Shannon Dew created a pop music magazine and evaluated it against real music magazines. While her magazine used bright colors and advertised artists like other magazines, it had fewer large headlines covering photos. Her magazine represented teenage pop music fans aged 12-17. Distribution companies targeting this audience, like IPC Media, would be good partners. She learned new Photoshop and Publisher skills in the process. Feedback from her target audience informed her final design choices.

1. Evaluation
Shannon Dew

2. In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
• I believe my product has similar aspects
to other music products but is also
different in many ways. When
comparing my pop music magazine to
other existing pop magazines I found
they both use bright colours and
advertise a variety of artists to attract
the target audience.
• However, when comparing my
magazine to all music genre magazines
I found felt my cover had a lot less sell
lines and large writing. Also a lot of
existing magazines cover parts of
pictures with sell lines which is
something I didn’t do as I didn’t want
to take away from the picture.

3. How does your media product
represent particular social groups?
• My music magazine represents the typical
teenager who would be interested in music but
also celebrities and music related gossip.
• The bright colours and current artists would
attract a teenage audience
• People older then 20 may not buy this magazine
due to the informal interviews and articles.

4. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and
why?
• Media distributors who sell a variety of magazine
genres may be interested in selling this product
as it has a large target audience and will interest
a wide audience.
• Companies such as IPC media who control a
variety of magazine might be interested in my
magazine as it has a large target audience and
this particular company sells ‘teen now’ a
magazine with a similar target audience, so they
have experience with this target audience and
may understand how to distribute it well.

5. Who would be the audience for your
media product?
• The artist featured in this magazine has a large
fan base but mainly teenage girls from the age
of 12-17. I believe the majority of pop music
fans who would buy a music magazine is also
this age group so I tried to follow this through
to my magazine and use this as my target
audience.

6. How did you attract/address your
audience
• I tried to attract my target audience by using sell lines
to advertise popular artists on the front cover which
would interest the artists fans.
• I used a lot of bright colours which would make this
magazine stand out from other music magazines and
would be more eye catching to audiences looking
through a variety of magazines.
• On the front cover I put an equal amount of sell lines
on each side so if any other magazine would cover part
of the magazine, an audience would still be attracted
to the magazine through the other sell lines.

7. What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this
product?
• I have learnt more about Photoshop through this
progress. Before, I could only do very basic things using
this program and now I can do more complicated
editing such as repairing photos, erasing parts of a
photo, changing colours and more.
• Also I have learnt more about publisher through the
creation of this product. There was some simple things
such as applying a photo background and sending
something forward and backward which I knew was
possible before but I didn’t know where to find it and
now I can do it.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression from
it to the full product?
• Since my preliminary task I feel I have learnt to
experiment with designs more but once I do one I like
to keep it. Before I would change things a lot and
forget how I liked it so I would never be fully happy
with the product. I feel now like I have learnt from this
and I have made a better product because of this.
• Also, I feel I have learnt more about what fonts suit a
product better compared to last time. In the
preliminary task I used a variety of fonts but they were
all quite basic. In this task I believe I have used fonts to
separate and highlight important information better
and it has allowed me to fit more information on to a
small area.

9. Audience feedback
• Through out the process of creating my magazine I
regularly asked for audience feedback from my target
audience. I tried to use this feedback in my magazine
although I couldn’t use it all. Some feedback included:
• Brighter sell lines on the cover
• Bright colours through out the magazine
• Good size writing so it is easy to read
• Clear contents page where you can find articles quickly
• Smaller pictures to fit in more writing
• informal articles which allows you to get to know the
artist
• A long interview

10. Audience feedback
• Through out the process of creating my magazine I
regularly asked for audience feedback from my target
audience. I tried to use this feedback in my magazine
although I couldn’t use it all. Some feedback included:
• Brighter sell lines on the cover
• Bright colours through out the magazine
• Good size writing so it is easy to read
• Clear contents page where you can find articles quickly
• Smaller pictures to fit in more writing
• informal articles which allows you to get to know the
artist
• A long interview