Photoshop!

Today I learnt the basics of working with Adobe Photoshop, these were: adding a margin, inserting images and adding text. So far I have inserted a image, masthead, barcode and some cover lines. 

Case Study: DJ magazine.

Case Study.

DJ Mag is a popular magazine in dance and club music. DJ Mag readers are young, predominantly male and highly enthusiastic about DJ and club culture. They regularly spend a high proportion of their income on CDs and vinyl. They also invest heavily in the latest technology, from turntables to home/portable hi-fi to music-making gear. Almost all are regular club goers, willing to travel both nationally and internationally to explore the world’s most exciting clubs and bars.

The front cover of DJ magazine includes a featured artist (Magda). The front cover consists of an extreme close up of Magda, this is a very close shot showing the physical features of a person to make the viewer aware of some specific detail in her face. The lighting is focused on the artists face, the light focused on her face may represent the popularity of Magda in the dance music industry, attracting a large audience as the magazine features popular artists. Her outfit consists of many buckles and straps, representing Magda setting her own trend. Also her makeup is very bright and eye catching, this draws the reader to her eyes, making the reader feel as though they are part of the magazine. The font of the masthead is red with bold text used to entice the readers also the font connotes youth and liveliness because of its 'bubble writing' look. The magazine logo includes the magazine website, this states further information about the about the magazine and behind the scenes, this tells readers that the magazine has a lot more to offer. The particular main cover line relates to the backdrop of the magazine cover, because the font of the main cover line is lime green just like the eye shadow on Magda's eyes, showing that the image and the text link together due to it being colour matched. Also the magazine seems to give more; the magazine includes a free download card this gives the reader another reason to buy the magazine as they are getting more for less. Cover lines are also used as another reason for a reader to buy the magazine, there are 12 small cover lines on the front cover with explanatory text underneath, usually the explanatory text is in a different colour to the cover line but on this issue of DJ Mag it seems to be the same colour, this could be a way of the magazine trying to put the focus on Magda and her cover line. DJ Magazine seem to put the masthead in front of the model no matter what the shot type is, making it easier to establish the magazine, but also show that the magazine itself is more important than the featured artist.

There is only one page used for the contents page suggesting that the magazine summarised what they thought was the most popular and appealing articles. The contents page is split into 5 sections including: features, comin' up, on the floor, music and tech. putting your articles in sections makes it easier more readers to navigate. The contents page has been organised into 2 columns making it easier to identify section names and articles. Also the featured articles have been put into lime green text boxes this carries on the colour scheme from the front cover making the reader feel as if the magazine is organised well but also it makes the sections stand out and it splits the articles up so they are not confusing to find. On the far right of the page, there is a column filled with an arrangement of pictures, with the respective page number displayed in one of the corners of the image. There is also a masthead at the top of the page saying ‘Contents’, as well as a small credit in the bottom left corner ‘Cover Pic: Dan Reid’, which is big enough to be legible but not obscure the image of DJ gear that it overlaps with. The masthead ‘contents’ doesn’t seem to stand out from the background as the width of the font is small and the font colour is grey suggesting that the magazine is trying to draw the reader’s attention to the cover lines which are bright and colourful because they include text boxes.

The double page spread is split into two sections, one page is full of text and the other is a medium close up of the featured artist. Using a medium close up helped the readers to get a close look at the model so much so it created some intensity between the reader and the model because they could establish his mood because of his facial expression. The lighting on the left hand side of the model is very dull, readers can only see one side of his face because of this creating an element of suspense and mystery. The font of the masthead and rest of the article is very simple yet modern, making the article look more attractive and ‘clean’ because of its simplicity. The article is split into 3 columns, with bold text used only for the questions as it is an interview article. Putting the questions in bold text makes it easier for the reader to establish the questions from the answer and to make it easier to see what questions interest them. The answers within the article are written in 1^st person as it is reported speech of the artist featured. The artist is wearing a black t-shirt which is quite boring and dull, however behind the artist there is a bright lime green pattern which has connotations of youth, refreshing and envy. 

Case Study: Mixmag.

Case Study: Mixmag.

Mixmag is a popular magazine in dance and club music. The median age of a Mixmag reader is 26 - 72% male, 28% female and they tend to be urban and single. They have a high disposable income and a high propensity to spend it on: nights out, clothes, tunes, the latest mobile and MP3 player. Nearly 80% do not read another music magazine and they spend little time watching TV, especially at weekends. Development Hill publishes Mixmag . They are an individual publishing company from London, Mixmag is the only magazine they publish but they offer it across a wide range of media platforms to attract a wider audience and bring in as much money as possible from this one magazine. 
  

The front cover of Mixmag includes a image of a featured artist inside the magazine. The shot type of the artist 'Tiga' is a medium shot, this shows half of the body. This is when the shot is taken from above the head to just below the waist, this allows the audience to get to know the artist more closely by viewing their facial expressions and body language. The colours used on the front cover help attract its audience, this is because bright colours such as pink and blue are normally worn when going clubbing, therefore the colour scheme throughout the magazine and front cover matches the genre of music the magazine is aimed at (dance and club music). The lighting on Tiga's face is very dull as the hat he is wearing creates a shadow onto his eyes, this signifies an element of 'mystery' and makes the reader want to buy the magazine as they want to find out more. The baseball jacket Tiga is wearing looks as though it is silk, silk is a very expensive material therefore this must mean that Tiga has a lot of pride in his appearance just like the typical audience for the magazine, in addition to this baseball jackets are trending in fashion, this concludes Tiga keeps up with fashion trends as well as good quality clothing. Mixmag includes a list of other popular artists featured within the magazine, ensuring readers that they have their moneys worth of content inside, this signifies to the reader that the magazine has taken its time to carefully select important artists of the specific genre. The cover line 'PLUS' on the front of Mixmag shows that the magazine has more to offer. The font of the masthead is always the same however the colour varies according to its background, this makes it easy for a loyal audience to identify the magazine, but also it allows new readers to identify the name as the font is very simple. The sky line is used to promote the magazine as being 'the worlds biggest dance & club culture magazine'. The font of the skyline is very simplistic and white making it stand out well against the teal background. In addition to font, the baseball jacket Tiga is wearing is light pink which matches the font colour of all the cover lines and masthead, making the image and text coordinate nicely as its easily matched together. 

The format of the contents page is very clear as its has been split up into 5 sections (cue, features, fashion, tunes and directory) this makes is easy for the reader to navigate through the magazine, this is suitable for the target audience as adults do not like wasting time. "Contents" is clearly placed at the top of the page informing the reader that this is what the page is for, if it wasn't there it would be hard to tell that it is a contents page since contents page's are normally one page. Also the font used is bold and white and is written in a font similar to one that is used to promote night clubs on leaflets etc. This is an example of comparison and link of the genre of the magazine. Multiple sub images are used on the contents page to help make navigating easier as a reader. Each picture contains a page number with it as the picture represents an article in the magazine, the pictures include a famous musician or subject such as a girl clubbing or a wide shot of a concert audience making it easy for the reader to establish this. The images used are very bright against the black background making the reader notice the imaged articles rather then the sections provided. The contents page of Mixmag is a double page spread with columns ascending on either side, it is aligned in columns, making it easier for readers to locate content within. This could also signify that readers of Dance magazines are very organised and structured just like the layout of the magazine. Lastly there is a main colour scheme of black and white, this makes the magazine look more simple and music focused. The front cover mentions 'club culture, and the contents page reflects that since clubs are very dark just like the background of the contents page.  

The double page spread of a featured article I have chosen is called 'four play' and is about Gui Borrato's forth album. The article has been structured like a story as it talks about his first album right up until his most recent and he is addressed in 3rd person throughout. The heading is 'four play' and it is a play-on-word by using 'four' instead of 'fore' this creates a sense of humour as it has an ambiguous meaning. The layout in comparison to the image is that the text is very small and insignificant. This could tell us that the main focus is the artist rather than what he has to say since. as he dominates half of the double page spread. The article is laid out into three columns which are placed in the middle of one page this looks very simple but yet effective because no one has time to read a long article especially adults that work. The colour scheme of the article is mainly electric blue, neon blue and pale yellow this has connotations of technology and evolution since colours like these are used mostly for things such as technology, ensuring the reader that the article is new and up to date just like technology. The image used of Gui Borrato is a close up, this is a shot taken of a person’s head from just above the head to the top of the upper chest, this allows the artist to show emotions and to heighten tension. From analysing the article I have noticed that there is no pull out quotes suggesting that nothing in the article would really draw a reader in.

Mini Case Study.

Today I created a mini case study on a college magazine in preparation for my preliminary task where i have to create my own college magazine from scratch.

Contents Page Analysis.

Production Schedule!

Music Piracy Article Evaluation.

Music Piracy Article Evaluation. 

In AS Media studies so far I have learnt about music piracy, I have learnt about piracy through class discussions, debates and also my own research online. As a consequence of learning this I had a task to create a article on 'the changing face of the music industry' due to piracy.  

To create my article I had to do my own research, to make guidelines about what was going to be written, as well as what celebrities/artists I was going to feature. I used articles about music piracy for inspiration about what I should include, from newspapers and sites like The Guardian and CNET. The guardian gave me an idea on how I was going to write my article and CNET gave me quotes on how artists like 50 cent and Nikki Minaj feel about piracy. I thought Nikki Minaj and 50 cent would be most suitable for my article as they are both world wide superstars due to their music and in the charts for the most pirated, with this in mind both artists had very conflicting views on piracy which I though would make me article very interesting and leave the audience with no guidance on which artist to follow as they are both very influential people, making the audience have to make up their own mind on how they feel about music piracy. Most of the sites where I had done my research were from the US and dated from years before 2014, however I didn't see this as an issue because my article was aimed to be in a world wide magazine and both artists I used in my article are very popular in the UK. I included some information that I had learnt in class; most of these were points used in our class debate about "piracy is destroying the music industry" I found the debate helpful as it gave me loads of things to write about in my for and against argument about piracy included in my article. I believe that my strength in research skills is; that I included only information that was relevant to my article, and something I would do to improve is; include artists from two different genres, to show that I have thought about the whole music industry rather than one genre. 

To start writing my article, I had to think about my audience and type of magazine I wanted my article to feature in. The type of magazine I wanted my article to feature in was Cosmopolitan magazine as it fitted my audiences demographic profile; which was women and men aged 16-34 who had an interest in fashion, music and trends. I chose this target audience as I thought that these aged people would also have a keen interest in music, as music and fashion often play hand in hand as many artists often feature in fashion magazines. Next I had to think about the language and tone I was going to write in. I aimed to write in a way that made the reader feel as though they were part of the article for example: using rhetorical questions etc. However I ended up writing in a more informative language which included lots of sources and statistics. For example my opening sentence included, "Every year £200 million is lost due to music piracy." This shows that I introduced piracy in a serious tone as I started off with a statistic rather than a definition. In addition to language I wrote my article in 3rd person however, all my research information e.g quotes are all in 1st person. I think writing in 3rd person worked well as the article wasn't biased on one persons view and instead it allowed my to argue both sides of the argument. Also I believe I wrote my article in mostly Latin lexis as I used lots of longer, complicated words to make my article sound more educated and knowledgeable to fit the audience of my magazine. One thing I think I am good at when it comes to journalism is knowing how to change the language, lexis and tone to fit the type of magazine your article will be featured in, with this in mind one thing I would improve on is learning how to write in first person. 

I used Adobe InDesign to put all my work together to create the final piece. I used Microsoft word to type up my article as it corrects any spelling and grammar mistakes whereas InDesign doesn’t. Then I copied and pasted my article into my template text boxes which I created using InDesign. I found selecting objects such as pictures and columns easy to adjust as the selection tool is always visible in a toolbar on the left of the screen and also changing the size of the heading was easy as the size option was in a similar place to what Microsoft word is. On the other hand I found changing the colour of the text tricky because I didn't realise that there was a colour option on the top toolbar and instead I was using a tool which allowed me to pick a colour from a 360 degree colour option. In addition to this I found picking a font hard as there was hundreds to choose from, but to resolve this I looked up articles by Cosmopolitan magazine and I looked at the type of font they used which was very simple and easy to read. From using InDesign I have learnt how to create a professional looking article and also how easy it is to export your work as a JPEG. One thing I would do to improve next time is making my text box containing my picture caption bigger so it doesn’t include any hyphens. 

Lastly I uploaded my article to my AS Media studies blog. I found this hard because I had no experience of using blog or even uploading a new post including an image. However it was very straight forward, the 'new post' option was at the top of the page making it easy to identify and the add image logo was again at the top toolbar of the page. Despite finding it easy to upload my article to blog I struggled to write anything to go with it so I left it blank and just titled my post. After uploading my article to my blog I was paired up with one of my peers and we had to give each other feedback on our articles this included language, layout , font etc. I found this useful as it allowed me to understand different magazines genres that their articles were aimed at, and how it affects the language and style their article are written in. Also having audience feedback made me recognize my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to creating an article. Four targets I would give myself next time is to acknowledge a broader audience when it comes to sourcing information, writing in different styles e.g 1st person and maybe using a more simple lexis e.g: old English, also review my work before submitting it as I noticed the hyphen in my article after I posted it on my blog and lastly choose a better colour font so my article is easier to read.

My finished article on music piracy.

My unfinished music piracy article.

First post!

Welcome to my media blog.