Evaluation question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the school/college magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from that to your full product?

Comparing my final products to my preliminary college magazine task it is clear that I have learnt a few things whilst going through ths course.

First of all it is clear that I have learnt more about how a magazine should be set out, for example the contents page.

Looking at my contents page from my preliminary task I didn't have much knowledge on how to set out my page and what to put in it, I left a lot of empty spaces (such as in the bottom right corner) and didn't put very much contents on it at all.

Comparing that to my final product contents page I added a lot more contents to it and layed out the images better. There is a lot less blank space on this one than on the college magazine one. I also included a few other features that are often on contents pages of existing magazines such as adverts (for example, for online subscriptions).

Looking at my cover pages I have improved there too. On this I hadn't used a very good font for the title, it didn't stand out enough and looked quite bad. I also hadn't set out the text very well as it went over and covered the model a bit. I also didn't make the page stand out much, I had no real colour scheme or proper layout for the different features of the cover page. Another thing is that there isn't very much difference between the sizes of the title and the other text so it doesn't stand out as much as it should.

On my final product I had set out the page properly. I had made sure each of the features it needs is set out properly and that the title stands out and is a bold font. I also have made sure that there is a colour scheme and that the text works with the main image on the page.

Evaluation question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Whilst creating my product I have gained knowledge about using a few different programs such as Photoshop, Excel and even blogger it's self.

As I went through working on my product or even preparing for my course, I learnt and picked up many different skills on Photoshop. I had to learn these so I could use them to make my final product. I hadn't used Photoshop at first so I had to learn from scratch what most of things did or how to do even simple things, such as making shapes or selecting certain areas. Once I found out what things were I learnt more advance things like adding a shadow to things or how to use layering better.






I gained more knowledge in how to turn tables of data into graphs on excel. Despite having done this before I didn't remember much so going over it have helped me remember some very useful information as I can now show data in charts or graphs.









Also before this course I have never used or even heard of blogger, so in order to do my course work I have had to learn the basics of how to use blogger. From simply making a new blog to changing the layout and themes of it.

Evaluation question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience by including content that I thought they would like. For example on the front cover and contents page I advertised things like information about local gigs or prizes from music quiz competitions.

I also went round and asked people from my target audience age group about what kind of things they would want to see in a magazine and tried to include as many of those features as I could. 

I also included an artist that people in that kind of audience would probably enjoy reading about and relate to easily.

Evaluation question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my magazine would probably be people around the age of 13 - 19 years old. They would be at least fans of rock music and maybe part of a social group involving or about rock music. They would probably like to listen to the music often and enjoy going to concerts or gigs. They would generally enjoy reading/knowing bout their favorite music artists and watch or read a lot about them.

These kind of people would be attracted to my magazine because of the content in it. I asked people in my target audiences age range what they wanted in a magazine and I tried to include content that would appeal to people in those social groups by using what I had seen in every day life.

Evaluation question 3: What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?

An institute that might distribute my magazine would probably be something like IPC Media, because they distribute a lot of magazines including NME, which is a similar genre to my own magazine.

IPC Media make a very wide range of different genres of magazines for different audiences, this includes things like music, sport, DIY and other kinds of magazines. However the other institutions I have looked at tend to not be as varied and make mostly magazines around one genre. These are genres such as fashion, business and construction. IPC Media seem to be the most likely because they make a wide variety of magazines which includes one of the most popular music magazines. 

My magazine would fit in with the other ones this institution distributes because it is similar to other magazines they do.

Evaluation question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents a few groups of people.

Firstly it represents teenagers. My magazine represents teenagers by including a musician that would usually appeal to most teenagers. A lot of teenagers tend to like, watch or listen to things involving musicians that are fairly young (20-30 years) as they can relate more to them than an older artist. Also they tend to like musicians that has similar attitude or do similar things to them, again this helps them relate to them more. 

Also it includes things like prizes or content that would appeal more to a teenager than an older or younger person. For example concert tickets as a prize. An older or younger person would not want/might not be allowed to go to a concert.


It also represents people such as "rockers". Generally people in particular social groups about/involving rock music and culture. My advertised content would appeal to people in those groups because it is things they would like to do, read about or get.

Evaluation question 1:

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

My music magazine both goes with and against the conventions of real media products, it has aspects that are similar and aspects that or different to the existing products. 

• Title

First the title of my music magazine, I feel, doesn't go with the conventions of existing media products. Instead of naming it like a brand, for example "Q" or "kerrang" I used something that related more to music since it was a music magazine. I decided to call my magazine "High Notes" trying to use the positive meaning or high and the music connection of high notes. Most magazines I ave seen do not actually do this.

• Photographs

My photographs do use the usual conventions of existing media products. They contain the musician in the artical and show them posing for the photo to make it look more appealing. I chose this over the other rock music magazine style of photo's where they use images of the band/musician at a concert or gig. The colours of the photographs also match the colours of the magazine design it's self so it works well.

There are however ways I'd like to improve the photographs. For example the location of them was easy to get and take them but it did not look great. I would've preferred something better maybe.

• Colour scheme

The Colour scheme generally goes with the conventions of existing media products because it suits the genre of the magazine. 

It isn't too bright or vibrant, which would fit more a pop or electronic music magazine. It's a darker colour, however I did not really want to make it too dark as that may make things harder to read with smaller text. 

Progress towards final pages

Since my last progress report I have:

• Finished the layouts of my cover and contents page
• Come up with other stories to put on my contents page
• Got photos to go on the pages

What I need to do from now is:

• Put the photos on the pages
• finish the article for my double page spread
• Finish my double page spread

Work so far:

So far i have finished my layouts for my cover page and contents page. 

So far I have just used bright coloured boxes as place holders for the images, the green background on the cover is going to be my cover photo and the purple boxes on the contents are where the photos will go. 

With my contents page I decided not to stick to my original plan, after looking at other contents pages again I decided to make my design look more dynamic and professional. I used things like drop shadows and moved the smaller images so they looked less uniform. Rather than just being in a regular layout they are more diagonal. 

I have also managed to edit one of the screen shots of the masthead to use on my cover page. I couldn't actually work out how to download the font onto the computer so I just used PhotoShop to edit it and make it look useable. This isn't the best thing I could've done as I actually wanted to use a different font but that was too difficult to edit. However it hasn't turned out badly so it's okay.

I also managed to come up with some ideas of what to put on my contents page, as you can see in the screen shot on the left. I only need to take one more photo to go on the contents and replace on of the two smaller purple, place holder boxes.

Adapting my contents page

Since I started work on my pages i have adapted my contents page a lot. It is now fairly different from my original idea for y contents page.

Version 1

I tried to stick to my flat plan with this one, put the main image up in the top right corner and several more images under that main one. Then putting the contents to the left of the images. Also adding a subscription box at the bottom like a lot of magazines have now. In this particular version most of the text was still just "place holder" as I was doing the layout before I put the text in.











Version 2
I didn't really like the look of the contents page in the first version so I edited it a bit by changing the top banner with the title in, taking away some of the images and changing the subscription box by making it look more interesting than just a red box and adding a cursor image I created myself. I then started to add some of the text in.













Version 3
While continuing with my contents page I still didn't like it much so I looked at real music magazines contents pages to get ideas and tried to edit it more as I went on and added the contents. I edited the subscription box more by making it smaller and completely changed the layout of the page by moving the contents more to the right and my main image to the left. I made the text in my subscription box larger and made left text in it so it would stand out more to the readers. I also added a fake website.

Version 4 (Current version)
After taking another look at existing contents pages and looking at the feedback from my lecturer I edited my contents page again, trying to add more contents and make them look more like an existing music magazine. I changed the colour of my subscription box to help it out and changed the part under my main image to make it look better and less messy. I changed the font on the title to make it stand out more. I also removed the two top images as most contents pages I found only had 1-2 images on them.

Original Flat Plan
As you can see I have adapted my contents page a lot from my main flat plan of it. Only the title and the subscription box are similar to where they were planned to be. I feel this is a good thing as it means I have adapted and improved my work using feedback from my lecturer and inspiration from existing magazine contents pages.