Week 24

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine double page spread. It uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. 

On the left I have placed a professional product. It is a double page spread featuring Alexandra Burke. This cover is simple but effective, and uses a base of two colours; pink and black. The quotes and album information are presented in pink whilst the rest of the article is in black font. The article is only layed out on one of the pages from the spread, whilst the other is used to show the main icon. The main icons clothing is barely covers her bum and is purely goes with media theory, men look, women appear. women watch themselves being looked at. It also goes with Laura Maulvey's Male gaze.  
On the right is my final bhangra music magazine double page spread. I have included two images of my main icon. I have included an interview and heading, and question and answer. I have included page numbers and also based my spread on two base colours; black and purple. 

My media product shows the models images standing out, in order to catch the readers eyes and show her importance and status within the music industry.  

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product is a bhangra music magazine double page spread. I am targetting both males and females of asian background. The age range may be from 15-45 years. I am designing my media product to represent these particular social groups by using bhangra related bright colours, culteral references and an eyecatching layout. My icon will represent asian people, and audience will be able to relate as she will be of an asian background too, and maybe around the same age range of the audience depending on their age

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover.My magazine is similar to many other magazines, therefore I believe that magazine distributers like Bauer Consumer Media might be interested in distributing my magazine. 

Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group. It is Europes largest privately owned publishing group. It has a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries both printed and online. 

Bauer Media is a multi-Platform UK-based media group consisting of many companies colleged around 2 main division - Magazines & Radio. It is built on influential media brands with millions of personal relationships with engaged readers & listeners. They connect to their audiences with excellent content through their broad multi-touch point brand platforms, wherever and wherever and however wanted. Bauer magazine spans over 80 influential brand names covering a diverse range of interests. As Bauer media publish for a diverse range of interests, this institution will be the perfect match to publish my media product. This way my media product can be accessed as both a hard copy and soft.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

South Asia

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover. As I am creating a Bhangra music magazine, my audience will be south asians.
On the left I have included the region of south asia, and these are my broad ethnic audience, and what kind of people will be targetted for my bhangra music magazine. On the whole, my magazine will be distribute within the UK and the region of europe. Therefore my audience may be citizens of the european union, or be british. 

The age range of my music magazine will be from 15-35. Also my target audience will be both males and females as within the asian regions, music is very important, and men are interested as much as women therefore i decided to broaden my target audience to men aswell as women.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

My media product is a bhangra music magazine double page spread. My audience are british/european of south asian descent. This means like my music magazine, my audience also have a western twist to them. This means they can relate to my whole magazine. I will attract/address my audience by adding a famous well known artist/icon within my spread. This will enable readers to want to read the story. I will also add album information and tour dates and email and online information of the artist. My audience most likely will be familiar with the internet so this will intrigue them further. Also  interview questions and answers will also draw in readers and artists fans also, they will want to know more about the artist and read on. Colours and layout is also an important factor to this, as it is visual and there needs to be something visual to attract the audience into reading the article or interview. 

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine double page spread. I have learnt how to organise my work better. I have done this by using margins and guide lines within InDesign programme. This has enabled me to allign my work better and keep it neat and tidy. My media product is a bhangra music magazine double page spread. Throughout the procoess of constructing this product i have learned many technologies. These consist of the following; organising the layers in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, locking and unlocking layers and editing my images within Adobe Photoshop using the Lasso tool.

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

Codes and conventions used within the double page spread compared to the front cover and contents page are similar. It is simpler to create a double page spread without having a first attempt as it is similar to the cover and contents page, except this product consists of two pages. The conventions needed within this task is far less compared to cover and contents. In the double page spread, page numbers, links for fans/upcoming album or tour information, title of article/main story, images of main artist/icon and interview with artist/cover story is needed. Overall, the progression towards the full product I have learned to allign my work better, and to have a neat and clear layout so that the reader can easily find information. Also a good layout enables the product to look better and gives it more of a professional touch. Effective images are very helpful as it aids the magazine be more visually attractive.

Week 23

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine contents page. It uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

On the left is a draft of my bhangra music magazine contents page. As you can see, it looks very dark and gothic, and didn't really match my music genre, therefore I decided to change the colour scheme and layout of the page slightly.  

On the right is my bhangra music magazine contents page final. I have placed my main story icon in the middle of the page taking up more space than all the other images. This shows it's importance within the page. I've also included my magazine cover within my contents page. I have placed this on the top right hand corner.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product is a bhangra music magazine contents page. I am designing my media product to represent particular social groups. My audience and readers are mostly south asian people. I am designing my media product to represent particular social groups and I will do this by adding words and phrases that are bhangra related, and of which asian people understand. They will feel to read the magazine as there are cultural references and other factors that they may be able to relate to. Clothing and jewellery is another factor, as within bhangra clothing is very bright and jewellery is most often worn. 

Adding asian people to the magazine is also a way asian people may feel they can relate to the magazine. Featuring people of both genders, and having a variety of age groups featured within the magazine will also help me represent the different social groups. Bhangra itself is from the punjab, so punjabi people will be attracted to the magazine anyways, as music and dance is a huge part of their culture and traditions. 

I am designing my media product to feature asian people, of different age groups, featuring both male and female. Within my contents page I will insert more than four images so I can attract my audience visually. contents pages are more informative so therefore have loads of text, eventhough this is the case, I will make sure it is colourful, and follow the bhangra conventions to attract the audience.

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover. My magazine is similar to many other magazines, therefore I believe that magazine distributers like Bauer Consumer Media might be interested in distributing my magazine. 

Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group. It is Europes largest privately owned publishing group. It has a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries both printed and online. 

Bauer Media is a multi-Platform UK-based media group consisting of many companies colleged around 2 main division - Magazines & Radio. It is built on influential media brands with millions of personal relationships with engaged readers & listeners. They connect to their audiences with excellent content through their broad multi-touch point brand platforms, wherever and wherever and however wanted. Bauer magazine spans over 80 influential brand names covering a diverse range of interests. As Bauer media publish for a diverse range of interests, this institution will be the perfect match to publish my media product. This way my media product can be accessed as both a hard copy and soft.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

South Asia

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover.As I am creating a Bhangra music magazine, my audience will be south asians.
On the left I have included the region of south asia, and these are my broad ethnic audience, and what kind of people will be targetted for my bhangra music magazine. On the whole, my magazine will be distribute within the UK and the region of europe. Therefore my audience may be citizens of the european union, or be british. 

The age range of my music magazine will be from 15-35. Also my target audience will be both males and females as within the asian regions, music is very important, and men are interested as much as women therefore i decided to broaden my target audience to men aswell as women.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

As my media product is a bhangra music magazine contents page, my target audience will be british or european of a south asian descent. My audience will be both male and female around the ages of 15-45. I will attract/address my audience by making the images I use within the contents page effective and stand out. My images will address my audience as the image icons will be asian or representing bhangra and asian ethnicity by clothing or posture. Another way I will be addressing my audience is the colours used. It will be bright and colourful to catch the readers eye. This will draw in the audience to continue reading the magazine, as it is about the visual content as well as the text displayed.

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

My media product  is a bhangra music magazine contents page. Throughout the construction of my product, I have learnt about technologies such as using Adobe Photoshop and mainly Adobe Indesign. Both these programmes have helped me create my product. I have learnt to use many tools within these programmes for example, in Adobe InDesign I have learned to make my images look better by selecting then right clicking the image and making it better high quality. Throughout the process of constructing this product I have also learned to organise my layers. By this I mean more than naming the layers. By this I mean, background and bottom layers go all the way at the bottom, this way they do not over lap other layers. The higher the layers are, it means they are overlapping other layers. It is best to organise and place all the bottom and background layers to go at the bottom and then lock them in place so you can fiddle about with the rest and put them in place. Locking layers and unlocking is simple but very fiddly, however this comes in very handy as it helps to keeps layers in place. 

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine contents page. My preliminary task was to create a school/college magazine Contents page. I had recieved feedback on it, which has helped me progress my work and give me more knowledge on what I can do better to improve my contents page and future magazine contents pages I create. The feedback I have recieved from my preliminary task was very helpful.

images are very important and so is the content of the magazine. I have to plan ahead so in the long run I can link my images and articles together. Also more content was needed, and more tasters and other things in order to persuade the reader to be interested and actually want to flick through the magazine. I learnt about the imagery and how I need to use efficient and origional images in order to achieve a successful magazine contents page. As the contents page is "content", i have to make sure that those needs are satisfied too as well and include lots of information and images where needed. The layout is also very important, for it to be a good organised contents page. A good house style, a good colour scheme and image graphics, and fonts enables the cover to be more efficient and appealing. The colours used should resemble the theme or genre of the magazine. The imagery, and content are very important, and the preliminary task has helped me with the planning and helped me understand there is a lot of depth behind magazines.

Week 22

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

My media product is a Bhangra music magazine front cover. It uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

On the left is Asian woman magazine. This magazine is very inspirational as it looks very colourful and has a really good colour scheme; yellow, pink and hints of green. This magazine features Alesha Dixon. She is wearing a piece of asian clothing material which is covering her up to her knees. She has Henna tattoos on her legs which are also very colourful. The magazine is reaching out to their asian audience by using a colourful colourscheme, the asian clothing and jewellery. By placing a known icon on the front cover is also a good way of marketing as alesha dixons fans may also buy this magazine. The layout of this magazine is well organised as the text is positioned to the left and right sides of the pages. 

The masthead is positioned on the top of the page, and is alligned from left to right. It is big, bold and clear so that readers can easily read it. This also helps the magazine to be well known or remembered, as it will be one of the first things to catch your eyes. This magazine includes other codes and conventions which are; the dateline, price and barcode, selling line, bottom banner, cover lines, left third and main image. I have also included these codes and conventions within my cover.

On the right is the first draft of my bhangra music magazine front cover. I edited this cover, and made huge changes to the colour scheme and main icon image. Another big change I made was the magazine name itself. This was due to the fact that the whole magazine looked similar to a different theme to bhangra magazines. It looked like a Rock magazine cover instead. I decided to change the magazine name to Asian Vibe as I thought it suited my genre better. I also decided to change the colour scheme, to black, white, purple and pink. I have placed my final bhangra music magazine front cover on the left. 

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover. My media product is aimed at south asian people in particular, but it will be more westernised and  therefore my audience will be British Asians or citizens of the european union.

The social groups that will be represented within my media product will be teenagers, kids, adults, Punjabi people, indian people, pakistani people, and south asian people on the whole, whom are interested in bhangra music with a western twist, for example the recent bhangra artists like PBN (Punjabi By Nature), Alyssia, H dhami, Richi Rich & Apache Indian.  I am designing my media products to represent particular social groups by adding words and phrases that are bhangra related, and of which asian people understand. They will feel to read the magazine as there are cultural references and other factors that they may be able to relate to. Clothing and jewellery is another factor, as within bhangra clothing is very bright and jewellery is most often worn. 

Adding asian people to the magazine is also a way asian people may feel they can relate to the magazine. Featuring people of both genders, and having a variety of age groups featured within the magazine will also help me represent the different social groups. Bhangra itself is from the punjab, so punjabi people will be attracted to the magazine anyways, as music and dance is a huge part of their culture and traditions.

My media product represents these particular social groups as they are all of south asian heritage or may have an interest within the culture or music. As my magazine is aimed at westernised south asians, whom tend to listen to or may have huge interests in RnB, PoP and other subgenres, my bhangra magazine can cater to those interests with its bhangra twist. I may involve other famous westernised artists within my magazine that are creating albums with a bhangra twist or if they are collaborating music with bhangra artists. I will reach out to my target audience using my magazines and conventions I include within my magazine. I will include conventions like the colours - as they would be bright and colourful similar to south asian tradition as clothing tends to be really bright. I may use colours like oranges, reds, Yellows, Blues, Purples and Greens. Also the clothing colours would be bright too. My magazine would relate to my target audience as I may use south asian clothing within my bhangra magazine, also the audience can relate to the ethnicity of the artists in my magazine. The music type is bhangra and people who listen to that music genre will be generally interested also.

Within the front cover I will place a british asian female with an age range of 18-30. I will make sure my cover is colourful and relates to bhangra. I will include culteral references within the articles featured on the cover. I will also lay out my magazine like other asian magazines in order to represent particular social groups within the asian audience.  

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover. My magazine is similar to many other magazines, therefore I believe that magazine distributers like Bauer Consumer Media might be interested in distributing my magazine. 

Bauer Media is a division of the Bauer Media Group. It is Europes largest privately owned publishing group. It has a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries both printed and online. 

Bauer Media is a multi-Platform UK-based media group consisting of many companies colleged around 2 main division - Magazines & Radio. It is built on influential media brands with millions of personal relationships with engaged readers & listeners. They connect to their audiences with excellent content through their broad multi-touch point brand platforms, wherever and wherever and however wanted. Bauer magazine spans over 80 influential brand names covering a diverse range of interests. As Bauer media publish for a diverse range of interests, this institution will be the perfect match to publish my media product. This way my media product can be accessed as both a hard copy and soft.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

South Asia

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover.As I am creating a Bhangra music magazine, my audience will be south asians.
On the left I have included the region of south asia, and these are my broad ethnic audience, and what kind of people will be targetted for my bhangra music magazine. On the whole, my magazine will be distribute within the UK and the region of europe. Therefore my audience may be citizens of the european union, or be british. 

The age range of my music magazine will be from 15-35. Also my target audience will be both males and females as within the asian regions, music is very important, and men are interested as much as women therefore i decided to broaden my target audience to men aswell as women.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover. My target audience are british or european people of south asian descent. The audience my magazine will target is both male and female around the ages of 15-45. My media product is using factors such as bhangra music and other references to target the audience. I will feature asian people, british/european asians to attract/address my audience. I am attracting/addressing my audience by using an effective colour scheme. Also my masthead is big, bold and clear, this enables it to stand out and catch the readers eye. My cover lines and text featured will be in a contrasting colour and will stand out for readers to see the headlines. I am addressing british and european people as I have designed my page to have the price in pounds and in euros. 

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover.I have learnt a variety of things about technologies from the process of constructing this product. The software I have used is Adobe InDesign to create my magazine. I have also used Adobe Photoshop to edit my images. I wasn't familiar with Adobe InDesign but going through the process of creating my product I have learned to place images, and organise my work. Organising my work has helped me a lot, as this way I could move and edit my work easier. I organised it by placing everything in different layers and naming them. They also appeared in different colours, which also helped identify the layer I was working on. My media product is a Bhangra music magazine front cover. I have learnt to edit my images in the process of constructing this product. Before I used to edit my images using the quick select tool on Adobe Photoshop, but then throughout the process of creating my product I have found that using the Lasso tool is a far more of an effective way to edit my images. This tool was easier to use and my images looked way better edited when I used it, and I also had to remember and feather the edited parts everytime I used the lasso tool so the edges came out nice and smoothed out. 

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine front cover. My preliminary task was to create a school/college magazine front cover. From what I have created, I have been given feedback. This helped me progress my work and give me more knowledge on what I can do better to improve my cover and future magazine covers I create. The feedback I have recieved from my preliminary task was very helpful.

Overall I learnt about the consistency of the house style and how this has a huge effect on the magazine. A good house style, a good colour scheme and image graphics, and fonts enables the cover to be more efficient and appealing. Also colours used should resemble the theme or genre of the magazine. It has helped me with the planning and helped me understand there is a lot of depth behind magazines and what it means and its resemblence. The layout is also very important, and should be done according to the theme of the magazine.  

Week 20

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

My media product is a Bhangra music magazine double page spread. My media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

I have placed my bhangra music magazine double page spread above. I have briefly annotated it with some of the codes and conventions I have used within it which is similar to other proffessional double page spreads. 

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

My media product is a bhangra music magazine double page spread. Throughout the procoess of constructing this product i have learned many technologies. These consist of the following; organising the layers in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, locking and unlocking layers and editing my images within Adobe Photoshop using the Lasso tool. 

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

Within the preliminary task, I created only a front cover and contents page. But the codes and conventions to be used within the double page spread compared to the front cover and contents page overlap. This enables it to be easy to create a double page spread without having a first attempt as it is quite similar to the cover and contents page anyways, except this product consists of two pages. The conventions needed within this task is far less compared to cover and contents. In the double page spread, page numbers, links for fans/upcoming album or tour information, title of article/main story, images of main artist/icon and interview with artist/cover story is needed. Also as I think having an effective colour scheme and housestyle is necessary, I've added that also within my full product. Overall, progression towards the full product I have learned to allign my work better, and have a neat and clear layout so the reader can easily find information. Also a good layout enables the product to look better and gives it a professional touch.