The document discusses what the student learned from creating a magazine media product. They found that the overall image and layouts worked well but some elements like images could be improved. The student learned about the importance of research into target audiences and conventions. Creating the magazine allowed them to learn practical skills with software like Photoshop and Prezi. The process improved their understanding of designing media products and will benefit their future graphic skills.

1. Q 1 ) I N W H AT W AY S D O E S Y O U R
M E D I A P R O D U C T, U S E , D E V E L O P
O R C H A L L E N G E F O R M S A N D
C O N V E N T I O N S ?
A S M E D I A
B R I A N O ’ K E E F F E

2. INTRODUCTION
My media product is a magazine titled Mayhem. The ways in which may media product
uses forms and conventions are seen in the layout, font, typography, composition and
house style. Before I designed my product I had do a lot of research to make sure that
the magazine is conventional so I designed the magazine to covey codes and
conventions of typical magazines.
I designed a front cover, content page and a double page spread, which all has
conventional themes. The first example is the house style, the house style used is red and
white, which is a typical colour for any hip hop magazine. A popular magazine publisher
is XXL Magazine, which had a big inspiration on my magazine. In almost every magazine
red is the most used colour next to white and black.

3. HOW I DEVELOPED MY MAGAZINE
A big part of making a magazine is to develop an idea to make it in to something good.
In my case, my idea was to have a close up of the model so that I could use the typical
idea used in most magazine, which is the model in front of the masthead. After I had my
idea and images I needed to make the magazine suit the artist. The model was wearing
black so I couldn’t use a black background. I used white and red since I think both
colours work really well together and the genre.

4. FORMS AND CONVENTIONS
• I had included some forms and conventions in my magazine as I needed it to suit the
typical hip hop magazine, which featured a close up of my model with his head being
above the mast head. I also used a very generic colours (red and white) as they
represent the hip hop genre more than any other colour. An example of this is XXL
magazines, which uses the same style that I used during my production.
• Some other conventions that I included was the layout. I made the layout very similar
to other magazine because people would be use to having the model in the middle
and having the 3 text column on the double page spread.

5. Q 2 ) H O W D O E S Y O U R M E D I A
P R O D U C T R E P R E S E N T
PA R T I C U L A R S O C I A L G R O U P S ?

6. WHY ARE REPRESENTATIONS OF
SPECIFIC MAGAZINES IMPORTANT?
• There are specific magazines that represent different stereotypes and its important that
a model shares theses stereotypes so that the readers would be able to relate to the
character and would create a lot of interest in the magazine.
• An example is my model who is a black teenager from London and a stereotype is that
they always have hoodies, which is why my model wears a Adidas hoodie (A very
common piece of clothing in London).
• The reason why I did this was because it’s a stereotype for people in London and
because my in my interview he says that he is from London and is lived there his whole
life and is a great person to represent London in my magazine.

7. MY SOCIAL GROUP
• My magazine genre was Hip-Hop and the socio-economic for my magazine was E class
as it was targeted at students and casual workers, mainly at black males since they are
the main buyers for Hip-Hop magazines.
• My model is young black adult, which is suitable for mature teenagers and adults
because it’s a Hip-Hop magazine and the main audience are young adults, which is
why I used him as a part of my main images in my magazine. By having him on my
cover it would help show what magazine it is before they even read it.

8. Q 3 ) W H AT K I N D O F M E D I A
I N S T I T U T I O N M I G H T
D I S T R I B U T E Y O U R M E D I A
P R O D U C T A N D W H Y ?

9. WHAT IS A INSTITUTION?
• A institution is a company that owns more smaller companies, this is known as a
conglomerate. They are in charge of distribution, marketing and production products.
The reason why someone would go under a institution is because they need the help
to sale there magazines and to have order in there is business.
• A institution would help the company out by selling there product under there name
who could have a good name, which means you will be able to sell more product than
as a solo company.
• Overall, a institution does help a lot of small companies but they do gain a lot of
ownership of the company and takes some income but at the cost of there company
getting more exposure and sales.

10. EXAMPLES OF INSTITUTIONS
• BBC
• CNN
• SKY
• IPC
• BAUER
• BBFC

11. WHY I CHOSE BAUER MEDIA
• Firstly, Bauer media is one of the biggest European media company with over 600
magazine that range from different genres. I personally think that I and Bauer could
benefit more if we work together. Mayhem is a different style magazine and has a lot
of originality and stands out compared to the other 600 magazines they publish.
• Bauer media has published other magazines such as Empire, Take a Break, TV Choice,
Heat, Twist and many more successful magazines. Some of these smaller companies
have gained a huge fan base such as heat who has gained its own radio show. After
the success Bauer has brought to all these companies I think that my magazine would
benefit from this.

12. WHY I CHOSE BAUER MEDIA
• Bauer media is a cross media ownership and conglomerate, which means that they
have a lot to offer to companies in there institution and can help boost the audience
for the company. They have a lot of experience with dealing with hip hop magazines
and can help improve the image of Mayhem. There is a gap in the hip hop magazine
and I personally believe that my magazine could fill the gap.
• They have worked with a lot of music magazines and many other companies other
than magazine that gives them a lot of experience that no music magazine company
would experience without being a conglomerate. A lot of the media is changing
(Technological convergence ) and with the connections that Bauer media have they
could help evolve Mayhem.

13. Q 4 ) W H O W O U L D B E T H E
A U D I E N C E F O R Y O U R M E D I A
P R O D U C T ?

14. GENDER
• The main gender of my magazine is males. This is because during my questionnaire
7/10 people were males. Also the main target audience for most Hip-Hop magazines
are males because the topics are more suited to males rather than females who will
likely buy pop magazines.
• The age group that the magazine is targeted at is 16-30 as it covers new artist and old
ones that will interest the older audience. However, the magazine is mainly targeted at
the younger generation because they’re more likely to buy the magazine.

15. SOCIAL GROUP
• The Socio-Economic of my magazine is class E (Unemployed, students, pensioners,
casual workers.) because the magazine has a low cost, which means they’re more likely
to buy the magazine.
• The main story of my magazine is about young artist who breaks out of lower class
into to higher as the main goal is to inspire them to do better. Many people would
love to be famous and but don’t believe in trying hard but with examples in my
magazine, it shows its possible.
• Psychographic Profiling is targeted at mainstreamers as my magazine features all
mainstream artist and topics that keeps them up to date.

16. Q5) HOW DID YOU
ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR
TARGET AUDIENCE?

17. HOW DID I ATTRACT MY TARGET
AUDIENCE.
• There are four main features I used in my magazine to attract my target audience. I
had to use many stereotypes to allow my target audience to be attracted to my
magazine. I used fonts, images, colour and content to attract my audience as they are
all related.
• I also used many conventional features and layouts used in other magazines to help
my magazine has some structure that I could use to help. Everything that I did in my
magazine was used to attract my target audience.

18. FONTS
• Fonts do have a role in deciding my target audience as it needs to suit my magazine,
which means its needs to complement the uses of colour and layout of my magazine.
The fonts that I decided to use were Bebas Neue, SteelFish, Devil Breeze, Rounded
Elegance and Agra Axera. All these fonts suit my magazine and do work well together.
Some were used for only the masthead and some for the cover but with the style I
choose, they all work together and helps be attract my audience.

19. IMAGES
• The images used are the most important way that I could attract my audience as it will
cover my whole page and show what type of magazine it is. This was all done by the
pose, light and facial expressions.
• I personally think that I did this with my magazine because the facial expressions are
clear and serious, close up of the face were all conventional hip hop style features that
you would typically see in any other magazine.

20. COLOUR
• I had to pick 2 main colours because it make sure that the reader knew that it was the
same magazine, I had to have a house style. The two main colour I used was red as it a
very conventional colour used in Hip-Hop magazine, it also suited the genre and
worked with the white background.
• Also, using two colours main any other colour stand out. For example when I used
yellow you could tell that it was important since its not following the same style was
the others.

21. CONTENT
• The content in the magazine needs to suit the genre as the reader will buy the
magazine to see topics related to Hip-Hop. I did this by writing a interview with the
model in my magazine and talked about how he became famous similar to most
singers who gain popularity from YouTube.

22. Q 6 ) W H AT H A V E Y O U L E A R N T A B O U T
T E C H N O L O G I E S F R O M T H E P R O C E S S
O F C O N S T R U C T I N G T H I S M E D I A
P R O D U C T ?

23. TECHNOLOGY I USED
• I used a range of technology to help me produce my final product:
• Slide Share
• Survey Monkey
• Prezi
• Blogger
• PowerPoint
• Photoshop
• Digital camera

24. HOW I USED THEM
• I used blogger for my base of where I upload everything. A huge project like this I
needed a place to keep all my information safe, which is why I used blogger while
making my magazine. Blogger has an easy sorting system and allows you to keep track
of all the uploaded I do. This was a benefit for me because it made adding information
easy rather than getting all my information in a mix.
• Before I could make my magazine I had to make a survey to help see what people
would rather have/see, I used Survey monkey to help me do this. Rather than making
the survey myself, I used survey monkey because the layout of the website was very
easy to use. The best part about survey monkey is users can enter it online and survey
monkey would sort all the information and create data and charts to help me
understand the questionnaire.

25. HOW I USED THEM
• I used Slide Share to upload my PowerPoints to an online format. PowerPoints didn’t
work in blogger, however slide share has a embed option which I used to upload my
PowerPoints to my blogger. I Needed this because blogger doesn’t allow the options
that I used in PowerPoint and the only solution to uploading a PowerPoint file on
blogger was by using Slide Share.
• Prezi is another type of PowerPoint but has a different style to it. Personally I think that
Prezi has more options and is a lot more practical since you can control everything
such as the animation which I used to help convey my points. For basic use anyone can
use it since its free and is lot more up to date rather than PowerPoint.

26. HOW I USED THEM
• The digital camera was one of the most important features to my magazine because I
needed my images to be very clear and high quality. If the camera wasn’t good than
the overall image of my magazine would go down as the main images are low
resolution /pixelated/ blurry. If I wanted my magazine to look good I needed good
images taken by a digital camera rather than a smartphone.
• PowerPoint was the way I used to highlight and point out other magazines because
PowerPoint is easy to use it meant I could also make the style of my presentation look
good. PowerPoint allowed me to share my work on blogger by using slide share
because Prezi wouldn’t work for the type of work I was doing.

27. HOW I USED THEM
• Photoshop was the main software I used to create my magazine as it’s the best editing
software available. Photoshop has many feature which take a long time to learn. I used
many features that helped make my magazine stand out. I did this by enhancing the
brightness and shade to help make the magazine look to a high standard.
• As I hardly used Photoshop in the pass it was difficult for me to understand such as
complex software but once I understood the software it was easier for me to use the
program. I learnt how to use colour and layout to help the reader know follow where I
want them to look.

28. WHAT I’VE LEARNED FROM THESE
TECHNOLOGY
• I learn how to use all these programs to a high standard and to use them to help me
get what I really wanted for my magazine. My magazine would of looked a lot different
If I didn’t learn how to truly use them.

29. Q 7 ) L O O K I N G B A C K AT Y O U R
P R E L I M I N A R Y T A S K , W H AT D O Y O U
F E E L Y O U H A V E L E A R N T I N T H E
P R O G R E S S I O N F R O M I T T O T H E F U L L
P R O D U C T ?

30. WHAT WAS GOOD
• The magazine overall image I though was really good. It was clear to anyone that it
was a hip-hop magazine. I personally think the double page spread was the best as it
looked really nice and suited the house style.
• The fonts that I used were very clean and worked well with the front cover. The fonts
with the layer effect looked really good and standout.
• The layouts I used for all pages, the front cover was simple with some cover lines in
front of the model and masthead behind him. The contents page layout has all the
information on the right and worked well with the image I used on the right. The
layout on the double page I thought was the best as the interview was in neat and
well structured.

31. WHAT NEEDED TO BE IMPROVED
• First improvement would be on the content page. The image used was partly blurry,
which if I could improve it by taking a clear photo and possible change the layout to fill
the bottom as I feel it was missing something.
• Seconded improvement would be to add more cover line on the front page. There
were some spot which I wanted to add more cover lines but didn’t work, however I
slightly changed the image I used than maybe it would of worked.
• Final improvement would be to add more on the double page spread. The way I
designed it, it had 1 image on the left page and a interview on the right page. I think
the right side was perfect but the left was a bit boring and the image wasn’t clear
either as it has some blur to it.

32. WHAT I LEARNT
• I learnt how to use many software's and learnt about the importance of how to make a
magazine.
• Before taking this course I thought designers would just put images and text together
until it looked good. However, I learnt that there is a lot more to it than. There is a lot
of research that you need to do such as the target audience, house style, primary
research and what is readers want (what will sell).
• I personally think I made a successful magazine because all the research that I did and
learned helped me understand the basic of making a magazine and I used that skills
and generic codes and convention to make it.

33. WHAT I LEARNT
• I enjoyed making the magazine the most as it was the most practical part and I had no
limitations on what I could do. Photoshop has many tools, which are very easy to
understand. Photoshop is very complex but you can learn the basic very fast.
• I also learnt how to use very useful programs that will help me in the feature. Prezi is a
very popular presentation site now as it as very unique style unlike PowerPoint.
Photoshop is a industry standard software, which would help any future job that
requires graphic skills.
• Overall, the whole experience has been beneficial and has improve my it skills as I
learnt several sites to help me with anything I need.