Evaluation of Task.

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

I feel that with my magazine cover I have successfully been able to use, develop and challenge forms & conventions of existing magazines. With my magazine being targeted towards a Grime target audience, it really allows me to emphasis on challenging forms and conventions of other magazines purely because Grime is such a niche market with a low fan base compared to other commercial musics such as pop.

However there are forms & conventions I have followed, and the reason for this is that I feel they have to be, as if not, your magazine could fail because of it. These two forms & conventions are organization/tidiness and a house style choice of colours. This means I have conformed my magazine like others to make sure all the text is very clear and big for the reader to see from the shelf, similar to other magazines such as NME who have a very predominant title, but if we also look at other magazines from my research such as ‘GQ’ or even ‘Q’ they may use different colours for different editions, however the magazines always have a limited amount of variations in colour perhaps 3 or 4, generally 5 at the max. The reason I have used this for my magazine is that it gives off a tidy and formal aura from the shelf. Evidently my reason to include organisation as one of the forms that I have followed is so that my audience are able to clearly read from the front what the magazine contains but at the same time withholding the most important information which acts as an incentive for the customer to purchase the magazine.

I also feel that I have managed to develop conventions through the creation of my magazine cover at the same time, one of these is the recognizable side banner and logo following my masthead, if we look at other magazines which are extremely popular i.e ‘Q’, ‘GQ’, ‘NME’ & VIBE – they do have clear mastheads, big & bold titles, however they do not have a convention or form which I feel I have managed to develop, which is the introduction of my banner and logo. Down the left hand side you can see my black and red banner, one of the advantages from the way I have developed this is that if I change my form of ‘house colours’ in a different edition, I am able to implement these colours in both my banner and logo which then allows me to conform.

Finally I have challenged forms & conventions in my magazine by taking other forms & conventions which have been used by the major magazines and implemented it into my front cover but with my own style, take for example my large image – most magazines which have a feature article on an artist will have a large image of them on the front cover, and from my magazine you can see this, however what I have also done is cover my layer white, and then erased the white to give the grey background a loose appearance like a shadow. The idea is to show that the artist has come from the light with the white surrounds but also has  a grey effective shadow showing that he still has his ‘Grimey’ personality about him.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Each magazine any institution produces it always represents the social group of that music in one way or another;  a good example is if we look at my previous posts regarding VIBE & NME magazines. Vibe often has quite a Hip artists on the front with cool looking fonts, which is what their target audience often aspire to be, then if we look at NME you will often see crazy fonts, with outrageously unique dressed artists on the front, which their readers also aspire to be.

From my magazine cover we can see that I have the male dominant fonts, red & black, with what appears to also be a male dominant font, big, bold & curvy. Remembering that the social group which represent Grime consists predominantly of males aged between 16-28, they are often smartly dressed and rarely have a wealthy background you can see this is represented in a subliminally way from my cover.

My feature artists has been given a grey colour over him, showing that their is not much colour about his life, yet he has the transition of coming out of the plain white – showing he has achieved something. The social groups that would follow this magazine would also be looking to do the same thing.

Social groups in grime are 100% committed to following it, in songs they often describe how they are constantly ‘writing bars’ (lyrics) – with this I have appealed to my social group by offering a free grime 2010 calendar, the social group often surrounds themselves with such media, a calendar with famous artists in their room would be something desirable as it’s visible to give them constant aspiration.

Finally you can see the image in the bottom left hand corner – if you asked anybody of that age which social group do you think he comes from, people would instantly either say a more rap/hip-hop/grime based social group than a rock/punk – these are ways that I have managed to appeal & represent the magazines social group.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A media institution is an established, often profit-based organization, that deals in the creation and distribution of advertising. Currently there are many different types of media institutions in the industry; some of the ones you may recognize most would be.

• Disney
• Sony
• Time Warner
• Lionsgate

As you can see from my explanation of a media institution you will instantly know what each institution represents, for exampple Disney & Time Warner are often used for Cartoons or a younger target audience, whereas Lionsgate are often found producing films such as The Grudge & films such as Saw, aiming at a maturer audience specifically in the horror genre.

So with my institution I would be looking to aim it at a company which produces between the ages 16 – 28, are relevant to music but most importantly it is vital that they are either specific to a genre such as Rap, Hip-Hop or Drum & Bass. The reason for this is that even though one institution may target the same age range as me, they might often promote magazines which are aimed at a female target audience, or not even about music.

Therefore in my case I will be looking for a media institution which promotes in my age range at a predominantly male based audience who either listen to Rap, Hip-Hop or Drum & Base; as we already know my magazine is more a niche type of product, and with this I will need more a niche type of media institution rather than a popular commercial one – even though they might be a better institution, they may not necessarily know how and who to promote my magazine to, which means I would be making a bad choice, even if it seemed obviously the good one.

If a media institution was to distribute my media product they would need to have a taste for niche products, while aiming at a more male dominant audience from the ages 16-28 to make sure that my media institution were advertising my product to the right audience. We can see from other institutions such Lionsgate that their products distributed are specifically Horror movies which shows how the distributor has a relationship to the company and type of product being made.

If I was to distribute my product through an institution I would have to ensure that the distributor has that same relationship with my product.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine is a very niche magazine and with that comes a niche audience. With it being based on the music genre ‘Grime’ there is a small audience into this type of music, however the audience of Grime is very dedicated, what I mean by this is they are constantly looking for publicity and recent updates in the genre – this is done through several methods such as myspace sites for the artists, looking for videos of the artists on youtube or any internet publicity. So with this knowledge I feel that a magazine covering such detail really is a new form of publicity available for this niche audience, and with it I feel they will be extremely attracted with just the knowledge of an Grime magazine being available.

The audience for my media product would be a young male most likely from a working class. Grime is a genre which has been developed through young males with a love for music, through this development it shaped a new genre of music in 2001 which we know as Grime.

Still today most of the famous artists which we know of such as Chimunk, Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Kano all came from this young innovative genre of music. With such good leading role models showing how successful you can be from this music many other young males are attempting to make the same fame and take the same path. This is what we know as a Grime society.

As mentioned before this audience is often between the ages of 16-28 and are generally male. I know this from primary experiences as I was once part of and still am surrounded by members of the social group itself.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

Through my experience of being surrounded by friends and being part of this social group I have a good knowledge on the music itself and the people who participate or are interested in it. With this I was able to develop new forms and conventions which would attract my audience, such as using a recently famous Grime artist as the focal point on the front of the magazine – this has been done so the young aspiring males would want to know about his story and what he did to achieve success – which is ultimately the goal which every Grime artist wants to achieve.

I have also used my masthead to attract the audience with my magazine. The title GIFTT stands for Grime Independant for the Talented – which immediately makes the reader aware the type of magazine it is, the magazine also holds an image of a recently famous artists who has come into the spotlight, with this the potential customer who is a Grime fan can instantly know what the magazine is based on Grime from looking at the image.

My audience will be addressed in various manners – at times the magazine can be informative however at other points in the magazine it may be pure entertainment – for example with Grime being a niche music genre I will hold charts in my magazine which are informative – such as the top rated 50 Grime songs in order, publicising to the young readers which songs to look for download which are being rated as very good. However on the other hand it will also contain the entertainment side meaning that the magazine will often use slang words used in the Grime scene which only the target audience would comprehend, this can often be used when we have an exclusive interview with an artist who uses such phrases.

Most importantly my magazine will overall attract the audienece through it’s specific ability to target the perfect audience through the magazine cover having famous Grime artists on it, Grime genre phrases / slang, and finally the overall feel that this magazine specifies in the Grime genre and no other – which really makes our audience aware about what they will be reading if they were to purchase the GIFTT magazine.

I also know radio stations which are of interest to my target audience, this has allowed me to use the incentive of free tickets to Radio 1xtra, which often has extremely successful artist featured on their radio show. These are various examples of how I have took my knowledge of this particular social group and designed  a magazine article to interest my readers criteria.

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

Before I took on the task of my media course I had never used a Mac PC or software such as photoshop. Since the start of my course I have used a Mac PC several times and different software such as photoshop, safari, indesign and many other softwares.

The construction of this media product as vastly widened my knowledge not only within media and the narrow minded view that I just know more about the production of magazines and how to design them, but I have also learnt how to use photoshop which allows me to use this software in many different manners – from editing pictures to creating wonderful photography.

So through this task I have leant to use various different technologies and software’s from simply designing and researching magazine covers. Without the research I would of never used the safari browser, and without the designing I would of never used photoshop or indesign.

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

Just from looking at my preliminary task to my actual task you can see the difference in what I have learnt and how I have to put it to use. Through the progression of my task I have learnt what forms and conventions are necessary to follow in the design of my media magazine, I have also learnt how to use software’s necessary to design my product such as Photoshop, Indesign and Safari.

In my preliminary task I simply took a photo and did what I could with photoshop. No use of any forms and conventions such as house colours or even the type of photo and the angle which it was taken at. However in my actual task you can see the use of house colours, formatted designs and specific photos taken in certain angles for a better effect.

The necessary use of independent research of other magazines has also increased my confidence and capability of doing this. I now know what to look for in other magazines and how to identify common forms and conventions which often make a magazine successful.