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.