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

After my preliminary task, I found doing a questionnaire really helped as it assisted me to ask questions which answers would benefit me in making my magazine. Once I had the results I could make my magazine as the people wanted it to, so it would be better as it would be what they liked and wanted. I also realised that by studying products similar to the one in which I wanted to create, I could identify the conventions that are related to a magazine production which, I could use or challenge to make my magazine look better and more realistic. I did more thinking about what sort of photos I was going to use and when I did the photo shoots I thought about different angles such as close up mid shot or a long shot so I had a variety of shots to work with and use from. Using the blog to present my work was a lot easier and better than having to hand in a hard copy and printing everything off

My preliminary task:

The coursework front cover:

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

For my preliminary task I started of by learning how to use http://www.lunapic.com/editor/ <- that website as a photo manipulating website. I learnt how to use the different tools and what they did. Tools such as : 

Brightness

Sharpen

Crop

Colour saturation

Ect.

All of these tools were helpful for when I came to edit my pictures.

Once I had manipulated my pictures I had to learn how to use gimp, ( a software like Photoshop) to create my magazine. This was difficult because I had never used it before. I luckily picked it up quite quickly and figured out how to move layers, how to create text and move it and how to make my magazine look good.

I had to use gimp, because we have a problem at school where we couldn’t get Photoshop so the school got gimp instead. However when running gimp at school the computers ran really slowly and it took forever to do something quite minor.

For my actually task I used Photoshop from my own laptop. This made it so much similar as everything was all on one program, the editing of the images and the putting together of the magazine.

Once I had created my magazine I then had to learn how to use the blog site, which is the way that I wanted to present my work. This was quite easy as I picked it up quickly and it wasn’t that hard to use. I then started posting all of my work.

This is the opening scene from the website where i manipulated all of my images.

This is the opening screen of Gimp.

 

This is the opening scene to Photoshop CS5.

 

This is the opening scene to the blogger.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted and addressed my audience by using a bright bold mast head which stand out in the magazine rack and would attract the readers eye, this is the same for why I used blue/turquoise as my font. I used bright, contrasting, colours on my fonts and backgrounds. This makes the magazine easy to read, colourful, and attractive .

I attracted my audience by images and models of roughly the same age and gender. This makes them easier to relate to and persuades the readers that they too can get the look and give them ideas in which they can dress like.

I made the price appealing at the price of £1.99 which is more affordable for young people, who are students and I also included ‘freebies’ such as posters to make the magazine more appealing. I included relevant music artists and photos for the music genre my magazine is based on.

I The language which I used in my magazine is informal, and they type of language which the reader would use in their day to day life. It is consistent with the style of the magazine.

As well my magazine would have a website, where people could look at articles, play games get advice ECT, a mobile number where they could text answers in to a weekly question. They would have a facebook page as the age of my audience is all about facebook and always on it.

Also it would have a weekly compotion so that the readers could win something big.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience which I am targeting my magazine at is, mainly females, who would be between the ages of sixteen and twenty two years old. They would be more into the rock genre of music than anything else.  The type of people which I am targeting my audience at is working/middle class (of the BSG scale of C1, C2 and D.) the type of people who I feel would be interested in my magazine would be students, so they have a little bit of income, but also most students of that age have part time jobs so they have some spare money going about.

I did a questionnaire and handed it out to people around the age of which I wanted my music magazine to be, to see what results I got and to see what type of things they are into. I have done the results of this questionnaire in graphs to get a better knowledge of what they want and what they are into.
My magazine isn't aimed at any sort of stereotype, just the general teenager and young adult.

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

Not with standing my comments about ethnic representation, I feel my magazine could be distributed in most newsagents and off licenses, especially the big ones such as WHSmith and little ones which are dotted around. I would like these to sell my magazine because they sell big, established magazines from every genre, such as men’s lifestyle, woman’s lifestyle, fashion, music, film, TV, hobbies fitness, science and many more. So my magazine would fit in well here because if would fit into the music genre.

I would like my magazine to also be sold in music shops such as HMV and other ones. My magazine would fit in well here because it is of the music genre and also it is all about music, what's hot and what’s not.

As well as stores, my magazine would be sold online or as a subscription. The magazine would have its own website online, for example www.rock_chic.co.uk. Or however it could be found through the publisher’s website, such as NME magazine is owned by Time Warner Inc and can be purchased from either website. So if Rock Chic was being made from a publishing company such as EMAP.

To begin with my magazine would start of small and probably be its out publisher and distributer, however it would grow and get larger, and move out into larger shops and bigger distributing places and a publisher may take it over.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There are only four pictures on my front cover and the only social group which they represent are teenagers and young adults. This is represented by the age of the models which I use in all the pictures. They are ages 17- 20. I particularly did not single out a sub such as “emo” or “chav”, because I don’t have a specific audience of that type which I am trying to target. I felt that such stereotypes automatically leads to narrow casting the audience at this age.. In the contents page it represents the same age group, the models are from aged 15 to 19. The double page spread represents the same age because the model I used was aged 17. However I am aware that the dominant representation is of the white ethnic group. This is because where I live on the Isle of Wight, 97% of the population is of white ethnicity. Bizarrely I have no black friends. Mixed ethnic representations is a real issue for Island students. So this has contributed to the reason why all of my models are white. I have not done this on purpose and I understand it would be a lot more rounded and fair if I had a black model in there, I would work hard in my next issue to address this weakness.

In what way does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The main focus on the background of my magazine front cover is of a girls face. I have done this because the magazine industry chooses to have a person or people (I.E a singer or band,) on the front. However I have challenged this convention, because I have put it in black and white instead of having it in full colour. I feel the picture itself is a bold enough statement, and didn’t need colour to make it stand out. It ensures that the focus of the reader is not distracted from the image, however it also lets the audience’s eye wonder around the page, to see the other content which is included in the magazine.

I challenged conventions of magazine products because I have continued the blue colour for my mast head and also for the font. The colour blue compliments the picture and makes stand out more against the contrasting colours (black and white). Not many other magazines use blue for their mast head or font, because it doesn't compliment or stand out against many other colours, many more colours work better and most magazine industries choose to go for these because they are the simple way out of it. They tend to choose bolder colours. I didn't want to follow this trend because, when my magazine is in the rack, the mast head will stand out more from all the rest of the magazines, which would mean more sales.

Further more, I have challenged forms and conventions of other magazines, because of where I put the price of my magazine. Normally, in the case of most products they have their price under or next to the date, which would be on the right hand side under the mast head, with the issue number, so that it still shows when the magazine is in the rack. I have kept this idea in mind, but changed it slightly. I have put the issue number, the date and price under on top of the barcode. I have done this because I didn’t want to hide it from the reader; however I found that it fitted better down the bottom. It looked correct in the placing of it and didn’t make the magazine feel too cramped and full of information. Although I have kept all three bits of information together and not separated them.

In the end thought I have kept to a quite minimalistic, conventional approach, with some slight differences, (enough not make it look different and stand out.) mostly I did my deconstructions and saw what the normal conventions were and tried adding some of them into my magazine because these are the things the industry have found out sell the best and make the most profit, so worth adding in.

My magazine is unique and different. This is the feel which I was going for so it would catch the audience’s eye when in the rack at the shops.