initial research into forms and conventions.

I have chose 3 magazines from various music genres so i can see what different magazines contained and what they have in common. I had to look to see what was different about the cover, contents and the artists they featured.



Vibe magazine.


This magazine is of the urban/r'n'b genre. 'Vibe' is quite an informal word, and is most probably used by the sort of audience the magazine caters for. The title is in a bright colour to attract the audiences attention. It uses the same colours throughout the cover which gives it a professional look, as the colours arent clashing. The model is rap artist 'Lil Wayne' who is pictured on a thrown in the center. This represents a cockyness and an arrogance, as he is center of attention, thinks he is the best and should be feared (like a king) which he frequenty states in some of his lyrics. This attitude is common with this genre of music. He is crouched with a smug expression on his face, which may add to the arrogance. His head slightly covers the title of the magazine, which shows he is the main seller.


The audience is mainly people aged 16-25, as some of the artists shown have explicit lyrics. It’s aimed at young, urban followers of the hip-hop culture.

The contents of this magazine feature columns of musical culture, celebrity guests, celebrity gossip, upcoming and new artists, and also clothing. It’s a young, trendy magazine, aimed at a younger market, who strongly believes in music.





PopStar magazine.



This magazine is of the pop genre. ‘Pop star’ shows that the magazine is mainly about pop music and mainstream artists. They mainly produce music about love, or happiness without any explicit lyrics as their main audience are younger and are girls. They use alot of bright colours, that clash together, which shows its aimed at a younger generation. The cover shows no organisation, however it doesnt need to be in order to sell, as children and young teens don't care, and are easily bought. It is covered in pictures of the latest popstars, which is what sells. The pictures mainly consist of medium close-ups, with not alot of font.


The audience is mainly younger girls aged 7 – 13. It’s aimed at girls who may like make-up, Disney channel, Pop Party Cds (etc.)

The contents of this magazine contain celebrity gossip (e.g. latest couples), television programmes, and posters, usually of Disney channel stars.





Kerrang magazine.

This magazine is of the indie/rock genre. The word ‘Kerrang’ is an onomatopoeia, which refers to the noise made by an electric guitar. This name suits the magazine as most artists which feature have electric guitars involved in their songs. The models are the two main members of indie band 'Fall out Boy'. They are pictured in a medium close up shot, posing with comical facial expressions, which connect to the subheading 'rock's odd couple invade the UK!' They also are covering nearly the whole of the magazine title, which is taking a risk, however you can still tell exactly what magazine it is, which shows they can afford to not have the title showing, as the magazine sells itself. The colours used are quite mellow, such as white, pale blue, and yellow, which show its for a more mature and laid back audience, and not so in your face as a dance or pop magazine.


The audience is of both genders, with a sort of emo/goth approach on life. They may like to be different to shock or to rebel.
The magazine can be for any ages, mainly from 16 as some lyrics are explicit.

The contents of this magazine are interviews, news, gigs, posters and reviews.

main task: magazines.

I have been asked to create a front page, contents page and a double page spread of a new magazine.

The research and planning (work, layout, etc) has to be handed in by the 8th of January.

The production (photos, etc) has to be handed in by the 15th of January.

The post-production has to be completed by the 12th of February.

The evaluation (preparing coursework for moderator, putting files onto DVD, etc) has to be completed by 5th of March.

three things i would improve ...

I got an overall grade of 66/1OO. However if i was to improve this grade then i would have to improve the evaluation question. in the question 'in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products' i did not state the answer clear enough and it sounded very similar to the question 'how does the magazine attract/address the target audience'. if i were to do it again, i would spend more time answering the question and ensure i was not repeating myself.
i would also improve my technologies. I'd experiment with certain programmes such as photoshop and quark express, so then when it came to producing my work it'd be quicker and Id know how to use all tools.
Lastly, Id use my time wisely. I found i spent longer on a certain part of the task than another. I also found i fell behind alot and had to complete the work in my own time.

Front Cover

Contents Page

Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?

You can tell that this is a magazine front cover because it uses the conventions of media magazines. For example, we have used screamers throughout the cover to give emphasis on various articles that are to be featured within. This is common within magazines and used in the industry a large amount. We have also used a masthead to display our title of the magazine. This makes the front cover easily definable as an industry cover because the audience is targetted through the name and style. We have also used a puff to big up our magazine which would definitely taregt our audience through the use of promotion and a bold colour. The colours we have used on the cover are eyecatching to the target audience, which is mainly girls. I feel that the use of pinks and blues contrasting would help the audience show initial interest. The bar-code, date, title and issue number are all typical of a magazine front cover but are a neccessity, as opposed to trying to grab the attention of the audience. We have used a column at the side of our magazine because when we researched previous magazines that were already on the market and similar to what we wanted, this was a feature most of them used. We put fashion advice in the column to keep the audience interested and make them want to read inside.

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

When looking at our magazine, you can see that it is a magzine by some media conventions that are used throughout the industry. Firstly, it has a clear masthead 'Breeez' which clearly states the name of the magazine and is in the traditional place of in the top right corner. The puff 'number one for student fashion' is underneath the masthead, which is common for media magazines. This is because the puff is bigging up the magazine and therefore should be close to the main title. The mainsell is also a feature of a real media product, and our magazine has one in the centre of the page. This shows the main story in the magazine and draws the attention of the teenage target audience. There are also many screamers such as 'SHOCK!' and 'WOW!'. The date, issue number, price and barcode are also typical of a current magazine, such as Look.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your product?

The audience for our college magazine are 16-19 year old college students, mainly female. I think that on the psychographic profile they would be Aspirers and Radicals. They would be Materialists on their social values and C1/C2 on the jicnar scale.

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

We have learnt 3 main new technologies while creating our magazine cover. Firstly, Adobe Photoshop was the programme we used to make the actual front cover. We learnt how to layer the different parts of the front cover so that everything was in the correct order and made sense. We also learnt how to crop photos and edit various parts to the cover. We then used QuarkXpress to create our contents page, which was more complicated than Photoshop. The importing of photos was more complicated on this programme due to the more text and having to make them smaller. We were able to overcome this by placing the pictures in appropriate places that does not obstruct the text from the contents page. We also used a Digital Camera to take the photos, of which we had to edit and crop ourselves. We did this in Photoshop which made it able to be completed with ease. The use of the scanner was helpful because we had to get the front cover and contents pages of other various magazines that were already on the market. The blog itself was extremely useful because we were able to arrange all our work into a simple system that was easily recognisable.

contents page

We chose contents pages from 'Look' and 'Closer' because they share similarities to the magazine we're creating. The features that they share are pictures of celebrities, inserts about fashion, a letter from the editor and the articles are separated into different categories. Both contents pages contain columns and a central picture. The letter from the editor is also a key component of the contents page. Both of the pages use an informal mode of address because this is most suitable for the target audience we have selected, an example of this is 'hubby' or 'celebs'. Other ways in which they appeal to the target audience, is through bright colours and bold lettering, this helps the main articles stand out. A house style is obvious between the covers and the contents pages of both magazines. They both use the same colour schemes and writing styles. Also there is a picture of the front cover featured in the contents page.

audience research

We have been asked to create a student magazine on a subject matter of our choice. Our magazine is going to be based on fashion around college. The target audience for our magazine will be a 16-19 year old females, who are C1/C2 on the jicnar scale. Their demographic profile will be either Materialists or Aspirers. here are some statements about our typical reader..


They would rather have a spray tan than just not show their skin.

They would listen to Radio 1.

They would rather have a cosmopolitan than a pint.

A life without a phone, make-up or Facebook would be a life not worth living.

They would rather pay double for a taxi than be seen on a bus.


Why spend mine, when i can spend yours?


They would rather party all night and sleep all day.


They would buy other weekly gossip magazines, such as Heat and Look.


Why watch a comedy with your boyfriend, when you can both cry at the notebook?

Five things we need to do to target our audience effectively?

1. Use a chatty, informal tone to catch their attention.



2. Use bright colours that make it seem more upbeat.



3. Use a Serif font with a more rounded edge.



4. We will put details about stories inside about celebrities, gossip and fashion to attract their attention.


5. The photo on the front of the magazines would be a heavily made up model.

Research

We were asked to research three current magazine front covers and analyse what we found. We used Look, More and Teen Vogue. We had to pick three magazines of near enough the same content and pick out the similarities and differences. We chose magazines which included the subject matters of celebrities, fashion and gossip. This targets a young adult audience of mainly girls or homosexual boys. The different magazines contained different colours, however they all had a running theme of pink throughout. More uses grey and yellow as their subisitute colours; Look uses blue and Teen Vogue uses orange and black. The 'stand out' colours attract a younger audience. Look uses the common Sans Serif font which is like many other magazines. This font is usually used for a more mature audience, which is Look's preferred approach as opposed to More's Century Gothic. Teen Vogue however used both Sans Serif and Century Gothic to give the approach of maturity and a less formal one. All three magazines uses well-known celebrities for their front covers, in a medium-long shot. They are all heavily made-up and smiling directly at the camera. The magazines have an informal approach using words such as 'rocks', 'bombshell' and 'wow'. They also address the reader directly, using words like 'recharge your style'. The covers are bright and eye catching, with offers for money off on spray tans and shoes, which is what the typical reader would be happy with. They have columns along the sides displaying latest fashions, shown inside the magazines.

preliminary task.

We have been asked to create our own student magazine cover and contents page using DTP and an image manipulation programme. the cover needs to include a medium, close up photograph of a student and plus some articles advertised surrounding the picture and a masthead. We must also do a mock layout of a contents page to demonstrate our grasp of the programme. To help us with the task, we were told to look at some examples of previous student magazines to give us a better idea of how to create our own. As a class, we analysed Squash magazine which was easily recognisable as a front cover due to the key conventions used, such as a masthead and a medium, close-up image of the student. We came to the conclusion that the target audience were unisex students aged 16-19. They would be C1/C2 on the jicnar scale and their psychographic profile would be Aspirers or Radicals. The magazines front cover targets this audience in many ways. The cover picture of the student features the library in the background, which shows the academic side of college. However, the student in the picture is pulling a facial expression which portrays a more laid-back approach to college life. The name of the magazine, Squash, has a fun element to it instead of something, for example, 'Books Weekly'. The main colour of the front cover is light blue which has a calming effect on the reader, whereas a harsh colour, such as orange, would be overwhelming. It also has a mature effect. Finally, there is not much writing featured on the cover, as this would not be appealing to the target audience, and would be thought of as too much of an effort to read.

initial analysis

for our second task we then had to analyse further using our understanding of the key conventions.

magazine front cover : key conventions

for our first task of the year, we had to pick a magazine front cover and then analyse the key conventions.