2. 1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? I used forms and conventions such as the masthead, explanatory text, kicker, barcode, selling line and the positioning of the model. I analysed three existing products which were rolling stones, iDJ and XXL. XXL are a famous music magazine of the genre hip hop whereas Rolling Stones has more than one genre and is not of a typical music magazine. I used more of the forms and conventions of XXL rather than rolling stones as my theme suited XXL more.
3. 1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Front cover
4. 1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
5. 1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? In the iDJ magazine the title was bold and grungy which made it stand out. The title was the name of the artist. I decided to use the layout similar to XXL article, as it makes the model more superior. My article title was called ‘Merabet’ and i used a unique font as I developed this idea from the iDJ article. I gave the model a tag as most hip hop artists have tags such as pleasure p, 50 cent and young jeezy. I also liked the caption placed next to the image which I used for my double page spread I made sure the caption was catchy and short like the other existing captions. My caption read ‘I don’t feel I have competition with my father as I am an individual’ allowing the reader to have more interest in the article as it stands out and gives a bit about himself.
6. Double page spread I used many forms and conventions such as drop cap, pull quote, leading text and creative title.
7. 1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? I challenged the conventions of my existing magazines as I chose to place my photos in a film strip, usually the images are presented in a block form; as shown below.
8. Contents page I developed my own conventions from the editorial pillar section on the NME and Kerrang! Both NME and Kerrang have a similar editorial pillar layout I decided to combine NME’s contents page with mine. I decided to have a box behind my text to highlight the subtitle which will make it more attractive. It also makes it clear that they are the headers and easy to read.
9. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? D Working class. Also semi and unskilled manual workers C1/C2 Lower middle class supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional. Prior knowledge that this class may have. skilled working class. skilled manual workers I bought magazines that were probably aged for 15-19. However Rolling Stone is more for grown ups as it has a lot of text which will appeal for older people and teenagers will find it dull and boring as it is less visual. I decided to have the age group of 14-18 from help of my questionnaire. This is because I have more knowledge on what people from that age group like. I made sure it represented this age group by making my magazine more visual with interesting article titles which teenagers would like to know and gossip about. I have rave reviews which most teenagers like to know about as that is the sort of thing they do.
10. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
11. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product? From my research of XXL and iDJ I was able to notice what genre the magazine is and its target audience by just looking at images, articles and layout. For instants the image shown on XXL front cover gives the hip hop/ R&B look through clothing and accessorize and also their pose. My genre was hip hop and R&B as they are closely related. XXL had a similar target audience to mine so by looking for ideas from that magazine I made it appeal to my target audience too. The target audience for my media product is people aged 14-18 who idolise and love hip hop and R&B artist and their style. They are people who want to know more about the artists and gossip
12. 5.How did you attract/address your audience? I attracted my target audience by having a female audience and having her pose provocatively and her dress sense is common to other teenage clothing. Both male and females would be attracted to her as male will look up to her as ‘sexy’ and girls would look up to her as an idol. This is because artists are looked up to as idols and their fans would want to dress and act like them. On my contents page readers would be attracted to the fashion articles as many artists such as p diddy, giggs, jlo have their own fashion line and the audience would want to copy this.
13. 6. What have you learnt from the process of constructing this product? Photoshop skills, put images from fatema’s slide
14. 7 .Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Editor's Notes
As you can see I developed my forms and conventions by having my model overlapping my masthead. This creates a professional look and makes the model stand out more as it is brought forward. I chose to use a vertical barcode as it suited the layout of my magazine I developed this from the iDJ magazine however i used the XXL idea of placing their date and website. I challenged the form and conventions as my background is more complex whereas the existing magazine covers have a plain wash background.
I decided to make my advert plain with no other text apart from the diesel sign because it is the conventions of the diesel advert.
The image took half the page as from researching I found most double page spread is laid out like that. So I decided to use this convention and stick to having half of the page with a image and the other half with text.
I didn’t like the layout of the iDJ magazine so I chose to create my double page spread similar to XXL. I went against conventions as i edited the model’s image to make him look mysterious. I used the shot from iDJ as from looking at the model Donaeo his image is long shot whereas, the XXL dps is a mid shot. However, i developed it into my own as i used Photoshop by having a faded effect. I decided to have my caption at the top rather than the bottom as you can see the existing magazines have it at the bottom but i wanted the reader to focus on the model’s face this is why i placed it at the top.
I chose this style due to.... The colour theme is limited unlike the other existing magazines. I went against conventions as my articles were based on fashion, artists fashion line such as p diddy, jlo, giggs. It is also not busy, kept to a minimum whereas, common contents pages are usually busy and have a lot going on. I also had a washed background whereas, in existing magazines they are normally plain.
In the NME the page numbers are in different colours which I liked and decided to do on mine. I instead used pink as this was the colour theme I used. I also liked the idea how the first line of text is a short introduction of what is on the page and on the next line it goes into more detail in a smaller text. I decided to use this convention on mine.
My magazine appeals to both sex I made sure it was presented for both sex by having a female on the front cover and male on the double page spread. I also had both female and male on the contents page.
IPC Media is mostly magazines which compromise a wealth of leisure brands and women fashion so my magazine will not be suitable for this, therefore I will not use this. National Magazine Company publish the most well established magazine such as reveal. They do not publish music magazines so this will not be suitable for my magazine. Bauer Media includes a wide range of interests including Heat, Grazia, Closer, and FHM. Bauer Media doesn’t publish a R&B magazine making it suitable for my magazine ‘FRESH’ as it will be unique and will not conflict with other magazines.
i gave my model a identity which was a newly arrived artist with a very successful father. My target audience would be attracted and look up to this artist as he is fresh faced and my target audience would be attracted to this as he is also well known and successful. As my model is of this age group my target audience will appeal to him as the lifestyle of teenagers are common.
I used publisher for all my text. PowerPoint allows me to make slides. It is a easy way to present my work and clear as all the text is not all on one page. It also looks clearer to read when published with SlideShare. Publisher allows me to write text add images and arrows to show my annotation and magazine analysis. It allows me to add animations when doing a slide show and many more. I used excel to make my graphs after getting my questionnaire results. I learnt how to make graphs on excel by highlighting the columns and having a choice of what graph to pick. It also allows you to add a title to your graphs and design it by adding different colours etc. Blogger was used to publish my work. I uploaded images on this by making new posts and also added text. Blogger is a good way to keep your work up to date as you can see all your posts and what is missing. I also used blogger to embed codes from SlideShare and Issuu. Blogger also allowed me to follow students and view their work and whenever they update their blog I can see what they have done as blogger alerts me what they have posted. It also allows others to leave comments on my blog and I can do the same to others. I used SlideShare to publish my work this allows my PowerPoint work to stay in slides to make it clear. I learnt how to upload my work onto SlideShare to get in on my blogger. I uploaded by browsing the file I wanted and then waited till it was uploading. After this it asks me if I want to post it to my blog I then have to log onto my blog and it blogs it for me. This is a easy quick way to upload work and makes it neater and clearer for others to read. I used Publisher to get my magazine together in order to upload it to Issuu. Issuu combined my front cover, advert, contents page and double page spread together once it done this I got the code for it and embedded it and posted it to my blog.
My skills have improved as my planning was more detailed then when it was while completing my preliminary task. For example i took more images for my full product whereas, I only took one for my preliminary task. My Photoshop skills improved as I only had limited idea of how to use the program. I also dedicated more to the full task and had more of a thought process when completing it. The preliminary task helped me construct my full product otherwise I wouldn’t of known the basic of planning and research.
