3rd Quarter Submission

     With this submission, I have made alterations since the last time it was uploaded in its entirety. Those alterations include; background coloring, the changing of the fonts, the font sizes, grammar mistakes, and the addition of more photographs. I left the cover page and table of contents the same, because there was nothing wrong with them. Unfortunately, my model suffered from an crippling illness, while trying to add more photos, so that explains the delay of them, but they are here now. Just this experience alone has given me more than enough wisdom when entering the media business and the risks you may take while making costly mistakes of delaying the featured photographs. But in the meantime, ENJOY!

Creative Critical Reflection -- Draft #4

Integration of Technology 

     When I was getting ready to get into the the production stages, I was a little intimidated, because it was all new for me. I had never had to produce something like this, in this multitude. We had two choices: Adobe In-Design and Microsoft Publisher. When exploring In-Design, I was overwhelmed with the amount of options the application offered. I knew that it would take a while to learn all the different type of functions, so instead I explored Microsoft Publisher, that fairly simple, yet abundant. It took almost no time to learn and become adapt, so it was very smooth and the process went well overall. Since I am familiar with Microsoft products (Word, PowerPoint, One Note), I was very comfortable with the workings of the Publisher. In the Insert tab is where I developed my pages. In the Design tab where I found the different colors and patterns I could use in the product. I had an idea that I wanted my magazine to be colorful and nostalgic, but economically speaking, I found that it is quite expensive to publish a real magazine with extra coloring, so I tried to stay away from the colors. At first, I had a little trouble trying to find how to fill my selected photograph as the full background. I eventually found it by simply right-clicking the mouse bar. The photograph I used for the cover already came with color in the background, so hypothetically,  I don't have to worry about cost. Another problem that I ran into was the text. By using a photo that had outside element factors, such as grass, kind of made it difficult to incorporate text that the audience could see. So to adjust, I had bold the text and use different colors in various tabs. As for the table of contents, I recently just changed the background into a lighter color, so it was very straight-forward. The article probably served as the hardest part, software wise. It had some glitches with adjusting of the ruler, the columning, and the designs (more specifically the border frame). It took a while, but it ended up working out and will be presented in the next blog post. 

     

Creative Critical Reflection --- Draft #3

Production Skills

     In the beginning when the class was told to decipher between creating the magazine and the film, I was already convinced about producing a magazine. The film option seemed enticing as well, but I knew that it was imperative to choose the activity that I knew I would be more successful in. Like I've stressed many times before in previous posts, I had a specific idea of what I wanted my magazine to be, but to conceal my originality, I had to rearrange my plans and come up with a similar, yet innovative product to get my point across, which I feel that I did. Prior to taking this course, I had taken Journalism 1, where I'd developed the fundamental skills to create what we call a "feature story". With this in mind, I figured that I would use these said skills to produce one, along with the help of my model to interview. The interviewing and writing process was one of my favorite parts of the production of the magazine. I thought it was fascinating how I was able to train my model to take on the voice of that of another person (Missy Elliot). We did this by watching interviews, reading articles and practicing the cadence I wanted to portray in the magazine, and I definitely feel as though my research paid off in a good way. The scouting locations and taking the photographs was a new concept for me. I had never had to do that, so when I was actually in that stage, I felt that I was accomplishing a task that I learned rather quickly and I can honestly say that I acquired a new management skill from this project. Picking the clothes for the photoshoot was also one of my favorite skills, because it allowed me to again, take on the personality of another person and eventuate my point of why fashion is essential to the music industry; past, present, and future. And the very last part of the project that was my favorite and most influential was actually creating the magazine. The layouts, cover page, table of contents, flat plan and etc. This served as my favorite part, because I appreciated how I had all the creative control over the product. I was able to pick out the colors, the theme, fonts and pictures. It was also the most purposeful, as far as learning goes. Prior to this project, I never developed a magazine before. I've always had the ideas, but to actually create one to its full extent was very influential in the projects entirety. Overall, I have definitely acquired new-found skills that I will be able to take along with me, hopefully in my future involving the media.

Creative Critical Reflection -- Draft #2

Engaging with Audiences

     When coming up with this magazine, I knew that I wanted my magazine to be geared on music and fashion, because that is essentially what I am most passionate about. Other than the 20's, my favorite time period and/or era is the is the whole culture of the 1990's; the music, fashion, sitcoms, films and etc. I just didn't know how to incorporate this idea within' the rubric of the project. Conceptually, my product engages with different types of audiences. More specifically, teenagers who are interested in the 90's nostalgic period, like I am. A term that I found that has fit my description of the teenage audience that will be interested in this idea would be "beatniks". This term was used historically, during the Cold War, for teenagers who basically submerged themselves from the 1950's culture to do other "eclectic" activities. Essentially, my magazine zooms into the urban edition of the 90's music scene, where it focuses on R&B and Hip-Hop music artists and their backgrounds. So, for the teenagers who are submerging themselves from this current generation and becoming "beatniks" of the 21st century and even the "alumni" of the featured generation, I feel like this would stand as a solid target audience there. Even though I don't wish to put gender guidelines on my magazine, I read an article from Folio Magazine, stating that 33% more women do indeed read fashion magazines in opposed to men. Even with this fact in mind, I still believe that putting those guidelines on my product will limit the potential popularity, not to mention, ignore the massive impact the men play in the role of fashion and music period. My magazine can be seen as culturally biased, because of the prominent role African-Americans in the business, but it is not excluded from other races. So with the factors of the multi-cultural range of teenagers, men & women, I think that that my product hits a variety of targets. As for the distribution process, like I stated in my previous post this generation has made it clear that print copies aren't the way to do things and that technology via cellphones and computers is how they want to obtain their information. And from this, I have found that this would be economically beneficial to the magazine companies, because they essentially don't have to spend extra money to print paper and buy spacing for advertisements and they can convert to the online source. They are multiple different ways to do this, via a key distribution company like NDA (National Distribution Alliance), where they can appease the type of business I would like to conduct in the future, if they are still prevalent. 

Creative Critical Reflection -- Draft #1

Use of Conventions 

     From the beginning, I felt that my product challenges the conventions of my genre. I wanted to create a magazine that was based on music and fashion, because I am passionate about both of these things. In this particular article, I was able to successfully infuse both. First about the musical artist and then I highlighted the featured style. Throughout this whole research process, I've kept this in mind and dedicated myself to finding magazines that represent exactly my taste and how I want things to be done. From the size of the layouts, the subjects, and even how to distribute the product and how others go about doing that. I learned a lot of things that I had no idea about privy to doing this research. It opened my eyes of the business behind it and gave me an idea as to what this generation wants to see and how they want to see it. One key element that I have discovered while doing research was that a lot of the print media is going extinct, as far as my target audience goes. This generation has made it clear that print copies aren't the way to do things and that technology via cellphones and computers is how they want to obtain their information. And from this, I have found that this is also economically beneficial to the magazine companies, because they essentially don't have to spend extra money to print paper and buy spacing for advertisements and they can convert to the online source. This was important to discover, because it helped me to rationalize the way I do things. As for my magazine, I found that advertisements that are similar to your own magazine is very imperative when coming up with your own magazine. I also found that the print space is very cherished and it costs to add color and print pictures of the featured guests. As for the actual features, I have also noticed that a lot the magazines are gender based. When you think of Cosmopolitan or Vogue, you don't see many male features. Witnessing this has made me reject this idea and make my magazine gender universal, considering the fact that the genre of my magazine has both female and male role models for music and fashion. With me being a teenager myself, I see how my current generation operates and they are starting to represent the opposite gender a lot, so including both wouldn't be a problem for my product. To add social groups, I thought that it would be beneficial for my own appreciation and that of others to include different aspects of culture, like for instance, for the month of February, I would incorporate African-American culture to appease to my target teenage African-American audience and others like it. My magazine isn't politically based, but I don't have anything against adding political aspects if they may occur. (My magazine is titled "Onyxx" after all)

Teen VOGUE- Magazine Digital Distribution Research

   Teen VOGUE is a monthly magazine targeted at female teenagers between ages of twelve to seventeen. The magazine features fashion, hair, and makeup trends.Teen Vogue's digital properties in April of 2015, seen the site experience immense digital growth. So, on November 2nd, 2017 it was announced that Teen VOGUE would cease its print edition and continue as an online-only publication as part of a new round of cost cuts. The editors then took a lot of what was happening in the print and made space for it in the magazine in a beautiful and refined way. They transfused the digital sections like: Fashion, Teen Vogue View, People are Talking About, Features, Beauty & Health, and Last Look and combined it with that of the print versions. The traditional covers will remain, but in the digital aspect. In return, they rely on the creative director or the photo director to help enhance certain things visually on the website or on social media that help to have a consistent visual story and help convey new brand identity in whichever way the generation reaches for them. Instagram and Twitter serves as their biggest platform to attract their audience via social media. They do this by keeping up to date with the fashion lives of celebrities, advertisements, and debuting their apparel. 

SEVENTEEN- Magazine Digital Distribution Research

     Seventeen magazine is an American teen magazine, that ranges from 13-to-19-year-old female readers. It began as a publication geared toward inspiring teen girls to love fashion, become model workers and citizens. The magazine as whole is for the most part the same as the online version. Some things that I noticed that is different is that they offer more engaging tabs than the print copy. What got me to see this is the teenage quizzes. I had never seen this in the print copy and then I noticed the other tabs, that essentially offered more articles based on this topic, like love articles and prom. This is a tactic I would use, because rather than pay an additional cost to print the extra tabs of pages, they occupy it on the digital issue. I think this idea is very smart and it adds differentiation to the product. They had 78 million readers and as of 2017, they have about 2 million subscribers. They cut down their distribution some, to cut cost, but I think the differences described is really effective.