Final Magazine Completed

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

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

How did you attract/adress your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

In my comparison powerpoint, we can see how I have used simialar forms and conventions of real magazines. This would include things such mastheads. They are generally placed at the top of the page and if not across the top they are generally placed in the top left hand corner. I have persoanlly decided to place mine in the left hand side as I think it looks the best being in this position. This is the same for using pull quotes on my front cover. They are used within magazines to draw in the attention of the reader and used in nearly all types of magazines. They generally apply to the forms and conventions of music magazines. The name of the magazine is in a memorable font and the logo is bold so that it can be easily recognised.

The whole styling of my general magazine applies to the forms and conventions of music magazines. The particular types of font that I use are all based around the genre of my magazine such as the font which I used on the double page spread which looked similar to newpaper letter cuttings in the colour orange. The colour scheme was also a large part of my magazine which follows with the forms. The colour scheme is important as it can change the whole look of a magazine. My colour scheme was based around the genre of my magazine so it would appeal to a pop rock audience. The colour scheme in magazines generally doesn't consist of any more than 3 colours and most of the time white and black are two of the colour that are used. (Which are two that I also used in my magazine along with orange). I also applied a bar code and price which are always used on any magazine.

My front cover image is very typical of complying with the forms of music magazines. The model looks directly at the camera to adress with the audience and so that her face can clearly be seen and recognised. The use of a mid shot allows us to see what she is wearing and so that the audience can get a better understanding of what type of person she is. By being able to see what clothes she is wearing we can also assume what genre of music she is from. In this case it is pop rock.

One way in which I found that I challenged the forms and conventions was by not using a large range of language techniques on the front cover to draw in the audience. I found that I focussed more on just writing a sell line that I thought would interest an audience rather than how it was said in a certain way. I also wanted them to be very short and snappy, which they are, and how they should be when following the forms and convetions, but they are worded slightly differently and use little language techniques. On the front however I did use a list of band and artists names as a teaser to make people interested in my magazine as it gives them an insight as to who may be featured in the magazine. This is a very typical form and convention of music magazines.  Using things such as free gifts or posters are also used in magazines to draw the customer to buy the magazine as they may feel they are 'getting more for their money'. I included a free poster in my magazine to do this.

On the contents page, I followed many of the forms and conventions of music magazines. This included using a large title at the top of the page saying 'this week' to let people know that this is the contents page and they can find out what's in this weeks issue. Its in bold and easy to read font so that is clearly visible at the top of the page.  Below this I have inserted many pictures which are realted to the articles in the magazine. I have also included the page numbers which help for navigation and are generally used on the contents page. I made sure that I kept to the colour scheme that was used on the front cover which is a general theme for music magazines so follows this form. I used a variety of headings such as 'regulars' and 'cover story' followed by a list of articles in a short sentence form which is the common way of listing articles in a music magazines. Here I found I used more language techniques or tried to word the headings so that they were easy to read such as 'q&a with Catrina K'.

On the double page spreads, I once again followed the forms and conventions of music magazines. However I did develop the interview. Most of the time interviews are really short and snappy questions and answers, but I developed this by making the interview more like a long conversation. This is because I feel it would allow the audience to feel more as if they were in the room with the interviewer and artists as nothing seems to be edited out or cut out to make it short and sweet. I feel that the audience would feel like they are getting to know more information because of the length of the reponses that I created and the detailed questions I made. The overall style of the double pages mainly stick to the forms and convetions of magazines. This included the use of writing the artists names in a bold and visible creative font so that they could be recognised as well as clear images that were text wrapped to create a nice flowing style of text.

Audience Feedback

To gain some audience feedback on my magazine, I decided to use facebook to get people to comment on what they liked and disliked about my magazine. I thought that this would be a good idea as I have a large age group on my facebook and therefore would get a different variety of ages views about the magazine. This would also allow me to see if I have gained the interest of my target audience by knowing what age people are that are commenting. Many of my friends who are on facebook are at the age of the target audience I have aimed my magazine at, therefore I would get to hear what they think about it.  Below I have written the comments that were posted about my magazine and the age that they are and gender:

15 year old male: "It's really good. I like the colour scheme. Orange is interesting as you don't really see it used in magazines, but it makes it difference. It looks like both females and males could buy it which is good. I like the image on the front cover."

17 year old female: "I like it. The double page spreads are done well. I like the big image of the two girls on them. I'd be interested in a pop rock magazine but i'm not sure how many guys would be interested in it. So maybe target it to a specific gender such as females rather than males maybe? Hope this helps!"

21 year old male: "I'd buy that if it was in the shops."

18 year old female: "Love the colours! Makes a change and i'm sure it would interest both guys and girls. You can tell its a pop rock magazine but it could also fit in with other genres. So maybe try and say what genre of music magazine it is more somehow. But I really like it. I like the article in the double page spread because it isnt boring. Quite funny actually, sounds real though."

16 year old male: "I like the fact you get a free poster."

27 year old female: "Looks great, and it's based on the music I like. I reckon I would buy it if it was in the shops. The front cover is awesome."

Overall I got a few views about my magazine from a different variety of age groups ranging from 15-27 which enabled me to see that some slightly older people than my target audience were interested in my magazine as well as the younger people I targetted my magazine at. This shows that my magazine is quite diverse and that a wider age group likes it. Therefore there is a larger target audience and need for my genre and type of magazine out there. The colour scheme seemed to work well as all ages liked it. They both males and females also said that they liked it which shows that my magazine would possibly be bought buy both males and females which allows me to have a bigger target audience. Some of the things that people said they would change would be to make the magazine look more specific for my chosen genre of music of 'pop rock'. This may mean that because pop rock can be shown in many forms, I should try to really influence the fact that my magazine is for pop rock rather than a possible variety of music genres.

Comparison to existing magazines

Production Log 18

Production Log 17

I have completed one of my double page spreads. I have made a small adjustment from my first draft by deleting a photograph and replacing this with a "five minute fact" box. I think this gives the page more diversity and seperation from images. It also makes the magazine look more professiona as many music magazines contain a small box with information in it. I have now completed my front cover and have now started to create my second double page spread. I want this page to mostly consist of images as I want to make the magazine look like it has more than just text in it. I also want to fill up the white space on the second double page spread and think that the easiest way to do this would be to add a photograph. I'm going to incorporate some more text onto the second double page spread such as a pull quote or small paragraph about the two artists. Below is an image of what my second double page spread currently looks like unfinished.

Production Log 16

I have started at adjust my draft to become my final magazine. I have made a various amount of changes to my magazine. Today I mainly focussed on changing the front cover of my magazine. The biggest change has been changing the front cover image. Instead of having both my models on the front cover, I have decided to use one. This is because I felt that the original picture did not look professional and seemed out of proportion with the sell lines. I think that it also enables me to include a better selling point for the magazine as I can now get the audience wondering who the artist is that sang with Carly Evans, as there is no image to give this away. I have changed my mast head completely including the fonts. I have created the letter R as a simple iconic logo for the masthead and changed the font completely for "Rampage" to a more basic style. However this still stands out on my masgazine and makes it look more professional. I also changed the font for all of my sell lines on the front cover and used two different ones rather than just one font for all of them. This creates a better contrast and divides the quotes and storylines up better, making them easier to read.

Production Log 15

I have completed my first draft for my magazine as shown below. I am quite satisfied with how it has turned out. However I think that it needs a lot of adjustments made to it to make it look more professional and complete as at the moment I think there are too many white spaces on the front cover and first double page spread. I am going to improve this by trying to take more pictures or use more cretive sell lines and fonts to take up more of the space. To find out what else needs to be improved, I am going to ask my target audience and few outside my target audience what they think about the magazine. There input can help me improve my magazine. I am also going to compare my magazine to one that already exists to see if I have included anything new or taken ideas that have already been used and either improved on them or whether they need to be improved in my next draft.