Evaluation

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

My final three media products all follow the forms and conventions of
real media products in numerous ways. My front cover has many
conventions of a real media product, the first being the pug on the left hand side of the magazine, I created this pug as it shows that it is something interesting and different from the other cover lines on the page. It advertising festivals that my particular audience would be interested in and draws their attention to it when first looking at the magazine on the shelf. 

Like most other media products I have placed a bar code on the
cover of my magazine, this makes the front cover realistic and
would look correct when placed on a shelf in a retail store.
Although I have not placed the price around the bar code
however not all magazines place the price of the magazine on the bar code and therefore I am not challenging the conventions of a media product. I have placed the price of the magazine below the magazines name this is also common among magazines. Also following forms and conventions I have placed the Magazines name 'Starstruck' underneath the models head, this is so writing doesn't cover the image and look silly, by doing this is looks professional and follows other magazines.

I have used a full body shot of a young teenage girl for the cover of my magazine, I decided to use this type of model as it relates to who I am aiming it at. My audience is 17 + teenage girls and therefore they are likely to buy a magazine with someone that they look like or someone they inspire to be. I have dressed the model in fashionable clothing which is a trait my target audience would be looking for in a music magazine as they can relate to her sense of style.

When i began creating my contents page I looked back at my analysis of real music magazines. They all kept similar colours through the magazine and I decided to use this idea. Like my title on the cover I used the same colour for the word 'Contents', by doing this my audience can associate it with Starstruck magazine thus my music magazine began to have a house style. My contents page had information about what is going to be inside the magazine, the information and page numbers where placed in columns which again follows the conventions of an average music magazines contents page. This also makes it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for as well as the page numbers be over certain images.

I decided not to challenge the conventions in my media products as I felt this would put off my target audience. They are used to buying magazines that look like this and therefore they would want to buy magazine similar to the ones they buy already.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have used certain colours, fonts, locations and clothing to represent a
particular social group. The social group I have aimed my magazine at is in my audience analysis, teenage girls are the social group I intended to represent in my music magazine. The model on the cover is a stylish young female musician wearing high street clothing that would appeal to my target audience. The audience would buy the magazine as they aspire to be the musician and look like her or they already have a similar style to the model and can relate to her. Also the cover lines on my front cover include well known pop bands such as the Saturdays, that would interest my readers and make them buy the magazine. I have used the colour pink throughout my media products as this would be my target audiences preference, the colour is associated with girly girls which my magazine is aimed at and therefore this represents this particular social group.

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

There is two magazine publishers that would publish my music magazine, the first being IPC media (http://www.ipcmedia.com/). They produce over 85 iconic media brands reaching almost two thirds of UK women. They produce a range of magazines from sport to music, however they don't have a pop music magazine that they publish, this would make it an ideal publisher to publish my magazine. They would create a new audience for their brand and can offer even more different types of magazine to their audiences. My target audience would be already my magazines from this company such as Look and Marie Claire as they are fashion magazines that see extremely well to my target audience. ICP media also publishes the well known music magazine NME which is extremely successful indie magazine and therefore by publishing my magazine it wouldn't cause any disruption in ICP medias sales and therefore they could publish my pop magazine. The second publisher I found that is likely to publish my media products is Bauer London Lifestyle Ltd. Like ICP media they publish a range of magazines from fashion to music, such as Heat and Q magazine. They are Europe's largest privately owned publishing group and are also connected with the TV and radio. The only reason that they wouldn't agree to publishing my magazine as they already produce Q, MOJO and Kerrang which are three large music magazines although none of them are dedicated to just pop which makes my magazine separate from them. I think my magazine could be distributed in large and small supermarkets such as Tesco and the Co-Operative. These stores sell a range of magazines and these are the stores where my target audience are likely to shop and purchase there magazines.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience for my media product would be similar to Megan (see audience analysis) who is 18 and listens to music in the charts and has a great sense of style. Artists that my audience would listen to include Lady GaGa, Pixie Lott, Florence and the Machine and many more. The audience for my magazine will be interested in hanging out with friends on weekends in the sunshine listening to pop music in the charts as well as attending the best festivals there is on offer such as Glastonbury and V festival.

5. How did your attract/address your audience?

To attract my audience I had to have a unique selling point, my unique selling point was an exclusive interview with a new pop sensation. It was he first ever interview the artist had published in a music magazine, this would mean that more people are likely to purchase the magazine as it has something no other magazine has in this particular issue. The exclusive interview is in a simple font but is larger than the other cover lines showing the audience that this is important and draws their eye to it immediately. My cover also looks like my target audience and this makes it seem friendly and inviting them in to buy to my target audience. I have styled my artist to look like a celebrity as on every magazine cover there is a picture of a celebrity which helps to sell the magazine when it is displayed on the shelves where it is distributed. The language I have used in my media products is fairly simple as my target audience are not interested in complex writing styles, this therefore makes it appeal to them as it is quick and easy to see what the magazine is all about.

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

To create my three media products I used adobe Photoshop, I had used this technology previous to this task although my skills progressed further when using it to produce my three pieces. I created my products on a Mac computer which I hadn't had much experience with, the software on these computers were different from previous computers I had used and therefore I had to learn to use them. To take my photos I used my camera which is an Olympus AF 5X optical zoom and is an 8.0 mega pixel camera. I have different settings on my camera such as an outdoor setting, when i took photos of my models outside i used this setting to make the quality of the picture much better. I took over 100 photos using different angles, Locations, clothing and lighting so that I had a range of photos I could use. Before I took my photos I planned out what i would like them to turn out like, this helped me as i didn't rush to chose my locations. The image I used on the cover originally had a skirting board at the bottom to erase this i used the eye dropper tool to pick the colour of the wall out and used the paintbrush to blend it in to the wall to make it appeal as though it was a plain wall. I did this so it looked professional in a studio as most covers of magazines wouldn't have this feature. The task that took the longest was using the lasso tool to cut out the model to place her on top of the magazine's name, I had to make sure it looked correct and that the audience would still be able to make out the name of the magazine. One tool that i thought was amazing within photoshop was the burn tool, it allowed me to darker the image on my double page spread which made the artist stand out more on the page with her bright red lipstick. I also used http://www.blogspot.com/ to post the steps of how I created my final three media products, I found this very simple to use although I hadn't used this website in particular before I have used similar sites to this and this made it simple to learn to use.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task there is a dramatic improvement between it and my final media products that I have produced. My music magazine looks professional and of a higher standard than my preliminary task which didn't have many conventions of a magazine. I think the help of analysing music magazines and looking at the forms and conventions it allowed me to place things in a more organised way to look professional. I knew where particular things should be places such as cover lines and the bar code. I think the locations of where i took my preliminary magazine made it look how it looks, By finding interesting locations other than a plain wall made my final products interesting to look at whereas in my premliminary task all the photos had simple backgrounds.