Evaluation Question Three

The Question

What kind of media institution might distribute your product?

Evaluation Question Two

The Question

How do my media products represent social groups?

Evaluation Question One

The Question

In what way does my media product challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My Front Cover

When designing and creating my front cover I made sure to include many conventions that are already present in and on media music magazines for example I included

• A barcode at the bottom of the front cover
  
• A masthead (title) of the magazine at the top of the front cover
  
• A website address
  
   
• Cover lines and articles on the side of the page
  
• A main image of the featured artist
  
• Issue number of the magazine
• The date of the issue
  
• I used words such as 'exclusive' or 'new' and these words are used to attract audiences as it makes them feel that they are reading something special
  

However whilst I kept to many existing codes and conventions of a magazine front cover something that differs from these on my front cover is that all of my cover stories are on one side leaving the other blank. This is different from other magazines as most spread them out over the cover. Something that I found particularly difficult in the production of my front cover was trying to create something different that stands out whilst sticking to codes and conventions of magazine front covers.I think that my front cover has managed to form to look like a front cover of a magazine that could be sold in the shops as conventions of magazines and the styles I used follow what is already out there but also includes different features- for example having the main image look away from the camera which could suggest shyness, embarrassment and nervousness a quality that could draw more members of my target audience in as they may identify with these feelings.

My Contents Page

Whilst designing my contents page I kept to a traditional layout of the articles down one side of the page, a title at the top, page numbers at the bottom as well as an image of the main feature to emphasise the importance and to attract more audiences to the article. I included a different font on this page to add detail to the article lines, and this font was then used throughout on my double page spread.I also ensured that the magazine articles were of interest to my target audience as they are the ones who will be reading the magazine.

I chose to keep the colours on the contents page the same as the colours used on front cover to ensure that they could be identified as part of the same product something that I did not manage to do in my preliminary task. The brush styled writing was something I choose as it links to the title/ masthead on the front cover and then again creates a bond between the pages.

The featured articles were place all to one side one after another and this stuck with conventions used in many music magazines 

I decided to do a separate box for the main featured article to ensure that every reader would be able to know straight away where to find the article that was featured on the front.

I included these on the contents page to ensure that the magazine is relatable to the readers every day lives as technology is such a big part of many peoples life I thought it was important to include it on the contents page 

I placed the date of the issue and the magazine website at the bottom of the page along with the page number as this was a key convention that featured in many other pop (and in general music) magazines. 

Double Page Spread

I placed some screenshots of my double page spread above, these images show some of the conventions that I followed whilst creating this article. The first image of the headline uses the same font as the masthead on the front cover and contents page this links all of the separate products together to create one final product. The colour used however varies from the blues used on the first two pages as it is now linking with the image on the double page spread and the way that the article will come across- calm, collected and new. The next image is of the date, website and page number on one side of the double page spread. These pieces were included as it is a key convention and feature of a magazine and the colour I used (blue) links the article again back to the other products. Next is the box placed at the end of the article to indicate that it continues on the next page, this was something that I noticed appeared in other music magazines when the articles continued to other pages and was something I was key to replicate if the opportunity arose. Lastly is an image of my article, something that I did which I had not seen in other magazine was to use the instrument to overlap the text box and wrap the text around the image. I think that this brought something different to the article.

Final Double Page Spread

The Task
I completed my double page, spread featuring a musician. This task included writing an article about his musician and this could be done in what ever format I wanted. I host do an interview as when looking at existing magazines, I found that most magazine do interviews with newer artists on the music scene, and I thought that this should be a convention I applied to my music magazine. Another reason I chose to do the article in an interview format is because some of my target audience said that they preferred when they could learn more about the artist, and read information that wasn't anywhere else.

The Product
I like the end result however looking back I don't think that it completely represents the Pop genre, as the colour scheme and the layout isn't how most pop magazines are set out now. I changed the font from the original as I looked back over it and realised it was all in capitals something that magazines don't do and I needed to make sure that I follow the codes and conventions used.

Final Contents Page

The Task

My final contents page, follows the colour scheme set out on the front cover. This is good as it ensure that the magazine has consistency, and all the separate pages can be recognised as one product. However I do think that this contents page can be seen as quite plain and this does not fit in with the conventions generally used in a pop music magazine. I will be evaluating all of my choices in my evaluations and will also mention what I could improve if I did this again. I also added a shadow behind the image to give depth to it and to make sure it looked like she wasn't just placed there randomly. 

Final Front Cover

The Task

Through the research I have done previously looking in to different names, colours schemes as well as existing magazines. My task was to create a Front Cover, Contents page and double page spread of a magazine using my chosen genre of pop. I will show my front cover below and also explain the reasons behind some of the choices that I made.

The Product
I chose to put her on a Gold background compared to the earlier draft of her against a white wall, as I feel that it fit more in to the Pop genre and made the magazine easier to identify as Pop. The placing of the feature lines all on one side was different to what I had originally done but what something that I had mentions in my first plan of the front cover. I ended up doing it this way as it fit with the way the image looks and as the main cover line is bigger and on the other side I believes it balances out the text. I also like how the colour is all the same except for a few words and I think this was something I tried to do after looking at existing covers and analysing them. There are some points and parts that I could improve on and I will be exploring these in my evaluations of my products later.