quite patronising thing to do making the audience feel younger than they are.

I also learnt that the layout of a magazine is a very important when forming a shelf quality magazine On my preliminary task front cover, I used a mid-shot image of a student walking into school gates for my main image; the model in the image is looking away from the camera which I learned is completely opposite to the main conventions of a magazine because most magazines use a mid shot of the model looking directly at the camera.

I think my music magazine is successful and looks different as to what I first imagined. However my focus group said it could have been improved by adding more advertisements for mix tapes as results from my survey show that my target audience download music a lot.

On the contents page, my focus group think the font should be a different colour possibly white in order to make it stand out on the dark grey background.

I think my double page spread looks professional and is suitable for the UK rap/Grime music genres because my focus group inspired me to have made the pull quote a bit bigger in order to make it stand out a bit more and catch the readers eye