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1. EvaluationPart7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
At the start of my AS coursework, my first preliminary task was to produce a basic
‘Harris’ magazine. I used Microsoft PowerPoint to do this, therefore it was not as
advanced, although it was easier to place and rearrange images and text wherever
needed.For my main images, I used an iPhone 5 to capture my photos. This meant
the picture quality and resolution was quite low and so my magazine did not look
professional as it could have been. I did however conform to a variety of magazine
conventions such as offering convergence, using twitter to attract my audience and
an accessible website. My preliminarymagazine conformed to having a bold
masthead as I used the font ‘Gills Sans Ultra Bold’, presenting it as bold and eye
catching, however that I used the same font for every text. This made my magazine
look very basic. I conformed to the convention of offering a fre ebie to attract my
audience,and as it was a school-based magazine I offered a newsletter for that
term. This was relevant to the content of magazine therefore was the best option.
My
preliminary magazine was also priced and barcoded, costing only £1.49 which is
relatively cheapand targets my specific target market audience, bearingin mind
their budget.
Once my preliminary task was complete, I moved on to research and planning, and
finding out what my target audience expected in a teenage music magazine. There
were many steps to this process, and consumed a lot of time. My first stepwas
deciding on who my target audience was. I aimed my magazine at teenage girls
between the ages of 13/14 to 19 year olds, as I could relate more to that age range
and partly knew what they would want. I also chose my genre, which was HipHop
and RNB, as well as researched other similar products that I could compare mine
to, also using them as guidelines. Secondly,I created questionnaires/surveys
asking the potential customers their gender to see which gender would read my
magazine more and whether they read/buy music magazines.I also asked what
they would like to see in a magazine, whichgave me the most feedback as I was
able to build my magazine content by this. I then asked how much they would
usually spend on a magazine,to find out which price was most appropriate for my
age range, and which type of black music they would like to be featured giving

2. limited options ‘HipHop’, ‘Unsigned’, ‘RNB’ and ‘Grime’. I only used these options as
I felt more comfortable in writing about these specific genres. The most crucial
question asked was whether they would buy a copy, which gave me impressive
feedback and assured me my magazine would be distributed successfully.
My next step was creating a target audience profile, whichI used an existing friend
as a representative of my target audience. I used my friend’s personal
demographics and psychographics to generalise the backgrounds and interests of
the audience I was targeting. I used the areas in which she is from, to generalise
the areasmy magazine would probably be most popular and used her feedback on
which social networks she used the most, to generalise whichsocial networks I
would use as convergence in my final product to attract my target audience.From
this profile, I was also able to look at what music genres she most preferred and
use that in my final product. This task was quite effective as it allowed me to look
at a real life example and generalise my typical reader.
The next step was looking at the conventions of a stereotypical HipHop and RNB
magazine and using them to plan my magazine to conform to them. Conventions
included the mise-en-scene, such as the stereotypical dresscode, model postures
and the look of the model, for example body image and ensuring my model had
curves, in particular a small waist and big thighs. Other conventions such as the
typography, typical colour scheme and content were all similar for various existing
products, therefore was not as hard for my magazine to conform to. This task was
effective as I could compare my final product, and include as many conventions I
found appropriate for my target audience.I then typed up my proposal/treatment
which was everything I planned for my final product. I included my target
audience,my colour scheme, the content and the style of the actual magazine.
These were my initial ideas, however I made a lot of changes in my final product. In
my treatment, I explained why I had chosen this particular age range,and why I
have chosen the genre. My initial idea was to aim my magazine at particularly
young black femalesand focus my content on the female black HipHop and RNB
celebrities, to motivate the black females in London. That idea proved to be less
successful than if I created a generalised HipHop and RNB, including content about
male artists and if I aimed my magazine at girls of all races, to widen my target
audience.I found it unfair, as it isn’t just the black community that listen to and
enjoy my chosen music genres. I then created a mood board based on this, and
included everything I planned to include in my final product. This was a creative
task which I completed using Microsoft PowerPoint making it easy for me to copy
and paste images onto. This task was helpful as it allowed me to build my
magazine upon this.
I also completed and analysis of 2 existing products to helpme understand the
conventions of HipHop and RNB magazinesfurther.I chose 2 very popular
magazine brands, ‘VIBE’ and ‘Billboard’ that are both based in America and focus
on American HipHop and RNB. I found this helpful as I was able to understand
why they had used certain conventions, for example the colour schemes and how
they both had their main image positioned. I found that one magazine was
sexualized more than the other, due to the main cover story differences. On the
Billboard magazine,Ciara was positioned quite sexually, showing a lot of skin and
in a very suggestive posture, which was because of the type of music she produces
and the ways in which fans see her.Whereas on the VIBE magazine, the main

3. image was a close up Jhene Aiko, which came across not as sexualized and more
based upon her beauty as she engaged in a direct gaze. I decided I wouldn’t make
my main image as sexualized due to my target audience as that is not the message
I want to put out to my young readers. The next stepwas typing up all the feedback
I got and listening to what my target audience thought of my ideas so far. This was
quite positive and a lot of females said they would be very interested in reading it,
as there aren’t many current existingproducts that feature what theywant to read.
However,there were criticismsfrom males who found it bias that it was only for
girls. I also found that from my survey results, a lot of potential customers expected
gossip, therefore I based my magazine around gossip within the music genres
industries. This was effective, as I then worked upon the feedback I got and made
changes to satisfy my target audience.
The next step was planning which fonts to use for my magazine. I found a few nice
ones that I found would attract my audience, which were quite girly and not as
harsh and bold as other fonts. I found that using the italiceffect would make my
magazine appeal to my female audience more.Whilst researching into fonts online I
found a great fonts website in which I chose an appropriate font from which I really
like, however,I lost the URL of the website and sadly couldn’t find it again.
Consequently I had to use my initiative and use a more simpler and italic font.
Luckily it looked good on my magazine and quite appropriate for my target
audience.From all my ideas collected, I then created a flat plan of how I would lay
out my magazine. This allowed me to plan a great start to production, and I used
this flat plan to then create mock up versions of my magazine. My mock ups were
based on how I wanted my final product to look, however,I made a few changes
towards the end of my production. I changed the colour scheme and the layout of
the contentspage as I didn’t find them as attractive. This task was fun to start and
quite useful as it gave me a clearer mind set of how I was going to plan my
magazine out.
My production began after this,and I began organising a photoshoot and outfits for
this. I conformed to the dress code of my music genres. I chose a student from my
school to model for my magazine as I found that her image was a great
representative of the look my target audience tend to go for. My model had clear
skin, natural beautiful hair, and had a decent body image. For my magazine she
was perfect. I used a professional camera borrowed from a media designer that
works in our school, and he gave me tips on how to use the camera to get the best
photos from it. After this, I then had to choose my potential photographs out of

4. roughly 300 images, based on the quality, the poses, and clarity. Once my pictures
were taken, I uploaded a few to my blog and began creating my production. I used
Adobe InDesignto complete this,making use of creating layers in order to organise
my images and text efficiently. I then input all necessary conventions based on my
target audience and what was appropriate. I created a girly, pink theme for my
magazine,to target my audience well, using the fonts ‘Imprint MT Shadow’,
‘Bernard MT Condensed’ and ‘Minion Pro’ giving the effect of variety. I created a
bold, and outlined in pink, masthead with a given title “Flawless”for my magazine.
I also input my main image, and placed the text and cover lines around my model.
In terms of pricing, I settled with the price of £1.50, keeping in mind the budget of
my target audience, also including a chance to win “Flawless” iPhone case,as many
of my target audience would probably have iPhones and be satisfied with this. I
used catchy buzzwords such as ‘Exclusive’ and ‘win’ to attract my audience’s
attention. I used appropriate cover lines whichappealed to my targeted audience,
using celebrity endorsement such as Nicki Minaj and J Cole to engage the re aders.
I believe my magazine targeted my audience quite well as I used conventions
appropriately to conform to the expectations of a teenage music magazine. I used
convergence whichis popular for my targeted age range such as Instagram,
Twitter, FaceBook and Tumblr, to keepthem updated on the latest HipHop and
RNB gossip. Overall I believe my production was successful and I le arnt a lot
during this process. I also gained new skills on InDesign and Photoshop, also using
the helpof a media developer in school, as well as feedback from my media teacher.
Consequently,I now feel confident using programs that I used throughout my
coursework as well such as Prezi and new found sites such as Infogram and
Scribd. I also, feel more confident about my knowledge of magazines and have
expanded my knowledge on conventionsand genres.