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

During this assignment I have learnt many new skills using photo shop as you can clearly tell by looking at my preliminary task and my finished products.

As you can see my final product of the contents page and font cover look much better and more like a real magazine and this is because I found a good colour scheme, better effects and made the pictures go well with the colours chosen to make it look well presented.
The main program I used was adobe photo shop and this was because it is a program good for editing and making posters. The advantages with this program is the fact that it is very well known and easy to make simple projects in a short time but it has some disadvantages as it can get very complicated to use if you have a lot of layers on one project or you are looking to make very realistic edits. So as you can see I became a lot more experienced when it come to making the final products as I have edited them a lot more to look better. I used many new items on photo shop on the finished product with I didn’t use on the primary task such as a lot of blending options to blend the text and pictures in with the colour scheme and background.

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

Since I started constructing my own magazine I have used many different pieces of technology which I don’t normally use and software on computers.

The biggest program I used and became quite good at it was adobe photo shop and this was used to edit my pictures and basically make my magazine products, this software is very good as it is quite simple to use and gets the job done at a good quality. From making my products I have learnt a lot from photo shop such as cropping and cutting photos, editing text to blend in and look professional, use blending options to make something stand out or look nicer, and putting things together to get the best quality products I can.

Another program I used a lot was just the basic Microsoft word to write up everything I had been doing whilst making my products; I didn’t really learn much from this as I already know a lot about this program as I have been using it a lot before this.

A piece of technology I used was a digital camera which I never really used before as I’m not into photography, so that was quite fun to learn about different camera angles and shots I could use for my pictures to insert into my final products.

Another thing I used a lot was just basically the internet and different websites, such as flicker, blogger and a website called dafont to get all the fine quality fonts I wanted for my finished products.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?
There are many ways i can attract my audience to buying the magazine but a main one is the language i use and how it relates to the audience it is aimed at. For my magazine i have made it quite informal as most teenagers would get very bored of a magazine which was formal and dull. I know that they would prefer informal as it is more like there language and how they speak to friends on facebook and in real life, so if i can relate to the audience by using the same language this would attract them to buying the magazine. Another way i attracted the right audience was by inserting pictures which were similar to the life of a teenager and pictures which can represent to the life they live.

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
For my media product i have based my product mainly around teenagers, but in my magazine i have two different genres of music rap and R'n'B which meant i had to base it on a large group of people, but from my media product i can say that the majority of people who read this magazine will be teenagers age sixteen to twenty, mostly male, working class who could be classed as either the common teenager because of the R’n’B in the magazine or as a thuggish chav because of the rap. The stereotypical chavs who would read this magazine would most probably have a life style of dressing in trackies and hoodies, normally a make such as Nike. They would most likely be out on the streets alot of the time drinking and smoking drugs on a regular basis and would have a take away meal most days such as Mc Donald’s or KFC.
But the R'n'B side of the magazine would attract a different group of people who are likely to be teenagers who don’t have such a bad reputation and are most likely to be educated or still in college or university, they will also work for a living to have money to buy this magazine unlike the other half of the magazine who would most likely steal the magazine or get it from drug money. These teenagers are likely to dress alot more casual and look better presented in clothes such as jeans and a shirt from a nice branded shop. They also would have a better diet such as a roast dinner some days or something healthy and wouldn't spend every day on the street and would likely sit in some days and just study as there still in college or university.
Due to the type of people who read this magazine i will need to think about what i will advertise in the magazine, as i know that most of these people are teenagers i would put adverts such as beer and clothing brands in there as they would attract to the audience and make them want to buy them.

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
When I come to publishing my magazine I need to think about how I am going to publish it I have two options I could self publish it or I could get a big company to publish it.
If I was looking to self publish my magazine there are many negatives with this but also some positives such as I could have control over the whole magazine and decide what it looks like and what goes in it. The problems I would have if I self published it would being able to get it to be a popular magazine as I would have to keep it local as I don’t have the resources to get it out wide spread, this would be bad because I couldn’t sell as many copies and wouldn’t be as well known to become a popular well selling magazine.
The reasons I would be looking to get it published by a big company would be because they would make the magazine very well known and popular as they would be able to get the magazine world wide in a quick amount of time and I know that publicity would be very good which means I would sell a lot more copies than if I self published the magazine. The negative points are the fact that I would no longer have much control over what happens to the magazine and what is put in it, this would mean that I would have to be happy with the changes the company is going to make and if I agreed I would no longer have a say in what is going to happen, this could mean they could change the magazine and make it different to how I wanted it which means it could loose popularity as it could be focusing on a different range of people to what I wanted it. If I was going to sell it to a big magazine company I would need to make sure they haven’t already got a magazine like it and that it is a different genre to the rest of there magazines so that it is something new and exciting.
So overall I am not to sure how I am going to publish my magazine but I think that I will most likely go with getting it published by a big company as it would make the magazine more popular and a bigger hit which would mean I would sell more copies and make more money which is what I want.

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Well my media product that I have made doesn’t really completely focus on one social group but I suppose you could say favourites one or two who would mainly like to read this magazine such as Male teenagers who are into R ‘n’ B and rap music. I also could go as far as saying that this is a working class magazine as it isn’t the priciest magazine and is based around teenage boys who are into rap which could show that they could be quite thuggish and rebellious but could also go the other way and be people who aren’t like that because of the R ‘n’ B side of the magazine which is why I tried to make a magazine which focuses on two music types to attract more people and bigger variety. I think that overall my final media products aim to attract mostly white working class male teenagers attracted to R ‘n’ B and rap music. I haven’t focuses on any religion at all when it comes to making my magazine to make it as popular as possible between people and I also know that most teenagers don’t really care about religion who would read the magazine.

Lewis Howes
Media Evaluation.

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For my magazine I have followed most things need to make my magazine look professional and like a real magazine. On my front cover I have made it look like a real magazine by doing the same techniques which real magazines use. Techniques like not using to many colours as most magazines stick to 3 or 4 main colours just like I did. I also put a bar code in the bottom corner like most magazine this is because even though it has to be on there you don’t want it taking up any space on the magazine and don’t want it getting in the way.
With the contents page I also tried to make it as realistic as possible by using main features as you would in a real magazine like 1 main picture on the contents and a little offer to attract the reader at the bottom. I also put the main things in the magazine on the contents page in order to when the will show up in the magazine also showing which page they will be on. I used the same colour scheme as I did on the front cover which was black, grey and white.
For the 2 page spread I made it look like a real 2 page spread from a magazine by using the same features such a pool quotes and columns to make it look well presented, I also made it obvious about which were question and answers so the reader doesn’t get confused. I used other features such as a main heading and sub headings.
To get ideas for my magazine I defiantly got ideas from one magazine in particular and that was Vibe magazine as it was quite like my own magazine I was making and had roughly the same audience.