My Evaluation

For my coursework i decided on doing print and creating a hybrid magazine that focused on music and fashion but mainly music. I knew this may be hard but took a risk to have a wider variety of audience. After decided on what style to do i came up with the name MUSIC SHOW OFF as i thought it would tell my audience exactly what the magazine is. The artist was based around Pixie Lott but i named her FANTASY.

Q1. In what way does my media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There is a range of conventions which have to be followed in order to assure any real media product. You have to be able to ensure sales and so you have to produce the appropriate convention for your audience.


I believe that my print product follows a certain convention which
helps the reader to feel comfortable with the magazine. The first convention i thought of was the genre and after researching into particular genres, i was able to choose my target audience which is females and the age range which is 13-19 year old. I made sure i had a clear target audience and that my magazine clearly showed the genre not only by the cover but throughout and also that it stood out to my audience. When producing my product i made sure that i had:

• An eye-catching title
• Colour scheme appropriate to the genre
• A cover that stood out and was different
• An interesting article written in a journalistic manor
• Professional images of my artist

I think it is good to add new things to the genre to make it your own and for
the product to become successful. Making your product unique will already stand out to your audience.


I added my own idea to my magazine by choosing a girly pop and fashion magazine, by doing this i made my magazine unique. The colour scheme for my magazine was a big decision as it the colour plays a very important part to the magazine. When a reader looks at a variety of magazines on a shop shelf the one with the brightest and boldest colours attracts them. My colours were very similar throughout my magazine as i chose to use; purples, pinks and oranges. As my magazine is for females i decided that the above colours would work well. I made my cover quite busy as it then looks like the magazine re
ads very interesting things but kept my feature article very plain and simple to make it easier to read and not to be distracted by any busy images on the page.


I believe that including two genres of magazine into one made my magazine unique from others and the colour scheme works well for my magazine due to my results from audience feedback which are included below.

One of the questions i asked in my audience feedback questionnaire was;
"What type of magazine does it focus on and what shows this?"
Alot of people i asked said a pop magazinee due to the colour scheme.

When researching other magazines which relate to mine i found images of 'Pixie Lott' which i thought about when doing my photo shoot;

After researching styles for my artist that would relate well to the genre i chose i began to produce my product.

Conventions of my cover page:

• Good title and headings - In order to produce a eye-catching magazine that will attract your audience straight away you need a title that will catch their attention and shows what the magazine consists of. I believe my title shows exactly what the magazine is as the MUSIC tells my audience it is a music magazine and the SHOW OFF shows a sense of fashion which also tells them it includes fashion in it. The sub-headings are short and sweet telling the audience what is inside the magazine. The colour scheme also gives away what convention it is. The font and colour of my title and sub-headings relates to girls.
• Professional images - The image on the front cover is important as it shows the quality of the magazine. When thinking about my photo shoot i had to think about the mise- en scene in order of my images to look professional.
• Colour scheme - the colours play a very important part to a magazine as they have to be eye-catching and relate to the convention. As my magazine is for teenage females i chose pink, purple and orange.

Conventions of my contents page:

• Clearness - For your audience to understand where everything is within your magazine you have to make sure your contents page is clear. My contents page is set out under sub headings for each section to the magazine each clearly page numbered. i have broke the rule of having it boxed style as my sections are spread out among the page.
• Images - images on the contents page make it look more attractive and break up the writing. Instead of having a plain coloured background with images dotted around the page i have chosen an image of my artist as the background with an image also over the top, i believe this makes my contents page look attractive and also makes it unique as not many magazines do this.
• Colour - the colour chosen for the contents pages should match the colour scheme on the front cover, i have done this my only sticking to purple, pink and orange.

Convention of my feature article:

• Interesting article - In my article i have used the correct language and vocabulary to relate to my convention. If i used swearing it wouldn't give a good image as it is for a teenage audience starting at the age of thirteen.
• Presentation of images - The use of images should be limited on the feature article as you don't want to take all the attention away from the article by covering the pages with images. I have chosen a large image relating to the heading and a film strip of images also relating to the image.
• Catchy title - the title should relate to the artist in some way and also make the reader want to read it. My artist is called FANTASY and so the title of my article is; IN BED WITH FANTASY!

Q2. How does my media product represent particular social groups?

There are many different types of people in society and the media put us into categories we call stereotypes. The 'stereotypes' i use throughout my product are;

• Celebrities - in my magazine i use celebrities in order to attract an audience and i have also made up a celebrity that is featured throughout my magazine.
• Gender - male and females are shown throughout my magazine as celebrities and just regular people. I have targeted my magazine on mainly females as it is a feminine magazine.

I targeted my magazine at teenage girls from the age of 12-19 who are into pop and fashion.

This person who would classify this category would most likely wear clothes that would mainly be pinks, purple etc. Their appearance would be seen as quite girly and young looking. The girly stereotype is quite easy to recognise by the colour of their clothing and their overall appearance.

These are the type of girls that would fit into the stereotype.

When thinking about my artist for my magazine i thought about the mise en scene and how the use of props would relate to the genre of my magazine. As i have explained above, my magazine is targeted at female teenagers and so the use of pinks and purples would relate well to the girly stereotype. I decided to shoot my artist in very girly way to relate to the stereotype and so i shot her in a girly room filled with pink and purple props such as cushions and also outside in the dark, wearing a black playsuit with alot of accesories which also relates to girls as they love fashion.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute my media product and why?

There are several media institutions that would be interested in distributing my media product. I believe that as my magazine is for music that people who publish NME and KERANG! would be interesting in publishing mine. A big magazine publisher who has been previously mentioned is IPC media.

This is the IPC logo which would be printed onto my magazine.

http://www.ipcmedia.com/ << This is the link to the IPC website which I have researched.

IPC Media produces 20million users every month which means that it must be a successful institute for my magazine. Here are some magazine which IPC media have produced and which are similar to mine;

This magazine similar to mine as it is a music magazine.

This magazine is similar as it is a celebrity gossip magazine which also shows fashion.

Q4. Who would be the audience for my media product?

When dealing with any product you have to also think about your target audience.

I know that my target audience varies from the age of 13 to 19 and is mainly targeted at females as it is a girly pop/fashion magazine. Due to the pictures on my magazine, girls who are into fashion and base alot of their style on celebrities would be interested in my magazine. I would recommend it for any nationality but mainly English as the article is written in English.

I believe that I have chosen a really useful target audience as half the population are female and so it gives me a wider range of audience. Also my age range is suitable as it is targeted at the teenage period and also this is the age that people usually buy magazines.

Looking over my audience feedback I found that I gained alot of positive feedback from my magazine. I also found it helpful that I only asked female, teenage girls as these are who my magazine is targeted at. This positive feedback shows that my magazine is suitable for my target audience.

A picture of someone filling out my questionnaire will be inserted here.

Q5. How did i attract/ address my audience?

I believe that my title attracted my audience straight away as it is a catchy name and tells my audience exactly what the magazine consists of. Looking back at my audience feedback my audience have commented on my title being appropriate to the genre.

My colour scheme is the most successful part to my magazine as it is based around' pink, purple and orange. These are all girly colours and there for bring forward the idea of the magazine being for females. I keep this colour scheme throughout my magazine.

I believe that the use of mise- en scene also attracts the audience because on the cover i have taken picture of my artist led on her bed. The use of the pink objects in the pictures shows my artist is girly and so my teenage audience will also want to become just like 'fantasy.'

Q6. What have i learnt about technology and the skills i have learnt?

• Creating my blog - When producing my magazine i also had to keep a track of what i have done and the sort of research i followed out, by doing this i was introduced to www.blogger.com where i kept all the information about my magazine. Blogger is an online service which allowed me to create my own blog of where i wrote about the research i followed out and how i came about my product. It allowed me to insert images and links of my ideas i had.
• Research - in order to gather any information about producing magazines and any examples of magazines to post on my blog i had to use the internet. I also used a new site to choose fonts for my magazine this was www.dafont.com it is a website with a big range of fonts.
• Producing my magazine - When creating my magazine i used a new software called InDesign which is a software that allows me to create pages and use different fonts, images etc. I found this facility easy to use and very useful as it wasn't complicated to figure out things and was very fast.
• Editing - When editing my photographs i used a new software called Photoshop which helped me to edit them. I learnt how to cut out a photograph using a cut out tool, i found this frustrating but in the end my photo's looked professional.

Here is a photograph of me using technology-

A photo of me using a computer will be inserted here.

Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

my preliminary task will be inserted here
After looking back at my preliminary task and comparing it to my final product, i have progressed in many ways. The use of mise-en scene was not thought about when taking a picture of my model as the focus was wrong and the image to close up but on the other hand, the use of mise-en scene is carefully thought about on my final product as the images of my model are suitable for the magazine and the use of props also. The font and colour scheme was more thought out on my final product as i used pinks, purples and oranges to show it is a girly magazine. I also chose to use girly fonts rather than boring bold ones like i have on my preliminary task. The style of the model on my preliminary task wasn't thought about as she is just wearing any style of clothing and doesn't really fit into the genre of the magazine whereas the model for my final product was carefully planned out and each image had a different style. As my final product was targeted at young teenage girls my artist was mainly shot in a pink, colourful bedroom wearing pink clothing. The two magazines were both targeted at teenagers aged 13-19 but my preliminary task gave me a wider range of audience as it was also targeted at males and females.
Overall i believe that i have progressed massively from doing my preliminary task to producing my final product.

Conclusion
I believe that i have produced a good print product and stuck to the genre well by thinking about;

• Colour
• images
• layout

The colour scheme of my product played a huge impact as this is what grabbed the audiences attention also the name of my magazine was well thought out and also told my audience what exactly my magazine was. I believe that the images of my magazine worked well although more shots of my artist could have been useful especially on my feature article, this is because the images on my feature article are very similar to the image on my cover. I found that the images used on my contents page stood out because they were a totally different stlye to my others. I dont know if this is a good thing for my magazine or a bad. If i could do this product again i would think more about the name of my magazine for it to become more effective and the style of my artist because i think i needed to stick to one particular style.