The document describes a student's process in creating a magazine as part of a media studies assignment. The student chose to make a magazine covering multiple music genres. They looked at existing magazines to understand conventions like logos, headings, and color schemes. The student aimed their magazine at both males and females ages 12-19. They included various artists to appeal to different tastes. The student learned about technologies like Photoshop and InDesign in designing the magazine. They felt their final product looked more professional than their preliminary task.

1. Media Studies AS : Foundation Portfolio

2. I chose to make my magazine based on all different types of genre. The reason I did this is because there aren’t many magazines already out that cater for a number of different genres. They are usually just focusing on one. To get an idea of what my magazine needed to look like and what conventions I needed to include in order for it to be successful, I looked at a number of different magazines. Here are two different magazines that I looked at; they both follow conventions such as using direct address, large logo, large heading, smaller subheadings etc. They also stick to a certain colour palette; ‘Q’ uses white, red and black and ‘MixMag’ uses more girly colours. By looking at the colours we can see that ‘Q’ is aimed mainly at men and ‘MixMag’ mainly at women. The clothes the models are wearing also fits in well with the magazine genres.

3. Q1: In what way does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Conventions used in my music magazine. I have used a large mast head at the top, which will attract the readers attention and they can straight away see what the magazine is called. A medium close up shot using direct address has been used as my main image. I have included a large heading ‘Spike’s Hard-life’ which will show the audience what the main feature of the magazine is going to be, and who the feature article is going to be about. I have included some other subheadings which show the audience what other things are going to be included inside my magazine, hopefully these will interest the reader. I have included different artists so that the audience can see that my magazine is based on all different types of genres. I have included a barcode, price, date and issue number, just like a real magazine. Things I did differently. I didn’t include a strap line at the bottom of the magazine. I stuck to just two different fonts so that my magazine wouldn’t look unprofessional with lots of different fonts. I haven’t really stuck to a particular colour scheme

4. Q1 Continued… Comparing my magazine to a real product. Here you can see some of the conventions I followed that are present in the real product. Large Mast Head Subheadings Barcode, date, issue number and price. Medium shot picture using direct address (the KERRANG! Magazine hasn’t used this in this particular magazine)

5. Contents page For my contents page, I decided to put the word ‘contents’ down the side as I have never seen it done like that before and I think it looks better than just across the top. I also added some colour to some letters in the word contents as I think this looks effective. I have included some pictures as most contents do, and I wanted to do this to advertise the artists that are going to be in the magazine. I included page numbers so that if the reader wanted to look at something in particular, they wouldn’t have to go through the magazine to find it, they would just have to flick to the correct page. In the ‘Vibe’ contents page, they have only included a few things that are in the magazine, but I preferred to included more as then the reader would know that there are a lot of features in the magazine. As well, in the ‘Vibe’ contents page, it includes a bit of a description about what that certain feature is about. I also did this, so it informs the reader.

6. Feature Article For my feature article, unlike the article on The All-American Rejects, I decided to use just one main image of the artist. I believe this looks more effective than using lots of little ones. I also included a text grab, which will encourage the audience to read the article to find out what they are talking about. I included a little introduction about the artist just like the other magazine has done and I put this and the questions in a different colour to the answers. I included a large heading also.

7. Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups? The stars that I used in my magazine such as Kesha, Jay Sean, Pixie Lott etc are young adults and this is the type of audience I wanted my magazine to appeal to. Usually teenagers are stereotyped as yobs, ignorant, arrogant etc, but my magazine doesn’t focus on that. I don’t think all teenagers are like this. The artist that I used is a 17 year old, who has a job and would rather spend time helping his grandma than out shoplifting, underage drinking, causing trouble etc. He represents the type of teenagers/young adults who don’t go out looking to cause trouble and enjoy spending time with friends and family and are just generally nice people. Pop music tends to relate to girly girls who like both girl bands and solo artists, but my magazine is for male/female who enjoy all different types of music. It isn’t just aimed at one particular social groups.

8. Young male artist will appeal to both males and females. Males because they may see him as a role model or someone they can aspire to be like and females because they may find him attractive. I have used different colours to appeal to both male and female audiences. I have used different artists; Foo Fighters, Pixie Lott, Kesha, Jay Sean etc. These are represent different genres. This shows that my magazine is not just based around one particular social group such as Indie, Punk, Girly Girls etc. It is a magazine that is suitable for all or most social groups.

9. I chose for my main target audience to be both male and female. I chose this because both of these groups are interested in different genres of music. I believe I showed my target audience as, although I used a male model on the front page, I used both a male and female model on the contents page, this showed that the magazine is for males but also females as well. I also used both masculine and feminine colours; I used black/grey/white background on my contents page but I also used a pink/purple colour as well. This shows that my magazine is for both sexes as not many males like the colour pink; not stereotypically anyway as it is associated more with females. I also used colours such as green, pale blue, red, white etc, and these colours are sometimes associated with both sexes.

10. Q3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I think IPC would be a good media institution to distribute my music magazine because the types of magazines they produce are all of different genres. This would be a better institution than EMAP because EMAP only tend to produce magazines that are based on Rock and because my magazine is based on different genres, this wouldn’t be a suitable institution because my magazine isn’t all based on Rock. The types of magazines that IPC produce are: Guitar & Bass NME Woman’s Weekly Marie Claire Etc. My unique selling point of my magazine is that it is different to others; it is a hybrid genre and it includes all types of genre, its for the ages of 12-19 and it’s aimed at both males and females. Not many magazines out there are based on all genres and are aimed at both males and females. You tend to just get ones that are of a particular genre and are aimed at either males or females. Magazines such as NME and KERRANG! tend to be mainly for males and based around the rock/punk genre.

11. Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product? Gender: Males and Females . Age: 12-19 Nationality: British Ethnicity: Any, depending on music tastes. Socio-economic Status: E Interests : Interested in finding out about current and new artists, from all different genres, gossip about stars. This is a good audience to target as people of this age are usually very interested in music and listen to a lot of it. Secondary target audience could be younger than 12 or older than 19, it doesn’t have to mean that only 12-19 have to buy this, other people can buy it and enjoy it. For my audience feedback, I gave a questionnaire to 10 people, all within the age range of 12-19, and a mix of males/females. I got good positive feedback overall, and some improvements, however it was mainly good. This shows that the magazine is right for the age range I chose.

12. Q5: How did you attract/address your audience? To find out what would attract my audience and make them want to buy my magazine, I first did a questionnaire which asked a couple of questions. The results of these questionnaires gave me an idea of what to put into my magazine. The picture I used on the front cover addresses the audience because it is looking directly at them (using direct address) so the audience will automatically feel addressed by the artist. Some things that my magazine said what that they would be interested in finding out about up and coming artists and also they would buy a magazine which is based on this. Also, out of the five names I asked about (Off The Scale, Band Slam, The Music Times and Premiere) Off The Scale was the most popular. This was my own personal favourite, and so after seeing this was the most popular, I decided to use it.

13. Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process or constructing this product? I used Adobe Photoshop and InDesign to help create my product. I had used Photoshop before but not InDesign so at times I struggled with this. However, once I had used InDesign a couple of times, I got used to it and was more comfortable using it. Photoshop was really good for editing the pictures I took and I managed to create some good looking edits with it. I enjoyed using these products and they really helped when creating my product. In Adobe Photoshop, I enjoyed using the pen tool which helped cut out images. Although I didn’t use this tool on my final piece, I enjoyed experimenting with it.

14. I also used Blogger to upload my ideas and pictures, however, sometimes it got frustrating when using it as sometimes it took a really long time to load photos and sometimes wouldn’t work at all, also, sometimes the internet took a really long time to load or wouldn’t load so occasionally I couldn’t even access Blogger. I also used Google and Google Images to find magazine covers, contents pages and feature articles for the research part. www.dafont.com also proved useful when looking for fonts for my magazine.

15. Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I believe that my final front cover looks better than my preliminary task, the reason for this is that my final front cover is a lot busier than the prelim and so it makes it look more professional and interesting, if someone picked up my prelim task they wouldn’t want to read it as it doesn’t look as though there is a lot of information/features in it. I also didn’t include a barcode, issue number or price, which adds to the look of professionalism. I also don’t think the picture is very good. Overall, my final product looks better than my preliminary task.