The document outlines an evaluation containing 7 questions about a media product. It then provides detailed responses to the first two questions. For question 1, the response discusses how the music magazine uses conventions of existing magazines in its front cover, contents page, and double page spread layouts while also challenging some conventions through new designs and color choices. For question 2, it represents the indie/alternative genre through the images, colors, and topics chosen that appeal to that social group.

1. Evaluation
In this evaluation I am going to answer 7 questions, these are as follows:
• 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
•
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
•
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
•
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
•
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
•
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
•
7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?

2. 1. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of existing music magazines. (Double page spread)
When creating my front cover I wanted to use similar
conventions that were displayed in NME magazines
because I researched these for inspiration and ideas on
what to use on my own magazine, as you can see there is
one main image in the middle of the page which takes up
2/3 of the magazine, I wanted to do this as I thought the
image was a main part of the magazine. Since in my
magazine the main attraction was “The Bernard Boys” and
I needed an image of one of the Bernard Boys in order to
appeal to the target audience.
I had also used a bar code on the front cover for selling
purposes and information around the side of the page, the
information I used was from the contents of my magazine.
Most magazines front covers have their logo in the top left
hand side of the magazine and I wanted to use this
conventions as well as I thought it was essential to
showcase the name of the magazine and for the readers
to remember what they are reading for future references.
When I needed to fill in space for my front cover I wanted to develop conventions that were previously used, I tried to
make it so it looked like there was a arrow to force readers to go to the next page, I displayed information about the main
topic and used a range of colours in order to attract the audience to the text.

3. 1. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of existing music magazines. (Contents page)
With my contents page I have attempted to use
similar conventions that existing Indie/Alternative
genre products have already used. For example I
struggled to make a good layout for my contents
page, therefore I researched some existing
products of my genre and used them as
inspiration to create my product. This helped me
display the conventions of existing music
magazines since I could display my information
correspondingly towards magazines that my genre
read and when people read my magazine they will
feel that sense of remembrance as if they’ve
already seen my magazine from looking at one of
the most famous magazines for the
Indie/Alternative genre “Q”. I also used an image
in the same place as the Q magazine to make sure
I used most of the space that I had available.
When comparing both magazines I looked at my product and tried to find ways in
which I could challenge conventions, for example in the Q magazine there was only a
use of 3 colours, this made it a bit dull and boring, so I tried to add in colours which
would contrast well and make some areas stand out, for example I used yellow on a
black background which contrasts really well to make the yellow stand out which
displays the special offer that my magazine offers.
However I wanted to make my magazine a bit
different than Q’s magazine, I tried to make a new
convention by adding in a special offer for the
readers of my magazine, this worked well because
I was able to address the magazines web address
and also give readers information about the offer
itself.

4. 1. In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of existing music magazines. (Double page spread)
Throughout my Double page spread I tried to develop
forms of conventions in terms of there was no existing
product with the same design or layout as my Double
page spread, whilst I was creating my DPS I came up
with the idea to have two pictures, one on the left and
one on the right. Having my main title separate from
the rest of the text attracts the reader to the main title
and makes sure that they read what my DPS is about. I
tried to make it so both of my pictures where looking
at the text in the middle, this is a sense of direction
and if the reader takes a look at the images first then
he will be directed to the text.
With my images I have tried to represent my genre of indie/alternative,
since there are different stereotypes in this genre I have tried to connect
this with the conventions of the images, with one image being a young
adult and one of an older adult I have tried to represent the age of the
genre in this, since people around the ages of 16 – 30 listen to my
chosen genre I thought this was a good way to represent this with both
the images I have chosen. Also the fact that both of the images are male
suggest that the genre is listen to mainly by males as majority of
listeners are. With the best I could I have tried to make it so my images
represent the audience of the magazine and display conventions that
determine this audience
With the colours I have used, I have tried to only use 3
different colours, whilst using a mixture of black and
white, I have tried to make it represent the audience by
displaying a vibrant amount of colour, for example if I
used a colour such as pink it would display the
conventions for a girly hip-hop magazine, but by using
red black and white it shows a formal understanding
and laid back style of audience, who enjoy magazines
for the content and information rather than the images
and visual look.
With many of the conventions of existing music
magazines for the Indie/alternative genre may use
similar techniques, however I feel I have developed and
maybe challenged the conventions on this genre
because I have made something unique and new whilst
still displaying the same conventions and
representations of Indie/alternative.

5. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups
With the use of different texts that relate to the Indie/Alternative genre, I was able to connect with
different social groups depending on there taste in music, due to linking content in my magazine
with famous artists and information they would like to find out attracts them towards my magazine
and represents what people want and how they approach to find out this information.
I have used images which show mostly casual clothing which represents what type of item of
clothing which Indie/Alterative genre audiences wear also with the use of only 3 – 4 colours it
represents the mood of which these groups feel, with the use of black white and red I could
illustrate that the audience are informative and wanting to find out information about bands and
artists that they love.
With having a link towards the famous magazine NME, I am able to represent social groups in which
follow NME and enjoy reading the indie/alternative and rock genres. NME base their magazine on
the age ranges of 16-24 and with having similar conventions my magazine represents this target age
and the majority of this audience is male.

6. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product
and why?
There are two main types of media institutions that would publish my product, these are IPC
media and Bauer media. Bauer media would be a good option for my product to be launched
with because they focus on the age range of 15 – 34 and post magazines such as Q and Kerrang,
Q bases their genre of music magazines on indie and pop genres which my magazine is indie
therefore it would be suited to be published by Bauer media due to my magazine having the
same age range and magazine genre type.
IPC Media publish a lot of magazines varying from music magazines to gardening magazines,
however they focus on one type of magazine in the music industry and that is NME. NME base
their music magazine on 3 genres, Indie, Alternative and Rock. Since I was influenced by NME in
the production of my magazine I would like to have my products published by IPC Media as well
due to having the exact same target genre and audience.

7. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product would be anyone who is into the
indie/alternative genre for media products, anyone who listens to
bands such as oasis or bastille etc.
The age range for the Indie/alternative genre can vary from 14 – 40
however young adults are the main target audience varying from 16 –
24, people interested in indie/alternative dress casually and wear smart
clothes such as jeans and a shirt or jumper.
The audience would be anyone who listens to Indie/Alternative music
and may attend gigs or different venues in which their famous artists or
bands would be singing there. People may be interested in making their
own music or becoming a new band who are inspired by others.
The target audience for my media product may be interested in
hobbies such as football or spending time with there friends, different
people enjoy doing different activity’s and mainly just enjoy spending
time with other people, listening to music, maybe creating their own
version of the artists songs which they enjoy and attend parties and
places such as v festival and enjoy having a good time dancing and
feeling the vibe with the music and watching their favourite artists and
bands perform.

8. 5. How did you attract/address your audience?
One way I attracted my audience was I used a contrasting colour scheme
which attracted and displayed information correctly by only using 3 colours I
kept each page to correspond with my audience and genre colours such as
grey and red targets my audience where colours such as pink or green don’t.
with every feature or main information, I have used different colours which
contrast with each other such as red text on a white background or white text
on a black background to stand out and attract people to read what’s inside
the magazine.
I also used good sized titles and made them also stand out, also by displaying
the name of the magazine throughout helps my audience find my magazine
easier and remember it as well.
I have used 3 images which represent the age range of 16 – 40,
I think that this attracts and address’s my audience because they
most likely to be in the same age range and also look similar.
Another way I addressed my audience would be the use of
professional quotations of famous singers and song albums. By
using quotations about famous singers which people want to
read about and buy magazines purposely to view information
about certain bands and singers; this helped me address my
audience sine the information stands out in different colours
and is easy to read on the front page, this allows the reader to
make a quick decision to think if the information is what he
wants and therefore the decision to buy my product and read it.

9. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When creating my product I used fireworks in order to use effects and to edit pictures, one thing I had
learnt to do was use shading effects and techniques to make text stand out, I used this effect on my
double page spread to make my main title stand out, I used a rectangle behind the main title and added
the effect to glow therefore behind the title it showed a white glowing
And really made the title stand out. Another effect I used in my title
Would be that I used bold text in the middle of the title to make the main
Band name stand out and when the user reads the title they will remember the name because it was
different and unique.
Another technique I learnt throughout the construction of my product was how to edit and crop
images to make sure they had no background in order to fit onto a page and sync into the
background, I had to edit three pictures to make sure they looked good with the background and crop
out any unnecessary areas in the images. There was two ways in which I did this, one was by zooming
into the image and using the rubber tool on fireworks to rub out most of the background and create a
solid outline which didn’t show any white markings on a black background. Another way I did this
was using the magic wand tool and selecting the area and deleting it, however this technique
doesn’t work all the time as some images have split ends which end up with the some of the image
being deleted when you didn’t want it to be deleted and had no way around this apart from using the
first technique.
The picture to the right of this text has had the techniques explained above used on it. The image
originally had a full white background, which has been deleted out and also I have used a small glow
behind the image as well which is pretty hard to see.
I also used a text which displays a big M, the reason I did this was because throughout my product I
displayed both the people used in the images names and the reader should understand that the M
stands for Mike and the J stands for Jason which was used on the other side.

10. 7. Looking back at your preliminary, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?
The top magazines are my preliminary front cover and
contents page and the bottom ones are my main magazine
front cover and contents. As you can see from the
progression of one to another I have learnt a lot of
information and different techniques to make a magazine
better, for example the different technology used between
them both has made a massive impact, when I first made
my preliminary product I had used paint to edit the images
and simple PowerPoint shapes for the background of the
text. In the full product I used Fireworks to create my layout
and to edit my pictures, as you can see there is a massive
improvement from preliminary to the full product just in
terms of technology and the different software used.
Another progression in terms of how to communicate with
the user is the way in which information is set out, in the
preliminary product I had just put little bits of information
around the page to fill in space and it looked out of place
and left gaps, with the full product, all the information has
been used in specific positioning to gain the most
information on the page for the user and I have used
different categories to display the information . Also with
typical magazines , they use 3 – 4 colours but use these
colours all over the page, from my preliminary I didn’t use
this and just used the same colour and it looks a bit dull I
have learnt from developing my magazine that the use of
colours really helps the magazine stand out and each
section stand out, with the use of different colours at the
correct stage such as the red background on the white title,
separates this from the main product and attracts the user
towards the name of the magazine.

11. 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression to the full product?
From the preliminary product to the full product, I have also learnt how to follow and more away from old conventions based on typical
magazines and the conventions of my genre , with my front cover I followed conventions of my genre by using a similar image to the typical
magazines of Indie/Alternative, straight face in the middle of the page looking at the user. Also with my contents page I used similar
conventions in the terms of layout, typical magazines have perfectly laid-out content so the user has the ability to scan around the contents
and gather the information he wants instantly, I have followed this convention and learnt a lot about how to display information on a
magazine and how to make it effective.
From other magazines I have learnt how to attract and target an audience throughout my magazine with the use of specific images that
display the conventions of the genre via clothes and age. I was able to target the audience I wanted to target by displaying small items
they were looking for, this helped attract the audience that wanted to view magazines like the one I have produced, also by displaying
content that will be used in typical magazines of this genre with the correct content and the content that people will want to hear about
and read it helps attract the correct audience to this magazine and makes it worthwhile for them to spend time and money on this
product. This will help me in the future due to learning different skills to help me attract audiences and target the correct audience.
From the preliminary to the full product, I have learnt how to make a authentic magazine, from using a very basic layout
that displayed little information about the product in the preliminary to making a product with a good layout which
displayed all the information a user will want and more, I have learnt that the layout means everything, colours must have
good contrast with each other in order to make the more important information to stand out even more but also that the
image must tell a story, if it was a page in your magazine like I have used on my contents then it must display information
about a page and help the user understand what’s in your product and tell them about your product in one image.
When I create my double page spread, I wanted to be different and move
away from the conventions already made for previous double page spreads,
I created a unique product and a unique layout, I had an idea to put images
side by side looking at the contents on the double page spread as if the
users would look where the images are looking and become directed to the
area in which they should look, with creating a new product that moved
away from the previous conventions and I have learnt a lot from this and it
helped me create a good double page spread by being different and being
unique.