3. HOW MY MEDIA PRODUCT USES FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS The masthead of my magazine uses conventions of real media products. This is because it clearly establishes the genre of the magazine. This is a convention often used by Pop magazines currently on the market.
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12. HOW MY MEDIA PRODUCT DEVELOPS FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS The title of my contents page develops forms and conventions of real media products. This is because I adapted the variation on having the standard ‘contents’ title, and added ‘inside the mag’ but developed the idea by inserting the title of my magazine above it.
13. HOW MY MEDIA PRODUCT CHALLENGES FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS The majority of Pop magazines have more than one image on the front cover of the magazine. I chose to take a simplistic route when designing and producing mine because I wanted the exclusive article and image to be the main feature on the page .
14. HOW MY MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENTS PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS – THE FRONT COVER I have chosen to compare my magazine front cover with this one of ‘top of the pops’ because both people in the images are wearing neutral colours to contrast with the very bright and bubbly colour scheme. These images represent normal people as they are wearing normal every day-to-day clothes, which people who listen to pop music are. The clothes are also mainstream which makes it the most popular, and pop music is also mainstream and represents pop listeners social groups. Also by inserting a heart into the masthead of my magazine, makes it appeal more to the social group of girls, which is what I intended to do.
15. HOW MY MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENTS PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS – THE CONTENTS PAGE I feel that by having a more girly based colour scheme in the contents page, continuing on from the colours in the masthead of the magazine, makes it easily recognisable with the social group of girls. The heart in the title and the italic writing also presents girls. This is because stereotypically this is what appeals to them.
16. HOW MY MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENTS PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS – DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD I think I have again presented the social group of girls who like to looks at pictures of their favourite artists inside the magazines. As you can see, from comparing it with a ‘Top of the Pops’ double page spread, they have a large dominating picture and various others on the page. I decided to incorporate this into mine. This is mainly because when I did my target research it came back that they would prefer to see more picture with little text .Also the colour purple, represents girls and also represents pop because it is a fun, bright colour. They both also have interviews with famous artists which is what girls expect to see in a pop magazine.
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32. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (DOING CUT-OUTS- THE MAIN IMAGE) I used the magic wand tool and the eraser tool to do this. I selected the area that I wanted to crop and clicked delete. Then smoothed the edges with the eraser tool.
33. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (CREATING A BACKGROUND) I clicked on the shape tool and clicked a rectangle and selected the whole of my template then coloured it in white
34. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (CREATING THE MASTHEAD) I then clicked the fx bottom of the layer pannel and clicked the stroke option and coloured in black and gave it a size of 8 to get the black outline for my masthead. To then get the rest of the text pink I click the text tool and clicked the pink swatch colour.
35. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (CREATING THE MASTHEAD) To create the heart which is in my masthead, I firstly selected the custom shape tool, then selected the heart, picked the pure violet magneta coloured to fill it with colour, and then to get the black outline I did the same as the writing and clicked on the fx button, clicked stroke, the the colour clack and the size of 8.
36. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (CREATING A PUG) To create the pug I clicked the select shape tool and chose the ellipse shape then chose the pure violet magneta colour again to colour it in and then chose the stroke option to add the black border around the edge.
37. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (USING THE INTERNET) On my contents page I used a font from www.dafont.com , ‘inside the mag’. I used the font because there wasn’t a font like it on Adobe InDesign and I wanted it in italics.
38. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (USING THE STROKE TOOL) To make the ‘editors article’ text bold I had to use the stroke tool, and weighted it 3pt.
39. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (ADJUSTING THE IMAGE) I had to edit my photo in Adobe Photoshop. As you can see my original image before had a slight yellow tint, but as I clicked auto levels the yellow tint disappeared.
40. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (IMPORTING A PICTURE IN ADOBE INDESIGN) To add a picture in Adobe InDesign, you click on file, then place, and then pick the picture from the file of original images. To make the picture stay in the same proportion as you decrease the size of it, you hold down, shift, ctrl and alt and drag the picture in. If you want to centre the image, like I did, you click the ‘center content’ button at the top of the page.
41. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (ADDING THE FRONT COVER INTO ADOBE INDESIGN) To add my contents page to Adobe InDesign for me to be able to export my pages I had to right click in the grey area and click ‘insert pages’ and then highlight the new page with the rectangle shaped tool, and then went to file, and then clicked place and then found my front cover in my media file and then clicked open and then it was there.
42. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (EXPORTING THE FINAL PRODCUT FROM ADOBEINDESIGN) To export my pages I clicked file, export and then made sure that they would be saved as JPEGs and then clicked save, and then made sure that I clicked ‘spreads’ and then changed the resolution to 300 and then clicked export and then they were in my folder.
43. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT (ARRANGING THE PAGES INTO ORDER) I right clicked inside the grey area by the contents page and then clicked ‘allow document pages to shuffle’ which allowed me to arrange my pages into chronological order.
46. SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE COVERS I added pugs to each of the magazine front covers because that it a usual convention of magazines. It also draws the eye to what is inside the pug. I located the masthead at the top of the page as it makes it easy for the reader to identify it on a shelf with other magazines . I added a number of cover lines so that it gives a taste of what will be featured in the magazine. I also added the features which would be of most interest to the reader. I also added sell lines at the bottom of each magazine. This is a final attempt to attract the viewer to purchase the magazine by offering things that will be of interest to them. I added one main image on the cover. This is to focus the eyes attention on them as they are a main feature in the magazine. 1 2 3 4 5
47. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE COVERS The colour scheme is different for both magazines. This is because I had to fit each colour scheme to its purpose and target audience. The preliminary cover is green and purple because those are the colours associated with Solihull Sixth Form, where as Simply Pop magazine is coloured brightly because that’s what the target audience said they preferred. For my final magazine I added an exclusive feature parallel to the main image . This is because from my research of Pop magazines they seem to do this quite frequently. I added a slogan for my final magazine. This is also because I have seen it used a lot on Pop magazines, and I think it tied in well with the title of the magazine. The position of the barcode/date/price/issue number differs to that of my preliminary work. I only added the date for my Student Mag, so it doesn’t follow the correct codes and conventions of a real magazine. I decided to have a medium long shot for my final magazine image because it allows you to see the band clearly. Whereas my Student Mag image was a medium close up which focuses more on the individuals face. 1 2 3 4 5
49. SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THE CONTENTS PAGES I added images to both contents pages to add variety to the page. I added page numbers in chronological order, to each specific topic, which allows the reader to find the page they are looking for easily. There are few similarities between the two contents pages. This is because I didn’t research contents pages as thoroughly enough as I had for my Simply Pop contents page, making the Student Mag one very weak. 1 2
50. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO CONTENTS PAGES The title of the page differs. I went with the traditional title on the preliminary contents by titling the page ‘contents’, where as for my final product I put the title of the magazine at the top and underneath wrote ‘inside the mag’ adding variety to the page. I included an editors article for my final magazine. This is because you see them featured in almost every magazine so I considered it a major convention to add. I added numbers to my pictures instead of anchoring them with text. I devised my features into categories and placed each article into its correct category. I gained inspiration to do this from reading through numerous amounts of Pop magazines. I added a banner at the bottom of the page which includes the page number, and how to access more information to do with the magazine. The colour scheme is very different again. I wanted to stick with the bright colours throughout my final product, and wanted to keep to the college colours for my preliminary work. 1 2 3 4 5 6
51. DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD When doing my preliminary work we didn’t have a chance to practice making a double page spread, that’s why I have nothing to compare my final product to. However, I think I still managed to make a successful double page spread without having had any practice. This is because I used the skills I have learnt when making my front cover and contents page and applied them when making the page. Also by researching double page spreads I was able to use some of the ideas to create mine.
52. DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD – WHAT I DID TO MAKE IT SUCCESSFUL I made the title stand out by using capital letters. I added a drop cap to fit with the conventions of real magazines. I added a pull quote, to entice the readers to read the article. I also included the convention of leading text, to give a brief insight as to what will be included in the article . I added pictures and anchored them, by adding the names of the band members, and showed them practicing in their basement. I also added a caption above the main image. Like with the contents page for Simply Pop Magazine, I added a banner at the bottom of the page which includes page numbers, and access to other information to do with the magazine.
