1. Evaluation Of
My Media
Products
By Craig Millington

2. In What Ways Does Your Media Product
Use Develop Or Challenge Forms Of
Conventions and Real Media Products?
My media product challenges other media products by the text. The text is very grimey and urban. Most magazines use bold text to try
and grab their audiences attention. I also put a stroke on the text to make the text stand out, not many magazines use this so I have
challenged the conventions of other magazines. The text on the title I chose to be the biggest. This didn’t challenge other media
products but followed the guidelines of other magazines. I then went to put the cover lines done. I chose the pacific to be really big,
then the next two lines to be a bit smaller, and a different text, I made the lower text very thin too, this gave it a nice effect and showed
it was a subheading to the main heading of the magazine. I chose the main heading to be really thick and big, this made sure it was the
main heading and people knew it was. Also it made the lower text fit in really well when it was made thinner. I needed to make the
offers stand out, so I chose shapes that would make it look really good. I had the spikey stay shape to make the offer stand out, I also
had a box layer at the bottom with the amp, guitar, and bass on offer, they were slanted to make the magazine more interesting, it also
meant they could be bigger to make them stand out more. I used the bottom column at the bottom of the front cover to advertise stuff
inside the magazine. This included the reviews on the bass amp, bass and guitar. I made it black and used red text on it because red was
the theme colour of my magazine. The box was also used to try and sell some of the websites at the very bottom of the page. I chose to
use a normal bold text on that because if I used the decay text, it would look important, but its not, its just something small on the side
so I used the small bold text. On the offers from the magazine, I chose black decay text like the title, but they didn’t really stand out, so I
decided to use a white stroke on it, this made them stand out really well and brought detail into the insides of the text. I had to keep it
thin otherwise it looked really bold and then to bleak. On the star sign making an offer, I tried to use a yellow text. This challenged the
conventions of other magazines because not many magazines use another text away from the main colour scheme. This worked really
well because it made the offer stand out loads and drawn peoples eyes to the offer. The picture on my front cover is also a band at
band practice. Music magazines don’t normally do this, they normally have a close up of someone or a band, but I chose to keep all the
band looking at the camera and keep drew on the drum kit. This challenged the music magazines but I think it worked really well. On
the contents I chose to have only the main features on the contents. I didn’t have a continues numbers, I had numbers missing a couple
out. I only wanted the main things in it because that is what people buy it for. This challenged media conventions because normal
magazines have every number on the page. I also had a section at the bottom to make it look like there was more pictures and less
writing. On my double page spread I had an artistic picture of the band, this was because the picture was blurred, but it also looked
good and fit into the black and white colour scheme. It also challenged the media conventions of having the band actually with a clean
shot, bit I think it looked really good.

3. How Does Your Media Group
Represent Particular Social Groups?
My music magazine represents music fans of rock and metal by the colour scheme and the text. The
text is very decay like text, it looks like blood is dripping. It is also mostly black white and red, this is
a representation of goths and metal fans because people stereotype them to like those kind of
things. It is aimed at young people as it is an upcoming band magazine, so only the young people
will know about it really, they are the ones who go to the band nights. It is aimed at 16 to 25 year
olds because anyone older than that don’t tend to go to band nights. There are also a lot of under
18 band nights that go on in every city and town, so lots of young people go to them, making a
magazine about will sell quite well because they want to know what gigs to go to, who is going well.
Also their friends might be in it so if a band from a town is featured, people from the town will
most likely buy it. Older people will but it because they go to pubs or clubs a lot, so if they can find
out about bands that way and where a good band night will be on. The magazine is mainly aimed at
students from year 10 to uni. The uni students will buy it because they live on band nights and
cheap alcohol, also bands like to play at uni gigs with cheap alcohol so they both go hand in hand. I
have not aimed at a race, but it will most likely be bought by white people because it is stereotyped
that black people listen mainly to rap music, so a band night would not appeal to them, but that’s
stereotyping and it can be very inaccurate. Sexuality is not at all considered in making this
magazine. It is not important because gay and straight people normally listen to the same music.
There isn't really a gay section of music nor are they stereotyped to any particular genre of music.
The main region will be the north, as it is a north based magazine it will be to expensive to research
into south music, also the north is very famous for music with the Beatles coming out of it, so
bands seek to play gigs around the north. This makes it perfect because not many bands would turn
down an interview or an article in a music magazine.

4. What Type Of Media Product Would
Distribute Your Media Product And Why?
I have researched into rock magazines and it looks like
Bauer media makes most of the rock magazines. They
also produce the really famous Kerrang magazine. This
is the best selling rock magazine they do so my music
magazine would fit nicely into their guidelines. I have
looked into where Kerrang is sold and its mainly in
corner shops and big retailers like ASDA or Tesco. I
great place to sell it would be the parr hall where a
band night happens every month, the sales on it are
normally very good with most of the time it selling
out. Also HMV would be good even though they don’t
stock magazines. If we could sell there it would boost
sales up because young people go looking for music in
there a lot. They would make an ideal distributor
because they could help advertise it along with
Kerrang. Because they did so well with that magazine,
they could help boost my sales. They also make
Kerrang every week, mine is a monthly one, so
publishing cost is not pushed up loads.

5. Who Would The Audience Be For Your
Media Product?
The audience for my music magazine will be people interested in
rock music. People stereotype people interested in rock and metal
music as ‘Moshers’ and ‘Goths’. These two social groups will be
the audience for my music magazine. As I am doing an upcoming
band magazine people who listen to upcoming bands will be
people who go to band nights, these are normally aged 14 to 25.
the main age group I will be aiming my music magazine will be 16
to 19 year olds. After and before those age groups does it become
extreme for people to still be really interested in it unless their
friends are in a band. Mainly it will be boys buying this magazine.
This is because more boys listen to heavy music than girls do. The
reason a girl would buy this magazine if someone who was good
looking and they idolized was in it or on the front cover. This
magazine will be mainly bought by students. Working class people
may buy it if they went to a pub and saw a band, but it is not
really aimed at them. Uni students might buy it as they see a lot
of unsigned bands through their friends and cheep beer pubs.
People normally interested in this music are stereotyped to wear
black white and red. I know this is not completely true but they
do like the colour scheme as proved from my questionnaire. Hair
styles in rock music can go from the bald cut and beard, to the
skin head to a full 1 metre long hair style. The band I chose to
photograph have just normal hair, they have not took anything to
extreme or to silly, they have long-ish hair, but its kept simple and
works really well. The audience are stereotyped to like
skateboarding and taking drugs, this is a wild misconception as
most of them don’t do either of these, very little do both. The
audience like going to gigs, it’s a lifestyle to them.

6. How Did You Attract Your Audience?
I attracted my audience first having a band that are doing well all over the north west
and are very well known about the area. This helped because people will instantly see
that band on the front and have a quick look through, like what they see because of
the colours and buy the magazine. It is mainly aimed at 16 to 19 year olds, so having a
band who range from 16 to 18 helps the audience connect with the magazine. I have a
full band shot, so this attracts the readers being able to see the full band. The fonts on
the magazine are very grimey and decay like, this is a stereotype that ‘Moshers’ and
‘Goths’ like this type of text so my audience will relate to it and buy my magazine. The
text is black red and white mainly, in my questionnaire this showed this was the most
popular. You can see on the title that is very decaying and it is black with a red stroke
on the side. To get peoples attention I have made a star sign in the bottom left
corner, I made it red and a black stroke to contrast the title and the rest of the
picture, but I made that text on the ‘WIN’ yellow. I did this to make it stand out and
really make the contents come alive. I also attracted my audience because I have some
popular websites at the bottom. These include a link to gigsandtours. This is a very
famous website that lists every gig in the world going on, if I relate my magazine to
this website, it makes it look more professional and not something done in a shed.
When I researched other magazines, they normally charged around 2 pound or 3
pound, and weekly ones 1.50. I am going to charge around the 1.50 mark as it doesn’t
cost to get the bands in to get involved in the magazine. Also it is a fairly new
magazine so people will not want to pay a lot for something they know very little
about so I need to get it established first. My contents page attracts people because
its very direct about all the best stuff in the magazine. It doesn’t lost the adverts and
all the boring stuff, it gets right to detail on the best stuff, I even missed out the page
numbers with the boring stuff. I then listed the really important interesting things on
the bottom of the page. These had extra large images to show what was going on in
the magazine.

7. What Have You Learnt About Technologies
From The Process Of Constructing This
Product?
I have learnt how to use the internet as a research tool. I looked on the
Kerrang websites and metal hammer sites, I liked the metal hammer page
because it had all the old magazines on there, and all the pages inside it
so you could flick through it like an online book. This helped really well
because it showed me all the pages I could research into. I also learnt how
to blog. I created my blog account to blog all of my coursework online so
my tutors could see it. A thing I had a problem with was trying to get it all
in order. It also helps though because it always let me know how much
and what work I needed to do. Before the year started I gained an interest
into photography, I then took it as a subject in college, I bought a camera
which is a Nikon D3100. At first I didn’t know how to use it but through
time I learnt how to use the manual setting, getting to grips with the
aperture and how to get crisp images with out using the auto mode. I
then bought a remote flash to help my images work better. This only
worked on manual mode so learning how to get the right lighting and
right quality was hard but very rewarding when the pictures came out
great. I already knew the basics of Photoshop, but I then got more
experience in what to do with it, I learned how to crop shapes, create
shapes, create effects like the blur tool and how to make the tear effect,
blood effects and the stroke effects. I learnt how to manipulate images by
using the image edit tool. This included making things darker or lighter, or
under or over exposing them. I also like to give it more saturation or
making it black and white. I then needed to use Quark to make the text.
This really helped when I had to come make the text. It works because
you can type it around the pictures and make it with two columns very
easily. This is one of the few things Quark can do that Photoshop cant not.

8. Looking Back At Your Prelimary Task. What
Do You Fell You Have learnt In The
Progression From It To The Full Product
My research has progressed a lot from my prelim task. At first I just had a quick look
at what other magazines looked like and read like, as it came to the main task I went
into a full analysis of what other magazines were like. I needed my magazine to sell
so I analysed three magazine covers, this was right down to the small colour
scheme, I needed to know what made a good magazine. My planning didn’t get any
better. I learnt how to use my blog to show where I was up to and what I needed to
do. I did plan a photo shoot with pacific which was done on time and I got some
really good pictures to go on my music magazine. The pictures I got for my prelim
task were done in lesson on the spot. But nearer the end, my planning got better as I
neared the deadlines for all my coursework. My photography developed a lot over
the small amount of time I really tried at it. I learnt how to use the manual mode on
my DSLR which really helped my photos develop, I also learnt how to use my flash
gun and also had a good go at using the green wall and doing a photo shoot with a
band. For the main cover I had to come up with some ideas that people had during
college. Going college and feeling real life problems and finding a cure really helped
my write my magazine for college. When it came to my music magazine I found it
really hard. After looking at what other magazines do I looked into my own musical
knowledge. I chose to put prizes up and different things about music and the scales. I
then needed something for my double page spread, so I did an interview with pacific
and what they wanted from the year and where they wanted to be come December
or January 2013. I decided not to bring up how they had to say goodbye to their old
guitarist Liam Lewis. I knew they were on good levels with him and understood his
leave, but I didn’t want to dig a hole I couldn’t get out of easily. I also learnt how to
manipulate images on Photoshop through the year. At first I knew how to under
expose and over expose. Now I know how to fully change images with
saturation, which is more colour or black and white, making it black and
white, changing the levels, making it darker or brighter, changing one colour at a
time making the image more interesting and helping the image look more full. I also
learnt how to design things on Photoshop. This was very new to me as I didn’t know
how to do it at first. But as the year went on I learnt how to make different
shapes, make different stroke, blood or swipe effects, learnt how to mess around
with filters and put text from dafont in. this made my final music magazine really
good.