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.

Questionnaire Results for Music Magazine

Below are the results for my questionnaire on Music Magazines.
Questionnaire Results For Music Magazine

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Reasons for my Questionnaire Questions

Questionnaire for Music Magazine

1) How many magazines do you buy a week?
· None
· Just the one
· Between 2 and 5
· 5+

2) What type of magazines do you buy? (eg: cars, fashion etc)

3) How much do you usually spend on one magazine?
· Free
· Less than £2
· Between £2 - £5
· More than £5

4) What type of music do you prefer?

5) Is there a type of music that you just cant stand?

6) If we were to make a music magazine, could you name 3 things that you would want to see inside?

7) Do you prefer solo artists or bands?

8) If you could choose the magazine name would you call it:
A) Rebel
B) Vibe
C) Damage

9) What would you like the focus of the magazine to be?
A) The Music
B) The Artisits
C) The Fans
D) Other ............................................................................

10)Would you be more likely to buy the magazine if you saw a female or male on the front cover?

Research on Music Magazines Double Page Spread

Textual Analysis Of a Double Page Spread from NME Magazine

Firstly, NME has chosen to interview a band called the "Teenagers" which will appeal greatly to their target audience as their target audience are the the teenage demographic.
NME has chosen to portray the teenagers as most modern day teenagers are today, ie relaxed, chilled and just having fun with life. The image that the magazine has used display's this message too. They have used the setting of a typical teenagers bedroom and have place the 3 band members in the front of the shot, laying on the bed, looking chilled and "cool". They are wearing modern and fashionable clothing, which too would appeal to the magazines target audience. NME has also stuck to common magazine conventions with the image, by keeping the dominate image on one side of the page an not overlaying it with too much texts. However one thing that does cover the photo, is the title. And this too is a convention of double page spreads. You will oftern find that in a double page spread there is a large title that stretchs across both pages to make it look dominant. NME also sticks to its colour theme. For the title, it uses large, bold, black text all in capitals inside a bright blue box which is put agaisnt the white background of the magazine. This has been done to make the title stand out and show its relivence. This colour scene is kept throught the whole double page spread except for one NME logo where red is used.
The artical itself is relitivly short. Because of this, NME decided that they would use a two coloum layout with a large quotation and a picture to break the text up and make it more readable. However in doing this, it left half a page blank which needed to be filled. So NME has placed a "What everyones talking about" section, and has filled it will other "gossip" on bands and artist. I have noted that this is a useful thing to do for my magazine if i am finding it hard to fill the space in my double page spread.

Research on Music Magazines Front Covers

To get some ideas for the music magazine that i will be producing i have decided to use the internet to research music magazines to see their layout and how they are portrayed to the public

The first magazine I looked at was the very popular NME Music Magazine.
The issue that you see on the left is the issue that featured the hit band "Foo Fighters".

Analysing the front cover

For its front cover NME sticks to the same layout through-out issues. It uses the bright reds and yellows along with neautral blacks and whites to attract the customers eye towards the magazine.
The magazine title (NME) is an extremely clever one. When said phenetically it can sound like the word 'enemy'. The title can be said as having a hidden message to its target audience, who are the younger generation as they are oftern seen as 'enemies' to society. The magazine emphisises the title by using large, bold, capital letters with a bright red font and double outline. These bright colours draw the eye straight to the title. Also, they magazine has stuck to conventions by placing its title on the top left hand side of the magazine. The top left hand side is the most important place on a magazine front cover as it is where the eye is naturally drawn to due to the fact that most people start reading from the top of a page, and from left to right.
It also sticks to the conventions with the full size background. The image has the key element of eye contact and is a full front face image of the subject. The image also follows the magazines theme of "rock". The subject having scruffy hair and untidy facial hair suggests that he is part of a rock culture.
NME uses three major colours through-out its magazine ; Black, white and red. The black and white are both neutral colours and so do not favour to any gender, they are also opposite to help to make things stand out when put together. Finally, Red can sometimes connotate "danger" which ties in with the ethos of the magazine.

The second magazine that i looked at was Kerrang:

Just like NME, Kerrang uses black, white and red as their main colours through-out their whole magazine.

Kerrang is marketed towards the more "emo" side of music instead of rock. This can be seen in the way the magazine is portrayed. Firstly, the magazine used a large amount of black spread across the entire page. The title is a bold black font which is centered, this makes it stand out. However what is more interesting is the cuts and slashes across the title. These could be said as having connotations with "emo's", which could cause it to appeal more to that market.

Secondly, the catch phrase used in the middle of the page is a clever one : "Unfold the puzzle of life..." makes it sound as if by reading the magazine you are going to be able to solve all life's problems. It makes the reader want to pick up the magazine and see what is inside.

Meet the Focus Group

I have four good friends who have agreed to by my focus group. I will show them all my work and will ask for advice through-out the process of producing my music magazine. My four friends are:

Name : Ellie

Age : 17

ALevel Subjects being taken : Product Design, English Lang and Maths

Likes : Dancing, Going out with friends, and skiing

Dislikes: School

Media Usage : Likes to read "more" magazine, 1-2 hours of TV a night, Uses the internet every day for social networking and watching videos, also listens to music on Ipod.

Overview : Ellie is a good friend of mine as i value her opinion greatly. I think she will play a key rule in my focus group, especially as she is the type of person who does not hold anything back, she will say what she thinks. I'm sure she will prove very useful in the feedback process.


Name : Hannah

Age : 18

ALevel Subjects being taken : Media, Government Politics, Literature and Photography

Likes : Boys, Media, Fashion, Clubbing, Driving

Dislikes : Alcohol

Media Useage : "Thinking about it i used so much media each week! I love using the internet to shop and to socialise. Also i read a load of magazines! I like "more", "heat" etc. Ermm...I watch a load of TV...im a bit of a TV and film freek to be honest."

Overview : Hannah is a brilliant person to have on my focus group. Not only is she incredable at media, but she has also done this exact corse so can advise me on which routes to take and what I might be doing wrong.


Name : Jess

Age : 17

ALevel Subject : Media, Photography, Busniess and IT

Likes : Modeling, Friends, Going out, Swimming

Dislikes : Football and Spiders

Media Usage : Internet = 24/7 - Always on Facebook or Youtube,
TV = 1-2 Hours a night, but also likes to go to the cinema,
Magazines = Usually buys 1-2 magazines a week
Music = Does over 10,000 songs on her Ipod count???

Overview : Jess is a good friend of mine who loves both her magazines and her music. With a wide knowledge and variety in both, i am hoping she will be able to give me advice about the
content of my music magazine.


Name : Mike

Age : 18

Alevel Subjects being taken : Media, Business, IT

Likes : Drink, Friends, Raves, Footie, Business, Fifa

Dislikes : Arguements

Media Useage : About 5 hours a day on the internet, because he uses it often at school and after school. Likes watching TV and spends about 3-4 hours per day watching it. Reads magazines such as zoo and nuts. Often goes to the cinema but also likes watching DVD's at home.

Welcome To My Media Magazine Blog

A quick welcome message from myself.

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