My media product is a magazine about rock music aimed at an audience of 16-25 year olds. It uses some common magazine conventions like the title placement but also challenges conventions by using only black and white imagery. The magazine represents its target audience of rock music fans in that age group. It could potentially be distributed in music shops, supermarkets, or online on music festival or band websites to reach its audience. Through creating the magazine, I learned new skills in Photoshop and about designing magazines for the digital age.

1. Media Evaluation Thomas Standen

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My magazine uses some of the same conventions as in other rock magazines but it also has other things that do not appear in other rock magazines My magazine has a title in the top left of the cover and this is generally where all titles go on a magazine cover. I also used the Guttenberg method in my front cover as the way a person in western culture reads something is from left to right. I also go against general conventions and use black and white imagery throughout this is because I wanted the article that was in the magazine to have a serious nature.

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups? I believe my magazine to represent the social groups within my target audience The age I am generally aiming at is 16- 25 as this is a young generation that likes the new music that is included in the magazine but because the music genre I have chosen to base the magazine on is rock people of older ages may want to read articles about the older bands I have included in the magazine as rock is an old genre I have included things in the magazine that would be liked by my target audience the way I did this was to do some audience research and find out favourite sub genres in rock or favourite way to listen to music for example festivals, TV or mp3 player this way I know what to include in my magazine

4. What kind of media institution might distribute you magazine and why? I believe with a bit of tweaking as what I have made is not of a professional standard but maybe close could be distributed by shops for example supermarkets and newsagents it may also be supplied in niche shops for example a music shop that supplies rock music as this would be the perfect place as it is where my target audience would shop Because the internet is an ever increasing method of distributing information my magazine could also be published on a webpage a good one would be one that is aimed at rock music lovers for example on a festival website or at the festival itself or a bands own website

5. Who would be the audience for you media product? My target audience would be 16-25 year olds, male or female and lovers of rock music and any sub genres within. I came up with these results through doing a questionnaire as part of my audience research The reason I chose rock music is that it is my own personal taste and I want to target other rock music lovers I believe men and women will be targeted to the magazine because i have used a male as the cover artist but I would also use female artists as well to attract male and female audience. I have also used generic colours like black white and gold that are both attractable to male and female

6. How did you attract/address your audience? To attract readers I used what other conventions a general established rock magazines would use I used dark colours with one bright colour so that the magazine would stand out and this is another general convention of rock magazines because of the bright colours it would stand out from the shelf against other magazines I have used a medium long shot for the cover image as this is what a lot of rock magazines use It also has a serious nature and the clothes worn are what alterative rock wearers would wear so this attracts the attention of the reader The writing in the magazine is very informal this relates to the rock genre as bands and artists are usually ill spoken and that is what the rock genre is about

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product Through creating my magazine I have learnt in much more detail how to use Photoshop at the start I was unable to do a lot of the functions the software is capable of but I am now able to use more of the advanced tools I learnt how to use lots of tools to make images look more professional for example brightness, lasso tool smoothing the edges. I also learnt how to use effects for example shadow, stroking and image manipulation. I have also learnt that a lot of magazines are now produced on the internet as it is a much easier method to display information as you don’t have to go out to buy it, but a disadvantage to this would be that you can’t take it with you. I have also learnt about blogging and how information can be displayed and exchanged to other people this emphasises my point on how information is being exchanged more over the internet

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Looking back at my preliminary task I believe that my magazine looks a lot more professional through looking at other magazines and what I have learnt from the teacher I have learnt to understand how magazine conventions work and are applied and I believe I have used this within my project. I do believe my preliminary front cover was of a basic standard and worked as good starting point for my main project. I have used my preliminary project as a basic draft for my main project when I came up with what I thought was my final product I looked back after a few days and ended up editing it drastically to make it look what I thought was a lot better.

9. Front Cover Eye Contact towards viewer (Direct mode of address) List of Bands if you like these bands it is a reason to buy the magazine Mast head Guttenberg method

10. Contents Bright colours used to Show off new features Eye Contact towards viewer (Direct mode of address) Union Jack Background and theme as The Stone Roses are a Massive British Band “Every Month” uses a basic colour theme (Black and White) to go with the theme of the magazine

11. Introductory Double page Basic Introduction to the double page article and what will be in it.

12. Double Page Spread