Evaluation question one.

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

Whilst designing and creating my music magazine, I had to abide by the conventions of real media music magazines, in order to make mine believable. Therefore before designing my music magazine, I analysed several front covers, double page spreads and contents pages in order to familiarise myself with the convention so it looked like a professional item and stands out on a magazine shelf in a shop. The first convention I followed would be the size of my pages, as most front page covers are an A4 size portray page using the format of width 21 cm and height 27.9 cm.

As I analysised different front page covers, I noticed they all use mastheads, taglines and a main image. Therefore I decided to use all these on my front cover too. However I had to do a lot of planning to make sure I was going to use them in an effective way to attract an audience to buy my magazine. Firstly I had to decide on a target audience so I could pick a genre for my magazine and make sure the conventions fitted with the genre and target audience I am aiming them at. However I had some trouble with this as originally as I was going to do ‘Hip Pop’ genre but the genre ‘Hip pop’ is mostly dominated by young black artists and I didn’t have any models that fitted that convention well. Therefore I decided to make my music magazine a mixed genre one like ‘NME’ as it would make the target audience wider, increase sales and appeal to almost anyone, this could be seen as unconventional because most magazines have a small target audience in mind for their product. To decide on a masthead for my music magazine I brainstormed a few names that I thought associated well with music or added a personal touch to my music magazine:
• Blast- associates with the sound of music.
• Pump- associates with the sound of music.
• Rave- a place where music is played.
• M- similarly to ‘Q’ just a one word letter that stands for music and also my name Miranda.
• MVP- similarly to ‘Nme’ but it stands for my initials.
• Flow- associated with music.
• Beat- associated with music.
• Remix- associated with music.
• Juke Box- something that is used to play music.
• Popular - the long name for pop music before it was shortened and also the fact its well known.
• Rhythm- associated with the sound of music.
All of these followed conventions as M is similar to Q, NME is similar to MVP and flow, beat and remix etc are similar to vibe. However I decided to pick Rhythm as I thought it conveyed the wide open genre of my magazine well and it also associated with all types of music, whereas Rave or Blast will be more associated with dance music and Remix or Beat more Hip pop music.
Then I had to pick a headline however I had to put a lot of thought into it, as this along with the main image would be the main attraction of my front cover. So I decided to analyse other music magazines and look at some headlines I thought grabbed my attention, one of my main inspirations was from Vibe magazine as it had a suggestively sexy picture of Beyonce with the headline “Beyonce strips down”, I particularly liked this as I thought it made me as the reader curious as to what she is striping down for, the image also related to the picture well. Therefore I made a list of stories I could use and decided to connect my front cover story to my double page spread story. Therefore I researched into this and the most conventional way of doing it is to do an interview on the double page spread that connects to the person on the front. Therefore I needed to think of a headline that would attract the audience to want to read the interview inside. These were a few of my ideas:
• ‘name of celeb’ reveals all.
• ‘name of celeb’ bares all.
• ‘name of celeb’ uncovered.
• Good girl, gone bad.
After a long thought process, I decided to choose “good girl, gone bad” as my main headline as it will make the audience curious as to how she has turn bad and make them want to buy the magazine to read inside. To accompany the main headline I have used a smaller headline saying “Chanel reveals all” to make it clear to the reader that there is an interview inside and also add to the curiosity of what she will be revealing inside to make the audience want to buy my magazine. Using to headlines, one main and the other a sub headline could be seen as unconventional as there is normally only one headline on most of the magazines I analysed.
After picking my headline I needed to capture a picture that would accompany it, as it is very unconventional where a headline does not relate to the image on the front. I choose my model wisely as I was going for a good girl, who is turning bad look. In order to portray a good girl, gone bad look I took an image where her face was at a slight angle, so I could darken one side of the image to symbolise her going over to the bad side. I thought this would make a unusual front cover image therefore it will grab the reader’s attention.
Along with the main story I also had to think of other taglines of other articles my magazine will contain as taglines are a big convention of not only music magazines but magazines in general, as if the reader isn’t interested in the main storyline a tagline may grab their attention instead. Here are some of the ones I thought of during my first planning stages:
•Bee's Hot Tours.
•Justin's Favourite Pick Up Lines.
•Summer Swagger.
•The ultimate summer playlist.
•Lil Hoods battle!
I used a few of these taglines however during the first stages of my planning, I originally planned to do a Hip pop magazine, so I had to alter a few of the names and change the storylines slightly in order for them to fit in with my final magazine.
After organising some of the bigger conventional things on a front cover, I started to analyse the smaller things that every music magazine contained. I found that every magazine contains an issue date and barcode of which it is normally of a small size in the bottom corner of a page. As in order to sell a magazine in a big industry e.g. Tesco you will need a barcode to process it through the till. Also barcode are convetionally white with black contrasting against them so they are read by the till.
Therefore I contained both of these conventions in mine, along with a website as many big publishing brands are now beginning to have online websites of the magazines or newspapers.
Although I stuck to most of the conventions, I challenged the conventions by not using a pug on my front cover but my double page spread instead.The reason I did not use a pug is because I feel as though it makes the front cover look crowded and messy.

Evaluation Question two.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In order for my music magazine to target a particular social group, I needed to decide on a particular target audience so I could design my magazine to fit around that particular social group. However i tried to target a large audience by doing a mixed genre magazine as I represented age, sexual orientation and ethnicity. Although you target a particular social group, all music can be enjoyed by anyone therefore I tried not to stereotype as the music magazine industry appeals to a wide market.
To make my magazine appeal to all, I used neutral colours of black and white, as these create a powerful contrast together along with red, as this is a unisex colour that will appeal to all ages and break up the black and white to make the colour scheme stand out.

As I proved in my questionnaire the audience likes a colour scheme that stands out as it attracts their attention. The house colour s of white, red and black is the main colour theme throughout my magazine as it keeps the magazine looking simple but effective and will also represent my magazine so that when a reader buys a copy of my magazine they can easily identify it. Also, the image on my front cover represents a large social group as it is an image of an attractive female artist. Therefore it will grab the attention of a large proportion from, young girls, to teenage girls and females as they may aspire the singer or like her music, but it will also appeal to teenage boys and men as she is very attractive and the headline could get them curious as to how she has turn bad, a perfect example of this today may be Rhianna, Beyonce or Lady Gaga featuring on the front page of a music magazine. The language is easily readable and non-complex therefore it can be read by all ages that are capable of reading, this also keeps the audience large as if I was to use complex words throughout it may not appeal to some of the younger generation, whereas standard English with very few complex words will appeal to all ages, genders and ethnicity. The font I consistently used throughout was Ariel and Ariel black for some of the key information as I wanted the font to be kept simple but stylish as sometimes crazy fonts can make it seem as though its targeting a younger age and also make the lettering harder to read, however I did use some fun lettering on my double page spread to emphasis the fun wording as I wanted the interview to pick up on the act the interview was a fun interview. Finally, I think I achieved targeting a large group as I made sure my magazine would appeal to all different social groups.

Evaluation Question three.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

When creating a new magazine it is important to make sure you know where your target audience will buy your magazine from and where you would like it to be distributed. The media institution that may distribute my product would be newsagents or large stores like Tesco, WHSmith and Asda etc as all of these stores sell music magazines, however as they already sell them they may not want to stock anymore as music magazines do not sell as well as some of the leading fashion magazines like ‘Heat’ or ‘Ok’. Also the big publishing companies may publish it as they also publish other media products like newspapers, other magazines and books etc. As my magazine is a product that is print based, it will need a company that can print it on to materials to make the magazine. For example ‘IPC Media’ are a big institution that may distribute my product as they also publish ‘NME’ and ‘NME’ is also a mixed genre magazine like mine. However as they are already publishing a widely recognised mixed genre magazine they may not risk publishing another. Another publishing company that may publish my music magazine is BBC magazine, as they sell a variety of music magazines already, their main one being Top of the Pops, so they may want to publish a mixed genre one on instead of one that just targets one genre. However as they have already got Top of the Pops widely recognised they may not want to compete against other music magazines to try and get my magazine recognised too.

Evaluation question four.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

When creating my music magazine i tried to make my target audience large, therefore I targeted boys, girls, males and females from the age of around 16-35. My target audience would like most types of music, however dominantly RnB, Hip hop and Pop because this is what my music magazine is dominantly filled with, with a few exceptions to rock band tag lines. My product uses specific conventions and features to attract and appeal to my target audience, like catchy headlines, taglines and use of colour and vibrant images. Although my typical target audience analysis shows the traits of a conventional teenage reader it is not specifically aimed at a certain age group or gender. Not aiming my magazine at a specific gender or age will make my audience larger therefore it will sell more magazines and becoming more widely recognised. To confirm I aimed my product at my target audience of 16-35, I showed my final products to people these ages and my feedback was very positive an example of this would be a teenage boy of the age 17 said he would read this sort of genre magazine but also a women of the age 34 also said this is the type of magazine she would read too, this just confirms my varied target audience. 

The pictures above are examples of how much my target audience varies.

Evaluation question five.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

For my music magazine I tried to include several different things that would attract and address an audience. Therefore I tried to make my magazine unique so I did a mixed genre magazine so it would appeal to a larger audience as if it was just pop it would only address people that like pop music, however my magazine appeals to anyone that likes indie, pop, RnB or hip pop music.
In order to attract attention to my magazine I tried to make my front cover eye catching as in my questionnaire results many people conveyed that the front cover was the first thing they noticed when flicking through a magazine. To make my front cover stand out I used a simple but vibrant colour theme of white, black and red, as my questionnaire results conveyed people like a vibrant colour theme.
My layout is simple however it is unusual as most conventional music magazines have the main image in the centre, however I choose to tilt my main image at an angle to the side to represent one half of her has turn bad. By using a celebrity that is well known would attract the readers as they are familiar with her good nature, therefore to find out she is going bad would make them curious and want to read the article. The lettering is all in the same font making the page look sophisticated, professional and not too crazy, although over crowded front pages may attract the eye they can look tacky and target towards a younger audience.
I think the style of my media product addresses a large market because it has so many different genres; it is unisex and also very varied.
The main colours I used for my front cover are my house colours, which means I used the same colours throughout the contents and double page spread.
For my contents page I used a plain white background to keep make everything placed on it will stand out to the audience. I used a black background to highlight the page and put the words features and regulars in a black box as these two words are key information to what the magazine contains, therefore it addresses the audience and makes it easy to identify things. I also used bold red lines to separate the stories so it is easy for the audience to understand what pages the articles are on. My pictures are all very colourful therefore they will immediately attract the audience to take an interest in them and by adding a colourful pug will draw in attention as it stands out and it’s an expensive give away, which will encourage the audience to buy the magazine even more. My contents page looks very full however it will persuade the audience to purchase it as they can seem by the contents page they are getting their money’s worth.
For my double page spread I made it original as I used a main image that blended in the background making the editing look professional but also gives an impression of her dark side. The interview is very visible and there is not too much text all cramped on the page, as too much text can put a reader off and also make it long dull and boring. The main headline also addresses the audience as it contrasts with the background and the words love and bad stand out to grab their attention as they are both in red whilst the rest of the headline is in white and they are also of a totally different font to the rest of the magazine pages. Overall all the pages are readable, fun and would attract the audience as they all stand out in a unique way, it would target and adress a large audience as even if you didn't like RnB music but you liked the indie artist on the front they would still purchase the magazine.

Evaluation question six.

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

Throughout the process of making my final products, I feel as though I have learnt a huge amount about different technology and how to use it in order to get the best results from it.
The first piece of technology I used was my Sony Cybershot 12.1megapixel camera, as I used it to take all my photographs for my final pieces. As I brought the camera brand new it took a lot of time getting used to the different settings on it and when to use a certain setting or lighting in order to get the best effect. However for my preliminary task I used a different camera which only contained 8 megapixels, this meant that the photo quality and resolution was a better by 4 megapixels.

However during the main production of my product I used a technology software programme called Photoshop in order to manipulate all my images and create my three final pieces. Throughout the process I learnt a lot about Photoshop as I had very little experience with it in the past. I learnt how many of the features worked and how to use them appropriately. The first feature I mastered was the layering as every time you added something new to your work you had to do a new designated layer of which you can go back and edit any time without affecting any other surrounding images or text you may also have on the page. Layers are very useful as you can easily move them around, turn them on and off and also delete them without deleting anything else on your work. The one thing I found particularly hard about layers is that you have to move which ever layer you want to be the dominant one on top e.g. if you want a picture over the top of your masthead you have to put the picture layer above the masthead layer, this can be difficult sometimes when you have many different layers. I also learnt how to use the gradient tool as I used this tool in order to drag the black background across the page to darken one side of my models face slightly as I wanted to portray her as turning bad. Furthermore I used the dodge and burn tool, I used the burn tool to darken one side of her face with along with some of the patches I wanted to darken more and the dodge tool to lighten the other half of her face and her eyes. These two tools came in great use as they highlighted the lights and dark to create great contrast. Another tool that was useful was the magic wand tool as I used this tool to create my film strip on my double page spread. I put all the different photographs on different layers, I then placed the film strip in a layer on top and clicked inside the empty spaces of the film strip with the magic wand and my photos appeared behind the film strip to create a very eye catching photo collection of my model. Another feature I found useful was the toolbox as you could change the brightness, saturation, size, shape and numerous more things of the image. Finally I used the crop tool often in order to crop pictures to fit the space I had to use or to get rid of a background in the back of the photo that I did not want there and also the Lasso tool to cut something out. I also learnt basic skills like how to fill things with colour via the filling bucket, how to add text, change the colour, size and font of the text and move things around using the drag tool.

Although these were the two main technology products I used to create my products I also used Mac computers to do the work on, the internet to search and analysis other music magazines and finally a USB to save all my work on just in case the computer crashed or any technical errors were raised.

Evaluation question seven.

When I look back at my preliminary task I feel as though I have learnt a hug amount about magazine conventions and Photoshop. The knowledge I have about magazine conventions now could be due to the fact I had to analyse in depth three front covers, three double page spreads and contents pages of existing music magazines. Doing this small activity of research and analysing contributed greatly to my final product, as I learnt a lot about the conventions, how I could play with conventions and also how to market my target audience.

Above is my preliminary work with my final work alongside it, when I compare them both I can see a great change as my ability to use Photoshop has grown and my knowledge has made me wiser.My preliminary demonstrates this as it was all very bland, untidy and dull whereas my final front cover is sophisticated and eye catching. By comparing the two you can see my ability has maximized greatly as my capability of Photoshop has grown. My preliminary demonstrates this as it was all very bland, untidy and dull whereas my final front cover is sophisticated and eye catching. As you can see, I learnt a lot about the layout of magazines and what conventionally goes where and why e.g. the barcode normally goes in the bottom corner. When you compare the both you can see the difference in colour scheme as when I analysed other music magazines I noticed they tend to use contrasting colours to make the magazine stand out, whereas for my preliminary I used to different shades of blue, which didn’t work as well because it looks plain and unattractive. Also, I realised that font is vital because it needs to be clear and easily visible for the audience to read, therefore I decided to use strong contrasting colours e.g. white font on a black background and black writing on a red background, my reasons for doing this is too make the whole page eye catching but also emphasises the writing, making it clearly visible to the reader. But on the other hand my preliminary task used all white writing, which would not attract the readers as there’s no contrast and the front page writing just looks like long paragraphs of writing which may put the reader of as this is very unconventional and as my questionnaire results prove many prefer to look at picture rather than huge paragraphs of text.
My preliminary contents is very unalike my final contents, as it is plain, repetitive and very unconventional as when I research contents pages I realised they are normally very busy, fun and informative. Therefore my final contents uses the conventions well, as it highlights the main stories, gives the reader a good indication of what’s inside and looks fun but informative, these are all very important conventions of a contents page as a contents page is used to inform the reader. Likewise to my front cover I used my house colours for the contents page, I did this on both preliminary and my final, however I feel I used my colour scheme to its full potential on my final contents page, as it all blends in very well, grabs people’s attention and looks sophisticated. Finally the text is all very readable as the majority of it is in black, the whole way through my magazine I used Ariel or Ariel black to keep my magazine looking stylish rather than too busy or over the top as it would look like a kid’s magazine. Also sticking to the same fonts and house colours lets the audience establish what magazine it is easily.
Overall, in the process of making my three final products, I have learnt many things, from how to use my camera to its full advantage to take a good photo to how to manipulate images via Photoshop. You can clearly see this in my preliminary pieces and my final pieces as the image on my preliminary front cover is all distorted and placed very badly, however the image on my front cover has been edited in such a clever way it blends in with the white of my text, contrasts with the background and also highlights the effect I was aiming to convey, a good girl gone bad. Also, on my final contents page I took a variety of different pictures, in different lighting e.g. a spotlight and natural sunlight, so that my pictures would vary in poses, dimension and effect as I wanted to convey a mixed genre therefore I took different pictures using different mis-en-scene to highlight the different genres. However for my preliminary task I took two photos for my contents page, they were both shot outside so they both have similar lighting and give of a similar effect, they are both also long shots which is very boring for a reader. Therefore for my final contents page I took a whole body image, a close up and also a medium shot as this added variety to all the pictures along with my models different facial expressions as their different facial expressions match the story e.g. Justin’s summer time secret’s and my model is placing his finger against his lips as though his hiding a secret or telling the audience to be quiet about something, this will raise curiosity as to what he wants them to be quiet about therefore many readers will read that article.