Q4- Who Would Be The Audience for Your Media Product ?

Q3- What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Magazine and Why ?

Evaluation question 3 from Rory Taplin

Q2.How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

Q1- In what way does your Music Magazine Use, develop or challenge forms and conventional of real music magazines?

In what way does your Music Magazine Use,  develop or challenge forms and conventional of real music magazines? 

Throughout our magazine , we have considered the conventions used in a number of modern music magazines of this genre today. We have used other music magazines as inspiration and assessed what aspects of a music magazine makes them attractive to a specific audience. 

Our intentions behind our front cover was to be stylish and eye-catching and was a key aspect of genre and audience. We find it crucial that we adapt the right style when working with a hip hop magazine as if we get it wrong it would most defiantly stop people reading our content. We have done extensive research throughout our  work which can be found in our readership profile and our mood board. The front cover is the first thing that the audience are greeted by so it is so important that we make it as attractive as possible. so first thing we had to establish was the colours we wanted to use in our front cover. at first we tried some brighter colours to see what they looked like , but after we underwent some research we discovered though magazines like Fader they like to stick to very plain and simple colours. this is the reason why after being more educated on what i am needing to do to conform for the typical aspects of a hip hop music magazine. Only after doing this did i realised that it would be affective for me to go with the black and white colour scheme. Our main inspiration we took for our work was from a specific issue of Fader as shown at the top of the page. What we liked about this specific issue was the simple layout and the colours used. in the issue they have chosen to challenge the typical layout of a hip hop magazine, they have chosen to go with a very simple layout only including essential information and chosen to make two thing main thing to focus on. The first bring the mast head which is the name of the magazine so that people what magazine it is. And secondly they have made it clear that they wont you to focus on the model on the front page in this case being grime artist Skepta. We thought this would suit what were trying to achieve with our work and for that reason this is what we based the basics of our work on. But they we also added some small features to grip our audience to reading into our work like a little teaser with a rhetorical at the bottom of the page. The next aspect we have used to conform to the typical hip hop magazine ascetic was with the model we used on the front cover. We found that in hip hop magazines it is common to have close up photo of a specific artist and that be the main focus of the page. so we have adopted this method to conform to the stereotype though the use of RyBoy Digital as our main focus on the front cover. We have used the character Ryboy Digital because he resembles a typical hip hop artist that our audience can relate to and makes it clear that we are understanding the task clearly and what our music magazine will need to feature to have at real feel to it 

Final Designs

Front Cover 

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

 

Double Page Mock Up 3

Double Page Spread Mock up 3

This was the closest mock up to making it to being our final double page spread. This mock up covered all of the criteria we were after, by this i mean we have used the colour scheme that is running throughout the magazine. Also i feel that this is a much more attractive layout with the big mast head of "Ryboy Digital" edited above the image on the first page making it clear that this is the name of the artist in the photo. But when compared to the one we used I feel that it just has the edge over this one and for that reason we have chosen to go with the other one. 

Double Page Spread 2

Double Page Spread Mock Up 2

This mock up is a bit more of a development towards what we are after with our magazine double page spread. This mock up conforms to the colour scheme we were looking for which is a blend of black and white. but i feel that the layout of this double page spread is unattractive and we have not taken the time to refine all the small details to make it a high enough quality for our final piece.

Double Page Spread Mock Up 1

Double Page Spread Mock Up 1

This is the first mock up we produced of a double page spread and personally i feel that this was a good solid place to start. The layout in this mock up is very generic and nothing fancy but the simplicity of it allows it not to get carried away and look unattractive. But what was letting this double page spread down was the colours used and the content, yet again this double page spread has not conformed to the colour scheme we were looking to archive with our work. We chose to go with a grey theme on this double page spread but i think this makes it look quite boring seeing that this is not reoccurring throughout the rest of the work. the other aspect that let this work down was the content we used in the second page, we decided to write up an interview with one of the artists featuring in our magazine. Reflecting on what we did i feel that we went out the layout of this work in complete wrong way and would leave our audience confused to what it is saying.

Contents Page Mock Up 3

Contents Page Mock Up 3

This contents page was very close to what we were looking for, it ticks all the boxes in terms of the colour scheme and the layout. The background is predominantly black which sticks to the same as the front cover, also has subtle features of white. Also in my opinion this is a much more attractive layout with the first thing the audience is being greeted is the main image of an artist. 

Contents Page Mock Up 2

Contents Page Mock Up 2

This is the second contents page we produced but ended up not going with. Personally i feel that this contents page was where we started to develop a bit more of a contents page layout and started to conform to the colour scheme i wanted to achieve. But i still fell like it looks like its missing features and look unfinished. We wanted to keep our work simple but i feel that this wasn't the best layout to portray that simple affect we were after. 

Contents Page Mock Up 1

Contents Page Mock up 1

This is the First mock up we produced for our contents page, We didn't go with this Contents page design for our final piece for a number of reasons. The first problem i have with this is the colours used, in our front cover we have stuck to the majority of the page being black. therefore seeing that i chose to stick with a colour scheme running throughout all of our work this colour does not have a place in my final work. The second problem i have with this is the font we have used for the text on this contents page. Personally when looking back at it i don't find it the easiest text to read which could lead to problems if we used this font in our final piece.

Front Cover Mock Up 3

Front Cover Mock Up 3

This is our Final mock up that we felt wasn't a high enough quality to feature in our final work. The aspects that let this work down was the layout, we felt that this was a very low quality layout and not one that would find on a magazine front cover. On this work looking back at it i felt that the mast head was not in proportion to the main photo and didn't stand out enough to make it apparent this is the name of the magazine. The colour scheme we went this also doesn't look very attractive and washes out the three circles with information on the bottom. 

Front Page Mock Up 2

This magazine front cover didn't make the cut because we felt that it is a little over the top. the background of this magazine is an array of different colours, we thought we would try this affect to see how it looked. But after making it we have seen that it is over the top and no what we are after for this task. Also we have left this magazine rather clear of many features on the front page, we have done this on our final piece but on this example i feel like it looks like something is missing. 

Front Cover Mock Up 1

Front Cover Mock Up 1

We felt this mock up was not a good enough standard for the final piece and here is why. The colours used in this front cover resembled our Preliminary task. We felt that we were much more capable of producing a better colour scheme as we feel that these colours didn't come across very professional and made it look like something someone whipped up without putting much thought into it.  

Colour Testing

Below is a quick look at the thought process into why i am going to use two colours in my front cover and one reason why I chose not to use a certain colour in my work.

Font Testing

Below are the font testing that we have taken out into finding the best fonts to fit what we are trying to do with our magazine as we will require a number of different fonts for different tasks 

Contact Sheet

Location Planning

Pros and cons:

• Not at the same level as the camera as we climbed on top of the frame. This could make the shot look uneven or potentially 'out of place'. 
• No artificial lighting so it was bit risky and unpredictable. This natural light could have meant the shot was too dark. 
• If the fence or lamp post was in any shots, this wouldn't be very aesthetically pleasing. 
• Overlapping branches could get in the way, and they don't look very nice either. 
• On the other hand, you could suggest that the difference in levels shows diversity and a unique shot in contrast to our other locations. 
• Blue contrasts to the surroundings of the frame e.g. green grass, grey concrete, orange brick wall etc. This makes the object our models are sat on stand out, and thus, the models as well. 
• When the shot was taken in the correct position, you could only see the models, some of the frame and the sky in the background, which was good, natural lighting; at the time. 

This location is appropriate for our genre because it's on the street, and this where hip-hop originated. Hip-hop is a genre known for rebellion and it's non compliance with the law. Our models climbed on top of this structure, conforming to hip-hop expectations. Furthermore, it is appropriate to our audience as this is a potential location for teenagers to 'hang out'. It is situated near a skate park and it is shelter. hence why our audience could potentially be interested in this location.

Pros and cons:

• Our audience could have an interest in skate parks as it is a frequent hobby for teenagers. 
• Connotations of hip-hop are elements of street art such as graffiti and creativity which is what artists strive to present to the world. 
• Urban culture is also shown here, and if it is being applied to hip-hop then it is more accurately street culture e.g. skate boarding, street art etc. 
• Hip-hop artists also wear skate boarding/street wear brands e.g. Palace, Supreme etc. 
• The unique graffiti patterns and colours contrast to the costumes that of our models. 
• Not all hip-hop artists like skate boarding or wear its brands so it isn't 100% accurate. 
• Natural lighting can negatively effect the shot if it is dark. 
• The debris in some of the shots isn't aesthetically pleasing.

This location is appropriate for our genre due to the location itself originating on the street. Hip-hop was found on the street too, meaning they are relevant to one another. In addition, hip-hop artists also like connotations of skate boarding such as the brands and clothing associated with it. More specifically, examples of artists that skate board are Tyler, the Creator and Lil Wayne. For this reason, the location is relevant to our target audience as they are possibly admirers of these two artists and aspire to be like them. Our audience themselves might like skate boarding too, however this isn't guaranteed, yet they could still like the idea of it and its surroundings, like street art.  

Pros and cons:

• The lack of artificial light means that the lighting can potentially be too dark, and hence then models wouldn't be very well visible or presented. 
• Doesn't really have many/any connotations or relations to the genre of hip-hop. 
• A brick wall is quite boring as it doesn't have any vibrant colours or anything eye catching; it's just quite plain. 
• The only connotations is it's street aesthetic, which is where hip-hop originated. 
• The different levels show diversity and an inclining rate of the models positioning. 

This location doesn't really represent our genre, we just did part of our photoshoot here sporadically to test our options and see if the outcome was any good. However, the lack of creativity is thoroughly subverting the idea of hip-hop, yet it is still relatively 'street'. This location is also quite boring for our audience. Teenagers are quite difficult to engage as they either love something or hate something, and they are difficult to entertain too; a brick wall is likely to fail at dong this. 

Pros and cons:

• The wall isn't very aesthetically pleasing due to the cracked bricks and its uneven layout. The leaves also don't look very nice either. 
• The absence of artificial lighting also means implications could occur on the shot as it could be too dark.
• The big lawn and huge building in the background illustrates a hip-hop artists lifestyle and their tremendous wealth as this could be seen as their home. Our audience is likely to aspire to have these kind of features to their lifestyle when they're older as it is signs of success. 
• By standing/squatting on the wall, it provides us with the opportunity to have a worms eye view of the models. This would be even more significant if it was taken from closer to the wall, showing the domination of our models as they would be looking over the land. The sense of domination is what hip-hop artists love to possess due to their lifestyle of doing what they want when they want.  

Conclusion: 

To conclude, my group and i have decided to incorporate 3 of the 4 locations presented in our magazine. The stair case is the least representative of hip-hop due to its lack of connotations and associations related to the genre. In addition, a stair case with very mutual colours is extremely plain and boring in contrast to a skate park with vibrant graffiti. The other locations are more unique, diverse and more related to hip-hop.

Photoshoot Planning

Here is my Groups photoshoot planning showing you how we went about taking our photos for our Magazine

Props / Costumes