The document discusses what the student learned from creating a music magazine as a media product. They learned how to use various technologies like Adobe Photoshop and InDesign to design the magazine layout. They also learned about the conventions of real music magazines by including things like cover lines, issue dates, and column layouts. The student feels they have improved at using photo editing and design software since their preliminary magazine design exercise. Overall, they now have new skills in using technology and understanding media conventions that they can apply to future projects.

1. Evaluation By Milan Shah

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The image I have used for my front cover takes up the whole page which represents the real conventions of a music magazine. Clearly, the image I have used has been edited and it is clear that my model has been dressed up, specifically for the photo shoot. Also, the colours of the image match the main colour scheme of the magazine, making it look consistent, in addition to the background image matching the models clothing colours. Furthermore, the text used within the front cover relates to feature articles of the magazine making the reader wanting to open up the magazine and read what is inside it. Most magazines have eyebrows on them, which is a line of text, placed above the masthead. This is another convention of real media my product has used. I have also challenged my music magazine as I have found a niche in the market, making a risk to make a magazine for DJs in particular, after finding out there are not many magazines particularly aimed at only DJs. I have also included the issue date and number on my front cover, along with a specific price in two places, which are; below the issue date and number and next to the barcode. This makes the music magazine look very professional and allows the reader to view important information about the magazine (the issue date/number and the price of the magazine). The masthead of the front cover blends with the image as it looks like the DJ is in a event that he is playing in and the masthead shows a small amount of light in the dark. The name of the magazine, “TUNE UP”, also shows that it is clearly something to do with music and mixing music. In the contents page, I have included all the articles and features of the magazine along with page references for the reader to refer to when wanting to view these pages. Additionally, the contents page shows a representation of real contents pages from real media products with the use of images with captions. When researching, I found that most, if not all contents pages of the typical music magazine have at least one image which relates to one or more feature articles within the music magazine.

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Continued) Moreover, the contents page uses different types of fonts with different types of colours. Also, the contents page includes the issue date on it at the top. This would be the first thing the reader is most likely to see as it is positioned at the top of the page showing that it has some kind of importance to the magazine. The double page spread uses conventions of a real magazine it is set out in columns, which many articles in music magazines do and my double page spread also includes a large image with a caption, which is closely related to the article itself. It also has pull quotes on it to make it look alive and this would attract the audience as they tend to look at the pull quotes before anything else. Additionally, my double page spread has a title which goes across the whole page, with page numbers at the bottom of each of the two pages which the reader can infer which article they are reading and which page they are currently on. The image on the first page of the magazine takes up half the page so that the reader can clearly view it without any hassle, the image also includes a caption to inform the reader what the image relates to.

4. How does your media product represent particular social groups? The social groups my music magazine is aimed for range from C1-D that are aged from 16-28. This is because I have found out that many DJs are in this social group as they are DJs as a part time job and have a main job that people from the social classes of C1-D would have. The images used in the magazine relate to young DJs as they are very bright and use neon type colours. This will attract them when the magazine is on the shelves in the shops. The clothes that are worn by people in the magazine are things that DJs wear and look for. For example, the caps, headphones and jackets, along with equipment, such as a Mac which was in an image used in the double page spread. The language used in the magazine is highly informal as it relates to my targeted audience. The article itself contains many jokes and questions that are towards the reader. This is because the content is about choosing the right music mixing software for the reader, therefore it must contain many questions and jokes that the reader can relate to. The front cover has an eyebrow, and it starts with the word “FREE” in red. This word relates to the audience I am targeting as it means that my targeted audience will know that they are getting a good deal as the price of the magazine is quite cheap (compared to others) and they are gaining a reward from it, without having to pay any extra money.

5. What kind of media institution might describe your media product and why? Because I have found a niche in the market by developing a music magazine that is technical towards music producers, mixers and DJs, I feel that Future would be the correct institution to produce my magazine. Future produces many magazines that are aimed at smaller groups of people for a particular interest, for example, the magazine, “Guitarist” is aimed towards people who play, collect or like to read about guitars. Furthermore, Future are able to produce magazines to many different locations in different languages, meaning my magazine could be sold globally in different languages, hence making a very high profit. The magazine would be located in large retailers (which are located in cities and other urban areas) such as; Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys’. This would allow many people to recognise the magazine through well known retailers. Additionally, the magazine could be available to smaller retailers such as Martins McColl which is a well known local newsagent which sells many popular magazines. Again, this will be located in urban areas, not small towns in rural areas.

6. Who would be the audience for your media product? The audience for my media product are from the social class C1-D, because of the images and content used within the magazine. The magazine will be for both male and female genders, however, approximately 75% of the readers will be male and the other 25% will be female as I have found out that the DJ business is male dominant. The type of people that will buy my magazine will be students and workers that are skilled to an extent, but may do this type of business as their part time job. The colours used in my magazine are not typical colours of a music magazine, as the colours of a typical music magazine tend to be simple and have quite a limited amount of colours, including the masthead. However, within my magazine, I have represented my target audience as bright, colourful and stylish. The masthead of my magazine shows all the colours which show this representation. The advertisements used are typical to what my targeted audience would look at. Adverts such as; Skull Candy Headphones, DJ Decks, and BlackBerry Messenger relate to the readers as these are advertisements for technical products. The amount of pages (54 Pages) is ideal as it shows that my magazine has a great amount of content for a relatively cheap price.

7. How did you attract/address your audience? The very first thing that the targeted audience would see is the world “FREE” which stands out in bold and capital letters in the colour red. This would drag the reader into; picking the magazine up, looking at what is the free give away, looking at the price and issue date of the magazine, then opening the magazine to the contents page and viewing the content. After doing such things, the reader may want to purchase the magazine, this is all due to the power of one word used in the eyebrow of my magazine. The masthead is also very attractive as it is extremely colourful. The image on the front cover has a DJ wearing very fashionable clothing which shows iconic symbols towards the audience (Adidas, Skull Candy and New York Yankees Baseball Cap) The cover lines on the front cover show interesting articles that the reader may be interesting in. They also mention big brand names which the targeted audience would easily identify, such as, Skull Candy and Bose. These are iconic sings as they refer to bring brand names. The Language used is informal, which attracts my targeted audience as they would relate to this type of language and would understand certain jokes and phrases used within the content.

8. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? When creating this product, I have used electrical devices and a various amount of software. Firstly, I used a digital SLR camera to take the pictures for the magazine. I used this as it produces very high quality images which makes my photos look highly professional and presentable to readers. When researching for my magazine throughout the making of this product, I used a search engine called “Google”. This was something in the internet which helped me gain many results for different questions and products I needed to research on. To make my magazine, I used two programmes from Adobe, which were; Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. These two programmes help make extremely professional products. I used Adobe Photoshop to edit the images for the magazine and was very familiar with the interface as I have used Adobe Photoshop many times before. However, I found Adobe InDesign fairly difficult to use as I had only used it once before during the preliminary exercise, but I managed to work my way around this and learnt how to use the software. In addition to internet based applications, I used “Blogger” and “Slideshare” to upload and show how I created my final product. To upload images and text documents, I used Blogger and to upload the PowerPoint presentations, I uploaded the presentations onto Slideshare and copied the embedded code to Blogger so that it is easy to view them on Blogger via Slideshare. When using this applications, I learnt how to use an embedded code on a blog post which is a very useful skill I feel that I have learnt and I am sure that I will be using this skill in the future. Overall, I feel that I have learnt a great amount of different skills throughout this project that I thought I would never learn how to do or use. I now have new skills with technology and will definitely be using these skills in the future with other projects or for general use.

9. Looking at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Throughout the process of making this music magazine, I have learnt to identify many conventions of a music magazine and have also learnt that making a magazine takes a great amount of time, effort and patience. I now have a different view on media, as I have found out that everything has to be in a certain place within a magazine, otherwise it is not appealing towards the targeted audience, which I did not take into account when constructing my preliminary exercise. Furthermore, my knowledge of photo editing using Adobe Photoshop has increased a great amount because of this project. I have learnt how to use layers more efficiently on Photoshop which makes my editing look much more professional. With InDesign, I have learnt much more and have increased my knowledge of it since I had done my preliminary exercise as I learnt how to do different outline colours and gain the ability to easily align textboxes to each other. Overall, after looking at the preliminary exercise I have done, I feel that I have improved a huge amount as my work looks much more neater, professional and my products look like and have conventions of a real music magazine. I now have these new skills and will be using them in the future.