The student's media product is a music magazine that uses conventions from real magazines like Vibe magazine. The student stuck to a simple color scheme of red, black, blue and white that is commonly used in Vibe magazine. The magazine represents various social groups between ages 16-25 like college students and university students. An organization like SB.TV would be suitable for distributing the magazine since it focuses on similar audiences. The target audience is British youth ages 16-25 that listen to genres like grime and rap. The student aimed to attract this audience through headlines, images, and a colorful consistent design. Creating the magazine helped the student learn new technologies like Prezi and improved skills in photography and Photoshop layout.

1. EVALUATION
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
I would say my music magazine does not challenge or develop any sort of
conventions as such, as when I was developing my magazine I had a copy of a
front cover, a contents page and a double page spread from VIBE magazine to
base my layout around so it is similar to many of the magazines you see on the
shelves today. I would say that I used the conventions of a real media product
to produce my magazine but in a way made it my own.
I stuck with a simple layout of red, black, blue and white throughout the
making of my magazine as to make sure that it all fit together correctly. I got
the idea to use those colour’s from the colour themes I came across when
doing online research on VIBE magazine covers as they use a lot of red, blue,
white and black throughout their magazine as their main colour’s and I like the
Idea of using them colour’s as I think it stands out pretty well and goes well
together.

2. How does your media product represent social groups?
The social groups represented in my magazine are a range of social groups,
because my magazine has an average age range from around 16-25, there
are social groups such as college students, younger workers, university
students.
My magazine represents particular social groups in many different ways, for
instants, the slang used on my double page spread: ‘money makes me feel
so better’ shows that this magazine is for the youth. Also, the clothes warn by
my artist in the photographs taken by me represent youth. With his snapback
on his head an his unique jumper with the quote ‘Love or Money?’ printed on
it which emphasises how my media product represents my social group as
being the British youth of today.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?
I would say London based institutions would represent my media
product, such as SB.TV which as expanded from just a YouTube
channel t a website and more. From just showcasing young British
talent and hitting 100 million views on YouTube recently, I would
say that would be the perfect institution to represent my media
product as it is based around the same audience as mine which
would work well.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience for my media product would be the British youth age
range from around 16-25 . Both female and male are addressed for my
product as I mention female artists in my contents page. It is basically people
that listen to Grime/Rap music.
The reasons for this is because it is the genre prefer to listen to because of my
background. I figure the audience should be someone like me therefore
everything I done I made sure I liked it and it looked suitable for my target
audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?
The content of my magazine is also very important if I am to attract and maintain
my target audience, I have added headlines which I feel that my target audience
will be interested in which are at the level of my target audience which targets my
audience just from that, the more important headlines are on the left of the page
which is where I expect the majority of my readers to look first when they read my
magazine. I have used bold text and images which will stick out from the rest of the
magazines that you will see on a shelf. I also used distinctive images for my pages
so that my magazine seems unique, using images can also help to attract my target
audience for example, if I was to make a children’s magazine then I would use a lot
of images on my magazine as they prefer a more visual magazine, older people will
be quite happy with just text within reason and therefore I have attracted and
addressed my target audience through using a bit of both. On my contents page I
have both image based guides to my pages and text based which I feel addresses
my audience effectively. I have used a colourful and consistent colour scheme
which will be the same throughout my magazine to make sure that it doesn’t
confuse the audience or look unattractive, the colour scheme I have used attracts a
younger audience as it is bold and younger readers respond better to colour which
addresses my target audience.

6. What have you learnt about technologies, through the process of
constructing this product?
To research, create and also evaluate all my work I had to use
different technology’s and programmes. To research music magazines and
companies and had to use the internet. I had strengths when using the
internet as I have experience in using it. I mainly used Google to find out all
my information in my planning and research stage and I found this easy to do,
with it being easy to follow and also the experience. While doing my planning
and research stage I had to research into existing music magazines and
companies, while doing this I used programmes like Prezi and slideshare.
These were two programmes I hadn’t heard of until I started my media
coursework so I didn’t know what I had to do with them until I opened them
up. They are both programmes to make presentations on the internet, I found
them easy to use once I got the hang of them and did very detailed
presentations on them.

7. Looking back at your preliminary, what do you feel you have learnt
in the progression from it to the full product?
When I compare my music magazine to the preliminary task, which was my school
magazine, there is a big difference in my technical skills. Firstly my photography skills
have shown an improvement, now I know the different functions on the camera,
which can change the effect of the photo. I now consider the surrounding of the
photo and where the light is coming from as this can have a big impact on the quality
of the photo. For example, I know that something as simple as foil, which reflects the
light, can massively help the quality of the photo.
After spending a lot of time researching different music magazines to find out what
the conventions were, my knowledge of the layout of music magazines has improved
since creating my preliminary task. Although I looked at different genres, they all
showed similar conventions, therefore these are what I focused on when creating my
magazine front cover, double page spread and contents page.
My knowledge of photoshop has improved considerably; I know how to use different
elements to my advantage, as well as the use of layering. By having a wider range of
knowledge on photoshop, my music magazine is a lot more technical than my
preliminary task, which makes it appear more like a professional music magazine like
the ones I had researched.