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

products?

The cover uses a large masthead to clearly show the name and logo of magazine. It uses bright colours and bold text to make it stand out on the cover.

The slogan quotes that it is the ‘UK’s No.1 chart magazine’. This would persuade the target audience to buy the magazine.

The Simon Cowell quote has been added to the page to show who is backing the group and how big they are going to be.

Advertising an X Factor exclusive on the cover also helps to sell the product because the target audience of this magazine is most likely to be viewers of the X Factor.

There is a puff in the top right corner advertising the UK Top 40. If the target audience is based on people interested in chart music, then I know they will be interested in the actual songs that are in the Top 40 spot.

Chart music listeners will be interested why a song has been in the No.1 spot for more than a week, which is why the main cover line will make them want to read the article inside.

The main image fills most of the page, which shows that it is the story is the most important part of the magazine. It shows the band’s image to the reader and relates to most of the information around it.

The Front Cover:

The use of the logo and colours was described as ‘striking’ to the eye of the target audience (14-20 years).

The Contents Page:

Page numbers have been added to show where the reader can access a certain article.

The Contents title has been produced the same text and effects as the Logo to continue the house style and show that the page obviously belongs to this magazine.

This phrase is directly aimed at the reader. It has been added to show the importance of the articles and force the reader to take notice of the previews below by the use of bold writing and an exclamation mark.

A large image of a member of the ‘Friday Feeling’ pop group has been placed on the page to show the theme of this magazine edition. ‘Friday Feeling’ is the most talked about topic in this edition. The yellow border has been added to make the image fit in (in terms of house style).

The background colour makes the whole page look more interesting and appealing to the target audience. The bright yellows colours also stand out well against the red and blue colour.

These are the previews of the important or ‘must see’ articles inside the magazine. They give a positive insight to the articles and try to persuade the reader to visit the pages.

Extra information about the publisher has been included here so the reader can be involved in their other products via the website and Facebook

The Article:

I received some feedback from my target audience, saying that the way that the text has been used and laid out on the page would encourage their age group to read it. They also said that the title is striking and catches their attention.

The article title has been created with similar text to the logo so the house style is used throughout the magazine. It is the most visible piece of text because it needs to tell the reader which page he/she is looking at.

The image was taken in mind that it needed to fill a double page spread, as shown above. After feedback of previous drafts I decided to have the group members on one, full side of the article (separate to the text) to make them look powerful to the reader. This left the text to be placed over an empty part of the image (not in front of objects or people). Now the reader can focus on different parts of the article instead looking underneath text which has taken over both sides of the double page.

The text has been split in two parts that I have indicated through the two colours. This is because they are two different types of information: The first piece gives the reader some background information about the group, and the second piece is a series of answered questions from an interview with the lead singer.

The colours also make the text and the actual article look more interesting to the audience.

Other related magazines:

However it contains more colour than ‘Q’ magazine which then makes it more similar to ‘Smash hits’. The masthead and logo is also very similar to the ‘Smash hits’ logo because it is made up of bold, italic text.

Two magazines I would relate mine to is ‘Q’ magazine and ‘Smash hits’. The style of my magazine is similar to ‘Q’ in way of the language. It is aimed at young people because it contains information about new music, but the language isn’t extremely chatty or cheesy like some other related magazines are.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I decided that my target audience was to be young people (mainly teenagers) who listen to new music and take notice of the UK chart such as ‘The Big Top 40’. I designed the magazine to try and attract males and females at an age range of 14-20.

The fact that the magazine contains information about chart music shows that it is aimed at this group of people because it is mainly new music. I know that older age groups don’t have a lot of knowledge about new music or the names of modern bands.

Based on social class, the actual target audience of the magazine would be people in the ‘C2DE’ grade. This class would include people who mainly have manual based jobs, and most teenagers would start with manual jobs. It is more likely that teenagers would be listening to radio stations that play current hit music, like ‘Capital FM’ , Radio 1 and the Bauer hit music stations.

What would the hobbies of my audience include?

SocialisingShopping

Movies and Cinema

Gaming

Swimming

Listening to music

Ice skating

How did I attract/address my audience (14-20 years)?

I have attracted my audience through content that I have put in the magazine. I thought the audience would be interested in a new teenage band that has become popular in the UK. Especially because the story might relate to other young people who are interested in music production. A lot of readers will be interested in the background to a successful band. I think the design and language also attracts the audience: the magazine design uses a lot of colour which makes it looks more appealing to the eye of a teenager, and the language isn’t formal or complicated. It even tries to involve the reader by asking questions and giving commands.

I also added other story previews to the contents page that I thought young people are interested in such as ‘The X Factor’, and popular modern artists like ‘Rihanna’ and ‘Take That’. Hopefully the chosen audience would look at the contents and pick out many topics that are of interest to them.

Here’s a small section of my article: ‘But what is behind the success of our newest pop group? Has Simon Cowell been signing up too many groups in this country? Let’s not forget about The X Factor!’

An example of the language used:

The interview was definitely aimed at a teenage audience because of the relaxed, friendly style and the questions which would be of interest to them.

Research was also played a big part because it allowed me to find out how similar products appeal to young people and what type of music they are interested in. I noticed that teenagers are interested in the life of new or modern artists and this is mainly shown through questionnaires in magazines and websites. I also noticed that the language was friendly and sometimes chatty. From this research I decided that I would include an interview with the ‘Friday Feeling’ lead singer to the article.

I tried to make the appearance of the magazine appealing to the chosen audience. Although, I was trying to avoid using extremely bright colours (pink, light blue) that ‘Smash Hits’ and ‘Pop’ have so that mine would look appealing to males and females. The magazine is colourful but has a strong, sharp appearance.

Colours from my magazine:

Colours from ‘Smash Hits!’: Colours from ‘Pop’:

How does my media product represent particular social groups?

I think the magazine definitely represents the target audience. Not just because of the chart theme but because of the new pop group that it contains information about. The magazine is aimed at young people and it advertises a brand new group of young people that had an ordinary teenage background but decided to take their music studies further and resulted in record deal.

I know that most of the target audience are interested in new music and therefore would listen to radio stations like ‘Capital FM’ and ‘BBC Radio 1’. Therefore the magazine is based on the UK chart, which is mainly made up of new songs and modern artists.

I think the text also relates to teenagers because it includes information that mostly they will know about: here’s a small section of my article: - ‘But what is behind the success of our newest pop group? Has Simon Cowell been signing up too many groups in this country? Let’s not forget about The X Factor!’

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

As the magazine has been produced completely by computer programs, I have learnt a lot about them whilst producing it. Most of the time I used ‘Serif Page Plus’ when producing drafts and I become more confident in using the program which I have found hard to use in the past.

Use of Serif Page Plus:

This program was used to create the first drafts of the magazine I could use the simple tools that it has in order to create simple versions of the elements that make up the magazine such as using the box tool to show the locations of the text and images.

When I finished showing where the text and images would be, I started importing some designs from ‘Macromedia Fireworks’ to work towards the final drafts.

After producing a few drafts in Serif, I realized I needed to start using a program which could handle and produce betters designs for the final drafts. This is when I started using ‘Macromedia Fireworks’.

Use of Macromedia Fireworks:

I used ‘Macromedia Fireworks’ to create graphics and logos. I found out that this program was the best program for this section of work because the tools were easier to use and there was a range of effects that I could use on the graphics. Eventually, I realized it was easier to continue making drafts in this program.

To create the logo from ordinary yellow text, I used two tools called ‘inner bevel’ and ‘outer bevel ‘. The ‘inner bevel’ was used to create the ‘sticking out ‘effect of the text and the ‘outer bevel’ tool was used to create the red outline that the text lies on. These effects and colours make the logo look both professional and appealing to teenagers.

Use of Photography:

I had to use good photography skills during this project. I learnt from the preliminary task that I had to take stronger and appropriate photos for magazines, and I have clearly taken more improved photos to use in the magazine.

One technique I learnt was ‘The Rule of Thirds’ which involves an image being split into nine equal sections by two horizontal and vertical lines. When an object is placed on a power point (where two lines meet) or along one of lines, it improves the accuracy and effect (composition) of the photo:

The main part of the body fits into the centre of the horizontal section

The body on the right is placed along left vertical line

The power points are located at the centre of the right body.

I needed to edit the photos in ‘Adobe Photoshop’ to try to improve the brightness and contrast. This made me practice my skills in selecting parts of image to alter by using lasso tools and changing brightness levels to

improve photos.

Before After

Use of Adobe Photoshop:

Here’s an example of a photo I edited:

There was a few objects from the building which spoilt the look of the image, like the drainpipes. I wanted a blank brick wall on the left side of the image for my text to be placed over. Therefore I used the ‘Rectangular Marquee’ tool to select bricks from the wall and pasted them over unwanted objects

Use of Web blogging:

Since starting this project, I have introduced to Blogger, which I found hard to use at first. The production of the magazine helped me learn how to use the features on it . I have used it as a area to electronically store all the sections of the project.

So far I have used it to demonstrate my understanding of magazines by importing images and writing related information around them before publishing them to my wall.

This is a screen shot of my Blogger wall: