A note to the examiner:

Dear examiner,
I hope you enjoy reading my work and seeing my progress from the start of the coursework to my final product. I have learnt a lot throughout this process, about many aspects of media forms. I believe that my ideas have developed and become more sophisticated as I have gone through the process and the changes and alterations that I made throughout have helped me to produce an end product that i am satisfied with. I hope you can recognize my hard work and progression from start to end.

Final Product

Preliminary Task

Analysis, evaluation and general comments on my front cover

Note: There is three variations of my front cover in which I have handed in to my teacher for marking. This is only one.

I am happy with the design of my front cover and think it looks clean cut, neat and professional, which is the style i was aiming for. I have tried to keep it relatively simple and minimalist. I think that the image is eye catching and the colours in the image stand out above the white background. I learnt during looking at some photography in my research of the importance of an image, especially on the front cover of a magazine or product. I copied the style conventions of clash magazine but added elements and ideas of my own in as well based around my ideas and the way that the image and text fit around each other.

Analysis, evaluation and general comments on my double page spread

I was happy with my double page spread and believe that this was probably the page that saw the most improvements from the original draft. Again, I tried to combine a mixture of features that would be representative of contemporary R&B style and PBR&B style. I did this by keeping the page design like those I had analysed in vibe magazine. For example, one of my main style models when looking at this page was the Bruno Mars page. I tried to copy this kind of style, however adapted it slightly to give a slightly more alternate R&B look to the page. I think that the effects used on my image are effective and i tried to combine a selection of styles from R&B and PBR&B to dress my artist for this page. I kept the style of the page quite simplistic and minimalist which was the general feel that I was hoping for and that I believe I achieved throughout the magazine. If i had the chance to make another draft of this i probably would have made a few alterations, such as the placing and positioning of the branding ('fusion') and the page numbers, to ensure that these did not clash with any other parts of the text on the page. 

Analysis, evaluation and general comments on my final contents page

Above is my final contents page. I am happy with this part of the product but probably less so than my front cover and my double page spread. I understand that this differs quite significantly from the contents that i produced in my first draft, however I believe i can justify these changes. For starters, i would like to mention again how as my research developed i found a new sub genre of R&B that particularly interested me and which i adapted some of my work to allow this sub genre to fit in. This was PBR&B and looked at less contemporary R&B styles that infused other genres such as alternative, and hip hop. I believe that the way i adapted my contents page from the first draft was more inclusive of this sub genre, for example, the image located on the right hand side of the page includes two artists who wear styles more typical of the alternative/indie genre. Where as my main cover star, Aliyah Mae, on the left hand side of the page appears to be more of a contemporary R&B star. I tried to use a combination of the two to create a balance on this page. I believe that as an improvement, if i had the chance to do this again or make another draft, i would've perhaps taken a few more photos of a better quality and where i had more time to put to use the photography skills that i had researched. However my contents page fits into the style that i have aimed for all along, which was a neat, clean cut style, with the main use of a black and white colour scheme. This is what i looked for in most of my style models that I analysed also.

General Comments about the progression of my work

At the start of this project i wished to produce a contemporary  R&B music magazine. However as i went through the process and did more research i discovered the sub genre of PBR&B. This particularly interested me and was an idea that i had in mind, that i had found had actually been classified into a specific sub genre of R&B. This gave me more scope and room to challenge conventions and take features and aspects from a few different genres to produce my final product.  I was glad that my research allowed me to find this as it let me produce something a bit different and unique from already, pre-existing R&B music magazines. As a result of all this the style i was going for changed quite drastically throughout the process, and this can be seen especially by comparing my first draft product and my final product. I believe my first draft product follows a style which is more typical of the conventional R&B style, however my final product is more representative of the PBR&B sub genre i wished to include and of the genre and general intentions i had for my magazine which was to be predominantly an R&B magazine, however with other genres intertwined to create something a bit different.

Changes made to double page spread

I think i was most happy with the improvements that i made between my first draft version of the double page spread and the final product.  In the first draft the columns of text were very out of line with each other and made the page look scruffy and un professional. In my final draft I made sure that the text was in line and made is slightly smaller and added more text in. I also changed the font of the name of the article/ the artists name as although i liked this text i wanted to go for something more simplistic to match the contents page and to create some consistency throughout the pages of the magazine. I removed the patterned design at the side of the right hand page and changed the image as i did not believe the image was of the best quality. However i went for a similar style in the photo, in the fact that my artist is pulling a similar pose. Instead i also made the image smaller but kept it on the right hand page and added a black border around it to keep it more simple and to add to the minimalist design. I removed the quote from the bottom of the page and instead added more text to make the columns longer so that this made up the majority of the left hand page. I also made the page mumbers smaller, changed them and moved the page numbers to the correct sides of the page. I also added the name of the magazine on both pages at the top in order to brand the magazine and for advertisement purposes.

Images For Magazine--Flickr

I was happy with the images that i used for my final product, however the lighting in some of the images was of a poor quality and i therefore had to use photo editing software and apps to increase the brightness of the images. For the majority of this process I used the befunky editing app. I used a Nikon D3200.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
When producing my music magazine i closely copied the styles and conventions of pre- existing magazines to allow myself to produce a final product which looked professional and realistic. However, i also challenged the conventions of some real media products in order to produce something which was different and a style of my own. 

I copied the conventions of clash magazine predominantly for my cover page. For example, i copied the bold style and font of Clash magazine, and tried to keep it at a similar size. I also copied the arrangement of plugs/lures down the side of the page, as is seen on clash magazines cover page. As you can see below, i have kept all font on my page the same colour, in black, to distinguish between the background and text, as has the Clash magazine cover below, who have displayed all font in white, to create consistency on the page. I have also displayed the barcode in a similar way to clash with the price displayed underneath the barcode on the page and the date displayed across the side of the barcode.

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For my double page spread i copied the conventions of vibe magazine, an R&B music magazine. Above is a copy of a double page spread from vibe magazine, featuring Bruno Mars. Here, they use a whole A4 side to display a picture and present all font on the other side. They keep a simplistic design, by keeping a white background where there font is displayed as does mine. This keeps a minimilistic design to the page. I also copy the interview style that vibe magazine do, and the way that they present the question and answer structure in different colors to make sure that readers can differ between the two. However, i challenged the conventions of real media products by displaying the image on the right hand page where as in many of the magazine double page spreads i have looked at this is done in reverse by displaying the image on the left hand page. However i think that displaying my image on the right hand worked in my case and therefore kept it this way. I also copied the conventions of the main catchline on this page. For example in the example of vibe magazine above the artists name is included in the main catchline 'when MARS attacks'. Mine is similar in presenting the artists name in the main catchline, however takes a more simplistic approach by directly using the artists name. This attracts the reader and gives a clear layout and structure to the page as the reader can see exactly what it is that they will be reading about/ looking at. 

My contents page is probably the page which challenges the conventions of real media products the most. I have gone for a unique and individual style here but tried to keep the page clear and simple by clearly distinguishing between different sections of the page, for example between the images and the font. However it does copy some conventions of real media products, for example, in the way that i use two columns to display the information, with the contents title displayed at the top. The numbers are in line with the font and the page number is displayed on the pictures as is in the example below and in many music magazines. Furthermore, I have copied the conventions of the magazine below by keeping the images and font distinctly clear. 

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Evaluation Question 5

http://laurenamyharriman.wix.com/mediaevaluationq

Visit my Blog/Website to view Evaluation Q 5. 

Evaluation question 7

Evaluation Question 6

What Have You Learnt About Technologies From the Process of Constructing This Product