Finished Front Cover

Finished Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Written Evaluation

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

I wanted my magazine to be different, and to stand out from all the others that it would be sat against on a store shelf. Also due to the fact that the title of my magazine was called rebel, i wanted to portray the title means. Therefore for my magazine front cover I decided to go against a number of magazine front cover conventions.

Firstly, it is conventional for the title of the magazine to be placed in the top left hand corner of the page. Due to the fact that when a customers looks at a magazine, with is the first thing they will read. However i decided to go against this convention and to place my title on the right hand side of the page. I did this because i wanted the background image to really stand out and catch the customers eye. Therefore, I placed the head of the background image in the top-left hand corner of the page. To make the image stand out further, i decided to place the title behind the head of the subject.

I continued to challenge magazine conventions with the background image. Usually, the subject in a magazine front cover will have full eye contact with the reader. However in my image, i decided that i was not going to have any eye contact, and i wanted the importance of the image not to be on the model, but to be on what she is holding (DJ Vinyl's) and wearing (Headphone and fashionable clothes)

For my contents page I decided stick to conventions. I decided to use short key points and to only give a very brief description for each point. I also stuck to conventions by using small images beside my contents page to show what i was describing. I also kept the convection of having plain background and keeping the layout of the contents page very simple and tidy.

For my double page spread I have decided to use a few conventions seen in double page spreads. Firstly, i have chosen to text wrap my title to make the image stand out and attract the readers eye to this important part of the double page spread. I have secondly stuck to the colors of my magazine of Red and white as i have done throughout my magazine.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My target audience for my magazine is mainly the teenage market and I have designed and targeted my magazine towards this age group. I chose the title of my magazine as "Rebel" to appeal to my teenage market, as often, teenagers are perceived in the public eye as rebels or pests. My magazine content is mainly targeted at teenagers who are interested in Club and RnB music. The magazine represents the music genres and being fun and bubbly and I have tried to reflect these characteristics into the teenage social group. The representation that teenagers are just wanting to live their life, and enjoy the very valuable time they have where they are not having to worry about bills, and life changing decision, is the representation that I am trying to represent in the magazine.

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

I have two options for choosing and institution to distribute my magazine. On one hand i could use a media institution who have a large experience in distributing music magazine and a company that does that exact thing on a daily basis and who knows exactly what they are doing. Or on the other hand I can take a more risky option to use a media institute who has never distributed music magazines, and therefore can take advantage of a gap in their market to maximize profits.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience is the teenage market aged between 16-21. The magazine will especially appeal to over 18's as i t concentrates a lot on club music as well as RnB and Chart music. The magazine is designed and targeted and both males and females and has more than enough content to please both sexes.

How did you attract / address your audience?

One of the things I discovered form my questionnaire is that a large part of the magazine market share and interest is on fashion magazine. Therefore one of my marketing schemes for attracting my audience was to make sure that all the subjects in my images we wearing fashionable clothes and also that the audience had the chance to win the latest fashion accessories ie. Apple Iphone.

Also, i felt it import to communicate with my audience in a way that they could relate to. So in my magazine, I have used humorous language and what written the articles in a much more relaxed language.

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

To design and produce the product I have had to use a number of design tools. One with i used heavily was Adobe Photoshop. Before the product I was already a regular user of Adobe Photoshop, however I did learn some very useful things in the process of making my music magazine. One of the most useful things I learnt was how to manipulate an image using the levels tool and other effects.

I have also learnt how to use blogger. I had never really even thought about blogs before this project, but now at the end of it, i have learnt how to make the most out a blog, by including videos, animations, podcasts, images etc.

Peer Evaluation Video

Pictures to choose from...

The images above are images that I have recently taken and I am concidering for my music magazine front cover and images to be place in the contents page of my magazine. These images were taken with a digital SLR in a studio by myself, with a good friend who agreed to model.
Some of the images that you see have been edited with Adobe Photoshop, however some are still unedited.

For my front cover, i have chosen to use this image:

The image on left is the image i have decided to use for the background on my front cover. I have followed the "club" genre of the magazine by integrating into the picture DJ Vinyls and headphones.
The image has had some editing in Adobe Photoshop to enhance the colour and clarity.

My Target Audience and Magazine Genre

Choosing and appealing to the right target audience is extremely important, due to the fact that my target audience are the people who will be purchasing my magazine and will therefore be my revenue. From my audience questionnaire, i am now able to see what my target audience wants in a music magazine and can use this information to put what they want into my magazine.

I plan to do this by making the magazine based on the Club, RnB and Chart side of the music industry. These three music genres were shown to be the most popular from my audience questionnaire. Yet, i have also noticed from my questionnaire that more of my audience are currently buying fashion magazines than any other magazine. I hope to use this fact and incorporate fashion into my magazine, by having the subjects who feature in my magazine, dressed in highly fashionable clothing, and also giving customers the chance to win fashionable prizes, such as an apple iphone.

Using my research i have seen the my target audience believes that my music magazine should incorporate music reviews and interviews with artist's / bands. I hope to use this fact by using the double page spread at a full length interview with a solo artist. I have chosen a solo artist due to the fact that my research also showed that my target audience likes to read about solo artists more than they do about bands.

Finally, like the audience want, i hope to focus the magazine simply on the music and its creators, ie the artists / bands.