Bauer Media group would be well suited to distribute Hannah Taylor's media product due to several factors:
1) Bauer Media is a large, private media company that publishes over 300 magazines across 15 countries.
2) One of Bauer's magazines is Kerrang!, which shares similarities in layout, conventions and target audience with Hannah's rock music magazine.
3) Hannah's magazine was designed with the conventions of Kerrang! in mind, making it a good fit for Bauer Media's brand portfolio.
2. 1) In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My media product follows several music conventions, it shows clearly that it is a music
magazine with the colours, images and fonts; it has an image on the front like all music
magazines which is placed in the centre. It uses a range of colours incorporated into the
front page, contents and double page spread. The images and colours are eye-catching to
draw the audience in and grab their attention to look at the magazine. I have used a
similar layout as other magazines such as Kerrang! and Q. To do this I followed their route
of the eye, the masthead being the first thing seen across the top of the page from left to
right, to from the upper right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner across the
image, cover story and possible cover lines that are there; before finally across to the
bottom right hand corner to read the price.
I found that from my research into similar and existing products, there is a certain unique
house-style font for the masthead and other fonts on the page, so that it’s easier for the
magazine to be recognised, also that there is a colour scheme to follow the genre. A rock
magazine is made up from dark images, funky but easy to read fonts on the backgrounds.
I assured that on my magazine, there was a house-style and unique font that will be easily
recognised and that the text was easy to read on the images, to do this I used
black, red, blue and white colours on my text.
Also from my research, I looked at how the images are portrayed, how the
colours, clothing, lighting and props are used to follow the convention of rock magazines. I
had the artist holding a guitar and the lighting quite dark to suit the magazine, the artist
was wearing ‘rock’ style clothing to incorporate into the image.
5. 2) How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
My media product represents people who enjoy reading a
stylish music genre magazine which has a mixed range of
genres from rock to metal and others. The mixed genre
means that different social groups can interact and join in
with the magazine. It doesn’t just mean that only 13-18 year
olds from one social group can enjoy the magazine, it means
that people of any age and any social group can. In my
images, I looked at clothes that 13-18 year olds wear (that
are interested in rock + Kerrang!)
and incorporated the colours and styles into my own
magazine. The props I used was a guitar to stick to the
media convention of ‘rock’, from asking my target audience
what they thought of when I said ‘rock’.
6.
7. 3)What kind of media institution might distribute
your media product and why?
A media institution that could possibly distribute my media product is a
popular media institution or even a educational institution. A possible
company would be Bauer Media, it is Europe’s largest private owned
publishing group and it is a worldwide media company that offers over
300 magazines in 15 countries. The company revolves around two main
divisions; Magazine and Radio, Bauer Media currently publish magazines
like Kerrang!, which is a magazine that publishes music such as
rock, pop and metal; Kerrang! has 29 years of heritage and is the biggest
music weekly in the world. I found from researching into Kerrang! that
having the masthead over the top of the page in a bold and unique font
will make it stand out more, no matter what the image or the rest of the
text on the page is.
My magazine is rock and also follows the same conventions as Kerrang!
The layouts of both magazines are similar, the masthead is across the
top, one main image in the centre that fills the page and also fills the
hotspots to draw the attention to the image, the cover lines placed on the
side of the image and the cover story over the image. Then lastly, in the
bottom right hand corner (the terminal area), there’s the price of the
magazine and the barcode, for the audience to read last.
8. Bauer Media group is a large publishing
group based in Germany. They are a
private company, that was founded in
1875. Bauer Media is a sister company of
H Bauer Publishing, publisher of the UK's
biggest TV listings, Take a Break and
Bella. Bauer employs over 6,400 people.
Bauer produces Kerrang! MOJO and Q
music magazines.
Kerrang on
Bauer’s website.
http://www.bauer
media.co.uk/Bran
ds/Kerrang/
9. 4)Who would be the audience for your media product?
5)How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract my target audience, I did research into existing
products to discover how they used images, fonts, colours
and text to attract their audience. To make sure I appealed to
the target audience I was aiming for, which was teenagers
aged 13-18, I submitted a questionnaire to those of that age
to find out what they preferred on my chosen genre, Rock. I
made sure that I followed what my target audience wanted so
I could appeal to them as best I could and attract them to the
magazine.
I looked into Kerrang! magazine and found out that Kerrang!
readers are the heaviest music consumers purchasing over 6
albums per month on average (53% more than the national
average) and 8 times more likely to spend over £200 a year
on albums. the readers are also 5.5 times more likely to
attend a rock gig, the gender ratio for the magazine is 38.1%
female and 61.9% male. Kerrang! is a multi-media platform
with magazine, online, radio and TV. 67.3% of Kerrang!
readers are aged from 15-24.
10. From the questionnaire I put out to
my target audience, 14 were male
and 10 were female.
Male.
Female.
I put out a questionnaire to find out what they liked to see within the
magazine, I wanted to know how often they would want to purchase the
magazine; once a month. I also asked if they liked having one main
image on the front cover, a range of fonts plus opportunities to win gig
tickets, band merchandise etc. within the magazine; yes, one main
image is suited for a front cover as well as a different range of fonts for
different cover lines and finally lots of opportunities for the readers to
get involved.
The target audience for my magazine is teenagers, aged 13-18, it is
aimed at both male and females. I have aimed my magazine at people
who are interested and/or involved with Rock music, but there is a
possibility that people who listen to a range of genres would buy this
magazine.
11. 6)What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
I have learnt that there are several ways to edit an
image, e.g. adjusting the size, brightness, colouring etc.
Technology wise, I mainly used a computer to create my
magazine. I used Microsoft Office Publisher 2007 to
create the text and fonts (some fonts are from
www.dafont.com, e.g. Masthead, Cover-story and cover-
lines) and to piece together the magazine. To edit my
images, I used
Windows Live Photo Gallery to adjust the
light exposure on the image. (see image)
The unedited image was too dark so I had
to adjust it to make it lighter.
13. The internet was my main source for my work, I used
www.google.com/images to find the images of similar and
existing products. I used www.surveymonkey.com to conduct
my surveys.
And most importantly, I had to present all of my work, the
research, drafts and final products www.blogger.com. This
website is extremely useful and is easy to use. It made it
simple for me up upload and edit work. It also let me receive
feedback to improve my work to make it the best that I can. I
could easily access what I wanted to view or change and
remove.
14. 7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to
the full product?
From my preliminary task, I feel like I have understood how a
magazine is put together, how images, colours, fonts and text
are used to appeal to the correct target audience. I
understand how the layout of the magazine has to be to
attract the audience the best, using the route of the eye and
the principle of thirds. I found that I had to make mistakes to
understand how to correct them and how to make the good
final product.
I learned that to make the magazine have an impact on the
target audience, I needed to look at how the fonts, colours
and text tie together to suit the genre. I also learned that to
really attract to the target audience, you need to understand
what they want, what they prefer, what they like seeing and
what they like to read.
15. Final Music
magazine
cover.
Preliminary
task.
From looking at my preliminary task(left) and my final music magazine
cover(right), I can certainly say that the genre changes how the
images, fonts, text and colours are portrayed onto the magazine. Though the
conventions used on both magazines are still followed and used well enough
to know what it is about.
