The document discusses how the media product, a music magazine called "Breakdown", uses and develops conventions of real music magazines. It conducted a questionnaire to determine what the target 14-21 audience wanted from the magazine. Based on the results, it chose the magazine's name, color scheme, and content. The magazine is similar in style to Kerrang magazine but with some adaptations, such as keeping the color scheme consistent throughout. The process of creating the magazine helped the author learn skills with Photoshop that will be useful for future media products and career opportunities.

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

2. What my audience wanted in a
magazine
• The two colour
schemes which were
most popular were
“black white and
yellow” and “black
white and red” as they
both received the
same amount of votes
I decided to include
both, so it became
“black white yellow
and red”

3. What my audience wanted
• I made a questionnaire
and distributed it to
people that are in my
age range for my
magazine.
• This then gave me a
wider view of what my
audience wanted from
the name of the
magazine to the colour
scheme.

4. Front cover

5. Front Cover
• As a metal/alternative/pop-punk magazine, my magazine are based on
similar formats and styles of music magazines that also cover these genres.
• These magazines are magazines such as Kerrang. Kerrang covers bands from
pop punk to death-core and other types of heavy metal.
• This is why I have based my ideas for my magazine in a similar style; e.g
using colours that stand out from each other like yellow and red (giving it a
pop punk style) and also using the rough slanted text, making it seem more
brutal and heavy, giving it a metal style also.
• For the Layout of the front cover, my media product develops and
challenges kerrang’s front cover.
• This is can be seen because of the Masthead, Subtitles, primary and
secondary images, pugs etc. are placed in very similar areas around the
page.
• This is because I think kerrang use their space very well on the page;
because they have lots of information on one page, but not too much to
make the page over-crowded. So I replicated it but with a few changes. I
decided to leave the facial area of the primary image more blank then the
rest of the page. This is so no attention is drawn away from the face by
other information , and also to get the full facial expression and its impact.

6. Contents Page

7. Contents Page
• My contents page has been set out a little differently to kerrang magazine’s
contents page. This is because I’ve set of the pictures in a different format to
how they would usually have their layout.
• I think my way suits the magazine better as it gives the magazine more of a
professional layout; with scenic pictures but with a simple back ground.
• It draws more attention to the photography then the writing, giving the
magazine a more professional image and challenges a lot of conventions of
real media products around today.
• The column for the editors blog is very similar, just on opposite sides of the
page. I choose to use the same format as the Kerrang magazine here because
I thought it was a sensible place to put it without it obscuring any of the
other text.
• The red and yellow splashes behind the title breakdown show the punk side
of the magazine; giving it a feel that we have a free will to do what we want
and we don’t care what people think. This will inspire to readers how have
the same moral ethics and make them want to read on.

8. Double Page spread

9. Double Page spread
• For my double page spread, I decided that I would do a
completely different design to how kerrang have designed
there's. As Kerrang’s colour scheme is black, white, red and
Yellow; I don’t think the colour scheme works and doesn’t
look like it belongs in a kerrang magazine.
• Because of this, I made my double page spread the same
colour scheme the rest of the magazine. This then gave me
more of a house style and easier to edit and create rather
than starting from scratch creating all different styles, as
kerrang has done here.
• This then develops my forms and conventions from real
media because I’m keeping my house style throughout the
magazine, giving it an easier flow to read.
• Also, The simplicity of my double page spread makes the
actual information stand out more on the page.
• As there is no title clear title on the kerrang double page
spread, it makes it harder for the reader to understand what
the article will be about, whereas my article has a very clear
title, and fans of the person being interviewed will be
interested and be more willing to read on.

10. New Draft: Double Page spread
• Since my last double page spread, I
decided that it was not good enough
and decided to start over again.
• With my new design, I decided all my
old photos were not good enough or
not in my ideas of a good shot for a
double page spread.
• I decided to set the lay out of the
double page spread so that the image
would go across both pages, along
with the text. This way the columns
are more structured and look a lot
more professional than my previous
double page spread and looks more
like the kerrang article on the previous
slide.

11. Who would be your audience for
your media product
By Haydn Barry

12. Age Range
• As my music magazine covers various genres,
which different age groups tend to prefer.
• Because of this, age ranges differ between the
music genres; (“scene” tends to stay around
the age of 14-18, were as heavy metal tends
to be 15-older)
• Therefore my magazine will bring in a variety
of age ranges. But as an average, my target
audience for age will be around 14-21.

13. Lifestyle of my target audience
• As my average target audience is 14-21, most of my
consumers will be of school/college age, with the
acceptation of some doing apprenticeships or full time
work.
• Their lifestyles usually revolve around education and
leisure.
• Their main struggles in life are mostly social aspects (e.g.
friends, acceptance) and their own personalities showing
out and that also being accepted by peers.
• Also this target age group will be going through transitions
in their lives i.e. Leaving school moving onto to college and
or work placements. These changes will also affect their
family relationships as they mature.

14. Influences on target audience

15. How does your media represent social
groups?

16. Social groups and music genres
• As people tend to spend time with people who have the same or
similar interests as their own, social groups can be associated with
the genre of music they all listen to.
• Therefore, the genres that I cover in my magazine could represent
different social groups because the people who read my magazine
have similar interests and socialize with similar people.
• However, this is not always the case. And my music magazine
represents this too. This is because not all people who listen to
“metal/hardcore” socialize a lot with others who also listen to these
genres. This is represented in my magazine by showing images and
information that could be seen as not “metal/hardcore”. This could
be because of the way the person is dressed (looks more indie than
metal) or words and phrases that could be said more by one socail
group than another.

17. How my audience is filtered to suit
some social groups than others
• The hand gestures pointing
directly at the camera shows a
feel of dominance; making him
seem powerful in his success
and fame. This could inspire
other musicians similar to his
to try and become like him.
• Then also, the rockstar’s name
will make suit my readers as if
they are fan’s of “Torey Caylor”
then they will be instantly
interacted to the site of the
magazine.

18. Comparison to real life magazine’s
reflecting the same image as my magazine
• Both primary images are powerful poses. This then
implies that both these people are important people
in the rock industry. This then means people that like
rock/metal will be interested in both media products
including mine and show how my magazine can relate
to those social groups.
• Also the masthead for each media products appear to
be broken/messed around with. This relates to the
social groups we apeal to because its putting across
the “I don’t care” feel to it, which could be related to
the mind sets of those social groups. To add to that,
the title’s both stand out from other music magazine’s
because of its messy look, making it stand out, like
most people in those social groups also want to stand
out themselfs.

19. What media institution might
distribute your media product and
why?

20. Media institutions
• I think my media product would be best suited for
“Bauer Media”. This is because magazine’s such as
kerrang are being published by the same institute.
• As kerrang is very similar to my magazine (covers the
same/similar music genres) it made sense to me to be
published by the same institute, rather than trying to
rival kerrang.
• Also because a lot of media in general (including
magazines) are under “Bauer” institution. This would
then broaden my horizons with my product and get it
distributed nationally without any problems

21. These are just some of the brands
which Bauer distribute

22. Breakdown
• Breakdown will be a fortnightly
magazine, priced at £2.10 each issue.
• This is because it is a similar price to
kerrang which is a similar magazine to
my own in its choice of music genres
and all round appearance of the
magazine itself.
• Their will be advertisements for
clothes which are suited towards the
music genres shown in my magazine,
band tour dates and band
merchandise.

23. How did you attract/address the
audience?

24. Questionnaires

25. Analysing results
• As most of my readers will be
from 14-21, I sent out a
questionnaire for people of
this age range and saw what
they thought of my ideas for
the music magazine (e.g
name of the magazine)
• In doing this, I attracted my
audience by taking in the
information I got from the
questionnaire and putting it
into my magazine, making my
magazine suited towards my
audience’s liking.

26. Evidence
My questionnaire results show that “Breakdown” was the most popular name for my
magazine, as the statistics show. Because of this I chose Breakdown as my name for my
magazine

27. Evidence
Because my results showed that both “black white and yellow” and “red white and black”
both had the same percentage, I decided to use both answers as my colour scheme, making
my colour scheme “black white yellow and red” as is shown on my front cover.

28. What have you learnt from the process
off constructing this product

29. Photoshop
• Photoshop is one of
the programmes I
learnt to use during
the process of
making this product.
• I needed to use
Photoshop to edit
my shots for the
magazine, and also
to make signs and
other types of text
that was used in the
magazine
• a few examples are
listed to the right.

30. How using Photoshop will help me in
future products and in future life
• With these skills I have learnt from
using photoshop, I can now edit photos
with ease and professionally. Also
because I learnt how to make banners
and other types of texts for my
magazine, I will be able to make my
future projects like a professional level
piece of work.
• Also, if I decided to take my media any
further (university, apprenticeship or
job) I could easily use my skills for all of
these options. Making it easier to do
future assignments at university etc.

31. Looking back on your preliminary task
(aquinas college magazine), what have
you learnt in the progression to the full
product

32. Comparison: front cover
• there is a fairly dramatic difference between my
preliminary task and my music magazine front
cover.
• I compiled the background on the music magazine
by using different effects I learnt like fading two
colours into each other, in this case white and
black; whereas in my Aquinas magazine it is just a
simple white background. This is because I hadn’t
yet learnt how to use Photoshop and I was using
purely just windows publisher.
• Because of the differences like these, my music
magazine is dramatically different and looks a lot
more professional than my preliminary task.

33. Comparison: contents page
• My contents pages show a clear difference between
the preliminary and my music magazine product. This
is because a number of things.
• Firstly, my choice of text on the Aquinas magazine can
be quite hard to read and is inadequate for a contents
page; whereas my magazine contents page has text
that is easy to read.
• Plus the images I had taken for my music magazine
page are more suited to the magazine whereas the
Aquinas magazine shows images which arent suited
to the magazine and have no reasons behind the
images; whilst I have captions that explain the
pictures on the music magazine.