How does your media product represent particular social groups? (Final)

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

Since my preliminary magazine I think that I have made a massive improvement in almost all aspects of making the magazine. The layout of my preliminary magazine isn't very good and looks like things have just been put anywhere on the page with no consideration of how it looks. The colour scheme of my original magazine is also very ineffective as it isn't very boldand doesn't stand out at all. The text is also very hard to read. Ialso think that the barcode is too big. However i do think that my cover photo was fairly effective as it is a mid shot showing a student which was my target audience for that magazine though the facial expression in the photo looks 'fake' and doesn't look very natural.

In my music magazine i think that I have learnt from all of these mistake and implemented all my ideas better. For starters I think that my colour scheme is better by a long way as it is very easy to read and all of the colours compliment each other unlike in my preliminary magazine. I also think that the general layout has improved dramatically as itlooks like a real magazine such as 'Q' or 'NME'. The shot style in my cover photo is very similar as it is again a mid shot like before however I have learnt from before and got the pose, body language and facial expression to look a lot more natural and 'real'. This change alone make the magazine look a lot better and will appeal to my audience.

The contents page is where I feel I have improved the most as in my preliminary the layout is extremely poor and doesn't look at all professional. The colour scheme was also awful as it was a just a very plain black and white. There was also no real layout and it looks as though it has just been pasted straight onto the middle of the page. On my music magazine contents page i think that i have improve a lot as it now looks professional and how a real contents page looks. My contents page now has a proper colour scheme instead of the very plain black and white. The

layout is now set out a lot better and includes information about each section whereas before there was no information at all. My contents page is now also very easy to read and follow as it is a little like a list but with more impact with the pictures, detail and colours.

How did you attract/address your audience? (Final)

To attract my Audience I used elements from various magazines that my audience would also read such as 'NME', 'Q' and 'The Fly'. I used a colour scheme that is popular with my audience which is red, white and black. I know that this is a popular colour scheme as it is used in many magazines based at the same audience. A unique part of my magazine that will attract my target audience is the fact that I used pictures of people that are the same age group as my audience, this means that the readers will be able to better relate to the artists mentioned in the magazine as they will be the same age. Another unique part of my magazine is that it focuses heavily on U.K artists which makes it better for the reader as they will also be from the U.K and will be able to relate to the artist better.

Who would be the audience for your media product? (Final)

The audience for my music magazine would be people aged around 16 to late 20's. This is because of the informal language and references used in my magazine and for the reason that many people aged past their twenties do not often listen to Indie Rock music. The audience for my magazine would be either male or female as this genre of music interests both genders though their may be a slightly higher amount of males who are interested in this genre more.

Audience Profile:

Jerome is a 17 year old who is living with his parents in the centre of Leicester. He is interested in Skateboarding and Indie Music. He has a part time job at the local skateboard shop so has a disposable income that he can spend on indie music magazines. Jerome wants to find out about various new and up-coming indie bands but struggles to do this with the shortage of indie magazines. He doesn't want to spend anymore than three pounds a month as he wants to spend his money his hobby. He likes a fairly minimalistic style of magazine that is not extremely busy and jammed with text on one page he also wants a magazine that focuses on British band and artists instead of artists from over seas as he can relate to the British artists more.

I think that i have appealed to this audience well as I have used layouts and colours that are popular amongst these types of people. I have also used photo's of people that are the same age as the audience i am targeting my magazine at. I also used language that would appeal to this age group instead of using formal language.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Final)

Throughout the planning and creation of my magazine I used covers, contents pages and Double page spreads from 'NME', 'Q' and 'The Fly' as inspiration, this is noticeable in my work as it is heavily based around a combination of thosethree magazine's styles. I used different elements from each of those magazines and implemented them into my own magazine. For my colour scheme I used red, black and white which is a very popular colour scheme choice in this type of music genre and is used on all three of the magazines I used for inspiration. I like this colour scheme because it they all compliment each other and it makes the text extremely easy to read. I did also use a very light grey which was used to add a little more of an impact than a standard plain white background.

For my cover I used a combination of elements from a 'Q' magazine cover and a 'The Fly' magazine cover and implemented them in a way that i felt was effective along with the style that I wanted for the cover. For my cover photo I was originally going to do a full band photo however after seeing an 'NME' cover that featured just the front man of the band I decided I would also do this. My magazine logo is inspired by the 'Q' logo as I have made into a box type shape that fits to the top left of the cover like on 'Q' magazine covers.

My Contents page is a combination of elements from 'Q' magazine and 'NME' Magazine. I used the same colour scheme and a layout that is very similar to that of 'Q' and 'NME's. Something that I have tried to differently is a large heading bar at the top with the title and issue number on, most magazine contents pages have a small heading bar or no heading bar at all so this is something I have tried to do differently to normal magazines.

My double page spread is based heavily on the style of 'Q' magazine. I did this because I think that 'Q's layout and design is very effective and eye catching. It is mostly based on a 'Q' double page spread of 'Arcade Fire' which can be seen below my double page spread. One change i have made from the 'Q' double page spread is I have decided to use a darker shade of red on the letter a the start of the article to make the overlapping text much easier to read and be a better experience for the reader. I also made the red bar at the top brighter to give a little more impact.I also tried to add some element of my own however I added the bands contact information to the end of the article and the bottom right of the article. I think this is effective as many readers will be using social network sites and will want to find out more about the band.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? (Final)

For my my music magazine i think that the best suited distributor would be 'IPC Media'. 'IPC Media' are the current distributors of 'NME' Magazine, a magazine that originally focused on mainly Indie-Rock music but now however has tried to attract a larger audience and has started to include a more wider variety of music. Because of this I think that 'IPC Media' would be very interested in distributing my magazine as they will then have a magazine that focuses solely on Indie music. I think they will also be interested in my magazine as they have experience in working with the same style of magazine and know what the readers want and how to advertise the magazine.

The magazine would be distributed in different ways such as to shops and newsagents to be put on sale, posted to subscribers and could also be posted online at a monthly cost slightly cheaper than a normal subscription. I think 'IPC Media' would be successful in distributing the magazine in these ways as they currently do the same with 'NME'. 'NME also has a very good website which means that they could do the same for my magazine giving it a strong online presence.

With the magazine being distributed by 'IPC Media' people who where fans of 'NME' might also be interested in my magazine as they know what to expect as it will be the same distributor. My magazine is also heavily based around British artists and bands so this will also interest 'IPC Media' as they're a British company.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? (Final)

iMac/Computer: For the majority of my work I used my iMac and used software on it like Adobe Photoshop CS5, Apple Preview and Microsoft word. I also used the school computers for a lot of my work where I used a different version of Photoshop called Photoshop Element 5.0 however this version is very similar to CS5.

Adobe Photoshop CS5: For a lot of my work I used this version on Photoshop. It is very similar to the school version Photoshop elements and I have used it before so it was not anything new. This version of Photoshop is very easy to use and easy to work with.

Camera: For my photo’s I originally used an iPod camera however I soon found these pictures where not the best quality so I re-took these photo’s using a camera from the school library. Blogger: I used blogger to upload my work and used it when writing my article. I tried to keep my blog updated with work fairly often.

Internet: (Safari, Google) I used the Internet for pretty much all of my planning and research using websites like cover junkie, Wikipedia and magazine websites.

Blogger: I used blogger to upload all of my work onto and keep track of all my work. I used Blogger throughout the course of making my magazine.


Scribd: Scribd is an online storage site where you can upload and view work done on Microsoft Word. I used this to upload some of my research and other work onto my blog.

Magazine Final

Magazine (Old)

Test Shots