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


My preliminary task and my finalised magazine are clearly of different standards. I feel this I mainly because I have learnt things throughout the process of making my magazine and using Photoshop more and more, which has helped me to give my product a more professional and effective design.

Preliminary Front Cover

Final Front Cover

Preliminary Contents

Final Contents

I used this for my double page spread as it is a landscape picture and was perfect for an image being spread over two pages. I also left enough room around my model so that I could include the text of my interview with him and some other aspects of my double page spread, without taking the attention away from the main focus of the image, which was the model/artist.

This image was used for my front cover, as it is in a portrait format and is what is conventionally used in magazines. I used this because the lighting was good, it is clear to see everything (like the clothes and face of my model) and it suits my magazines image.

The final thing that I feel I have learnt how to use effectively has been blogging. At the beginning, before starting my coursework, I was advised to create my own AS Media blog, at a website called www.blogspot.com. This helped me to display my coursework easily so that I could look back at it quickly.

6. What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing my product?


The hardest thing that I had to learn throughout the process of making my media product Was by far learning how to use the Mac computer systems, and in particular Adobe Photoshop. The first opportunity that I had to get to grips with this programme was when I created my preliminary task for my coursework. For this preliminary task I was instructed to create a school magazine. This was helpful for me because it gave me some time to adapt to using Photoshop to a good enough standard that I could begin constructing my media product.

This was the outcome of my first experience on Photoshop, and is my completed version of the preliminary task. I encountered a lot of frustrating and problematic aspects of Photoshop throughout my coursework. One of these things was that the programme will sometimes crash completely and just freeze, causing any work that I had done in that session to be completely deleted and would then cause me to have to start anything that I had done all over again. This was very frustrating as it happened to me twice whilst I was making my contents page for my media product and I decided that the best way for me to stop this from happening was to drag the document from my memory stick in the back of the computer and save it onto the desktop, so that I could just work from that. Besides all of these negative features that I found whilst using Photoshop, I did find some interesting and extremely helpful ones too. The tool ‘eyedropper’ was one which I found particularly helpful and I used it rather alot during the construction of my magazine. This tool allows you to take a colour from anywhere on the page and saves it so that you can use it in other places too. This helped me to keep my magazine looking professional and matching, as I ended up having a pattern of the layout that I used which was to have the cyan blue colour featuring as a block-background for many of my straplines, titles and other aspects of my magazine. The Macs that I used throughout this process were of this model:

Besides learning to use Photoshop, I also learnt about how to take pictures correctly and to get the desired effect of what I had planned to get before I took them. I needed to take my own pictures for my magazine so I planned before I took these pictures where I wanted to take them, who/what I wanted in my picture, what I wanted my model to wear, what time of day I wanted to take them and the lighting, which were all important factors of my overall final product. I decided that I wanted my model to be posing for my pictures in a street like environment, as my featured article on him was going to be in his home town and at this location, so I found a good spot for my pictures to be taken, which was at a brick wall near his home. I discovered that the best lighting for me to take my pictures was just before I was about to get dark, which, as I took these pictures in April/May time, was at about 6:30pm-7:00pm. The lighting at this time was good because the sun was not out enough to affect my camera and make it too bright to take the pictures that I desired, which were of a dull street corner/environment with dull, boring lighting. I decided this so that despite the surroundings, my model would stand out and look as if he was too good to be living in an area like this and that, being a successful celebrity indie artist, he should be living somewhere in a better and more wealthy location. After finding the right location and the right time of day to take my photos, I then found a model who fitted the right look for my magazine, which was of an indie singer, and then made sure he was dressed in the way that I wanted. So after all of this was sorted out and I was as satisfied as I could be with all of these aspects, I took my pictures. Some where good, some were bad, and I chose the ones that I felt best matched my magazine’s image and worked my magazine front cover, double page spread and front cover around them (not so much the contents page). The best pictures that I felt I took and the ones I used in my magazine are shown below;

5. How did I attract/address my audience?


Obviously the main way that I attracted my audience was by including the model on my front cover who is posing as a music artist and celebrity. This will always attract the fans of this musician, who are likely to just see him on the front cover of my magazine and will take a keen interest in what my magazine has to say about him, and possibly something that they didn’t already know about him. Another technique that I used was that I included a brightly coloured theme throughout my magazine. For instance, across the main image of my front cover I have the words ‘Double Page Exclusive With Mr r’, which I felt had to stand out more than other aspects of the page, so I placed it right in the middle of the page, across the main image and I highlighted two of the words that were in the middle and on a black background, which was the model’s t shirt. The two words that were highlighted in the bright cyan blue colour, which features throughout my magazine, were ‘page exclusive’. The word exclusive would attract people to look at the rest of sentence, which goes on to explain who the exclusive is with. I kept the same few colours throughout my magazine to make sure that it all matches nicely and is easy to look at. All of the writing on my front cover matches the logo of my magazine, which is a good way to keep it different from other magazines. I feel that this technique challenged conventions of other real life magazines.

4. Who would be the audience for my product?


The particular audience that I am trying to target my magazine to are late teens, around the ages of 16-17, to under 25’s, who are still in quite a young frame of mind. Obviously I would need this audience to like indie music and/or house music which are two quite controversial and contrasting genres of music, but there are a lot of people this age who prefer these two types of music in particular. I know this because I am 16 and know a lot of people of these ages who like these two genres of music in particular. House music is generally preferred by

those who visit nightclubs quite often that play some sort of house music, including artists such as ‘Swedish House Mafia’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoLKzfej0ok&feature=related this link will show the kind of music that this artist would produce. As my magazine is being aimed at this particular age group, who generally don’t have a lot of spare money to buy magazines, I have priced mine at a lower price than what other magazines of this type are charging, which is around £2 to £3. My magazine has been priced at £1.80, which is affordable for my target audience and will allow them to buy it quite easily. Also, being cheaper than other magazines, it may attract new customers who are looking for a cheaper magazine like mine.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute my music magazine and why?

There are companies that choose to buy certain music magazine brands and publish and distribute them around the country. This is the kind of company that I would need to see my magazine and buy the brand so that they could then distribute it around the country. For example, there is one website called MagazineSubscription.co.uk who give up and coming magazines a chance to be published by them and offer your magazine on their website for a price to customers. They promise that they have over 5000 subscribers on their website, which would give a good chance for my magazine’s target audience to find out about and subscribe for my magazine.

Another organisation that may choose to distribute my magazine would be the publishers of ‘Q’ magazine, BAUER. As my magazine would have a similar but not quite the same target audience to Q, this media institution would be able to guarantee that my magazine reaches my target audience as they would know how to reach the right kinds of. Also, as my magazine isn’t too specialist, it may be able to attract a few different types of people who it wasn’t even trying to target. Also, BAUER may actually want to publish my magazine and start distributing it in the same places as their other magazines such as ‘Q’ as they both are targeted at different audiences so my magazine shouldn’t in any way distract the target audience of Q and make them want to buy magazine instead, which would just increase profits and dominance in the market for BAUER.

2. How does my media product represent particular social groups?


My music magazine has been constructed to not offend any social groups or compliment any, my main focus was to make sure that my artist was dressed and presented as if he were in a band, dressed in casual clothes, and wearing what a typical indie artist would wear. The audience that my magazine is trying to attract are people aged from around 16 to 25, who like indie music and/or house music. People of this age tend to be offended less easily and generally tend to have very open minds, which allows my magazine to include the model that I used who is dressed in a certain way and is being portrayed in a certain way in the interview. An older generation perhaps might find this boring or offensive as they would probably like to see an older figure on the front cover or being interviewed, but as they are not my target audience I am not fussed about what that certain social group think about my magazine. My model has been dressed in clothes that are quite fashionable and smart, which my target audience would probably want to look like, so having a model on my front cover who is posing as a famous musician on the front cover of my magazine who is dressed in the same clothes as they would like to wear will help to target the right audience for my magazine. It will help that the way my model looks is a good representation of what a lot of indie artists look like nowadays, and fans of this genre will notice that my model looks like this and will be more attracted to my magazine because of it. For example one real life indie singer has been photographed below wearing clothes very similar to those of my model, which is a good link between my model and the genre of indie music;

                                          My Model                       Scouting For Girls (real life band)

3. What kind of media institution might distribute my music magazine and why?

There are companies that choose to buy certain music magazine brands and publish and distribute them around the country. This is the kind of company that I would need to see my magazine and buy the brand so that they could then distribute it around the country. For example, there is one website called MagazineSubscription.co.uk who give up and coming magazines a chance to be published by them and offer your magazine on their website for a price to customers. They promise that they have over 5000 subscribers on their website, which would give a good chance for my magazine’s target audience to find out about and subscribe for my magazine.



Another organisation that may choose to distribute my magazine would be the publishers of ‘Q’ magazine, BAUER. As my magazine would have a similar but not quite the same target audience to Q, this media institution would be able to guarantee that my magazine reaches my target audience as they would know how to reach the right kinds of. Also, as my magazine isn’t too specialist, it may be able to attract a few different types of people who it wasn’t even trying to target. Also, BAUER may actually want to publish my magazine and start distributing it in the same places as their other magazines such as ‘Q’ as they both are targeted at different audiences so my magazine shouldn’t in any way distract the target audience of Q and make them want to buy magazine instead, which would just increase profits and dominance in the market for BAUER.

Coursework Evaluation




1. In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?

Front Cover

In my front cover I used some conventions of real life media products. The image I used for my front cover was one that included a full-body shot of my main artist so that he was fully on display and so that any viewers will know that this musician is going to be inside the magazine. I decided that the image that I chose to use for my front cover had to be a full body shot so that my artist was fully on view to any readers, and so that there are no mistakes as to who will be inside the magazine. I didn’t want readers to think this was the only article in my magazine so I then included several other lines of text to show some other articles and features that would be included inside my magazine. This is done by many magazines nowadays so that people who see the front cover of their magazine are able to see the main articles that the writers of the magazine feel that they should know about and have a bias towards. I decided that I should use this technique on my magazine front cover as I feel it will attract more people’s attention amongst other magazines.

For example there is lots of additional information about what is inside around the sides of this front cover of the popular music magazine ‘Vibe’.

Examples of additional bits of information like this on my magazines front cover were all following the theme of being presenting with a cyan block background, just like the logo of my magazine, which contrasts well with it on the same page. For example, some of my additional information was presented as follows;

Also, much like this front cover of Vibe Magazine, in my front cover I used bright colours to make the more important aspects on the cover stand out to any viewers. This includes the name and title of my magazine, which is the big ‘TMT’ in the top left corner of my front cover, which is in bold black custom writing with a cyan blue block background. Many magazines use this as it makes their brand more identifyable and distinctive from their rivals and competitors, which is why I have tried to create the same effect on my front cover. A good example of this is on this front cover of Q magazine, where they have a similar layout to my logo;

The big red block background behind the bold white ‘Q’ makes it almost unnoticeable for someone who looks at the magazine. The reason for it being located in the top left section of the page is because this tends to be the first place that a reader will look if they are looking at a page, which is because it is generally where things begin on a magazine or any kind of reading material of this type. My magazine’s version of representing the logo and name of it has ended up finally looking like this;

This is brightly coloured, the two colours contrast well and it is easy to look at, but it also will catch the attention of my audience and is different to all other magazines of this type. This will help to create an original and individual name for my magazine and after a while people will start recognizing it a lot more often and easily.

Next, as these two front covers above have got, strap-lines tend to be located at the bottom of the page for the reason that readers will look to see what else is going to be inside the magazine one they have acknowledged the main image and what that main story is going to be about, and will look to the bottom of the page as it is traditionally what should be looked at last when reading something. This also doesn’t draw attention away from the main image as that should be the most important thing on a magazine front cover. For example, my strap-line that I used on my magazine’s front cover is located along the bottom of the page and looks like this;

Finally, I feel that overall, my front cover has used many conventions that current magazines use, but I also feel that some aspects were challenged by myself, mainly the fact that I used a full body shot for my main image, whereas many magazines nowadays use mid-shots or close-ups so that the reader feels as though the person on the front cover of a magazine looks like they are looking straight at them. I chose the full-body shot for my image as I wanted the readers to feel as though my main image of ‘Mr Spook’ was standing right in front of them, and also when an image is taken from further away, it gives the effect of the artist being a big name, and that they don’t need to use a close up of their face for the readers to recognize them, which I would use throughout my magazine.

Contents Page

In my contents page I used conventions of real life magazines of this type throughout. For example, I continued with the colour scheme that I had on my front cover, with the cyan blue colour featuring as a block background for many different aspects of this contents page. I made sure that there are no unclear colours that the reader can’t really read very well, and although the strike-through font used for the text at the bottom of the page makes it slightly harder to read, it is a technique that many magazines use nowadays as it gives the text something different and is an effect that I used because of this. The pictures I used are simply those of featured articles inside the magazine, one being my main article where I have an ‘exclusive interview’ with ‘Mr Spook’, who is my model featuring on the front page, double page spread and ofcourse that image on this contents page. I have included a header at the top of the page which reads ‘News.Reviews.Features’, which I have seen in many real life magazine contents pages, so I thought it would be a good addition to mine as it clearly explains what the contents page will consist of in a quick and simple way. I have in no way challenged the conventions of real life music magazines as I feel that they are very effective as they are and I don’t feel that mine would need to challenge the current conventions of real life music magazines contents pages.

Double Page Spread

My double-page spread is another section of my media product that follows the conventions and forms of real life music magazines, as once again, i feel that they do not need to be challenged. This is because they are effective enough as they are and i do not believe that they need to be developed or changed in any way. One example of the way i have used a convention of real life magazine double page spreads is by placing the title at the very top of the page, right in the middle and in bold writing. This is done so as this is generally the first place that a reader would look, and as it is the title and description of what the article is going to be about, its important that the reader sees this before reading the rest of the text on the page for them to completely understand what it is all referring to and about. Another convention that i used on my double page spread is to include a 'fact file'. This is simply a few facts about the person being interviewed (in my magazine it's 'Mr Spook', who is an indie artist), which fans generally find interesting, and may help them to understand some more of the article that is an interview of him. I would say if i developed anything on this double page spread in comparison to the conventions of a real life music magazine, it would be that my main image is only shown on a small part of the page, which doesn't tend to be done as often with magazines these days as they are seen as a very important selling point of the magazine. 

As well as the poll on my blog, i conducted another one to hand out to people in real life. This questionnaire mainly determined how my music magazine was going to be. The first question that i asked was gender, which turned out to be 1 more male than women (8 men, 7 women). After this i found out the the best theme for my magazine would be in the colours of red and blue, which are both conveniently unisex colours which would help me to attract the entire audience that i am targetting my magazine at. I thought that i should put a young artist on my front cover as my questionnaire results showed that the average age of people was about 16 or 17. My questionnaire also showed that people of this age dont tend to buy music orientated magazines regularly, so i will have to make my magazine relatively cheap i want people to buy it, and sell it in supermarkets, which as my questionnaire proved was the main place where people in my audience would buy a magazine. People said that they would pay up to £2 for a magazine like mine, so i am going to price it at £1.80, so that there shouldnt be any danger of people thinking its too expensive to buy. People then said that the main genres of music that were most prefered were house, indie and pop music. With this information i will diversify my magazine around these three genres. People then said that the main reason they buy magazines of this type is to find out tour/gig dates and for competitions that give tickets to giggs/prizes. I should probably include a competition with prizes like tickets or something music related and relevant to my magazine.