2. 1.In what ways does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
My magazine conforms to
most of the conventions of a
music magazine. My
masthead is in bold font and
can be recognised in the left
third. This is using the
conventions of real media
products as many
magazines, such as the ones
that influenced mine, have a
strong masthead and also a
main cover line across the
centre of the image, which I
also have.
One thing in my magazine
that is different to that of
magazines I‟ve seen, is that
my double page spread has
a coloured image one the
left and the main article on
the right. Usually articles
take up both pages, and the
photograph is usually
natural and shows
something that shows
symbiosis between the star
and the magazine.
Also, my contents page
includes a main photograph
in the middle whereas my
image is the whole
background and creates a
black canvas for the rest of
the page. I found this useful
as it was easier to find fonts
and colours to match black
than it was the original pink.
Some magazines that mostly
influenced my magazine
were Rolling Stone, MOJO
magazine, We Love Pop, Q.
My main influence was
Rolling Stone as it conformed
to nearly all of the media
conventions and I wanted to
emulate some of the visual
things it included, and the
vibe it gives off, I wanted to
use too.
3. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Females are stereotypically perceived as
more emotional, not as strong and
maybe more passive – than males.
My main star, Monika, is featuring in my
magazine to reveal stories from her
childhood, and showing off her bravery,
courage and strength in getting to where
she is.
The age of my cover star is 21, and this
shows that she‟s just becoming an adult in
the big wide world alone. I thought this
would be effective as it is easily relatable
to myself and members of my family and
I felt more comfortable making an article
and building a history of a person, after
one I already knew.
The additional stars in my magazine are
Dutch duo „Mannequin‟ played by Jay and
Marianne. Their vibe inspired me to use them
as my other artists, as they had a unique look,
that of two 17 year olds, that I wanted to
portray in my magazine. As they are 1 male
and 1 female duo, it was easier to show a
relationship between two genders in a music
sense, without bringing stereotypes into it.
Strong, independent woman,
Monika.
Naïve, inquisitive Dutch duo,
Mannequin.
4. I think Bauer distribution company
would distribute my magazine. Firstly,
because the kind of magazines they
already distribute have the same ethic
and mission statement that I have for
my magazine.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?
Q magazine is similar to my magazine, and in particular,
Rolling Stone. Both magazines are two of the highest quality,
highest bought magazines worldwide, available in over 100
countries and also take a different approach, such as that of
my magazine.
I feel that Bauer would distribute my media product as they
only provide distribution for those products that are
guaranteed to sell well, they answer the audience‟s needs, and
overall create a nice style to carry on the overall standard of
Bauer and other companies involved.
Women‟s lifestyle and fashion magazines also
play a part in my media product as my music
magazine adds a feminine twist to most powerful
music magazines and I took some ideas from
Grazia and InStyle to make my cover star give
the vibe I wanted but in a rock music way similar
to Kerrang or Q.
Bauer distribute the world‟s biggest
magazines and my magazine has the
potential to be a big magazine as it
appeals to a mass audience.
http://magazines.bauer
mediaadvertising.com/
5. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Before I started creating my magazine, I did research
into my magazine and what the market was for
magazines such as those I had an idea for.
Bauer Media Company Distribute THE biggest
magazines on the planet, and to get an idea of the
audience I should use, (as well as doing my survey to my
target audience), I looked at the statistics for Q
magazine to see who their magazine appealed to
mostly.
My survey involved
questions which would
help me better
understand my target
audience. I then
manipulated the data
into a graph, and then
further manipulated it
to make a mock-up of
the statistics table as
seen on Bauer‟s website.
Now, I found that
magazines similar to
mine had a good edge,
more towards the rock
side; and as my cover
star was a rock, unique
looking female, it was
important that the
personality of my star
matched the type of
magazine.
Now my target
audience is equally men
and women, with the
majority age range
being between 15 and
30.
When my ideas for my magazine were on paper, I decided that the
magazine was gonna be a slightly carnivalesque, mainstream magazine,
but with reference to those who are keen singers. Not an instruction
manual for aspiring singers, but just news about vocalists. My original title
was „Vocalist‟ and my original audience was (on average) 20 year old
women who were interested in “real” music.
6. 5. How did you address your audience?
I wanted to create a layout that
would be appealing to every certain
member of my target audience. I
wanted it to follow the conventions
of a normal magazine, but still be
unique in the way it is designed.
Initially, I opted for a
‘THIS COLOUR’
font with black and white contrasting
around it to make that colour stand
out.
My predominantly female audience,
would enjoy a colour that was feminine
but still was powerful and stood out. Also,
the bold colour would be useful in
headings and the cover line.
But after weeks of creating my media
product, I decided that a classic blood
red would be better as it contrasts
against the black and white easier, and
also red is a neuter colour and also
matches the colour of Monika‟s lipstick.
I made the decision to stray
away from using „exclusives‟
on the main pages of my
magazine, as on the ones I
used for inspiration, often
they distracted from the
ethos of the magazine and
sometimes ruined the reading
experience. I decided to
include just an image of
Monika‟s new album, and
with a PUG, say that it was
„out now‟.
I wanted the language in my
magazine to be quite
sophisticated, and give off a
vibe that you‟re reading a
more intelligent magazine
than the others on the rack. I
wanted the reader to
understand what‟s going on
in the articles by using good
vocabulary and an easy to
read font and font size.
My masthead was something that I
found quite difficult to create. Firstly,
as I changed my magazine‟s title, I
had to remake the masthead to fit
my media product. The name
„Shadow‟ came to me when I had
evaluated my photography and
found that my photos had shadows
and although some photographers
see that as a bad thing, I wanted to
emphasise that it was like seeing the
dark behind someone now they‟re in
the light.
The „attitude‟ of my magazine was
quite a casual one. I wanted to
create a media product that had a
certain je ne sais quoi. The certain
„edge‟ that a raw rock magazine has,
but with a vulnerable, innocent slant
to it that gave off a young,
charismatic effect and I think that
the photography, the masthead, the
language and the colours help it
achieve this.
7. The pictures to me are the key component of a magazine. They are
often the first thing you see, and the thing they remember most.
People always say:
“Did you see --- in that magazine?”
The photography was VITAL to me. Vital to make sure I got all
photography perfect, VITAL to me that I made sure I had enough
photos to show and also VITAL to make sure the ones that I had
chosen worked.
hotography
It took me over 4 attempts
to make sure that I got the
right photographs. On a
weekend, I took about 130
photographs on my digital
camera and iPhone and
narrowed them down to
the top 20 best ones.
I set up my sister's house to be quite bright and well-lit, and the sun shone through
creating shadows in the right places.
Blocking of objects around her will be unique, stylish and very chic. (Sorry about the
radiator)
In her bedroom, the neutral coloured wall created a serene backdrop and contrasted
her black hair and tattoos in a sensual, dramatic way.
The lighting played a huge part in this, as there was no professional lighting, the sun
and artificial lighting were needed to create a good sense of shadowing and effect on
the mood of my sister and the photographs.
It was my first time directing someone in a kind of
photoshoot and it was difficult finding the right
costume, hair and makeup to suit the image I
wanted to portray as my sister, (cover-star Monika)
had real tattoos and a great dramatic vibe that I
wanted to put across to match the personality of my
magazine.
Overall, I think that my photography has helped show
the style of magazine that I wanted to produce.
8. 7. What have you learnt about the technologies
from the process of constructing the product?
Software What I used it for? Strengths Weaknesses
Microsoft Word •To type up my evaluations and my
posts ready to put onto my blog.
•I am used to it and was able to use
every function successfully.
•Some things like moving text boxes
and fonts can be quite fiddly.
Paint I used it to edit some photos, e.g.
colouring in edges or cropping etc.
•It’s very easy to use, and easy to
find what you want to do. It can be
tricky but finding the right colours
etc. is easy.
•The image blurs when you make it
smaller or bigger and there’s not a
lot you can do on just Paint.
Paint.Net I used to put my image in front of my
masthead and also add layers to images.
• It was the only software available
which was easy enough o put the
image in front of my masthead.
•I don’t like Paint.Net, it’s too
simple looking yet too complex to
use. I did’nt have time to
understand it all so I used my
initiative and moved on.
PagePlus To make the template for my magazine
and keep uploading images and layouts
to make my magazine. The ultimate
product was created on here.
•It was easy to see how your
magazine will look as it has zoom
settings. Also it was easy to navigate
around and also the resolution was
high.
•It can be quite complex when
adding certain effects or more than
one photo. The CutOut studio was
tricky to use as it took more out
than you wanted.
Picasa I used Picasa3 to edit my photography,
with filters and effects and also to
rotate or flip it to make it fit.
•Navigation: as I have used it to edit
photos at home, it was easy to just
plug in my camera and start editing.
• It can sometimes reduce quality
and sometimes choosing more than
one effect can make the editing
panel more complex to undo
certain things.
Microsoft
PowerPoint
I used this to write out my evaluation
and ensure all the key components of
my magazine concept were thoroughly
explained.
•As I have used Microsoft Office
since primary school, it was easy to
navigate, and using 2010 was even
better. It was easy to crop images
and lay out text boxes, images made
to suit the way I wanted my slides to
look.
•As there’s a word limit to my
evaluation, I had to make sure that
not all my writing was in small font,
which meant constantly changing
it, instead of setting a font for each
slide.
9. 8. Blogger
I found Blogger to be quite handy for certain things over
the course of creating my magazine. One thing I liked in
particular was that you could edit a post and add more
to it if you felt it needed it.
Also, you could label posts after drafting and planning,
organisation, production or research which meant that
posts were easy to find if you wanted to make sure you
had done a sufficient amount of each.
Blogger on occasion, had its
weaknesses. Sometimes, I would find it
hard to upload certain posts as the
work was either on computers at
school, or at home etc. and therefore
time management was affected.
Also, labelling certain posts as „drafting
& planning‟ etc. could be difficult if
your work didn‟t necessarily fit into one
of the categories.
Using a blog to upload the work seemed a pretty good
idea at first, as it could be accessed from at home or at
school, and due to modern technology, it was easier and
quicker to complete work and upload posts whenever
you needed to.
In hindsight, I think I would‟ve preferred a tangible folder
of work, as work could be shown in chronological order
and just put in by hand and taken out and altered
whenever needed.
Although Blogger can do this too, it‟s always much better
to see a piece of work in your hand, that you have
completed.
Although Blogger was quite easy to use, I think I would‟ve
preferred a portfolio that I could hand in at the end, split into
certain areas for drafting and planning, organisation and
ultimately, the final piece.
http://danieljacksonmedia.blogspot.co.uk/
10. 9. Management of the 3 elements.
Making the front page
was hard as I needed to
make sure I had the key
elements of a
conventional music
magazine cover, and
also make sure that I
didn‟t stray away from
the ethos of the
magazine too much
when adding my own
things.
Overall though, I feel
that I managed my
front page very well and
it‟s my favourite of the 3
productions.
Producing the contents
page was the hardest of
the 3 I think, as not only
has this page got to be
clear for the reader to
navigate around the
magazine but it also
needs to appeal to the
reader so they would
want to carry on. It was
difficult for me to follow a
conventional contents
page as I didn‟t want my
page numbers in a pane
on the left but I wanted a
main photo in the middle
with text around it and I
feel that this helped
create the edge I was
looking for.
Originally, I thought that the double
page spread was going to be the
most fun to make as it was the
largest of the three, and also the most
visual. The thing I found difficult was
the freedom you had in deciding
what went where. As on a cover
page you have conventions to
conform to, whereas here, you could
put the article wherever you want,
lay it around the photograph, change
the colours, make the font huge –
anything you wanted to do was
available to create. But, whilst
creating my DPS, I found that it was
much difficult than planned and the
management therefore was difficult. I
couldn‟t make quick decision on
where to put my interview/article. I
couldn‟t decide on the design. The
whole DPS made me question the
colour scheme of my entire magazine
and overall became more of a
struggle managing it and creating it
than I had originally thought.
11. 10. What do I think I have learnt from the progression between my
preliminary task, to now?
In the preliminary task, I used basic photography which
didn‟t really give any personality to the magazine cover.
The photograph didn‟t portray any kind of message to the
magazine, and although the cover line I still feel is great, I
think that my additional cover lines and masthead could
do with a lot of improvement.
The contents page of my preliminary task is atrocious
compared to the standard I am at now. The bright
carnivalesque colour scheme didn‟t appeal to any
audience, and research into my audience with my music
magazine helped me overcome those problems.
I feel that with my magazine now, I have not only
improved the visual aspect of the magazine, i.e. its colour,
the layout, the design – but also the understanding and
the planning and the thought process too.
The thought process behind my preliminary task was non-
existent. At the time, I thought that as long as it had a
mast head and cover lines and a few photos it would look
OK, but the huge leap from then, to now, shows a
completely new transformation of my media skills, and
shows my understanding of the conventions of a
magazine, the management of the elements in a
magazine, and basically just an improvement in knowing
what a high quality music magazine should look like.
12. OVERALL EVAULATION
Overall, I am really happy with my final product as it has shown that over a period of time, I can
make a high quality product using basic software, basic photography, just by using my knowledge of
media studies, and the codes and conventions of a magazine and the facilities available to me.
It gives me great pleasure in looking at my final product because although there are certain things
that are not completed, it shows a great understanding a working media product and also the leap I
have made from a basic preliminary task, to an outstanding final product I have now.
I have overcome some difficulties along the way and proved that I have made a great leap in my
studies and know that I can focus on making a completed product that I can be show off and be
proud of.
I feel that my magazine fits the brief very well, as I have shown a great improvement from my
preliminary task, and also shown that I can improve my work from criticisms and drafting. Also, I have
used adequate organisation skills to show my completed work via the use of a blog; and I have used
several software facilities to help create my finished media product – to show my understanding of a
modern, live, working media production concept.
By Daniel Jackson
