1. Evaluation
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
of conventions of real media products.
A high convention of a music magazine, is the eye-catching headline. This is what
I have tried to make priority on my front cover, it immediately catches your eyes
with its bold colours and explains what the type of magazine it is. I have also used
a photo to take up most of the page, the second thing that would immediately
catch your eye. This is also another convention of a music magazine. The model
on the front of the magazine, has eye contact with the audience which will
therefore draw the potential buyers in. This is also another convention of a music
magazine. However, unlike other music magazines, I have also used features of a
female teenage magazine, such as ‘how to sculpt your look’. This is to try and
appeal to a different kind of audience of females, who are interested in indie
music.
My two page spread is also based around the two page spread of a typical music
magazine with large bold pictures to immediately catch your eye and also draw
you in, along with the bright, colours against the dark background this is to make
it look less dull and easier to read, it is also separated by red and white.
On my contents, I have tried to use a combination of conventions from a typical
female magazine and a typical music magazine. I used faded pictures of the inside
stories to catch the readers eyes and give an insight, however the text is clearly
visible above it. I have put the information into the conventional columns, however
I have tried to put an unconventional twist by also putting information on either
side. I think it also makes it easier on the eyes.
How does your media product represent a particular type of social
group?
I have designed my magazine to be aimed highly at a particular type of social
group rather than a general social group.
The most obvious of these, would be my target audience age as teenagers. I think
that a high percentage of teenagers are interested in the indie style of music,
however after analysing and reading many indie magazines, I found that many are
aimed at males and would not attract many females. This is why I decided to
adopt particular conventions of a female magazine to add into my magazine, by
doing this I can relate it more to my target audience. I did this by including
features such as ‘ways to bag your bloke’.
Also the vibrant colours that are used can also relate to my target audience of
teenagers, the way they contrast and are bold means that it is immediately eye
catching to my target audience.
2. Finally, I have taken into account the star where the attention is focused on the
cover of my magazine. She is dressed and designed to look like an indie type of
artist, and her age will also relate to my target audience. However I have also
gave her an angle that will appeal to females, this can be seen on my two page
spread. The questions asked, are similar to what you would find in a female
magazine, as well as the regular music magazine questions. I have done this as I
found through looking in female magazines, that females generally want to know a
lot of gossip, whereas males are more interested in the music, which is obviously
what you would find in a music magazine. I combined the two in the hope of
appealing to my target audience much more.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and
why?
My media institution would be IPC media. These are widely known for producing
magazines. They are also known as ‘the voice of women’ because they are so
widely known for producing female magazines such as ‘Heat’. This therefore
would be ideal as it is aimed at my target audience and would have expertise in
promoting my magazine through advertisements in other magazines, television
advertisements and other ways of promotion. Also they are responsible for the
distribution of many well known music magazines such as ‘NME’, a popular music
magazine which I analysed and based many conventions on.
Also, they have many divisions through different branches of magazines,
appealing to different types of people and television broadcasters, this will also
help promote my magazine through word of mouth, and television, one of the
biggest ways of media today.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience would be female teenagers aged between 16 and 20. They are
the sorts of people that have a definite opinion on music and as my magazine has
a strong target audience rather than an over generalised target audience, this age
would be much better. Also my magazine has the features of a female magazine
and I do not believe that there is many of that style to offer, and a large place for
it in the market.
Finally, female teenagers of this age, are widely known for buying magazines, for
the gossip, to be in the know, and just sheer entertainment, therefore I think that
my magazine could earn a large profit based solely on my audience.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience with the bright colours used with red and black. These
are not conventionally the colours used for females, however I do think that it
would attract the audience, and stand out from other typical female music
3. magazines on the shelf which will have the over-conventional colours of bright
pinks and pale blues. I believe that the audience I am aiming for will be searching
for something new that is not the typical ‘smash hits’ music magazine, aimed at
much younger children. The only other option they could find would be the ‘NME’
magazines, which are aimed at ‘unisex’ audiences, although from my research
seems to be subliminally more male orientated.
I have also used my model, in a way that will address the audience without words,
she is keeping strong eye contact with the camera, and unlike other female
magazines, she is dressed as a rocker, rather than your typical dresses, or unlike
other magazines, has a more female look about her, which can also be seen
through the questions asked inside.
I have also included features such as festivals, written in a banner along the
bottom to immediately catch your eye as a big feature. I think this highlights my
target audience as it shows the age range, I am aiming it at ages that are old
enough to go to festivals, yet young enough to be interested at going.
Therefore throughout I believe that my features used attracts and addresses my
target audience and persuade them to purchase it.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
I have gained an interesting amount of knowledge from the whole project. The
first would be actually fully learning to use a digital camera and edit pictures,
although I have taken pictures before, I have never really taken care in how I do
it, and how the camera must be angled properly against the light to give the effect
I want.
After the pictures are taken, they must be edited on Photoshop. I used Photoshop
CS3, a piece of software I have never used before, I started to use it through
editing my pictures to make her skin and hair seem brighter, and her eyes seem
darker to give her a more rock-effect.
There was also much to be done on the actual construction of magazine including
adding text, adding pictures, moving around to give the effect I wanted, and
adding banners and mastheads to make it similar to a conventional magazine.
However once that was completed, there was much editing to be done on top of
that, to make sure it was all in order, the colour effects where what I wanted, and
my text was designed in the correct shape.
Finally, when all work was completed it had to be uploaded onto an online blog.
This involved travelling through different websites in order to correctly upload
PowerPoint’s and word documents.
Through doing this, I have gained a lot of experience in the technologies I have
never used before in order to give my magazine a professional finish that wouldn’t
have been possible before.
