The document evaluates how Jessica Thorpe's magazine, Simply Pop Magazine, uses conventions of real media products. It discusses how the magazine uses conventions such as a masthead to establish the genre, cover lines, drop caps, pull quotes, slogans, dates and pricing. It also includes features commonly found in pop magazines like an editor's article and multiple images. The target audience is identified as mainly 14-19 year old females interested in pop music. Research with the target audience informed design choices to attract and address this group.

1. EVALUATION Jessica Thorpe MAGAZINE

2. SIMPLY POP MAGAZINE

3. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) The masthead of my magazine uses conventions of real media products. This is because it clearly establishes the genre of the magazine. This is a convention often used by Pop magazines currently on the market.

4. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? ( USES) I added cover lines and a sell lines, which are usual conventions for magazines, especially pop ones. The cover lines indicate some of the articles to be featured inside and the sell line is a final attempt to get the reader to buy it.

5. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) I used a drop cap in my double page spread, which is a usual convention to find in a pop magazine.

6. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) I advertised my main article by making it stand out. I did this by using bright colours and adding a box around the text. I also decided to add a border around the box to make it even more eye-catching.

7. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? ( USES) I added a pull quote which is what you will find in most magazines, it intrigues the reader as to what you can expect to read in the article, making you want to read on.

8. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) I added a slogan underneath the masthead of my magazine, which gives it more of an identity.

9. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) I added the usual convention of the date, price, issue number and price tag. I decided to put mine in the top left hand corner because it thought it would make good use of the space.

10. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) I included an editors article, because that is a feature in nearly every pop magazine.

11. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (USES) I added a pug on my front cover, like other pop magazines. I used the idea because it adds variety to the Page, and also attracts the eye to what is inside.

12. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (DEVELOPS) The title of my contents page develops forms and conventions of real media products. This is because I adapted the variation on having the standard ‘contents’ title, and added ‘inside the mag’ but developed the idea by inserting the title of my magazine above it.

13. 1. In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (CHALLENGES) The majority of Pop magazines have more than one image on the front cover of the magazine. I chose to take a simplistic route when designing and producing mine because I wanted the exclusive article and image to be the main feature on the page .

14. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups ( THE FRONT COVER) I have chosen to compare my magazine front cover with this one of ‘top of the pops’ because both people in the images are wearing neutral colours to contrast with the very bright and bubbly colour scheme. These images represent normal people as they are wearing normal every day-to-day clothes, which people who listen to pop music are. The clothes are also mainstream which makes it the most popular, and pop music is also mainstream and represents pop listeners social groups. Also by inserting a heart into the masthead of my magazine, makes it appeal more to the social group of girls, which is what I intended to do.

15. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups ( THE CONTENTS PAGE) I feel that by having a more girly based colour scheme in the contents page, continuing on from the colours in the masthead of the magazine, makes it easily recognisable with the social group of girls. The heart in the title and the italic writing also presents girls. This is because stereotypically this is what appeals to them.

16. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups ( DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD) I think I have again presented the social group of girls who like to looks at pictures of their favourite artists inside the magazines. As you can see, from comparing it with a ‘Top of the Pops’ double page spread, they have a large dominating picture and various others on the page. I decided to incorporate this into mine. This is mainly because when I did my target research it came back that they would prefer to see more picture with little text .Also the colour purple, represents girls and also represents pop because it is a fun, bright colour. They both also have interviews with famous artists which is what girls expect to see in a pop magazine.

17. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why I don’t think that Bauer would be a suitable magazine to publish my music magazine. This is because they specialise in women's chat magazines such as ‘Heat’ and ‘Closer’. Although they do publish ‘Q’ magazine, which is a very successful indie genre. I don’t think that Bauer would be able to market my magazine accordingly, because they aren't experienced in dealing with the pop genre.

18. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why The BBC Magazines publish ‘Top Of The Pops’, so I think they could be a contender to publish my Pop Magazine. However, other magazines that they publish include, ‘Robin Hood Adventures’, ‘Tweenies’ and ‘Learn with Bob the Builder’. This tells me that the BBC only concern themselves with providing the public with magazines involving programmes featured on the BBC which shows they may not help my magazine achieve its full potential.

19. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I think that IPC would be the most appropriate media institution to distribute my media product. Although they focus more on the women's weekly magazines like Bauer, they have been selling a very successful indie magazine since 1952 called NME. Whereas Bauer have only been publishing Q magazine since 1986. This shows that IPC have more experience dealing with iconic magazines and making them as good as they are. And as of yet IPC don’t have a pop genre of magazine, and having mine on board will add variety to their current market.

20. 4. Who would the audience be for your media product? The audience of my magazine is 14-19 year olds. I also want to mainly appeal to females. I also want to appeal to people who are in the B C1 C2 category, but that doesn’t apply, as yet, to my target audience because it doesn’t start until the age of 21. This is because of the bright colour scheme and the information which is featured inside will mainly interest girls of that age group, as there is posters of their favourite male and female artists, and interviews with them. The category I chose to appeal to means that everyone will be able to afford the monthly cost of the magazine. A Higher managerial. administrative and professional B Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional C1 Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional C2 Skilled manual D Semi-skilled and unskilled manual E Casual labourers, state pensioners, the unemployed

21. 4. Who would the audience be for your media product? Psychographic segmentation of audiences - the 4cs Mainstreamers – need for security and belonging, biggest group 40% Aspirers – need status and the esteem of others Succeeders – need control Reformers – need self-esteem, most educated I think my target audience will be mainly aspirers . This is because of their young age and their need for status and esteem of others around them, especially their peers.

22. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? In the process of planning my magazine I asked questions that involved my target audience and their views. The majority voted for a brightly coloured colour scheme with lots of cover lines, which is what I decided to do .

23. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? From my target audience research it was discovered that pop lovers like bright colours, so I added a variety of bright colours to the front cover of the magazine to make it appealing to my target audience, making them want to buy it. I also added cover lines which would be of great appeal to pop music listeners, because I added interviews and articles involving pop groups. I added a pug to add variety to the page and to make the eye wander all over the page. From my research I gathered that pop listeners don’t like to be bored. I added a sell line at the bottom of the page to entice the reader one last time to buy the magazine, by offering things of interest to them inside the magazine. I also added an one main article and made that obvious by highlighting it with the word ‘exclusive’ and having one main image parallel to the text .

24. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? When looking through current Pop Magazines, I noticed that they had both images and text on the contents pages, so to make my magazine appeal to Pop listeners and readers I did the same. I also added an ‘editors article’ which is featured in almost every Pop Magazine to engage with the reader and give them a bit of information about the magazine and what’s to be featured etc. I also continued with the colour scheme, which will enhance the colours to the reader so it will be easily recognisable. Whilst looking through current Pop Magazines I noticed that they categorize their articles to make it easier for the reader to find the page they are looking for. I decided to do that with my magazine as well. Also, I came across one contents page for ‘Smash Hits’ and instead of writing ‘contents’ at the top of the page they wrote ‘inside the mag’ and I thought that added variety so I added that to my magazine.

25. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? I made the exclusive interview on the front cover of my magazine the main article, which is a main convention of Pop magazines. This addresses my audience because they obviously wanted to read about the band because it was a main feature on the magazine. I also addressed my audience by adding a lot of images, and less text. I did this because when doing my research the results that came back from my target audience said that they preferred little text and more images. I also added pull quotes, one on the main images and another highlighted purple in the centre of the text. This will inform what will be included in the interview making it easier and quicker to read.

26. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? The sort of questions I asked were: Do you like the magazine, why? Would you buy this magazine if you saw it on the shelf, why? What makes you attracted to the magazine? What is your favourite page and why? What do you think could be improved? I then went round and questioned people who fit the criteria of the target audience of the magazine to see what they had to say.

27. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? Do you like the magazine, why? Ellie : I like the magazine because of the bright colours and because it’s a Pop magazine, and I like to read article about my favourite artists. George : I like the magazine because it’s clear what the genre is, and I like the look of all of the features in the contents page . Becky : I like the magazine because it has a clear identity and is structured well, but I don’t like the bright coloured layout Matt : The bright colours make it fun !

28. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? Would you buy this magazine if you saw it on the shelf, why? Ellie : I would definitely buy this magazine because it includes everything that I want in a magazine, and I love the pop genre. George : I wouldn’t because I listen to pop music, so the pop genre isn’t for me. Becky : I would because it’s cheap enough for me to keep buying it monthly, and the features inside are a bonus Matt : I would buy the magazine because the front cover is very appealing and the bright colours are very eye-catching

29. What makes you attracted to the magazine? Ellie : I like the heart in the word, Pop, and I think that works well because I love pop. George : The main image, because it’s quite a striking picture and because they’re all staring at you makes you want to read their article inside the magazine. Becky : The price first attracted me to the magazine because I usually can’t afford to buy magazines but this is at a reasonable price. Mat t: I like the bright colours and the genre of the magazine 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

30. What is your favourite page and why? Ellie : My favourite page is the double page spread. This is because it equally filled with text and images, making the page look appealing to read. I also like the main image on the right hand page. George : I like the front cover, because it is very striking and stands out well. I also like the bright colours and the title of the magazine. Becky : My favourite is the contents page, because I like the tones of purple and pink that are used, and the layout, because there are images and text on the page. Matt : My favourite is the double page spread. This is because the title of the article is very bold and striking, and the article itself is very easy to read and informative. 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

31. What do you think could be improved? Ellie : I think there could be some way advertised to subscribe to the simply pop magazine, so that it gets posted to you every month. George : I think that there could have been some colour on the background of the front cover because it looks a bit plain. Becky : I think there could have been more images on the contents page, because I like to look at pictures. Mat t: I don’t think there is anything that needs improving, it is good just the way it is. 5. How did you attract/address your audience?

32. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? Firstly I used a camera to take the pictures which would be included in my magazine. I then used Adobe Photoshop to create my front cover and for editing pictures and doing cut-outs etc. I used Adobe Indesign to produce the other three pages of my magazine, and to sort out the layout and when exporting the pages. I used slide share to get a html code which I could insert into my blog, so that it would show up. I used blogger to upload all of my work onto, so that it was accessible to the viewing public.

33. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (DOING CUT-OUTS- THE MAIN IMAGE) I used the magic wand tool and the eraser tool to do this. I selected the area that I wanted to crop and clicked delete. Then smoothed the edges with the eraser tool.

34. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (CREATING A BACKGROUND) I clicked on the shape tool and clicked a rectangle and selected the whole of my template then coloured it in white

35. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (CREATING THE MASTHEAD) I then clicked the fx bottom of the layer pannel and clicked the stroke option and coloured in black and gave it a size of 8 to get the black outline for my masthead. To then get the rest of the text pink I click the text tool and clicked the pink swatch colour.

36. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (CREATING THE MASTHEAD) To create the heart which is in my masthead, I firstly selected the custom shape tool, then selected the heart, picked the pure violet magneta coloured to fill it with colour, and then to get the black outline I did the same as the writing and clicked on the fx button, clicked stroke, the the colour clack and the size of 8.

37. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (CREATING A PUG) To create the pug I clicked the select shape tool and chose the ellipse shape then chose the pure violet magneta colour again to colour it in and then chose the stroke option to add the black border around the edge.

38. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (USING THE INTERNET) On my contents page I used a font from www.dafont.com , ‘inside the mag’. I used the font because there wasn’t a font like it on Adobe InDesign and I wanted it in italics.

39. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (USING THE STROKE TOOL) To make the ‘editors article’ text bold I had to use the stroke tool, and weighted it 3pt.

40. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (ADJUSTING THE IMAGE) I had to edit my photo in Adobe Photoshop. As you can see my original image before had a slight yellow tint, but as I clicked auto levels the yellow tint disappeared.

41. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (IMPORTING A PICTURE IN ADOBE INDESIGN) To add a picture in Adobe InDesign, you click on file, then place, and then pick the picture from the file of original images. To make the picture stay in the same proportion as you decrease the size of it, you hold down, shift, ctrl and alt and drag the picture in. If you want to centre the image, like I did, you click the ‘center content’ button at the top of the page.

42. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (ADDING THE FRONT COVER INTO ADOBE INDESIGN) To add my contents page to Adobe InDesign for me to be able to export my pages I had to right click in the grey area and click ‘insert pages’ and then highlight the new page with the rectangle shaped tool, and then went to file, and then clicked place and then found my front cover in my media file and then clicked open and then it was there.

43. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (EXPORTING THE FINAL PRODCUT FROM ADOBEINDESIGN) To export my pages I clicked file, export and then made sure that they would be saved as JPEGs and then clicked save, and then made sure that I clicked ‘spreads’ and then changed the resolution to 300 and then clicked export and then they were in my folder.

44. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ? (ARRANGING THE PAGES INTO ORDER) I right clicked inside the grey area by the contents page and then clicked ‘allow document pages to shuffle’ which allowed me to arrange my pages into chronological order.

45. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product?

46. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? (THE FRONT COVERS) PRELIMINARY WORK FINAL PRODUCT

47. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE COVERS) I added pugs to each of the magazine front covers because that it a usual convention of magazines. It also draws the eye to what is inside the pug. I located the masthead at the top of the page as it makes it easy for the reader to identify it on a shelf with other magazines . I added a number of cover lines so that it gives a taste of what will be featured in the magazine. I also added the features which would be of most interest to the reader. I also added sell lines at the bottom of each magazine. This is a final attempt to attract the viewer to purchase the magazine by offering things that will be of interest to them. I added one main image on the cover. This is to focus the eyes attention on them as they are a main feature in the magazine. 1 2 3 4 5

48. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE COVERS) The colour scheme is different for both magazines. This is because I had to fit each colour scheme to its purpose and target audience. The preliminary cover is green and purple because those are the colours associated with Solihull Sixth Form, where as Simply Pop magazine is coloured brightly because that’s what the target audience said they preferred. For my final magazine I added an exclusive feature parallel to the main image . This is because from my research of Pop magazines they seem to do this quite frequently. I added a slogan for my final magazine. This is also because I have seen it used a lot on Pop magazines, and I think it tied in well with the title of the magazine. The position of the barcode/date/price/issue number differs to that of my preliminary work. I only added the date for my Student Mag, so it doesn’t follow the correct codes and conventions of a real magazine. I decided to have a medium long shot for my final magazine image because it allows you to see the band clearly. Whereas my Student Mag image was a medium close up which focuses more on the individuals face. 1 2 3 4 5

49. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( COMPARING THE CONTENTS PAGES) PRELIMINARY WORK FINAL PRODUCT

50. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE CONTENTS PAGES) I added images to both contents pages to add variety to the page. I added page numbers in chronological order, to each specific topic, which allows the reader to find the page they are looking for easily. There are few similarities between the two contents pages. This is because I didn’t research contents pages as thoroughly enough as I had for my Simply Pop contents page, making the Student Mag one very weak. 1 2

51. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO CONTENTS PAGES) The title of the page differs. I went with the traditional title on the preliminary contents by titling the page ‘contents’, where as for my final product I put the title of the magazine at the top and underneath wrote ‘inside the mag’ adding variety to the page. I included an editors article for my final magazine. This is because you see them featured in almost every magazine so I considered it a major convention to add. I added numbers to my pictures instead of anchoring them with text. I devised my features into categories and placed each article into its correct category. I gained inspiration to do this from reading through numerous amounts of Pop magazines. I added a banner at the bottom of the page which includes the page number, and how to access more information to do with the magazine. The colour scheme is very different again. I wanted to stick with the bright colours throughout my final product, and wanted to keep to the college colours for my preliminary work. 1 2 3 4 5 6

52. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD) When doing my preliminary work we didn’t have a chance to practice making a double page spread, that’s why I have nothing to compare my final product to. However, I think I still managed to make a successful double page spread without having had any practice. This is because I used the skills I have learnt when making my front cover and contents page and applied them when making the page. Also by researching double page spreads I was able to use some of the ideas to create mine.

53. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to the full product? ( DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD) I made the title stand out by using capital letters. I added a drop cap to fit with the conventions of real magazines. I added a pull quote, to entice the readers to read the article. I also included the convention of leading text, to give a brief insight as to what will be included in the article . I added pictures and anchored them, by adding the names of the band members, and showed them practicing in their basement. I also added a caption above the main image. Like with the contents page for Simply Pop Magazine, I added a banner at the bottom of the page which includes page numbers, and access to other information to do with the magazine.