October/November Blog Feedback

Here is the feedback I received off Mrs Mitchel, I am happy with this feedback and I will continue to make improvements to my work so it is of a high standard. 

Masthead Ideas

Here, I have used the words 'Pop Party' to test out different font styles for my magazine masthead. Each one has a similar bubbly look about it, but this is because teenage girls are bubbly and fun which these fonts represent. Once I have picked the name of my magazine and the final font style I will then go onto picking the colour of the masthead, so these are only examples of the type of font. I think that all of these masthead's are appropriate for the magazine genre, which is pop music, so once I have completed my survey to get advice on which masthead to use, I would be happy to use any of them.

Here I have put together some more masthead designs, a bit different from the first page of designs. I wanted to mix up the designs a bit whilst still keeping them feminine in some way. I started to look at a variety of styles of mastheads to see which sort of styles of writing I wanted not just on my front cover but throughout the magazine I am producing. I have only picked different fonts off the website dafont.com that I think will be suitable to fit the audience for this magazine, and that I can add the main colours to so that they fit in. On the other hand, I do prefer the mastheads on the top design page, so those fonts will be the ones entered into the survey.

House style of my music magazine

A few idea of names for my music magazine:

• Teen Pop
• Pop Monthly
• PopStar
• Pop Hits!
• Pop Forever
• Party With Pop
• Pop People
• Ultimate Pop
• Vibe
• iPop
• Platinum
• PopMatters
• Pop Chart

Here I have thought about many different pop magazine names that I could potentially use for the masthead of my magazine, even though I might not use any of these names they are just my first idea's to give me a rough clue of what font to use for my final design idea.

Above is a few different masthead fonts from the website 'dafont', I might decide to use one of these fonts for my final design idea for my front cover, however for now they are just a couple of examples which will give me an idea of how I want my masthead to look.

   

Here are different colours that represents girls, happiness, purity, and fun. They are all bright colours which would fit perfectly with my magazine. Even though some people may class the bottom end of the scale on the right image as 'boyish' colours, I think that they would fit in well with my magazine even though it is for teenage girls; these colours would fit in well because they are all bright colours and match together well, whilst giving off the idea to the audience that the magazine is full of fun, energy and emotions.

 

I have found some images which show the celebrities to have 'direct mode of address' which means they are looking into the camera and engaging with the reader of the magazine. This is how I want my main image to look because I believe that by having direct mode of address makes the reader feel welcome to carry on flicking through the pages to read more. From these images I can see that all of the celebrities look happy, and this is the way I want the main image to look on my front cover so I will be following the conventions of pop magazines and have happy celebrities on the front, or maybe even have the main image posing more with more facial expression to link to teenagers which go through a range of emotions per day.

House Styles

When starting to look at house styles, I decided to focus on Top of the Pops magazine which is a well known magazine full of celebrities involved within the pop music sector. What I have noticed when finding these images is that the house style has changed and developed through time and as new celebrities are introduced. The first editions of Top of the Pops had the masthead visible as the magazine had only just came out so the readers needed to recognise that it is a Top of the Pops magazine; however, as the magazine developed the main image started to overlap the masthead as this is what people recognised the Top of the Pops magazine to be like. Below the magazine there is always the main image of the band/celebrity with cover lines surrounding it and freebies being advertised, this makes the magazine more recognisable because if the readers see this every time they buy the magazine it will become easy to know what to look for on the front cover. Even though the main images may be of women, Top of the Pops always put pictures of men on it, which are attractive and that teenagers are into. The colour scheme of the front cover is always bright colours, but colours that represent innocence and joy such as yellow, blue pink, purple. In some cases the magazine cover is red to represent the theme(valentines day) or to suggest that the band/celebrity is being cheeky or mischievous.  

Music magazine analysis!

To analyse my chosen music magazine 'We Love Pop' I used Prezi because I thought that this would be the best way to present my work in a continuous flow and for me to include everything in one presentation. I think that my work is laid out well and that is it easy to follow the different topics/parts of the magazine that I have analysed. Within my analysis, I have talked about:

• The front cover
• The contents page
• A double page spread
• An advertisement
• The audience, Institution and the Representations of the magazine.

Independent research - Pop conventions

Key conventions of a pop magazine:

• The masthead always has a relation to music, e.g. 'Top Of The Pops'
• The masthead is always bold and stands out the most
• Cover lines should have some link to the artist featured in the main image
• The band/artist should be appropriate for the chosen target audience
• Main image has to be a celebrity who is the same genre as the magazine
• All main images should attract and please the audience
• Colour schemes depend on the gender audience of the magazine, if the magazine is unisex then the colours should be mixed so it is appropriate for everyone
• The contents page should include a variety of different numbers so it is easy to navigate around the magazine e.g. '15, 26, 48, 60'
• Next to the numbers on the contents page, subheadings should be placed so the reader can clearly see what topics are where
• Colloqial language should be used where appropriate to attract the audience you're aiming at e.g. 'We love boys' for teenage girls
• Bold and colourful headers are always useful to make them stand out 
• Always include a double page spread about a very popular celebrity that is usually the main imagine on the front cover
• A title on each topic should stand out by being something unusual, funny or very different, it should also make it clear who/what the article is going to be about
• An advert/Q&A/story page or competition to interact with the readers but it should be linked to the same genre of the magazine
• Direct mode of address is used within the main image

 

Pop music research

I made a mind map on the website 'mindomo' because this is a clear way to show my research into the history of pop music. It is clear to see the different aspects of the research I have done and to read all of the information given.
I conducted research on the genre of pop music because this  is the style of music I will be basing my music magazine on throughout my coursework.

Initial Ideas - Music Magazine

Here are my first ideas about the music magazine I am now going to be creating. I used Powtoon again because I really like the website as it makes my work look really good and neat. This power point has made me decide on the genre of my music magazine, which is going to be Pop, as I have the biggest interest in it.

School Magazine Analysis - Question 3

Finally, I have used Google Slides to answer my last evaluation question. I got this website from a peer and decided to take a look at it, and found it easy to use, it is just like Microsoft power point, but easier to use! 

School Magazine Analysis - Question 2

Here is my second evaluation question which I created with Prezi, I decided to use Prezi so I could get to know about another technology which might be useful when it comes to making my music magazine.

School Magazine Analysis - Question 1

Here is my final analysis of my Plantsbrook School magazine I had been producing throughout this term. In this, I have covered the target audience, conventions of the magazine, and what I have learnt about technologies. I decided to use PowToon, Google Slide and Prezi because they are all technologies I have never used before, and it gave me a change to try and test out new technologies so I know which ones I like to use ready for when I start my music magazine project.

Improved magazine cover and Final contents page

My final version of my magazine front cover for a school magazine. This has been designed by hand, combined by survey results and made on fireworks, then been improved by being peer assessed, everything on this magazine now has been improved to make it to the highest standard it can be. I have also designed a contents page to go with the front cover which is a bit basic, but it is my first attempt at creating a magazine using a new software programme called fireworks.

Magazine cover self and peer assessment

Here is my feedback sheet in which I filled in myself to see what mark I would gain from my first magazine front cover, as my magazine front cover was incomplete with my image missing, I found that I marked my work too high as I couldn't mark it properly whilst being incomplete. After being given this feedback from my peers and teacher, I have gone away and improved my magazine cover by taking all of their points into consideration to get my magazine cover to the highest standard it can be.

Blog feedback

Task Research and Planning Part	Incomplete/ Limited 0-7 marks	Basic 8-11 marks	Proficient 12-15 marks	Excellent 16-20 marks	Overall
Reflective Technology HW			ü		15/20 Grade B
Conventions			ü
Analysis of music magazine			ü
Analysis of school mag front cover				ü
School magazine names & mastheads				ü
Photography shot types			ü
Photography portrait			ü
WWW:      You are managing the demands of AS Media Studies well and have learnt to adapt to a range of new technologies.    Your blog is well organised and you are meeting deadlines.    You add detailed descriptions to each post so that it is clear to an examiner what you are doing.     Your photography is considered, well framed and developing in preparation for your coursework. EBI:       You need to use a range of media terminology in your blog posts.     Continue to highlight/colour code your analysis to ensure you have included all aspects of the analysis formula.     Try to think outside of the box and research independently. It would be great to see some wider reading, research and ideas on your blog than just those from the spreadsheet. Pupil Comment: I understand that I need to include more key terminology in my blog posts, so when I post new blog posts, I will take this into consideration and make sure I do this to ensure my work is at the best it can be. I think that highlighting my work in different colours will help me to see if I have included enough terminology and included it where and when it is needed.

  

Magazine Cover

Here is my magazine front cover which is currently not complete but I am unsure on how to insert an image and send it to the back so we can still see the writing on the magazine. I used fireworks to create the magazine which was new to me as I haven't used this before, so using something new was fun and interesting to find out about it, I am happy to use this software again. To make my magazine better I will find Miss and ask her for help in order to help me complete this.