Fashion magazine covers + Contents pages

Production - Website

Website influences

For my final website design, I didn't really have any influences when I made my website for the new fashion magazine 'Xeno'. The basic layout for the website was from a template I found that suited the target audience for my fashion magazine. From there I just added sections that I think would be applied for a normal fashion website however, at some point I didn't know what else to add or if it really suits the theme of a fashion website therefore, I decided to search one of the biggest fashion magazine website - Vogue. The screenshot below is a shot of the current vogue website.

It turned out that Vogue's website is quite similar to mine for example the simpleness in the layout is like mine therefore, I used this website as reference alongside mine but it was only for reference for what elements I should include in the website meaning the other layouts like articles are in the style I liked in stead of copying exactly the same style as Vogue's website.

My Website made in Wix  

https://12julailaj.wixsite.com/xeno

Choosing a Brief

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/465770-unit-h409-03-04-a-level-media-studies-making-media-nea-briefs.pdf

1) Magazine

2) Music video

3) Television

4) Radio

Planning

Mock ups


#1

The images above is my first initial mock up of what I would like to present my magazine covers. As you can see it's quite basic and I used a South Korean model as my stock photos for this mock up because my target audience are sophisticated and showcasing a model that dresses well is the best start for representing the target audience.

#2

The 4 above is another mock up from the first one but this time I have used my own models for the actual magazine cover. I have chosen these models because from the responses from my target audience they would rather have models that are similar in age so that they can see for themselves what it would look like. I have also decided to use models of different ethnicity to add diversity to my magazine plus it is one of the aims for this project and hopefully this will help hook in a wide audience for the magazine and the Bauer company. You can also see that I made a mocks for my contents page which will help reveal content from the sell lines in the front cover of the magazine.

Research - Codes and Conventions

Codes and conventions

• Direct mode of address (except G-dragon vogue cover)
• Simple yet distinctive poses
• colourful (except G-dragon cover)
• Lots of text filling the sides of models (except G-dragon cover)
• Masthead is always at the top 
• Masthead's are always big  
• Contrasting colours in text

Statement of intent

https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/http-stgprd-ocr.ucles.internal-images-412070-a-level-media-statement-of-intent-form.pdf.pdf

How do you intend to use the four areas of the media theoretical framework to communicate meaning and meet the requirements of your chosen brief?

I am going to be designing a magazine that will be targeting sophisticated 16-25 year olds of all Diversity. To appeal to the sophisticated audience, I will be drawing attention mainly on the art form of fashion. My research into fashion magazines shows a wide range of different cover conventions, from use of close ups to long shots of groups, though covers most often use mid to long shots. Mise en scene is usually focused on the clothing, hair and makeup, but in some cases the cultural issues seem to be more important than the clothes (e.g. Diversity in Vogue magazine). I will focus on the clothes, but will also include some aspects of diversity to allow me to fulfil the brief ‘At least two models representing at least two different social groups.’ My focus group have said that they prefer to see models that are close to them in age and to see fashion that is less about aspiration and more about things that they can wear on occasions. However, several of them also said that they wanted to see stories that would touch on high end fashion so I will also be including these in my contents page, which will ensure ‘a diverse range of fashion issues and styles.’ I am creating this for ‘Bauer Media Group’, who do not produce a magazine similar to this, so I will be adding to their portfolio and targeting a younger audience than is currently within their fashion demographic.

For my website I will be designing it to act as a supporting media product for the magazine that will help advertise the significance of the magazine. On the home page of my website I plan to design a feed of different articles similar to that of social media, which appears to be a convention of fashion websites, for example vogue.com. This I believe is in keeping with the target audience as social media is often aimed at the younger demographic. In addition to this, I will include features such as fashion articles, including photographs from exhibitions in Korea which fully gives a glimpse of the content in my magazines. I want the layout and design of the website to be clear, simple yet also interesting enough to appeal to the my sophisticated target audience.There will also be a forum for the audience to participate in a ‘Your Thoughts’ which will encourage audience participation by asking a range of questions about the magazine and the website which is one of the aims of this project.

How do you intend to link your media products to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the digitally convergent nature of your media production?

I intend a clear connection between the two products by conforming to a consistent Style across the magazines and the website for example the colours for the both of them I intend to make it simplistic yet very elegant which will appeal to my sophisticated target audience. The Masthead will be eye-catching and I will feature the same elements for both the website and magazine, the models featured in the magazines will be showcased in a wider range of images within the website. The company logo for Bauer and the independent media company will be on both magazines. The forum section called ‘Your thoughts’ should draw clear connections between the two. The intention is to make the audience feel like they are part of the production process and to use the digitally convergent forum to give feedback.

Essay

In this essay I will talk about my four pictures that are album covers which we had to create then upload onto our blog which we needed to make using our Gmail accounts, speaking about creating the album covers the pictures used had to be authentic meaning it had to be taken by oneself and not somewhere from the internet or wherever else because that was the task given to us.

We also had the choice to make a music video however, I opted to go with the album cover because for one thing to me it felt and looked easier to do than making music video second, I had a basic understanding of using Photoshop so it would have been easier to do the album cover furthermore, for music video you also needed to make it in ’Vimeo’ in order to upload it to our blog and lastly, I had no clue about editing or implementing stuff in videos.

To make the four album covers two for the front/back then two on the inside you could use programmes such as Photoshop to create the four album covers but other programmes were also acceptable. Since I had the basic understanding for Photoshop I choose that programme as the tool to help me get the pictures I envisioned when editing, by the way the four pictures needed to be square shaped because guess what album covers were all square shaped so having any other would be unacceptable.

Also because I wanted the album cover things like ethnicity so I had an idea where I could incorporate ethnicity into my album covers from searching through famous album covers for inspiration, what picked my interest was an album cover that had an image of a cracked mirror and in between the cracked shards of the mirror had a picture of a women but when the picture hit the crack the adjacent image in the shard looks kinda distort and this fashion carries along throughout the rest of the album cover. It is very good album cover because with the distortion of images I could add people’s eyes / hands / skin with different ethnicity. Now that I had the idea for the album cover the next big hurdle/problem was getting the pictures of people’s eyes / hands / skin and whether they were willing to let my take them for my album cover. Luckily, my friends were more than willing to let take photos of them that included their eyes, hands and skin furthermore, I was also lucky to have friends from different ethnicity so I had a range of photos like blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes and so on.

For my very first album cover photo with the titles and stuff I used the idea of having the image like a broken mirror which sectioned off pictures of eyes that I took. The reason I chose eyes because the colour of the iris in eyes are mostly different depending on your ethnicity so by choosing this I have been able to use Stuart Hall a representation theorist for ethnicity. My album cover supports Stuart Hall because the message that it is trying to say is that even if we have gaps (gaps meaning the cracks derived from the effect of a broken mirror) we should find a way to get past the concept of ethnicity and try to unite and be one as a community. Another theorists that I also incorporated onto my album cover photo is Judith butler a representation theorist about gender; how I used it you ask is because in the pictures of eyes, I took pictures of boys eyes as well as girls eyes and I mixed them in to make the album cover. Like the way I said about how using different coloured eyes and the effect of the broken mirror dividing them Well, it’s kind of the same concept in a way because by including girls and boys eyes it supports Butler’s representation of gender. Also the way that I chose to use cursive writing for the title it further incorporates Hall because cursive writing like the message in the pictures that I made of trying to become one or a community well, the symbol for choosing cursive is because it is joined/united which just furthers the message of stuff like ethnicity intertwined, associated and so forth. Also with the white glow of the bold black text gives a good contrast and can signify that the black and white can work well side by side just like how there should be a bridge for ethnicity.

For my second front cover I also opted to do the same style as my first album cover meaning that I also made the effect of the broken mirror sectioning off shard pictures also I used the same font and glow meaning it was cursive to show unity/association/community for the theorist Hall. But instead of using eyes as the shard pieces I used hand s to change it up, I used hands because it is another body part that can show ethnicity also like the first album cover I took pictures of boys and girls hands which my friends graciously let me take.

Lastly, my inside album cover I chose 2 pictures that showed the sky which included sun/light as the focus. The way I did so is blurring out everything except for the shining light in the photos because this could be represented like a pathway or like following the light - a goal to achieve something like the unity of ethnicity or balance gender roles.

 In the end I think that I did a good job in showing how I want to represent how ethnicity should be especially the front album covers however, the inside album cover may not clearly show this and can be associated by a lot of different representation or none at all.