Introduction• My product was a music magazine.

• To produce my product I worked on my own.

• I had to produce a front cover, a contents page and a double page article.

• I wrote the double page article myself.• I took all the pictures myself.

• The genre I chose to use was 'indie.'

Audience Evaluation

ResultsOnce I had finished my final magazine, I asked 10 people the same 7 questions on what they thought about my magazine.

What does the title suggest to you?

Most people answered that it sounded girly, and it was a musical word therefore suggesting it was a music magazine.

What genre/type of music does this magazine focus on and how do you know this?

80% of the people I asked answered that they thought my magazine was ‘indie’ which was correct, the other 20% answered that they thought it was ‘pop.’

By looking at the answers people wrote, they seemed to know it was indie because of the bands I had mentioned on my front cover, those who answered pop thought it was pop because I added thing such as the ‘top 40.’

What makes the pages look professional and what stops them from looking professional?

Every person I asked this question to said that my pictures were the things that made my magazine look professional.

People also added that my magazine looked professional because I used a barcode on the front.

How genuine does the front cover seem?

70% of the people I asked said that my magazine was “very genuine” the other 30% answered that my magazine was “genuine,” nobody answered that it was “not genuine.”

Does the contents page simply inform or does it also manage to interest you in reading the rest of the magazine.

The majority of the people I asked said that my contents page only informed, I agree that there wasn’t a lot of things on it that were eye-catching, but 20% said that it managed to interest them too because of the bright colours I had used.

Does the article sound like a piece of journalism? If not what bits don’t sound right?

100% of the people I asked said that my double page article sounded journalistic and that it sounded like one they would read in the magazines they buy.

Does the article layout make you want to read it? If not why not?

Everyone answered that the article layout made them want to read it, they liked the way I had incorporated pictures into my article, they also liked the text grab and they way I had put the questions in different colours.

1)In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?Front Cover•I put the title ‘JAMM’ in bold capital letters because it helps the magazine to stand out.

•I put a barcode on the top right of my magazine to make it seem genuine.

•My picture uses direct address, this attracts the target audiences attention.

•The person on my front cover is the person I have based my double page article on.

•Used a strip at bottom of page, like most magazines do to advertise what else there is to read about in my magazine.

•I also added a magazine website so my buyers could access things they wanted to know more about on the internet.

Contents Page

•I used the same artist on my contents page as I did on the front page and who I wrote about in my double page article.

•I used pages numbers so that the readers know where to find things.

•I didn’t use pictures of other bands/artists which I think I should’ve done as most magazines do that on their contents page.

Double page article•I used columns.

•I picked out phrases that stood out for text grabs.

•I kept colour consistency throughout my magazine.

•The article has an introduction and then various questions.

•I used a bigger font for the name of my artist again at the top left like on front cover.

•I used a different colour font to differentiate the questions and the answers.

2)How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I chose for my target audience to be female, I believe I represented this well as I used a female solo artist on my front cover and as my double page article artist, and I believe that this would make teenage girls want to read my magazine. I used feminine colours in the outfit that my artist

wore such as pinks and oranges, this also stayed within the colour scheme of my magazine which was also pink and orange and I believe this worked really well. My artist also wore jewellery and fashionable clothes like teenage girls generally would.

The poses of my artist I believe represent my social group well, as they are laid back and show that my artist is just having fun, they show her playing with her hair and just having a laugh which I think will catch the attention of my readers.

On my pictures the make-up I have used is very simple, however I have used dark mascara to make the eyes of my artist stand out, I have also used bright pink cheeks to make my soloist look girly.

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

IPC Media is a leading UK consumer magazine publisher. Almost two in every three UK women and over 44% of UK men read an IPC magazine. That's over 26 million UK adults. IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone. Their 80 magazines include What's on TV, Pick Me Up, Woman, Now, Marie Claire, In Style, Woman & Home, Ideal Home, Nuts, Wallpaper, Country Life, The Field, Rugby World, Practical Boat Owner and Look, their latest high street fashion and celebrity weekly. Their digital properties include NME.com, the third largest commercial music website in the UK and housetohome.co.uk, the UK's first homes portal. IPC's brands are very simply at the heart of the UK's cultural life. IPC is owned by Time Inc., the publishing division of Time Warner Inc. The business is split into five distinct publishing divisions: IPC Connect, IPC Inspire, IPC Ignite, IPC Southbank and IPC TX. Alongside these is Marketforce, the UK's leading magazine distribution business.

IPC produce NME which is a magazine similar to mine as it focuses on mainly indie artists.

4)Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience that I chose for my magazine was 15 - 19 year old females, interested in indie music and the latest fashion.

As my target audience is teenagers, and therefore mostly students, they would have a socio economic status of E.

The ethnicity of my magazine would be mainly British as the bands and soloist featured are mainly British, however I feel it would still appeal to other ethnicities as female solo artists appear all over the world.

Although I priced my magazine at £2.50 which is high for people with a socio economic status of E, I believe it will still be purchased as it is a monthly magazine and the target audience purchasing my magazine will want to keep up with the latest bands and all the latest fashion, therefore i believe my target audience will be loyal in buying my magazine.

5)How did you attract/ address your audience?

There are many features of my magazine that I believe would attract my target audience of female teenagers aged 15 - 19.

First, I used the title 'JAMM' which I believe is quite girly and also hints to my audience that it is a music magazine.

I think my front cover picture of my feature artist definitely attracted my target audience as she is looking directly at the camera which draws the reader in and makes them want to read my magazine,

Even though my image on the front cover is black and white which is different to most magazines, I believe that this makes my models features stand out and this also draws attention.

I think the captions I have used on the front such as 'exclusive interview with Alix Carey' also attracts my audiences attention as it is something exciting to read and they want to buy the magazine so they can read it.

Uses colours such as pinks and oranges to attract my specific audience.

I used a font that is simple but catchy. I chose the picture on my double page article because it is

friendly and shows my feature artist laughing and having fun. Made the font of the questions a different colour so that my

readers knew which were questions and which were answers. My interview is full of ambition just like my target audience. Made her nice and polite as I don't believe my target

audience would want a rebellious character.

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

Blogger - This is the website I used www.blogger.com to keep a record of the research and planning I was doing throughout the weeks I had to produce my music magazine. I was temperamental as it took time to upload pictures on to the blog, however it was useful in that I could access it from any computer and still carry out extra research and planning from home.

Internet - The internet was a big part of my research and planning and also the production of my final product, I used www.google.co.uk for everything I needed and used www.dafont.co.uk for all the fonts and the barcode for my final product. At time it was difficult to find exactly what I wanted to find but it came in very useful and helped me a lot throughout.

InDesign - InDesign is the programme I used when was putting together all my pages, I found this quite difficult to use at first, but once I knew where everything was that I needed to use it was a very helpful programme and it made me produce my magazine to the best of my ability. I don't think I would've found a better programme to put all my pages together, as this let me do everything from putting fades on boxes and effects on my pictures.

Photoshop - Photoshop is the programme I used to edit all my final pictures, once I had taken all my pictures I chose the ones i liked the best and wanted to use, I then uploaded them onto Photoshop and edited them how I wanted them to be, for example making them black and white, and making the colours bolder and brighter. This programme did a lot more than what i used from it, all I did was edit and crop my pictures, I didn't use it to it's full potential as I found it quite difficult and complicated to use.

Digital Stills Camera - I found the use of the digital camera easy as I had used it many times before, however I was quite worried because it wasn't a professional camera, however once I had got the hang of taking the pictures I had fun and found that it was quite easy to make a picture look good. It was quick to upload the pictures onto the computer and I would recommend using it again.

7)Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When the final outcome came from my preliminary task, I didn't like it at all, although I had used the same programmes that I used to produce my final product I didn't know much about them when I produced my preliminary task. I learnt how to make a picture on the front cover look good and not just make it look like it had just been put there randomly. I improved my fonts and colours a lot for my final product, as my prelim task had a blue/green background and it didn't look professional at all also my fonts were childish and didn't make the magazine look good. I also learnt that picking a few colours and sticking to them certain colours throughout made my magazine look better rather than on my preliminary task where i just used a lot of different colours. Overall the quality of my front page is much better than my preliminary task.