My magazine

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Evaluation of the Finished magazine

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

I think the main area that my magazine stands out from other media conventions is the way in which I want the subjects in my pictures to come across as people their fans could admire and respect but in the same way I wanted them to seem like real people as well. I tried to do this by not editing or airbrushing the pictures other than lighting. This was because I didn't want the subjects to come across as plastic models but as genuine people who were just talented in their profession. As I think my target audience would admire people more if they appeared in a photo shoot looking normal as apposed to wearing lots of make-up.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

By using these techniques I wanted my media product to represent people who were genuinely interested in music and the latest news within this music industry. This includes quite a few genres of music from pop to indie to rock, and although I wanted to increase my female audience I didn't want to relate it too much to appearance and commercial mediums, but instead just for people who loved music.

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

Taking all this into account I would still choose to stock my magazine in chain outlets such as WH Smiths as well as smaller independent record shops and would use a company such as IPC Media to publish it as they a large well-known company and also publish magazines from a similar genre such as NME. A down-side to this would be that using IPC Media would be more expensive than using a smaller publishing company.

Who would be the audience for you media product?

Although I decided the target audience before creating my magazine I decided to add the phsychographic group of succeeders to the audience as I don't think my audience should have to want to be the artists featured to appreciate them.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I tried to attract my audience to my magazine with aspects such as the large picture of 'Lilly Jackson' which makes eye-contact with the consumer. I also used bands relating to the genre of magazine - so I used a new indie band as apposed to a new pop singer as these are the type of artists my target audience would want to read about. I tried to use moderately formal language (no text language/ abbreviations) so as to make sure I was aiming at the correct target audience age and not to patronise them. I chose to give my magazine the title 'FIX' because i wanted something that was short and simple and also slightly ambiguous because I wrote 'Get Yours' down the side of the 'F' suggesting that the magazine was like getting a fix of drugs that you needed, without making it obvious. I chose to design the name like this as it is similar to other magazine with a similar target audience, e.g 'NME' and 'Q' are both quite short names and 'Q' is quite mysterious as to what it means.
I had the subject on the front cover slightly smiling as i wanted her to be respected as an artist but still have her personality coming through as a person who doesn't feel the need to pout and pose in pictures. Q has also featured well-known artists smiling on their covers:

When making colour choices for my magazine I tried to stick with a red and purple theme so that it wasn't dull but not bright loud pinks so it was similar to a or cheesy pop magazine.

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

I picked up lots of different techniques and skills when using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop to create my magazine. Using photoshop helped me to create and experiment with lots of different effects on my pictures. The particular area of photoshop I used a lot was the lighting affects:

As well as changing the way the picture was lit (spotlight, omni etc) I could also change things such as how strong the lighting was and the colour of the lighting. when trying to cut out the background of my picture or change the colour of it, I used the lasso tool:

By using InDesign I was able to edit the size and shape of boxes and texts, I could also create a shadow effect for my contents page to help give the look of paper actually being pinned to a cork board:
When changing the colour and size of the different things on my magazine I could then arrange them to have them over-lapping, I also used this tool when creating the background.

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

I feel that I have dramatically improved my technically skills of editing and designing the magazine since doing the preliminary task. The preliminary task helped improve my creativity when deciding things such as the layout, colours and fonts. It also helped me to understand more how much every small detail can affect the magazine's appeal to the target audience. For example when experimenting with mt cover pictures I realised that It was better to have someone smiling on the cover of a college magazine and have a more thoughtful expression on the cover of my music magazine, rather than the other way round as they are both aiming at different markets and want to create a different mood with the reader. So the smiling college magazine would want to make the readers feel happy about college whereas the more thoughtful expression of the music magazine would want to interest the readers more in who the person is on the cover. The preliminary task also helped me to understand the importance of having eye-contact between the subject on the cover a dn the consumer to establish a connection.

Planning and Evaluation of the Article

When writing my article I chose to do it as an interview which would relate to the picture of the band had featured on the contents page. I wanted to make the interview lighthearted and funny but also interesting and insightful to what the band is actually like.

When reading an interview from 'Q' magazine I noticed that the questions asked are in relevance to the specific interviewee - (mostly leading questions) rather than random questions that they ask to everyone. This made the interview seem more relevant and interesting. I tried to take this into consideration when writing my article.

The article in Q also had a picture taken from the interview taking up one side of the page but I decided against this as I was only doing a double page spread and not a whole magazine I wanted to feature more writing.

When drafting my interview, the type of language I used was aimed at an audience of a lower age than I wanted as it was quite fun with jokes aimed at a younger generation, I noticed this when reading another Q article that read more in depth about how the band worked and further into the music industry and it didn't need to ask questions about each of the band members personality as they came out and were clear when the other questions were answered. This was something I altered a lot in my draft as i tried to make the choice of questions and language used more formal.

When I had decided on the final draft of my article I put everything in place and compared mine to the two articles from Q and I noticed that one of the articles had a quote from the interview outside of the article, this would be a humorous or revealing line to draw the reader in so I tried it with my double page spread but then felt there was too much text over the two pages.

Another interesting aspects of the second article I noticed was the giant 'J' used in the introduction which I hadn't written out fully so I then decided to include an introduction with this idea.

Draft Interview

Q) So you must be pretty pleased with the bands sudden success, but our readers want to know a bit more about what you're really like - (Lew lets out a nervous laugh), don't worry I won't be too mean! So how long does it take each of you to get ready in the morning - who is the most vain?

A) C: Well I definitely take the least time, I barely wear any makeup and a lot of the time I'm not to fussed about what I'm wearing.

L: I'm probably the next quickest because obviously I never have to bother with makeup or anything and the only thing i get really picky about is my hair.

A: Ok yeah I do take quite a while in the mornings, especially when I'm trying to pick an outfit.

Q) You all live together don't you, who is the biggest 'neat freak' out of all of you would you say?

A) L: Ha! 100% Amy! If you even leave a sock out of place she'll go crazy.

C: Very true!

Q) So are there any weird habbits or phobias you think Fix readers should know about?

A) C: Haha Amy do you want to do the honours or shall I?

L: Nooo! It's not even that big a deal!

A: Lew has a phobia of skittles!

Q) As in the sweets? Care to explain anymore Lew?

L: I nearly choked on one when I was younger so ever since I don't really like them.

Q) Any new romances then after meeting so many new people?

A) (Both look straight to Chloe)

C: Haha why are you both looking at me?! Nothing is going on!

A: Let's just say Chloe seemed to be getting on pretty well with Jack Johnson.