Initial ideas

I wont to create a music magazine with the genre or sub-genre of Metal. I want to do a Metal magazine as it is my favorite genre of music. Bands such as; Trivium, Avenged Sevenfold,Children of Bodom and HIM. I will look at existing music magazines like MetalHammer and Kerrang, which include these bands.

Possible sub-genres of Metal

• Thrash
• Death
• Love
• Industrial
• Viking
• Pirate
• Nu
• Funk
• Rap

I have highlighted, in red, the three sub-genres that i am really interested in pursuing. However i want to continue with Love Metal, as my favorite band 'HIM' follows this genre of music and also created it.

Action Plan

 6th October

• Post initial ideas
• Post institution research
• Analyse two other magazines front cover

13th October

• Analyse two content pages
• Begin to develop pitch using prezi

20th October

• Present and post pitch and audience feedback
• Complete mock-ups of magazine pages
• Produce a style sheet
• Organize models, locations, props, photo shoot and blog progress

3rd October

• Photo shoot for front cover
• develop front cover: experimentation with layout, colour, font, language and photos

10th October

• Develop  front cover: experimentation with layout, colour, font, language and photos

17th November

• Develop contents cover: experimentation with layout, colour, font, language and photos

24th November

• Develop double page spread: experimentation with layout, colour, font, language and photos

1st December

• Develop design work in response to audience feedback

8th December

• Finalize design of all pages 

15th December

• Develop draft evalutation

22nd December

• Draft evaluation

5th January

• Develop evaluation 

12th January

• complete evaluation
• final blog check

Institution research

Range of music magazines

Genre Wordle

Evaluation

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

I have used generic conventions of a real life magazine by incorporating media language such as a masthead, splash, headlines and a central image, making it identifiable as a magazine. I tried to give my magazine a subtle yet happy connotation to my magazine. Using an image of a student in every day life to show how friendly college life is. I used blues and whites for my house style as I believe it follows in the house style of the colleges colours. I also used the buzz word "free" on the cover of the magazine, to help aid popularity of the magazine among students, as I believe that students will not want to pay a lot, if any money for their magazine. Also including a puff to a free magazine where students can win tickets to a popular band, will help to encourage students in reading through the magazine and spreading the word to read it monthly.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Weekly Digestive is solely representing the student population of Ludlow college, or any college with the age range of 16- 20 year olds. I have chosen to represent the students within my magazine as happy people, who love their student lives at college. I tried to distance the magazine from your typical stereotype of a student, with such things as being lazy and party seekers. I have tried to create a more subtle house style to tone down the magazine to a more laid back approach, yet still maintaining a positive approach by adding headlines of constructive attitudes. Such as students going to study at Oxford university, a very prestigious place of study.

 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would like to have the collage art and media departments produce and distribute my student magazine as an enrichment option as I believe if the magazine is produced on site, it will add to the feel of a student magazine. Also having first hand students writing and producing the magazine will provide genuine articles and stories relating to student life for the college.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience for the magazine is purely for teenage students attending Ludlow College. I want to keep the audience to this level as producing the magazine for a wider audience base will make it very difficult to do. However it may be a good idea to make it for our partnering college Hereford too as we are all effectively one college.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I used the blue palette from Ludlow Colleges house style as i think it ties in well with other documentation from the college. By attracting my audience i used a competition for a prize to see a well known band from our age group, also as the magazine is free, it will get them to pick up an copy of the magazine. I also added stories for the audience, which directly relates to their lives at college.

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

I put all my design ideas together to create the magazine with the software InDesign. Whilst this is a great tool for arranging layouts and positioning, i didn't like the way everything was sized, such as when importing an image. I also used Photoshop for my images as i wanted to clean them up, whilst still maintaining the naturalist feel to them. I took these images with a DSLR camera which is a very good option to have, as it is almost flawless in taking images both at stand still and whilst moving. I found combining all these elements into the final product, made the final product a lot better than it could have been. 

Final Cover and Contents pages

Here are my final products of the cover and contents pages.