2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
When I planned my magazine I intended it to be like my XXL magazine
because I liked the black and white effects. I intended to focus on two
main hip hop magazines, which are very popular for hip hop genre, they
are XXL and Hip Hop Weekly. However my design turned out to be like
the XXL magazine. The aspects of design I wanted to use from it were the
colours such as negative effects and the red and black fonts.
As you can see my work is similar because I intended to make my front
cover black and white and I made the mast head bold and red just like
the masthead in the XXL magazine.
However there are some differences as I didn’t intend to use two people in my front cover like
the XXL magazine and the cover lines are spread out differently from the real magazine. I also
didn’t use similar pose as I chose Ke$ha’s pose instead as my front cover model was supposed to
be based on and similar to Ke$ha.

3. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The genre of my music magazine is hip hop and my made up artists are called Adriana
and Kimberly. The real life artists I based them on were Ke$ha and Kim Kardashian.
They are interesting because Ke$ha represents hip hop as she is a really good role
model.
The artist I featured in my double page spread is a typical hip hop artist, because of the
different types of poses I chose for them to pose as, as I found different poses on the
internet of hip hop artists. I tried to make them typical of the genre in the photo shoot
because I didn’t want it to look over the top therefore I chose simple but hip hop
poses. The models I chose were Rhianna Miller and Maiya Markovic. I chose them
because Rhianna has Kim Kardashian’s looks, especially the hair, and the clothing was
similar to Kim’s on the picture below. The setting was in a photo shoot studio, with
white backgrounds and different lightings. The clothing I included were short clothes
because that’s what they wear and especially
Kim Kardashian, as it’s a trend.

4. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The magazine publisher which I would be ideal for my magazine would be XXL, as it is a
successful publishing company because it’s the number one selling music magazine on
the news stand, and very popular amongst the hip-hop culture. On its website
XXLMAG.COM it says that it has maintained its status as the most respected hip-hop
music magazine, by both consumers and the industry.
I will profit from them as my publisher because it will be read by a large amount of
audience and advertised largely across the hip hop culture, and large companies as XXL
are very well paid, as their average income is $56,571.

5. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The age range of my target audience would be between 15 to 25 year olds and they’d
mainly be male as there are mostly male rappers, but there are some female rappers
such as Nicki Minaj. Regarding their race they’d be black Americans, as most of the
rappers are, and they would be classed as middle class.
Their hobbies would tend to be going out and drinking, fashion trending. in terms of
the other media texts, they’d consume they would like expensive and popular phones
such as blackberries and iPhones, magazines such as Vibe and XXL, and movies such
as Stomp the Yard, which features popular hip hop celebrities such as Chris Brown and
Ne-Yo.
Looking at information in my XXL media pack, they’d be similar to their target
audience because it contains statistics of the average buyers which are male and the
average age, which is similar to my target audience age. Judging by what I learned
from my questionnaire, their main desires for a music magazine would be for it to
have three main matching colours, and to have an effective front cover picture.

6. 5. How did you attract your audience?
The most attractive aspects of my magazine work were the way I used the masthead with
headphones on top of one of the letters, and the way I used a negative image and coloured the
models lips in red and the rest was black and white. Also the model attracted them because I
edited her using portrait professional 11 and Photoshop to make her look attractive and more
like a celebrity. In terms of design of the front cover, I wanted to make the reader feel like they
are looking at a real magazine front cover, by using big bold masthead and three main colours
which matched each other: black, white and red. Particular cover lines were used for effect,
such as “ADRIANA IS BACK WITH HER FANTASTIC NEW ALBUM 'HA TO THE HATERS”, which
makes the reader want to read about the character as it says that she is back with her new
album and suggests that the magazine will cover a lot of information about her inside, as she is
the one in the front cover. The dominant cover line ""I'M DA BADDEST IN DA STREET, BADDEST
IN DA GAME", is meant to show that the character has a strong personality, such as using the
word ‘Baddest’ and shows a link between Hip-Hop by using the word ‘Street’.
My typical reader probably would pick up that there are typical attitudes and ideas in my
magazine such as the slang language used and how the characters is giving direct eye contact
and the contrast between her and her lips, and how the headphones are used on the masthead.
They’d like these attitudes because the headphones link with Hip-Hop, and the colour of the
front cover grabs attention as it’s in black and white.
I would hope that the impression my typical reader has of this magazine overall is satisfaction
and would acknowledge them that it’s a Hip-Hop magazine.

7. 6. What have you learnt about technologies through the process of this product?
Since I started creating my music magazine I started using Photoshop a lot, as I used my own software called GIMP,
which is a simple way of using Photoshop, and by using and experimenting with different tools in Photoshop I gained
experience and started learning a lot. I also used the software InDesign for creating my double page spread and I found
it difficult at first because it was slightly harder than Photoshop, although I had it on the mac, I never intended to use
it, since I started experimenting with different tools and reading about it I started learning until I created my double
page spread, even though I am not an expert, I managed to learn the basics. For my front cover I used Gimp, for
manipulating and cropping my images, and applying filters and creating mastheads and different types of effects. For
my contents page I used Photoshop, as I need to manipulate a lot of images and move images around and cropping as
well. I also used a software which is called Portrait
Professional 11, and its suitable for editing faces, and a higher quality than Photoshop.
I used my Nikon Coolpix L120 bridge camera to take photo shoots of my models that I used in my magazine. I also used
my iPad to take and send pictures and I used different softwares to edit photos on it as well such as Show Me and a
cropping software. I also used the internet to use my blog and upload my work to it; I used different types of
programmes such as Slide share to upload my power points and created a Pinterest account to upload pictures that
linked to my genre and my target audience. I also used dafont.com and experimented with different kinds of fonts to
use for my masthead.

8. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from the
progression from it to the full product?
Overall I think that both of my magazines turned out to be like I wanted them to be,
however comparing both of them I think there is a slight difference as the music magazine
turned out to be better; therefore I think I have improved. This is because had a magazine
to compare it to my music magazine and to gain ideas of how to make it. If I had time for
improvements, I would add more cover lines on my college magazine and another picture
on the front cover, for the music magazine I would have made her top whiter and leave the
background white but brighten it to make the image stand out. I also focused more on
Photoshop than before to create different shaped and to create mastheads.