FRONT COVER

CONTENTS PAGE

Double Page Spread

Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?

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

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 3 - What media institutions would distribute your media product and why?

What media institutions would distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

This shows a clear overview of the results from my research survey, which shows mainly females underwent my survey while there were very few males that took it. This tells me that females would be my main audience, as looking at the results from my research, they are most likely to buy magazines and undergo these questionnaires.

As well as looking at the results of the age group, linking to what I said, the age group who would be my audience would be mid-teens from 14-21. This is because they were the age range that undertook my survey, suggesting to me I should lower my target age range to broaden my audience.

Lastly and most importantly, the results from my research told me that females liked POP music more than any other music, telling me that I should target the POP music genre to get a wider audience.

Overall, I know that from all my research carried out, the audience who would read my media product would be females, aged 14-21. Although I don't wish to specifically want to target just females, which is why I didn't make my magazine gender-specific, however, I realise that my audience may be majority females.

Evaluation Question 5 - How would you attract/address your audience?

How would you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of conducting this product?

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

Evaluation Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to your final product?

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it to your final product?

Production driary

Week 21

This week I finished my first drafts of my front cover, contents page and double page spread and posted them up to my blog. I am pleased with my front cover. However I feel my contents page and double page spread need working on and could've been better. 

In the next week I am planning to finish my evaluation and have it all submitted onto my blog. 

Contents page drafts

Here are my drafts of my content's page for my final production; the first to the second draft shows a dramatic change, with the colours used and the layout.

The first draft I used mainly red over the page, with some black text and blue; I felt the way it was laid out left too much 'white-space' and brought my magazine's look down. I changed my magazine's layout in the second draft by placing the contents down one side of the page (left) rather than filling up to the centre of the page, leaving valuable space. Out if the two, I think the second draft gives a better look to the magazine, fitting with research and making it suit my audience. As a whole, this suits the theme of my magazine better, Making it look more professional.

Front cover drafts

Here is screen shots of my different front covers. This shows the variation in my front cover production before reaching my finalised front cover. It shows the changes I took and how I adapted the front cover from my first draft.
        

These were my first two drafts; in the first draft there were minor spelling mistakes, which weren't appropriate, as it is meant to be a magazine production. I changed the spelling mistakes, making my second draft. At first, I liked how different I made my magazine, such as the way I laid out my taglines in a 'ladder' format. This was taken from my research, when I looked at 'Billboard' magazine. I thought it was a good idea to make my magazine look this way, with all the taglines together, with different fonts used, as well as making some bold, some red and some black. This was to make each tagline stand out. In addition, my headline was made to stand out by using big and bold font, 'Rockwell', as well as making the artist's name be a different colour to everything else on the magazine, being pink, which linked to her pink microphone used in the photoshoot and main image.
      
My third and fourth draft became very different to my original ideas and drafts; I made the taglines more 'traditional' being on the left and right of the main images. I enlarged the image and moved it to the middle of the page, which gave the magazine a different look and more suited to a POP magazine. In addition, it also followed my research more, with the majority of my researched magazines' having this format. In the third draft, I thought it would be a good idea to use different coloured fonts, including, red, black, white and orange. This made the magazine seem more 'POP' as it relates to colours, which I found in my research. However, I found, this completely changed my target audience of the magazine, making it aim at a younger audience, which I didn't want; this changed, producing my fourth draft. I used a coloured theme, Red and black, which gave it a uniform, meeting my target audience target and still meeting the conventions of a music magazine. I also made changed, to some of the writing and the way it was laid out, for example,  the top bar, changed to become a tagline, presenting a special edition '2014 BRIT AWARDS', which showed research into the types of stories focused on by music magazines and POP magazines especially. These were some of my changes, as well as adding in a quote for the main cover story, to get people interested in the magazine more, especially my target audience.



 This shows the front cover, similar to my fourth draft, just with minor changed, such as the QR code added, to give it a modern look and adaption to the changes in audiences' lifestyles. I have minor changes to make from this.

Q Magazine research

This front cover gave me the main ideas for my front cover such as the colours (red, black, grey and white), with the use of bold outlined speech bubble. As well as this the top bar showing an exclusive in the magazine is the main idea which I plan to surround my magazine around. This front cover gives me the main idea I will be using for my magazine plans. 

This shows an idea which I plan to use for my double page spread; the picture has a speech bubble with a quote from the interview. This gives me a good idea which I plan to use in my magazine, to show my research. 

This is the interview of the double page spread which I looked at in the magazine I bought as part of my research. I plan to use this layout where I will separate it, using features like the giant R at the start of a column. As well as this the box in the centre showing other topics in the interview, this still will use the 'rule of three', meeting the conventions and would make my double page spread look realistic. 

12 frames

This is a '9frames' I have produced to show my process of the flatplans I made when researching my magazines. These are all the drafts which I produced as the layout of my final production and how I may want it to look like. All these flatplans show great ideas in the way I should layout my magazine, with the front cover, contents page and double-page spread. I like ideas from all of them and when producing my final production, may use ideas out of each of the flatplans shown. The flatplans clearly show my progression I made from the beginning to the last flatplan and how my knowledge around the way magazine's look and the layout of the conventions were used, It also shows how I am trying to be different with the way I lay my magazine out, especially seen in the last flatplan on the first row, where I am planning to place all my taglines in one place; this differs from most magazines who place their taglines all over or not at all. 

Production Diary

Week 20

This week I completed my first draft of my front cover and contents page, which I am happy with the way they both look. I am especially pleased with my front cover, as in the beginning I felt it wouldn't be that good, however I do feel it looks better than first thought of. This week I plan to have my double-page spread complete, so I can post up my drafts on my blog.

Production Diary

Week 19

Since finishing my research & planning last week, I started working on the production of my final product. I have finished my first draft for my front cover, which is quite simple yet contains all the relevant conventions needed. It looks different to what I planned to do and what I imagined when producing it, but I am still very happy with the way it looks, as its different to a lot of magazines, which makes it unique and fits with research I carried out. iI am going to start the production of my contents page now to hopefully finish this within the next week.

This week, I also had a mock exam for media, which was a practice of our evaluation and what it will be like when I get round to starting the evaluation adn the ideas around it to reach the higher grades.

Production Diary

Week 18

Evaluation Questions Notes

1.   In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My media product uses forms and conventions of real media products by focusing on what the majority of magazines use, for example, Mastheads, taglines and images. From my research, I looked at all the conventions of real media products and used them on my own. An example of this is by placing my Masthead, which includes the name of my magazine and logo at the top of my page. I challenged forms and conventions of real media products from the layout of my magazine. I re-searched the way most layouts were on magazines and I challenged them by changing my layout to be different from the majority.

2.   How does your media product represent particular social groups? My media product represents social groups, through the layout of my magazine, for example the Masthead will attract the social group who enjoy listening to the type of music and are attracted to the colours. The types of conventions used on the front cover will attract specifically the working class, if you look at it through a Marxist perspective. This is because, the type of magazine I am focusing and working on, uses variety of different colours and informal text.  

3.   What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The main way of distributing my magazine would be newsagents, such as Post Office’s, and food retail shops, for example Sainsbury’s, Tesco and The Cooperative (Co-op). This is because they are the main industries that distribute these types of media, for example, you wouldn’t sell my media product in a clothes shop. These types of shops are the ones that many people go into, therefore a lot of people will notice them more, so it would be the best way to get my media product notice and distributed.

4.   Who would be the audience for your media product? The audience I am aiming for, which I have decided through my research & planning and the production of magazine, is 16-21 year olds. However, because of the genre of my magazine being POP music, the magazine would also attract a younger audience, for example 13 year olds. My magazine is planned to target both male and females, however through the research carried out, the magazine will most likely attract more females than males, as studies show they like this genre more than males.

5.   How did you attract/address your audience? I attracted my audience through the layout of my magazine and the colours used, the colours were much more subtle than those used in most POP magazine, however the colours still aimed at attracted the audience I was aiming for. As well as this, I addressed them using informal language as its aimed at a young generation and is a magazine that isn’t able serious situations, for example its not a newspaper or political magazine, so there isn’t a norm to speak formal.

6.   What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Technology is a great way to get across different media, although all types of media may not be positive for some, it is a great way to spread new news and information. As well as this, it allows you to do clear research that can save it all in one place. Using the blog when constructing my media product was useful as I was able to look at computer images of how my media product may look and it was also a much easier way to construct my magazine, rather than using hand to make it, which would make it look less realistic.

7.   Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I have learnt how to construct different ideas built up from research, which is a necessary when undergoing a media product. Researching is an important need to get as much different ideas and plans as you can to make sure you’re meeting conventions and making your product realistic. I have also learnt that building a media product isn’t as easy as first thought, it takes a lot of time, research and planning to complete. It’s easy to build an idea in your head but can be much harder when trying to produce it on the computer. As well as having to use everything original, for example taking professional images. 

Production Diary

Week 17

This week I started focusing on my final production by looking at types of photos I would like to conclude on my front cover, contents page and double-page spread. As well as this, I took some new photos which I would like to use, this time ensuring the background was suitable for both the audience and conventions of a magazine. In addition, I took photos with different outfits to also fit these conventions and the criteria needed to produce a magazine. This time I wanted to use props such as a microphone to make it fit my genre of a music magazine, as well as to link with POP music which is my chosen music style I am focusing on for my final production. In the next week or two I am planning to produce my front cover at least and my contents page as week. I will spend the week editing the photos, as well as placing the conventions of the magazine together, including a headline, images and text.

Production Diary

Week 16

Magazine mood board

This is a mood board I created showing ideas I have planned and link to my final production. I have shown clothing and footwear to show links with fashion trends in the POP music genre, as well as the type of clothing I want my female models to wear. I have chosen my female models to wear clothing similar to the ones shown as it links to my research and analysis on different POP magazines, in addition it links to the theme of POP being fun and popular. I have chosen to show microphone and a microphone stand in my mood board as it is the props I would like to use in my magazine when taking pictures. The microphones also link to music, as musicians have to use it to be heard and for people to listen and record their songs. I have chosen to show images of magazines, including front covers, contents page and double-page spread as these are the pages I am focusing on in my final production. I gives good examples to use and gives me good ideas that I will be considering when creating my final production. I have shown my colour chart which I created for my final production, which gives me ideas of colours to use in my magazines, as well as what colours work well together. Not only this, but it links to the other images on the mood board as it represents and clearly shows the genre I am using for my magazine. Lastly, I chose to use two images of POP singers posing for magazines as it shows them having fun and enjoying themselves. These are the factors I feel links to POP music, its about making your music fun and to dance to. 

All of my images link together and clearly represent my ideas for my final production, as well as clearly draw them together making it easier to build up my ideas in my production.