Evaluation

Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products

I have used existing media to help inspire me for my own media. However I have also
developed as well as challenged the norm in music magazines. Using multiple magazines
helped me to find the right balance between all the different styles that magazines such as Q
and Billboard publish regularly.
On Q they have a big Q that really stands out on the page because its colour differences and
how big it is. I used this for my own magazine by putting the logo Zeal in white onto a big
black circle on top of a yellow background that really helps it stand out. Having a
recognizable logo that people know can help boost sales for real magazines, thinking about
this I decided to use the existing media to help me do just that. I think it really stands out on
the page and the colours work well with the rest of the page.
I noticed that the front cover of popular magazines usually have a picture of music artist
looking into the camera using direct mode of address. However I decided to challenge this,
because I saw that a lot of magazines used props like hats and sunglasses in their pictures to
make their artist look more stylish and casual. When wearing sunglasses it covers up the
users eyes which blocks the direct mode of address used in most magazines. So instead of
looking into the camera when wearing sunglasses I decided that my model should look to the
side and that I should try and make him look as cool in the picture as possible. I did this by
tilting the camera to look up to him and changed the picture to black and white, because
black and white photos have a connotation of old fashioned, which is considered by most as
very stylish (for example the mafia were always pictured in suits with black and white photos)
and it works with the colour scheme of the front cover.
I decided to put the barcode in the bottom left corner because thats where they are on
magazines a lot of the time. I also added it to make my front cover look more realistic.
 Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products

The way the artists name is always very strongly branded on real magazine pages and
stands out well is a thing that I used and put on my own magazine. I chose to stick to this
normality because people look to buy things because of a reason, putting someone's name
on the magazine gives them a reason to buy the magazine. It could be for multiple reasons
like if they are a fan or if they collect the magazine anyway as well as other reasons. So the
magazine would sell more if there are more reasons to buy the magazine, and putting a
famous artists name on the magazine gives them a reason.
Q has a boarder around the picture that makes it look very professional where as billboard
does not. I chose to use a boarder on mine, but not as far in as Q. Having the boarder go
around the outside of the page makes it look very stylish and gives the availability of more
stuff on the page and allows the picture to be bigger as well.
On the Q magazine that I looked at the top right corner has text upon a box that stands out
on the page using a drop shadow look. I decided to develop this idea from having the look for
one piece of text to having for all my text boxes. I chose to do this because the box on Q
really stands out from the rest of the text boxes. You could argue that Q have done this
because that's the text they want you to read first. But I believe if you are putting something
onto the front cover it needs to grab attention, so I decided to make each text on a box with
a drop shadow and to alternate in colour as well as all having different fonts to stand out
even more. If you look at Billboards front cover you can see that drake is behind all the text,
and the text isnt very readable. This is because of two main reasons the colour scheme
doesnt make the text readable, its small.
The picture stands in front of the logo, top and middle text box but behind the bottom one to
represent that there are layers to the magazine. If you look at Billboard you can see that the
artist Drake is behind all the text, and on the other hand Qs image of Tinie Tempah is in front
of the logo but also behind writing, which looks more professional and more thought through.
Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products
Q1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products
 Q2 How does your media product represent particular social groups

My media products represent the target market social group well. Ive used models that
are young that relates to the main target age range, using models of similar age allows
the reader to feel a connection because of the similarities in what happens to people at
certain ages. The way my models are dressed also correlates to the age group, the
models are dressed smartly in some images like the front cover and one of the images on
the contents. However the models are dressed casual as well, like the other image on the
contents and the double page spread. Using two dress types opens the door to relate to
as many people as possible who might be reading the magazine. On the front cover I
almost created a sort of atmosphere around my model, the way he doesnt look at the
camera makes it a very cool and stylish situation that hes in, this relates to the social
group of the target audience that I tried to relate my front cover photo too.
For all my photos I used head shots, which include head and shoulders because many
celebrities are represented in this way. They are close enough for the reader to engage
with the image positively but not close enough to be a bit wired. Other magazines such as
Q used the same distance of the camera. On my double page spread however I decided
to make sure that the camera was closer than normal, I saw the Fadr magazine front
covers and I really like the image so I wanted to copy the camera angle but make a
aggressive/interesting stance. I liked how drake showed his teeth in the image on the
right so I made sure that I also did this for my picture.
In hindsight I wished I had used female models. Female models are often used by
magazines to attract the male audience. The male gaze is a theory that the world is seen
through the male eye in the media. Not using women models does however make sure
that they are not being objectified, but I wish I had, as I believe my magazine would have
had a wider target audience.
 Q3 What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why

Buzz Media
Is a well known magazine publisher who in 2012 decided to only publish webzines and stop the publication of in hand
magazines. Having only online magazines like SPIN limits Buzz media from the world. The audience is limited to only people with
internet access, obviously a limited audience affects sells. Which in turn affect how big of an influence Buzz Media have on the
magazine market. If I could convince Buzz Media to switch their play into publishing normal magazines as well as publishing
my magazine online then hopefully my magazine could draw attention to Buzz Media. Putting a magazine that could
potentially sell well then Buzz Media would be chipping into the magazine market again, allowing them to make a profit from
that area and rise up as a company. Buzz Medias most known magazine is SPIN which is a different genre from my magazine,
this also adds to the diversity in the potential audience that Buzz Media could have if they published my magazine.

Lynne Segall
Lynne Segall is on the other side of the profit in magazines from Buzz Media as they publish Billboard a total of 17,000
magazines per week and have a circulation of 15.2 million per month. All of this gives Lynne Segal a very good hold on the
market, and thats only from Billboard. These facts would defiantly help my magazine to become a top seller. My magazine is
quite similar to Billboard and so would not be a risk to throw at their audience. Since the audience obviously already like
Billboard then they are very likely to like my magazine. If Lynne Segall did help publish my magazine then they could potentially have two of
the best selling pop magazines in the market. My magazine also has a slight hip hop edge to it which would allow Lynne Segall to
exploit a part of the market thats unfortunately not as big as it used to be. This also would help the company to become a
Major player in different genres.
 Q4 and Q5 who would be the audience for your media products how did you
attract/address the audience?

The audience for my media products would be anyone who is into mainstream music of ages between
around 12-40. First of all the vibrant colours of the magazine screams youth, it also shows that the
magazine is not dull and boring. The image on the front cover looks professional which can be
associated with people in the target age group, the image is in black and white as well as the artist
MAXIM0M wearing a smart top and wears sun glasses, which has annotations of being cool and
relaxed which can also be associated with people In the target market.

I attracted people to my magazine mainly by vibrant colours and using direct mode of address. The
front cover is what really pulls people into buying the magazine, I decided not to use direct mode of
address on the front cover as I explained why on question one, but the main reason how I aim to have
attracted people to my magazine is by the strong colour relation between black and yellow. Both of the
colours help each other stand out very well from other magazine front covers. Vibrant colours are often
by animals to attract mates, they use vibrant colours because it helps the individual stand out from the
others, like how the vibrant and unusual colours help my magazine front cover to stand out. I continued
to use the vibrant colour yellow on my contents page as well as the other strong colour purple for the
same reason. I used direct mode of address for the main picture on the page to draw the audience into
that part of the magazine. Using direct mode of address really engages the audience with the page and
makes them more likely to buy. Asking the audience questions that they can find out throughout the
magazine also engages them in the magazine and makes them more likely to buy. The double page
spread devoted half the page to an image that is a close up of the artist MAXIM0M looking deep into
the camera, which is using direct mode of address. The text side of the page has titles to certain texts
so the reader can engage with what they want to read. It also has important parts of the text in larger
stand out text, which engages someone who might be quickly looking over the page.
Q6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product
Q7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from it
to the full product