Magazine Research & Ideas

Magazine Research:

These two magazines on top are some magazines which I've done research onto. To make my research relevant, I've thought of researching for film magazines to touch down the codes and conventions of real media texts and apply these conventions to my final magazine piece.

The "EMPIRE" magazine seems to include a film strip on the lower part to initially denotate that this magazine has something relevant to do with movies - this makes the audience recognise this signifier and relate it to a film magazine. The magazine's title is the same typeface as what EMPIRE's logo is to reflect the corporate identity and entice the loyal EMPIRE audience to purchase this magazine. This magazine's colour scheme is limited to possibly make the composition match as an artwork to make the viewers like the magazine's presentation. I could take note of this due to the fact that most magazines which I've seen limit their colour scheme. The main protagonist, Bruce Willis, is used in the main photograph - this technique makes the audience recognise an iconic actor, while at the same time, connotating that he is the main protagonist, together along with other actors behind him to apply the two-step flow theory and get anyone who idolises these celebrities to be enticed easier due to the celebrity endorsement.


The Tron magazine, as well as the EMPIRE magazine, has limited their colour scheme. To reinforce this idea, the design has added graphics around the front cover to symbolise the Tron world. Just like the EMPIRE magazine again, they've added the main protagonist on the photograph to make the viewers recognise quickly and using the two-step flow theory, for the audience to idolise these people on the front cover and become enticed. This magazine contains a gimmick, ""WIN! AWESOME PRIZES!" to make the audience feel like they are getting something from purchasing this magazine by having a deal.





Magazine Ideas:

The title of our magazine is 'Memory' which we've agreed upon by connoting it to death and remembering the bloody incidents which happened in the past, therefore "Memory". Memory, as a universal name, can also relate to different genres of movie reviews when used in the future.
In terms of pricing, we came upon our magazine to be £1.50 since our target audience are around the 15 year olds, they may not have that much money to purchase a much more expensive magazine. The magazine should be monthly as not much films are released too frequently.


In the magazine, according to my research of codes and conventions in movie magazines, our magazine title should be on top, preferably middle or top left. Although, with a long name, we've decided upon putting it on the middle to blend with the composition of film magazines. The font should be simple, but with the special horror edition, we could add signifiers of gore, horror, etc. such as blood splatters on the magazine's title, with the agreed colour of red to signify blood.


The main photo should contain a mid shot or a long shot of the three main protagonists with red eyes of the "monster" behind the trio showing the protagonists' facial expressions to inject emotion onto it and signify the genre of the magazine's main headline.


I plan on including a rhetorical question on the front cover such as "Will they all survive?" to entice the readers to look into the magazine and purchase it. Also, an additional celebrity endorsement for the actors can be done with lines such as "find out what they like about...", etc. to engage the viewers about the actors and purchase the magazine. Along the cover, I plan on including gimmicks such as special offers, and other films which will come out to widen the topic pool of the magazine and gain more audience.


The main target for our magazine are over 15 year olds, predominantly male. Our niche audience should be anyone who is interested in horror films, and possibly target people who are interested in rock, emo, metal, etc. music by being related to the featuring film's main genre, and add additional gimmick lines such as "See My Chemical Romance Live!", etc. to entice the audience of special offers, while at the same time, applying the two step flow theory onto it.

The Omen (2006) Media Promotions

Dissecting The Omen’s Media:

DVD Cover:

Being taught Media knowledge, I’ve noticed how the Omen has been successful. The box’s colour-scheme is in red, white, and black, which is a convention for horror designs. This semiotics also connotes blood, which symbolises gore, which relates to the horror genre. The child’s body is is desaturated and pixelated, leaving the eyes red, which connotates an evil inside of the child.
The evil typeface of the title comes in the horror conventions which signify that this DVD cover is of horror genre.
This DVD cover attracts the audience by adding the shades of red to the cover, which make it stand out from other DVD covers on a shelf since most DVD covers may have a black casing, and, with the Blu Ray Disks being commercially available in this year, a wide contrast between red and blue makes the DVD cover stand out even more.

Trailer:


The trailer, representing the horror film, The Omen, is a remake of the first 1976 The Omen film. Applying Jack Cohen's theory of moral panic, which states that when a crisis is in progress, the media tends to target a social group as the main problem stereotypically, 20th century fox possibly released this movie in this year to synergize with the panic of the stampede in the Stoning The Devil ritual which killed 362 pilgrims in the 12th of January, 2006. The institution possibly rushed the movie to intensify the fear of the devil by representing the devil in the movie.

Website:
http://omen2006.omenchronicles.com/
The Omen's website is actually linked to the other Omen chronicles, which allows the audience to be exposed to other Omen movies, enticing the audience further into the concept of the chronicles. With The Omen films including mystery around the story, the audience will want more after each movie, which is what made the 20th Century Fox produce episodes of the movie. To the extend where the The Omen chronicles' audience amount grew further together with the technology, the institution which held The Omen applied the uses & gratification theory by connecting the movies together to fulfill the audience's needs of finding the other movies, plus, saving the audience time of searching for the other The Omen films by collaterating them into a single place, which gives the audience a sense of product satisfaction, therefore, gaining the audience's loyalty and trust upon the institution.
The minimal design in the website creates a clear and easier user interface for the audience as the episodes of The Omen have a wide mix in their release dates, in where they contain elderly audiences which may not be as skilled as the modern generations, which therefore, widens their audience pool.
The website's colour scheme compliments the genre of the film, black, to immediately inject the fact to the audience that the website is of a horror genre relevance by the colour black being perceived by the people to be related to darkness, which is what the film is connected to.

What factors influence the representation of British Youth in Media?

Influences in the British youth involve a varying number of areas which can affect stereotypes and the general representation of British youth. These factors include: current events, producers, TV programming, dominant ideology, institutions, news channels, films, trends and fashion, race and religion, age and gender, sexuality.
The current trends/context while in the production of a Media text can affect how the representation of the British youth is at this time. When the London Riots were being held, the Media gave a negative representation to the British youths to the audience, presenting them as being mindless looters, while the initial idea of the riots were to give the public awareness of their feeling of being left out. Factors which mainly affected this way of representation were when mostly the burning and looting were broadcasted, and minimal of the positive and/or calm approach of some.
The producers can give any type of representation they want to the audience using the people they produce. As some producers create reality shows, a part who do a fixed winning on who is the most marketable, while representing the some British youth in a way either negatively or positively in any way the producers want. Their main purpose for creation can also be to create a stereotype representation to the British youth, especially when the programme has just started due to the fact that the audience would perceive the characteristics of the character easier when viewing a stereotype, which also leads to maintaining the stereotype itself, which can cause problems when the stereotype is negative, such as how the majority of how the British youth is being represented today.

What responsibility does the Media have for or understanding of groups in society?

In terms of collected identity, the Media has a huge responsibility upon representing these groups to the audience. Audience can perceive a certain group by how they are represented while an individual would be of a different type of person to their audience pool. This could create clashes of beliefs to the certain people who have been represented.
An example of a big issue in collective identity being represented in media is the London Riots, where mainly hooligan hooded youngsters are the prime suspects who are also only mainly interviewed by Media and published. Due to this, Media corrupted other people’s minds to start up in aggression to how their social group has been described negatively. The BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking providers have been hit the hardest due to the lack of publicity they’ve given to the Media for evidence of crimes in exchange for the personal details privacy of their users. Their responsibility in this is crucial due to the fact that they have to give out every person’s personal details, which can create a lack of trust to these companies from their customers.
“Identity is complicated – everybody thinks they’ve got one” – David Gauntlett. This quote shows that collateral representation can create social trespassing when conjuring images of a group of people who have a different identity, since everyone is unique, to the mass audience. Their responsibility in this is to carefully pick out the points, in terms of the character’s representations in mise-en-scene, camera, sound, etc., which can create less criticism towards the media.
Institutions such as the BBC are expected to represent every social group as they are being funded by TV licence. In terms of international group representation, this crosses legal terms in different areas of the world, which can criticise the company holding the media which represented this way. This event is made to happen less by the media gaining more information of not only the story, but the legal terms which apply in an area, also minding the audience they may be hitting, which can cause problems.
Once, Osama Bin Laden has been broadcasted sitting next to Bert, a Sesame Street Muppet. This raised criticism from the creators of Sesame Street. against the world-known terrorists. This collective identity can affect the Muppet negatively, while giving Bin Laden the initial representation of being powerful.
The Media's censorship is a must, but with growing technology, and the introduction of the World Wide Web, people worldwide can read leaked information, which the Media themselves can't stop.

My Presentation for My Final Products

Presentation for SHAKE magazine

View more presentations from robertvila315.

Music Magazine Production Presentation


Research for Music Magazines’ Front Covers

The research is to find out what codes and conventions music magazines use and how they use them. What I’ve noticed in which music magazines from my research consisted were: a front page photograph of a celebrity; the magazine title on top, which is made simple; mentioning other celebrity names; a promise of something good from the magazine; and adding somewhat an advertisement about the magazine.

My Front Cover
PROMOTION FROM
THE MAGAZINE
TITLE ON TOP AND MADE SIMPLE
ADDITIONAL PHOTO OF OTHER CELEBRITIES(NME Magazine)
PRICE MADE SMALL BUT LEGIBLE
FRONT PAGE PHOTO OF THE COVER STORY
PROMISE OF SOMETHING GOOD FROM THE MAGAZINE
MENTIONING OTHER ARTISTS
QUOTE FROM AN ARTIST
BARCODE ON BOTTOM LEFT
I made the colour scheme suit the front photo to make the front cover look more familiar and “in-flow”

Research for Music Magazines’
Contents Pages
The codes and conventions which I noticed in these music magazine contents pages which I’ve done research on were: contains “contents” somewhere on the top in the biggest text; photos where most have numbers on them; date added; photos about the story; numbers on the sub-headings; and limiting their colour scheme minimal.

My Contents Page
“CONTENTS “WRITTEN IN THE BIGGEST TEXT
DATE, VOLUME AND ISSUE
PHOTOS ABOUT THE STORY
SUB-HEADINGS WITH PAGE NUMBERS
PAGE NUMBERS ON PHOTOS
PAGE NUMBER, DATE, AND MAGAZINE NAME

Research for Music Magazines’
Double Page Spreads
I made my double page spread as full-on as possible, including a lot of photos to entertain the reader and idolize the celebrities through the magazine, therefore, getting them to admire the magazine. What I've noticed the codes and conventions were for these music magazine pages were: they add quotes from the celebrity/celebrities; sometimes they add reviews; they add a lot of photos; they use the interviewer's logo instead of the magazine's logo; and they limit the colour for the pages to about three or four.

My Double Page Spread
My double page spread follows as much codes and conventions as possible from my research. My photos consist of stock(from my friends’ gatherings) and some which are scripted to provide mise-en-scene of modelling. A title, adding “SHAKE LOVES,” is added to make the band seem more loved. Reviews on the right are also added, in where I’ve taken photos of different events where I’ve been in.
HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY – Photos makes the reader believe that the band does this every time.
TWO STEP FLOW THEORY – Katy Perry is added as a quotation to get Katy Perry fans want to find out more about this band.
USES & GRATIFICATION THEORY - Overall, I tried combining the photos, the colour, and the story to fulfil the reader’s needs.
RECEPTION THEORY - Teenagers should idolize them and thank the magazine for it, while ageist people may probably find them to be reckless. How I intend to persuade the oppositional readers is by making the ending give them a reputation which compliments the oppositionals

The Evaluation For My Final Products

About The Front Cover "SHAKE MAGAZINE ROBERT VILA"

About The Double Page Spread "The Joule Hitters"

I made my double page spread as full-on as possible, including a lot of photos to entertain the reader and idolize the celebrities through the magazine, therefore, getting them to admire the magazine. What I've noticed the codes and conventions were for these music magazine pages were: they add quotes from the celebrity/celebrities; sometimes they add reviews; they add a lot of photos; they use the interviewer's logo instead of the magazine's logo; and they limit the colour for the pages to about three or four.

My double page spread consists of some codes and conventions of music magazines' pages: I added an interview; photos related to the story, main celebrities, etc.; the interview title; quotes from the interviewees; caption; columns; pyramid structure; bylines; and more.

The colour scheme of this double page spread is made similar to the front cover and contents page to make the reader subconsciously aware of what magazine they are reading - SHAKE. Also, some research about purple, in colour psychology, suggests that the colour purple make the reader prejudice luxury, while the colour blue makes the reader feel calm, therefore, I used this certain colour-scheme to make the reader feel luxurious and not judge the band as much of being "rebels" or anything about how teenagers would be represented - to balance out the representation, to widen my target audience being happy reading the magazine.

The photos which I added are some stock, and some recent. The photos which I added for the fictional "Joule Hitters" are actually some photos which I took of my friends throughm the times we had together - I added the ones which I felt suited the pop band reputation. Some were scripted and edited to apply my use of the hypodermic needle theory, making the audience believe this is what they do, and some were natural to retain the authenticity of how it relates to the plot of how the band acts off-stage - applying the uses and gratification theory to make the reader not only read, but also to visualize what they are doing via photographs.

I tend to entertain the readers with my editing of some photographs and how they are layered out, I tend to inform the reader of how the band looks out of stage, and I tend to make the reader feel personally identified by different photograph types (invitational, outward gaze, etc.). Applying my graphic skills which I've learnt from doing AS level graphic design, I composed items which I felt would make the pages look more professional. I added items such as: the notepad which contains the "who, what, where, when, and how" about the band to not only inform the reader, but to also entertain them with a fun way of presenting the information, thus, gets them enticed to purchase the next magazines; fancy, gradiented, non-flat colours applied on the website links to make the reader judge the magazine's reputation as being very graphic-aware.

Manipulating mise-en-scene to the photographs, I applied my use of the hypodermic needle theory and the reception theory to gain certain effects on my target audience and beyond. Since some photographs have guitars on them and other specific audience targets such as the fallen cupid, this puts into the fact that, referring to the reception theory, other people may decode this in a different way in which I decoded it: oppositional readers such as religious people, formal people, etc. may see the representation of the models as demonic(fallen cupid dead) or slang teenagers(ageist people may see them too young for the industry) - the way in how I planned to put these certain people in negotiated or preferred reading is the story, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to fit that much so in reality, I would've added it on the other page - using the hypodermic needle theory, I could add certain sides of their representation such as being religious, having a formal side, etc. to persuade these types of readers(oppositional readers) and give the effect of a good ending interview story.

What I've noticed from the double page spreads from my research was that they add reviews on the pages. I added my own reviews on mine about upcoming concerts to inform the reader and make them feel loyal to the magazine, giving them the idea that this is a reliable magazine. I added rhyming and repetition of "know" to make the reviews seem fun and less boring to liven up the reader. Since they were reviews after all, I tried to add the magazine's opinion on these concerts and also applying the "who, what, where, when, how" to compliment the reader's needs.






Here is my final double page spread:

About The Contents Page

I kept my contents page simple and legible for the audience to be informed more easily. What I've noticed from my research is that the contents pages for most music magazines tend to be less "smashing."

The most effective factors of contents pages are how interesting the photos are, plus how the sub-headings interest certain audiences depending on vocabulary, language, etc.

I've added these photos to look more "rockstar-formal" - to interest first hand, referring mise-en-scene of the location and their costumes, a hint about the story. I've also added numbers on the photos to help the reader work out which story the scene belongs to and/or to initially make the reader flick to that page since music magazine readers would be used to knowing that numbers on photographs refer to the page - an advantage of following the codes and conventions and applying the uses & gratification theory to how the readers would expect a contents page to be. I made each of the photogtaphs have different effect to highlight my ability to manipulate mise-en-scene.

I made the top-left photograph seem as if the model is in a half-recording studio, half-home room. The effect which I was trying to achieve on this is to make the audience wonder what the location of the celebrity has to do with the byline about the celebrity winning - an application of an enigma code to get the readers suspense, and when it comes to the story, they should be told of what the location and quote was about. Also, this photograph is two photographs merged together: a background, and of me. Since I didn't really have access to the mise-en-scene of a luxurious room, I just took an image from the internet to achieve the effect of the hypodermic needle theory to make the audience believe.

The top right photograph was taken in a Valentine's party. The stage effect background plus their outfits seem to be very believable when I used the hypodermic needle theory on the byline of a real popular coming album.

The middle photograph was taken in a past school trip. The way my friends were dressed seemed "rockstar-ish" so I just took a photo of them. The flash was turned on in the camera setting because it was at night, now, it seems quite effective on making the models look VIP because it focused on the main models in the photograph - a new thing learnt!

The bottom photograph was taken just before a beauty pageant contest in my friends' school. This was a stock photo in my files. Since they looked like popstars, and the mise-en-scene at the back (chalkboard) seemed to come up with an interesting story, I thought I should just add this.

The biggest text, 'Contents,' is made the biggest in size to point out to the reader that this page is the contents page.

The title, 'Contents,' is alligned to the page numbers to keep neat, making the page more legible, using the rulers and lines in the design programme to layout in proportion.

The colour scheme for this page is the same as all of my products for the reader to be subconsciously aware that they are reading the same magazine and for the audience's advantage of adapting less in a change of colour scheme.

At the top right, I added a date and a volume and an issue number to inform the readers of how many issues the magazine has had and get them being interested and curious about when the magazine started. For the magazine subscribers or collectors, this informs them if they've missed magazine issues, and could get them to purchase the others which they've missed, most of all though, it informs the reader that it is a monthly magazine.

On the lowest part of the page, are the page number, date, and text written as "SHAKE MAGAZINE" to inform the reader of the page, partially the month, and to remind them what magazine it is.

I added a different coloured background(grey) on the text which containts the sub-headings to make the page look more busy, which should earn the magazine points of respect from the reader for graphic awareness.

In the sub-headings, i used a variety of language techniques for certain effects. In the Green Day sub-heading, I used an invitational question to get the reader in suspense. In Robert Vila, I added a speech from him to get the reader to believe the promise of getting more quotes from the celebrity, using the two step flow theory. The Maroon 5 & Cheryl Cole sub-heading is injected with an opinion, which weakens the non Maroon 5 or Cheryl Cole fans' oppositional reading to either preferred reading or negitiated reading using an opinion which the reader may decode as a fact (finally!).

The Ke$ha sub-heading is added with ellipsis to act sarcastic then an exclamation marked short sentence to stress out the idea and give the reader a sense of interest.

In the Katy Perry sub-heading, I used a first-person dialogue to make the reader feel involved, therefore, compliments the uses and gratification theory of personal identification.

The Deviate & Stiffler sub-heading is added with the magazine's opinion about the celebrities, using the hypodermic needle theory, to encourage the reader to believe that they're real celebrities and that this is what really happened.

I used taylor Swift's name in this sell line to attract Taylor Swift fans using the two step flow theory - since it promises "tips," it should get the readers excited.

In the Three Mean Gurlz sub-heading, I used a double suspense - a rhetorical question, thena supposed-to-be-shocking-event which happened - to get the reader being excited.

In the The Joule Hitters sub-heading, I used repetition to build up the reader's attention.

The Tina and Glenn sub-heading is in a first-person dialogue to personally identify the reader and make them feel involved.

Here is my final contents page:

Final Products At The Moment

Unfortunate Disasters

An unfortunate and devastating accident happened to me, including my media course. My files have been deleted. This is a very depressing thing which has happened to my files, but I will try to get as much work as possible back.

SHAKE Magazine Front Cover, Contents Page, and Double Page Spread

These three items which I'm creating are going good at the moment. I've finished them off, now I'm just dusting off parts of them to improve.

My front cover, possibly, would be the original experiment which I've posted in this blog in the past. The contents page is on its way to be uploaded and so is the double page spread.

The colour scheme of these three items are similar: blue and purple. The idea of this colour scheme is that it matched with the main photograph in the front cover - this should give the effect to the audience of the same atmosphere, therefore, keeping them aware of the magazine itself, to entice them to buy the other issues of the magazine.

Music Magazine Experiment

Above is an experiment of my front cover. I plan on designing my front cover similar to this.

And this graphic design above is what I plan to use as a background for my contents page and double page spread.

Magazine Logo Experiment

I've been experimenting on how my magazine's logo should look like. here are some of the ideas:

Photograph Taking

A couple of days ago I was intending to take photographs with my collegues. It didn't turn out so well because they didn't seem quite focused. What I now intend to do is to take photographs in the weekend, which is a non-school-day, with my friends, to be a lot more sure that photos will be taken. To achieve this, I am planning to use facebook or any other social websites as an event organizer to organize the time and date of a photoshoot.

Although, I have some stock photographs which I may possibly use for this magazine. Here are some of them:

I intend to take more photographs which would relate more to my magazine's genre.

Edit: Some more photographs which I took:

Music Magazine Production

The very first step I had in mind as soon as the production time started was to do research on different brand types of music magazines by different brands such as NME, KERRANG, etc., work out the techniques they've used and identify the codes and conventions of this variety of magazines.

The types of information which I will be looking for in my research are: print glossaries and meanings, codes and conventions for magazines, magazine front covers, contents pages, and double page spreads.

By researching for magazines, codes and conventions, genre, and target audience, I should stumble upon the world famous internet. I could search for past students' blogs to learn their ideas about magazines and take influence from their views to my own when breaking down a magazine.

From my research of front covers of music magazines, I noticed that most of them kept their title's appearance on every issue (if not all of them). Sometimes, their title only changes colour, which depends on the magazine's colour scheme. Also, the title's appearance is always kept simple and legible. Mojo's title is just "MOJO" in capitals, sans serif, with an addietional "The Music Magazine" placed on part of "MOJO"; Q magazine's title only has a white capital "Q" on a red rectangle; etc. these techniques make the magazine logo "title" adaptive to multiple themes to blend in, and to keep their corporate identity recognizable. Music magazines also usually places their title on the top of the page. This makes the magazine cover's composition balanced.

All music magazine front covers which I've researched so far contain sell lines. The effect which this creates is that it entices the reader, of the very catchy story (which is possibly added with puns, celebrity names, punch lines, etc.), to buy the magazine. Although, the sell lines are rarely just put randomly on the page - they mostly follow a colour scheme and pattern which depends on the magazine's overall design. This makes the magazine's composition more eye-catching, and, as sell lines are sell lines, they also make them as legible as possibly by choosing certain fonts.

Music magazines usually vary their main photograph: close-up shots usually lock eye contact towards the viewer to gain their attention; long shots and mid-shots alike usually show off the main character's body and'or pose to make the viewer idolize or mesmorieze at the person's body; group photographs are usually of band members photographed doing actions; although, whatever the magazine front cover's main photo is, they are mostly removed off their background and replaced with a colour which suits the magazine's colour scheme. The people which music magazines usually feature as front cover photos are of well-known celebrities - this makes the veiwer enticed to buy the magazine if they idolize the certain person in the front cover.


Some magazine front covers, I've noticed, place celebrity names on them to entice the reader to purchase the magazine if they see that the magazine contains a topic about a favourite celebrity of theirs. Also, they seem to use this technique as a "Plan B" to widen their target audience just in case the person doesn't like the person on the front cover.

From researching contents pages, I noticed that they mostly use the same techniques. Most techniques which music magazines use (which may be the codes and conventions) are: they add photographs in of the magazine's best stories, and some are numbered by their page number, sometimes, all photos are numbered; headlines are usually numbered and a different colour from the sub headline; the headlines and sub headlines are usually composed in columns but sometimes, when a photo would overlap on the text, the designer would usually go around the photo.

I intend my magazine's target audience to be: of any ethnicity; hip-hop, rock, pop, RnB, punk, and grime type of music people; middle-ages; male.

I will attempt to attract my target audience by adding photographs of people in each music genre throughout the magazine, especially the front cover. The main photograph should depend on the photographs which I will be taking when working with some friends. The effect which this should achieve is that the reader would idolize the photos to make the audience buy the magazine, enjoy the magazine, and buy the next issue.

My magazine's colour scheme will depend on my main photograph; if my main photograph is colourful, I plan to make the text colours of the sell lines colourful; if my main photograph limits in colour (somewhat like black, white, and red), I intend to compose my front cover's colour scheme to be dark.

A simple looking logo would be the best choice for my magazine to avoid getting in the magazine's composition. I intend the logo to be behind the main character to make the magazine not seem desperate of brand attention and to prioritize the main person in the photograph.

Sell lines which will attract people interested in each music genre I plan as target audience should be added. I intend these sell lines to be planned and designed in a way that the stories are explosive: I could change the colours, size, font type, etc. of different lines for different kinds of effects.