7. Looking back at your preminalary task (the college magazine task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

 I feel that many factors of my magazine have improved from the font to the use of the image and using colour to attract the target audience. I have learnt many skills of how to achieve these such as arranging text to suite around the picture causing there to be no text covering the image from the audiences view, this clearly points out the main focus of the magazine shown through the relaxed postured of the well-known figure on the front page. I also learnt that in order for the image to look professional the figure from waist up is best to be shown so it can cover most of the page and not leave to many blank/empty spaces. When I made my first draft of a college music magazine I learnt that not so many different fonts should be used so that this pulls the whole magazine together in order for it to match. In order to best suit the magazine layout and contents to the audience the front cover needs to attract the widest range target audience as possible; in this case my target audience was teenage girls. My understanding of further improving the layout of my front cover to represent this audience increased when I learnt that the masthead should be the largest writing on the cover and it should represent the audience, in this case the bold simple type suggests sophistication which would attract a teen girl who is going through the stage of wanting to be grown up. I learnt to balance colour to make it eye-catching but also not to vibrant for all the colours to clash, they need to suite the style of the magazine and match in places with the main image on the front cover so the whole magazine pulls together well. With the image I learnt the background would be more effective if the background was plain for the words to stand out against and so the main focus of the photo, in this case the well-known face which is the most obvious point for the reader to notice. To improve all of these points I used things in Photoshop such as the colour matching tool so I could match some of the font with the main image, I also used Photoshop to outline some words on the front cover which would have before without editing blended into the background.

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

During this project I have used programs such as Blogger, Flickr and Photoshop. Before staring my product I had no experience or knowledge with any of these programs, now that I have finished my product I feel that I have a good understanding of these programs and can now use them well. I have learnt about things on Photoshop such as the different layers placed within a document, I have learnt how to use the clone stamp tool to erase any unwanted details which could draw attention away from the main focus of an image. I have learnt about scale and transformation within Photoshop and how this can be used to make a product look effective. I found that Photoshop is a quick and effective way to produce a media product as it is easy to have attention to the detail of an image.

I have also learnt how to control the website Flickr and Blogger and their uses which could help me with this project. The advantages of these websites are that they are very quick and simple to share your work with the world but can stop working very often as they use the internet to power them which can cause delays with your work. I have learnt the uses of Flickr such as annotating photos uploaded to this website as it can mark certain parts of an image.

5. How did u attract/address your audience?

I made sure that my media product would best suite my target audience by including many of their favourite hobbies and interests. I have used the front cover of my magazine to promise a potential reader of content that no other magazine could possess, causing them to believe they are getting the most exclusive information in fashion trends and music around. I have tried to best suite their attention spans by not including so much formal writing and having more images to offer a more visual magazine which I think will catch the audience’s attention for a longer time than them easily loosing interest in having to read pages of writing. .

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

The target audience of my magazine is teen girls, therefore my magazine has to adapt to the interests of this group in order to gain the widest audience as possible. The buyers of my magazine will be interested greatly in popular music and fashion trends all over the world. They could also be interested in all of the biggest festivals going. They are most likely to shop in high street shops rather than expensive brand shops causing my magazine to have advertisements for shops such as H&M and Topshop. Other items such as beauty products and music gigs can be advertised in my magazine as this would appeal to the stereotypical female teen. Their interests would be things such as going to gigs and festival as well as shopping with friends. My media product would suite this type of audience greatly because it lists many of their likes and promises to offer the latest fashion trends which other magazines would not include. This photo represents the type of people I am aiming for my target audience to be.

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

I think that the IPC might be interested in publishing my magazine because they don’t currently publish any magazines that combine fashion and music into one magazine. This company is well known so it would help produce my product at a large scale rate to get it out to the widest target audience possible. This could also help my product become recognized easily as the public seem to already trust them to produce good content. There could be other advantages caused by IPC  such as advertising privileges such as ads placed on the TV or other places around the world, they could also help the magazine to become better developed and produce an online version which would suite my target audience well as they are a very much online generation. There could be problems with a company like this though such as more space within the product having to be taken up by advertising and the unlikely hood that if the product was dropped no other company would be willing to give it another chance.  

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

My magazine represents the early teenage girl and this product shows an insight into their lives. I have tried reaching out to this certain type of audience by embedding their interests within this product. The content of my magazine reflects this as it shows all of this certain audience’s interests which are expected to include things such as fashion, beauty and pop music. It also uses celebrities to its favour as it includes articles which are directed towards this age group to spike this audience’s interest of the magazine type. The language within this magazine help relate to this audience as it is shown to not be the formal language of a middle aged woman but of a young girls dialect including humour and less formal topics to keep this audiences attention. The layout of this product attracts this type of viewer because the many images and colour schemes used are themes that would appeal to this type of reader as the bright colours attract their attention and the pictures show more of a visual product meaning less formal information which this type of audience could easily loose attention with the product because of.

The bright greens and reds used within my magazine suggest a certain fun and upbeat audience tying in with the playful image shown on the front cover of the magazine. This represents my target audience as being fun and unique as it suggests a more fun take on a magazine rather than formal magazine used to put across information to an older audience.

My magazine is shown to expect the audience to be a stereotypical female teen as it expects them to know the bands other teens are interested in and to be interested in the latest fashions. It expects the audience to have a keen interest in certain bands and festivals as it shows information to certain popular bands and places to be among other teens.

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

My magazine uses many conventions of a real media product but I have also tried to challenge some of these conventions to make my product one of a kind and something an audience feels they have never read or seen before making them more likely to buy this product.

My magazine has things such as the masthead, barcode, date and website on the front cover these all common conventions used on a media product to aware the audience of the type of product that is being shown across to the audience. The masthead used on my front cover is used as a sort of icon for my magazine as it would be used on every issue of this product so the audience start to relate this font and title with the magazine.

Questionnaire results

http://www.flipsnack.com/BE5A6FFEFB5/fupfg5f5

magazine article

magazine article, a photo by lucy rix1 on Flickr.

magazine contents

magazine contents, a photo by lucy rix1 on Flickr.

magazine cover

magazine cover, a photo by lucy rix1 on Flickr.

Feature article draft

This is a draft of my feature article, this layout is what I think would best suite my target audince. This layout may change when I'm in the process of producing the feature article but i will mainly stick to this layout.

Contents page layout

This image shows how I am expecting to layout the contents page of my magazine to best fit with the rest of my magazine content and the target audience.

Front cover draft

This is a draft of my front cover and shows the layout I am wanting to base my magazine cover on to suite the target audience. It shows the things that will feature on the cover such as the masthead, main image, barcode, cover lines and also the main cover line.

Advertisements mood board

This mood board shows the type of brands that would be willing to promote their company in my magazine due to my target audience. This would therefore create a larger audience if the advertisements intrest them as well as the content, the more well known the advertisements are the more likely the audience would trust the maagzine to include good quality content.
The mood board includes brands sucha s 'ticketmaster' because my target audience of teens are at the age of being interested in seeing bands/musicans play live so this advertisment would intrigue them to use the website when looking for gig tickets. I have also included the logo of 'greater anglia' because these gigs are often far from home so they are in need of travel to and from the place of the gig.
Other logos i have included are tv channels such as 'E4' and 'MTV' as well as 'ODEON' cinema to interest the audience with their viewing of films and TV programmes. My target audience are female as well as teenagers to show this i have included brands such as 'Barry M', 'Maybelline' and 'Topshop'. To show the music sign of the magazine i have used logos for companies such as 'itunes' and 'beats'.

Target audience mood board

This mood board shows the type of target audience I am hoping to make my magazine for, it shows what they may be interested in, the products they may use and the shops/places they may go. I have used lolgos such as twitter, facebook, apple, itunes and instagram as these are what the audience i am aiming to reach may be interested in, this knowledge can help me choose the correct content to add to my magazine to acheive the biggest audience as possible.
The guitar, records and itunes symbol represent the music side i am willing to add to my magazine as this would appeal to the teens which i am hoping to make the content for.

Font mood board

For this mood board I have choosen 8 fonts to represent my thoughts on the style of my magzine. For my front cover I prefer the upright neat take on the font compared to the italic messy style, this would attract a young femine audience striding to be and act grown up. It would also cause the magazine to look neat and clean making it look sophisticated.
I think the colour of this font should match with the colours on the rest of the page and with the main image on the front to compliment the rest of the cover and pull the page together. 
I think the font i would like on my main page would be 'Orator' or 'Verve' this is because i think they are clear and neat and would fit in spread across the top of the page as a title. The rest of the writing on the page should be in a simple font so it doesn't look to complicated and causes the audience to be unable to find something standing out on the page therefore catching their attention and making them want to read on.

Colour mood board

This mood board includes colour schemes i am thinking about using for my magazine, i have decided that i would not place more than 3 or 4 colours onto my cover as it would make it look to busy and cluttered. Therefore on my magazine cover i am going to pick at least 3 of these colours, I am aiming to match the colours so they aren't to contrasting, this will cause them to compliment each other causing the magazine to look co-ordinated meaning sophisticated and neat.
My target audience are teen girls, so i will use these colours to attract a younger female audience meaning the use of feminine colours such as orange, yellow and red.
The colours i least like for my magazine would be brown and green as i think they would make my magazine cover look dull unappealing which would not catch a teenage girls eye, therefore loosing a large part of its audience.

Colour mood board

This mood board includes colour schemes i am thinking about using for my magazine, i have decided that i would not place more than 3 or 4 colours onto my cover as it would make it look to busy and cluttered. Therefore on my magazine cover i am going to pick at least 3 of these colours, I am aiming to match the colours so they aren't to contrasting, this will cause them to compliment each other causing the magazine to look co-ordinated meaning sophisticated and neat.
My target audience are teen girls, so i will use these colours to attract a younger female audience meaning the use of feminine colours such as orange, yellow and red.
The colours i least like for my magazine would be brown and green as i think they would make my magazine cover look dull unappealing which would not catch a teenage girls eye, therefore loosing a large part of its audience.

Overview of magazine industry

Overview of magazine industry

More than 8000 titles published in Britain, they can be categorised:

1.       Consumer (general and specialist) these can be sold in newsagents and are also available online.

2.       Business/trade/professional- these are suitable for people at work.

3.       Customer magazines that organisations can give to their customers to advertise.

4.       Staff magazines to inform the workers about the company which they work for.

5.        Newspaper supplements- these come free when a daily or Sunday paper is purchased.

6.       Part works- issues build into an ‘encyclopaedia’ of a specific topic.

7.       Journal with aspects of education- for university students

Out of all these magazines Consumer magazines seem to make up the bulk for titles sales in newsagents. These can be general titles which aim to inform but mainly entertain (such as ‘Elle’, ‘Radio Times’). These types of magazines tend to include gossip and information into celebrities around the world, but can also be sophisticated including fashion and art attracting a female target audience. This bulk of magazines also contain consumer specialist titles which can be aimed and a certain sport/hobby (such as ‘Car’, ‘Total film’).

The biggest consumer magazine (in 2008 newsagents) is Bauer Publishing with 25% of the industry this is closely followed by IPC Media with 20% and although BBC had 7.8% of the industry they were bought out by Immediate Media in October 2011.

Currently in the UK there are 3,200 different consumer titles over the country this has increased from 1980 when there were only 1,383. Each year the magazine industry sells 1.4 billion copies of the product this has decreased greatly from 1970 when it was 2.1 billion but increased from 1992 when it was 1.2 billion. According to tests on average 85% of the population reads a magazine this proves it to be an industry that reaches all around the world and a large audience. In 2008 Advertisers spent £745 million on gaining space to advertise their product within a magazine annually.

Each year consumers spend £2 billion on keeping up to date with the latest addition of their favourite magazine, but some households may buy more than just one magazine throughout the year.  An average of 500 magazines get launched every year for the past decade these are made available to the public to begin with to test their success because only 3 in 10 make it past the first 4 years.

The top 5 Woman’s monthly magazines in 2013 are ‘Glamour’, ‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘yours’, ‘woman & home’ and ‘good housekeeping’. These are typically aimed at woman because they include fashion, gossip and ‘housekeeping’. Compared to the top 4 Men’s lifestyle magazines being ‘Men’s health’, ‘Nuts’, ‘FHM’ and ‘GQ’, these types of magazines do not include gossip as it’s not what they are typically interested in. ‘The top 5 children and teen magazines of 2013 are ‘Moshi Monsters’, ‘top of the pops’, ‘Cbeebies art’, ‘fun to learn- friends’ and ‘fun to learn – peppa pig’.