2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My front cover mainly stuck to the conventions of a pop/rock magazine. It is bright and eye catching and is fairly simple – I believe my front cover looks professional and artistic.
3. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My contents page furthered to stick to the conventions of real media products. The artist does not have eye contact which adds variation. I think this page encourages the reader to read on further.
4. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My double page spread challenged the conventions by having a black and white image which added a good amount of variation. It confirms the genre and type of magazine I have created.
5. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? I represented my social group by carefully selecting my text styles and images, selecting what text to be highlighted, what the article is about, the clothes the artist is wearing and presuming that my audience would know who my artist was.
6. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? My magazine was based around the rock/indie institution however, it has an obvious ‘pop’ twist to it. It is mainstream and would prove extremely successful if a company similar to NME or Q distributed my magazine.
7. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product? It is very important to have your audience in mind when creating any media product. My audience was people aged 15 – 21 who enjoy a wide range of music. I believe I succeeded in targeting my audience and used various techniques to achieve this.
8. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? The font of my masthead is easily recognisable to allow the magazine to be found easily. The name itself gives connotations of a fresh, new and exciting magazine. The artist has direct eye contact which engages the reader and looks professional. The bright coloured text attracted the audience which I was targeting my magazine at.
9. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? The paint splats further the idea that the magazine is ‘fun’ and also gives an artist effect. The word ‘contents’ is in pink so it stands out as pink is not a dominant colour on the rest of the page. Although the artist doesn’t have direct eye contact with the reader, the picture is interesting and suggests that the magazine is fun and exciting. The text highlighted which overlaps the image is attention grabbing and tells the audience what page to go to to see the artist special without reading through the contents on the left.
10. 5. How did you attract/address your audience? I used a black and white image with contrasts with the other images I used – this adds to the fun appeal of the magazine and gives good variation so the reader doesn’t get bored easily. Eye contact also engages the reader directly. These words are larger and in the primary optical area and encourage the reader to read on. I used the overlapping text again to maintain the house style and to encourage the reader to read the article on the left hand side as the text is a quotation taken from the article itself.
11. 6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
12. 7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? My skills at using Photoshop have significantly improved – my ancillary project done at the start of my project contrasted with the final products show how I have progressed and been able to develop my skills.
Editor's Notes
When producing my music magazine I have tried to reflect the work of other magazines that I have researched such as NME and Q. I aimed to make my magazine look professional and appealing to the audience which I targeted my magazine at. My house style remained the same throughout which I believed enabled my work to look professional, neat and organised – it gave me a good basis upon which I could develop my creative skills. I made a front cover, a contents page and a double page spread using Adobe Photoshop. I believe that my magazine reflects the conventions of a young person’s rock/pop magazine and sticks to them generally well. Although I didn’t aim to challenge any conventions, I believe that baring the conventions in mind enabled me to have a successful project. When constructing my front cover I mainly stuck to the conventions of the magazines upon which I researched. My front cover is bright and eye catching. It is fairly simple but I beleive the simplicity added to the conventions of a rock/pop magazine front cover. My finished front cover had direct eye contact from the artist which is typical of a rock/pop music magazine. The different styles of text also stuck to the conventions as they stand out individually. I used three styles of text so that my house style did not become too difficult to recognise when looking at the other parts of my magazine work. The bright image and text are good examples of how I stuck to the conventions and how by manipulating images you can develop and change them into professional looking pieces of work.
My contents also stuck to the conventions of a pop/rock magazine. It maintained my house style which was established in my front cover. The artist doesn’t have eye contact on this page and I think that this subtly challenges the conventions. It creates an interesting and natural effect which I believe worked well. I introduced another text style on this page which is a typical type face font. Although I didn’t use it on my front cover I believe that it works well as the text stands out and has a background behind it to draw attention to it even more. My contents page furthered my aim to sticking to the basic conventions of a pop/rock magazine. The simplistic look creates a powerful effect which I hoped would encourage the reader to read and look at other parts of the magazine that I created.
When constructing my double page spread I decided to edit my image so that it is in black and white. I think that this slightly challenged the typical of conventions whilst adding a good amount of variation to magazine to keep it interesting and different. I continued with my house style which I believe contributed to the professional look of my work. My double page spread lay out is fairly simple and gave me space to be creative and develop my ideas further. It sticks to the conventions of real media products which I researched and enables the reader to have a clear idea of what genre and type of magazine they are reading, if they have not yet discovered from seeing the front cover and contents page.
My finished media product represents a particular social group: young people who enjoy rock/pop/indie music and regularly buy magazines such as NME, Kerrang and Q. New chart and indie music is represented through the techniques I used when constructing my magazine. It is represented in many different ways, for example: the text and images used, the text which has been highlighted, what the article is about, what the artist is wearing and by the fans having general knowledge to know who Julia Alice actually is. The social group I aimed my product at was extremely important as I had to create and base my magazine around them to allow my magazine to be successful and obvious who it is actually targeted at. I think that my magazine has been constructed well and is obvious who my social group were and the type of people I had in mind when creating my final products.
My magazine is mainly based around a rock/indie institution however, I think that it has a very obvious pop twist to it. I think that a mainstream chart magazine would be a suitable institution to distribute my work as my magazine is aimed at many people who are interested in different music. The fact that I made a magazine gives variation to who I can target at and also allowed creativity. I based my magazine around existing media products such as Q and NME and successfully added my own twist to it – I believe if a company similar to these distributed my magazine it would prove extremely successful.
It is extremely important to have your audience in mind when creating any media product so that you are not tempted to go off ask and create something you personally enjoy which others may not. The audience I decided to target my product at was young people aged between 15-21 who had a wide range of music tastes. I think as my magazine had elements of different genres of music and had a young person as the featured artist that I succeeding in making my targeted audience obvious and achievable. By carefully using techniques and having my audience in mind I created a magazine aimed a certain group of people who are a large proportion of the music magazine readers today.
To attract and address my audience I again kept them in mind when constructing my magazine front cover, contents and double page spread. Front cover’s are vital when making a magazine as it is the first thing they see and buy/not buy depending on the appeal the magazine gives off. I think my masthead which reads ‘Revived’ is particularly appealing and because of the font, is easily recognisable. This attracts the audience because if they have previously enjoyed the magazine they will be able to find it again and again easily. The name itself gives connotations of a fresh, new and exciting music magazine. I used purple, read and pink on my front cover which are bright and attract a younger audience effectively. The artist pictured has direct eye contact which engages the reader and also looks professional as many music magazines use this technique. I think that my front cover attracts and addresses my targeted audience well, whilst maintaining a simple look which is consistent with the house style.
My contents maintained the house style created on the front cover. It informs the reader what articles and other information are on what pages easily. The artist pictured is the same at the one of the front cover which shows consistency and that she is the featured artist this week. Although she is not engaging with the reader with direct eye contact, the picture is interesting and suggests that the magazine is fun and exciting. There are many things on the page which attract and address the audience which I aimed my magazine on. The paint splats at the top of the page further the idea that the magazine is ‘fun’ and ‘new.’ The pink texts which reads ‘contents’ specifically stands out as pink isn’t a dominant colour on the rest of the page. The words highlighted overlapping the picture give an interesting effect which grabs the audience’s attention and tells them directly what page the featured artist is on, without having to read the contents on the left of the page. I have maintained the house style by using the similar colours to the front cover and by using the same text fonts to keep the magazine looking professional.
My double page spread also keeps with the house style which has been used so far throughout my front cover and contents page. The double page spread is extremely important as there has been a build up to the audience reading what the previous pages have been recommending to do. The double page spread is slightly simpler than the contents and includes less colours. The image is black and white which contrasts with my other images used, this adds to the fun appeal of the magazine and gives a good variation so the reader doesn’t get bored easily and isn’t seeing the same techniques used over and over again. Eye contact is again used to engage the reader. The words ‘Brand New Artist’ are big and in the primary optical area, they stand out and makes the reader want to read on about the artist. I have used text overlapping the image to maintain the house style, as I used this effect on the contents page but I also used a quotation from the article which encourages the reader to read the complete article on the left hand side. I believe that all of these techniques grabs the audience’s attention and therefore encourages them to read on.
Whilst constructing my magazine I have developed my skills substantially by using various technologies to help me produce my media product. The internet allowed me to conduct my planning and research stages easily and without stress. I can have music magazines on my screen in a matter of seconds which I was able to gain inspiration from and begin to plan my own work based upon what I found. I annotated and discussed the magazines I found on publisher which allowed me to display my findings and write about what I thought were the strengths and weaknesses and what I ideally wanted my final product to look like and represent. The internet also allowed me to conduct secondary research to find out about the audience I was going to aim specifically at. Photoshop enabled me to manipulate images easily and to add text, shapes and other images which I could all undo easily if I thought it didn’t look good. I took photos which I later edited and played around with to create useful images which I used on my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I believe that Photoshop helped me massively in my production stages and also allowed me to make many different copies of my work, I then chose the best ones to have as my final products. I am extremely happy with my final result after using Photoshop to do so.
Through constructing my own product by using technologies to do so I have been able to expand my creativity and show my imagination. The technologies I used enabled me to research, plan and create my magazine fairly easily and within a reasonable time period. The technologies I used, such as Photoshop, allowed me to make my product look as professional as I could which overall resulted in a good front cover, contents page and double page spread. I hadn’t really used Photoshop before my project and now believe it is an extremely useful piece of software that without it I couldn’t of completed my magazine to the standard I wanted without it. My ancillary project compared to my final products shows how I have progressed and how Photoshop has helped my develop and expand my knowledge on image manipulation and ultimately creating a magazine. In conclusion, through trial and error I have been able to manage and produce a media product which looks professional and that I am proud of. I have learnt many different techniques which I hope to carry on and pursue further.
