My Final Products

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

The main difference between the two is the new techniques I learnt in photoshop, as my college magazine cover is very simple and doesn't really stand out. Meanwhile my music magazine cover features a much cleaner look that suits a magazine. I learnt how to shade properly to make the main story stand out on the page a lot more instead of fading into the background. It can be seen that my college magazine's photo doesn't fill the full cover and leaves the mast head and magazine name alone. I'm glad I learnt how to rectify that in my music magazine as they 1) fit in with the background and 2) fit in with the main image.

My photoshop skills have definitely developed and improved from my orignal attempt at a magazine front cover. Overall I must say that with my final front cover there's not really anything I would change, I know it isn't the best but I feel what I've come up with fits the genre I picked and the theme of the magazine. I knew that from the start I wanted to use a background for my final front cover as with the preliminary task I feel the background didn't fit the style. The college front cover helped me realise what I wanted to do for the main task and how to improve on what I previously used in order to use it for my music magazine. I also needed my college magzine cover in order for me to understand that editing the main image would be the best thing to improve the overall front cover.

I knew I had to develop my understanding of music magazine headlines and stories so I could make mine seem realistic. For this I thought and studied what my potential stories could be so it fit the theme of a music magazine. I also needed to study other front covers to see the common similarities and the best ways to present cover stories so I could implement them in my own.

 

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

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The magazine I based mine on was Metal Hammer magazine which is published by TeamRock. So when looking for who to distribute my magazine I had to find a company that already doesn't have a rock themed magazine as there would be no sense in them making another and then it would be a direct rival of that existing product. That's why I chose my publisher to be Anthem Publishing. The reason I have chosen them is that they have experience in publishing music magazines as they focus on music making and music listening magazines and are a fast growing publisher right now. Their main music magazines focus on old/retro pop so I think it would make sense for them to cover more modern artists while also focusing mainly on the independent music scene as well. The benefits I receive from them is that they already know how to distribute music magazines and that they are Britain’s fastest growing publishing company by copy sale revenue and that their magazine Classic Pop is the UK’s definitive retro-pop magazine, so they seem to be on the rise in the independent music scene so this would be a step up for them in the UK. They would know how to distribute the product as they already have some successful magazines meaning they already have places to distribute at the ready. This would be their way of stepping more into the modern music scene and using their growing success to expand into more markets.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In terms of content I chose to represent the younger metal audience as that is what my audience was in my research:

The younger audiences are usually more likely to buy music magazines and so when creating my product I decided to use more younger bands to attract the attention of that younger audience. While also doin my research it was shown that the majority of my audience was female so I decided to adapt my magazine into using more younger male bands while also featuring a female artist as well. It was shown they liked a mixture of younger and older bands so I used Metallica as one of my featured stories to fit this trend.

 

My research into demographics helped me understand tat the middle class audience would be the best to target as that's where a lot of younger people stand and the middle class have the disposable income to buy magazines more often, compared to the lower classes. I stereotyped the audience in the sense of the manner of dress and the theme of the magazine. The manner of dress I used was denim or leather jackets or grittier clothing styles as that's what is seen most in the genre. The theme of the magazine was chosen due to 'hell' being a common topic within the genre and so I decided to use it as the magazine name and the overall theme of the magazine

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

The house style I created for my magazine was that of the use of fire throughout in order to fit the magazine name of 'Hellfire'. This also meant I used the colours of red, black and white consistently, not just because of the theme but because they are the most common colours associated with the metal genre. I also made sure that the page number on the contents page matched that on the double page spread while also using the same artists on the front cover, contents and double page spread. Along with the consistent use of the same font for all aspects of the magazine

I believe the layout of the magazine matches conventions rather than challenging them as it features common trends seen in most metal magazines, like Metal Hammer for example. They use the same similar colour scheme and layout for their front cover and contents pages. The style of the artists also match the conventions as it fits with the stereotypes. It doesn't really challenge any conventions but instead sticks to them as the metal genre is defined by these conventions so challenging them has a risk of not working out in the end.

Contents page and double page spread guidelines

Contents page

• Multiple images
• If just one image per page, contents should be over 2-3 pages
• Reflect your cover stories
• Largest image should be cover star
• Not all contents is on the contents page
• Weekly= 60    Monthly= 140-180
• Divide contents into sections
• Page number- 6 upwards
• Elements to include= subscription offer, letter from the editor, magazine branding (colour/logos)

Double page spread

• A3 landscape- 300dpi
• Page numbers- Weekly=40s, Monthly=100s
• Dropped Cap
• Pull-out quote
• Got to be in columns- use photoshop for graphics and photos, publisher for columns of text
• Column=no less than 6 words, no more than twelve