Front Cover

Contents

Feature Article Page

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

Overall, i believe i have developed a lot of skills from my preliminary product right through until now. When completing my preliminary task, i wouldn't have been able to use some of the software i used to create my magazine project. I think i have become more confident in using software since completing this project and has allowed me to create a professional looking piece of work.

• I have learnt how to compare different magazines to give myself inspiration and ideas and then include them in my own work but made more personal to my design
• i have also learnt how to construct my page similar to well-know and established magazines but also keep a simple approach
• I have also learnt how to construct my page for a teenage target audience and keep the genre of my music obvious through the house style
• How to use Adobe Photoshop & Adobe InDesign to structure my page together and make it look professional by adding final touches
• I had some experience with these programmes as i took Media Studies at GCSE, this gave me an advantage when creating these magazines as i was already familiar with the software

i think that i would be a lot more confident in producing bigger projects like this one compared to the preliminary task. This is due to learning how to construct bigger pieces of work and having to meet strict deadlines. 

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

When constructing my product, i have learnt how to develop my work in programmes such as Adobe InDesign. I used this programme to create all of my magazine pages and with time, i learnt more about the programme and how it functions to achieve particular instructions.

• Initially, i planned to complete my photography behind a blank canvas so that my images were more clearer and the poses could be seen more distinctively. However, at the end i decided that it would work better to complete these images with an urban background so that my genre was more identifiable. 

I completed my individual artist images with a blank canvas background and then my band images on some stairs and in front of wall to see which worked better. I decided that the artist images worked better with a black canvas and the group band image worked better with something going on, i believe this is because it gave it a more of an edgy background and related to my chosen genre and would interest my target audience. These were my outcomes:

I decided that the urban looking background worked best for the band as it made the genre of the magazine be portrayed more clearly and easily. 

I thought that the blank canvas background worked better for the artists on their own as it took away the distraction of the band and made the artists on their own the main distraction.

Outcomes:

 First of all, i wanted my main image on my front cover to be of the band so the audience could instantly recognise the genre of the band. I have some difficulties in placing the image on the front cover as it didn't cover a whole A4 bit of paper due to the orientation of the image. I tried different procedures in order for this image to work but nothing worked. This was when i decided to use a different image. I chose to use one of the individual artist images which the audience could still identify with.

The first screenshot shows my attempt of making the band image my main front cover. When i tried to stretch the image all the way down the page to fit the measurements required, the image went blurry and didn't fit properly on the page.
My second screenshot shows how i changed the design of my front cover by using a different image. I discovered that an image of just 1 of the band members would work better as the audience would still be able to recognise the band member.
This process taught me that Adobe InDesign requires an image to be a particular size to fill a whole page and i should have completed my photography in a portrait orientation for it to work efficiently.

I made my designs throughout the process slightly different each time. They appeared different as i added more things onto the page which had an impact on the appearance of the design. I played around with where to place different things, i used kerrangs structure to help  me get a more professional and rock effect. Below is my progress development:

How did you attract/address your audience? feature article

How did you attract/address your audience? Contents

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• My chosen target audience for my product is teenagers/young adults. I chose this particular group of people as my products audience as there is not a current music magazine that targets both males and females equally within this group.
• I think that my magazine does a good job in targeting these two genres as my main band consists of both males and females. This makes the magazine more attracting to both genders as they are both able to identify and aspire to them. 
• My final/finished design of my constructed magazine hasn't changed my chosen target audience. It has further highlighted and reinforced the initial audience i chose for my magazine. I believe that i was fairly lucky in the design of my magazine as most things went to plan and therefore allowed me to portray my chosen target audience. 
• My magazine may however attract an elder audience due to the information included. On a whole basis, i believe my magazine suits my chosen target audience compared to an elder audience as interviews on a younger band would not interest an elder audience as much.
• As my chosen target audience has remained the same after finishing my product, it has made my house style and colours look effective because the construction of my magazine went to plan.

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

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/

Bauer media is a division between the Bauer media group. It is Britain's largest privately owned publishing company and owns over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. It was founded in 1875 and distributes some of music magazines most well known, for example, Kerrang and Q.

IPC is the leading consumer and magazine digital publisher in the UK. The company engage in 26 million UK adults- almost two thirds of the UK. IPC publish well-known established magazines such as NME and Pick Me Up.

• Bauer's cover over Kerrang is a similar magazine to my final product. Both Kerrang and my product aim to target a similar audience and both cover the same music genre. Kerrang consists of a similar house style to my product through the same use of font and text colour. 
• Kerrang also covers my chosen target audience as they target them in the same way as my product does. This is through the use of young bands and particular information that catches the interest of young people, i.e, free posters and festival announcements.

The music magazines that Bauer cover: Q, MOJO & KERRANG!

Q- ROCK AND ROLL

MOJO- CLASSIC AND MODERN ROCK, FOLK, SOUL, COUNTRY, REGGAE, ELECTRONIC AND EXPERIMENTAL

KERRANG!- ROCK/PUNK

The music magazines that IPC cover: NME

NME- CLASSIC ROCK

My music magazine product is also similar to IPC's cover of NME as my target audience is Rock related.

• I believe that Bauer would be the best marketer for my product judging by the current magazines that they publish. Out of all the magazines, my product is most like KERRANG!
• i believe that this would work well in marketing my magazine as this publishing company are used to publishing magazines of a similar genre to mine, this would fit in well with the company.
• My magazine would work well in targeting different audiences as it aims to target different genders and uses teenagers/young adults as their basis on the magazine. This would help to target all young people who don't just enjoy the genre. 
• I believe that this company would be interested in investing as my product can bring the company more business as people outside the genre would enjoy the magazine. My magazine also has the potential to just reach the adrenaline junkies who just enjoy festivals and new music releases. 

Bauer would benefit by investing in my product as it has more to offer rather than just to the people who enjoy the punk rock genre of music. My magazine also releases information that isn't just related to the genre of the music, for example, my magazine releases other information such as album and festival release dates. My magazine would also be successful as it would be popular in a wide range of people. Therefore, the company wouldn't lose out on money.

appealing to social groups

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

·        My media product represents particular social groups through the use of language and presentation. These appeals to the chosen teenage target audience as the magazine appears chatty to the audience and makes it more personal to the reader.

·        My front cover appeals to social groups such as teenagers and both males and females through the colours used throughout the house style. The use of colour throughout my product makes it obvious that the target audience is aimed towards males and females as none of the colours are either masculine or feminine.

·        The involvement of festivals, different bands and discounts attract the teenagers as they are all things that teenagers enjoy and benefit out of. The images included throughout all 3 of the pages include young people which make the teenagers more able to relate to the magazine and feel as though the magazine is aimed to be more personal to them. If these bands were of an elder age, this would not have the same effect and appeal.

·        By basing my colours on dark shades, I believe this contributes to the rock theme of design and house style.

·        I aimed to include different genres of music to act as sub-genres within my magazine that would relate to different social groups.

·        When finalizing my design and planning, I aimed to target all different kinds of social groups so that the magazine would be as appealing to as many different groups as possible.

The social group that is mainly attracted is teenagers which are also my aimed target audience, this works well as my artist/band is constructed of both males and females, this will hopefully attract both genders even if they are not interested in the genre of music.

When creating my contents page, I took a lot of inspiration from Kerrang. I believe that it is noticeable I used a lot of Kerrang’s features due to the similar use of colour and layout. I aimed to make my contents page slightly simpler compared to the Kerrang layout and design.

Some of the features on my contents page are similar to the Kerrang ones. For example, I used an image for the top half of the page and placed text in similar places. However, I made my page slightly more simple by not including as many images and bands of text.

Contents & Feature article pages

For my contents page, I wanted to keep it simple but looking effective at the same time. The only way I knew I could do this was to get ideas from successful and established current music magazines such as Kerrang! I am satisfied with my pages from doing this as I believe they gained a more professional and effective approach.

I used key conventions that were recognizable from other contents pages such as artist image, page numbers & what will be included etc. This made my product more identifiable that it was a contents page.

I tried to create the same effect for my feature article page. I noticed that on Kerrang’s feature article page, it appeared fairly jumbled and crammed full of information; I however, didn’t want to achieve this particular kind of design. I avoided this by keeping the colours of my feature article page the traditional and plain black & white. This worked in making it look effective as the odd use of red and yellow made it stand out and eye catching, this worked well for what I was aiming to achieve as it remained simple.

Initially, I designed my feature article page so that it was a page only. I discovered that this wasn’t going to work as I couldn’t include all of the information I wanted to on one page only. This is when I made the feature article page 2 pages which also allowed me to include an extra image.

My house style between the pages is very obvious and noticeable. I believe that it is clear which colours I chose to use throughout the layout of my design as they continued from my front cover right the way through to my feature article page. The colours I chose are those which are considered related to my chosen genre of music which contributes to the purpose of my magazine and fluent house style.

When creating my contents page, I took a lot of inspiration from Kerrang. I believe that it is noticeable I used a lot of Kerrang’s features due to the similar use of colour and layout. I aimed to make my contents page slightly simpler compared to the Kerrang layout and design.

Some of the features on my contents page are similar to the Kerrang ones. For example, I used an image for the top half of the page and placed text in similar places. However, I made my page slightly more simple by not including as many images and bands of text.

House style, conventions & my media product

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

When creating my product, I used a lot of ideas and conventions from well-known music magazines such as Kerrang!

I decided that these were the best magazines for me to get inspiration from as they are the same in music genre as my product. This gave me an idea of what particular fonts to use and how to display my text and images to fit in with the genre I chose. I believe that by looking at these magazines, it helped me have a more professional approach when creating mine as I developed a sustained idea of how my product should appear design wise.

By viewing these well-established magazines, I believe that it made my product look identifiable in belonging to the punk rock genre through the use of similar colour, font and design layout. This made it fit in with the traditional layout of a punk rock music magazine and made it look more effective as a final product.

An example of this would be the use of cracked fonts through my house style on my pages. This makes it obvious that I have researched established punk rock music magazines to gain an idea of what kind of fonts they use and how they work to portray a certain connotation. I also learnt how to not make my magazine look too cramped. For example, some of the most effective looking magazines looked better by keeping the page simple and not adding too much detail in the design. I learnt through this by not adding too much text and information onto my front cover which would result in it becoming confusing and hard to follow.