Personal Career Development & Finalisation

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
As part of Assignment 2, I have spent today's lesson continuing work on my personal career development material, which has involved writing my hypothetical CV and cover letter I would use if applying for a media job. Having already selected I job I would theoretically be interested in applying for, I have tried to hone and fine-tune my CV in order to comply with the requirements of this job, both in terms of qualifications and personal attributes. Once my CV and cover letter have been completed, I will be able to start work on a self-review regarding how well I have tackled the task of sourcing and applying for a print media job.

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
During today's lesson, I have continued to work on Assignment 4, a self-review of my magazine and how successful the various processes have been with regards to ensuring The Sound Garden magazine appeals to its target audience. Having received teacher feedback about the plan I made for this self-review, I am being careful to include as much detail as possible about how I have catered for my readership and the methods I have employed to ensure my publication is unique and marketable. This has ensured the self-reflection process has allowed me to consider all areas of strength and weakness throughout the creation process.

Personal Career Development

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
As part of Assignment 2 of Unit 11, having moved on from Assignment 1, I am now starting to collate personal career development material for a figurative career role within the print media industry. I have thought carefully about which area I would be keen to enter into within the industry, and have carried out several job searches in order to help me determine the kind of role I would theoretically like to apply for and how to go about doing this.

First Production Draft

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
Today I completed work on the first draft of each component of my my music magazine, including a front cover, contents page and two features, one a double-page-spread and the other a single page. In constructing them I have continuously considered my target audience and how successfully it will appeal to them, whilst adhering to my house style to create a feel of continuity and fluency throughout each page. I have also thought carefully about my language choices and writing style, which I feel I have effectively manipulated to suit the formality and sophisticated music knowledge my audience are keen to read about, whilst adding colloquialisms and satire to make each page an enjoyable, opinion-laden and thought-provoking read. I will be handing these pages in for an initial mark, and will then continue to work on them further and make any necessary changes required to ensure the magazine is as professional and marketable as possible.

Unit 11 Hand-In

Tomorrow is my initial hand-in date for my final submission folder for Unit 11 of my Media Studies course, so after printing off, collating and filing all my work, documents, presentations and appendices, I am ready to submit my folder. I have also completed a self-review of all my work for Parts 1-4, and have evaluated how I have learnt and benefited from completing Assignment 1 and the skills I have developed.

Magazine Production

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
After extensive planning, I have now started to compile the different components to create the different pages of my magazine and have been using Serif PagePlus to put them together, tying in with the conventions of music magazines, whilst adding originality and uniqueness in my language choices, writing style and layout, and most fundamentally, targeting my teenage/young adult readership effectively.

Finalisation of Pitch

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
Today I have completed my pitch for my alternative music magazine, which I will present to my classmates as part of an interim assessment at some point this week. I feel I have successfully covered all areas I need to discuss and have thoroughly planned and rehearsed the manner in which I plan to pitch my ideas to the rest of the class. I have also considered additional features I could incorporate into my pitch, such as audience interaction, use of technology and handing out competitive magazines, in order to ensure my audience has an insightful understanding of the look, tone and style I want to encompass with my magazine and how I plan to differentiate my ideas to compete with other titles on the market. I now feel confident about the originality of my ideas for the magazine and about presenting them to my peers in a clear, concise, engaging and inventive way.

Ongoing Work Towards Final Submission

Today, and over the past few days, I have been working hard on my outstanding work for both Unit 11 and Unit 18 and have started collating it into a folder to be submitted later in the term. I have also been working solidly on my magazine pitch and proposal for Unit 18 and my apprenticeship presentation for Unit 11, employing interesting and creative presentational devices and high levels of technology in my plight to secure the distinction grade I am hoping to achieve.

Working Towards Final Submission

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
During today's lesson, we started work on Part 3 of our assignment, whereby we had to look into the financial issues involved in the print media industry, drawing on our knowledge from previous studies and exploring case studies to give us a detailed understanding of the different aspects and processes of a magazine's finances. Additionally, we started to collate our work from all four parts of the assignment and consolidated what we had learnt and any outstanding pieces of work we needed to complete ready for our final submission date.

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
We continued working on our pitches and proposals for our magazines and also discussed what makes an effective pitch and how to employ technology and presentational devices into our pitches in a creative manner. This was extremely helpful in ensuring our presentations look and sound interesting, innovative and captivating, as we begin to move towards presenting them to our classmates prior to the final presentation date, to be given some preliminary feedback from our peers to implement into our work.

The Leveson Inquiry

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
In today's lesson, we begun looking into the legal aspects of the print media industry, and in particular, focused on The Leveson Inquiry and started to acquire some background information regarding who was involved and when it started. We also looked into the Phone Hacking Scandal itself to start building knowledge which we will later be able to implement into our overall new recruits presentation. Additionally, we learnt some new legal terms, such as 'libel' and 'contempt of court', which will also prove useful as we delve further into The Leveson Inquiry and investigate legal issues associated with the print media industry.

C&C Media Marketing Pitch

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
During today's lesson, we began working on our pitch for when we eventually present and market our magazine ideas to C&C Media. I planned the content for my pitch and started to finalise the design for my presentation. I came up with ideas that would reflect the content, style, genre and target audience of my magazine, in order to create a sense of cohesion and fluency that would add to the overall professional feel I am striving to achieve. The cover slide of my presentation exemplifies these choices, linking in with my magazine's house style, and will remain consistent throughout the presentation, interspersed with images, a video clip and animation to add interest and sophistication.

Pre-Production Portfolio

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
Further continuing our pre-production planning, we collated our thoughts, ideas and work so far in the unit and compiled it into a report/portfolio describing and explaining the thought processes behind our ideas and how we plan to put them into practice as we enter the production phase of the process. Whilst writing the report, I drew upon the work we did prior to pre-production on printing processes and the history of the print media industry, which I found insightful and illustrative when it came to describing how I would go about creating and producing my publication. Within my report, I talked about my style and typography choices, particularly in relation to my masthead, and also discussed how I plan to appeal to my target audience and how my style model from NME and my consumer survey has influenced my content choices. Additionally, I created a moodboard full of images of bands and musicians which fit in with the genre of music I hope to feature predominantly in my magazine. This helped a great deal in helping me shape ideas with regards to the magazine's content, mise-en-scene, ideology of dedicated alternative music fans I am striving to appeal to, and the overall look, feel and tone of the publication. Moreover, not only is the report.portfolio an important component of my work towards this unit, but it has also helped me immeasurably with forming solid ideas and gaining inspiration for the production process, so it has been extremely successful.

Employment Contracts Report & Peer Marking

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
After presenting our information to the class in our groups, we had the data we needed to be able to compile everyone's findings and write individual reports about the different types of employment contracts within the media industry and how important they are with regards to structure and finance. After writing our reports at home, using information we learned during the presentations and our own additional reading and statistics research, we brought them into class and swapped them with other people. After swapping them, we then proof-read and marked each other's reports and added constructive criticism and tips on how they could improve it in relation to layout, presentation, spelling, grammar and most importantly, content and cohesion. This proof-reading exercise was massively useful in contributing to Unit 2 and helping us analyse and evaluate our work in order to work out the best way to redraft and improve our reports and add suitable graphs and charts to support our findings.

Consumer Survey

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
As part of my market research, I was keen to find out exactly what my target audience would like to see in an alternative music magazine and what preferences they had with regards to pricing, content and regular features, to help me form solid ideas in terms of what I want to include in my publication. I used an online survey creator, Survey Monkey, to create a survey and then made it available for people to complete via the internet. I publicised the survey via social networking sites and student forums such as Twitter and The Student Room, as having used the websites, I know that they are rife with people who fall comfortably into my desired target audience, so I felt the responses I got from them would be extremely valuable to me.

My Survey

Having conducted my survey and read through my results, I concluded that my readership were keen to see an alternative music magazine containing band/artist interviews, news and updates on these artists, posters, music recommendations, tour dates and new music features, so I will take this information into consideration when creating the content for my publication. Within the survey, I also put forward my idea for a unique selling point to include within the magazine, whereby collectable tokens would theoretically be included in each issue of the magazine, which would entitle readers to discounts on gig/festival tickets. This idea proved popular amongst my target audience and I think that by adding a unique selling point such as this, more potential readers would be enticed in it would ensure the magazine is unusual, original and interesting when compared with others of a similar nature in the marketplace. I also prompted my target audience to put forward their ideas on what kind of writing style and tone they would enjoy reading within a music magazine, such as formality, informality, satire, sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek humour etc. The general consensus was that the preferred tone would be reasonably formal so that readers feel they are consuming valid, respectable information and opinions on music they're interested in, but interspersed appropriately with satire and tongue-in-cheek humour to add personality and flair to articles in order to set it apart from other magazines and add an entertaining quality to its content. Overall, conducting a survey was insightful and eye-opening in terms of giving me an honest and representative idea of what my target audience would enjoy reading and what they would expect from a magazine of this nature. I am now able to proceed in cementing firm ideas and plans for my publication and ensuring they are innovative and original.

Employment Contracts

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
As part of Unit 11, we have been learning about employment contracts in the print media industry, and how these contracts tie together to form working practices. Working within this unit, and also towards Unit 2, we worked in groups to create presentations on certain areas of working practices within the industry. I worked with Sam and Sarah to create a presentation centred around apprenticeships, house style and stages of production. We each worked individually on the different areas we were allocated to research within the group, and then came together and fused our ideas in order to create a dynamic, entertaining and cohesive presentation to feed back to the rest of the class for their research. We also created a hand-out which we sent to our fellow classmates to provide them with the information they needed to fully understand working practices in the print media industry. This was extremely helpful in developing our skills in terms of working with other people and selecting and retrieving information in a thorough, but concise manner.

Style Model

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
To help me in deciding on style and content for my magazine features, I selected a double-page-spread style model from NME Magazine, as this magazine is of a similar genre to my publication and exhibits similar style features and encompasses a similar tone to what I would like to achieve in my magazine. I analysed and annotated the style model, picking out codes and conventions that I expected to see in a magazine of this nature, and talking about how successfully it appealed to its target audience. This was incredibly useful in helping me shape the content of my magazine based on what would be most appealing to my target audience, and also in influencing me when it comes to creating a professional, respectable tone to my writing style.

Mastheads

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
Leading up to the design and production of our magazines and building on our typography work, we have started to consider what our mastheads will look like and how appropriate they will be in relation to the genres we have chosen. We tried out a variety of different fonts, styles and colours, consulting each other for opinions and advice to ensure we were making the right decision to suit our publications. Trial and improvement played an integral part in the creation of my masthead; I sampled several different colours, fonts and styles before deciding on a final choice which I felt would best suit my target audience, represent the magazine's demographic most effectively and stand out when placed on the magazine's front cover.

Throughout the entire process of creating my masthead, I decided to conform to the common conventions of a music magazine, which tends to feature red, black and white as its predominant colour scheme. My first attempt consisted of bold white text in the font ‘Rockwell’. I felt the font would be an appropriate choice as despite it being a san serif font, which could give connotations of being old-fashioned and dated, it possesses a certain modern, rounded quality, which reflects the magazine’s new and cutting-edge approach to music; a message I wanted to convey to readers upon initial inspection. The text was placed on a black scribble effect background, which I initially liked because of the grunge feel which ties in with the genre of music being written about in the magazine, but I later decided I wouldn’t use this in my final masthead design because it had a certain childish quality which I felt would detract from the laudability of the publication.

Upon redrafting my masthead, I decided to swap the black background for a red background, as I felt this would be much clearer and bolder when placed on the magazine’s front cover and add to the overall striking mise-en-scene and lasting impression, as front covers are ultimately a magazine’s most vital marketing device. The text remained white, but I changed the font to ‘Constantia’, another sans serif font but one which I thought looked slightly more sophisticated and suited to the target audience. I added a slight bevel to the background as well, in order to ensure it would have a striking impact on the magazine’s front cover. 

I eventually came to the decision that the font I used in my second masthead attempt wasn’t quite appropriate for my target audience, as whilst it exuded connotations of sophistication and reliability, I felt something a little more dynamic and cutting-edge was required to truly reflect the innovative quality I want my magazine to withhold. I maintained the use of a red background, as I liked the prestigious and striking feel it offers. Working collaboratively with the white text, which this time is in ‘Cambria’ font, I feel the colours, style and finish of the masthead would be an effective marketing tool in terms of drawing in readers’ attention and also sums up the alternative edge of my target audience and their dedication with regards to the music topic.

Typography

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
Following our introductory work into the print media industry and the printing process in particular, we have started to focus on the physical aspects of design in magazines, such as typography, as this will massively benefit us when it comes to putting the skills we have learnt into practice with regards to the actual design and construction of our magazine pages. We have spent several lessons outlining the differences between 'serif' fonts and 'sans serif' fonts, and the connotations they have. Following this, we identified a selection of fonts in following lessons and discussed the connotations they possess and how they would be perceived when placed within different genres of magazines.

For example, we concluded that a serif font such as Times New Roman would give connotations of style, class and possibly age, so might be associated with magazines targeted at older people or based around more serious topics, such as health or science-based publications. On the other hand, we decided that sans serif fonts like Verdana connoted youth, fun and relaxation, so may be incorporated into celebrity gossip magazines or children's magazines. This work was particularly helpful in helping us consider the importance of being careful when selecting appropriate fonts for our magazines, especially for its front cover, which is of vital significance in terms of marketing and promotion.

Unit 11 - Part 1 - Consolidation (Lesson 14)

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
During today's lesson, we consolidated the work we should have to go towards Part 1 of Unit 11 and consolidated our understanding of the expectations of this part of the course. We then spent the rest of the lesson finishing any uncompleted work.

Finance Case Study Presentations (Lesson 13)

Unit 18 (Miss Carney)
During today's lesson, we continued work on our presentations in which we created a case study on a magazine of a similar genre to the one we wish to create later in the unit, talking about the financial setup and organisational structure. We will be presenting these to the rest of the class next week.

Focused Job Research (Lesson 12)

Unit 11 (Mrs Cutland)
During today's media lesson, we referred back to our chosen magazine and found out the name of the person who currently carries out the job we were most interested in and came up with questions we would like to ask them about what their job entails, whether their work environment is pressured and what deadlines they have to meet etc. Additionally, we attempted to find some contact details for this person in order for them to be able to aid us by answering these queries and giving us an insight into the position of their job in the hierarchy of a print media organisation.