1. Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
In my initial research I looked into various existing magazines of varying genres. I
decided that I wanted my magazine to follow convention as these conventions have proven
to be effective for the rest of the market and would ensure my magazine would attract an
audience. The first thing I noticed was that, on all of the magazine covers I analysed, the
masthead was always at the top and either aligned to the left or took up the entire width of
the magazine’s cover. So, because the name of my magazine was short, I decided to align it
to the left of the page as this is the side of the page from which the eye reads and if the
magazine was staggered on a shop shelf the masthead would still be visible.
Another thing was the colour scheme. All of the magazines I looked at had a very
similar colour scheme despite the fact that they were all of a different genre. Red, yellow,
white and black featured as a reoccurring colour scheme on all of the magazines I analysed
and also
on many
I didn’t
analyse.
Studio photo shoots were also another convention I followed. The
majority of magazines used studio shots for their covers and their double page
article. This gave a more professional and clean look to the products and due to
the minimalistic theme I wanted to convey in my product I went with studio
photography for the majority of my photography.
For my font I used a clean and angled font to continue the clean minimalistic image
of my product. Other magazines used bold fonts that stood. Kerrang! Used very bold,
angular explosive fonts but this did not fit the theme of my magazine and so I followed the
style of NME more than the others as this magazine follows a similar genre to mine

2. One of the major products thats
influenced mine was NME. In their more
recent issues they have adopted a more
minimalistic and simple style for their
covers and this is something that jumped
out at me for my product as a lot of other
products, such as Kerrang! , have very
cluttered and busy covers so a more
minimalistic cover is something that would
stand out on newsstand. Here you can see an example of an NME cover and my cover in
contrast to each other. I used a different colour scheme but the overall style is similar in its
neatness and minimalism.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is geared toward people interested in indie and alternative music. This
kind of music often comes hand in hand with a style and is particularly popular with young
adults and older teenagers, especially in today’s culture. My media product focuses mainly
on new artists that have taken inspiration from previous artists. Many of these artists are not
necessarily celebrities in the sense of being famous and rich like many pop artists but
instead are viewed more as ‘regular people’. This constitutes the style that comes with this
genre of music, which can often be a very vintage fashion and an appreciation for older
styles and less what is in the ‘mainstream’ now. Even the name itself ‘Alt’ represents the
alternative culture of young adults today and reaches out to them in their need and want to
be different and set apart from the crowd.
Following through with this the social class of my magazines readers is mainly
geared towards middle class people. The magazine is affordable and its contents fit this too.
In the media, teenagers and young adults can be often represented as wild, unruly and
rebellious. My magazine embodies this, promoting festivals and gigs that the readers will
appreciate and that they can use to go be all these stereotypical things but it also represents
the younger generations as a group with appreciation for the arts and the creative.
The gender representations in my magazine are as equal as possible. There is not
an over sexualisation of either of the gender’s to try and appeal to one specifically because
as a genre, Indie/Alternative music is very wide and, by aiming to appeal to people
interested in the music despite gender, I have widened my audience.

3. My magazine does not represent so much the fashions and personal lives of the
artists featured but is instead geared towards bringing the audience everything about the
music as people who listen to this genre of music usually have a deep appreciation for the
music itself and less for the gossip surrounding the people making it, as is common with pop
music.
What kind of media institution might distribute your magazine and why?
When researching for my magazine I looked at various
publishing companies and media companies. In the end I
decided on IPC media as they publish a similar magazine to my
own, NME. As they already publish NME I thought they would
have experience in publishing a magazine of mine’s style and
would be able to do so successfully. Also, IPC media reaches
over 26 million UK adults every month and this would mean that
as a distributor they would be able to successfully market my
magazine. Also because of the fact that they already distribute
NME they would be able to distribute my magazine without the two magazines affecting
each other. However a downside to this choice in distributer would be that, because NME is
already a well-established products, they might not push my magazine to be as successful
for fear that I might push NME out and render it obsolete. This being the case the other
option would have been to choose a distributor that does not publish a magazine of my
genre already, one with a gap in their market that could be filled such as Bauer media.
Bauer might be keener to distribute my magazine as it covers an area of the market that
they have not explored yet and this would mean they could push it out and extend their
reach in terms of brand diversity. However I still went with IPC due to their experience and
how well established they already are in distributing a magazine of this genre already.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
This is the reader profile I created in the earlier stages of producing my
magazine. The target audience will be mainly 15-24 year olds as this is popular age
range across all other music magazines published. I am publishing my magazine
weekly because music is a fast moving industry and this will keep readers up to date.
However, the magazine will only cost £1.80 due to the young age of my target
audience and the fact that this may mean not many of them will have much
disposable income. It will also be published by IPC media as they have had
experience publishing magazines of a similar style (NME) in the past.
Due to the young age of my audience I plan on keeping the magazine very
informal, publishing weekly about new music, up and coming artists, reviews, gig
guides, album charts and various other features. Also, free posters will be offered
weekly to attract the audience and to make them feel like they are getting more than
they are paying for.

4. Originally I specified my target audience as 15-24 year olds and now that my product
has been finalised I think this age group still stands. The magazine is minimalistic and clean
yet informal, appealing to the younger audiences. It also uses other media platforms, such
as social networking sites, as can be seen in the contents page and even at the bottom of
the double page spread, to promote additional features and this is attractive to the younger
audience and is something they can easily connect with as the majority of readers will be
connected to some form of social media through either the
internet or smart phones.
My magazine is aimed at neither gender but more
aimed at any person who takes interest in the genre of music
my magazine is based on. I have tried to represent both
genders in my magazine and have not used females to appeal
to the male gaze or over sexualised the males or females to
attract women to my magazine. Instead I am trying to aim my
magazine at music lovers of both genders, thus widening my
potential audience by a wide margin. However my research
did show that males were the gender that brought music
magazines more than females across the board and so this is
something I took into consideration when choosing a male for
my cover artist. However the fact that the magazine is not
singularly aimed at males means that it opens up another
area of the market in a female audience, however small it may be.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience by using conventions I
learnt from analysing existing products already
available on the market. For example on my
front cover their is an offer of free posters and
this attracts the reader to but the magazine as
they feel they are being given something as well

5. as what they are paying
for. Especially considering
my target audience is not
one that will have a high
amount of expendable
income this is makes the
magazine more attractive.
The main story of the
week uses a pull quote
from the article,
something talking about
friendships ending, which
is relatable for my young
audience.
The use of social
networking links is
something the audience
are familiar with and the
offer for ‘Exclusive’
content is again attractive
because the audience will
be getting more than they
originally paid for and will
make them feel more like
part of an exclusive and
selective few that can gain
access to this content.
‘This week we ask…’ is
very informal and chatty
and makes the reader feel
more on level with the
artists.
Talking about festivals and gigs relates to my audiences interests and so is something they
can relate to and enjoy.
Informal and ‘jokey’ images entice the reader, giving the magazine a relaxed and informal
feel and relating to my younger audience as they are very informal. This makes it easier for
them to read and makes them feel more like they are on a more personal level with the
artists.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
Technology has been detrimental in the
creation of my magazine and has been involved at
every stage of its production. Everything I have used
and created to create my magazine has been
uploaded and
recorded on
Wordpress.
In the earlier
stages, to
research my
target audience, I
used survey
monkey to create
a questionnaire to gather information and data on
audiences. Using survey monkey I learned how to turn my questions into graphs and bar
charts showing the answers using percentages and finite numbers. These are examples of
both the bar charts and percentage charts I used in my research.
I also used social
networks such as Facebook
and Twitter to spread my
survey and ask people to
take it so that I could gather
the information I needed in
order to research my target
audience. This increased the
number of people that took
my survey and widened my
results, allowing me to
develop a wider
understanding of the
audience I wanted to aim my
magazine at.

7. To present my planning and
research I used Microsoft Powerpoint and
Microsoft Word accordingly. Using a mixture of
images and text to present my research. To
upload these slideshows and pages to my blog I
used Slideshare, which allowed me to upload my
research in individual posts and allows the reader
of my blog to scroll through each slide easily and
quickly, keeping my blog neat, simple and easy to
use.
To create my front cover and contents
page I used to Adobe Photoshop CS6 and for my
double page spread I used Adobe InDesign Cs6. Photoshop allowed me to layer and cut out
my images so that they could be combined with text and other graphics. This gave my
magazine a more professional look rather than if I had put it together on Word or Powerpoint

8. and using photoshop allowed me to explore using different tool and techniques to achieve
different results.
For example, I used a plain square graphic and applied a gradient to it to achieve the
shadow effect on the front cover of my magazine.
This gave the magazine a less plastic feel and the
image of my artist a slightly more natural look.
This is something I learnt during the process of
creating my magazine and experimented with
throughout.
I also applied different settings to the shapes I
used, for example the shadow on the circular plug
at the top of the page makes it stand out more
and makes the cover look less flat, it gives it more
of a definition and combined with the bright yellow
of the circle, attracts the reader’s eye.
In InDesign I used text wrapping to keep the
text to my image and wrap it round it as this is a

9. convention I noticed in
other magazines. This
makes the page flow
better and links it all
visually.
I also wrapped my
pull quote around the
other side of the image
and had to do this
carefully to make sure
none of the words were
hyphoned. Here is an
example of a magazine
article from NME and
how the text is wrapped
around the image in the
middle so that the page
mixes better than if the
two were obviously
separate from each other.
I also used youtube to upload my interview and then linked it to my blog. I think using
video for the interview was a better idea than just audio or a script as it lends a reality to it
and is a lot easier to watch than having to read a script.

10. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
profession from it to the full product?
From the two images you can see that my college magazine is much more basic
than my final product and that my photoshop skills were considerably less developed as the
only technique I used in the preliminary task was to layer some text over an image I took.
There was no editing on the image it is simple imported and ordered behind all the text.
Whereas with my final product there is obvious editing on the image and I have used a
professional studio shot for my cover image.
There is also a distinct lack of colour scheme on
my college magazine cover and the the colours I have
used are hard to read and do not fit with the image
behind. The best example of this being the bright red
masthead set across the top of the cover and in front of
the image. Because of the busyness of the image behind
the red is hard on the eyes and hard to focus on, making
the name of my magazine hard to decipher. Whereas on
my final product cover the background of the image is
simple, neutral and not overpowering, and the image
relatively muted, allowing me to use bright colours for my
text. Also my final product has a distinct and obvious
colour scheme of red, white, yellow and black and this is
uniformed in the other pages I created for my final
product. Overall my final product is considerably improved
and a lot more sophisticated. I have used more
appropriate photography and experimented with different techniques to achieve this.
The other difference between my preliminary task and my final product is the fact that
I based my final product on research I did of existing music magazines and of the
appropriate audiences. With the college magazine I just made it with no previous work or

11. research and this means that my final product follows convention more closely and is also
more likely to appeal to its intended audience which means it serves its purpose a lot better.