1. Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I first did some research on other magazines in the
shops right now. I discovered that each magazine
followed certain conventions. On my front cover I
have also followed these conventions to make my
magazine look more professional. For example my
magazine title was placed towards the left hand
side of the page and the cover image was
overlapping above the title.
My cover image also followed these conventions I
made sure that the person in my cover image was
shot at a mid close up and the person is looking at
the camera, I made sure that my cover image
relates to the double page spread and the contents
page.
I also made sure that while making my magazine
that I kept to a colour scheme, just as all the other
magazines I had researched had also done.

2. • I also researched different magazine
contents pages, I also realised that each of
them followed conventions such as
layout, colour scheme, fonts etc.
• I saw that all the magazines had
everything laid out in columns full of text
with pictures to a certain side of the
page, I think this layout works well since it
makes everything clear to see and keeps
everything tidy.
• The colour scheme and fonts that I have
used on my front cover have followed
through to the contents page of my
magazine, I found that this worked well
because it made everything on the front
cover relate very well to my contents page
• I challenged a convention by adding an
editors not to my magazine as I found this
was not usually used in music magazines
but only used in fashion magazines.

3. My Final Front Cover I made sure I added in
an issue number and
date to my magazine.
I found that in
other magazines
that the headlining
story stood out I added a black
more than the background under
other stories my writing to make
featured, I made the writing stand
mine stand out by off the page more.
making the text
bigger than the
rest of the other I used red, black and
stories in the white as my colour
magazine scheme as I felt them
colours worked well
together and stood out
I added a on the page.
competition in
also as I found it I added a barcode
was used in all in to make my
magazines magazine seem
more realistic.

4. Final contents page I have kept my
I didn’t feature every colour scheme
page number in my throughout my
magazine because magazine
there would be too
much to write, I have All of the images I
just included the main have used are my
stories like other own. I have
magazines also do. chosen these
because they are
clear images.
I included special
offers/deals to
promote my
I have also magazine more and
included an so the readers get
editors note as better value for
all of the their money, all of
magazines I the magazines I
analysed had a analysed did this.
editors note.

5. Final double page spread

6. Q.2 How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
. My cover image is of a young local singer which appeals
more to the younger side of my audience, she’s styled
in just natural normal clothes making the audience
feel like they can relate to her. She is posed in a
natural way in majority of her photos, I wanted this
effect because it represents her as a middle class
person which the audience would relate to well, and
would be seen as quite a good role model to the
younger readers of the magazine.
I have included other bands such as Paramore and you
me at six, which are bands that have been going for a
longer period of time which will appeal to the older
readers of the magazine. My magazine also includes
different bands from different places in the world
such as America and Australia, I did not feature any
pictures that I had took from their concerts as I didn’t
feel as there where a good enough quality and clear
enough, but this would not be a problem in a normal
magazine. My magazine doesn’t address sexuality
directly but this could be a possibility for future
issues.

7. Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute
your media product and why?
I have found that there are many media
distributors. I have found that Bauer and
IPC are the two most popular ones. I think
Bauer would be a good distributer of my
magazine as I think that my magazine is
quite similar to Kerrang magazine.
• Bauer Media Group is a large German
publishing company based in
Hamburg, which operates in 15 countries
worldwide. Worldwide circulation of Bauer
Media Group's magazine titles amounts to
38 million magazines a week. I think that
my magazine would fill the gap in the
market that is not covered by Bauer
magazine

8. Q4. Who would be the audience for your media
product?
• My audience for my
magazine would be 15-30
year olds as they are the
age range that buy
magazines. My magazine
is aimed towards
alternative/rock music
fans which is why I
included popular
alternative bands such as
pendulum, you me at
six, enter
shikari, paramore, a day
to remember.

9. Q5. How did you attract/address
your audience?
• I attracted my audience by having the
magazine priced at £2.50 whereas other
magazine such as Q and NME are priced
at around £4.00 making my magazine
more widely appealing to people as its
cheaper. In my magazine I have added an
editors note about the first issue of my
magazine to make the audience feel
connected to the magazine. in my
questionnaire the people I asked said they
would buy a magazine that had their
favourite bands/artists as the cover
image. I used small images on my
contents page of other bands to attract
readers. The age range I decided on is 15-
25 because they are typical people that
listen to the genre of music.

10. Audience Feedback
For I audience feedback I showed 10 different people my magazine and asked a few
questions about what they thought of it, these are the answers I found:-
would you buy this What do you think of the colour
magazine? scheme?
“ I think the colour scheme is good as it
stands out and is quite in your face, if I
yes saw this on a shelf it would attract me
no towards it”
maybe
Do you think this magazine looks
professional?
What are you thoughts on the
contents page?
“I think that its good a clear, the NO
writing is a good size and it matches
the front cover well, the pictures used Yes
stand out well!”
0 5 10

11. Q6. What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this product
Before this project I had very little experience with Photoshop
and I had never used Quark before. Over the time I have
created my magazine I have learnt many new skills on how to
use both of the technologies, once I learnt the basics about
each of the software's I found it quite easy to navigate around
both of them whilst making my magazine. I found that I could
make my magazine look more professional just by changing
simple settings on my work.
Photoshop:-
I found that Photoshop was really good software, as I could
crop, rotate and edit my picture all in one programme. At first
I found it difficult finding out what each of the tools did but
once I learnt what each tool does it became easy. I used the
Lasso tool to crop my pictures. This was useful because I could
crop parts out of the picture that I didn’t want to use in my
magazine like backgrounds. I also used the shape tool, this
had a bank of different shapes which I could of used for my
work, I used shapes such as boxes on my work to make parts
of it stand out.

12. Continued….
• Quark- I found that quark was quite useful too, I could add my
work onto the software easily and, I could separate I writing
into columns by just typing in how many columns I wanted it
in, whereas in in other software’s I would have had to
separate my work into text boxes and shape them where I
want to. I could also add pictures in, and the text would move
around my picture. Quark is a programme that is specially
designed for making magazine pages, which is perfect for this
project.

13. Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you
have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?
Looking back on my preliminary task I have
found that I have became a lot more confident
in using the software and know how the
different settings work. I hadn’t used
Photoshop much before this project so the
cropping of my photos looked very messy and
unprofessional.

15. I think that the fonts I used look unprofessional and
childish. I also think that it looks quite plain, as there
are quite a lot of blank spaces left between the
writing, whereas in my final project there is not as
many huge gaps between each set of writing. I found
that the editing of my photos has improved as I can
cut and crop my photos more neatly. Comparing the
two cover pages together, its clear that my music
magazine looks more professional, and contains a lot
of the conventions of a professional magazine where
as my college magazine has a lot of the conventions
missing from it. I learnt a lot about market
research, for my college magazine I didn’t do much
market research and just included things and colours I
thought where interesting. In my music magazine I
did various different parts of research on the music
magazine industry, which made it more specific to not
just what I am interested in but what other people
are interested in too. I feel confident about the
softwares now and would be confident if I was asked
to use quark and Photoshop again.