2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My magazine cover looks to me like I think a ‘normal’ magazine should look. Everything is in the right place, the title is at the top the barcode in a bottom corner and strap line at the bottom. How ever it has gone against the ‘traditional’ look of just having one mid shot picture on the front. Instead I have chosen to use the same image and duplicated it four times. I think this gives it that indie look I was after.
3. How does your media product represent particular social groups ? Initially I wanted to aim my magazine at the more hip-hop genre but half way through my designing I decided to change to an indie magazine as I thought this style suited me better than the other, I also thought it would be easier to target the people I wanted to-my target audience. Obviously I'd say that it represents the indie culture and style and there is actually a lot of people who follow this style and fashion so it would be a very good one to choose as it has a wide market audience.
4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The kind of media institution id want to publish my magazine would be something like ‘IPC Media’. I chose these because they are one of the leading publishers in the magazine industry. Apart from having over 85 iconic media brands they also reach out to almost 27 million adults. IPC distribute the well known music magazine NME and because of the international fame IPC media has I believe this would be a good starting point for getting my magazine out to the public. This means my magazine would be able to gain advertisement and publicity in other magazines and TV adverts. IPC media uses its own products to advertises its own products, this means my magazine can get a lot of publicity in their magazines, TV adverts, texts , cinema adverts and web sites. I also found out that IPC own Time Warner Inc. which is interesting because the band in my magazine would be successfully advertised by these in music videos, albums c.ds etc. This will in turn help sell my magazine due to the fact exclusive interviews are held in my magazine and in turn should increase my fame, ratings and sales.
5. Who would be the audience for your media product? Firstly I needed to find out who would be interested in my magazine. To do this I designed a questionnaire and handed it out so i knew exactly what kind of things to put in the magazine and what style to do etc. When i got my results back I wasn't to surprised, as I expected the majority that liked it were teenagers that liked the indie style. I chose appropriately dressed people for my pictures and the right jargon to use throughout my magazine to try and make my target audience satisfied.
6. How did you attract/address your audience? I chose the colours of my magazine cover that indie readers could relate to and indie colours are said to be neutral colours/colours of the earth egg browns and creams etc. The fact that it says ‘the ultimate indie magazine’ under my magazine name hints to the readers that all aspects of indie lifestyle and culture are included, whether it be fashion or music its all in there.
7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I've learnt that there is a lot of technology out there that can change, enhance or remove things from pictures without you being able to tell. So this tells me that not all pictures we see can be 100% trusted. I've also found out that everything we start off doing is hard but once you get the hang of it, it can be very easy and actually quite fun. For example I didn't think id be able to get the hang of Photoshop with all the different effects and buttons you can click, but by the end I actually found it very fun and interesting to use. Also the use of photography showed me how just with a few lights and the right angle can change anyone’s appearance and make them look different.
8. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? I have learnt that even the slightest change of colour on your magazine can change the mood of the magazine and make it fit to different target audiences. Where as before in my prelim I thought anything would look good anywhere kind of thing but in this magazine cover I've had to properly think about the layout, what colours to use and where to place pictured to make the most impact.