1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From my magazine research I picked out key features that I wanted to make sure I included in my front cover, contents and double page spread that would help to make my music magazine appeal to its target audience. I also picked out easy use features that I thought would work well in my magazine to make it easy reading and easy to understand. For the front cover I noticed that all the magazines I had studied had big bold writing for their title that generally was the biggest writing on the page. Also it was based at the top of the magazines in its lay out. So for my front cover I decided to put the title and the top and make it big on the page so it would stand out to help make my magazine identifiable when amongst others on a shelf.
Other things that I noticed from my research was that when the front covers had free gifts inside the writing was always surrounded by a bubble or put in the top left hand corner.
Also the code bar was always positioned in the bottom right hand corner. So I made sure that I put mine in the bottom right hand corner to draw as little attention to it as possible as it is the least important thing on the page.
For my contents I thought that it would be a good idea to put in a scaled down version of the main story’s double page spread like they did in Kerrang’s contents.
As I had allot to put in my contents I decided that I would only use two colours to make it look less busy like in MixMag, however the two colours I chose I tried to aim at both sexes (unlike in MixMag) to maximise sales. Another thing included in my contents was a variety of ways of putting across the content. For example I made a big picture and put a number on it with a little bit of text (taken from mixmag,) also I did the standard putting writing next to the page number, then I did the writing next to a page number with a picture underneath to further entice the reader (taken from kerrang.) the final main thing that I included in my contents was a quote from the editor (taken from MixMag.) I thought that this was a really good idea as the contents is at the front of the magazine and it is a good feature to make the reader want to carry on reading the magazine especially if they are a new time buyer of it.
For my double page spread the two main features that i made sure i included was one- that i stated a question in summarising the interview. This is in order to entice the reader into reading the interview to find out the answer to the question asked in the summery (taken from NME.) The second main feature was that i wanted to include the date of the issue and name of the magazine next to the page number in order to reinforce the magazines identity (taken from NME.)
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is based on a theme of all the latest goings on in the world of music. My magazine is aimed at a young target audience aged 16 to 30 for both sexes. I have gone about making my magazine appealing to my target audience by first choosing colours that go together well and appeal to both sexes. As NME is a magazine based at both sexes I studied that to see what features I should include in mine to help it appeal to both genders. I decided to put a young man and women on the front cover to immediately attract in the attention of a young audience as it is the biggest object on the page. The content of my magazine is all about the new things that are out and going on in the music world. It has a variety of artists and stories to further expand my target audience and to attract in the young reader. Almost like there is a section for every one. For my caption on the contents for the main story I chose a slogan that a young audience could relate to e.g. friendships.
3. What kinds of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Music shops like HMV would sell my magazine because half of HMV’s stock is music related, consisting of all the latest music and every genre. As HMV sells most types of media i think my magazine would fit in well around the music section next to the top selling albums. I think this because my magazine is all about new music and albums. My magazine could also be sold in newsagents amongst the magazine section as it has a variety of content e.g gossip, latest news and album/single releases. This would make it a good contender amongst the other magazines on the shelf.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
My magazine is aimed at a young target audience aged 16 to 30 for both sexes. I have tried to do it so that it is aimed at a range of people by adding in all genres of music. I have done this to further maximise the profits from the magazine sales.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
This project has helped me to use a camera well in order to take a good effective photo that stands out on the page. I have learnt how to do close ups, tilts, zooms and effect editing. It has also helped me learn how to edit photos effectively on Microsoft picture manager to enhance their presents on the page and make them come across in the way I imagined them to. Through out this project i chose to make my contents, front cover and double page spread on publisher so this project has also helped me to extend my knowledge of publisher. The final thing that this project has taught me to do is use the internet to process my work. The internet site i chose to use was blogger.com. I didn’t really like using blogger though because what ever I told it to do, a few seconds later when I previewed my work it had changed it all around. So i wasted allot of time to having to go back over all my work to make it readable and put across in the way i wanted it to be. Also every time i added in a picture it wouldn’t go where i wanted it to go so i had to spend ages sorting it all as it knocks every thing else on the post out of place. As i have added in allot of picture i began to find this very annoying and time consuming.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have developed a further knowledge of picture editing and publisher. This skill has helped me to better my front cover and contents from my original preliminary of it. I have also learnt through my research how to use colours, layout and special features to further enhance the image of the magazine. Examples of this are using minimal colours to prevent the layout from looking to busy. Also adding in captions such as there is a free object in side and making it stand out on the page to entice the reader into looking inside the magazine. Another thing i have learnt to do is to relate the writing with the pictures in order to make each page look effective- especially on my double page spread.
