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

Looking back at my prelim task I feel I have developed to creating more consistent work at a much higher standard, I feel the magazine really came alive with my own photos, which helped me to really see the magazine as my own work. My final product is definitely a lot better quality and has a much more professional photos and feel to it. I feel my photography skills have improved, as you can see I didn’t use my own photos for my preliminary task, as the photos I took for it, I felt were poorly shot and of bad quality. I also feel my Photoshop skills have massively improved, although I feel this could just be due to having more confidence in my own ability, and being more comfortable with the software. I also feel I varied the fonts more within my final product which helped to add interest to my magazine and really gave it them professional finishing touches. I feel the contents have improved as I feel I made more of the space that I had, and I feel I used more enticing cover lines and quotes from the DPS article.

 

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your magazine?

Evaluation question 6 on Prezi

How did you attract/address your audience?

I did a lot of research into various magazines and artists to help me address my audience. I knew from the start that I wanted to photograph the model used, Trinity, as she has a very indie rock look, but I knew she would work with the camera, and be great at putting her own twist on photo ideas I gave her. I researched the band The Pretty Reckless and the lead singer of the band Taylor Momsen, and used the information I found to help me recreate photo shoots Taylor and the band had previously done, I did this so the audience could identify with my band profile but also found it extremely helpful in making my photos aesthetically pleasing. I also spent a lot of time looking into my fonts that I feel would work well with my pictures and my magazine, I finally chose three from dafont.com called ’Edition’ ’Ecolier’ and ’halo hand letter’. I chose these as they were all different, but worked very well together. After I did my first draft of my pages of my magazine, I did a questionnaire on 40 people on how they felt the magazine worked, if they’d buy it and if it was priced well, I felt this really helped me make my final changes to my magazine. 

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience for my magazine is going to be mixed gender between the ages of 18-30. The content of my magazine has restricted the minimum audience age, however I feel this enables me to connect more to the magazine and the content within it, as I am of a similar age to the audience I am trying to appeal to. When I did my audience research I found that people over the age of 30 were not interested in the content of my magazine, so found 30 to be my cut off age. 

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

My band profile for my magazine is based around the indie rock band The Pretty Reckless, who have featured in current magazines such as NME and Revolver. NME magazine is distributed by IPC Media, I could see my music magazine also being distributed by this company, on a smaller scale. I would distribute my magazine via the internet, through the use a magazine website, similar to NME. Revolver magazine is distributed by Future US, which is a United States media corporation specialising in targeted magazines and websites in video games, technology and music markets. I feel this company would be most likely to distribute my magazine, as it’s an alternative media distributor, that focuses on rock and heavy metal genres. My magazine would bring a different edge to the publishing and distributing company as indie rocks a softer genre, which I feel will help the magazine broaden its audience and the social groups that would usually buy it. I would also distribute my magazine in shops such as WHSmiths to attract a wider audience, but also in small scale record shops to reach out to dedicated music fans. I feel my magazine could have a circulation of 100,000 per month.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The pictures above show indie rock band lead singer, Taylor Momsen and my model Trinity Maloy. Taylor Momsen is who I chose to base my models look on, so I feel the fan base for Taylor’s band The Pretty Reckless would represent the particular social group that my media product is reaching out to. Something I first noticed about Taylor Momsen is she dressed provocatively and wears excessive amounts of dark clothing and makeup, this is something I tried to recreate with my model for my magazine, I feel this shows her real rock side, and having this look on the front cover, shouts out to that particular social group, however, she’s in a girly dress, has long blonde hair, that looks relatively undone, and is doing a ‘soft’ pose, this then helps the photo and the magazine appeal to a larger audience, as a girly girl probably wouldn’t buy an indie rock magazine, however because my model looks girly and rocky, it may appeal to that audience as well. I also feel the way the model looks beautiful as well as being fairly rocky, it doesn’t rule out boys being interested in the magazine, as they know the interview isn’t going to be about hair do’s and nail varnish colours, its going to be about real life and her rock band, which helps it to appeal to a male audience. Overall I feel I represented my magazine, my photos as my model well, showing an obvious social group audience type within the indie/rock genre as there are huge similarities between bands around now and the cover artist of my magazine, making it already fit into the music magazine audience groups.

 

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have conformed to the typical conventions of a magazine to a certain extent throughout my magazine. I used a clear masthead, with a typical music focused name, this is a basic convention of a magazine. I chose the name Melody after coming up with a range of mastheads, I chose this one as its musically focused and is a complete contrast against the genre of the magazine, it almost bends the rules against the magazine genre. I have also incorporated cover lines and kept to only using three fonts and three main colours, so the text doesn’t look too crowded and overdone. I wanted to make my magazine plain and classic, using black and white as my main colour focus, adding in splashes of red, on specific informative text lines. I wanted to do this so the .magazine looked more classic opposed to it looking over crowded and messy. The model on my magazine is dressed in a very glam rock outfit, I feel this outfit shows her fashion individuality but also helps to give the audience an insight to her personality and the genre of her band. She is wearing a ‘rock prom’ dress from the London based dress shop, Arrogant cat, which specialises in one off designs