Media AS Coursework Evaluation

Ollie Judge

• I purposefully made my magazine very straightforward but also suave. I used two colours throughout my front cover, contents page and double page spread and I also used simple but striking fonts to make my media product look stylish. The pose of “Bitter End Boat Club” is nonchalant which I think is typical of any band on the cover of an Indie magazine because they are focused on looking cool. But the band also hold a stare that say’s that they don’t necessarily want to be there. I think that the colours that the band are wearing contrasts with the monochrome colours of the texts which I think is good because the band look bright and stand out against the monochrome colours.

• I chose these fonts because they are suave but simple at the same time. I chose this because it mirrors the type of social group that would read this magazine, people who like to dress suavely and also listen to music that requires a level of thought and sophistication.

• I chose the font for “Bitter End Boat Club” because it’s the band’s official font but again it shows a level of sophistication that wouldn’t be found in magazines like “Kerrang!”

• I Put the masthead at the top of the page because it’s conventional of the music magazines I was influenced by like NME, Loud and Quiet and The Fly.

• I chose the title of the magazine mainly because it is a song by the band “Joy Division”. This band are legendary in the “indie” scene and people would recognise this.

• Also I named this because the word “Transmission” means to pass on one thing to another. So I see the title meaning that the news and interviews in the magazine are being “transmitted” to the people who read it.

• I followed the same colour scheme as the front cover and double page spread. I did this because I wanted the magazine to follow one trend style unlike magazines like Kerrang! That use a wide range of colours, texts and text boxes.

• I resized and cropped all the pictures in InDesign so that they were all the exact same size. I did this because It gives the magazine a consistent level of minimalism but also stylishness. I was avoiding the style of the NME contents page where their pictures are all different sizes, I think it makes the page look busy and inconsistent as apposed to my contents page where everything is the same size.

• The first picture (top) is of the band “Bitter End Boat Club”. I chose this picture because it gives the band a sense of mystery, all 3 members are walking away from the camera so you cannot see there faces. However they are walking towards the sun which gives the feeling that they are walking towards a bright future. I think this picture is unconventional compared to most pictures of bands because they are facing away from the camera whereas most bands posing on magazine covers would face the camera.

• The second picture is a close-up shot of Tom Jewitt, or “T-Jew”. He stares into the camera with his head slightly angled. I told him to pose like this because it makes him look like he doesn’t want to be posing for the photo. He has his hood up and big head phones around his neck, I think this is a good representation of the particular social group that I was going for (Indie/hipsters) because this is a typical style of the people that would read this magazine. With his hood up it gives off the feeling that he looks raw and edgy and doesn’t care how he looks.

• The third picture I used for my contents page is a heavily edited image that emits a sense of mystery. I used a Pentax K-X camera with a high shutter speed to get the ghostly effect on the model. I then used Photoshop to put the monochrome effect on the photo. A producer named Burial inspired me to take this photo because he remains anonymous and the mystery surrounding him made me deeply interested in him and I think by clouding the image of the model in my photo would entice the audience to see who the person In the image is.

• The photo I chose for my double page spread ins’t as typical of a regular indie magazine as I would of liked it to be. I think this because 2 of the 3 members don’t really seem intimidating enough (Middle and Right), they seem more inviting on the double page spread because of their half smiles.

• I again put a thick black border on the photo, I did this because I wanted to follow the same style as the contents page (I put thick black borders over the pictures on the contents page).

• I thought that if I picked out a quote from the interview and put it in the middle of the text in black font the page would be too simplistic. So I once again used the bright blue to make the page a bit more colourfull but also so that I was following the same 3 colours throughout the contents, cover and double page spread.

• In some magazines the picture runs over the gutter (NME do this a lot) i didn’t do this because if I did half of the model in the picture would be in the gutter and this would look untidy. Also I think that by putting the picture over the gutter my magazine would be straying away from it’s suave and stylish look.

• For the double page spread I decided to continue the colour scheme of the magazine.

• I decided to follow the conventions of indie magazines and write my article in columns I think that it makes the whole magazine again seem more sophisticated much like a paper.

• I decided to a question and answer interview so it makes the reader feel as though they know the people who are being interviewed.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• I think that my magazine represents the kind of people who really enjoy listening to underground, new and interesting music. You could call the people who would read this type of magazine “Hipsters”. They are the type of people who are very fashion conscious and like to know what is happening in the music scene.

• I think part of the reason why I chose to make my media product look stylish and minimalist is because that’s how these kinds of people dress and it’s also how people in bands dress nowadays (Metronomy, Arcade Fire, Magnetic Man etc)

What kind of Media institution might publish your media product and why?

I think that I would publish my magazine online. I would do this because it seems that all of the independent indie magazines I have drawn influence from publish their magazines online. For instance, the fly and Loud & Quiet magazine do this on their websites.

Who would be the audience to your media product?

• I think that my target audience would be people with a passion for underground and new Indie music within the age group of 16-25 year olds. I also think that my media product would be a lot more popular in cities such and London and Manchester where the music scene is thriving. I don’t think anyone who would listen to mainstream (music in the top 40) music would read this magazine because the genres of music covered in the magazine wouldn’t interest them. My target audience would most likely read one the magazines pictured.

• I think that the audience of my magazine would mainly be male because I think that this genre of music is mainly male dominated. And my magazine is male dominated, all of the people in my magazine are male.

• The name of my magazine derives from a song by the band Joy Division who are very popular in the “Indie”/ “Hipster” scene.

How did you attract your audience?

• I think that by including lots of new artists and unsigned bands on the front cover I attracted my audience because it makes them want to read the stories about the artists that they enjoy listening to.

• I also think that I attracted my target audience by including an eclectic selection of artists on the front cover.

• By putting a small sentence under each sub-heading in the contents page I attracted my audience because it makes them want to read on.

• Also, the clothes the people I have taken pictures of would attract my audience because it would be common for them to dress in the same kind of style.

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

• Througout the construction of my media product I have used Photoshop (Front Cover) and InDesign (Contents page and double page spread). I was an amateur at the start of the process but after constructing my media product I think that I am now confident in using Photoshop and InDesign.

• With the aid of Photoshop and inDesign I was able to crop and resize all of my pictures.

• For my contents page I used the Square Crop tool in iPhoto for all my photos.

• With photoshop I was able to add all of the text I needed for my front cover onto the page.

• I used Wordpress to make my Coursework Blog. I have had little experience blogging but I found that Wordpress was easy to use for beginners. I learnt how to put photos and text onto my blog.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

• I think that with the front cover I have learnt a few tricks to make it look as if it was being published for real, for instance, the Plus symbol and the price and date give the magazine a more real look.

• After the preliminary task I had a better understanding of Photoshop and InDesign which I think shows because In my final product I have used image borders, different fonts and colours and also I had better understanding of the image resize tool in InDesign.