2. In what way does your media product use, use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My front cover mainly follows conventions as I thought that if my magazine looked too different people may not want to buy it as it would look too out of the ordinary. My cover follows conventions in the sense that the masthead is bigger that all other text on the page, also date, issue number, barcode, and price are all conventions of a magazine which I stuck to, to keep my cover professional. The image I chose for my cover may be seen as unconventional as its a medium close up and as you can see from the sample covers, many of them are not close up shot except the ‘Vibe’ cover. However I think this shot is effective for my cover as her eyes draw you straight into the image and she easily dominate the page. Making eye contact with the reader is also a convention of a magazine. Another convection I followed was that the splash was the name of the artist as well as standing out from all the other text on the page apart from the masthead. This is conventional as the main thing the editor would like the viewer to see are the masthead, splash and the image and I think this is the case with my front cover. Another convention I developed was the use of a pug, however not all magazine have one, when they do its generally on the edge of the page with a short bust of information about something exciting what inside. I also tried to follow conventions by linking in colours from the image into the text. In this case its the colour of her lip gloss. I think this is effective as it sticks to the colours scheme while adding a plash f colour in every issue. I think my colour scheme may challenge the conventions of a music magazine, as generally they are mainly red/black, however I chose the colour scheme as it fit my genre and also made it different from all other magazine in my genre.

3. I think my contents page again generally follows the conventions of an usual music magazine as a contents page should be clearly laid out and not too busy so it can be easily used. Placing the an image of the cover is conventional for lifestyle/gossip magazines however its not seen as much in music magazines. While researching contents pages I found that ‘Kerrang’ magazine did this and I felt I was a good way in welcoming the reader. I think the layout of my contents page spread is quite unconventional compared to the examples at the bottom, however I chose this layout as it was the most popular with my target market, it also looks quite structured which will make it easy to use. The thing I don't like about my contents page is the gap between the Having an editors note is a convention of a contents page, this is usually chatty and informal used to again to welcome the reader. I chose not to challenge this convention as I think its a good way of connecting the editor to their audience. page numbers and the image, so I may change this before completing a completely final draft. I also stuck to conventions in the sense that all the contents are listed with a brief description as shown in all the below example except the Vibe contents which is quite plain and unconventional.

4. As with my contents and cover I think my double page generally follow the conventions of a typical music double page spread. Following the convention, one half of my double page spread is dominated by an image. I found from my research that this was a popular technique used; I chose to place it on the right side of the page as when people are quickly flicking through and scanning a magazine, the image would the main thing that caught the readers eye. Another convention my spread followed was to include a page break; from the example below I found the most common way to do this was through the main headline or quotes, I chose to do this as I thought it was an effective way to give the page a continuous feel. However I don’t think my page follows conventions in the sense that there’s a teaser to entice the reader to read the full article, this would be something you may generally see on the front cover, however I chose to include this in my double page as there is only limited text and it should make the reader want to continue reading. Another convention my magazine doesn’t follow is that generally there is a lot of small text to make up the article, whereas on my double page I kept the text limited to a basic introduction so that people would want to continue to read and be interested in the main article, I also wanted the image to be the main focus, and I thought too much text may detract from this.

5. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My media products represent people generally over the age of 16 to 25. I think this because my genre is indie rock, this genre of music particularly appeals to the younger age range, and is popular with the student class of people, as well as having younger and older fans, however I targeted my magazine at the mass of my audience as this will sell the most. The image I used was of a prime example of my target market in the sense of age as it was an 18 year old, this should then attract people of a similar age to my magazine. The articles that are in my magazine are also representative of this age range as the main article focuses on gigs and this is something that would appeal to my target market. I think my magazine would appeal to both males and females as the colour scheme is quite neutral using grey/back/white/blues however in this particular issue a salmon colour is used to link in with the images, I don’t think this would be a problem with a well established magazine, however it may prove a problem with a new one. Also because the image on the cover and the main stories are about a female this may attract more females as they can relate to her, however on the other hand it may attract more males as they may find the artist attractive or may be drawn into the image. My music magazine should appeal to all classes of people, however the indie genre is more targeted towards middle/working class people, so these would be the people most interested in buying my magazine. I don't think any of my articles/fonts/images etc single out as been targeted to a particular class of people, this way my magazine has the potential to appeal to a wider audience.

6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Music magazines can be distributed in a variety of different way most common being sold in news agents, however recently many magazine have chose to distribute their magazines online and for ‘smart phone’ users, I think this would be a good method to use as technology is vastly spreading and having the magazine available online would be more convent and cheaper to produce, however still producing physical copies as not everyone would have access to online versions When choosing an institution to distribute my magazine I chose ‘music mags’ this was due to its experience in distributing music magazine especially for my genre, however it may be difficult for my magazine to stand out as all the magazine are similar, I think the large customer base they have would be a benefit to my magazine. Examples of ‘Music Mags’ magazines

7. Who would be the audience for you media product? As my genre is indie rock this appeals to a younger generation of people averagely aged between 16-25. It is popular with people such as university students who enjoy going out and going to gigs, and have a general passion for independent music, and don't like to follow the usual trends of the pop music charts. Indie music appeals to quite a niche market, however because I used NME/Q magazine as my inspiration my magazine my also appeal to more of a mass market as these magazines contain popular artist who are current at the time, whereas a magazine such as ‘Metal Hammer’ is targeted to a niche market as heavy metal music does not appeal to a mass market. By targeting my magazine at a mass market it should easily appeal to a large range of people and therefore should sell more copies. My main articles are based on reflecting over the past year as its the last issue of the year, the stories are therefore not bias towards any different gender, age, class etc this would therefore address a wider audience.

8. How did you attract/address your audience? After researching magazine based on my genre, I found that one of, if not the most important aspect of attracting the audience would be to have a striking masthead, in the sense of both name and font. When magazines are laid out in a shop they usually overlap each other and the only thing that can be seen is he masthead, so its clear that this is important. I chose the name ‘Dazed’ as it has strong link to the indie genre, its also associated with being quite laid back and ‘cool’ which is again linked to the indie stereotype. The font I chose for my masthead as the lettering is quite disjointed and edgy as well as been clear and easy to read, and fitting in with the genre. Also from my research I found that placing my masthead in the top left was the best place, as it still leave room for a pug/image, but it is still the first thing the audience will see in there eye line. I also used a pug to entice the reader into buying my magazine, as they would be interested in the prize as Oasis are seen as the ‘ultimate’ indie band. Finally, I didn't use either formal/informal language as formal language may appeal to a more mature audience and informal may appeal to a younger/possibly lower class of people, none of which I intended to target my music magazine to.

9. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Since beginning the research and development of my products I have improved on and learnt new skills. The main programme I have used is Macromedia fireworks, I used this the create and develop my products and used to edit my images. The main skills I have learnt were how to crop out the background of my images to make them plain, using a variety of different tools such as the ‘Magic Wand’ as well as learning how to soften and blur the edges on images. I have also learnt how to use blogger, prior to this I have never used a blogging site before, I learnt how to create and edit post with ease, I also had to become familiar with the website slide share, as I had again never used this before, yet it was vital to my coursework. Both sites were simple to set up accounts and easy to use after been on the site once. Finally for my products to look professional, I used the website dafont.com to download original and new fonts to the computer, this again was simple to do after you’ve first installed a font, and I think without this skill my work would have look very basic and unprofessional.

10. Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Since my preliminary task I think my skills have improved, due to more planning and research as well more advanced techniques on fireworks. Its clear that since my preliminary task my knowledge of convections and how to make a authentic magazine have improved, for example my preliminary cover is very plain and wouldn't attract people to read it, the masthead is also small and not very bold which is very unconventional as I found out from my main research. To make my magazine look authentic I did research into popular music magazines and especially the ones in my genre to find out what made them eye catching/popular to buy as well as gaining inspiration for my own cover. Since my preliminary cover I have also learnt how to address my audience better, as you can see my preliminary task has no obvious audience, everything look fairly neutral and suited to no one in particular. Whereas for my main products I researched colour schemes, fonts and image types to find out which would attract my target audience best. Finally my use of more advanced techniques and editing skills will have improved my work, as my preliminary I used basic techniques such as cutting out the background and just placing text, however for the full product I used techniques such as blurring/shadowing to make my products look more professional.