The document discusses the design and content elements of a magazine for the acoustic music genre. It describes the process of selecting a title, cover lines, images, and contents for different sections of the magazine. Market research in the form of surveys and focus groups was conducted to determine the target audience of 16-30 year olds and their interests. Modern elements like YouTube and Twitter were incorporated to attract this audience. Discount coupons and free downloads were also included as conventions to draw readers. Different images were tested on students and staff to find the most suitable visuals for the cover, contents page, and double-page spread based on audience preferences.

1. In what ways does your
media production use,
develop or challenge
forms and conventions
of real media products
?

2. Title
The title was a very difficult process to complete as it
was getting a word that suits the magazine yet looks
good. The font was also important as you don’t want
something that’s too informal yet you don’t want a
super smart formal font. I went for a futuristic style
that fitted well on the page it also has reference to
acoustics become a rebranded genre as its becoming
more popular.

3. Cover line
The cover lines have a key importance to
the magazine as they are what the reader
see’s straight away when looking at the
magazine. They need to be structured
correctly they also need to have follow the
house style.
Not only that they need to have some
relevance to the magazine, the
contents need to be related.

4. image

5. Contents
The contents page needs to
look like a contents page.
The way the page flows, the
style of the font and its
colours are all crucial to the
look of the page.
Also the contents its self, the contents
talked about need to be relevant and in
theme with the magazine because it
shows what the magazine is containing.

6. cover
The cover needs to stand out, if not
then its basically pointless as when its
on the shelf if its generic and doesn’t
have its unique aspect and style then
the chances of buyers drop drastically.
The title was a very difficult process to
complete as it was getting a word that suits
the magazine yet looks good. The font was
also important as you don’t want something
that’s too informal yet you don’t want a
super smart formal font. I went for a
futuristic style that fitted well on the page it
also has reference to acoustics become a
rebranded genre as its becoming more
popular.
The cover lines have a key importance to
the magazine as they are what the reader
see’s straight away when looking at the
magazine. They need to be structured
correctly they also need to have follow the
house style.

7. Pull quote
“I still think about
the music when I
sleep”
Pull quotes attract a lot of attention as
people are nosy they want to know
what's going on and what's happening
they are curious so a solid cover line can
intrigue a large amount of readers.Reference to the article is
important as it links the
pages and articles together
because it all flow and
creates a structure to the
magazine.

8. Coupon
Coupons in magazines are great way to entice an
audience. Is its not the main reason why they buy the
product however it is a desired added bonus.
I also knew that the
potential for a discount
or coupon needed to be
something relevant to the
magazine therefore a
music gift card seemed
relevant.
Also a common convention is
free downloads so I also used
this on the cover page to draw
in the reader .

9. How does your media product
represent particular social groups ?
• My genre is an acoustic genre that has a calm
vibe unlike rock music, this music style is
smooth and respected.

10. Over recent years the fan base for acoustic
artist has increased massively as these
artists are controlling the charts.
As the genre is quite well respected
and seen as calm and smooth, I used
some images that weren’t too vivid
and contrasting, the colours fit well
together.
However as these artists have
got some quite crazy fans I
have include some vivid
colours and styles to stay
relevant to the current status
of the acoustic genre.

11. What kind of media institution
distribute your media product and
why?
Bauer Media Group is a large European-based media company,
headquartered in Hamburg, Germany that manages a portfolio
of more than 600 magazines, over 400 digital products and 50
radio and TV stations around the world. The portfolio extends
to include print shops, postal, distribution and marketing
services. Bauer Media Group has a workforce of approximately
11,000 employees in 17 countries.
Time Inc. UK formerly International Publishing Corporation and IPC
Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., is a consumer magazine
and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a large portfolio selling
over 350 million copies each year.
Beginning with a single quarterly magazine on the kitchen table, Blaze has grown to become the largest
independently-owned publishing company in the shooting sector, and in the last few years has expanded into
motoring, women’s lifestyle, art, and most recently video, music magazines and related shows.

12. Blaze Publishing inc. Specialises in niche magazines, I think this would be a good distributor for
my magazines as they already publish an acoustic magazine called ‘acoustic’. They have a niche
market as acoustic is slightly verging over into the pop genre as its becoming more popular and
taking it back to its roots of acoustic.
How I’d distribute my magazine
Bauer are a famous distributor that currently distribute
magazines such as kerrang and Q. I think these might be a
good distributor as they don’t have an acoustic genre and
it might be a new area of the market for them to access.
This would be wise because acoustic artists such as
passenger, ed sheeran, james bay and george ezra are
taking the charts by storm and the genre is becoming an
extremely popular style of music.

13. Who would be the audience for your
media product?
• The desired audience for my magazine would
be roughly 16-30 as the way I have structured
all aspects of my magazine are reference to
quite modern features within society such as
YouTube and Twitter. Which also is the main
fan base age rage for the most popular artists
of my genre (acoustic).

14. Audience Profile
I included things in my audience
profile that would be relevant to the
type of person that would be
interested in the ‘rebranded’
magazine.

15. Acoustic
To try and see what type of
person, and their interests I
created a survey that I put on
survey monkey. I told people
in my class to complete and
also left it available online so I
would get random responses.
The findings I had got for the
acoustic genre was around
the 16-19 age, I do think that
this data was polluted by the
fact that most of my class and
people who would use survey
monkey would be that age.
Despite this I used my
findings and then started on
my next area of discovering
what age range would find
the images most interesting.
This was a vital part of my
research as if not conducted
then I wouldn’t be sure what
image would be most suitable
for the age range for the
largest amount of viewers.
Questionnaire

16. Mood board

17. How did you attract/address your
audience?
• By using modern aspects that interest the
targeted audience with reference to YouTube
and Twitter which something the will be
familiar with so the can have a connection to
the inside articles unlike something they have
no close relation to such as pop stars luxurious
lives. , also the competitive price will appeal to
the audience.

18. Modern features they can relate
too
A way of attracting an audience would be to include
something they can closely relate to, as the surveys
revealed that the majority of my audience would be older
teens to young adults I included things that
stereotypically that age range commonly use and can
relate to.
I integrated YouTube into my double page
spread as YouTube is very common for
artists being discovered, Justin Bieber
was discovered on YouTube and is one of
the most famous pop stars in the world.
Therefore it would be a good way to
merge an article in my double page
spread to something that is very current.
This makes the reader comfortable and
intrigued therefore attracting them to the
magazine.
As twitter is a great way
of artists
communicating with
fans and is becoming
increasingly popular I
felt it would be relevant
to include as most of
the readers will be
familiar with the social
media site, also it is
something different
which is unique which is
a good aspect to
include as I found out
from the focus group.

19. Coupons/discounts
Coupons in magazines are great way to entice an
audience. Is its not the main reason why they buy the
product however it is a desired added bonus.
I also knew that the
potential for a discount
or coupon needed to be
something relevant to the
magazine therefore a
music gift card seemed
relevant.
Also a common convention is
free downloads so I also used
this on the cover page to draw
in the reader .

20. 1 2 3
4 5
These images were the image I a had narrowed down to try use in my cover page, contents page and double page spread. There reason
why I knew that these were the image I would be using is because during lesson I went around the college asking students and staff which
images they preferred. Image one had a mixed base of support evenly distributed between the adults and the teenagers this was good
because I knew that my audience wouldn’t completely be the 16-19 year olds my survey had discovered so this would attract a wider
audience. Image two had approximately a 70(student)/30(adult) split, due to the survey I decided the image would be a good cover image
because the majority of the support was from the largest audience I had found, also I had an idea for a cover story that would relate
closely to the image which was something I had found was popular from previous surveys I had done on cover pages. Image three again an
even split as both ages like the image so I knew this would help entertain all potential readers. Image four was fairly evenly spilt but was
leaning more towards the younger age range. Despite it being favoured more by the students I felt that the way the image was taken
would be perfect for a contents page because the faded black and the image with an open space beside would give me plenty of room to
write without worry of not being able to see the writing because of the image behind, also it fitted similar conventions to existing music
magazine contents page. Image five was liked by mainly the adults because of the calmness of the photo, I was unsure on whether to use
this image as despite liking it I was sure on what part of the magazine it would be appropriate to put it in. Finally image six was again
popular with both age groups so I knew it again would be a sensible idea to include this at some point in the magazine to help interest and
entertain the audience.
6
The correct images

21. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?

22. Images
The amount of images required to just to find that one photo is far more than I had expected. The testing for taking was I painstakingly long
process, this is because there is a fine line between a photo looking unprofessional and professional. Everything should be taken into account
when taking a photo, the background needs to be not to detailed as you want the focus to be purely on the characters in the image, also having
a reasonably neutral background allows space for editing and writing space. The lighting needs to be correct as the lighting can cause too much
irritation with the photo such as unintended lens flare, or the image isn’t bright enough as. As we couldn’t control the weather at times of taking
photos we used a reflect, this was a professional method of getting more light onto the models. This method would be more appropriate as it
looked more professional than using the flash feature on the cameras we used. In addition the I learnt the clothing was a vital component in
taking the correct image. It would be un-realistic if the magazine was a rap genre and the main cover image was someone in a suit holding a
guitar. So the props and clothing were crucial in the process.

23. Automatic Mode
Auto mode tells your camera to use it’s best judgement to
select shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, focus
and flash to take the best shot that it can. This mode will
give nice results in many shooting conditions
Portrait Mode
When you switch to portrait mode your camera will
automatically select a large aperture which helps to keep
your background out of focus . Portrait mode works best
when you’re photographing a single subject so get in
close enough to your subject either by zooming in or
walking closer so that your photographing the head and
shoulders of them.Macro Mode
Macro mode lets you move
your closer into your subject to
take a close up picture. It’s
great for shooting flowers,
insects or other small objects.
Landscape Mode
It sets the camera up with a small
aperture to make sure as much of
the scene you’re photographed
will be in focus as possible . It’s
therefore ideal for capturing shots
of wide scenes, particularly those
with points of interest at different
distances from the camera.
Sports Mode
Photographing moving objects is what sports
mode is designed for. It is ideal for
photographing any moving objects including
people playing sports, pets, cars, wildlife etc.
Sports mode attempts to freeze the action by
increasing the shutter speed
Night Mode
Night is for shooting in low light situations and
sets your camera to use a longer shutter speed
to help capture details of the background but it
also fires off a flash to illuminate the foreground
and subject.
CameraDuring this process I have learnt about the different
modes available, I learnt this I needed to take the best
possible photo so I needed to use the camera to the
best of its capabilities.

24. Photoshop
I had become very familiar with this image editing software
developed by Adobe. Photoshop is considered one of the
leaders in photo editing software. The software allows users to
manipulate, crop, resize, and correct colour on digital photos.
The software is particularly popular amongst professional
photographers and graphic designers. This is why to create a
realistic magazine you needed to be able to manipulate and edit
images so the support your magazine.
Over the process of creating the magazine I
had mastered some features which meant I
could integrate these features into my
magazine. Due to the research I had previously
done on existing magazines I had discovered a
recurring convention of images was an overlay.
This is where the image is slightly covering
some writing or something on the page. This
makes the image or writing stand out from the
page giving a 3D effect to the magazine to
differentiate the writing from the images.

25. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
• I found out over the course of the task that the planning into creating
magazine was a lot more in depth than I had initially thought.
• How to use professional camera
• A developed understanding on how to use adobe Photoshop
• Learnt how to blog- update post, create pages, convert media files and
imbed images.
• Learnt the correct way in which to take a photo under certain lighting and
camera modes.
• Learnt how to structure a cover page of a music magazine
• Creating and having discussions with people whilst taking advice .
• Understanding the importance of planning