. 1. In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms & conventions of real media products?
For my magazine to follow the conventions of a real professional magazine I have analysed two music magazines before designing my own, and also done a preliminary test. With research my media product has used developed or challenged forms and conventions. One convention is the master head, with my own magazine I have placed it at the top middle of the magazine where as another magazine similar to my theme had placed it at the left hand corner, this is essential for any type of magazine as is targets us audiences and we are able to see what magazine we pick up with the big font that takes up 1/3 of the page. Another convention that was used in my magazine is the barcode and pricing of magazine, they are general conventions in any magazine; this will help the audience to pick the right price they are will to spend of a magazine. The lettering or font is depending on the theme of the magazine, with my magazine I have used a few incorrect fonts, this is shown below, I believe these do not fit well with the magazine I have designed because they look old and they don’t fit well with the rock/punk indie type of music. However I have demonstrated more correct fonts that go with the magazine genre. The colours I have used has are red which shows passion and danger, whereas the blue represents calmness, the black and white have connotations of dark, shadows and secretive.
For my contents page I have followed the conventions of a real magazine, for this I have included other images that are inside the actual magazine this decides whether the audiences continue reading the magazine or not. I have also included page numbers to the interviews, backstage pass ECT... By having the photos on one side of the page it shows neatness and easy to read with the columns. However I have challenge the conventions of a real magazine by not including categories or topics of each idea, also I have designed the contents in a black and white theme which you never see in a content page of any magazine
The double page spread also uses conventions. The first reason is by having a huge blown up photograph of the artist being interviewed followed by smaller image/s at the bottom. By having a photo of the artist they are likely to read the article, and with the conventions of the headline it stands out well from the rest and again attracts the audience. Secondly I have arranged the page by having columns added, with the stand first “We asked questions never dared.” it gave the readers a great feeling which leads them to read the article. Finally with the simple colour scheme it wasn’t too rough in the face with bright and warm colours, I decided to go for a strong, bold meaningful colours; Black, white and blue, this creates a professional look.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My music mainly represents Rock but a slight of indie music. The target is teenagers, both male & female. I have showed this by the pose, the facial expression is rough with the glare right at the camera, the hair, make up & ear pricings. Her make up is really dark around the eyes and her cheeks are brightly red, the colours convey hard and a party type which is a stereotype. Her paleness implies innocence and hard life. The ear piercing jewellery, which you can’t see very clearly is manly found on young teenagers, such as the eye brow, the scaffold, the lobe and the rook, but not all. Her dark clothes represent all the darkness around her.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product &why?
I would think IPC media will publish my magazine as they publish NME magazine, which has similar themes/ genre like my own: punk rock and indie. One reason is IPC publish music magazines and will benefit from publishing my own music magazine, with them already selling out the indie, rock magazine they will have loads a customer base buying my magazine which has the audiences preferences and yet it is fresh and younger looking than others such as NME, Rolling stone and Kerrange. The second reason why IPC media should publish and distribute my music magazine “2ne1” is because profit will increase over time as their customers with be happy with the gossip and extra stuff in my magazine but also it shows similar interviews, language and gossip but just in a different perspective and new ideas in the magazine. Finally a gain from selling my magazine in local newsagents and familiar stores will help me, decide what is going well and what is not going well in the magazine I have created on my own.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience I am targeting is young mostly male but also female aged between15-30+ and British. I have decided to target a younger audience because they can relate to the lyrics from the music. Another reason why I have decided to choose the wide age gap is dued to festivals and concerts in the spring, summer time. I believe that during the holidays many young adults are likely to be paying for festivals and concerts that includes their favourite band, but also for the experience of meeting new people and camping out.
4. How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract my audience I used data from the audience researched I carried out myself. One main feature of a music magazine and any other magazines should be a large scale picture on the front cover. I believe that having a font cover picture is needed to attract the audience, whether it’s though the look or the style of clothing. The model shows that though her styling of clothes, jewellery and make-up, which young boys will be attracted by as my main focus group but also young teen girls would pick out similar clothing to match the ideal look for a rock/ indie appearance . Another way I have attracted my audience is through my audience research, I asked a handful of questions such as what type of genre of music do you listen to, how often do you buy a music magazine and other features inside the magazine like competitions and prizes as I know many people are interested in winning items, I have also included free poster and included tickets to see House of ghosts, this would be a main feature as the audiences are interested in concerts to their favourite band.
The most popular colour for the magazine is blue and block lettering as a font to stand out, this was taken again from my audience research and I have applied it to my magazine to attract the audience.
4. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
From designing my own product I believe I have learnt a lot about the technologies in constructing the product. I have learnt how to use a Cannon E0S 400D for my preliminary magazine. However I did not take my photos for the music magazine with the cannon, instead I took the image with my 0.8 mega pixel phone camera. I had a few problems with using the phone camera as I was unable to hold the phone still which led to the photos being blurry and the lighting being incorrect for the images. However I put the main focus on and this helped for a better quality.
Another technology I have learnt to use is Photoshop, before designing my preliminary magazine I had little knowledge of photoshop. However that changed dued to testing out tools and understanding what tools were used for what. With the help of tools such as the lasso tool, this helped me make clean cuts around the picture if I needed too. The Quick selection tool helped me to select the part I wanted to remove or I wanted to copy. Those two tools are very handy to me as I had a lot of background to erase as I didn’t take the photos with the blue screen and a professional camera such as the cannon or nikcon and acurrate lighting, With the picture taken without the blue or green screen I had to use the bucket to change the background colour, which I have done to a blue and a shadow lighting in the middle. I have learnt that the process of constructing the product was a difficlut task dued to the lack of professional equipment and timing.
4. Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?
From the preliminary test I feel that I have learnt several useful tools on photoshop to produce a full product such as the lasso tool, the ruler tool to keep my columns straight and accurate to make it look neater and professional. The text tool where I have learnt what font goes well with the theme I have been working on and what doesn’t go so well, I also learnt that having a colour scheme helps me and the magazine to be fresher looking but not to over coloured and really bold which stick out from the other magazines like a sore thumb. However, having a magazine standing out helps as a lot as customers are attracted to the colours but also they want to see how well it has been presented. I also learnt having a good lighting and camera to take the pictures helps it look even more professional as the front cover picture is what customers are looking for when buying a magazine of their choice, or if they are looking for another magazine similarly with the same theme/ genre. From my preliminary test I have also learnt that using a Cannon E04 400D has better quality than a phone camera with 8 megapixel.
