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

I believe when looking back at my preliminary task to my full media product, their was a lot more work than I thought, in a short space of time. In my opinion there is a lot you have to plan to publish a media magazine successfully, which includings time magagement, planning and organisation, different types of skills and new technologies to use, the types of conventions you use. All of these are really important to think about and plan carefully when making a final media product. But in my preliminary task, the different conventions that I used, the layout, the colours etc... did not matter in to much detail as this was just a rough magazine to help us to understand how to produce a magazine and also to learn a bit more of how to use the different new media's like Quark Express and photoshop.

Time magagement was the thing I think that let me down. I was taking too long in my planning and preparation for my magazine that I wasnt watching the time carefully. If I had more time in my magazine production, a lot more time would of gone into the layout. Iam happy that id finished my magazine, that was one positive, but I know that it could of been better. Other positives about the production of my magazine is learning more about the new technologies. Photoshop was the main new technology that I couldnt use and I found it difficult to work with. But using it for the production of my contents page has helped me to understand how to use it and now i do, it is a lot easier to work with.

Evaluation:- "What have you learnt about technologies from the processing of construction this product?"

I believe that technology plays an important part in media, because without it the fonts, the use of cropping images down to go well with the magazine, the fonts they use, colours etc... magazines would not be so popular as what they are now. I believe that all the different types of new technologies has helped me to achieve my magazine successfully, including Quark Express, photoshop, the internet etc...

One way I believe new technologies has helped me to complete my magazine is the way of cropping images down to the way I wanted it, which you cannot do on other technologys like microsoft word. An example of this would be of the small picture of the female teenager on the contents page with her punching her fist out to the audience. My first picture of the teenager had a background of a brick wall, but photoshop helped me to cut out the background to just keep the person. The way to do that is to highlight over the image you want to take out of the picture using swatches, then just click it and drag it away. Doing this became very effective for my magazine and makes it look better without the background.

I believe that Quark Express for me was probably the easiest to use compared to photoshop and thats probably the reason why I did my front cover and double page spread on Quark, but that doesnt mean that Quark is the best technology to use. Text boxes were the most difficult thing on Quark as they left the boxs lines around the outside, which doesn't make the appearence of the magazine look as good as it could be. But on the other hand, this technology does have some positives, including tools, which are very easy to find as what you want is either displayed to the side or the bottom. Then going back to the double page spread it was useful because it was easy to add the pages side to side. So eventhough Quark is probably the easiest and quickest to use, I believe that photoshop gives you the best overall result in getting a final result for a media magazine.

The internet also helped me in the whole of my coursework, from the start to finish. It help me at the start of my coursework to research into some magazines to see what the audience look for in a magazine, but also what forms and conventions the publishers use in their media magazines, looking at what different fonts rock magazines use and also colour, layout etc... This turned out to be very useful and helped me to put together my magazine. Youtube was another technology that helped me in my coursework. By using it I could upload my videos of people I have interviewed for one of my questions onto my blog. This has been helpful for my evaluation and I have learned a lot more in using this new technology.

Evaluation:- "What would be the audience for your media product and how did I attract them?"

My media product was a rock music magazine. I researched into many types of other dependant rock magazines, finding out what type of audience they attract and how. Researching into this will give me a better understanding of how to develop my magazine to challenge other media products. My target audience initially was both male and female, for teenagers and early adulthood between 15-24. But I considered that many people over my predicted target audience as rock music is very popular and can capture peoples taste.

In many rock magazines like kerrang, I thought the audience would be classed as a c2, because I believe that they don't have an understanding of how the music industry works compared to other sophisticated media products, such as NME and Q. But seeming my magazine follows along the footsteps of magazines like Kerrang, I thought I would keep the same class, c1/2

Looking and researching at the aesthetics of other media magazines has helped me find out what the attractions are for the audience when buying the magazine. Forms and conventions are important when thinking about how to attract the audience, including the style and the layout of the magazine, the wording and fonts it uses etc... In many other media products like Kerrang and Q, the fonts are very loud and bold, it shouts out what the magazines about. The colouring is quite bland, using colours like black and white. Where as the colours which are used in the coverlines give a more striking appearance on the magazine, as they used much more brighter colours.

In my magazine, you can see the similarities and differences of mine from other magazines, but looking it, I cant see many ways I have challenged other media products with the lack of differences.

Looking at my front cover, the main difference from other magazines is my main background. As it is set outside with a person holding a guitar, whereas in other magazines like Kerrang, they set their photos in studios and other indoor places. The stance of the person and what they are wearing shows the rebellious side of them and the magazine. Apart from that, the layout, fonts and the use of conventions used in my magazine are all similar to other media magazines, which adds to the rebellious main picture.

In the contents page and the double page spread again shows more similarities than differences. On the contents page, the pictures connote the persons well being, punching her fist out to the audience shows the rebellious side. The way the text is layed out into columns shows the similarity from other media studies, the dark colours used for the text, fonts and backgrounds all connotes that its a magazine.

Evaluation:- "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

My magazine represents teenagers male and female aged around 15-21 in many social groups. Most teens today are seen to be just "lazy" by some dominant people, saying that teens just spend there time messing about in the streets and getting drunk. So to challenge that dominant ideology some people have, I decided to use teens in my magazine to prove people wrong and to show that not just all teens are the same and some have actual plans for the future. The teens in my magazine have been stereotyped as good, clever people who have made something of themselves and the teen generation by receiving a record contract. They are seen to be honest people who just love to play music to large audiences. The colours used in most media magazines today are quite dark because like kerrang, they are rebellious. whereas in my magazine, I wanted to share the same colours, as mine is a rock magazine like kerrang, but not be too rebellious in the colours that I choose. Also I wanted to use colours which showed that this magazine was for all male and female social groups.

The main picture on my front cover of the teenage girl challenges the dominant ideology of peoples beliefs, as they believe men are more dominant than females and they are only their to look pretty and to do jobs. This is not the case for the female on my front cover as she shows a more rebellious side to what others believe. This is shown in many ways including dress sense and posture. The pink hair, black top, the red and black striped gloves, holding an electric guitar shows the more dominant side of females. The posture of her aswell, not looking towards the camera shows the rebellious side and that she doesn't care about the dominant ideology men have.

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

As you can see from my magazine, there are many forms and conventions that I have used which are similar to other media magazines in many independent and major stores. Including the layout of the magazine, the masthead, Sidelines, Cover lines etc... These conventions show the importance of the magazine and how to attract the audience to purchase it.

My magazine in my opinion has not really challenged many forms and conventions of other media products layout wise. But the ways I have challenged it is with the use of language. The magazines that mine is suppose to follow like kerrang, use quite a domineering attitude towards the audience and also quite rebellious, where as for my magazine, I wanted to take that away but keep the coolness about the magazine still inside. As this is what I believe to be the key towards which magazines people buy, because even though some people like the rebellious attitude that are in magazines like kerrang, other don't.

With my front cover I wanted to add something different to what other media products have, which is different colours and also the use of genres. As men seem to be the more dominant over females I thought about changing that and let the women become the dominant one.

The next couple of pages, the contents page and double page spread doesn't challenge any forms and conventions of other media products. I have used relatively the same colours and the layout is the same as other magazines like kerrang.

Production:Final Magazine

On this page is the my final magazine in full. Below is my front cover, contents page and my double page spread. I believe that I have done well in some elements of the magazines, including the layout of it. Some things I think I could of done better on which is the my time management. I belive that that was the thing that let me down as I left most things untill the last minute, including some of the pictures. But overall I believe its good and next I have to do the evaluation of my magazine.

Audience Research: Front cover production

This past week I have been working on my front cover for my magazine and gettin people to comment on how they think my front cover is going. I have ask them in person by showing them a picture of my working front cover and I have also put it on my social networking site, facebook.
Showing my progressed work to the audience has helped a lot to realise what they like about it and that im doing it right or somethings a bit wrong which need a bit of work on, e.g. fonts, colours etc...

Some people believe that my fonts is really good and the colurs that I have used are also good, they believe that they work together well but maybe there might be a bit too much colour in there, maybe I should just use 2 colours instead of the 3, which is a fair point to make and may be something that i think about doing and changing. One person had a negative view on my front cover, saying that they font and the colours that I used doesnt really show the theme of my magazine. Which at first I didnt really believe in and thought that the fonts and colours that I have use does show what the theme is, rock music. But I do have to take other peoples views into consideration and maybe I can have a look at other fonts and colours and see if I can make it better.

Overall Iam happy with the audiences comments and I will take all of the comments into consideration. Below is a number of peoples comments that I have got from facebook.

Production: Front cover

This past week I have been working on towards getting a final outcome for my front cover. At the moment, I believe what I have done is good. I have changed a few things from what I was going to do e.g. the font, which eventhough the audience that commented on my last fonts saying that they were good, I believed that they could be better and so I found some new fonts to work with. I will be putting my progressed front cover on my social networking site and will be printing on off for people to feed back on my fonts, and how they think the front cover is going, is it making progress or does it need changing in small details. This is what I hope to find out from the audience. Below is a picture of my front cover in progress.

Planning:Shot List

Now I have done my first drafts for my front cover, contents page and double page spread, I can now continue and start with my planning for the photographs which will be in my magazine. To help me with my photographs, I will be putting together a shot list to help me organise what im going to do, where im going to take the shots, who am i going to do them with. etc... This way I will be in a better position and be more prepared when it comes to taking some photos. Below is the shot list table and also some of the photos that I took

Planning:First Draft

Now that I have done my audience research and found out what they would like in a magazine, i can now start going onto my planning for my magazines front covers, contents page and double page spread. Below is a number of photos of my drafts for my magazine, which by doing this will help me decide which one will be best in carrying on for my final design.

Audience Research:Results

To get some results in my audience research, I put my mood board onto a social networking site on the internet, which was facebook. Then I got people to comment on my mood board on what they liked and what improvements could be made on it to make my magazine look better for their standards. The feedback which I got from my mood board was good. I got some positive response about a couple of things but also some ways of how to improve things to make it better, which summing it all up, is just the responce I wanted. What they have said about my mood board has given me a better understanding of what the audience want in the magazine so now its going to find it easier for me to know what to put in my magazine.

After looking at the comments of what people have said, I have chosen most of the right things which the audience want in the magazine. The fonts and the colours that I have chosen are good. They believe that their should be a mixture of soft and hard rock music as it will attract a more mainstream audience, and there is so much more which they have said. So there are hardly any changes I need to make. The only real thing that most people said about how to improve the mood board a bit more is to experiment a bit more in the fonts and the star shapes, so that is one thing I will have to try and do. But overalll Iam happy that I have got most of the predictions right of what they would like and now I can move on to the planning of my magazines front cover, contents page and the double page spread.

Audience Research

Now I have researched into different magazines in the music industry, finding out the layout of the mags to where they distribute it, I have to now decide on what my target audience is going to be and to create a mood board (that captures ideas for my magazine) to have an understanding of what my audience wants.
For my target audience, I was looking to sell my magazine to a mainstream audience, so teenagers and also the young adult generation around the age mark of 14-25 is my focus point of who to sell the magazine to and ask the question of what they want in a magazine. In the jicnar scale, I think that it should be classed as a c1 and my audience would be aspirers, as my artist would not be like lombard, hardcore rock artists, who dont listen and care about what others think.

Below is a picture of my mood board that I created so the audience can looked and see whether I have the right ideas of what the audience wants. If not then I can asked them to give me some advise on what improvements I can make to get my magazine to what they like. This can be done by me adding this on the website and on social networks e.g. facebook, bebo etc... and then people can comment on my mood board. I could also do a questionnnaire and ask friends and maybe family members (brothers, sisters, cousins). All of these are ideas so i have a broader idea of what the audience wants.