Link to As Media Evaluation Salim Jeylani Saeed

http://www.slideshare.net/swaleh1234/as-media-studiessalimjeylanisaeed1-35699665

font choice

Final Front Cover

this is my final front cover after improvements made from the comments from students and teachers on my placemeant of certain words focusing more on the lay out

content page research

      

The background colours on the contents page with the picture of another rap artist on has a dark red coloured background, this may be to represent where about in California he is from, this is because of the gang population and the colours they use to represent it. Many rap artist belong or were in gang’s at some point in there life, the use of this back ground colour may just reiterate that. He is looking directly at the audience; this is direct mode of address. His facial expression and the way he is holding up his chains shows his arrogance, power and how much money he has. His facial expression makes him look almost angry but again he is only showing off his money and being arrogant about it by putting his “Grillz” on show. Again much like nearly every contents page in vibe magazine’s it has a stacked lay out and is in a completely contrasting colour to the background so its easy for the audience to read. Again there is a “V” in a slightly darker shade of red to remind the audience about what the magazine they’re reading is called. The type mode used in the subtitles are in serif which is a formal font this could be to make the reader think what it’s advertising to them is more interesting than what’s just in a sans serif font which makes everything look dull, however it is easy to read which is why it has been used as the type mode of the title.

I like the use of stacking the title and having one dominant image on the contents page, it keeps it simple, easy to read and nice for the reader to see. I also like the idea of having just the first letter contrasting vaguely in the background of the contents page, just as a little reminder to the people reading it what the name of the magazine is called. The use of colours in both these magazine's is effective because they totally contrast with the background but do not look silly at the same time, i can take these methods and put them into use on my contents page. 


 Contents page textual analysis.The contents page is spread over two pages. There are two images used on the contents page, one of a discovered rapper, and the other of a upcoming rapper. The images are both represented as fierce faces, with pricy clothing and jewelery in one, and in the other a picture of the front-page image but a full body shot instead. Both shots create enigma and mystery of what the artist are thinking as the facial expression connote thinking. This connotes that the brand rely heavily on artists to make their magazine sell, the popularity of the artists helps the brand sell its magazines.The magazine using subtitles to attract the reader, these are in san serif fonts, and this connotes the modern developed brand image. It is divided into categories, which are as follows:- Featured- Departments- Ear to street- Life… style- Power moves- Source sports- Fashion- Record reportThese all are presented in sans serif text, and in bold, while the writing below is in plain un- bold writing, to make the headings stand out.The colours used on the images are quite dark and harsh colors, while the background is a stony creamy colour, the contrast of these colours makes the image stand out. There’s a consistent theme running through the way the layout is set, the page numbers all are represented as such ‘1.’ And are in also sans serif font.There is a lot of dead space, and the borders are plain white. The gutters are small, and defined to make the writing look close together. There are a total of 96 stories presented on the page. With a lot of dead space, and no editors quote or staff reference this shows the magazine wants to limit the information of the brand and focus of the music aspect of the magazine.the typical conventions used, are of course i use of famous individuals pictures printed on the pages. although the use of blank space, and fonts are challenging the typical conventions, showing a new way to content your articles.

My Final Content Page

After making sure the colour wasnt used to much i made sure that i blured some parts and ketp the font simple but i still thought the background colour and the blue had a big affect on audience as i prefered it there aswell as it attracted my target audeience.i also fetl that using lots of clours will make my viewers or target audeince want to explore more thourghly whats in the music magazine.

My Final Double Spread

i kept this double spread simple with not much coulrs as my target audeince prefered to just see the badn and see what they have expreience working together so i kept the background white so that the words can become readable and the reader can enjoy themselfs not struggling.

doubel spread sheet reserach

This is a double page spread of a rapper called ‘Jay Z’. Here it shows that one side of the page is used for the article and the other for an image of Jay Z himself. I challenged the forms and conventions and decided to use a similar layout for my double page article.
In this article, the image of Jay Z is a close up and has been edited to contrast 2 colours. The use of red and blue can give the audience a feeling of hot and cold.

My double page article was very simple and was similar to the Jay Z article. I put an image on the left hand side and my text on the right. Using text wrap on InDesign, I made the pop out quote bigger so it took up space. This is where I have challenged the forms and conventions as I have added an image to give the readers a feeling of what the rapper talks about.

The opening of my article is a short detailed bio of the rapper, which I feel makes the article more interesting as it connects to the readers as it makes them feel engaged.Theuse of pop out quotes also makes the article more interesting as they tend to be filled with exciting information which makes the reader want read more. I decided to use white text for my article as this contrasted with the background of the double page article.

other possible mood boards

Here I have presented my Rnb/Rappers mood board, I have now added this section of writing in order to explain what I have presented on my mood board and why. Within my mood board I have tried to include as many different aspects of my chosen medium,Rnb/Rappers music, as possible in order to congregate as many different ideas and themes as possible which I could use within the production of my Pop music magazine. In addition, I have provided many techniques that feature within mise-en scene in order to have a greater impact on my ideas and constructions and make them as representational to real life as possible.

Firstly I have presented within my mood board a logo displaying "hip hop” this is used to instantly make the viewer aware of the medium of music my magazine features within. people could also identify that i ave researched diffrent genre and diffrent style of music

Due to the fact that my magazine will be based on the music medium of Rnb/Rappers the colour schemes I had chosen to use within my mood board background were appropriate in order to reflect that medium within my magazine. I provided the subtle use of bright colours like: Red, black, white,  as they represent partying, happiness and an exciting nature, which are themes which commonly are associated with rap artist and they also have very solum music to it sometimes they talk about life reflecting to the target audience.

In addition, continuing with the partying theme, I provided at least three different examples of strobe and beam lighting, which is used within parties and concerts performed by modern pop artists. The beam lighting images also contain the use of bright colours which further connotes and establishes the rap/Rnb medium of my magazine to the viewer.

Also within my rap/Rnb mood board I have presented some of the conventional instruments used by Rnb/Rappers artists, like them posing showing shgnis and the style of dress. This is a classic example of representation and a clear use of mise-en scene as these instruments are considered to be the music artist’s props or ‘tools of their trade’ in order to actually work in their chosen medium of music.

In addition, the fact that I have presented artists from my genre of music provides me with another theme of mise-en scene which I can exploit in order to conventionalise my magazine even further to make it as representational to real life magazine issues as possible. That theme is costume and overall aesthetic presentation, with these examples of artists present within my music medium of Rnb/Rappers I can look at what they are wearing and see what I would need to get my ‘artists’ to wear in order to be as conventional to the clothes real life rnb/rappers artists as possible.

ideas diffrent pictures taken

masthead chosen

looking diffrent masthead

diffrent fonts

Photography

typical question asked

image of school magazine draft

when trying to crop my work i wasnt quite accruate in doing it well because i didnt have the knoweldge of using the brush to edge the sides properly.this was for my school magazine draft.

diffrent genre research

i used this rapper to help me with my music video because his fashional has jeylewry around him with a unqiue pause.

plus......

his very fashional wearing a suite and a hat and the clour cordinates is white and black whihc i used in my music magazine.Also his a rapper and also is a RmB and does a mixture of both thereofre i wanted to find out more about him and chose to look more in depth about his music

another is

questionare for double spread sheet asked and tested

This is an example of a double page spread from Vibe Music Magazine.

The Media Language on here instantly tells us that this page is based on hip hop music. Firstly, this is because of all the images, which all have connotations of hip hop such as the baseball caps, the hoodies and flash jewlery, the smoking theme and the swade casual clothing.

The institution of Vibe is that it is a commercial music magazine, which makes it's money out of advertising and fashion promotions.

The Audience for these particular pages are of course hip hop music lovers; people who like that genre of music.It will be a mix of roughly equal ratio between males and females, as i can tell because of the mixed use of interviewed celebrities.

These main images have many connotations with hip hop. The pictures have nearly all being taken from a low angle, which introduces superiority to the images meaning. These are just a very few of the conscious decisions that the photographer makes when taking the image.

The ideology behind these two pages is to clearly promote hip hop music.

In order to do this project, I had to undertake a lot of research, particularly into the conventions of a music magazine cover. I had to analyze a number of existing magazine covers and see how they were related in terms of language, ideology, institution, audience and representation. I also carried out research into which programs I could possibly use for my project and what the advantages and disadvantages were.

After the research, I had to plan my project accordingly, and I referred back to my research in the planning stages of my magazine. I had to go out and take the pictures which I would need for my final design. These included a medium close up of a student. Once I was happy that I had a good idea, I moved onto actually designing the cover.

For my college magazine cover, I decided to use Adobe Photoshop CS5. The advantage of this was that it allowed me to arrange all of my work into layers. For this particular project, I had about 13 layers, all of which were either text, pictures or shapes. In addition, Photoshop allowed me to produce a cover which looked professional, and I would not have achieved this if I had used another form of software. I had a main image of a student in medium close up, which I cut out. The advantage of cutting it out was that I could place her over, and other various items on the page. This made her stand out from the page. This was something I picked up from doing the research, as I noticed that most magazines do this to present the model to the audience as the main topic or subject.

Overall, I think the final outcome was successful. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, everything stands out on the page. This is especially true for the picture of the student. Secondly, it has all the features of a typical magazine cover, including a main title, main picture, appropriate headlines and a barcode. The layout of it is also quite similar to some of the ones I analyzed whilst doing my research, so therefore, it shows my research was effective. Finally, in terms of representation, it actually looks like a college magazine.

There are a number of different things I could do to improve my college magazine cover. I could do something more creative and add  other images, such as add a border, or make them into different shapes, and I could also space them out throughout the page. However, as this is my first attempt at creating a magazine cover, I think I’ve created something that looks quite professional.

All music magazine front pages tend to use the following conventions in a regular pattern to get the most out of the magazine...

1) They have an image that really stands out from the page. They make it stand out further by putting it against a light background and cutting it out and placing it partially over text or the logo of the magazine. This is especially true with the Vibe magazine. The main picture is covering up half of the logo, yet you still recognise that it is Vibe from the distinguished 'V'. This is because it is a well established institution which people have heard of, so as long as you can see part of the logo, people will know it is Vibe magazine.

2) Nearly all of the magazines I have looked at have at least one banner running across the top or the bottom. The banner gives the reader extra information about what is inside the magazine such as posters, reviews and competitions. It also may have a slogan on it.

3) Usually all of the magazines have similar positioning of the logo. They are at the top of the magazine front cover, and usually on the left hand side. This is a typical convention of a magazine front cover mainly because it is easier to find the magazine in a shop if they are stacked in the usual way.

4) The magazine covers have a main title, which is always related to the main image. This is usually short and brief, and gives you a good indication to what the rest of that particular magazine article is about. With the title, there is nearly always a subtitle, which basically gives you extra information about that story.

5) There are also a number of other stories 'scattered' around the page, along with relevant pictures and subtitles.

6) Also, I have noticed that all of these magazines have a particular colour scheme, which helps the magazine look better visually. This colour scheme is usually continued throughout the entire magazine and especially onto the contents page and the double page spread.

Looking back at my Preliminary task , I firmly believe I have learnt a great deal regarding progression to the main task. When I first made my college front cover, I only had a basic understanding of what conventions should be applied to the magazine. This was because I had only done a limited amount of research. However, before creating my main media product, I thoroughly researched a diversity of different music magazines, to maximise my understanding of the key concepts of a front cover, contents page, and double page spread.

In conclusion, I believe I have learnt a lot during this task, and as a result, have ended up with a professional looking magazine piece. Firstly, I believe I have successfully applied a number of conventional elements of a magazine which I have learnt from my research. Secondly, I have constructed the images and style of the magazine specifically to represent a younger audience and to be aimed at them as well. In other words, there is a clear relationship between the representation of the models portrayed and the audience it is aimed at. Thirdly, I believe I have learnt a lot of digital ICT technologies.

Whilst creating my magazine I mainly used Photoshop since most of the time I was working with pictures and it is the best software at working with pictures. However I also used Microsoft Publisher whilst working on my double page spread, this is because it handles columns of text much better than photoshop does. I had little practice in either Photoshop or Publisher and so they took a little while to get used to, but after I worked on the respective programs for a while I started to become much more competent at using both of these programs. Throughout my work I have used a variety of technologies within my coursework and my blog, for example Dafont.com and blogger. Other technoligies I have used include cameras, in this case the Nikon SLR which was used to take all my photos in the studio.

In my magazine I have various features that address and attract my audience that were included for this specific effect. magazines try to make the reader buy the product again and again so it is important that they address and attract the audience in the correct way. 

IPC would be the publisher of my music magazine because although it doesn't publish magazines of the hip hop genre it would open up a gap in the market and maybe my magazine would be a big benefit to this type of industry.

IPC Media produce magazines such as NME and other relevant magazines and although it is unusual for a magazine of this type to use an institution like this i feel that it could be a massive success. The target audience would increase if my magazine was published with IPC because they currently aim at indie audiences but however this could increase to hip hop audiences if my magazine was produced.

Bauer is a similar organisation that produces hip hop magazines and so if i chose these it would be more beneficial as these have more expertise's in this area.

For my representation I looked at things that would interest young people who read Vibe magazine. For the clothes I looked extensively into clothing and found that polo shirts and tank tops are popular within this genre. Vibe magazine has introduced some artists showing them smoking or displaying a similar image, but however i overruled this decision as i decided it would be too much to include on the font page and would take away some distinguished features from the page(s).

After browsing various music magazine covers I found the following to be intresting to me, as Lil Wayne is posing he displays a look that typifies the generation I want to attract with my magazine and so I would look into something similar for my magazines front cover. He ticks all the boxes for someone of the age and genre that I am trying to pursuade and so my artist will be based around her style and dress sence, giving more representation.
when comparing li wayne and Osman i noticed they had many similarities between them and so if i could capture the correct pose in a picture then i might be able to make my pagazine look like the professional one

As you can see both are wearing a fashionable checkered shirts that typifies the generation. My reaserch was key and thorough when deciding how I should approach my magazine since I knew of the ruthless nature of the magazine industry and the need to be competitive. So I thought that styling Osman like lil Wayne who appears in Vibe magazine regularly would be a excellent way of reaching out to my readers profile and help me to sell more magazines.

In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
My media product uses different forms and conventions from real magazines such as the title of the magazine. On the title there is a strong bold font and related colour scheme that portrays the magazine in a strong, powerful way.The Mis-en-scene used in my media product shows the artist as an intriguing character with an indecisive look, a confident look to show he has a 'swag' attitude about him. the style of the glasses and the expression on the artists face describes the magazine as laid back and established which is perfect for my designated target audience. the use of the greyscale background makes the title and the red vibrant colours stand out which will attract the audience too.
the layout of the different features in the magazine are set out in a way to attract the reader and inform them of the different points that the magazine will cover. for example the layout of 'EMINEM' and 'TI's' quote are positioned to give the reader an insight of the magazine and tell them what will be coming up without giving too much of the story away.

In order to do this project, I had to undertake a lot of research, particularly into the conventions of a music magazine cover. I had to analyze a number of existing magazine covers and see how they were related in terms of language, ideology, institution, audience and representation. I also carried out research into which programs I could possibly use for my project and what the advantages and disadvantages were.

After the research, I had to plan my project accordingly, and I referred back to my research in the planning stages of my magazine. I had to go out and take the pictures which I would need for my final design. These included a medium close up of a student. Once I was happy that I had a good idea, I moved onto actually designing the cover.

For my college magazine cover, I decided to use Adobe Photoshop CS5. The advantage of this was that it allowed me to arrange all of my work into layers. For this particular project, I had about 13 layers, all of which were either text, pictures or shapes. In addition, Photoshop allowed me to produce a cover which looked professional, and I would not have achieved this if I had used another form of software. I had a main image of a student in medium close up, which I cut out. The advantage of cutting it out was that I could place her over, and other various items on the page. This made her stand out from the page. This was something I picked up from doing the research, as I noticed that most magazines do this to present the model to the audience as the main topic or subject.

Overall, I think the final outcome was successful. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, everything stands out on the page. This is especially true for the picture of the student. Secondly, it has all the features of a typical magazine cover, including a main title, main picture, appropriate headlines and a barcode. The layout of it is also quite similar to some of the ones I analyzed whilst doing my research, so therefore, it shows my research was effective. Finally, in terms of representation, it actually looks like a college magazine.

There are a number of different things I could do to improve my college magazine cover. I could do something more creative and add  other images, such as add a border, or make them into different shapes, and I could also space them out throughout the page. However, as this is my first attempt at creating a magazine cover, I think I’ve created something t

do you believe you have fulfilled your dreams?

Well its a prject coming along together its not an indivudal dreams its a collective dream I share with my reall gs .we kept it going till now and im sure this is part of our dream.it hasnt fully jelled together when it has will reach the likes of p diddy and eminen respectfully .after that we do believ our dreams has been expreienced fully and it wount be a dream again it will be a reality and a dream that has become true.

What got your guys together ?

Truthfully its those people that work behind close doors.well kevin started rapping for a long time but he had different ideas.he wanted change.and he got changed.once we were all singing and meeting up for a cup of tea.bang it all clicked we thought forget this lets start something which is unseen and unique. A group rapping team and this thought made us what we are now.this idea didnt come from one of us we agreed as a unit and thats why will never give up and separate as momentum and believe is with us all.

Has there ever been any disagreement between you guys ?

Ofcourse will disagree and argue at times but will never fall apart.once there was a disagreement over the beat and denis didnt like it however we came up with a sultion.we always do as a team come up with something. it was simple to make the beat that denis liked on his part and not ours and it worked fine.you could ask any famous rapper hell tell you theres up and downs but those who stay famous deal with it.

What are all your aims and goals for the future ?

Its straight forward with us we just want to keep on going and keep on believing. Thats all we can do as people might right us down in paper but we are ambitiuos and our aim is making sure the believers our there that stick with us that they will get to see us at our best in the future times.

What do you like the most about each other ?

The best thing is that were rappers that are proud to be onese representing each other.we are all relaxed then other rappers. We take day by day as a new experience and the best thing is that were together in this and we all share a different values amongest ourselfs

The first album has been released do you think the second will hit the ground being the best album out in 2013?

the first album we feel has already achieved what we were aiming to achieve however the second one will sparkle a different tenderness on the rapn  industry.hopefully it wount take to long to get all the finishing touches all done for the release of the second one in 2013.

is touring a big issue for all of you?

No we love touring and seeing our fans bless us with nice words. Were a bunch of fools sometimes so we can get all wild and everything but we keep it controlled. We’re hopping to hit camden and give them a little something for our latest duet.so we will keep on touring all around because not only we love it

we become stronger as a team.

DIFFRENT STAGES

 1ST STAGE

 2ND STAGE

FINAL STAGE
in this final stage i have made lost of improvement by the feedback i got from my teacher and students.they said things were all over the places and it wasnt well organised

STages of IMPROVEMNT

I started off with cropping the background because it didn’t suite the front cover and it wouldn’t look professional if I left the background. This was the hardest part when using Photoshop because it is delicate and there is some areas that were just hard to cut out

Then I developed this and starting to add things around it that I could play around with and changing them using the bucket in the tool box in the Photoshop helped me to change colours easily. Plus I had to put the professional barcode because it would make my whole music magazine original. Adding colours such as back, blue and red reflects the genre type.

The 3rd stage things started to look better I started to move around things that could go at different places without craping areas in my music magazine for example I moved the barcode from left to right because when looking back at the music videos its normally down at the bottom right hand corner.in addition I also added the background and stacked with the common colours I thought would suite the music video.