Question seven.

7:Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task (The School Magazine Task), What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To Full Product

I have learnt a lot since creating my college magazine. I learnt how to download different fonts from the internet which I didn't know how to do before, this helps a lot as you can get a lot of different types of font which help to make my magazine look more proffesional, whereas I didn't know how to do this whilst making my college magazine, so I just had to use the existing fonts already stored onto my laptop. I also learnt how to use adobe photoshop which help to create more profesional looking images, I previously did not know how to use photoshop, so used a more simplier photo editing programme for my college magazine called Piczo, however you could do a lot more on photoshop than you go on piczo, so it made the images look better. I also learnt how to make certain parts of the image transparent so I could place it on another images without that part obstructing the view. I have learnt more about the conventions of magazines by the time it came to creating my music one, so my music magazine looks more like you would expect a magazine to look than my college magazine did.

Question six.

6:What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process of Constructing This Product

I have used various different types of technology to complete my media magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. These different technologies and software include:

1. A digital camera, I used this to take all of my photographs for my media magazine, I then took the memory card out of my camera and put it in the laptop to store my images on.

2. Memory stick, I used this to transfer any information on it between different computers, such as my own laptop and college compters.

3. Dell laptop, this was the main computer that I used throughout creating my magazine, I was able to do everything on this and store all of my information on it, however I also used the computers in college when I was not in my home.

4. Microsoft powerpoint, I used this to create mainly my mock-ups on, I also used this to help me create my final versions of my front cover and contents page.

5. Microsoft word, I used this to write out all my notes from my research on, for example, I analysed the already existing magazines on Microsoft Word before putting it on my blog.

6. Microsoft publisher, I used this to create my double page spread and parts of my front cover and contents page.

7. Adobe photoshop, this was used to edit my images that I took for my magazine, like to crop bits out of the image that I do not need, or by changing the lighting on my image to suit its need for, such as making a photograph black and white.

8. Internet, I used this mainly to conduct my research on.

9. Blogger, I used this to keep my blog on and to update it saying what I have done and in what order I have done it in.

By using these different technologies a lot it has enabled me to learn to use them better; I had never used blogger at all before, or used microsoft publisher or adobe photoshop properly, so by having to use them a lot during the making of my magazine, it has taught me how to use them and I can now use all of these without help, such as I now know how to set up and complete a blog.

Question five.

5:How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience

My audience would get attracted to my magazine by the front cover of the magazine, as it has a list of bands on the front then it will attract my target audience of teenagers and young adults as my targeted social group is of those who listen to the type of music on my magazine. However, it also shows a little bit of different types of music, like my main story solo singer, this helps to attract a more wider audience. By having a female singer on the front and male band names it helps to attract both male and female, also the bands I have in my magazine are not all young bands so it won't only attract young people.

Question four.

4: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product

The target audience for my magazine would be both male and female music loving people, generally between the ages of 16 to 22. The image on the front of my magazine is of a female, however this is just one issue, the colours I have used on it do not favour neither males nor females and the music in it is relevant to both males and females. The language inside my magazine and the layout suggests that it is for younger people, as in teenagers and young adults. The target audience of my magazine will be interested in rock and indie music and will be interested in everything to do with music, such as the bands, concerts, reviews, when the next albums are out, etc...

Question three.

3: What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

I think that the media institution Bauer would be the best to distribute my media magazine. I think this would be the best media institution for this as it reaches a large amount of people, roughly about 20 million and operates in 15 countries worldwide meaning it would get to a lot of people. Bauer already distributes music magazines such a Q and Kerrang, which are a similar type of magazine to the one I will be distributing, so I know that they would be able to distribute it well as both Q and Kerrang are big selling magazines. Also if I used a different institution these magazines could become rivals and have competition between which sells the best, however as they are not in different ones instead of being rivals, they can help each other to sell.

Question two.

2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine represents both female and males who listen to that type of music by the type of music I have shown in the magazine and also the colours that I have used throughout my magazine represent a more younger social group, like teenagers and young adults. My magazine isn't too extreme in anything that it contains in it, also the image that I have used on the front of the magazine is pretty normal looking, suggesting also that it just represents normal young people who are into their music.

Question one.

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


Whilst creating my music magazines front cover, contents page and double page spread, I conducted research on other popular music magazines in order to get a sense of the conventions of them. The two main colours in used throughout the whole of my magazine was black and red, these two colours both symbolise power and danger, which a rock magazine always has an element of. Also, these colours are bold and stand out, which most rock/indie magazines do. I used bold font as it would be easiest to see and all of the magazines that I looked at had bold, simple font, however the mast head uses a different font as it is the title of the magazine and the audience would identify my magazine by the mast head font. The mast head is on a photograph of a guitar nec that I took, one of the main conventions that you would see in a rock/indie magazine would be a guitar, so I have used this and placed it on my front cover and all throughout my magazine. My main image is of my singer holding a guitar, so again I have a guitar on my front cover, I chose to take my photograph like this as ona  lot of the music magazine I looked at the main image was of a band/singer, usually posing, not performing, but still somehow showing that they are singers, so by my model holding a guitar and standing infront of a graffitied wall it suggests that she is a singer and suggests what sort of singer she is, her instrument and where she is standing suggests she is a rock singer, however her clothes and body language suggest more of a indie singer. I created my model like this as she was previously in a rock band, however she split up from them and went solo, changing her image and music style slightly to a more toned down style, e.g. indie. In my double-page spread I created an interview with 'Katie', this follows the conventions of a music magazine as 'Katie' is my model on the front cover and all the magazines that I looked at had a main story in the magazine about the main image on the front page, so I created the double page spread about her, however this challenged the conventions of a rock magazine as I have created the main story on a single female singer/guitarist, as all of the magazines I looked at focused their main article on single guy singers or a band full of guys. This will interest the audience into buying it as it is something different, so will stand out more and most likely introduce them to a new type of music. I used words such as 'haha', and 'phew' in my interview as in magazines like this one the interviews are usually chatty and informal, but whilst getting information at the same time, so I created my interview like them ones. Also, on the front of the magazine I used words such as 'plus' and 'win' as these are what are expected on magazines. The double page spread continues with my theme colours and so does the contents page. In contents pages that I have seen, they have images them and there is always something about a concert review, so I used this and got a photograph of one of the concerts that I have been to and used this image on my contents page. My magazine does have a lot of the conventions of magazines, however I have also made it my own by challenging the conventions as well.

Final Double Page Spread

Final Contents Page

Final Front Cover

Front cover - Different Images

Here I put together my detailed mock-up with my main photographs that I had taken. I prefer the third image, as even though my model is not meant to be the typical 'rocker', she still looks like she has a 'rocker' side to her, from her body language and the way she is stood up by all the graffiti, leaning on the wall. The guitar on all three of these images help to clearly show that my model is a singer and a musician. Now I know that I like this image the best, I will put my other images on, and change the layout a bit.

Photographs

These are just a few of the photographs I took for my final front cover and double page spread. I was unable to get to the main location where I wanted to take the photographs, in the cave, due to the tide being in, however, I managed to get to all the other places.

Double Page Spread - Detailed Mock Up

Here is my more detailed mock up version of my double page spread, with photographs from the internet. I looked at a few different double page spreads and based this one on a few of them that I saw included my two research double page spreads. I kept with my colour scheme again, and kept the same fonts that I have been using throughout. On my final version I might change the layout a little bit, and will have to move a few things around as my real image will be different to this one. I have created an interview in this mock-up version which I will be using for my final one as well.

I created this mock up of my double page spread. The dotted lines represent the centre. On this mock-up I have used more space for images than for the actual text as my two research double page spread shows. I have the mast head at the top so it is nice and easy to see, and I have the text in two different places, so that it is not just one big block of writing, it is seperated out.
If you click on this image, it shows the proper one which isn't as dark and easier to see.

Double Page Spread - Research Continued

This double page spread from an issue of NME again takes up most of the space with an image, the image takes up a whole page, the title of this page also takes up a lot of room, as it covers over two thirds of the page. The font of this is in big bold letters, in black boxes, this makes it stand out a lot more and makes it more interesting to look at. It uses the colour scheme of red, black and white again, this must be a common colour scheme for this type of magazine. The girls clothes that she is wearing is mainly reds whites and blacks which all go with the scheme, she is looking directly at the camera, like she is looking out towards the buyer of the magazine, this would make the magazine seem a bit more personal to each person, as in she is talking directly to you as a buyer. The background of this double page spread is just plain white, this is effective as it makes you look at the other things such as the image and text, the white backgrounds suggests that she is innocent, however the black and red text and clothing suggests that she is not as innocent as she makes out to be. The mast head supports this with the words 'attention seeker' and 'honest'.There is very little text on this page, as again their target audience is teens and young adults, who genuinely have the sterotype of not reading much and having a short attention spam, which is why the images are so big as its much more interesting to look at. Lily Allens name does not appear on the mast head at all, because the magazine persumes that its audience would know who she was, however, her name is then highlighted in red, its highlighted again because again like the last magazine, red usually means something important.

Double Page Spread - Research

Before creating my double page spread I again researched double page spreads by looking at and analysing one from Kerrang and from NME. This double page spread from an issue of Kerrang has a whole page as just one image, with just a little text in the corner, and a small image in the bottom corner. The image is in black and white, however they have tints of red in it, which goes with their theme colour for this as their text is red and white on a black background. There is no other colour on this page apart from red, black and white, which makes the colour scheme stand out even more. There is not a whole lot of text on this double page spread, it mainly consists of images, as there more interesting to the eye. The text that there is, is surronded by images, which makes it look more appealing to read, and because there isn't too much text the reader will most probably read it, as their target audience would be teenagers to young adults, and stereotypically they don't like to read a lot. The 'world exclusive' makes you want to read it more, as you won't see this anywhere else other than this magazine. It is in a red box as red automatically draws in your attention, as danger signs or road signs are red, so it genuinely means something important. From the images we can see that this double page spread is about a concert, from the way he is holding the microphone to the way his expression is on his face with his mouth open. We can also tell this will be about MCR because of the images and the text at the top, the magazine has shortened the word My Chemical Romance down to MCR because they will persume that all their readers will automatically know that, that is what it means. On the right hand side is a column with MCR tracks in it, this is a type of advertising as it advertises there newest songs so people can go and download/buy them. The text is in a box which is white, this on the black background clashes, and stands out a lot, so therefore automatically drawing the eye to it.

Contents Page - Detailed Mock Up

I created a more detailed mock-up of what I would like my contents page to look like, again for this one I used images from the internet, however I will be taking my own photographs for my final version. I carried on the theme of red, black and white, and also carried on the theme of having the guitar neck. I've created an editors letter on the left, and used quite a big space at the top for an image, which would be one of the stories in the magazine. However, this image has posted quite dark, if you click on it you can them see the proper image.

Contents - Mock Up

I created a mock-up for my contents page. In this mock-up it shows that I have pretty much split the page in half, with a big image at the top of the page, this is because like the Kerrang magazine I looked at it mainly consisted of images, with I thought was more interesting, so I am going to do that, and I have also seen a few magazines with a similar design.

Contents Page - Research Continued

The contents page for NME has a lot more text on it, and much less images, it also does not use the word 'contents', however it is still very clear to the audience that it is a contents page from the bold text at the top 'NME THIS WEEK", which clearly shows that it is a contents page. The same font that is used fot the mast head 'NME' is used for it in the contents page as well, this happens throughout the whole of the magazine so that you never forget which magazine you are reading. The list of what is in the magazine is again on the right hand side of the page, and again it used its theme colours, which is this magazine are red, black and white.. the same theme colours I want in mine. The red, black and white in the magazine do help to suggest what sort of genre music will be in it. At the bottom it has an advertisement, but it is an advertisement for an offer on its own magazine. Its takes up a good amount of space, and as it is in a solid black box on a white background it automatically catches the eyes attention. The band index on the left hand side helps makes the magazine appeal to a wider range of the audience as even if the band/singer that one particular person like isn't one of the main stories, then it may still have a little section about it. In the centre of the page is a little paragraph of information about one story with a couple of images to go with it, this may attract the audience if they are just flicking through the contents page in the shop, and may persuade them to go and buy it so that they can read more about it in the magazine. 

Contents Page - Research

I then moved on to researching a couple of exisiting music magazines contents pages. Again, I looked at both Kerrang and NME, as they are a similar genre and style to the type of magazine that I would like to create. The contents pages for this Kerrang magazine is only about one third text, whereas the other two-thirds are taken up by images. All of the images refer to the text that is underneath them, the buyers can see from these images without looking at the text what will be on that page. The colour scheme on the front of this magazine would of been black and yellow, as these colours have clearly been carried through to the contents page. The colours yellow and black contrast each other, so therefore it makes them stand out a lot more. The text 'contents' is in the top right, this is due to the list of stories in this magazine is on the right, whereas the images are on the left. As we read from left to right the audience will come across the images before the text, this is because images are more interesting for the eye, and by seeing these images, it may make them want to read the text to see what else is in the magazine. In the top left hand corner is an editors letter, this is found in a lot of magazines, therefore has given me an idea of putting an editors letter in the contents page.