Question Seven- Looking back at your pre-liminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product ?

Looking at the images above, the images that are mostly blue and pink are my preliminary task and the rest are my music magazine pages.
Looking back I think I learnt alot progressing from my preliminary task to my main task.
I did my preliminary task using Adobe InDesign whereas I did my music magazine using Adobe Photoshop. I swopped programmes as I felt that Photoshop was more flexible and allowed me to do compared to Indesign. I also felt Photoshop was easier to use. I think swopping programmes had a sufficient impact on the outcome of my work.
I learnt alot about establishing a 'house style' and carrying this through my magazine which I think is more evident in my music magazine. I also tried alot more on my music magazine to make it look alot more professional as I dedicated alot of time to layout and editing pictures to give it an overall substantial look.
I concentrated a lot on establishing a house style and tryed to carry the theme of blue throughout my music magazine pages to create this.
I learnt lots of new techniques on my music magazine compared to my pre-lim task. My pre-lim task looked more like a poster and didnt have a traditional established colour scheme.So for my music magazine I established a colour palette of 4 colours and stuck to this colour palette which helped my too establish my house style.
I learnt the forms and conventions of magazines and actually followed these throughout making my music magazine and therefore my magazine is successful compared to my pre lim task.
I also learnt about heirarchy of text and using pull out quotes and the sweet spot etc and applyed these when making my magazine which I think also improved my magazine compared to my pre lim task.

Question Six- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your music magazine?

I feel that I have learnt a lot about technologies whilst constructing my music magazine.
Firstly, I learnt how to use a stills camera accurately. I learnt how to place my arms and have my elbows tucked into my sides to give myself a more steady arm and to make my images more focused. I also learnt how if you hold the shutter button down slightly on the camera it focuses the screen and a grid of thirds appears which allows you to get the proportions right within the image. I also experimented with the use of a tripod and how keeping the camera still makes the images focused.
After taking my images, I used how to use photoshop and went through the tools one by one to figure out exactly what they did and how they could help me in editing my original images.
I learnt how to crop and resize images which is what I for my front cover and I learnt how to enhance colours and bring out other colours whilst making others fade into the background and this made my images more visually attractive. I did most of this using the colour replacement tool which I found particularly useful. I learnt how to get rid of blemishes and make the skin and hair appear softer and smoother using the dodge, burn and smooth tools. I also used the spot healing and the healing tools. I also learnt how to use the layers and everytime I added something to my front cover such as an image, I had to create a layer for it. I also learnt how to rearrange my layers to place somethings on top of others, and to hide somethings behind others.
For my magazine I also learnt how to download fonts from the internet to make the magazine more realistic and add a range to my fonts.I did this for the main coverline on my front cover as the different font makes this stand out and I also used this technique for my editorial so it looked like I, as the editor, had actually signed it which adds more realism to my magazine.
I also used technologies like the SMART whiteboard to gain assessment from my peers, so they could see my magazine on the screen and give me feedback and point to things on the screen so I could visually see where my improvements need to be made and I found this very effective.

Question Five- How did you attract/address your audience?

I didn't use many cover lines on my front cover as I wanted my main cover line to be the main focus and it took up most of my front cover. My main cover line related to my image and this was my main point to attract my audience as realistically they will have wanted the coverage on the particular artist I used as it was an exclusive interview. My other cover line was positioned in the sweet spot which attracts the audience straight away because of it's positioning and the colours I used stood out from the page. Also because it is advertising the opportunity to win tickets to a festival it draws my target audience in because at the ages I'm aiming my magazine towards they are particularly interested in going to festivals during the summer because it is the ultimate experience to have during your teenage years. The tone of my cover lines is authoritive as it's all exclusive and opportunities to win prizes so it makes the target audience excited and eager to read the magazine and more importantly invest and buy it. The fact that my magazine has such exclusivity means to the target audience it look like it's talking about and looks like the most authoritive and well respected magazine on the market. The air of exclusivity around the magazine makes it seem more superior compared to others and this is what will set it aside the rest in the magazine market.The masthead stands out, and also advertises the genre of the magazine so people interested in the genre my magazine is based around will be attracted to it automatically. The main reason the masthead stands out is because it's white against a background that uses many colours, and straight away this makes it attractive. The font style is quite bold and impacts on the page and this also makes it stand out from the rest of the text on the page.
As my main cover line uses the most unique font on the page this automatically makes it stand out from the rest of page and as this is the main focus for attention the font helps it to achieve this aim.
Another way in which I attracted my audience is using multiple entry points such as taking advantage of the sweet spot, and using pull out quotes on my contents page and double page spread. This allowed my audience to enter the pages from different points, and see it from different angles and instead of reading it like you would a traditional page in a book they read it in a more unique way which adds to the enjoyment of reading a magazine.

Question Four- Who would be the audience for your music magazine?

My intended audience for my music magazine is very mainstream as it is based around the 'indie' music genre. Indie isn't just a genre of music it's a style, a fashion and part of some one's personality. My target audience for my magazine is between the ages of 13-19. I picked this target audience as I can relate to all of the ages within this bracket as either I am very close to those ages or can remember being those ages. This means it's easier for me to come up with ideas and base my music magazine around those ages.
I opted to base my music magazine for both genders as I think the genre of 'Indie' applys to both boys and girls. Stereotypically I think the boys will be more interested in the deep discussions of music within the magazine, whereas the girls will prefer to see which artist is hot and which one's not.
I expect my target audience to follow the genre of Indie avidly as it is obvious from my contents that the magazine covers a wide range of Indie artists in much detail.

Question Three- What kind of media institution might distribute your magazine and why?

As my music magazine is of an Indie/rock genre my main rivals in the market would be Q, NME and Kerrang magazines.
When thinking of what media institution might publish my magazine, I had a look at the advantages and disadvantages of going with a media institution that already publishes a music magazine of the same genre as mine.
If I did choose an institution with music magazines already published in my genre, the advantages of it would be that the institution would already know how to market my magazine and advertise it as much as possible to get my target audience to buy it.
However, the disadvantages of choosing the same institution is that it could dilute the audience share and the audiences for the magazines wouldn't know which one to buy and therefore selling them would be difficult, bringing shares down.
If I went for a media institution that doesnt already publish a indie/rock magazine the advantages would be the audience share wouldn't be diluted for that company as it would be a unique genre for that company and therefore an investment .
However, the troubles would be advertising and getting the magazine out there. The institution may not have specialist knowledge in the indie/rock genre and what advertising and approaches to use to get as many people buying the magazine as possible. On the positive side however, the company are going to have sufficient knowledge in advertising from their other magazines and just have to adapt these to the indie/rock genre.
Looking at the advantages and disadvantages of both, I think it would be a better decision to choose a company that dont already have a music magazine of my genre as I feel that it would work successfully.

Question Two- How does your magazine represent particular social groups?

click here to see my powerpoint answer to this question :

Question One- In what ways does your music magazine use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

I decided to create a music magazine based around the popular genre of 'Indie' music. My target audience was between the ages of 15-19.
I believe that my music magazine follows the general conventions of music magazines. My front cover includes a masthead, coverlines, a main feature photo as well as the barcodes and price. These are all typical conventions of a music magazine front cover.
This is my front cover >
I followed the conventions of having my masthead as the largest font on the page and then altered the sizes of the other fonts to create a good hierarchy of text on my page.
I positioned the 'comp!' cover line in what is traditionally called the 'sweet spot' on a front cover. This is where the readers eye will generally catch after they have looked at the main image. My main cover line which relates to the main image on the front cover starts just underneath the 'sweet spot' which should hopefully lead the reader into reading that cover line next. I also have a menu-strip on my front cover which follows the conventions of music magazine's as many of them have a menu strip running along the bottom or along the top.
My front cover also includes the bar code and price as well as a website for my magazine. Every music magazine I have looked at such as Q and NME all have these features on their front covers, generally on the left and I have followed this convention.
I used a basic palette of 3/4 colours which most music magazines use. These colours were red,white, blue and black. I decided that blue would be most house style colour and I would carry this throughout the magazine to show house style and that the other pages belong to my music magazine.
However I broke conventions when it came to taking my front cover image. I took my front cover image outside in bright lighting whereas most music magazine's take their shots inside in a studio. I chose to take my photo outside as I liked the location where my photo was taken and the lighting was great for the effect I had in my mind for my photograph. I think that taking my photo outside was just as successful as taking one inside in a studio. Another way I broke traditional conventions is that most front cover images have a white background whereas my background is of the bark of a tree. This made it difficult when it comes to writing over the top in colour as some cannot be seen and some didn't suit. Overall, I liked the effect of not having a white background and I personally think it makes my front cover more interesting to the eye.
Most music magazines, conventionally avoid black text on a coloured background and as my background has the bark effect I had to avoid using black on my front cover that didn't have some sort of coloured background to it.
My contents page has taken different conventions and influences from the following :