Music Magazine: Real-Life Representations

(Contents Page Representation)

(Double Page Spread Representation)

The prime reason for me creating these lifelike representation is to interpret wether the designs I created were suitable for use within a magazine. Through observation, I have found that the designs were quite suitable. These were created using the perspective/distortion manipulation tools within Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Psychographics: 101

In lesson, we briefly touched upon the subject of Psycho-graphics. These are the qualitative data in which define a person's aim's and goals in life as well as their motivation and reason for consumption of a product.


Firstly we talked about the seven types of Psycho-graphic in which a person can possess:
-The Aspirer: materialistic care a lot about their appearance driven by others 
-The Struggle
-The Reformer
-The Mainstream
-The Succeeder
-The Explorer


I then decided which one best fit in with my audience. as i am talking about more underground artists i wanted to market it to The Aspirer  because i want people to read this and think 'i can do that' or 'that could be me in a few years' so not only are they ending this magazine for the entertainment purposes so  my magazine. However i thought that some aspects of The Struggler would fit into it as well because it then got me thinking about wether we all just fit into one and looking at it i can see aspects of myself in more then one.

Market Research: Questionnaire Results

Results: 8 Male 9 Female

Cultivation Theory & Adorno: Culture Industry

Cultivation Theory & Adorno: Culture Industry

Cultivation Theory is a social theory which looks at the social effects of television on American audiences of all ages. This theory was by professor George Gerbner & Larry Gross, as it derived from there large researching projects which they conducted, entirely down to their main research entitled ' Cultural Indication'. This theory basically suggest that over time if one is exposed to too much television, over a period of time subtly cultivates viewers perception of reality. As they both criticize television, stating it's a medium of the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviors. This theory is a great theory to try and use when producing my magazine. Despite the fact that this theory mainly applies to television, since media is becoming one of the most powerful tools in this world, it's possible to portray that theory in my music magazine. Since my magazine is going to be a hip-hop/rap mag, typically one associate this genre negatively as a high amount of crimes has been linked, such as robbery murder, rape etc. However since I'm trying to produce a positive magazine I'm going to produce positive artists in my magazine. Not cover in iced out jewelry or a bunch of girls but just a rapper who has that star feeling towards him or her. This can help my target audience strive to achieve success in whatever they do, deeply inspired by my rapper.

Planning process: Adobe InDesign CS3 101.

As apart of the course I am partaking in, I was required to gain a substantial amount of knowledge on the program 'Adobe InDesign CS3'. 

We've been told that this program is used by major publishing firms as apposed to the manual labour required to produce the same quality of work in photo manipulation programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Although I was not in my comfort zone whilst utilizing this program, I believe I made a substantial amount of progress. Below is the first piece of work I have produced using InDesign.

(A Template for a contents page)

Market Research #1 : Questionnaire

I have produced a questionnaire as a form of Market research. The purpose of this questionnaire is to gather a greater understanding demographically and psycho-graphically about the target audience of my product. A screenshot of the questionnaire can be viewed below.

Throwback Thursday: Front Page Textual Analysis

Here is a Textual Analysis of an issue of NME's front cover.

Language Analysis: Ray J Article

The 'BlackBeat' magazine featured an article about the RnB sensation known as Ray J. The linguistic techniques featured within this article convey a variety of codes and conventions.


The first paragraph begins with a brief description of the actions being displayed by the RnB singer during an interview. 'Ray J fidgets, a lot. He's not outwardly nervous or apprehensive'. This successfully gives the reader a sense of personal relationship with the artist being discussed. This is also emphasised with the mass amount of times that the artist claims he works under the wing of God. I.E: 'I just let God take care of the rest'. By doing this, he is successfully fulfilling the interest levels of a Christianity orientated audience. Another convention in which this fulfils is the personal identity convention. By creating a mutual interest and belief between the artist and reader, this successfully creates a method of relation between the artist and reader.


We can also notice that there is a high amount of factual based information such as amounts of album sales, future events in which will take place for the artist and recent happenings in the artist's life. This exemplifies the writer fulfilling the convention of surveillance by giving them information on 'what's going on' with the artist.


In summary, from the general knowledge I possess on the artist, the dialect being spoken and the magazine the article is featured in, we can gather that the audience for this article would be demographically described as aged 16-35 of the african or caribbean ethnicity.

Research: Use of Language in Music Press.

Colloquialism: the use of informal everyday language Examples include: 'nuff said, init, ain't, coz, kool'


Informal/Slang: Wicked! the newz.


Metaphor: Describing something as something else. Examples include swag, Treasure chest. The effect of which associates those qualities with what you are describing.


Adjective: Describing a noun, wicked band, awesome gig.


Adverb: Describing a doing action (Verb), music playing loudly, audience roared excitedly.


Pun: Play on words - joke Tatt's all folks (Article about tattoo's)


Fact: How many fans there are, record sales, forthcoming releases.


Opinion: The atmosphere was electrifying, four stars out of five.

Throwback Thursday: Masthead Ideas (School Magazine)

Idea 1

This idea was the first of many attempts of creating a school magazine Masthead. The predominant reason in which I did not use this idea was because the general vibe in which was emitted from this Masthead was not very school orientated. This was due to it's vibrant colors, it's sound wave manipulated text and it's color inconsistency. 

Idea 2

This was the second attempt at creating a school magazine masthead. This idea was instantly denied due to it's lack of complexity in which I find to be an attractive cosmetic value, it's integration of the microphone in which has connotations of music which the magazine's purpose is not and it's general straightforward design.

School Magazine: Contents Page

The Contents Page!

Above is the contents page for the preliminary task in which I was assigned which entailed that a school magazine had to be created. Evidently, I have faded  the front cover on both pages of the double page spread to act as a background. By doing this, the 'vibe' in which was created on the front cover has been carried out to create a consistency throughout the magazine.

Task: Music Magazine Front Cover!

Here's the front cover!

 

Above is the cover for my coursework piece. The Music Magazine. I have chosen the name 'FREQ' in which is an abbreviation for the word 'Frequency' which in music terms is the measurement of sound input and output wise. The word 'FREQ' could also be interpreted as 'FREAK' in the way in which it is pronounced. The significance of this is that people in whom listen to underground HipHop music could easily be classed as outcast's in which the word 'FREAK' has a connotation of.

Front Page Analysis.

As part of my course, I was required to do the preliminary task of designing a magazine front cover orientated by events in which occur within the Acland Burghley school. Here's how I got on with that.

I then was given the task of analyzing it depicting the uses and gratifications and key conventions. Here's how I got on with that.

In depth analysis of other Blogs.

Masthead Research

Above is the research in which I conducted in order to gather a greater understand of the masthead's used within the music press/industry. I studied 8 different masthead's of my choice in which were all derived from sites in which I visit on a regular basis.

The Music I Like..

Above is a taster of the genre of music i'm predominantly into. GRIME and RAP music. This flash based MP3 player was created with the facilities provided over at http://www.flashwidgetz.com.

Magazine content analysis: #1

The magazine I have analyzed is the indie/rock magazine of 'NME'. Presented to you above is a pie chart depicting the percentage of advertisement's and what they are selling/promoting, and the generic magazine features. The categories in which I have deciphered from brief analysis are 'Mobile Phone Advertisements', 'Music Related Advertisements', 'Event Related Advertisements' and 'Magazine Features'.

Target Audience

From my interpretation, I believe that the target audience of this magazine would demographically be A Male, aged 16-35 in whom would most probably be of a white background and of middle class heritage. Psychographically, the categories in which the target audience of this magazine would fall under would potentially be 'semi- and unskilled manual workers (Social grade D)', 'skilled manual workers (Social grade C2)' and possibly 'supervisory, clerical, junior administrative or professional (Social grade C1)'. The reason in which I believe this is solely due to the advertisements present within the magazine and the general feel of the genre of music being reviewed/promoted. The advertisements as I described within the first paragraph do not contain anything in which could be classed as being aimed potentially at the 'bourgois' or simply those in whom could be described as being of a 'higher class'. 

My NEW background.

 

 I Innovatively thought to myself 'Wouldn't it be more proffesional to have a background designed solely by myself?', so that's what I did! It's a temporary simple background in which I have instated in order to test the reaction via Blogger in terms of quality, distortion and to determine the size in pixels in which Blogger prefers for it's backgrounds. All I did was write the URL of the blog on either side of the background and put faded pictures of myself, the blogger. The fact that the images are faded emphasizes that the background is indeed, a background and not the main image in which should be gazed upon. Here is the photoshop evidence of this creation.
 

 

The NEW layout!

XPRT Revamped.

I Got kinda bored with the old layout, so I thought I might aswell give the blog a new, sleeker and proffesional look. The image used was taken with a camera in which belonged to me. The font used in order to design the logo was called 'Gill Sans MT Ext'. As you can see, the program in which was used to create this banner was 'Adobe Photoshop CS3'. I Also took the liberty of changing the colour scheme of the whole blog in order to match that of the banner. I Have now given it a predominantly black, white and red scheme. The background in which I have selected is a default background within blogger's selection of background's. Here's how the blog looks as of today.

The first draft: Magazine cover!

Our Magazine Draft!

Here's a short video diary of our first crack at a magazine cover. Not our best work but hey, it's just a draft. The title is 'VOICE' in which has connotations of free speech in favour of the people reading. The hypothesis of the magazine is to an extent to steer it's target audience of pupils away from the 'dull' life of education and add some 'spice' into their educational lives with interesting updates on social events, interesting occurances within the school, and other things in which may be occuring within the general area in which they are based.

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We want you! Submit your music!

Submit your OWN music!

In an attempt to create a better relationship between blogger and reader, i've added and finished the 'Submit Your Music' page where aspiring artists can submit their music for feedback and possible collaboration with the XPRT/Theorem Records team. I've utillized the music sharing site 'Soundcloud's' 'Dropbox' feature in which enables people to upload their music to be sent directly to the owner of the soundcloud page, in which in this case would be me. I've also added my personal email address and the email address of the blog and record label. All music sent in will have a chance to be shared on the blog which will potentially be a major promotional oppurtunity for the musician in whom has sent the music in.

My Recent Updates!

Navigation Bar!

 

 Using bloggers amazing embedded tools, i've been able to create a sleek yet efficient navigation bar which will enable my readers to access the other pages of the site with ease. On this bar includes 'The Team' in which will include mini-bio's of each of my Music team in whom will have their music posted on the site. 'My Music' which will solely display music of my own creation, 'Submit Your Music' which will allow other musicians to submit their own music for listening and possible posting on the blog, 'Contact Us' which will allow the bloggers to email us with suggestions or requests for what they want posted onto the blog, and finally, 'Our Partners' which will be used to advertise sites in which blog similar topics to us and that we simply like.

Twitter/Facebook Widget!

I've added the two leading social networks on the planet to this site in the form of 'widgets' in which are essentially compact forms of the site or just a feature of the site in which can be embedded wherever you feel nessecary. I have linked these widgets to my Twitter in which I purely tweet music related matters, and my team's facebook fan page. I believe by adding these widgets and utilizing other social networking sites, this will increase my sites traffic and will potentially fulfil the hypothesis of this project which is to create a 'successful' blog.

Stay tuned for more updates!

A banner? Already?

A BANNER!

 

You may notice the simplistic styled banner at the top of my page. Like the eager little beaver that I am, I thought ahead and designed this in my spare time just to be ahead of my class. This may or may not be the final banner, it's just to give an idea of the look i'm going for for this blog. As you can clearly see, I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 as my utencil for the production of this banner. The font I used is called 'Bank Gothic MD BT' in which I obtained from http://www.dafont.com. If you look closely, you may notice a faded image of me, the bloggers face. I thought it'd be a good idea to give my readers a preview into the appearance of whom they will be reading the thoughts and opinions of.

Hello world.

Who am I?

Hey there, my name is Jordan Bernard and I am currently undergoing an AS level Media Studies course. I am based in Acland Burghley in the London borough of Camden. 

What's the purpose of this Blog?

For the course I am required to design a new music magazine, which targets the following audience: A teen audience between 12 and 15 years or An older teens audience between the  ages of 16-19. Aimed at a UK magazine audience. The magazine is to be sold on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. I have interpreted that I will be using this blog to depict my progression and the stages of production throughout the course.

My knowledge on blogging?

As an experienced blogger, I was fortunate enough to possess knowledge on web logging prior to my first lesson with the first Media Studies AS lesson. Although, I was fortunate enough to learn a skill in which will enable me to enhance the compelling factor of my blog. This skill was embedding a twitter widget to the side of the blog which potentially enables the reader to feel that they have a stronger relationship with the blogger. With this new found skill, I believe I will be able to create a stunning and informative blog  which will if all goes to plan, be of professional standards.