The document discusses the design and target audience of a proposed rock music magazine called "Crowd Surf". It was influenced by the layout and conventions of existing magazines like Kerrang and Hammer. The target audience is rock music fans ages 14-20, and both male and female readers are considered. Images and articles will feature rock bands and concerts. The magazine aims to represent the stereotypes associated with its target demographic through its visual design, language, and female model. Bauer Media Group is proposed as a potential publisher since they already distribute the influential rock magazine Kerrang.

1. 1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions ofreal mediaproducts?
After performingextensiveresearch into currentpublications and
materials that are outtoday, I felt that I had gained a clear and deep
understandingof the conventionsthat are included in real media
productson offer to the public. KerrangMagazinewasa huge
influencefor my magazinebecause it is a currentand popular Rock
MusicMagazinethat is currently on the market and as I have
purchased this from the age of 14, over the years I have become
familiar to what appeals to the target audienceand the languageused
in order to relate to the reader. Hammer Magazinewas also quite
influentialfor the making of Crowd Surf, as this magazinegoes for a
scrapbook style layout, and I wanted to use elementsfrom this issue
to incorporate into my pages. In order to providethe reader with a
clear understandingof the genre of music my magazineis covering, I
have madesure the content included is completely relevantto the
Rock MusicWorld, so for example, I have covered factors such as:
- Interviewswith Rock Band Members
- Reviewsof the latest Rock Shows
- Advertisingsfor coming up Rock Shows
- ExclusiveStories on New Music
- Mentioned Rock Bands; Blink 182, A Day To Remember etc.
Coveringthese factors will enable my magazineto appealto people
who like this style of musicand who are familiar with the featured
Rock Stars. Throughout my issue, I have included the generic
conventionsof a magazine to make my productlook more
professionaland enable the reader to be familiar with the layout. For
example, on my Cover Page, I have used:
- A Skyline; with information regardingfree postersthat are in
the issue
- A Puff; this tells the reader about oneof the competitions in my
magazine
- Masthead; the title of my magazine is ‘Crowd Surf’and I have
putthis at the top of the page in clear fontfor the reader to see
- Bar Code; with this, I have included the priceof the issue, date
of release and issue number, this is so the reader knowsall of
the relevantinformation about the magazinewithout opening
it

2. - Images linking to my stories; as wellas havingsome wordsto
describe the content of my issue, I have also included relevant
picturesto makethe cover moreappealingto the reader
- Cover Image; my cover image is related to my main double
page spread and I have wentfor a Medium CloseUp, so my
modelcan clearly be seen and her pose isn’t too distracting
- Background; my background also linksto my main article and
makes the page look more interesting
- Font; all of my text is in capital letters, I have donethis to
enable it to be easier to read, and someparts of my text are in
differentcolours, this is to make the page look more
interesting, and the coloursI have used are in my chosen
colour scheme
I developed basic conventionsof a magazine by basically adapting
the featuresto my own way to suit my personalpreferenceand my
magazine. I challenged these conventionsby positioningthings notin
the expected place, so for example; I added a three-word headline
right above my barcode that provided thereader with very little
information ‘Toro-PostMCR’. I did this because I felt it was different,
also it could draw moreattention from the public. Overall however, I
would say that Kerrangmagazine has been a big inspiration for the
creation frontof my magazine, and as you can see in my flat plansis
my initial layoutswerevery similar to Kerrang, this is because I
know the pages appealto the public and I wantmy productto also
appealto the public who are readingthe issue.
2) Howdoes your mediaproduct represent particular social
groups?
I have planned for my magazineto have a target audienceof Rock
Fans between the ages of 14-20, and typically these kind of people
are stereotyped as being quite rebellious, depressed, quite
artistic/creative, gothic (wear a lot of Black) and very angry. With
regardsto this, I have also tried to create a productthat will appealto
the sub-cultures within these categories, so for example, people who
do not particularly follow a specific trend like Emo and Goth, they
just simply like the musicthat Crowd Surf is focusingon. As well as
this, I have tried to adapt my product to appeal to all genders, I have
donethis in order to attract more attention and buyers, I feel that if a
productis unisex, there is a higher chance of more unitsbeing sold,
to result in a higher annualrevenue. And Ifound duringmy research

3. that most of the participants, who filled out my questionnaireand
informed methat they answered it were girls, so this tells methat
girls are more likely to buy magazinesthan boys, but if I was to
advertiseCrowd Surf as an al gender magazine, then maybe I could
attract the attention of boys as well as girls. I have tried to makemy
issue look slightly crafty/scrapbook like, my chosen main fontis
quite rough and graffiti like and I have used vocabulary choices that
often comesup in songs from this musicgenre (awesome, sound, rad
etc.) in order to match these standard stereotypesthat peopleaged
14-20 arecommonly judged asby others. My modelBeth is also 18
and falls under the target age range, throughout my issue, she is
pictured wearinga Blink 182 shirt and posingdoing various
mannerismsthat are seen as ‘Rock things to do’ such as holding up
two fingers, pullingquite stern faces and stood with her leg out to the
side in Vansand Black Skinny Jeans. I wanted Beth to modelfor me
because of her age and look, and I hoped this would makemy issue
appealmore to my target age rangebecause Beth is of a similar age
and in the magazine. Plus, the coloursPink and Blueare typically
referred to as ‘Boysand Girls’ gender specific colours, so I decided to
use them both in my colour scheme. I also picked Yellow, White and
Black. I selected Black and White as they are both very popular
shades to use in a magazine(I found thatwhen looking at other
similar products, the use of Black and White are very prominent). I
also wanted to use the colour Yellow because this is a typical unisex
colour that isn’t associated with a specific gender. So, having Yellow
almost acts as an invitation for any gender to read my magazineand
hopefully like the look of it. After findingan issue of Kerrangwith a
similar scheme, I felt that these coloursworked very welltogether
and I would like to includethem in my issue. I also did this in an
effortto make my productappealto all gendersand not just one. As I
wantmy productto appeal to the target audienceas muchas I could
possibly make it, I sent outa questionnaireto peoplewho fell
between these age brackets to see what they would be interested in
seeing in a new magazine. Also being 18, that putsme in the target
age range, and this was very helpfulas I know what appealsto mein
a magazine, so most of the creation was based off my personal
opinionsas well as what other peoplesaid from my feedback.
3) What kind of Media Institutionmight distribute your media
product and why?

4. Publishing Housesare companiesthat work on getting information
out to the publicin formsof Magazines, Books, Advertsand
Newspapers. Examplesof these companiesincludeBauer Media
Group, FuturePLC and ImmediateMediaCompany. Ihaveselected
the Bauer MediaGroup for the distribution of my product; this is
because they are responsiblefor KerrangMagazineand they have
many representativesall around the world, includingplacessuch as
Germany, TheUnited States of America and Russia. I found outwhilst
doingmy research that during2013, Bauer’syearly revenuewas2.6
billion Euros, which converts to 1,872,966,075.90 GreatBritish
Pounds. In the same year duringJune, Kerrangsold 37,603 issues,
and I worked outbecause they are a weekly publishing, that equals to
around 9,400issuesaweek; making on average 82,725Poundsa
month on just physical magazinesales. Bauer also work with music
channels and radio broadcasts as well as printingphysical copies of
issues. I feel that Bauer is a good company to work with as they
already haver Kerrang, and I think that having another Rock Music
Magazinewill strengthen the company and provideyounger people
with a similar product(Kerranglooksat all kindsof bands, old and
new, like Metallica and ACDC, and Crowd Surf looksatnewer bands
in comparison, likeKnucklePuck and A Day To Remember). I have a
set priceof £1.50 for amonthly issueof Crowd Surf. Ihave decided
this on the groundsof KerrangMagazinecomes out every week and
is £2.20 an issue, and after reading reviewsonline, I found outthat
some peoplethink that it is too costly to spend every week; comingto
£8.80 amonth for peoplewho buy every issue. My target is to sell at
least 10,000issueswithin the first year of my productgoing onto the
market, which would generate a sales total of £15,000. Plus, many
peoplehave access to smart phones, tablets and laptopswith internet
connection, so I would like to have on offer a digital version of my
product, this could potentially resultin moresales and having the
digital option would keep the company up to date with the latest
technology. I also think having this option would give peoplewho
maybe don’thave a shop nearby who sell Crowd Surf the chance to
have an issue. Having a digital option is also very convenient, as you
can just download itwhen you want and have access within five
minutes.
4) Who wouldbe the audience for your media product?
Shortly after I conducted my market research (which involved me
makinga QuestionnaireusingSurvey Monkey and having
conversationswith my friends) I quickly decided that I wanted to

5. create a magazinethat would appealto peoplebetween the ages of
14-20. Iwanted to do this because I feel that there are hardly any
Rock MusicMagazinesavailable on the marketas it is, never mind
ones that appealto peopleof such a youngage. Back to Kerrang, they
are a Rock Magazine, but they have a wider target age range(14- at
least 35), and I wantmy productto precisely be for 14-20 year olds. I
decided on this target age rangeas I feel that there are already Rock
Magazineson the market that appeal to peopleof a similar age
(Kerrang), however as Kerrangis aimed at peopleup to the age of
around 38 and possibly above, I wanted to create a productthat
would relate moreso to younger people, butisn’t too childish. After
looking at Kerrang, I feel that especially on the content front, there is
a lot coveringolder bands in particular, so this is why I want to
featurein comparison, newer and moreknown bandsto the younger
generation. I wantto have my magazineappealto all genders, this is
why I have carefully selected the colour scheme the way I have (I
previously mentioned aboutusingboth Blueand Pink as these two
coloursare seen as being strictly for Boysand Girls). Havingmy
layoutquite scrapbook like helps make my productappealmoreto
my target age rangeI think, because I know for myself that I like
having interesting things to look at, and not just text and image. I
think the scrapbook layout linksto the nature of my DoublePage
Article also, this is because some peopleare often embarrassed when
it comes to admitting what kind of musicthey listen to (I have been
there myself, when you first start liking a certain kind of music that
doesn’treally suit your image, it can be a bit uneasy to tell people
because you worry what they think). Plus, having my pages like a
scrapbook could reflect that my Super Fan doesn’tgo around
shouting about her obsession, and the diary like presentation
representshow it is a very personalissueto Beth and sometimes she
keeps it a secret because she is worried about what peoplethink of
her. I also wanted to show how many teenagers who like Rock Music
are very creative, I have seen amazingfan art of Rock Bandson a
website called Tumblr and many musicianssuchas Gerard Way and
Mark HoppuspromoteArton the internet. So I think the arty take to
my productmakesit moreappealingto the eye, but I haven’t went
overboard in order to makeit look slightly childish. As I am in the
target age range, I am familiar with language choices that peoplethis
age often use, colloquialisms such as mint, awesome, woah and erm
are quite popular, so I have included this style of vocabulary register
suits my target market, therefore relatable to audience in my text to
make my write upsappealmoreto 14-20 year olds, and likethe art, I

6. didn’tgo overboard as this could have mademy writing not make
sense, or sound stupid. To keep the audience’sinterest in my
product, Ihave stated on my frontcover that there are Headlinesfor
exclusive stories and interviewsin the issue, and that they can’t be
found anywhereelse, this addsto the impression that you willnot
find outinformation about the best Rock Bandsunlessyou buy my
magazine. Also, I have on offer in every issue at least four
competitions; they range from winningvouchersfor merchandise
websites, to winningtickets for the latest gigs. I believe that having
these kindsof competitionswill attract more buyers, especially if
somebody really likes a band who are playinga sold out show and
you can win tickets to, also if I am offeringVIP tickets for a band who
a member of the public loves, having the chance to potentially meet
them would definitely makemy magazine worthbuying I have
selected these kind of competitions because I feel that more people
within my target audiencewill be drawn in. I have displayed this
information usingPuff’s; this is to make it stand outmore to the
reader so they can see it. I also included aSkylinethat has inside my
offeringof the freeposters in the issue, as well as this I have a
ReverseSky Line that advertisesone of my main stories in the
magazine. Many 14-20 year oldsattend gigs and shows, and
sometimes they can’t go because they don’thave enoughmoney for a
ticket; so having on offer a competition to win tickets would more
than likely draw them in. Also, many teenagers wear band
merchandiseand it is known for not being very cheap, so a
competition for free merch essentially is worth entering. Because of
the diversity of my competitions, I believe that this willattract
attention and result in morepurchases. On my advertisingposter, I
created an offer for subscribers of my magazine, for £28 the
subscriber will get:
- £25 I-TunesVoucher
- Delivery of every issue
- 50% off at HMV (musicstore)
- Early Access to every issue
- Digital Download
As well as all of this, I am planningon havingon offer a bonus
mystery gift for peoplewho subscribe duringtimessuch as
Christmas, Halloween and summer.
5) Howdid you attract/address your audience?
As I previously said in question 2, the peoplein my target audience
range are stereotyped as an angry, rebellious, artistic and depressed

7. group of people, so I have adapted my productin certain waysto
follow some of these stereotypesin order to make my magazine
appealmore to the target buyer. With mewanting to have my issue
appealto all genders, I have carefully selected my colour palette to
create something that will attract the attention of all genders, and not
just one. Also, with my vocabulary register, I have went for a slightly
informaltone to my text because not only is Rock Musicseen as a
rebellion against the world, lyrics to the songsaren’t exactly well
spoken. In order for Crowd Surf to relate to the reader, I have used
wordsthat peoplemy age often use in every day conversation
colloquialisms (awesome, cool, sick etc.) because if I didn’tand my
body of text wasvery formaland well spoken, the target reader
would probably notbe able to relate themselves to the text, which
would resultin them not liking my product. Throughoutmy
magazine, I have used images that will appealto my target audience
because of a coupleof factors, which are:
- My modelis wearing a band shirt with skinny jeansand vans;
this is what peoplein my target audiencerange often wear or
are stereotyped to wear anyway, Bethalso has piercingson her
face, which is a common thing for peoplewho fall between my
target age range
- I have included images from gigs that I have been to; I think
that having these in my issue willgive the reader a clear
pictureof what it would be like to see a certain band live if they
haven’t before, also they are relevant to my stories
- I had my modelpose in certain ways, for example, there is an
image on my doublepage spread of her with her two fingers up
and she is pullinga poutinglike face instead of smiling; after
years of having social mediaaccounts, I have noticed that this
is a very popular poseamongst14-20 year olds
The colour and style of my fontis also very important, for my
Masthead and headlines, I wentfor the ‘Old Press’ font, I picked this
because after my research, I felt that this was the fontthat looked the
best and would work for my product. Itis a very jagged and rough
font, it also looks like it could have been spray-painted on awall, and
therefore I think that it will appeal to my target audiencevery well. I
also madesure that the fontwas differentcoloursthroughout my
issue, most magazinesthat are already on the market often keep
their fontcolour as Black or White, and there is no diverserange; and
I feel that this makes each page look slightly dull. And because my age
range is slightly younger than most magazines, I think the useof a
variety of coloursis necessary. I think the ‘Old Press’ fontalso links

8. with the Rock genre because the word ‘Rock’to mesuggests rough
and un-even, and Old Pressfont is exactly this. Plus, comparingmy
title to Rock Magazine, Kerrang, I feel that our Mastheads are quite
similar in the way that they are both very roughlooking and broken
up. Lookingback at my audiencefeedback, peoplebetween the ages
of 14-20 picked Crowd Surf to bethe best namefor a Rock Music
Magazineout of the selection of answers. Also, the resultscame back
and told me that peoplebetween the ages of 14-120 wouldbegreatly
interested in receivingfree posters in an issue of my magazine, so I
putinto my issue free postersfor the buyer. As well as market
research, we did a peer evaluation in class, and they said that I have
really good story ideas and they really liked my layoutand Masthead
idea. It was mentioned that my fontwas sometimes hard to read
however, but I found this feedback very helpfulin the way that it
helped me improvemy magazineto create a productfit for a person
between the ages of 14-20.
6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing the product?
When I first started the media coursein September, oneof my
weakest pointsin my personalreview was my Photoshop skills.
Duringthe construction of my product, Igradually became better on
this program, and I am personally very happy and overwhelmed with
how muchmore I know now aboutPhotoshop, so this was a personal
best for me. In order to develop these skills, I downloaded Photoshop
onto my MacBook, this way I could practice variousthings in my own
time, and also get used to workingon my laptop as I had just got it at
the beginningof construction. I felt that this projectacted as bonding
time also for my laptop and me as I was slowly figuringout how to
properly useit. It was also very usefulas I had all of my work on my
laptop ready to work with whenever I wanted. Plus, wehave Apple
Macs in the classroom which I used for some of my construction as
well as my own. At the start of the year, I had had very little
experience from a Macpoint of view and I personally highlighted that
I needed to improveon this. Now, I am moreconfidentwith Macs and
I feel that you achieve the best results on AppleComputers, thisis
because everything to me is set outin a professionaland smart
format, you can printscreen easily, usePhotoshop as well as other
softwares, and have your work located on the desktop so it is easy to
find (you can do all of this on most standard laptopsand computers,
but I just prefer Apple) Also, I had never heard of the program

9. ‘InDesign’, and I had no ideahow to useit. I managed to then create a
producton this software, and I also figured something out that
everyoneusingInDesign had an issue with, and I was very proud of
myself for this. Within Photoshop, the Magnetic Lasso tool and the
Curvetool werevery usefulfor me and helped the construction of my
producteasier, the Shape and Fill Tools were also beneficial. And
with InDesign, I would say that knowinghow to wrap text around
your images is crucial for a successfulcreation, if I couldn’tdo this,
then my pages would have been deeply affected. And, knowingto
change the quality of the page from standard to high is also very
important. Otherwise, your work looks blurred and unclear (this is
what I figured out). In both of these software’s, it is importantto
know about the differentlayersand how the order of them can affect
your product. Luckily, Ihave previously used Photoshop and Iknow
from experiencehow importantit is to makesure your layersare in
the right order. I feel that both Photoshop and InDesign contributed
to the success of this task for me, InDesign helped mewith liningup
my text in even columnsand enablingclear readingfor my reader,
also Photoshop helped me with creating the smaller details for my
product, suchas page numbersand Mastheads. I initially had no idea
how to use InDesign, butafter watching tutorials on YouTube, I
gained moreof a better idea of how to use it, and it took time, but I
eventually got the hang of it. On the photo front, I had no issues with
this as I have been doing Photography for five yearsnow, so I am
familiar with equipmentand how to get a good result from an image.
If my images didn’tturn out the desired way, I would simply re-
shoot. Having my twin sister as my modelwas very convenientand if
I needed her, she would alwaysbe ready within ten minutes. I would
then go into Photoshop to edit my images, and I rarely did anything
to them besides increase the Curve, this gave my images a nice light
result that wasn’ttoo harsh or bright to the reader’s eyes, it also
mademy images look more clearer than they already were. I used a
Nikon D3200 for allof my images and I really like this style of
camera, as the image quality is amazing. For most of the images, I
used a standard setting as I had all of the lights in the studio to
supportthe camera and brighten my image. However, when I wasn’t
in the studio, I experimented with the aperturesettings on the
camera, this altars how much focusis in an image, it also changes the
lightness of the image if it is too high. I wentfor a setting of around
11-12 for my imagesof Tom’s Pick and the MerchCollection and I
was very happy with the results. I also used the lens to zoom in on
many of my photos, I did make surethat I didn’tzoom in too far

10. however, as this would havemade my images look slightly outof
proportion and uneasy to look at.
7) Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that
you have learnt in the progressionfrom it to the full product?
If I were to comparemy Preliminary Task to my finalproductnow, I
would probably laugh. I feel that I have came a very long way with
this task and I have excelled myself on the technology and creativity
front. I have become more awareof the generic conventionsof
magazines, how differentstyles of text make the look of a product
different, how images can improvethe quality of a piece and how
importantit is to base everythingyou do on your target audience;
because they willbe the onesreading it at the end of the day. The
panningstage for my productwasvery important, as I wouldn’t
know what I was doingunlessI planned it out. I created severalflat
plansinspired by other magazinelayoutsprior to creating my final
piece, this was a key part of my planningasthis enabled me to work
out whereeverything was going to go, and a rough idea of what my
magazinewas going to look like when finished. I also created many
samplesof potential features for my issue to test out my idea to see if
it would beright or not. Beforeany of the planningstages begun, I
conducted research into the following:
- Publishing Houses; this is importantbecause it gave me an
insight of magazines that are already on the market, how
differentpublicationscan be formatted, who would be best to
publish my magazine, and how the businesses work to create
successfulproducts.
- Already Existing Rock Magazines(Kerrang and Hammer); I also
performed two analysis’sof these magazinesto gain moreof an
understandingof whatI should be puttingin my issue.
- GenericConventionsof a Magazine; as I didn’tknow much
about this, I felt that this specific part of research was very
helpful, otherwise I would have notknown what to putin my
magazine.
- AudienceResearch (questionnaire); I wanted to know what the
public would likebest in a magazineand which of my three
Masthead’s they preferred, this was very beneficial.
- Peer Feedback – I feel that this wasone of the most helpful
parts for me, as it gave memore of an idea of how to improve
my issue based on what peopleto a similar age thought of my
productso far.

11. The useof call sheets and risk assessments was crucial to the success
of this task, because without them, I would have notthought about
the possible issues that I could have had to face duringconstruction,
or how I wanted my photo shoot to go. The call sheets especially
helped explain who wasinvolved, what I wanted to achieve, when the
shoot wasgoing to take place and if there was anythingspecific I
would need to improvethe shoot (props, costumeetc.). Comparing
my prelim exercise to my final product, you can clearly see how my
Photoshop and InDesign skills have developed over time. With my
prelim, I used the same fontfor all of my text, I used the full image
and not just my model on a background, I left my image un-edited,
everythinglooked flat and it wasvery basic. In my final product
however, I created my own background, I used the magnetic lasso to
use only certain partsof my images, I used variousfont styles, sizes
and colours, I used drop shadowson my Puff and Masthead to make
them stand outmore to the reader and I edited my images. As I
mentioned earlier, I certainly think that my skills within Photoshop
and InDesign have improved dramatically. Thanksto onlinetutorials,
Sally and basic trial and error, I managed to achieve what I think is a
good productthat suits the brief perfectly. ComparingwhatI knew
duringthe Preliminary Task and the Main Task, I have gained an
understandingof how the target audienceaffects practically
everythingyou do in a magazine, so for example, the colour scheme
has to suit the target reader, along with the content and how the
models/featured peoplearedressed. As wellas this, my
Photoshop/InDesign skills have came on a long way as I have
previously said, Ithink that creating my magazine has helped me
become more awareof the variousfeaturesthat are on these
programs(such as refiningedges on Lassoed Images, Importing
Texts from the Internet and puttingyour writinginto columnsin
InDesign). And finally, Ihave become familiar with the following
websites:
- Slide Share
- Prezi
- Padlet
- Blogger
Overall, I believe that my productsuits the brief as I have created the
Cover, Contentsand DoublePage Spread of a Rock MusicMagazine
with my target audiencekept in mind the whole time. I believe that I
have kept with my genre throughout and based partsof my product
from previousresearch and experience.