Final Products

Here are my completed front cover, contents and double page spread

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Here is an example of photography from the preliminary task. The head section of this photograph is out of focus and it's been cut out badly from Photoshop. The arm and the head are two different photographs which can be seen by the cardigan's change of colour. Overall this is not a very good photograph.

I think this photograph is much better because of the research I did in photography and what I learnt, such as that the people should look forward so the audience is able to engage with them. First of all the whole thing is in focus. Secondly the people are looking into the camera which is a convention of photographs used on the front of magazines because it makes them feel more familiar and are then easier to identify with. Also it has been cut out better due to me learning how to use Photoshop better.

This is a section of the layout from the preliminary task. This layout is very clear and easy to read. However it doesn't really draw the eye and overall its quite boring.

This is a section from the layout of my music magazine. This layout is much more interesting and colourful. I also feel there is a lot more information included in the same amount of space and it is also quite clear. I think this reflects my new knowledge of Photoshop and how to use tools correctly. Also for this layout I looked at other magazines and was able to plan what would look good.

This is the font I used for my preliminary magazine task. I like this font for the masthead because its big, bold and interesting. However I think it doesn't look quite right for the smaller writing because it looks too crowded and so is hard to read.

This is the font for my music magazine. I prefer this one because its colourful and interesting. It draws attention much better than the one above and its easier to read. Also the fact its broken up means it represents the idea of a messy and alternative magazine which isn't just plain and boring. I put much more effort into this masthead than the one for the other task. For the other one I just used a font in Photoshop, however for this one I looked through lots of different fonts on a website, some of which I put on my mood board, and then decided on this one.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Here is a screengrab of my contents page in Photoshop. This screengrab is just to display the tools surrounding the main canvas. This includes the box of tools, the layer panel and the history panel. Before this project I had only used photoshop a couple of times and only to do very specific tasks. Now I have learnt to use all these things to an extent and have found each of them helpful in different ways. Being able to put work on a programme like this instead of having to do it in the traditional way saves a lot of time because you can do and edit things immediately and if you want to get rid of something you only have to delete it, not have to start again or spend a long time changing it. Here is another screengrab of my contents page in Photoshop. At the time this was taken I was editing some text. Whilst this is a fairly simple thing to do I learnt to put different text on different layers, which is displayed in the 'Layers' box to the right. I found this useful because it meant I could change the positions of different sections of text without having to change all of it. Here is an example of being able to change my work immediately, if this was a paper copy it would be much more difficult to edit this work. However a disadvantage of this could be that it becomes harder to put things wherever you want them to go, whereas if this was paper I could put any writing etc anywhere.


Here is the third screengrab of my contents page. In this one I was using the Blending tools to edit the drop shadow of the image shown behind the box. From using this tool I learnt you can change the 'look' of a photograph just by changing the shadow or glow. If I had made this in a traditional way then giving the pictures a drop shadow would have been much more difficult and probably looked very artificial.


Here is the logo from the website I used to create my graphs to present my audience research. I had never used this website before and found this it very useful and easy to use. This website is good to use because it is a quick way to make graphs and mistakes can be easily sorted out. However you can't do everything on this website that you can do by hand, such as deciding the scales on the vertical axis.
This is the logo from the website 'Flickr' which I used to annotate certain pictures and pieces of my work. I again had never used this website and after some brief instruction I found this website very simple and I liked the idea of being able to present annotation in a different way. A good thing about this website is that it enables a way to present data without it having to be a block text, although it is harder to fit all the information onto the small pictures.






Here is the logo of the 'Blogger' website. This is the site I have been using to blog my work. I have never used this website before or even made a blog so I was very new to this, however I found the website very helpful and easy to use. This way of presenting work is good because it keeps it all in one place and enables the use of websites like Flickr. However when using a website like this you do do loose out on things like writing it all in an essay format, which would probably enabling you to go into more detail about things.

Overall I prefer presenting my work in the 'Web 2.0' format because I think the work looks much more interesting. Not only this, but as mentioned before, it enables me to use websites like Flickr and insert things like pictures and videos. I think I will use some of these 'Web 2.0' things in my other lessons because in some subjects I have to make presentations and I am now able to Photoshop images and even put them in Flickr.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Here are three Flickr analysis' of my magazine saying how my magazine attracts my target audience.


Originally uploaded by Roxanne Mason

Originally uploaded by Roxanne Mason

Originally uploaded by Roxanne Mason

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The core target audience for my magazine is females aged 14 - 19. However it could also be read by males because music tends to not be gender specific and so they too could enjoy what is in the magazine. I decided on this core target audience for my magazine because I feel there is an opening in the market here. There are quite a few magazines which concentrate on this genre of music however these are mostly aimed at men or both genders. By aiming my magazine more at females I feel I have found a niche in the market.

A member of my target audience could come under any of the following categories:

‘Skaters’ http://www.uktribes.com/?p=tribe&id=11
‘Scene Kids’ http://www.uktribes.com/?p=tribe&id=10
‘Moshers’ http://www.uktribes.com/?p=tribe&id=12
‘Grungers’ http://www.uktribes.com/?p=tribe&id=13
‘Goths’ http://www.uktribes.com/?p=tribe&id=14 and
‘Emos’ http://www.uktribes.com/?p=tribe&id=9 .



These categories or 'tribes' are all linked by several things. First of all, the people in any of these tribes would consider themselves 'alternative' but in slightly different ways. For example, skaters are 'alternative' because their lives centre around a sport which is meant to be disapproved of, whereas emos are alternative because they dress and look different to the 'norm'. All of these 'tribes' engage in behaviour or activities which are considered to be rebellious or different to what everyone else does. they are supposed to have a more open-minded approach to life and have opinions which are not shared with the majority of people.

And to the left is an image of what they many look like. I think this is what my target audience would look like because stereotypically people who look like this like the bands that will be featured in my magazine. I decided to include a picture of a boy here as well because whilst my magazine is mainly aimed at females it can also be read by males and also I think having a picture of both sexes helps to fully show the style of the people in my target audience.

According to my audience research the places they shop at most often are alternative clothing shops such as ‘Dead Good’ http://www.thedeadgoodshop.com/
and ‘Rock Collection’http://www.rockcollection.co.uk/ They also shop at ‘New Look’ http://www.newlook.co.uk/ and from Internet sites such as ‘Soho’s’ http://www.sohos.co.uk/ . This is very important to know because my magazine would have a dependence, at least to some extent, on advertising revenue and so I would need to know the places which would be best to approach to buy advertising. And then hopefully they would continue to buy because the advertising would have an effect on their sales income.

The music they listen to would be genres such as rock, punk, metal, pop punk, emo and scream. This includes bands such as Rise Against, Aiden, Dashboard Confessional, All Time Low, The Audition, My Chemical Romance and Funeral for a Friend. Favourite TV programmes would include things such as Jackass, Viva La Bam, South Park, Family Guy and Dirty Sanchez as these have a massive cult following from people who also enjoy the kind of music which will be featured in my magazine.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The distributor of my magazine would have a very important role. It is the job of the distributor to attract the target audience. This is done through advertising, marketing and then distribution to sale outlets. Because of this I would ideally like to use a leading publisher/distributor. IPC produces over 85 media brands, with their print brands reaching almost 27 million UK adults and their online brands collectively reaching 20 million users every month. So I feel this would be an appropriate publisher for my magazine, and then I could use its distributor, MarketForce.


I feel this would be the right one to use because although it already carries a music magazine, NME, my magazine is different as its USP is that it’s aimed at women. NME's readership is 76% men and the median age is 23. This means that not only is my core target audience a different sex but also a different age so therefore my magazine will not be in direct competition with NME. IPC's magazines are read by almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men, which means they are obviously skilled at advertising, especially to women. NME and my magazine could even advertise each other because they sometimes cover similar music genres. Also IPC will already have experience in distributing music magazines, which would be very helpful.

‘Institutionally’ my magazine would probably be quite similar to NME and Kerrang, despite the fact Kerrang is published and distributed by Bauer. My magazine could be advertised on TV and in other IPC magazines to increase it’s exposure to teenagers. It could then be marketed using similar techniques such as a free CD’s and music downloads. It could then be sold in obvious places, such as WH Smith, supermarkets and newsagents, and more specific places like HMV.

My magazine is marketed at a niche core target audience, which is to say its specific target audience, teenage girls who like alternative music, has not really been targeted before. However if you look at my target audience as more general, which it could be as this type of music, and therefore magazine, could appeal to anyone, then it becomes more of a parrot publication. This is because the genre of music covered is covered by quite a few magazines, like Kerrang, and therefore in this sense it is not the first magazine of its kind.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The image to the left is of Georgina, the guitarist of the band 'Scene of the Broken' which I made up and used for my music magazine. The one to the right is from Kerrang and is Hayley Williams, the lead singer of the band ‘Paramore’.

Hayley’s posture is more upright than Georgina’s; this could mean she is the more confident of the pair, although this may make Georgina more accessible to the audience because she is more of a ‘real person’. It could also be because of the guitar strap she's wearing. Hayley's posture could be so upright because she is being told to pose like that to look more she doesn't care and is a bit aggressive. However I wanted my photograph to look more natural.

The angles of these two shots are both quite similar in they are both medium close ups. I think this is a good shot distance to use because it makes the person seem more familiar and easier to connect with.

The lighting of these shots is fairly high key. This could have been used because it not only lights the person up and emphasises who they are but also it makes them look better in terms of clear skin and shiny hair. The backgrounds of both shots are bland colours. This makes parts of them stand out more, such as their hair, as it contrasts with whats behind them and therefore this makes them look more interesting and exciting.

Both of these people are wearing dark, unremarkable clothes which could be to try and give the impression that they didn’t try too hard. Also it makes them stand out against the background and accents other things about them. Georgina is wearing a band t-shirt which is a common thing for members of other bands to do for photo shoots and gigs. Also the band on the t-shirt 'Taking Back Sunday' is featured somewhere else in my magazine, so this shows a link to them.

The expressions shown here are quite different, Hayley looks like she doesn’t care and Georgina looks like she is amused by something, which makes more sense in context with the whole photograph. I feel that both these expressions work well for people in bands. Looking aggressive and like you don't care is a familiar expression within bands of this genre. looking happy and amused makes someone look accessible and human.

In both of these photographs there seems to be an emphasis on hair because neither of them look like they’ve just gotten out of bed, they’ve clearly straightened their hair and taken a little time over it. This could be to make them seem more attractive. However their hair also looks a little messy which carries on the theme of this type of music being alternative and interesting as oppose to smooth and boring.

I think these representations of young women challenge both the modern and traditional stereotypes of young femininity. A modern stereotype of young women is that they dress provocatively and wear lots of make-up etc. However neither my model or the one she has been compared to dress in this way and only wear a small amount of make-up. This challenges what some people consider the 'norm'. These young women also challenge the traditional stereotype of femininity. They are not traditional in the sense they are not wearing dresses and 'feminine' clothing, and they are in alternative bands, which is more commonly a mans job. I think these challenges to representation link well to the style of my magazine and the genre of music it covers.