MY FINAL PRODUCTS

MY FINAL PRODUCTS

These are my final products.

Note: the blue frames around the images are not part of them.

FRONT COVER

CONTENTS PAGE

  

DOUBLE SPREAD PAGE

EVALUATION QUESTION n.1

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

FRONT COVER

Here is a real front cover from a real Rap Magazine (XXL) in comparison with mine.

This is my  front cover:

                                           

MASTHEAD

My masthead is very similar to the one I got inspiration from and the ones on other magazines which follow the same genre.  As we can see, I used the same colors of XXL's masthead trying to be as conventional as possible, the font is pretty the same as well. I've also placed my masthead at the top-left hand-side, as it is a convention for many magazines of any genre in relation with the front cover.I have also add a black stroke, which makes the masthead more noticeable and readable, although there's the main image which covers a good part of it. I wanted to add an issue' number too, as in many front covers it was present. Finally, in additional to all these factors, I've added the "r" which is present in XXL's masthead too, but also because it gives something special to the masthead.

SKYLINE

As it's possible to find them on most front covers, I've also added a skyline to give to my magazine a factor which may easily catch readers attention and which gives to my magazine a professional element. In fact, a phrase like this is very conventional and is very useful to attract potential readers.

MAIN FEATURE STORY

My main feature story is very conventional as well: as on many front covers, the main feature story is written with a bigger font than the secondary stories. This is to attract readers' attention to the main story, which will lead them to buy the magazine. As we can see, I've also used a very common font, which represents very well the genre that I've chosen. I've also added a stamp, this underlines the main story and its relevance. Another factor that reinforces its importance is the bigger font that I used for the name of the rapper, in fact it is a bit bigger than the rest of the phrase ("speaks out").

MAIN IMAGE

My main image is very conventional as it represents the main object in a position used many times by several rap magazines. It also represents very well the genre I've chosen by the props used (Mise-en-scene): as we can see there are the hat, a typical object that many rappers wear, as well as the t-shirt and the sweater, and then there's the music player which reminds us the music genre, and the music world in general. Another factor which makes it very conventional is the white stroke that I used to make it more conventional and more evident, to give it a greater importance.

  SECONDARY FEATURES STORIES

I used many secondary stories on my front cover, following the convention of rap magazines. As we can see, there are many popular rappers' names, this helps the readers identifying the type of magazine and the music genre. In additional to this, I've added also two music events, or concerts, this reinforces the genre that my magazine represents.

COLOUR SCHEME

The colour scheme is a very important element for any magazine. The conventional colour scheme of rap magazines is a mix of cool and warm colours, as blue, black, red and white, and as we can see I used all these colours giving and reinforcing the idea of a rap magazine.

PRICE/DATE & BAR CODE

As most of all magazine, even not rap magazines, mine as well has these elements. They are very important as they allow the readers to know what the price and what the issue' number are. The bar code is very important too, by allowing the magazine to be scanned and to be registered by the magazine house, it helps know  the actual sales of the magazine and so the revenue made by selling them.

PLUGS  

A convention of rap magazines is to have plugs which introduce promotions of the magazine, as sales promotions, or social media contacts, or subscription deals, used to attract its target audience and try to maximize their sales revenue by offering deals, or free gifts. In my case I've chosen a free contest, giving away a suit case, a t-shirt or a hat, as I found out through the use of Monkey Survey, the brands (Vans and Nike) are the most appreciated from my target audience (15-35 year-old male people).

   
CONTENTS PAGE

Here is a real contents page from a real Rap Magazine (Vibe) in comparison with mine.

This is my contents page:

MASTHEAD

My masthead is a very conventional one, as we can see from the comparison I tried to be as much conventional as possible, this similitude reinforces the idea of rap magazine. As on the contents page of Vibe I placed it at the top-right hand-side. It underlines the importance of the main image and so of the main feature story. I've written the masthead with a black stroke, it reinforces the relevance of the masthead, and underlines the contrast with its white overlay, which makes it more noticeable and readable.

  

ICONIC "B"  

Large "B" represents the Boss Magazine and is important as it is a form of iconography for the music magazine, and so it is very conventional as well. It has been outlined with black stroke. It reminds to the Magazine logo.

  MAIN FEATURE STORY & DESCRIPTION

A very conventional element is the main feature story. On many contents pages, we can see it a bit distant from the secondary feature stories part. This distance helps attract readers' attention and makes them more interested in reading the magazine. As we can see the name of the article is written in red and with a black stroke, it underlines its importance and make us understand that it is more important than the other feature stories, since they are written in white. A short description is also represented and we can say it is very conventional as well, as on many magazines we can find it, it gives a short piece of the main article trying to attract the target audience, which is normally made by 15-35 year old male people, to read it. Another element very conventional is the page number, it is useful to make the readers know where they can find the main article.

MAIN IMAGE & DESCRIPTION

As on all Vibe's contents pages, on mine as well, the main object is represented in the foreground to underline its importance and relevance in relation to the main magazine story. We can also say that it is very conventional as there are props (mise-en-scene) which are related to the music world, we can see the hat, the music player, and the casual clothing which are very used from rappers. In order to make it more relevant and to create a sense of 3-D, I've added a white stroke, which is in contrast with the cool colour of blue of the background, and a shadow, which gives this effect. I've added the description of the photo too, to give a more realistic image of my contents page. All these elements make it very conventional.

                                                 

SECONDARY FEATURE STORIES & DESCRIPTIONS

Here I used a very conventional way for representing these secondary stories, which even if secondary are very important to make a magazine a wide-ranged magazine. A feature list might seem very simple and for this not very nice for a professional magazine as Vibe, but I think that sometimes simplicity is the best way to look the best compared to others: it gives space to the main story to be represented on the page, but on the other hand the position gives to this list more relevance even if it's made by secondary articles.The short description, present for each article, gives the readers those few information about them which may likely get their attention and so make them leafing the magazine. Finally, I used two different fonts to separate the real article from the titles (Features and Events), it is a very conventional way to do it, as we can see also on Vibe's contents page.

PAGE NUMBER & BOSS MASTHEAD

For the page number I used a very common manner to do it: placing next to the number (in this case is 8, which means that this page is located after seven other pages, which might be adverts or something else), the Boss Masthead. It helps make the magazine more professional and realistic and well designed, with care for details, this is important for readers, they want to read an accurate magazine, and even this small detail counts.

DOUBLE SPREAD PAGE

Here is a real double spread page from a real Rap Magazine (Q) compared with mine.

This is my double spread page:

All the technical elements on my double spread page are pretty much the same as the ones used for the front cover and contents page. I've just wanted to balance my colour scheme used on the other two pages, by using both red and blue, white and black. This makes the readers understand the line which connects all these three pages and the main article. The capital "S" is also a very conventional elements, as we can see from Q's d.s.p., it is used to attract readers' attention and make them start reading the article. Its colour is related to the scheme colour. The main image follows the editing that many magazines use to make it more interesting to the readers. What I've done is that I have put the masthead and the main image together, in order to underline their importance. I have chosen to highlight the relevance of the masthead by stroking it with a black stoke, it defines better its meaning. My masthead is a pull quote, seeing artist's quotes makes the reader more interested at reading the article, because it makes him feel like it's the rapper (or any other artist) who is talking. Here is the link that shows how to do the effect that I used for my Double Spread Page image (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj_iwNgv8aQ).

EVALUATION QUESTION n.2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
 

         At the very beginning of this course work, we have done a research using the website called Survey Monkey. Its purpose was to identify the eventual target audience of our products and understand consumers's behaviors and tastes. Here are the answers to my questionnaire, they help define my target audience and social groups.

  

REAL RAPPERS
As we can get from these two questions, the target audience would be 50% made by males and 50% made by females, also we can say that the readers would be between 14 and 24 year-old. This two data gives us much information: from this we can understand how to set the magazine, which adverts would be more appreciated and which not, as well as for the articles, who the singers and the artists that these people follow the most. The gender instead can tell us what gender the singers should be for my readers, in my case they should be both males and females.

Here we have many of the most famous rappers: Eminem, Ludacris, Nicky Minaj, Iggy Azalea, 50 Cent Dr. Dre and others. As we can see and tell the majority of them is black, this is a very important factor to identify my target audience and the social groups it is made of.

EMINEM

I got the idea of my main images and main feature stories from real artists that I used to make my research on rap genre. In my case I've chosen to use as artist who represents the main feature story on my front cover, contents page and double spread page on Eminem, as he was the most appreciated and known artist in my Survey-Monkey questions, as you can see from these screenshot:

   

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Rap is not a very happy genre, reflecting much my target audience as they are young but not so much and facing new difficulties. I have created this idea by not smiling, but making always a serious expression. Here are my photos used on my three products compared with other three photos used on real magazines:

DRESS CODE USED

Another important element which represents particular social groups is their clothing. Most of them in the images are wearing black clothes, this justifies why I chose the colours black, grey, blue and white for my images. These dress codes reflect so much my target audience as they wear simple clothes which suited the genre of rap and its followers. These colours represent my genre because they have connotations of the difficulties which many rappers had to overcome during their youth, likely the same difficulties that my target audience has to overcome.

Here are some examples of rappers's typical dress code:

Here are some examples of rappers's typical accessorizes:

This is the draft image compared with my final front cover images (we can see the very similar dress code):

Here you can see my target audience's favourite clothes brand (Vans). All the clothes that I've chosen to use for images were very similar to the Vans's style:

                                         

                                

EVALUATION QUESTION n.3

What kind of media institution might distribute

your media product and why?

 Here is my presentation about which media institution might distribute my magazine and why made with Google Slides (link is just for further 
editing https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CqO8-oxCDUdF0ZN5Tx2bIW8BA5FaWxXQi-XsPMXO6Pc/edit#slide=id.gc6f972163_0_19)

ONLINE EDITION

I've also seen that other students decided to make their magazine in an online edition too. So I thought it would have been nice to show how it would appear on devices, such as computers, tablet and smartphones. This would allow my magazine reach a wider range of audience as the majority of people has a smartphone, or any other device. It would enable readers to have a quicker look at the magazine as well, improving their experience. It would not be free as there would not be any adverts. Here some examples of how it would look like:

EVALUATION QUESTION n.4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

In order to find out which our target audiences would have been we have used the website called Survey Monkey. The followings are the results that I obtained from my questionnaire about which kind of people would buy and read my magazine. To receive a reasonable number of answers I asked mainly to my closest friends to answers, and I reached 24 answers in total, which obviously is not a significant sample for real publishers, but it is for me just to give the idea of which groups of people would read my product. Most of the people who answered were teenagers and a bit older. This is why I found that my target audience would be around 16 to 25 years old people. Another important data obtained with these questions shows that the target audience would be exactly 50% made by male and 50% made by female, however, consulting other real rap magazines which are mainly read by male, I decided to orientate my magazine to a male audience, as it would reflect more the standard audiences for rap magazines. In addition, having a look at many magazines I could notice that all of them have on the front cover a male model, this is why I decided to use a male for all my products (myself). Here is the link for the entire questionnaire:(https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/B87JZV8).

Here are the main questions and their results:

EVALUATION QUESTION n.5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Here is  my presentation about how I attracted my target audience made with Prezi (link is just for further editing

 https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bOblPGbvIxyLR5wfZLPLln2D8FRotIreKRLcM   hYJjAo/edit#slide=id.p):

                  

Here, instead, is a Survey-monkey questionnaire that I have made after finished my three products, you can find the answers as well:

                  

From these answers we can say I have been good at attracting my target audience, as the majority of the answers is positive.

EVALUATION QUESTION n.6

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

This is my presentation about things that I have learnt making my products made with Prezi. I included the programs that I used the most, as Photoshop, Blogger, Survey Monkey and others (link is just for further editing https://prezi.com/dtyuaodmslgx/photoshop/#):

         

Here is also my very first presentation made with Prezi at the beginning of the year. It was about different kinds of genre. I have learnt a lot since this presentation:

            

These are the programs and websites that I used to make my products:

• Prezi
• Google Slides
• Survey Monkey
• Blogger
• Photoshop
• Publisher
• Google

These are the hardware that I used to make all my products:

• Viglen Computer (Intel Core i5; Windows 7)
• Hanns-G Desktop
• Viglen Mouse
• Viglen Keyboard 
• Nikon D4000
• Meizu MX4 Smartphone

CAMERAS USED

  

SCREENSHOTS FROM PHOTOSHOP
 
FRONT COVER

These screenshots show how I improved the image in the front cover, adding a drop shadow and a white stroke, which give the image modernity and deepness.

CONTENTS PAGE

These screenshots show how I improved the effect of the main image in the contents page, creating a white stroke, which makes the photo more adapt to a young audience and a bright effect using only a brush tool, low level of opacity.

DOUBLE SPREAD PAGE

These screenshots show ho I improved my image in my double spread page, following the scheme colour used for the other pages, in fact initially I used the black as main colour for this page, then I realized that it was not very related to the other colours used.

EVALUATION QUESTION n.7

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

Here is my presentation of how I am improved and what I have learnt in the progression of my products:

Here is my preliminary task compared to the final one:
  

 

  
Here, instead, are my first products compared with the final works:

FRONT COVER

 

CONTENTS PAGE

 

DOUBLE SPREAD PAGE

 

Finally I have to say that I am very satisfied with my works, I think they cover many conventions, which was one the most important point from the guide lines that we had to include. In addition, I am very impressed from myself, as I would never thought I could improve so much, it is the prove that         with training everything gets easier.