Evaluation 7 (DPS)

Evaluation 7 (Contents page)

Evaluation 7 (Front Cover)

 

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

Final Magazine

Evaluation 6

Question 6 by Lorraine Fordjour

Photoshop was the main software that I used in order to create my media product which consists of a front cover, a contents page and a DPS. I used Photoshop to edit my pictures and to create a whole new look for the images I had taken. Using Photoshop has improved my editing skills as I didn't know how to airbrush an image, I didn't know how to add a filter etc. but now I know how to do all these things because I've practiced how to use it. I think that Photoshop is a good software to use if you want to create something that looks professional and or precise, because if I had used another software to create my magazine the sell lines may not have been aligned accurately, or for example, I wouldn't have been able to use the ruler on Photoshop to create an invisible line for my contents page which is a necessity.

I used many of the tools, but mainly the spot healing brush tool and the magic wand tool. I used the spot healing tool to get rid of any blemishes, bumps and spots on  my models face. The magic wand helped me to get rid of the background, for example for my new music front cover I got rid of the grey background and filled the blank background with a different colour to make the main image stand out.

To present my work I used software such as powerpoint, slideshare, powtoon, emaze etc.. These were all good to use as it made my work look neat and presentable. I used powerpoint mainly to present my work and analysis as I have had experience with powerpoint so I know how to use it very well.  it's also quite easy to use, you can add your own design and switch up the look from a blank page. I also used blogger to present my work. Many people use this website to present there work or to display their blog on fashion, food, hair etc. I like this website because it enabled me to receive feedback from my teachers as they were able to access my blog and comment their thoughts on my blog and my products.

I used Google and YouTube to help me with my research and the process of making my product. as I mentioned before I wasn't familiar with photoshop before, I wasn't very confident when using the software so I turned to YouTube and google for help. I looked for tutorials on YouTube if I couldn't understand the written instructions on google. Although google wasn't as helpful as photoshop in terms of helping me figure out how to use photoshop, google helped me with my research on my choice of genre, the history/meaning behind it and extra information that I needed for my genre research.

Evaluation 5

In this video I discuss how I attracted/addressed my audience. I think the most helpful way to get feedback from my audience was by having a group interview. When having a group interview everyone feels comfortable and at ease which enables them to be more honest about their opinion and it also allows them to elaborate on their points that they make because at times survey's don't allow you to go into detail.
Here is a group interview that I set up. I chose to have the interview because I wanted to find out what people would expect to find or see in an afro beats magazine. Most of them mentioned that they would expect to see bright colours on an afro beat magazine and also African material on the models. It's evident that I didn't consider the colour scheme of my magazine when creating my first draft. My old magazine compared to my new one is rather dull and doesn't reflect afro beats as much as the updated version does. I considered the African material being used but other than that, my magazine need much more than just African material.

Evaluation 4

Evaluation 4 done from AbenaFordjour

Evaluation 3

Question 3 from LorraineFordjour

Evaluation 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Age: Through my genre research I found out that Afro beats is broad in terms of age. However my target audience were between the ages of 16-24, or even up to 30 therefore in order for my magazine to appeal to that particular group, I used young models and also very vibrant bold colours for my magazine. I believe that using young models and eye catching colours for the product represents the age demographic as they are more likely to be attracted to the magazine or may find it appealing.

Gender: This genre used to be male dominated but now many female artists are beginning to blow up in the industry. Artists such as Tiwa savage, Lola Ray, Becca, all these female artists are beginning to dominate the industry which is why I chose to use mainly female artists for my magazine. I also chose females because I could do more with the mise-en-scene, for example their hair, makeup and their costume.


Ethnicity&Region: Afro beats is usually associated with people from a black African background.
 The genre was developed in the 1970s out of a combination of West African music styles. It began in Ghana in the early 70's. Nigeria's most referred, mainstream, internationally toured and Grammy recognised Country music, Fuji music, which was influenced by the western ensembles borrowed from its leading native category (the Juju music) and highlife together with American funk and jazz, with a focus on chanted vocals and percussion. The genre features chants, call-and-response vocals, and complex, interacting rhythms. The term was coined by Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti who came to Ghana to study music at the University of Ghana, Legon.  It popularised the style both within and outside Nigeria. It was partially borne out of an attempt to distinguish Fela Kuti's music from the "soul music" of American artists such as James Brown. When planning my magazine and what kind of pictures I'd
be taking, I had in mind the kind of models that I would be using for the magazine. For my first magazine draft I used black female and male models from African backgrounds and I did the same for my new magazine as my concept had not changed. Thinking about the demographic group linked to my magazine helped me create so many ideas for example the mise-en-scene, as afro beats originated from Ghana and Nigeria I decided to use Ghanaian and Nigerian models to really emphasise the essence of this magazine and the culture behind it.

Evaluation 1

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

Through researching the genre that I had chosen I was able to create a plan for my music magazine and later on execute those ideas in order to form my Afrobeat’s music magazine. I began my research by finding out where Afrobeat’s originated from. I found out that Afrobeat is a music genre which developed in the 1970s out of a combination of West African musical styles, such as Juju Music, Nigeria's most referred, mainstream, internationally toured and Grammy recognised Country music, Fuji music, which was influenced by the western assembles borrowed from its leading native category (the Juju music) and highlife together with American funk and jazz, with a focus on chanted vocals and percussion.

The information I received through research made it easier to start thinking of ideas. I'm from Ghana and I discovered that the genre originates from Nigeria and Ghana so I started to look at Ghanaian culture to gather ideas for costume. I think that having background knowledge of my own country made the process of making my front cover straightforward. Although I couldn't find an afrobeat’s magazine contents page and DPS, I found a lot of images of a front cover. Therefore, I was able to use images for inspiration. Comparing my old front cover to my new front cover, I can see how my skills on photoshop have improved. The first front cover that I came up with was quite simple whereas afrobeat’s is supposed to represent Africa, and when thinking about Africa, vibrant colours come into mind. I compared my old front cover to an existing Afrobeat’s magazine front cover and I noticed that there were a few similarities. My main image was similar to the main image of the real magazine, in terms of the model’s hand gestures. My aim was to make my model look majestic and elegant whilst still giving a fierce pose/look. I analysed a variety of front covers and I couldn't find many that reflected the African culture, therefore I had to think about the costume and the type of shot I wanted to take. I went to look for African material as I imagined the model wearing an African material on her head as a headscarf or wrapped around her body as women would wear in my country. Most magazines have a cover line so I decided to conform to that convention and I gave my front cover a cover line to intrigue the reader. 'I’m not that much of a good girl’ the cover line is kind of 'saucy' which may make the readers want the read the magazine and find out more.  However, I changed the layout of my front cover and changed the quote to ‘I always have love for my ‘afro divas’ I felt as though the cover line had to draw the reader’s attention, she’s addressing her fans, therefore the target audience will be drawn in by the image and the cover line, and may well be interested in purchasing the magazine.

the title of a newspaper or magazine at the head of the first or editorial page. The title of my magazine is 'Afro-Mgz'. The title was inspired by the word afrobeat’s and from that word i took out 'Afro', and added MGZ. I did this to not only show that it's based on afrobeat’s but to also show that it's linked to Africa.

I think most aspects of my old front cover is quite similar to most of the afrobeat magazine front covers that I've seen. Many of them are simplistic. Not a lot is going on. I think a few more improvements could be made to my front cover, for example, the arrangement of my sell lines could’ve been adjusted to be in line, therefore when creating my new front cover, I paid attention to the alignment of the sell lines. I also added a much bolder colour. I realised that although many of the afrobeat magazines are simplistic, some were also vibrant. I used dark purple to make the pink writing and the white writing stand out, and also, I wanted the dark yellow African continent to stand out as well. The dark yellow continent was added to represent Africa and to make it clear that this magazine is an afrobeat’s magazine, it’s like a mark.  My contents page compared to my new one is completely different. I’d say I only kept two things the same or similar, and that would be the layout and the article is similar. Both the old magazine and the new one has a pull quote. I used a pull quote because I know that pull quotes, just as well as the main image, are used to draw the reader in. Both images take up one side of the double page spread. My models have been presented as an Afrobeat’s girl group. A lot of the pictures I took were inspired by destiny's child, an old R&B girl group. I chose to take the images as a midshot because I wanted their outfits to show in the image because the costume is paramount.

For my DPS my colour scheme was Grey. initially I even used the colour golden brown for my headline because it linked to the title, but it didn't really work well with my colour scheme therefore I changed the colour to a darker grey. However, after receiving feedback and realising that dull colours don’t represent Africa, I decided to change the colour scheme. I took my new pictures for my DPS outside, I wanted to get many shots of the models in the trees, or standing around the trees to give the magazine a sense of nature and Africa as a whole. I wanted greens, reds, yellows, bright vibrant colours. I finally decided on which picture to use after many trial and errors. I think the picture I chose to use was a very good shot, it was taken as a portrait therefore I didn’t need to stretch the image unlike my old dps where I had to stretch the image to make it fit on the whole page, which made it look unprofessional. A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. My old headline was just the name of the group but I realised that it doesn’t really fit the criteria of a headlines purpose as it didn’t give away anything about the story of the article therefore I changed the headline from ‘The Mahogany Brown Girls’ to ‘Meet the rising superstars’. This headline would tell the readers that they story is about the ‘upcoming’ girl group and may make the reader want to find out something new.

The purpose of a contents page is to give the reader an idea of other stories/ information within the magazine and what page numbers you can find it on. The previous contents page that I made was probably more vibrant than the DPS and the front cover, however it looked unprofessional therefore I had to switch it up in order for it to be as vibrant as my other two new products.

Comparing my current magazine to my previous one, I think that my current magazine fits the genre that I chose more than the previous one did.  Afrobeat’s is mainly about African artists and upcoming new African artists, I decided to use African models for my front cover, DPS, and contents page. i made sure that the magazine as whole represented Africa very well. The costumes played a huge roll in representing Afrobeat’s. I used my own knowledge of my cultural background to help me figure out what costume my models should wear. when there is a traditional/cultural event in Ghana, most people were the traditional clothing which is Kente but sometimes they were Ankara material. Unfortunately, Kente is a very expensive material so i had to use Ankara material (which is just as nice) for the models to wear. Ankara is also worn by many other west African women, this makes it more multicultural and it doesn't give away the country that these models come from. I wanted to incorporate a bit of R&B into my magazine so I used destiny's child as a form of inspiration. I loved the pictures from photoshoot for their album 'Destiny Fulfilled', so i used those pictures to give me and idea on what I would like my pictures to look like. The image of my current dps, was inspired by my previous dps but I prefer the images I took outside, it made my dps look more professional.

For my first DPS, most of the pictures that i took of my models were indoors and a lot of them were medium close ups however for my new one, I wanted to take the pictures outside because I didn’t want the images to look exactly the same, I also wanted natural lighting so that the image could look professional. and I used a DSLR camera for all of my photos. This was done to make my magazine look very professional and also, I wanted my pictures to be clear. I chose to take my pictures this way because I wanted a captivating main image. Close ups tend to draw the readers in therefore I thought it was only right to do so. My model for my front cover is looking directly at the camera, my models in my DPS were also looking into the camera. The effect of this is that it is a form of direct address and it makes the reader feel like they're being addressed by the person in the magazine. Before making my front cover, DPS and contents page, I decided to sketch out the layout to give me an idea of how I’d want the layout to be like. To achieve a precise layout, I used the ruler tool on photoshop to make sure that everything was straight and in line. Overall my music magazine does conform to Afrobeat’s magazine conventions as I used existing afrobeat magazines as inspiration.

Magazine Photoshoot

Process Of Making My New Magazine

Audience Research Analysis