The document summarizes the process of creating a magazine targeted at female music fans aged 16-24. It discusses evaluating existing magazines to identify conventions, choosing a target audience based on demographics and music tastes, appealing to the target audience through design elements informed by research, using photography and Photoshop software to create the magazine, and identifying suitable media institutions for distribution.

3. EVALUATION GENERIC CONVENTIONS Many of the conventions that I became familiar with I chose to recreate in my final media product… The recognisable font displaying the magazine name becomes iconic, and like many magazines, I chose to place the title in the top left hand corner to create a sense of familiarity. The large central photograph represents the main feature article on many front covers and it’s something that I chose to use also. The simple combination of a small selection of colours makes many music magazine front covers look very effective, I chose to use 3 main colours that I feel work well together.

4. EVALUATION REPRESENTATION REPRESENTATION We chose two social groups for our target audience: Gender – Female Age – 16-24 We chose these as we felt there are no current music magazines which are aimed at this audience.

5. The font is quite feminine and with the use of colours that are typically feminine, it attracts our target audience. The pinks and purples are sophisticated but gender stereotypical. EVALUATION REPRESENTATION The font is also modern and easy to read, appealing to the younger generations. The photos of the ‘music star’ are fun, girly and glamorous, appealing to young females, who may aspire to be like her. The content of the article is a light-hearted interview, which would appeal to our younger target audience who The hint of red on the page also attracts the attention of males, as well as an attractive female that would appeal to that small proportion of our target audience. may not be attracted by a huge amount of text on the page, which is why the large photographs may appeal to them also.

6. EVALUATION IDENTIFICATION OF TARGET AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION OF TARGET AUDIENCE To identify our target audience we used Burton’s social and media grouping concepts. We looked at grouping our target audience for their social similarities such as age and gender, yet also for their music tastes. We decided the following after looking closely at Burton’s theory : Age: 16-24 year olds Gender: Unisex, leaning more towards female Class: ABC1 Location: Western These are the social groupings we chose, but we also decided our target audience would be grouped for the genre of music they listened to: Type of music: Rock/Indie We have also decided to aim our magazine towards the female social group, we plan to do this by including more gossip and female orientated articles that will attract females.

7. EVALUATION APPEALING TO MY TARGET AUDIENCE APPEALING TO MY TARGET AUDIENCE To appeal to my target audience of young females aged 16-24, we conducted interviews and collected information from questionnaires to give us an insight on what our target audience actually wanted in their media product. The results from the questionnaires about layout ideas, helped me to design my front cover and double page spread. When asked which magazine cover they preferred many people said they liked ‘Clash’ - so I used the same concept of 1 large image taking up the majority of the front page, with the title in the top in a bright bold colour. The results showed that many people found bigger images and less text appealing, which is what I tried to portray in my double page spread. The colour scheme that was most popular was black, white and red which I also used but added some variation to it, with a slightly more pink shade of red and a plum colour which appeal to my female target audience.

8. EVALUATION TECHNOLOGICAL SIDE TECHNOLOGICAL SIDE I used my Lumix DMC-FS30 digital camera to take the photographs that I used throughout my media product. I edited these photos on Photoshop, by slightly changing the contrast and brightness to create a professional appearance. To create the entire product I used mainly Photoshop, using different elements to add a variety of texts in different fonts, styles, colours and sizes, yet also to crop and resize various images. The photos that I took I also edited using Photoshop. The collage of Polaroid's used on my contents page was created on Photoshop, using a brush that I downloaded. I created the text on the contents page using Photoshop, which allowed me to use an appropriate font in different colours and sizes. I filled the Polaroid’s with the photos I took using the crop, cut and paste tools on Photoshop.

9. FROM PRELIMINARY TO MAIN PRODUCT The preliminary task, showcased are basic skills using Photoshop, I feel I strongly improved with newly learnt skills on Photoshop to use on my main product. By creating a preliminary product it allowed me to see the different aspects of creating a magazine front cover, it also gave me the opportunity to see what my target audience wanted and to improve things to make it more appealing. I used different fonts, added more articles and improved the photography. The basic layout is very similar, we stuck with one model on the front page, with different sized text framing it. The font I chose to use on my front page is much more interesting, and appealing for my target audience, it is more feminine than the font used on my preliminary. EVALUATION FROM PRELIMINARY TO MAIN PRODUCT