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

In my research, I found that many music magazines have common conventions regarding the way in which they are styled. For example, each music magazine has a similar colour scheme of red, white and black – sometimes with an accent of

yellow. I used this colour scheme in my magazine and used the colour red as my main. I also followed the way in which the mastheads were placed – fairly large and at the top of the cover. The photography within the music magazines were most

always done within a studio environment. I followed this convention with each image in my magazine, using images I’d taken in the studio with The McKays. I tried to vary my photography so that it was fun and exciting to look at, with various poses and layouts to keep the reader interested. I also found that many of the artists within the photographs were cut out

and layered over the logo or text surrounding them. I used this feature in all three of my pages.

How does your media productrepresent particular social groups?

My magazine was based around an older teenage audience mostly male dominated. To fit this theme of an older audience, I chose a minimalistic style of using flat shapes and colour to make the magazine sleek and clean to look at. I didn’t use any

grungy effects or distortion as this is usually not associated with the teenage indie genre. Stereotypically, “Indie Teens” have a very simple but alternative style in the way they dress and handle certain situations. I attempted to match this style of simplicity, without the pages being too boring to look at. I tried to keep my pages uncrowded to fit with this theme. The simplistic style I used also portrays the middle class in which my audience lies. To make my magazine aimed primarily for males, I displayed male bands and artists both on my cover and in my contents page. Teenage males typically don’t listen

to pop girl bands or artists so I didn’t use any female artists.

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

In my opinion, my magazine should be published by IPC Media. I chose this institution due its large popularity with the magazine NME. Currently they only offer 2 music magazines, NME and Uncut. My magazine would bring a new style and genre to their line of magazines and bring in a larger audience following. NME has an audience of 66% males aged 15-24 and Uncut has an audience of males aged 25-45. They are both male dominated which give me the impression that IPC Media have a mainly male dominated audience overall which fits with the audience of my magazine. The price range of

NME is £2.40 which is similar to mine. This can show the type and class of individuals that buy NME as being middle class. This also fits with the class of Phoenix. IPC Media are based in the UK, which would give me the opportunity to match the

UK conventions of music magazines.

Who would be the audiencefor your media product?

The audience for my media product would be around an 80% male dominated audience, with ages from 16 to 25. They have a certain interest in creative topics such as being musicians themselves or having a passion for photography and art. I

added a section on my front cover which displayed an article about ‘learning the guitar with Mackenzy’. This appeals to teenagers that have a passion for music but haven’t let learnt an instrument to play. They have the stereotypical tag of

“Indie Teens” which suggests how they dress and how they act around others. They like to keep to themselves with their own hobbies, but enjoying being around friends and visiting events and festivals together. My audience research helped my to come to this conclusion and helped me decide that this would be the best audience to aim towards. As they lead quite a busy lifestyle, I tried to keep my magazine sleek and minimalistic, including making the articles easy and quick to

read. The casual dress sense portrayed by my audience is also displayed in my photography of The McKays. They’re wearing casual clothes, similar to my audience which would make them feel involved and comfortable with the magazine’s

contemporary and simplistic style.

How did you attract/addressyour audience?

I attracted my audience by making the front cover colourful with vivid images and test. Although I wanted to stick to a simplistic style, I also needed to intrigue my audience into picking up my magazine and being drawn to the cover’s colours

and vibrancy. I also used sharp edges on each of my text boxes to make the cover and pages seem powerful. This would make them seem a higher prestige than the rest of the music magazines on the shelf. Having an abstract layout for my

contents page and double page spread fitted the theme of ‘Indie’ very well. It gives off an alternative vibe, portrayed by my audience in the way they stereotypically act and dress. The colours of red, white, black and yellow also drew in the

attention of both male and female readers. Although intended to be read by men, this colour scheme allowed me to broaden my magazine’s audience demographic.

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

From creating my music magazine I’ve learnt many skills and techniques. The main skills I’ve learnt are within Photoshop and InDesign. I already had a creative skills within Photoshop as I like to do graphic design in my spare time at home.

Although the skills I had required before were dramatically improved throughout the construction process. Creating my pages helped me to learn about the layouts and structures of professional media products. Before I started my coursework

I had not used InDesign previously. In addition to all the fancy elements of Photoshop, the layout tools and text tools within InDesign allowed me to learn about the creative concepts on making a product look professional. I learned I had

more freedom with typography within InDesign which allowed me to experiment on how I wanted my magazine to look.

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

When creating my preliminary task, I had chose a playful and childlike design for my front cover. I learned since that this does not make the

magazine look professional and doesn’t draw my intended older audience’s attention. I also used a variety of different fonts and colours

on my preliminary task. This made it seem too crowded and over populated. In my final magazine I stuck to a house style and kept the same fonts and colours throughout each page to make sure that my

magazine had consistency. This greatly improved the overall professionalism portrayed by both my front cover and inside pages. For my photograph in my preliminary cover, I hadn’t used a studio or a DSLR

camera. This made it very difficult and time consuming to make it fit within my front cover. I had to manually remove the background with the

Photoshop eraser tool which gave the image a rough edge. From my studio shoot, I was able to create a scene with better lighting and a plain background which made it easy for me to remove and cut out. The layout

I designed for my contents page in my preliminary magazine was too structured and ‘blocky’. For Phoenix I moved my elements around the

page and created an abstract layout to intrigue the audience.