The document discusses the conventions and unconventional aspects of the student's music magazine media product. It aims to challenge stereotypes and not satisfy the male gaze. While the magazine challenges conventions of large magazines, it follows conventions of smaller independent magazines in its monthly publication schedule and basic masthead design. Unconventionally, it places page numbers at the top and uses variations of the same font throughout. The target audience is identified as a split gender group aged 16-25 who are interested in music, style and left-leaning politics. The magazine aims to represent groups in a non-stereotypical way and break down barriers, though fails to represent ethnic diversity due to the demographics of the local area. It would be distributed

1. EVALUATION
In whatways does yourmediaproductuse,develop or challenge forms
and conventionsof real mediaproducts?
Whilst my magazine challenges the conventions of large, mainstream magazines, it is fairly
typical of smaller, independent magazines. The lack of cover lines is reminiscent of magazines
such as BEAT and CLASH, it would be highly irregular to see such a lack of cover content in a
magazine such as NME and ROCK SOUND. My magazine is conventional in the respect that it
would be published once monthly, which is a convention of most substantial magazines
(excluding gossip magazines such as HELLO and HEAT). I struggled to find any my music
magazines other than NME that come out more than once a month.
One unconventional aspect of my magazine's design is the placement of the page numbers at
the top of each page. Despite breaking expected design conventions, I felt this would work
better for me on both the contents page and double page spread due to the amount of white
space at the top of each page, meaning that I would be able to put the page numbers in without
compromising space usage at the bottom of the page. Due to the small size and minimalist style
of the page numbers, they did not damage the effect created by the white space and
(particularly in the case of the double page spread), highlighted this as white space rather than
just an unintentional gap in the design of the page.
My masthead, and its placement on the cover, is fairly conventional. The font is a basic, sans
serif adaptation of Arial, placed right in the centre of the cover. Whilst completing my market
research I found that there was a fairly even split between the number of magazines which had
mastheads in the top left hand corner of the cover and magazines which had mastheads in the
centre, so I made the decision to place it in the centre due to my own personal aesthetic
preference.
Unconventionally, I have chosen to use variations of the same font all throughout my magazine,
for both headlines, captions and body copy. I chose to do this not only because I like the look of
it, but it creates obvious continuity and a definite house style. However, it was important to me
that there was some variation in the text, so that it wasn't boring or plain to look at. I created this
variation by switching between the different font styles (such as italic, bold italic, black, etc), as
well as changing the settings in the character settings tool in Adobe Photoshop CS6. This
allowed me to maximise the design potential of the font, and create a visually interesting
selection of fonts which are all based around the same initial template. Given more time on this
project, I would have used typography software to create my own font for the masthead, cover
lines and headings.
As I mentioned on the stylesheet, the colour scheme of my magazine would change every
issue, depending on the main colour used in the image on the cover. For this issue, the colour
scheme was orange as a highlight colour, with black text on a white background. Although very
basic, I found this worked to my advantage as it allowed me to maintain my desired minimalist

2. style and create an obvious house style relating to each issue. This is unconventional in
comparison to magazines such as KERRANG!, which use many bright, bold colours to appeal
to its target audience, but is conventional when comparing it to magazines such as LOUD AND
QUIET, which also uses one feature colour throughout each separate issue that is released.
My style of photography is largely conventional for magazines of my chosen genre. The posed
shots I chose are largely conventional, adhering to the rule of thirds and having a fairly plain,
coloured background. However, more unconventionally, my posed photographs were taken in
natural light and against a painted wall, rather than in a studio with an edited background. I
chose to take my photographs in this style rather than in a studio due to the naturalism of it
being my preferred style, and the style of my magazine in general. As my magazine has a
largely DIY ethos, it was important to me to capture this in my cover photo and thus I opted to
take a photo in which my models appear natural rather than posed and polished. My photos are
also shot unconventionally in regard to the fact that they do not necessarily satisfy the typical
male gaze – the models are natural, unedited and do not appear at all sexualised. As a feminist
wishing to portray feminist ideas in my publication, it was very important to me that my female
models did not appear solely to satisfy the typical male gaze and the focus is instead, on the
content written about them. The content of my shots also serves to provide another meaning to
my photographs. On the front cover the model on the right is smoking a cigarette, which is
typical of the genre of music my magazine covers, as in that scene it is still common for people
to be smokers. The model on the left is also wearing the merchandise of a band that many
people in the target audience will have heard of, which would add another pull factor for my
magazine to the target audience. She also has headphones around her neck, which is typical
iconography of a music magazine and will help to draw in my target audience.
My magazine also features a selection of live shots, both on the contents page and making up
the entire photo selection of the double page spread. I chose to do this because going to shows
is a large part of the music genre I have chosen to cover, and my audience research proved that
my target audience are interested in seeing live music and live music journalism, and it's only
natural that photos from the shows reviewed would be pictured.
I also included a variation of digital and 35mm developed film images. This was a purely
personal choice, as I love the look of 35mm film and thought it would create variation in the style
of my images. I thought it worked well and created a visually pleasing set of images, as well as
demonstrating my proficiency in both digital and film photography.
The writing style in NOISE Magazine is intended to sound friendly and down-to-earth, a far cry
from the expected pretentiousness of underground arts magazines. However, the focus of my
magazine isn't on large blocks of texts, rather the visual and aesthetic elements of it. In my
target market, aesthetics sell rather than lengthy articles and my magazine reflects this.
However, the text that that is present is professional sounding, without appearing patronising or
talking down to the audience. This is unconventional of magazines of my genre, which tend to
have an air of superiority to the writing, and is perhaps more reminiscent of the writing style in
magazines such as ROCK SOUND and MIXMAG.

3. How does yourmedia productrepresentparticularsocialgroups?
One of the main aims of my magazine was to be very conscious of representations and to aim
to break down stereotypes and to not aim to satisfy the male gaze, and other typical
expectations of certain social groups.
For example, my magazine features largely female models/subjects. None of the images I took
were taken with the objective of satisfying the male gaze, and thusly none of the images are
sexualised, or largely edited to show the women as anything other than they are naturally. One
of the faces in the images appear seductive, instead they are shot looking natural, and happy,
much the way male musicians are conventionally shot. This was very important to me when
creating my media product, as a feminist creating a feminist publication, so accordingly it would
have been against my own ethos/the ethos of the magazine to shoot the girls in a sexualised
fashion. Another reason why I chose to do this was the findings from my audience research. A
large amount of my target audience is female, and a large amount of my audience research
showed my target audience to be left wing in political orientation. This would likely mean they
were forward thinking in their views of women, and would likely be more open to and supportive
of feminist ideals being portrayed in my product.
One of the areas in which my product falls down massively on representation is the
representation of ethnicity. There is no representation of people of colour, instead every person
featured in my magazine is caucasian. This was a real let down for me when creating my
magazine, as it's very important to me to have equality in my representations. However, living in
North Yorshire, it is a very white area and it would have been virtually impossible for me to find
a person/people of colour who fit my desired look who were willing to be photographed for this
project. This also links in to a problem of unequal representation of people of colour in indie
music/the DIY scene altogether, as it is an almost entirely white dominated community, which
made it even more difficult to find people of colour in my area suitable to be photographed for
my product.
There are also representations of equality between the genders within the article I wrote for the
double page spread. Not only does it feature both a male and a female, but the amount written
about each and the style which they are written about in does not differ between the two. I used
no adjectives to describe the appearance of the woman in the article, but instead focused
entirely on her professional career and musical talent, which even in this day and age, is
unconventional. My contents page also has representations of women in a feminist style, as it
shows an article in the magazine (which did not make it into final production stages) solely
about the equality and changing representations of women within the indie scene.
Unfortunately there were also no representations of differing age groups, but this was again due
to the unavailability of older people who fitted my desired style. It was also due to my target
audience being made up in the majority by very young people (15-25), who may be put off if
they believe the magazine is all about older artists rather than younger musicians who are likely
more appealing to them. Instead, all my images depict young adults. In one respect, my images
do capture the typical stereotype of teenage rebellion as in one of my images, a young female

4. model can be seen smoking a cigarette. While this is hardly a revolutionary act, it does show a
basic level of disobedience to the law and/or the general advice and health recommendations of
the government/NHS/parents.
What kind of media institutionmightdistribute yourmedia productand
why?
I chose for my media product to be distributed and published independently, completely free
from the creative control and limitations of a large publishing house. I chose to do this to fit in
with the DIY ethos of my magazine, and to retain full artistic control over the style and content of
it. While I am aware that this will lead to exceedingly small, if any profit, the focus of my media
product would not be profit for the creators, it would instead be creating a real quality product
that was true to itself and its ethos.
In addition to this, my target audience said in the web survey that they rarely, if ever, purchase
music magazines. This also influenced me to plan to distribute my media product independently
and free of charge. As the current print magazine market (particularly music) is suffering, with
many magazines moving online or being axed altogether, it made more sense for me to charge
no cover price and to instead make money from raising the cost of advertising in my product
once the circulation had picked up. The lack of cover price (despite not being published by a
major publishing institution) would create a large circulation, as people could freely pick up as
many copies as they wished and not be charged anything for it. Examples of this being an
effective strategy can be seen in NME, which recently had to become free in order to avoid
being axed due to extremely low circulation. Before becoming free, NME had dropped to just
15,000 copies in circulation in summer 2015. Now, in February 2016, there are over 300,000
copies in circulation. This proves my theory that people are not unwilling to read and print
magazines are not going entirely out of fashion, they're just unwilling to pay for something they
could get for free online. This freedom to have a low circulation would also allow me to keep my
magazine going for as long as was economically viable, rather than having to worry about being
axed by a publishing company for not having an enormous circulation/making enormous profits
when that was never the intention of this magazine.
Not using a publishing institution would also allow me to distribute my magazine anywhere that I
want. While major publishing institutions (such as Bauer Media and Time Inc.) still favour
supermarkets and big name newsagents to sell their magazines, I know that this is not likely
where I would attract the attention of my target audience. It is likely that I would achieve a much
higher circulation if copies of my magazines were freely available in places where my target
audience are more likely to spend their free time. As young adults interested in the arts and
culture, these places will include music venues, art galleries, record shops, clothing shops (such
as Urban Outfitters), bars and festivals.
Having no large publisher would also likely draw my target audience in. In the indie scene, it's
considered quite uncool (for want of a better word) to enjoy mainstream products, magazines
included. Therefore, the appeal of the underground publication would be much greater amongst

5. my target audience and would thusly create a higher circulation and allow for more money to be
made through advertising.
Who would be the audience foryourmediaproduct?
The audience formymediaproduct,as foundoutby me audience research,wouldlikelybe asplit
gendergroupagedbetween16and 25. Because of this,I made sure that there wasequal representation
of genderwithinmymagazine butIfeltlesspressure to include peopleof differingagestothe 16-25 age
range,as my audience researchsurveyshowedthatthere wouldbe verylittle interestfrompeople
outside thisage bracket.
Whencreatinga mediaproduct,itis alsoimportantto considerthe political orientationof the audience.
In orderto try and determine the general political interestof mytargetaudience,Ienteredsomeof the
bandsthat wouldbe featuredinmymagazine (MacDemarco, The Strokes,My BloodyValentine,Joy
Divison,etc…) intothe YouGovProfilesLITE(https://yougov.co.uk/profileslite) searchengine,which
allowsyoutosee all kindsof generalizedinformationforpeople whoare interestedincertainthings.All
of these came upwithresultsshowingthatfansof these bandswere generallymoderate toextremeleft
wingsupporters. ThismeantthatI couldentirelygearmymagazine towardsthe leftwingandleftwing
interests,suchasfeminismandenvironmentalissues.
My qualitativeresearch(video) provedtome that myaudience were activelyinterestedinmusicand
spenta lotof moneyonpursuingmusicas an interest.Thisfitwiththe genre of the magazine,howeverI
didhave to considerthe niche whenthe intervieweesexpressedinterestsingenressuchasindie and
hardcore.My qualitative researchalsoshowedme thatmytarget audience were veryinterestedin
style,particularlystreetwear.Iwouldincorporate thisinterestintomymediaproductbydressing
photographymodelsinbrandsrecognizedbythe audience,creatinganotherlevel of interestformy
audience beyondthe music.
How did you attract/address youraudience?
I attractedmy audience ina varietyof ways.Firstly,the frontcoverwouldbe appealingtomytarget
audience.Althoughmycovermaylookplainanduninterestingincomparisontolarge,corporate
magazines,mymagazine isintendedtoappeal tothose interestedinthe DIYzine culture scene,somy
magazine accordinglyreflectsthe conventionsof thisstyle of mediaproductbyhavingalargely
minimalistcover.There are alsotwogirlson the cover,one of whomis wearinganidentifiable band
hoodie whichwoulddrawthe interestof mytargetaudience,andbothof whomare defyingthe male
gaze.Thiswouldappeal tomy targetaudience whowouldbe interestedinthe bandwhichisonthe
girl’shoodie,andwho(due tothe general leftwingbiasof mytargetaudience) wouldrespectthe fact
that the girlsare defyingthe male gaze andinstantlyidentifymymagazine asafeministpublication,
whichwouldinfluence themtopickupa copy.

6. The fact that my magazine isfree wouldalsoattractmy targetaudience,who are likelytobe students
and/oryoungpeople whodonothave an enormousamountof disposable incometospendon
magazines.Italsofitsinwiththe leftwingbiasof my magazine,whichdefieslarge corporationsand
chargingexcessive pricesinorderto gainlarge profitsat the expense of the audience.
Once my audience hadbeenattracted,Ihad to decide inwhichwayIwantedto addressthem.Frommy
personal experience Icannotstandit whenpublicationsadoptacondescendingtone whenaddressing
theiraudience,soIdecidedIwantedthe journalismwithinmypublicationtobe friendlyintone andfor
the readerto feel equal tothe journalist.Ididthisbyusinginformal languageandbyreferringtothe
readerdirectlyas ‘you’ throughoutthe article onmydouble page spread,tomake the readerfeel like
theywere engagedinanopendiscussionwiththe journalist.Ifeel likethe friendlinessand
approachabilityof mymediaproductwouldkeepthe interestof anaudience andencourage themto
keeppickingupnewcopiesof the magazine once theyhadfinishedthe firstissue.
What have you learntabouttechnologies from the process of constructing
this product?
I have learnta lotabout newtechnologiesinthe processof constructingthisproduct.
PreviouslytothisprojectIhadlittle experience withmostof the Adobe products(aside fromFireworks
and verylimitedexperience withPhotoshop) andproductssuchas Premiere andInDesignwere entirely
newto me.I developed skillsinthese programsquickly,particularlyinPremiere,where Iquicklylearnt
howto layersoundsandadjustthe volume of soundstocreate a full soundtrackfora movingimage.I
alsolearnthowto create contact sheetsforphotographyusingAdobe Bridge,aprogramwhichIhad no
previousexperience withcreatingaproductI had no experience with.Imanagedtofigure outwaysto
change the formattingof contact sheetstofindthe bestcompromise betweensizeandclarityof each
photographandspace conservation,sothe savedfileswere notenormous.
I alsolearntaboutonline technologiesthroughthe creationof myblog,usingBlogger.Ilearnthowto
embedYouTube videos,slideshowsandworddocuments(usingSlideshare) andalsohow toembed
Spotifyplaylistsintoblogposts, whichprovedtobe muchmore difficultthanIhad previouslyexpected.
I alsodevelopedmyuse of hardware,usingDSLRcameras,35mm filmcamerasandiPhone camerasto
capture the imagesusedinmymagazine.35mmcameras needthe filmtobe developedand then
scannedbefore theycanbe useddigitally,whichledme todevelopingmyskillswithscanningimages
and usingthatphysical technology.
I alsousedtechnologyforstoringmyworkand organizingit,mostnotablyMicrosoft’sonline OneDrive
software anda selectionof removable USBdrives.Ichose touse predominantlythe OneDrivesoftware,
as it allowedme toeasilyaccessmyworkbothat home and at college withoutthe riskof losingone of
the physical USB drives.However,the USBdrivesprovedusefulinstoringworkinformatswhichcould

7. not be uploadedtoOneDrive (suchasPhotoshopandPremiere projects),howeverthe riskof losing
these made themverymucha secondchoice for me.
Looking backat your preliminary task,whatdo you feel you have learntin
the progression from it to the full product?
Lookingback at mypreliminarytask,itisclearto see how muchprogressionIhave made betweenthat
and myfinishedproduct.The mostnotable difference isjustthe designstyle.Mypreliminarytasklooks
veryamateur,withnoreal care takenover whatsize thingsshouldbe andwhere aboutsonthe page
theyshouldgo.Thischangeswhenyousee myfull product,where eachpart of each page has been
carefullyplacedandsizedinaccordance withthe placementandsizingof othercomponentsonthe
page.
Anotherimportantprogressionpointforme wasthe developmentinmyphotoeditingcapabilitiesin
Photoshop.Mypreliminarytasksimplyhasa blackand white filterlayingoverthe photograph,whichI
chose as I didnot have the knowledge toeditthe photoinamore detailedmannertofindthe perfect
mix of colour,saturationandcontrast. All imagesinmyfull productwere editedusingthe contrast,
colourand saturationoptionsinAdobe PhotoshopCS6 sothat I couldfindthe bestcombinationforeach
individualphotograph,while slightlyadaptingthemtolookvaguelysimilarinstyle (low contrast,fairly
lowsaturation,etc…) sothe photographswouldlooklike theybelongedtogetherinthe same
publication.
Anotherimportantpartof my progressionwasthe progressionof myplanningmethods.Mypreliminary
task wascreatedwithno planningatall,whichclearlyshowsasthe page lookshastilythrowntogether
and careless.Myfull product,however,took weeksof planning,whichshowsasthe pageslookfar less
careless.Overthe time betweenbeginningthe preliminarytaskandcompletingmyfull productIlearnt
howvaluable planningreallyis,andfounditmuchharderimprovisingelementsof myfull productthan
followingthe plannedstructure andlookof otherelements.