Advertisers, Colour Schemes and Fonts

Label I

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I made a power-point and uploaded it to Slide Share to show examples of font's I might use, possible colour schemes and who I think would advertise in my magazine.

How did you attract/address your audience?

My products speaks in the language of my target audience because the bands featured and the music genre in general is something that my target audience is passionate about. I think I created an interesting magazine that is eye catching and captures the feeling of alternative/indie rock. The use of bright primary colours and black/white is basic but effective as they are bold and would appeal to both male and female readers because they're not gender biased. My target audience is mostly male because statistics show that this genre is brought the majority of the time by males. I attracted my audience through the use of sharp edges and interesting shapes because it shows that SETLIST doesn't conform to rules and this reflects my audience's unique and distinctive style of dress and attitudes. The black backgrounds infer the sometimes darker more heavy sound of alternative metal and the use of contrasting colours over this is reminiscent of gigs.

Below are links to Flickr where I analysed my magazine pages.

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

Before                                              After

Before                                           After

I think I have learnt a lot about Adobe Photoshop CS5 since I created the preliminary cover and contents a couple of months ago. Looking back at my college magazine pages I can see how inexperienced at using Photoshop I was, but it was a good chance to experiment with all the different tools that it had to offer.

Four Photoshop devices I used were:

I learnt how to bevel text to make it appear chiselled, this was especially useful on my mast head as SETLIST written in grey with bevelling and embossing make it look like rock or metal that had been shaped and helped 'toughen' up my magazines image. One thing I disliked about this was that if you changed the angle of the shading on it, anything else using bevel, even on other layers, changed too.

 I discovered that I could use the Clone Stamp Tool to get rid of houses in the background of one of my pictures because they didn't fit how I wanted the photo to look. I also used this tool to get rid of writing on Zac's hand so the magazine could appear more polished and professional.

One of the things I found the most fun on Photo shop was a filter called Liquify where you can make features in a photo larger or smaller and you can move these things around which was very helpful for making band members look more awake by widening their eyes or when one of the photos was pulling a strange expression I could sort it using Liquify.

Another main thing I learnt was how to adjust the settings on the brush tool so that I could use it to even out skin tone or make someone's hair colour more vibrant. Getting the balance of Opacity and Flow is difficult and often I ended up having to undo my work when somebody ended up with a really obvious streaky face, but when I got it right it was very helpful for improving the photos so the entire end product looked as good as it possibly could.

When I was doing my college magazine I wasn't very confident about how to achieve the picture I had in my mind for how I wanted it to look, but as I learnt more about Photoshop and its features I found it easier to plan how I was going to achieve a certain look. I think one really important thing I've learnt is how vital it is to plan the photographs before you take them because even with all the tools Photoshop has, if you take a really rubbish picture, your finished product will suffer. When I went out to take pictures of Chris for the college magazine I didn't have any idea what background I wanted or how I wanted him to pose; whereas, I planned the three photo shoots that I conducted for the main task and picked models specifically, after considering who I wanted my magazine to appeal to.

Making sure you appeal to the target audience and seek feedback from them to check you are fulfilling this was very important and so I had to read magazines I wanted mine to be like and try to mimic the way they wrote articles for example - I also tried hard to use colloquial language that my target audience would use. Small things on the magazine pages turned out to be the things that would either balance out the page or make it look unprofessional. An example of this is that for ages I stared at my Double Page Spread trying to work out what was wrong with it and why it didn't look quite right, then I added in a border to the title and filled it in yellow and the whole page came together. I think going back and looking over the pages helped a lot because I spotted tiny details like spelling mistakes and such that otherwise wouldn't have been noticed until too late, also making other people read over the article was helpful because they pointed out things I didn't see myself.

In conclusion, although I have learnt many Photo Shop skills that will be helpful in the future for me, what I've learnt the most is that planning how I want the finished product to turn out allows you to make less mistakes during the actual construction of it. Because of these tasks and the fact I had to look at lots of different real magazines and professional photos of band's, I think I've developed my eye for what is aesthetically pleasing and I have a better understanding of how to cater a product for a specific audience.

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

College Magazine:

For the preliminary task I only used Photoshop. Apart from a small task involving making a album cover, this was my first experience of Photoshop so I learnt a lot about it and the effects it can produce, such as using the magic wand tool to crop photos more effectively, how to change the opacity on a top layer so it merges with the one underneath and how to use filters such as gaussian blur or lighting so you can have spotlights to highlight aspects of the finished product. As I had very little knowledge of Photoshop, my college magazine cover and contents were a mix of as many different effects as possible and so it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked it to. However, this preliminary task did give me a chance to try out all the different things that Photoshop has to offer so when it came to the main task I had a much better idea of what I wanted to achieve and how to achieve it.

Main Task & The Evaluation Labels:

When it came to creating my music magazine and evaluating it, I used a variety of free, online software including: 

Blogger- I used Blogger to present all my coursework in a tidy, easily accessible way and although I already have some experience of it because I read blogs anyway, I did learn a couple of things. One of these was how to link videos and power-points into the blog post so they show up using the HTML code. I had no idea of what they were or what they are used for until constructing my blog.

Survey Monkey - I used Survey Monkey to create questionnaires to collect information about my target audience. I haven't learnt anything specifically from it apart from how to navigate the site and that if a computer has already been used once to complete the survey, you can't reuse it which is helpful when trying to make sure different people take the survey but annoying when somebody tries to use the same computer as the other people who have filled it in.

Da Font - I used this to find the font for the masthead of SETLIST and I learnt how to download font's and get them to work in Photoshop although because I downloaded them at home, when using the font 'Femoralis' from this site it didn't show up as a font; only as image so it's lucky I'd already decided what I wanted to be my masthead.

Flickr - I uploaded photos to Flickr so I could make notes on them which means that someone reading my analysis of a picture can easily see which part of the image I'm referring too and because all the information comes up on the picture when you hover over it you don't have to scroll up and down the page to see what I said and whether it does apply to the image.

Slide Share - After creating a power-point, I uploaded it to Slide Share which meant I could use the HTML code to make the power-point show up on my blog which provided a change from just reading a blog post of text.

Youtube - I'd already had experience with Youtube because I watch videos on it regularly, however I hadn't uploaded anything before so I guess I learnt how to do that even though it was a fairly simple process.

However, there are advantages and disadvantages to using online software as I displayed in the picture below. 

As well as this online software I used programmes on the computer, such as:

Power-Point - I already had lots of experience with this because we used to use it a lot at high school, so I didn't learn much from it; it was very helpful because it enabled me to use Slide Share though.

Windows Live Movie Maker - Although I'd had a little experience of Windows Movie Maker so knew the basics, I found the layout of this different and a lot harder to work with because I wasn't used to it. It's good that I used this to create videos for media though because now I can use it. I found it very simplistic and basic because it was essentially cutting and pasting clips next to each other with the option of adding music to it, but it was the only editing programme I had access to.

Photoshop - This time round I was more prepared for using Photoshop because of the preliminary task carried out earlier in the term but I still learnt masses about how to use it to get the effects I could picture in my mind. I learnt how to use the spot healing tool and airbrush the pictures so the people in the band's had clearer skin, also I changed the colour of Zac's hair slightly to make it more vibrant. I think i've learnt a lot about aesthetics from Photoshop as it allowed me to see what a large difference to the finished product in general when I changed the tint of the photo's to make them slightly more blue-ish or how a whole page can look a whole lot more balanced and professional by adding a border around some text for example. Being able to do such close analysis of the photo's I took made me more aware of how camera angles and the positioning of people in a photo really does have a large effect on a finished product. A good example of this was the picture of Leave>Regroup lined up and where 3 of the 4 are close to eachother, Jordan on the end was is leaning away slightly and it ruined the photo because he looked less of a band member than the others.

Overall, I have learnt a great deal of techniques and how to use many technologies I haven't had a chance to use before and I think this information will be useful for me in future when I have to put together a project.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I recorded myself talking about my target audience, edited it on Windows Live Movie Maker and uploaded it to Youtube.

What kind of media institute might distribute your media product and why?

I recorded a video of me answering this question on my laptops webcam, edited it in Windows Live Movie Maker and uploaded it to Youtube.

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

A convention is a traditional way of laying out a magazine, for example the mast head is usually in the top left hand corner. Magazines generally follow conventions because it allows people to read the magazine without the extra effort of a change to the normal layout – magazines without a contents page on the inside of the cover for instance would probably be harder to navigate until you were used to the layout of that particular magazine. However, a change from the normal conventions can look interesting and appeal to those who think of themselves as ‘edgy’ which could be a clever marketing ploy in a society where music magazine sales are dominated by youths.

The title of my magazine: ‘SETLIST’ connotes that it is a music magazine and that it is for young people who enjoy going to gigs regularly. The font 'Femoralis' I used for the masthead and the effects I put on the text make it look like chiselled rock or metal which fits the overall style of the magazine in being unique and attention grabbing just like the target audience. ‘SETLIST’ was produced to fit into an alternative/indie rock genre and I drew inspiration from magazines such as NME and Kerrang especially; I think my magazine represents this genre through the use of band's mentioned and the appearance of the bands featured. I didn't use any props in my photographs of the band's - I did think about borrowing instruments for Leave>Regroup but I didn't know anyone who had drums I could use - so I left the focus entirely on the band members and I thought it turned out well. As all of the people I picked to be in the band are pretty much part of my target audience I didn't have to tell them what to wear as they know how alternative rock bands generally dress. I liked the idea of creating a magazine based around NME because it has such a good reputation, has a large young-adult audience and its house style is very well developed; however when I actually brought a copy, I found it a bit ‘grown up’ and not as fun as I’d like my magazine to appear. It could have just been the newspaper pages inside the glossy cover, but I found it lacked the attention grabbing look that Kerrang maintains all the way throughout. When I looked at a couple of issues of Kerrang, I found its contrasting colours, slightly off-kilter pictures & shapes and overall more ‘edgy’ feel appealed more to my personal taste and what I think my target audience would find appealing. However, I much preferred the way the articles inside NME were written, so I decided to use this style of writing on my double page spread. I think I used language suited to my audience such as swearing which is common in the age group I am targeting.


I used Flickr to make notes on how each page of Setlist follows or breaks conventions. Click on the images below to see these notes.

Overall, I think my magazine fits the Alternative/Indie Rock genre well and that it caters for my target audience with its house style. I think although there are lots of other music magazines already in the market, that Setlist would be able to flourish as a more mature alternative to Kerrang. Kerrang has been around for a long time and I think Setlist is a more up-to-date version of it, with a twist because it also caters for a more 'indie' audience too.