My student magazine cover borrows several conventions from Men's Health magazine, including a medium close-up main image and masthead placement. I chose a consistent blue and black color scheme to look professional. My contents page also uses a three-column grid and colors similar to my cover for consistency. I included social media links and a website to encourage online engagement with readers. Through this project, I learned how to use new technologies like Adobe Photoshop, Blogger, and uploading photos and audio files for my reflections.

1. My Evaluation
By Louis Dale

2. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and
conventions of media products?
Medium
close up for
main image
Masthead
Consistent
colour
scheme
Issue number,
date and price
Main cover
lines
Covermount

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of media products?
I am comparing the front cover of my student magazine to the cover of Men's health magazine. The main focal image of
both covers is a medium close up shot which attracts the audiences attention but also leaves room for a lot of text
around the image so your attention is not purely on the image. Both also follow the usual codes and conventions by
placing the mastheads at the top of the page which makes it clear to the readers what the magazine is called. Men’s
health is a very popular magazine and recognisable to a large target audience so they can have their masthead partially
covered by the main image. This is not something that I could do because this is issue one. For my cover, I felt it was
very important to keep a consistent colour scheme as it makes it look professional and the audience can then expect a
consistent quality throughout the magazine. I predominately used blue and black because these are bold colours that
stand out and attract peoples attention. These colours also are appealing to both genders which is very important to me
because my target audience is male and female students. If I was to use a colour that connotates one gender then the
other gender may be put off purchasing my magazine. For the cover lines I have tried to make them bold whilst sticking
to the colour scheme. The Men's health cover has many more cover lines than me but I felt I had a sufficient amount
that would intrigue the reader and make them want to read these articles. I hoped by providing just a taster of what was
inside they would want to know what else was inside. I placed my barcode at the bottom of my page and this is where
it usually is. The main image of my magazine is clear to the target audience what this magazine is about. This is similar
to the men's health magazine where we have a sports icon who is instantly recognisable and keeps himself in very
good health. Both images signify who the target audience are or who they are striving to be. My magazine has another
one of the codes and conventions, in the form of a cover mount . This is just another added extra that could separate
my magazine from the rest and also convince some unsure consumers to buy my magazine. It is a very competitive
market and I recognise the fact that you need to do anything possible to make yours stand out. I have put the Solihull
sixth form logo at the top of the page to give it a sense of identity. This makes it obvious to the audience where it was
produced and who its mainly targeted at. The genre of my magazine is student life and therefore I have tried to make it
appeal to teenagers. Typically teenagers do not like a lot of text and prefer a more visual look to a magazine. This is why
I have not added lots of cover lines whereas the men’s health magazine as their main audience is a male who is
determined to get in shape and will be prepared to read more.

4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of media products?
Contents title
Date line
Good consistent
colour scheme
Variety of pictures
Page
references
Rule of thirds
Features put into
sections
Social media and
internet links
Poster given away

5. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of media products?
My contents page is similar to my front cover in that it has a colour scheme. I have maintained the blue and
black but also added white because it stands out very well on the black background. The black background is
very bold and eye-catching. The kerrang contents page also features these similar colours plus yellow because
its very bright and colourful. I have followed the rules of thirds which is what magazines tend to follow. This
can be seen by looking at my three columns as this separates the page nicely. In each of these columns I have
subheadings under which I put some of the features of my magazine. The cover lines from my front cover all
feature in my contents so if a reader is grabbed by one of them they can quickly see where to find it inside. By
splitting up the features it makes it look much more appealing and the text is not all in one small area. I have
clearly labelled the page as has the kerrang magazine, this is one of the codes and conventions of contents
pages. I have tried to have a few similarities between my front cover and contents page as I like it to be
consistent and recognisable. Furthermore the college logo features on my contents page and also in the same
position. I have also included the date and issue number like I did previously on my front page. To make the
page interesting I have included several images which are similar to the one on my front cover, my target
audience can relate to them. In this day and age the importance of social media cannot be underestimated and
it was something I could not miss out on my page. Therefore I have included icons to show we are on facebook
and twitter. Not only this but a website address is below this to try to attract readers to the website as this
means it is not just a magazine but I can also interact with my readers.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
The first stage of this process was to use blogger.com to set up a blog that we could regularly update and we could
post all of our work onto. It was a site I had never used before and it took some getting used to but it luckily isn't
too complicated. I learnt how to put images onto it and how to accompany them with text.
Once I had taken my pictures I then had to transfer them to the computer using a USB port. This was
fairly simple but a useful skill to learn.
Adobe photostop was the program I used to create my pieces and I had never used this software before
so learnt a lot like how to effectively use layers and how to create a stroke on text. You could edit the text
in many different ways like adding a drop shadow.
I used Microsoft word to complete my risk assessments which I have had a lot of practise with so I didn’t
learn much about the software itself but more the importance of risk assessments and how to complete
them.
Part of my task was to do a self reflection which I had to record. I used the voice recorder on my HTC
phone and then used a USB port to upload it to sound cloud, another new website to me. From there I
uploaded it to my blog.
It was important to make sure my group was organised when it came to taking the photographs. Therefore
I used my hotmail account to email them and ensure we had agreed a time. I used Gyazo to take an
image of the email I sent so I could add this onto my blog.
I have learnt so much in this process and I am really glad we have done it because it has given me more
confidence heading into the controlled assessment.