Advice and answers from a Media Teacher

Hello!

I decided to do my own research on how my magazine was depicted through the eyes of my audience. Furthemore the responses I've had back are positive and I will display the information with my evaluation. Nevertheless I've also had the pleasure of asking a media teacher what he felt about my work and what could be improved on. The information I've got back from the teacher has been valuable and had made me realise that my magazine is quite successful.

Question 1

I can understand why he said an R&B magazine because his interpretation is different from mine. Even though the magazine states that it is Hip Hop I asked him to avoid this and look at the magazine without the obvious. When I looked up the defintion of R&B and Hip Hop, google defintions stated:

R&B: A style of music developed by African Americans that combines blues and jazz

Hip Hop: A popular music style comprising elements of rap and soul

When I think about the artist associated with my magazine I believe that there are more closely associated with Hip Hop because the sounds they're producing are more of rap based rather than blues. Nevertheless I took his point into consideration and I believe that if I were to change the magazine to R&B then it would still have the same effect on the reader. Although originally on my flat plan it said 'the no1 hip hop and R&B mag' but I found this too wordy so instead I took out the 'R&B'.

Question 2

Not going to comment on this answer too much because as you can see the answer is a positive one. He even added a comment of 'it looks like a real mag' which is always a nice thing to see and it further lets me know that my magazine is quite successful.

Question 3












With this question he states that he liked the colours and the pictures mainly which was a surprise because I believed my images were not of a good quality however to have a teacher like them is actually uplifting. He also stated that the magazine had a 'great layout' and an 'use of codes and conventions'

Question 4









With this question he agreed that the price was good due to the amount of pages in my magazine. I never thought of it like this before but again this makes me believe that my magazine price was reasonable.


 Question 5

Again he agreed that my double page spread was entertaining. Even though he is not part of my target audience, this let's me know that my article can be enjoyed by other generations which is a bonus.

Question 6









The layout took me a lot of time to figure out because I wanted it to be conventional so to get the feedback that the layout was appealing and well planned is overwhelming. I'm very happy that it looked professional too.

Question 7

Now when I first gave him my magazine I wanted him to be critical and to be honest I believed so much could be improved with the magazine. However to know that it's just the images I needed to change is a good thing and if I was going to do the project again I would definitely get better quality of images.

Question 8

Due to the lack of time of classroom, I asked my teacher to fill out the questions on the computer hence why the quality is lower. Furthermore the question states "do the pictures shown reflect on the magazine and are they appropriate" he answered yes which makes me believe that my hard work has paid off and it's nice to know that the pictures have been appreciated and thought about.


Question 9

Again I apologise for the quality within the graphic. However the question says "do you think the objective for aiming the magazine towards 18-35 year olds was reached" and he replied with a yes so this let's me further know that my magazine was successful and that my target audience can enjoy the magazine.

Question 10 - No response.

What did I learn?

I learnt that my magazine is a success and that it could really be sold in the media industry.

Artist Inspiration for Word Up!

Hello!
I thought I should sum up my inspiration for my magazine as this helped me to create my final product which I deem to be quite successful.

My main artist inspiration for my magazine is....

KAYNE WEST








I chose Kayne West as my main artist inspiration for Word Up because of his attitude, his style and the way his music sounds. His attitude is more of a non caring and he says what he thinks which is what I try to depict this in my magazine however not to the point that it would deter people from reading the magazine. I think the look he gives in this specific photo is powerful and dominating and again I wanted this to be illustrated within my magazine especially on my front cover. His style is casual and again he doesn't care about what people think about his clothing or him generally as he is quite laidback. Nevertheless even though Kayne West seems harsh and rude on the outside he's got quite a bubbly personality and seems like a nice person once people get to know him better which I think I illustrated my model's bubbly and innocent side through the article on my double page spread. The way his music sounds always makes a huge impact on his audience as his songs can stay in a person's head for weeks. His latest song 'All of the lights' featuring Rihanna is quite a bold sound and uses a range of instruments to get his message across and in conclusion the song sounds unique compared to other songs displayed in the market today. So that you all get a real feel of this song I've embedded it below.

Kanye West - All Of The Lights ft. Rihanna, Kid Cudi

Criticisms: Magazine Competitions

Hello!
So I was just doing a bit of research on the internet when I discovered two magazines that made my heart sank with disappointment and made me just literally angry. These magazines were:

Now you can probably tell why I'm fuming and quite disappointed with myself really because I had no idea that these magazines existed. Obviously Word Up magazine has the name of my magazine and Rap up has my arrow idea that is included in my masthead. I'd like to think that I did do thorough research for my genre of magazine which may be the reason why these magazines didn't come up. However both magazines cater more towards the R&B audience whereas mine is more to a Hip Hop audience which is a positive. 

What did I learn?

Well the obvious being to research more on the internet so that predicaments like this can be avoided in future. Hopefully if my magazine went well and made some sales then I could in future change the name to something else which then I will be able to alert my fan base on places like twitter and facebook. Maybe I could even become partners with the magazines presented.

My double page spread analysis

Hello!
I wasn't originally going to make an analysis of my double page spread because I assumed that I would have to talk about one in my evaluation however I changed my mind because I wanted my work to be consistent. However I will try to make this presentation brief as I have noticed I do tend to write a bit too much and I know some people don't like reading a lot hence why I will try to shorten this presentation.

My double page spread analysis for Word Up

What did I learn?
I learnt that the double page spread was the hardest page to make so for next time if I was to make a magazine again I would cater more to the layout for the double page spread because mine wasn't the best even though I did try my absolute hardest.

My graphic justification

Hi!
While doing my research I discovered and evaluating my magazine I saw that I had not talked about my graphic places at the top left of my contents page much so I decided to dedicate a whole post to it. You'll find out all you need to know about my edited graphic in the presentation below.

Justification of my graphic used in my Contents page


What did I learn?

I learnt that edited graphics look good within a magazine because on the whole it makes the magazine seem different. For example I didn't see Vibe or Hip Hop connection use this convention so this makes my magazine different and more thought out. Also mistakes can be good because as I stated before I was just messing around with the picture and then I accidentally filled it and it turn out to look good.

My evaluation survey layout

Hi!
So I've been doing my own research for my magazine and I have come to the conclusion that I need to do another questionnaire but this time it will be about how people feel about my magazine, what could be improved on and on the whole, whether or not my magazine looks professional. Below I will show the layout of my survey:

I made the questions brief based on the fact that some questionnaires can be a bore and people of my target audience don't usually have a lot of free time. Nevertheless I did leave answer boxes for all questions because I believe that people do have opinions and sometimes they're opinions are not heard so I gave them space to express themselves if necessary.

In case the questions are hard to view I will display them below:

1. What magazine genre do you think this magazine is?
2. Would you buy this magazine if it was presented in a shop?
3. What are the main features you like about the magazine? (skip this question if you do not like the way the magazine looks)
4. Do you think paying £2.50 for this magazine is appropriate?
5. Is the article on the double page spread entertaining and professionally, well written?
6. Do you think that the magazine layout is well planned and appealing to you?
7. What do you think can be improved about the magazine?
8. Do the pictures shown reflect on the magazine and are they appropriate?
9. Any comments or feedback that you want to say? Please write below:

What did I learn?

I learnt that making a questionnaire doesn't have to be full with detail because in the end the audience will only spend about 2 minutes answering it. Also making it brief means that my questionnaire gets straight to the point and does not waffle.

My Contents Page analysis

Hello!
Yes it's true, I can finally show you my final contents page! Sorry for the delay, I've had so many complications with the contents page itself and complications on this website however the main point is that I can finally show you! To be honest I believe my contents page is the weakest out of all my page but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have potential becaue I believe it does. My analysis of my front cover is shown below and I hope you like it.

My music magazine contents page analysis

What did I learn?
Doing this part of the project made me realise how important structure is for example how to lay out my columns and where to put my graphics. If I hadn't of structured my page properly then I don't think it would have been successful at all and it could have been extremely messy.