7. Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

School magazine

School magazine

Music magazine

Music magazine



Music magazine

As I joined the media course around 6 weeks late I did not receive as much guidence on my school magazine compared to with my music magazine. I feel that despite the fact I had not managed to do much research or planning that the school magazine had actually turned out relatively well. It was clear and easy to read but very plain and not very eyecatching.
I feel that I have done my very best with my music magazine in that I researched and planned in a lot of detail and this has payed of a lot. I feel that the questionnaires that I had produced were very benifitial in that all the people who answered them were in my target audience age range therefore all the improvements I was informed to make really made a difference.
In the process of creating my school magazine I had not used photoshop. I used powerpoint, therefore my outcome was not as good. Therefore my knowledge of photoshop has increased incredibly. Also for my school magazine I had only used my phone camera for the picture on my front cover. On my final music magazine I used the nikon d50 which is well known for being an effective camera.

6. What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

I have done the majority of my magazine on this dell inspiration netbook.

(never used before)

I have used blogger to  post all of my ideas and creations on. This is a way of showing my research and planning towards my final magazine.

(never used before)

I have used prezi as a way of showing my research towards my magazine. This has helped me to show my ideas clearly and in an organised fashion.

I have used microsoft powerpoint to create slide shows as a way of showing my research.

(never used before)

I then used slideshare to upload the video onto my blog.

(never used before)

I used survey monkey as a way of creating questionnaires for people to fill in to help me understand there needs and see if any improvements needed to be made to my magazine.

I actually used facebook as a way of sending the questionnaire to people. I also used facebook to interview Tallis Morris on as we couldn't meet at that particular time.

(never used before)

I used this nikon d50 to take all of my pictures for my magazine on.

(never used before)

I then used adobe photoshop 7.0 to edit them. This is the first time I had used photoshop so I had to teach myself.

And finally I used hotmail to send and retrieve all my work from school to home and vice versa.

Overall I have taught myself a lot about technology in that I have learnt a lot of new techniques. I hope that I have done it in an effective way.

5. How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

How did you attract/address your audience? on Prezi

Front Cover

How did you attract/address your audience? on Prezi

Contents page

How did you attract/address your audience? on Prezi

Double page spread

4. Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

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

After lots of research and enquiries I have narrowed it down to these two institutions. I feel that Bauer Media would be good as it publishes "Kerrang!", "Empire", "Mojo" and "Q" therefore it has a reputation for supporting music magazines, one of them target an audience of a similar age to mine. Also all those magazines are targeted towards men so mine would be different as it targets both genders.

The problem with choosing Bauer media though is that it already has 4 popular music magazines so I would have a lot of competition. IPC media distributes "NME", "Uncut", "Guitar and Bass" which all target a lot older generation than mine. Therefore competition is much less, yet they still have the experience of very popular music magazines.

Therefore my media institution will be IPC Media.

2. How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups

This question seems some what hard for me as my magazine is all about unsigned artists therefore I cannot compare it with any famous artists. Therefore I am going to compare my unsigned artist, Tallis Morris to an example of a bunch of students as I created this magazine with their type in mind. My magazine is aimed for their age group, style and interests.

Excluding one women who is over the age of 24, looking at the rest they are all wearing very folk-styled clothes. If you compare their clothes with the artist I have chosen they are very similar. The urban kind of look really features in my images of Tallis, this compliments the browns in the clothes.

A group of students

Tallis Morris

If you look closely in both pictures of the student they all try something to make them look unique, e.g. glasses, hats, headscarves. This is a very important factor as every student wants to stand out from the rest and look unique. This is what I have been trying to create in my magazine by using quirky, rugged surroundings, and unusual props like the rug, chair and laptop. The main aim for me was to make my magazine stand out from the rest, to catch the eye or people my age so I really had to do a lot of research in order to pull this off. 

1. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products

To create my music magazine I analyzed 3 different music magazines with all different target audiences. By doing this it has inspired me to use varied techniques to produce my own music magazine.

Front cover

As my target audience is 16-24 I have used a young women who is in this age range for my main feature.

As she is the main feature of the magazine I have her on the front cover, in the middle of the page, and layered above everything else. Like Kerrang I have used an almost in your face image in colour. I have edited it using photoshop to make it very dramatic.

Again like Kerrang, I have used the wripped effect to give it a bit of a daring effect.

Like any other magazine I have included a line at the bottom of the page which almost gives the front cover a border. This line shows all the artists at the bottom of the page to look as if the the magazine is jam packed full of features.

I have used a common technique of adding a circle of information which looks like a stamp. It looks almost as if it was the last feature to be put in the magazine. I have used very common house colours of red, black and white, but have also added parts of grey.

Contents page

My contents page is quite organised but also messy at the same time. The text is in colums to make it easy to read, and colour coordinated to make it easy to understand. Like every other contents page I have seen the majority of it is pictures, although it is the page that needs to hold the most information.

I have used large, different coloured numbers in order to stand out and make it easy to interpretate where each feature is.

I have included an editors post just like kerrang so that the audience can feel as though they personally know who this person is. It makes the magazine almost 'homely' and recognisable if the same person is editing it every time and having their own view on this months magazine.

I have very clear captions on each photo used on the contents page like all other music magazines so that it is clear to the audience about what each picture tells you.

I have kept with the house colours, and also style of font throughout.

Double page spread

          For my double page spread I haven't kept it very traditional in that it isn't really a picture, then an article but they are both merged into one. I have used just one, main image and then layered the text on top. The difference between my double page spread and main stream ones is that my article is very long compared to most.

It is very rare to do a question and answer interview, and it has been mentioned that NME have done this before. Personally I find it easier to read question and answer rather than a big long paragraph of text and I personally think that the majority of people aged 16-24 would. I have used a common technique that is taking pictures of the artist in a photoshoot rather than live images. I have done this to represent real intensity of the article. I would like people to feel as if they know her personally and not just someone who sings.