Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Evaluation Question 6 : What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

                                                                       

I used Internet Explore for research. I learnt conventions of a magazine through the research I made on internet explore. At first I found it hard to even find what I was looking for let alone analyse it. However over time I began to learn how to refine my searches getting me the results I wanted. I got used to analysing what I found, the easier it became. I also found the internet particularly useful for finding out about the different institutions of media, as I had heard nothing of Bauer Media group before, I now know exactly where each institution has its headquarter and what type of magazine each of them sell. I found the internet explore very useful in this project as it allowed me to find out the information I needed about the institutions as well as allowing me to find images to annotate. The most common search engine I used was google as it always refines your answers itself allowing you to find what you want quicker, this I found particularly useful.

I had begun using powerpoint before we started the project. Although I could use the software I still wasn’t aware of everything that the software did or how to change the layout on the page of the slide. As the project began to develop so did my skills on powerpoint, I learnt how to change the lay out of a slide best suited to the purpose I wanted it, I learnt how to put arrows and other shapes onto the slide as well as how to insert an image. I used powerpoint to display my research and show what I had learnt through the research I had made. Powerpoint allowed me to have a visual way of expressing my thoughts and opinions on what I should include or what could be included, helping me clear my mind and make it easier to come up with a plan of action. It also produced a neat way for laying out my work, which I found useful.

                                                                       

I had always had a digital camera at home but I had never actually used it. I always seemed to find some reason for putting off using it wither it was but its raining I don’t want to get it wet or but what if I loose it. This project forced me to use a my digital camera for the first time. Through the use of the digital camera I learnt that the macro mode makes your pictures turn out sharper and more focused, creating a better picture. By using my digital camera I learnt how use the camera as well changing the focus on the camera and zooming in and out. The digital camera is the best picture taking product out there as it has a higher definition than a mobile thus making my pictures look more professional, making it a very useful technology.

 

When we were first introduced to PhotoShop I began dreading the daunting thought that I would actually have to sit in a lesson working on a program I had absolutely no clue about. I had never even used the product before this project started. I knew it existed but to me it was to complicated to use. After a brief tutorial session on how to use the software I still was slightly clueless about how to use the program. However, after a while I began to be able to use it. The greatest achievement that I learnt on Photoshop was actually how to paste an image onto the software. I used screaming at the computer about how much it annoyed me that you couldn’t use paste as I could never find the paste button however, now I can tell you straight from the top of my head that its near the bottom of the edits list. However, pasting isn’t the only thing I learnt from photoshop. Another thing I learnt was how to edit an image. Yeah it may sound silly that I couldn’t use photoshop but now I can paste pictures into the program, I can get rid of the background, turn the background transparent, change the colour of the image and much more. By learning how to use this
software, my images looked more professional helping making my magazine look more authentic.

 

I had never heard of InDesign before this project. At first to me it was a lot like Photoshop, I began dreading working with it as I couldn’t understand it. In my opinion it was to complicated, you had to remember to do some many actions to get the results you wanted that I simply couldn’t remember all the steps and felt awful for constantly asking my peers for help. However, just like Photoshop I found the similarities between the two and as I grew more confident on Photoshop I began to grow more confident on InDesign. By learning to use Indesign the layout of my magazine improved and so did the standard of my work. I’ve learnt how to export an image, insert text and have even downloaded the program onto my own laptop so I can keep practising and learning new techniques to make my work even better in the future.

At first the very prospect of having to write a blog had be worried. When I was younger I was always writing blogs on my bebo about what had happened to me that day and my feelings about it and I had always got positive feedback from it. However, there is a big difference between writing a blog for personal pleasure and writing a blog for coursework. I had never heard of Blogger before and was so terrible at it I even managed to write my email address wrong on the day I registered it and it was a nightmare itself trying to change it to the right one. However, the more I went onto blogger the easier it came to me on how to use it. It becomes real simple after a while. What I found useful about using the blogger it has allowed me to keep my work in chronological order and kept my work organised making it easier to see what work I have done and which work needs improvement.

Slideshare was a lot like blogger to me. I had never heard of it before, however after using it in this project I have learnt how to upload my presentations the website as well as finding out how to delete presentation I no longer want up or to replace them with another presentation that is better. This has helped my improve my layout of the piece as there is no longer pages of the same presentation but with new slides its simply one slide for one selection making it a lot more organised and easier to upload to my blogger.

I still remember when there was this massive crazy about “Weird Msn Writing” bur with all my experimenting with fonts I never came across Dafont.com. Which to be honest was a real shame. it’s a great website for you to find a variety of fonts you can use. At first I didn’t understand how it worked or how we got the font to write the text we wanted however, I soon learnt that you simply had to print screen it and open it in photoshop and edit it, I have even managed to do a step by step guide on my blog on how to do it. The most useful thing I learnt from dafont was down to download the font you wanted, although that doesn’t sound like much, I learnt how to use dafont just like all the other programs I had never used before and I found it very difficult to get my head around how to use them, however, once you get your head around it, it is so beneficial to your work and makes the presentation of your work look so much more professional just because Dafont has a range of different fonts to use helping add to the convention of having various fonts on in your magazine.

Evaluation Question 5 : How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract my audience there was many techniques which I used. I need to create a professional look that would attract my audience to my magazine as well as following conventions of other magazines that were aimed at the same audience as mine. This meant I could follow the conventions of other magazines to make my magazine fit in with the professionals make it look more presentable and able for my target audience to know the magazine is for them..

Use of Language
I used slang language/ simple syntax. This is so that my audience (14-17) would be able to understand what is being said within the articles and help them be engaged in what is being promoted to them. The fact that I used “Buzz words” such as exclusive allowed my audience to get excited that the article is just for them and that they will know something that nobody else does. I used rhyme in some of the articles names such as “Pop Queen Avril Lavigne Spills the Bean”. My target audience like rhyming syntax thus making there attention drawn to my magazine. The conventions I followed were from other magazines that had the same audience, thus allowing me to learn how to target my audience successfully.

Use of font
an important contributor when creating a magazine is fonts, this is because the font you choose has to appeal to your audience. As my audience is female, the fonts I choose had to be curvy, lively but also bold and eye catching. I download my main font from DaFont, this was easy to do once you understood what you were doing, as it takes a lot of skill to change the colour and edit it. The other fonts I used were fonts that looked the part already on InDesign.

Contents
one thing I noticed about contents pages were they were always presented neatly making it easier for the audience to read as well as having bright colours for the important information. The main image on the page links in to the main article (Double page Spread) as I changed the writing to have an outline on the important things making it easier for my reader to read the information being given. I split the articles into sections to help the audience find what they were looking for as well as following the convention of putting the numbers first before the name of the article.

Images
It is very easy to influence young teenage girls with the media as they always want to look like the celebrities, however, a lot of the teenage girls don‘t realise that the pictures they see in the magazine are edited using photoshop. I wanted my images to show the message that its okay to just be normal and not “Perfect” like the celebrities, to do this I made sure my images were not edited in getting rid of spots or hair out of place but just to simply brighten/ sharpen to colour to make the picture look in better quality. For the photoshot my model wore a white dress, this was to give the representation that she was pure and that nothing had changed her appearance and that it was all natural like the surroundings around her, thus breaking the convention of having the perfect model. I wanted the pictures to show a fun characteristics coming through to make the audience feel welcome.

MastHead
My masthead was inspired by “Heat” this was because I like the way each letter was curvy and yet still bold which was how I wanted my masthead to be. however I wanted my masthead to have a little bit more attitude to it, so I made my masthead curvier and have more sharper edges. My masthead is bold and place at the top of the front cover, but just below the Skyline.

Choice of Representations
From my questionnaire I learnt that my audience liked a variety of music and that most of the music they liked were about wanting to belong in the crowd, because of this I wanted my images to show my singer having fun and not wearing lots of amounts of make up and looking very natural. In order for my audience to be inspire I need to create my model as being a good role model for my younger audience and make them feel like they don’t have to be “Perfect” to have fun and be excepted. I enjoyed making changed to my images as it was nice to see how you could change your image to portray a different message.

Layout
in the layout of my magazine I used a lot of conventions. The front cover layout of my magazine follows the conventions by having the main image of the singer up close to show eye contract with the reader making them feel more important. I placed the Skyline at the top of the page and tried to get it to bring attention to it by giving it bright colours however, not to bright as to distract the audience away from the main article. I tried to use convention in the colour scheme as usually a magazine has black, white and a stand out colour normally red. I wanted to break the convention a little by adding another colour so I had four in my colours scheme (yellow, black, white, purple) to give the audience a feeling that this was a new type of magazine they hadn’t seen before. I arrange my contents page layout to look presentable by having it organised into columns and having the convention of having the page first, this was to make it look more professional. I also placed my images together in one corner the page to make it look more organised. In my double page spread I followed the convention of having one main image on one side (usually the left) and having the interview on the right, this lead me to be able to separate the text making it easier to read and conform to the conventions that other magazines use.
 

How I targeted my audience

The way which I targeted my teenage female audience was through following conventions of other magazines such by the use of curvy fonts, the layout on the page and the highlighting of important words to catch the audiences eye. I made sure that the information I put on my magazine was relevant to the feedback I got from my questionnaire to make sure it was what my audience wanted, EG latest releases, best gigs of this year. The promotion of 'free posters' would also get my audience attention as its something personally for them making them feel special.

Evaluation Question 4 : Who would be the audience for your music magazine?

The main audience for my magazine are teenage girls aged between 14-17.
As my magazine is aimed at the female audience I am likely to have very little male readers.
In order to help my understand what my target audience were likely to be interested in I created a quesionaire for my age group to answer. I then put my result into a reader profile to show me visually what my target audience were interested in.

I found out that my audience like to be up to date with the modern technology, which allows them to feel important amongst the people around there age as in modern society it’s very much about being accepted meaning the younger generation of my target audience are under pressure to be up to date with the latest trends and technology to keep them accepted by the rest of there peers, meaning my magazine should help them find ease to the pressure.

The Artists my audience are intressed in are a variety of singers such as
- Lady Gaga
- Enineum
- Paramore
- Avril Lavigne
- MCR
- Rhianna
- Usher
- && Many More

As my target audience is teenage girls they are very much interested in web 2.0 sites, such as you tube, face book, twitter and grabbing attention of boys through makeup and the latest trends. They like to watch TV shows with drama such as “Waterloo Road” and “Friends”
In modern day society music rules my target audience life. They go onto download sites such as Itunes or go into HMV to by the new music. As well as shopping in places such as “Peacock” and “New Look”, to feel accepted in the modern society.

My findyourtribe result was Emo who liked very emotional music and liked to show off making a scene and making a statement on society.

The socio-economic group that my target audience fall into is E. This is because they are mostly students/ Pupils meaning they are unemployed so they can not move into the higher groups as of yet. The Psychographic profiling group my target audience fall into is Mainstreamer: Someone in search of security, belonging and routine, as they are teenagers looking for where they belong in the world. This is why in my magazine I have made articles that have the latest news and recently reviewed albums, to allow my audience to feel up to date allowing them to feel like they fit in with there group.

Evaluation Question 3 : What kind of media institution might distribute your music magazine and why?

The media insttitution most likely to distribute my magazine is IPC Media. The reason IPC media is most liekly to distribute my magazine is because it has a large target audience due to its growing profolio. IPC Media supports mainly male music magazines such as NME, so I think my magazine could help them reach a further audience by bringing girls into the music world, as there is currently no magazine that IPC Media is supporting for a female music magazine. Although some of NME's readers are girls I think that by IPC Media distributing my magazine they can also begin to expand their company futher into the younger society helping them become even more popular and well known than the are now.

I think the instituition least likely to distribute my magazine is Bauer Media Group. I think this as it woudl cost a lot more to send my magazine to a privite owned instituion and it is not as widely known in the UK as IPC Media is. IPC Media is more likely to adapt its insitution for the need of the audience for example it moved on the internet when web2.0 began becoming a sucess, this shows that IPC Media is most likely to take a risk on something new like my magazine for teenage girls, making it the ideal institiution to distribute my magazine.

Evaluation Question 2 :How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

Evalutation Question 1: In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

Masthead

My masthead follows the conventions well for many reasons. The font I choose to write my masthead in is called “The Deeper”. I decided to use this font as it was very bold which makes it stand out on the shelves, however, it still followed the convention of a women targeted magazine being very curvy. The colour I used to have my masthead was bright yellow; this was to make the magazine eye catching due to its brightness as well as following the convention of having the brightest colour on the page coming from the title and the main article. The yellow also fitted nicely into my colour scheme of, purple, black and yellow, I used these colours as they complimented each other by making each other stand out. In the market there is a lack of female music magazines so I couldn’t find much inspiration for the masthead, however, in order to overcome this problem, I decided to look at female magazine that were related to fashion or as they are commonly known as “Girl Mags”. By researching them I learnt that the majority of them had a big bold, curvy title that had a bright colour to bring the young female audience into the magazine.

                                                                        My Masthead.




                                                                            Examples

My masthead is less solid than the ones above however I think it follows the conventions of mastheads for a teenage female target audience as it still consists of being curvy and bright. I chose the name ‘TOXIC Fusion’ because a lot of the music magazines need a title that has attitude. It also symbolises the new music as being toxic which is powerful and the fusion of the music as there is no set genre for my magazine as there is too many genres of music to just label fraction of the audience. My masthead is bold and placed in front of the main image which does follow conventions of many of the magazines I researched as well as being able to allow my audience to identify my magazines more clearly on the shelves or just in order to simply find my magazine easier.

Mis En Scene

I choose Emmer Green Park as my photoshot location. Emmer Green Park would be the perfect place for my photo shot for many reasons. The first reason I choose the park was because it is a very spacious space, this would allow me to do my photo shot without getting in the way of other people as well as having enough room to various shots such as long shot. The location is perfect as my magazine has no set music genre as to me music is a very open community and shouldn’t be over categorized as nobody is one set genre. The location helps me show this as the park has buildings surrounding it but is natural inside, this helps the audience feel relaxed as it makes it look like it’s a part of a community, which music itself is. It also allows the audience to feel free as it has the contrast of having the hectic life style surrounding it, meaning the audience could associate the magazine with escaping from the outside world. The music is mainly based around where the bands come from now days so by having the photo shot in a place where my models grew up helps bring a more understanding between the audience and the models. The park itself is very easy to access for both me and my models, the light is always just at the right angle as the sun rises and falls along the centre of the park with the selected spot of my photo shot aliened, meaning that the pictures will have a warmly glow to them, making it seem ever more of a friendly atmosphere. Also because my target audience is female, they are more likely to respond to a peaceful calm picture as opposed to a rock band almost screaming at the camera. This makes Emmer green the perfect place for my photo shot to be held. I wanted my model to have fun and make there personality shine through to allow the audience to feel connected with them, I found it would be easier for my model to have fun at Emmer Green Park as it was a place she used to hang out with, so she felt more emotionally connected with the surroundings and could have fun and be herself there.


Example Of Photoshots

These images above have there models portrayed as the lightest colour on the page. They do this by surrounding the model with dark colours which makes the model stand out more as well as using photoshop to make the lighting appear brighter, which catches the audiences attention and also presents itself as a convention of magazines. The top image above is a picture of a model in a photoshot. The image is originally a mid shot however, when it is put onto the front image of the magazine it is zoomed into only to see the face of the model, in order to create a connection between the audience and reader as they feel as if they model is talking directly to them. I decided to do a similar thing for my image for my front cover as it would involve following conventions of editing a picture to make the model seem bright and eye catching as well as using there convention of getting the perfect image, by editing it.

The picture I decided to use was a picture of my model, Emma White look directly into the camera to follow the convention of having the audience forming a connection with her as well as having her smiling at the camera as women are more likely to connect/ buy a magazine with someone smiling at the as women normally appose to something more confrontational or violent. The shot I used was angled down at Emma, I decided to use this shot as it made Emma look really vulnerable almost showing she was opening up to her fans and creating a sense of friendship. 

In order to manipulated my photos I used photoshop. In most of my pictures I adjusted the brightness and sharpness off the image, this made the image appear to be brighter and more eye catching bringing the audience in. I think by making my pictures make the model seem even more flawless and bright makes the audience feel like the magazine is friendly compared to the male targeted magazines which often have the artist look down upon the audience in an almost aggressive behaviour, because of this I think I targeted my audience well.  

Professional Photoshop Edits

My PhotoShop Image

My model, Emma follows the conventions of my music magazine for many reasons. Emma is at the age of 17 making her one of the oldest target audience for my magazine however, this works in my advantage as it creates a role model for my younger readers and as many girls are now insecure about what they look like or how they should act, I think it is important for them to have someone to inspire to be like, who has got to the age when you really don't mind what people think about you and just get on and be who you are instead of being influenced by the people around you. Also I think my younger audience need a more positive person to look up to in the light of modern society as the Disney Stars, who young children look up to, such as Miley Cyrus has recently been taking drugs and throwing their lives off the track giving the younger audience the wrong impression of what they should look like or how they should behave. Out of the limited music magazines that are targeted for women I looked at the magazine "Rock Sound" as they tend to have more of a positive bouncy image and I think this would be more appealing to an audience as my target audience are more bubbly as they are young and want bright colours to attract them as they are very curious to bright colours such as Yellow (one of the colours for my magazine). For my magazine I didn't want one style of music genre as I believe modern society has no set genre anymore and they like the music that simply reaches the charts as they conform to the music their age group likes, in this case on the sky line of my magazine front cover I mentioned stars that are from different music background such as "paramore" being an "Emo" music genre and "Lady Gaga" being more pop.

The costume I decided for Emma to wear was very bright and eye catching as I wanted her to be promoted as pure and innocent like my readers. For this I choose to put Emma in a white dress as it helps the audience see her as sweet and innocent however, at the same time be a grown up women as to not ruin her image but also relate to the teenage girl readers who want to be seen as grown up, thus allowing the audience to relate. I had Emma where bright red lipstick to attract a contrasting clash to my colour scheme making my audience be captured by the brightness as well as wearing dark eyeliner as young children are more inspired by the darker look than a plan innocent girl so by using the contrast of Emma being sweet and innocent due to the white dress but having the contrast of her make up allows the audience to see they can be who ever they want as styles like music are made to be mixed and matched. I followed the conventions of using one plain colour costume as the fact that the colour white was contrasting to the black background. However, I broke the convention of the artist having a nose ring being violent but making the red lipstick bring out Emma's smile more showing a nice friendly personality. I think this worked well as it shows that music can be mixed like everything else.

The fonts I decided to use portrayed a feminine vibe as they were very curvy however, still worked well with the boldness making it stand out. In order to make my magazine seem professional I decided to keep this approach of curvy bold text running throughout my magazine. As the fonts I used are bold this makes it easier for the audience to read it, as well as being curvy to appeal to the women audience not male. As there was not many fonts that appealed to my audience, I decided to use the technique of outlining some of the text differently to make each text individual and different to the rest. The website which I got my main title font from was DaFont (http://www.dafont.com/). This was due to the fact that they had various types of font allowing me to search for the ideal font for my target audience making them become more intrested in my magazines. I used a variety of fonts as whilst researching female magazines I found that they use various types of fonts to make the page seem busy and more appealing to the female audience by the variety as well as making them more interested as my target audience like to see new things so the deviation of fonts makes them more involved with in the magazine.

The font I used for my masthead was called ‘The Deeper’. I decided on this text as it was bold however, still kept its curvy female appeal therefore add to my audience expectations.

The language I chose to use was using very slang terms that teenager(my audience) often use, as this helps reflect to the audience that it is targeted at there age group. "OMG" and ‘WTF’ were examples of some of the slag terms I used. I decided to use these because these words are very common slang terms for teenagers as when a magazine uses them it automatically brings the audiences attention to it as it's  almost speaking directly to them. I used buzz words to bring importance to some of the main articles as well as using conventions of using alliteration to highlight the main article, making the audience excited and wanting to know more. I used common terminology (slang) as the audience can understand  it more than the proper English making it easier for them to understand and want to read more off. The use of having the artists names highlighted also brings them in as they are automatically drawn to the artists name, making them want to know more.

For my magazine I decided to have no set genre. I decided this as music has such a wild range of genres, it is almost impossible to put a label on it, also my target audience are often just listening/ liking the music which is in the charts which varies from R'n'B to Pop, which means if I put a label on my magazine I would cut out a lot of my audience. In order to show that there is no genre on my magazine I decided to add singers from different genres on the skyline above my magazine such as "Lady Gaga", "Eninem", "Paramore". In order to attract my audience attention I used bright yellow and funny pun words such as "Pop Queen Avril Lavigne Spills The Beans" as it would amuse my audience and make them want to read more. By using the pun and bright colour it speaks to my audiences bubbly personality and child like attitude.

Layout

The layout of my front cover followed many conventions of female targted magazine. I decided to follow a typical female targeted magazine layout as it would help me learn what other females look for when buying a magazine. A typical convention of a female magazine is the fact that the main image is also the main article of the magazine. In order to establish this I made sure the colour of the title was the same colour as the main article, this is typical of a "Q" magazine layout, thus, helping the audience establish what is important on the page. The Masthead laso follows conventions as it is the  largest text on the front cover and is also placed just below the Skyline, which helps build up what the audience should expect from the magazine. In order to follow the conventions of the magazine rock sound I used a ovaral shape as the "Flash" as its the most curvy shape reflecting the female audience as well as having advertise free posters as a lot of people admitted they liked having a free gift with the magazine as it helps bring the audience in. Another convention I used was the fact that the second biggest text on the front cover was the main article, in order to make it stand out I used the same colours I used for the title making it more eye catching for the reader. I added a box of shocking interviews to bring the audience interest in my magazine up to a higher level, as it grabs there attention as well as allowing it to look professional. The fact that I put a lot of text on my front cover shows that I have analysed that the teenage female magazine has a lot of there articles placed on the front page as the target audience is very visual so they want to see what they are getting themselves in for. My barcode is placed on the right hand side in the middle of the page as many of the female magazines did this so it was following conventions(I got the image of the barcode of the internet to help my magazine appear more professional)

   For my contents page I decided to use the influence of the contents pages I have researched to help influence my contents page.I used a vast variation of fonts for places such as Title, and clips of what the articles are, as well as the page number. This allows the audience to establish the difference between the two types of texts and associate the different types of fonts which what they are, making the audience find it easier to locate the articles etc, as well as making my contents page appear more professional and easier to interpret the information on the page.I continued to use my colour scheme of using the colours White, Purple, Black and Yellow. The balance in which on my page is that ¾ it shall be the articles in columns. I shall then have the page numbers organised next to the  article in order for the layout to be more presentable as well as making it easier for the reader to find the page they want as well as the article. On the left hand side of the page I have one big picture over lapped by a smaller image, this shows the variation of posters inside as well as advertising the main article like many magazines do on their contents page. I decided to have a variation of text overlay on the pictures to make the text needed to establish an understanding of why they are there more clear. This follows the conventions of a typical contents page.The conventions in which I followed are, such things as having a few images that takes up the one side of the page, variation of texts to show off different parts of the articles, keeping to the colour scheme, explaining why the picture are there as well as having the page number in front of the article name. I also have to remember my flat plan to make sure the number etc match up.

For my double page spread I decided to have the article about an interview with Emma White, who is portrayed as the female Justin Bieber (World dominating). I  used a variation of fonts for places such as Title, quotes, summary and clips. This allows the audience to establish the difference between the two types of texts and associate the different types of fonts which what they are, making the audience find quotes if that’s what they like.I kept to my colour scheme of using the colours White, Purple, Black and Yellow. The balance in which is on my page is that ½ of one page shall be the text in columns. I shall then have a main quote organised over both pages to bring the audience in as well as letting it linking the two pages together (Conventional). The rest of the spread then just consists of one main picture. I decided on this as the majority of magazines have the picture on the left and have bright quotes emphasized to catch the audiences eye as they flick through.The conventions in which I followed are, such things as having a main image that takes up the whole of one page, variation of texts to show off different parts of the articles, keeping to the colour scheme, having quotes to bring in the audience.  For inspiration on for my double page spread I looked at heat magazines lay out and copied the idea of having the main image on the left hand side with the text on the right as well as having a quote linking the two pages together. I think my double page spread worked well as I used heat magazine as a basic outline of how to make my magazine look professional so people would buy it.

With everything considered I believe I have followed conventions well throughtout my magazine as I wanted my magazine to have a high quality finsh and I used a lot of magazines for advice on how to layout my magazine and how to make sure I follow conventions.I think all in all my magazine helps target my audience really well.