Evaluation, question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

With my college magazine I challenged the conventions of a magazine as you can clearly see from my layout. My text isn't on the left hand side of the magazine and my mast head isn't bigger than the main cover line. I placed a black rectangle box to the right of the page to cover a distraction in the photograph but looking back, it simply looks as a small image. From this preliminary task, I have learnt that it is best to research thoroughly before drafting out a product. 
By looking at existing products I was able to relate and plan from inspiration of them by looking at magazines of the same music genre. The research for these products, I believe, is the most important aspect to this task as it gives a guide line of what you must include and collect inspiration from them.  The elements you must include are the conventions such as mast head, bar code, main cover line, image, date, price and issue number. From here its the other context that makes a magazine, like a website, slogan, plug splash and logos to attract the targeted audience. My preliminary task does not include a price, issue number, it only contains the date. This is a very bad mistake I made and clearly did not plan out as this is one of the main conventions of a magazine!

I didn't experiment much with my college magazine with different use of texts and Photoshop tools as you can obviously see as it isn't very creative. 

Evaluation, question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Throughout these images I have detailed how I have used certain tools to produce a positive outcome.


Using Photoshop and all of its tools, from practice and regularity of using them to create my products I have learnt how and when to use them to get certain effects.


As seen from my first front cover draft I found it difficult to create a realistic front cover but through practice and developing my skills I was able to create a front cover which was much better than my first drafts as I shall explain in the video below.

Looking at my drafts!
As you can see from this first front cover draft, I have used the same font throughout and not included a issue number of any logos. My photoshop skills are clearly shown not to be very good at this point of my coursework as you can clearly see a harsh contrast between the model and mast head.

With my second draft I used more of a mixture of fonts but mainly sticking to one which was similar to my mast head for continuity. In photoshop I used the quick selection tool to remove the white backgrounds of the band logos to the right of the page. This draft challenged the conventions of a magazine as most coverlines are found to the left of the page. From this draft on, i used layering to create certain effects such as layering the white text above a back box. This allows for the white text to be seen above the black box; If it were the other way around on layering, the black box would be the only element to see. Another reason to why I changed it was because I felt that it was rather cluttered and not easy for the eye to navigate around. Although I changed this draft, I felt that my strongest photoshop element to this photograph was the model being placed in front of my mast head.

With my third draft I moved my cover lines to the left of the page as I felt it created realism to my product. In photoshop I changed the scale of my main cover line and put "Chloe" in italic font. Once again I decided I wanted to change this draft as the main cover line was larger than the mast head and the image wasn't easy to work around.

This is my final front cover. From my other drafts I developed my layout skills and editing which is clearly shown in this compared to my other drafts. In this photograph I used the Gaussian blur tool on my models face to remove the imperfections. With my use of layering as I explained with the black box and white text, i did the same here. Only difference is that I changed the opacity of the black box.

When I was drafting my first contents page, I didn't used much of my skills from photoshop for this draft as you can see from the simple layout. The only aspect of photoshop I used was layering two boxes and text.

In this 3rd contents page draft i used a lot of layering as seen in my photo above. I used a range of quick selection, and layering.

Evaluation, question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation, questions 2 & 4 - How does your media product represent particular social groups? AND Who would be the audience for your media product?

Script of video

•How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I believe my product represents a particular social group as throughout my products I have used a young female as my main article whom of which has been portrayed to be new to the music industry as a singer of "indie" music. Addressing her to be indie (by the music genre of the magazine and other artists mentioned), this will attract a niche audience but as I have included bigger known artists such as Kasabian on the front cover along with The Rolling Stones, The Stone Roses and the Strokes, this will attract a larger group from demographic gender and age range of 15-24 for males and females. From looking back at my research, and the National Readership Survey's social grades, I believe my magazine will represent social grade D and E. These being (D) Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers and (e) Casual labourers and unemployed. My magazine would not be targeted at any higher social groups as I have not designed my magazine to appeal to them. A business man or woman would not want to be seen carrying a music magazine aimed at the younger generation of society. The demographics and social grading table, from my research, helped me to choose a age range and gender which I would be able to cater for through my products by the layout, photographs and content. 

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

As seen from my research and final front cover product I have priced my magazine at £2.60 for a monthly issue. Unlike most magazines being priced at around £3 for a monthly issue, I have priced mine cheaper to furthermore aim my product at 15-24 year olds. I believe my magazine will attract young students at college and university as this explains my price of my magazine and producing it as a monthly issue so that students won’t spend lots of money for this luxury/treat once a month.

To Stereotype my audience I have included a competition in my contents page which appeals to students to "show the public" what they can do by submitting their work to the Cult magazine website. Relating back to my research, I did a focus group which asked questions to 17/18 year olds about what they would like to see in a magazine. This also helped me to choose who to aim my products at as I am 17 years old myself and can relate to what they comment on which I may never thought of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKyGGUQkn0U&feature=youtu.be

Evaluation, question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

This is my reader profile. This helped me to address/attract my audience as looking into other products and asking other 17/18 year olds in my focus group gave me a clear understanding of addressing my audience.

Evaluation, question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

By the use of conventional elements of my magazine (outlined in text below) i have allowed my magazine to have fluent continuity. 


























For my Front cover I have used similar conventions as to Q magazine for example, the plug splash in the bottom right of Q magazine is advertising an article inside, I on the other hand have used the top of the page for this and placed the slogan on the T of my mast head. I did this so that my magazine would have its elements in a conventional place but slightly different to original magazines. 

I have used white text for my main cover line like Q magazine as i like their use of house style colours as they are bright, stand out to me as i'm consumer of this magazine and looks professional. Q magazine have used red text to separate different cover lines when I on the other hand have used red lines. This is keeping my use of house style present in my work. Another conventional aspect to my front cover is the footer bar as it is playing a similar role to my header bar but just stating what other bands are featured in my magazine - looks better than another cover line. When creating this product i thought of how to draw attention to my audience  with just a quick glimpse of the cover. I decided to edit logos of bands and put them into my product. As with all magazine, they have a bar code, usually in the bottom right of the cover, so i placed mine along with my price in pounds and euros and issue number. 
When i was planning my front cover image, i wanted to use mise-en-scene to elaborate the house style colours; i used red lighting to match the mast head of my magazine. I decided to do this as i was inspired by a photograph of artist Jay-Z in Q magazine photographed with the used of red lighting. 

I wanted to create a double paged contents page for my product as i am a big fan of Q magazine and i like the used of page numbers in the corner of different images. Like my example, i have included an issue number, date and title ("This month" for my contents and "contents" for Q magazine). Unlike the example, i have included my magazine name and mast head from my front cover and place it at the top left of the page in grey next to the title of my page"This month" in red to make it recognizable to my audience that this is my contents page and my magazine is published once a month. I wanted my photographs in my contents page to be different sizes to look quirky and look creative to my audience as i am aiming it at young students aged 15-24.

My double page spread took a while to create so that i was including conventions of a professional magazine. I have used the house style from my front cover, contents to my double page spread to make my magazine look professional. Like Q magazine, i have used a little logo next to my page number to establish a clear reminder to the audience of what magazine they are reading which is complimented by the use of red in the text and subject title of my double page spread. I thought if i used a symbolic photograph this will make the audience stop and read the article even if they were just 'flicking' through. The examples round my product have a strong photograph to draw in the audience to read their article so i took on that when researching into existing magazine's double page spreads. Like the examples of double page spreads, i have also placed my photograph on the left page unlike my drafts as i believe it challenged the conventions of professional magazine double page spreads as it is unlikely to come across a double page spread with the image on the right page.