Technological convergence and Branding

Technological convergence is where we see technologies coming together and becoming more convenient for the customer , for example phones now being made with built in cameras and mp3 players.

Henry Jenkins has a Convergence Theory , he looks at Participatory Culture where we the users of the internet actually add information knows as user generated content , Web 2.0 in contrast to Web 1.0 has a lot more collective intelligence where we participate in the growing of information on the internet.

A brand is a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name.

Brands could be movies , music artists , theme parks and could include a persona , or merchandise for that brand to build that brand , for example , although a family , the Kardashians are a worldwide brand as they have a tv show , personas , makeup lines and clothing lines.

Branding is very important as it can create more profit for the brand , how your brand is portrayed will decide the customers you attract and how many. A bad image would not be good at all for a brand as people would no longer be interested for example Ryanair is known to be unreliable therefore people are less likely to chose to fly with Ryanair for fear of the flight being cancelled.

My Final Magazine Cover

This is my finished magazine front cover , I am very pleased with it and I feel it has lots of hip hop magazine conventions , I feel I have worked really hard on this by putting a lot of spare time into it to make sure it is exactly what I wanted and making sure it keeps to my flat plan which I think I did quite well, although I know there could be further improvements to make this more complex , such as airbrushing the model , I found this task really fun and now feel a lot more confident with my Photoshop skills and would hopefully be quicker on it in the future , I especially liked learning things outside of Photoshop also to benefit my magazine such as making the QR code.

Adding my model

I have put my model onto my layout and added layer to the image just to make the colors more vivid and the image have more shadowing , I have not chosen to Photoshop any part of his face or clothing to change anything as I am happy with the image as it is. I chose to pick this image as the camera is angled slightly lower to create the image of power but the and the model is looking seriously into the distance , I cropped the image from it being a mid shot to a mid close up as it is a common convention of hip hop magazines to use this shot.

Creating my QR code

For my front cover I created a QR code which links to the Power magazine website which I created , I think this added authenticity to my front cover and is a very modern touch. 

I created my website on Wix , where i had to choose a layout and create the page myself .

Once I had completed the webpage and it was online I went to a QR code making website and entered the web address so that it would create a custom QR code for me.

Once I had the QR code I added it to my magazine cover and tested it out.

Click here to watch !

My Layout

For my layout I have created something that has everything my flat plan wished it to, I have my large bold masthead which I chose to do in white and red as it is a common convention, along the right side of the page I have added in the features of the magazine, I used a red font with a black rectangular graphic behind each of them to make then stand out and also this is quite common to be used on front covers of magazines to help the font stand out from the background. I made sure that the black rectangles all had the same amount of space between the first and last letter of the text so that it looks neat and professional. Underneath the masthead I added a feature story to give insight I as to what is inside the magazine, for this I actually used a play on words, the artist the article is about is called “Notorious Biggie” often shortened to “Notorious B.I.G” and because his music was so widely respected in the hip hop community it is all of his notorious big hits that are listed in the article. As a common convention I added the artists name in the bottom left corner, for this I chose the color red as it signifies power and is a bright eye-catching color. As another convention I added a barcode but I also added a QR code which can be scanned and will link to a website I created for my magazine.

My Flat plan

This is my Flat plan , I hope to stick to it as best as possible for the layout and along the way make decisions as to color and fonts. I chose the bold font for my masthead because its a common convention for hip hop magazines and i chose the layout as it is also very common to have names of artists on the cover as features then the models name in the lower left corner.

My Masthead creation

When I started my magazine cover the first thing I did was my masthead , I used a font from photo shop and added effects and played with the width and length of the letters to create a font I felt was best and suited to my vision. I made sure I used capital letters as it’s very rare to see a magazine masthead without capital letters. As you can see here I added effects to the words to create a shadow and make the font appear more 3D against the red background I added.

I chose the name “power” for my magazine as hip hop music oozes power and money, hip hop artists images are based on power and every hip hop artist wants to be perceived as the most powerful, I also chose the name as it is a very popular Kanye West hip hop song, which some people who listen to him might realize.  I decided to make the font white with a red rectangular graphic behind as it is a common magazine convention to use red and white in the masthead especially in hip hop magazines. I placed the masthead in the far left corner as that is also a magazine convention.  

Model consent

Here is my model holding a consent form stating that I can use and publish videos and images I have taken of him.

My Model Shots

In these shots I was sure to use a range of angles and shot lengths in keeping with my shot list plan , I enjoyed using the professional camera to create these shots and found it a lot easier and simpler than I expected it to be.

Shot List

This is my shot list , I have described the angles and shot lengths i'm going to use in each shot.To create these images I used the online gaming account IMVU to take these print screens. I created my virtual character to wear what I would like my model to wear.

My Reader Profile

This is Jason , he is 17 years old and lives in London with his Mother and 2 younger siblings . He enjoys rap music and feels there's so many elements in the genre that he can listen to it in whatever mood he is in. He enjoys artists such as Kanye West , ASAP Rocky , and J Cole.In his spare time , other than listening to music avidly , he goes to college. He finds the instrumentals of Hip hop music amazing and because of this he also creates instrumentals taking inspiration from the music he listens to in his spare time hoping to one day make it big in the world of music.

XXL magazine deconstruction

Hip hop magazines Moodboard

This is my Hip Hop Magazine moodbard which I created to help me understand more about the common conventions in hip hop magazines and to gain inspiration.
Please click here to view my moodboard.

Magazine conventions comparisons

To get an idea of general conventions in popular magazines I have compared XXL magazine with Q magazine , which are two completely separate genres. This has given me more insight into conventions I should be using in my own magazine and as to why editors of magazines may of made specific decisions , such as the use of color and font to express something to the consumer.

I have found that both use red and white in their mastheads to make them "pop".
Both music magazines have predominantly male models on their front covers , and using different fonts for different artists to convey different personalities and music genres ,for instance an Ed Sheeran front cover had red serif font as he makes love ballads that may appeal to more women than men , while for a magazine cover with The Killers they have used a sans serif grey font which is a lot more powerful because of first their name "The Killers" and second they make rock music , this font is a lot more fitting for that genre than the font they used for the Ed Sheeran cover.

                                           

My AS media blog !

Welcome to my AS media blog , I will be using this space to publish all my thoughts and ideas towards completing the preliminary task that I have been given to complete by the 18th of October.

The brief I have been given for this preliminary task is to create a new music magazine front cover using photoshop.

I have chosen to create a new hip hop magazine , before I start making my own front cover I will look at first of all common conventions of music magazines in general and compare them with each other, looking at how using certain features may imply or send across a message to the reader , e.g. using bold black sans serif font for a rock magazine in comparison to using a serif black font for a classical music magazine , then look at common conventions specifically in hip hop magazines such as XXL , Billboard , Fader and The source in order to keep my hip hop magazine relevant.

I have chosen to create a hip hop magazine as this is my favourite genre of music and therefore I have a good knowledge of the culture and artists that are currently relevant. I would say because of this I have a good idea of what someone that is interested in hip hop would want to read in a hip hop magazine, this would help me with deciding which features stories I should put on the front cover to entice the buyer.

The Nine Media Forms

 

9 Media Forms are

Film 

Music

Radio 

Television 

Newspapers 

Magazines

Online 

Marketing 

Video games 

The Media Theoretical Framework

What is the media theoretical framework?

The media theoretical framework consists of 5 components which are:

Media language - this is the way the director communicates and expresses something to the audience without using words , just his media form.

Media representations - this is how the media stereotypes and portrays age , gender , class , ethnicity , religion , sexuality and ability / disability.

Media industries - this is how the media industries process of production and circulation (e.g advertisement) affects media and its platforms.

Media audiences - this looks at everything to do with the audience , for example , the target audience , how would the audience respond and interpret the media.

Media contexts - this looks at the information surrounding the media and would help you gain more understanding of the piece , for example , what was going on in the country at the set time , the context is the backstory of the piece.