The document describes a music magazine called "The Official UK TOP 40" that lists the current top 40 songs. It aims to create a unique magazine for this genre that is not currently covered by other publications. The target audience is males aged 16-25 who enjoy pop music. Images and design elements on the magazine are chosen to represent this audience and genre. The creator believes the magazine would be a good fit for the media company Bauer, which already has music channels covering similar content.

1. Media My music magazine

2. In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My music magazine is called ‘The official UK TOP 40’. My main aim was to create a new magazine to the market creating what no other magazine company has done before. I wanted my magazine to be unique to all others on the market, and create something to a different kind of audience. As seen by the title, my magazine consists of all artists in the current top 40. I was intrigued to find that both music channels, and radio feature this, yet no magazine has included this. I feel the magazine would have a very big teenage audience. In order to find out who is top each month. I challenged uses of various texts and professional photographic images in order to create an excellent magazine that will bring new idea’s to the current market.

3. Current close examples on the market From looking online from doing my earlier research, I was able to find a magazine featuring the top of the pops. This magazine features various artists and bands, who are current each week, and most ‘popular’. This is aimed at a very young female audience, so I wanted to base my magazine at an older audience consisting of 16 +, which would both be aimed at a male audience.

4. Magazine comparisons

5. Younger female audience magazine: Bright pink text Male teenage dominated Overall enhanced bright colour scheme ‘Lush lads stripped’ Overall bright pink girly colour scheme ‘Who’s ready to date a fan’

6. My magazine: (Male based) Big bright main cover text Professional/serious banner for background Use of full image for background Inviting text Overall darker more serious colours.

7. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My magazine is aimed at a pop social group of people aged 16 – 25. When creating my magazine, I wanted to aim the magazine at a specific male audience. I felt that this would create a target market for the magazine, and will hopefully be sold to the same audience on a regular basis. It was important that I had as audience in mind for who would buy the magazine as otherwise I would not have any idea as to what audience I should aim my magazine at, causing problems of how the magazine should look.

8. Front cover: The image on my front cover consisted of a friend of my who is age 16. It was important that I involved someone around this age group, as this is who the magazine is aimed at, so it is likely to attract the same age audience. The expression of the person on my front cover is proving to show a ‘hard’ look. I specifically did this as I wanted strong characters for my magazine, and I felt that the dominant look would appeal to my aimed audience. My aimed audience for this magazine was a pop audience, so it was crucial that the subject on the front cover related to this style of music. From researching online I was able to find that a common occurrence in the charts is an artist called ‘Bruno Mars’: As you can see From the image To the right There is a pop Style which the Artist has, this can Be seen due to the Casual clothing Which occurs and the expression which the character is portraying.

9. Contents page: Again on my contents page, I wanted a varied mix of clothing to represent the pop and casual look. Throughout my magazine, I have gone for a very bright colored look involving the text. The main reason I have made sure to do this is to allow it to stand out from other magazines. From looking around various shops such as ‘WH Smiths’, and ‘ASDA’, I was intrigued To find that almost all magazines involve very Dark tittles which don’t look to appealing, I felt The mix of dark characters and bright text would Grab the attention of my target pop audience. To the right is a key Example as to who I have based my Images on, a very Casual look with the Use of standard Clothes which are presented in the pop style.

10. What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why? For this question I am going to look into a company called ‘Bauer’. From my market research that I earlier conducted I found that a wide range of the current magazine market share consisted of magazines by this company. I am going to look into the company and find out as to what the various media products are that they create. This will then give my a brief understanding as to if my magazine would fit into their institution, and how this would best be approached.

11. Bauer Media In order to begin my research on this company I am going to search their site in order to get an understanding as to what media products they create From looking on their site I am interested to find that they have a number of various magazines which are aimed at a wide varied audience consisting of the following: Women’s Men’s entertainment Men’s lifestyle Equire Gardening Transport Football Golf Pets Angling Motorcycling Motoring Automotive B2B Outdoor Photography Lifestyle Big City Network (Local Radio) I was very suprised by the large amount of various audiences of which Bauer aim their products at, and the large amount of magazines that they create.

12. Bauer Media After looking at the various types of products which Bauer create, I was intrigued to find that they also run various music channels as well, which feature different style’s and genre’s of music, varying from pop, to heavy metal. The various channels which Bauer consist of: 4Music Smash hits Heat Magic Kiss Kerrang! Q! The Hits The box

14. ‘BOX’ channel As you can see ‘Bauer Media’ own a channel which is specifically dedicated to a UK TOP 40 countdown, which keeps up to date with the current music. The site of the channel also allows you to watch video’s of the current UK TOP 40, including who are currently at the top in the UK charts. If Bauer were to create my music magazine in their company it would fit in perfectly in their institution due to that they have a dedicated music channel of the same genre. It is a particular style of music which they have not currently made a music magazine for. Bauer would be the first company on the market to do this, creating a unique selling point to the product instantly. Furthermore, due to the high publicity of both the channel and the top music, I feel the magazine would fit in perfectly in their institution. As the figures of the UK TOP 40 are based on the most popular current music I am convinced that the magazine will be very popular. I find it amazing as to how there are loads of other magazines on the market for different styles of genre, yet no magazine for the top music? I think my magazine will be a huge success.

15. Who would be the audience for your media product? My audience for my media magazine is specifically aimed at a male audience of teenagers 16 - 25. I have aimed it at this age group as the UK TOP 40 charts consist of people in this age group, and this is who the media channels aims their songs at. My aimed style of audience for my magazine is a pop audience which enjoy chart music of various different types of pop genre’s

16. Above is an example of my aimed audience for my magazine. As can be seen above the audience of which my magazine is aimed is of a teenage/ young adult age group which enjoy varied pop music. As you can see from the image above there is a resemblance between pop music and the social group which appear in the image. They have short hair and dress related to a pop style of music. Not only that, but the expression shown on my subjects was also an important aspect of the image, they needed to appear happy and ‘excited’ much like the happy go lucky pop style of music.

17. My audiences interests. A big interest for my audience of course is pop music. The audience of which I aim my Magazine at, are Male teenagers who currently listen to music which is in the UK TOP 40. This consists of artists such as The Black eyed peas, Bruno mars, Katy B etc. My audience will enjoy a variety of various different artists as appose to just one band as this is what the UK TOP 40 consist of. Furthermore my audience are likely to be very involved into music in terms of which they choose to buy, the UK TOP 40 is based on highest of the UK music, so they spend a lot of money every week on pop music of which they enjoy so that it will potentially achieve a high rating in the charts. As UK TOP 40 is based around popularity it is very likely that my audience will consist of the general public of male teenagers who enjoy pop type music. As there is a wide range of range of people who enjoy this type of music, it is likely that there will instantly be a big audience for my magazine, as they will want a magazine which relates to there genre of music, which currently doesn't exist on the market.

18. How did you attract/address your audience? The main way in which I am able to attract my pop audience to my magazine is the way in which I have used pictures which relate to my target audience as seen below As you can see from the image to the left I have related my front cover of my magazine to my pop audience. I have been able to do this by relating the age of my subject to a similar one of which my audience for my magazine will consist of. The picture of my subject on the front cover for my magazine was 16 when the image was taken. Use of style was also an important thing to consider when taking the images for my magazine, It was essential that I had someone who dressed related to the pop audience. In order to relate my front cover to my audience I attempted to dress them up as the way in which a pop fan would. I was able to achieve this by my subject having short hair, a standard black hoodie, and casual overall look. Again, when taking the picture for my front cover I also considered the use of various props, however I thought the simplistic use of just a microphone would be a casual thing to use as appose to something un pop related like a cigarette, or different props. a

19. Comparisons Much like the official BBC website; my image has very close comparisons which can be related to clarify my audience. Both mine and the BBC image appear to have a very short hair style, with a overall casual look. Both are aged between 16-25, and both have a overall ‘hard’ look. I feel I have related my picture very well to the style genre of my magazine.

20. Text colour Another important factor to consider throughout making my magazine was the style of text which would be used throughout it. I decided to use a very bright and inviting text throughout my magazine, as I felt that this will related to the style of music which is leans towards. In the UK TOP 40, the overall style of music is of a very positive attitude and provides a variation of different artists. I felt the use of bright large text would reflect the style of music and appeal further to my target audience to want to purchase my magazine. In terms of what font type to use, I felt it would be most appropriate to choose one which would boldly stand out so it can immediately grab the eye of my target audience. I related this to the one which is on the Official UK TOP 40 website, as I felt this style would be most appropriate. Much like the official UK charts website banner, my magazine consists of bright inviting colours which are inviting and appealing.

21. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Throughout creating my magazine I have used a number of various techniques in order to develop a finished quality product. One of the many uses of technology I have used when creating my magazine, is the clone stamp tool; this allowed me to remove the text on my subjects hoodie, and match it with the surroundings. By selecting the ‘Clone stamp tool’ I was able to take the colour of the black from the hoodie, and repeat it over the text. This then allowed me to cover up the unnecessary text which was on my subjects hoodie. 1 Final outcome 3 2

22. Programs Throughout the creation of my magazine, the two main programs which I have used are ‘Photoshop’, and ‘InDesign’. During the course Photoshop was extremely useful as it allowed me to edit various images in order to make them suitable for my magazine, I was also able to make small adjustments to my images easily by using this program. InDesign: This program was also very useful for me throughout the creation of my magazine, I mainly used InDesign for the various fonts that it had to offer, and the various ways in which I could create different size pages for my magazine. By using the combination of both of these programs I feel it allowed me to create an excellent final product which has a professional overall look and outcome.

23. Cropping Another editing tool I was able to use was an item called the ‘pen tool’. By using this I was able to go to cut out part of an image, as appose to using all of it, as seen below Molmom The image to the left is the original image that I used for the second page of my double page spread. As you can see from the image to the left I began to go round the part of the image I wanted to keep by slowly following round each part with the pen tool. Eventually I made my way around all of the image and finished by joining the point where I began, this then created a white line all the way around the part of the image that I had chosen. I then copied the image into a new layer and saved it.

24. The finished result

25. Importing the image After cutting my image in photoshop, I then needed to import it into indesign to use for my magazine, I was able to do this by doing the following: When in InDesign I selected the ‘Rectangle frame tool’ and drew a rectangle in the middle of my page.

26. I then selected File > Place from the File menu I then received a dialogue box which allowed me to choose an image to import into the Shape, I located my image from the Hard Drive, and selected ‘Open’ to open my image.

27. The outcome

28. Compared to other magazines which are currently on the market, I feel that my magazine is of a very similar professional look. Whilst creating my magazine I regularly checked other competition in order to relate to their magazines, and see how I can advance on my own. Much like the official NME magazine, I had included a small section saying about a photo shoot, which is split up into 3 images, by doing this it gave my page a more professional look as appose to choosing just one image on the page.

29. Question 7 To the left is the image of my Preliminary task magazine. Since creating my earlier magazine I feel I have very much advanced my style of technique and overall use of various editing skills.

30. Comparisons From creating my original magazine I feel I have advanced a number of skills. From comparing the two, the use of of the bolder bigger and brighter text on my magazine views much more appealing to my previous attempt. The use of the various editing skills which I have learnt has allowed me to enhance images and allow them to stand out further from my original attempt.

31. Throughout creating my music magazine I feel I have learnt a number of key skills which have helped me develop my practical work to a very high standard. I am very pleased with the final outcome of my magazine and feel that I have done very well throughout all of the task.