In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?I have used the codes and conventions of real media products in my magazines, for example on my front cover I have used constrasting colours, black and white, to make my text stand out and my model to stand out also. The layout used in my contents page suits my target audience, most music magazines use the same sort of section out layouts. I believe have effectively fit my product to the codes and conventions of the music magazine industry.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?My media product represnts social groups as it used black and white colours as well as some bright colours, such as green to ofset this and represent the indie, rock, punk social group that my magazine has been aimed at. I feel that I could have used more reds to more effectively represent this but chose against this as I could not get the colours to work with the images and layout. I came up with a band name "Surfing Intention" that I thought sounded original and unusual which fits in with the indie target audience. My music front cover does not strike you as a music magazine sadly because of it does not feature an instrument or the rest of the band members, this is something I would have changed if I had done it again to make the magazine look more authentic.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?Generally news agents would distribute my magazine because they are visited by all social groups so would have the largest chance of being seen by the target audience. News agents and shops near secondary schools and colleges would be the best place for my product to be distributed. A subscription service could be offered as this is commonly used by magazine industries and also leads into free gifts for customer loyalty.
Who would be the audience for your media product?My music magazine is aimed at 13 year olds and above, this is when most peoples real passion for music begins to come out and they begin to form social groups and musical taste that differs from other people. By 13 my target audience will be interested in the clothes, the instruments and the features that a younger audience would most likely not be interested in.
How did you attract/address your audience?I think that my target audience would have been attracted by the codes and conventions I have used, such as models of bands on the front that other magazines on the shelf would not have. This would encourage the audience to buy this magazine over another competitor. The magazine would have a website that would have exclusive content including competitions to encourage them to log on.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?Making my media magazine I have used many different programmes, these include Paint Tool Sai, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and microsoft word. I have developed my skills with these programmes over the course. This is evident from the difference in my first magazine and my second magazine. In my double page spread I used Adobe Photoshop and a wacom tablet to make the half tone background.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?Looking back, I believe that I have learnt to understand codes and conventions of genres of magazines and how to apply them to a media product. I have developed my skills further on the programmes we use to produce the media products. My layout of my pages has changed dramatically from the preliminary to the main task as I have done more research into layouts specific to the music genre. Image quality and scaling is something that I have discovered plays a big factor in the quality of the printed image. Choosing suitable fonts for the genre of magazine was a big part of my experimental stages because for my preliminary task I felt that the font really did not suit the magazine front cover at all. Where as, in my main task I have considered a wide variety of fonts for my front cover and then carried that font throughout the magazine to make the finished product look more authentic and professional.
The contents page is the hardest piece to produce out of the magazine as you have to figure out where everything needs to go. I tried to look at layouts of similar music magazines to get a basis of contents page layouts. I made a side bar to fit the features of the magazine in. This is common in music magazines as it makes the page look organized. My colours match the background that I made in Photo Shop. My pictures are diagonally placed to allow some space and to allow the background to be better seen. I decided to use quotes from stars in a red font to stand out from the other fonts. The colours and title fonts match the general theme throughout the magazine. These can be used for identity with the target audience
