Evaluation of My Magazine

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

My magazine in many aspects, does not challenge the conventions that are apparent within a magazine. For example, it follows the 3 column structure, apart from the content page (therefore the contents page can be unconventional in many ways). As seen below, some sentences reach over two columns and this is different from the norm as texts should be presented in columns. However, typically contents pages are the more lenient within the conventions and therefore, I wanted my magazine to be realistic and therefore I did add some unconventional features. On my first two pages of my feature article, the image does cover both pages which can be seen as unconventional, however it does add a better perspective of 'Ana Sofia' and the text developed around it makes it a life like feature article page. However, the rest of the magazine follows the common magazine with professional pictures and easily readable text for my target audience. This is followed by a colour theme, and different text sizes and fonts to capture the readers attention.

How does your media represent particular social groups?
My media product represents young adults within the ages of 16 and 21. However, it does not prevent other age ranges from reading it. The cover star, represents a particular social group because she herself is the 'youngest female pop artist' and therefore creates a relationship with the particular social groups reading the magazine.
The magazine also uses simple language and bright texts and fonts to be able to attract the younger crowd, as the older generation are not interested in the magazine layout, but more the text itself. Within my magazine I have thoroughly used mise-en-scene and created bands with fun and exciting clothing, and pictures showing people having a good time. But also 'red carpet event' clothing with the typical photo shoot body language and facial expressions.

What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?
Institutions are company that is in charge of distributing my magazine and making sure that it is marketed enough to make a lot of sales. Bauer media would be the best for distributing my magazine, due to it being the most specialised in music sales and it being one of the biggest in Europe for music distribution. It is also widely known for distributing pop magazines which is perfect due to my magazine being a pop one too. Bauer also has it's own website which will be even more marketing for my magazine.
Another institution would be IPC, they may want to distribute my magazine as they do not currently sell any pop magazines, therefore they would get a lot more money from my magazine as they do not currently sell any.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
I have variously mentioned who my target audience is, and it is those between the age of 16-21 who are interested in pop music. The gender is mostly applies to can be said to be females, due to the characters that may appear throughout and texts describe events that girls would be more interested in. There is no particular social class or social habits, but anyone who enjoys pop music and wants to keep up with the latest events.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Throughout my magazine, I use many conventions to try and attract my audience. This is mostly seen in the front cover, containing direct address to attract the reader and pugs entailing the reader to free things that they would be interested in.
The use of bright colours also captures the eye to it first, letting the reader know what is inside the magazine and what they will obtain from buying it. To make sure it sells, I made sure my target audience would get feature articles in which are completely exclusive, and cannot be found within other magazines, and offer information of upcoming events. The Uses and Gratification Theory can be used here to describe the interpretations that different people may have on my magazine, and different aspects of my magazine may interest different people. This magazine would most probably be advertised throughout the internet, and many mobile devices would have access to it if the magazine was brought.

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

• The first and foremost piece of technology that I have worked on the most would definitely be InDesign. It has taught me how to structure a magazine, and produce the magazine in which led me to my finished product for this task. The more I used this application, the more familiar I became on how to work it and it became easier over time.
• The next piece of equipment I often used was the canon camera. I luckily had one at home too, so I could take pictures in or out of school. Photography being something I'm passionate about, taking pictures of the cover star 'Ana Sofia' was done at home, taking pictures of my own sister. However, by the help of teachers at my school, I perfected my photography by the end, knowing how to find the right angle and take perfect pictures. 
• Photoshop was also widely used within my work, this was so I could crop, resize and get rid of unwanted bits in photos which was really useful throughout my work. At first I was unaware of how to use this software, but at the end I felt completely comfortable with using it to edit pictures.
• Hardware was obviously one of the most important things I had used. Hardware being computers, laptops, keyboard and mouse. 
• Websites such as Prezi and Scribd were also extremely useful and were ways of presenting a lot of my work on Blogger. Blogger itself was the way I presented all my work, and of course create this blog. These became very use to use after using them for various reasons. 

Technology was very useful in using my magazine, as without it I would have never been able to produce my magazine.

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression of it from the full product?
From the beginning, I was very unaware and unskilled on how to use particular software. By the end I able to successfully produce the magazine with all my ideas with no problems to finalise my overall grade.

The front cover has evidently improved from my preliminary task. I am now aware of all the conventions that must be present, a solid colour theme and where everything should be placed on the front cover. I have also added pugs and more information onto the front, making it more realistic. Therefore here it can be said that I have used InDesign effectively to create a front cover for my main magazine. 

The contents page has definitely changed, with a simpler colour scheme following from the front cover and being an overall more organised two pages. I have learnt that contents pages must not be filled with short articles and must be kept short to let the reader get excited to read the whole article. I took my own pictures for my main magazine and is a classier type of pop magazine than my last one. 

 For my preliminary task, I did not create a feature article. However I followed the way I created my front cover and contents page to create a similar four page spread. It again follows the colour scheme, with big professional pictures, taken by the canon camera I professionally learnt to use. My magazine overall has clearly changed from where I first began, with lots of magazine creating skills that I had learnt throughout the process.

My Finished Product

After a long process and many evaluations made, this is my finished magazine. I have come a long way from my preliminary task, clearly substandard compared to my main task. I feel like I have learned a lot on how to use In Design and Photo Shop to create the magazine that I had planned from the beginning. 

By the end I had realised I had more time than I though and decided to make my four spread feature article which I'm glad I have done as it makes my magazine come together like I wanted.