Evaluation

In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I think that my media product develops and challenges forms and conventions of a real media product. From making my college magazine I learnt to use Photoshop so I found this front cover easier to produce as I knew what I was doing. I used Photoshop to produce my cover as I thought it was the best programme to suit what I was doing as it has all the features I needed to produce a magazine front cover. I think that my front cover develops and challenges forms and conventions of a real media product because it includes all the aspects that a magazine should, even little things such as bar code, price and the date. These help to make it realistic because a real media product wouldn’t be published without them on. I have also included the major aspects of a media product such as the title and additional articles, which I made sure stand out the most along with the picture. I think that the picture is a major aspect of a magazine front cover because most people look straight at the picture so you need to make sure that it is good. I think that my front cover clearly shows what genre my music magazine is by the picture and what the additional articles are about.

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
The social group which my media product would represent would be young Hip Hop artists which are interested in what is going on and how there rivals are doing. This social group has been represented through the image that I have taken and produced my double page spread on. Even though my picutre is of a boy I think that it is also aimed at girls to. I placed a picture of a girl on the contents page to make sure people knew this because my double page spread was also about a boy.

What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think that the media insitution that might distribute my media product would be IPC media as it covers a wide rang of magazines of different genres.The magazine would be published for many reasons such as to promote new music and to keep update news on everything that is happening in the Hip Hop music industry.

Who would be the audience for your Media product?
My media product is aimed at particularly teenagers as they are the group which are usually into this type of music. The way which I tried to represent the audience in my magazine was by the age of the person who the picture was of and the additional articles which are included in the magazine. I also made the layouts fairly simple which teenagers usually prefer rather than really complicated because they just like the read it easily to find out what is going on. I would like all ages to like my magazine if they are interested in the genre though.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I used several techniques to attract and address the audience. Such as i wanted my magazine to come across as a mature magazine, I did this by making my picture serious. I also wanted my magazine not to come across as boring so I did this by using a range of colour throughout my magazine not just one all the way through. The colours I used on the front cover were black, white and red. I think these where the most appropriate as the background of the picture was quite dark so it made it stand out. On my contents page i used the same colour scheme as I thought it was appropriate to make them match. On my double page spread I used browns and white as I thought they match the colour scheme of my photo as it is outside.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Whilst I have been making my music magazine I have learnt a lot of different techniques. I have learnt how to use Photoshop more instensly and I feel like I can use it properly now. I have also learnt how to make a double page spread on publisher. I learnt what conventions are used within making a music magazine and how to put them forward and make a magazine. I have learnt how each individual music magazines use conventions in different ways to appeal to there target audiences. Whilst making my magazine I have developed my skills in editing photographs in Photoshop to how I want them.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Having to produce the preliminary task, which was making a college magazine front cover and contents page helped me to gain an understanding of the different programmes that I needed to be aware of to produce a magazine. The skills which I then learnt through the preliminary task helped me to produce my main task with more skill. I also developed more of an understanding of how a magazine is best laid out, the colours of the texts which match your genre the best and the different ways to take a photograph to the best potential.

Double Page Spread

For my double page spread I decided just to use one picture the whole way across the two pages and place all of my text on top of it.
In the top left and right hand corners I placed the page numbers and next the left one I wrote who the article was about and next to the right one I wrote what the article was about.
For the title of the double page spread I decided to keep it simple and just call it what it was about, I also chose to use a latch on question ‘And is it bigger than ever before’
I chose to place my article on top of two brown text boxes which I made transparent so it wasn’t to dark and you could still see the background through them a bit.
I put the quote in white to match the title and the writing of the article. However I chose to put the page numbers in brown so that they would match the background of the writing so it would all fit together and not look odd.

Contents page

This is my contents page or my music magazine. I designed my contents page in publisher. I used a template to design it but I changed the layout and colours of the template to fit my genre.
I decided to use one main picture which would indicate the article which my double page spread was about. I also chose to use two other pictures to the right of my contents page just to show one of the additional articles on my contents page. I chose to change my pictures into black and white for the contents page as I thought it was a better fit.
I chose to use white, red and black font as that was what I used on the front cover and I didn’t want to change them throughout the magazine. I decided to put the name of the magazine and the date on the top of the contents page as I thought it made it more personal to the magazine.

Front Cover

This is the final design of my music magazine. I decided to design my magazine cover in Photoshop. The first thing I did was edit my photograph that I had chosen to use for my front cover. First of all I blurred the whole thing and rubbed out with the eraser the part of my picture I wanted in focus which was the wall and the person. I also darkened just the background of my picture to help make the person stand out the most.
I named my magazine ‘Street Life’ as I thought it represented my genre of music which is Hip Hop. I then designed my slogan which is ‘Bigger than HIP HOP’ I chose to use this as my slogan as I thought that as it says bigger than Hip Hop the audience would choose to buy as it makes it sound like the magazine is going to be better than all the others of the same genre. In the bottom right hand corner of the cover I placed a bar code, the date and the price. I did this because every magazine has a bar code and the date on so it would need this on it. Out of all of them I made the price stand out the most so it makes it easier for people to find it.
I chose to keep the front cover simple and just place to additional articles on it as this helped for me to be able to make the main article stand out more. I chose to use red and white for my additional articles because I felt that they where the ones which went best and stood out the most for my genre of music.

These are the picture i have taken for my magazine.

Contents pages

This contents page is quite a busy contents page and has a lot going on, this could show that the magazine will contain a lot of busy stories and have a lot going on in it.
At the top of the contents page it has the 'NME' name and along side it, it says this week. The NME part is in red font because that is the colour of the logo and it makes it clear to the reader what the magazine is.
Down the right hand side in purple font there is a 'Band Index with page numbers showing where abouts they are in the magazine, this is in quite small font, which could mean it is not the most important part of the magazine in there opinion.
There is also a section named 'Plus' which has other articles in the magazine, this is in a larger font than the band index which could indicate that they are slightly bigger articles.
The biggest section of the contents page and the first thing that will stand out to you when you look at the contents page is the section that is centered and named '10acts for the new year', it also has pictures and a background to it and it has the 'new noise 2009' logo above it. It also includes an arrow pointing to turn over the page saying 'get turning to find out who we're backing'.
The contents page also includes advertisements along the bottom and down the right hand side.

Double page spreads

In the first double page spread the picture is on the right and the writing is on the left hand side.
The main focus of this is the title and the picture. However to show that the picture is part of the article it is spread over to the left hand side of the page by her arm which is then overlapped by the title.
The picture is of Lily Allen who is a popular artist at the minute so this could help to attract more viewers. The colour of the text in the title is white with a black background this is a representation of the magazine itself because the colours you think of when you think of the genre rock is black, red and white.
All of the colours on the whole page including everything only use the colour red, black and white. The background of the entire double page spread is white; this is effective because it helps the picture and title stand out more.
The way that this double page spread is set out is differently than the other one. The way which the picture is coming from the left and spreads further across the page than the other one. The colours that have been used in the picture are more darker colours which aren't as eye catching. This is because this is the type of clothes that this genre of music use as the clothes represent who they are. The picture takes up about three quarters of the page and is set out like he is boxed into the page. They have put the main text that you see first as his name, they have put it in white font and placed it over his jacket which has a black arm, this is effective because it helps it to stand out more by the contrast of the colours.
The article is in two columns at the right hand side of the page in black font on a white background, this helps the article to stand out just as much as the picture because the picture is on a slightly darker background so when they are next to each other they both stand out just as much. Whereas is the article was on the same coloured background as the picture is then it wouldn't stand out as much and the picture would draw much more attention.