For the second part of our media coursework, we had to create a front cover, contents page and a double page spread for a music magazine.
- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I researched what a typical music magazine should include and most of, if not all of them had their main interview with the artist that they showed on their front cover, so that's what I did. They all had a colour scheme that they stuck to throughout the magazine, and they also styled the artists that they featured to match the colour scheme as well so I also put that idea into my magazine. From my audience questionnaire I found that everyone wanted to see interviews, reviews, upcoming gig information and advertisements for new albums. I put all of these aspects into my contents page along with other headings that you are likely to see in a music magazine. The typical double page spread have white backgrounds. I think this is because having a lighter colour makes the page look bigger and a darker colour makes the page "shrink" and look a lot smaller. I put this into my own DPS by having a straight forward white background with black and white images and black and red writing, therefore sticking to my colour scheme. Overall, I think that my music magazine challenges forms of a real magazine.
- How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I said in my treatment sheet that I wanted to represent young adults aged between 17 and mid-twenties and I think I have achieved this well. People of that age are not as bothered as to how much writing there is, whereas if my audience was aimed at people from the age of about 13 to 15 then I would have added more images and less writing as teenagers that age may lose interest if there is a lot of writing. I kept the amount of writing on the front cover as little as possible and made it quite large so it's eye catching and kept the contact information small as the audience don't need to see this straight away when they buy the magazine. The use of the large, bright coverlines are an example of this as they stand out as one of the main features on the front cover.
- Who would be the audience for your media product?
In my treatment sheet, I said "I want my audience to be aimed towards teenagers aged from 17 up to people in their mid-twenties." I wanted to do to a unisex magazine because magazines such as Top of the Pops and Pop are one extremely gendered and according to my readership figures, Top of the Pops got 104,709 readers in Jan-Jun 2010 whereas Radio Times which can be appealing to both genders got a massive 947,131 in the same time period. This shows that a magazine that is both gendered and is aimed at an older age range is more likely to sell more copies than a one gendered, young teen magazine. In my treatment sheet, I also said "The type of person that may not read my magazine would be the type of teen or young adult that may only like one genre of music. This would be a problem because my magazine will have different types of genres and if one genre dominated the whole magazine, it would probably result in less sales than a magazine with a variety would." I can now back this point up with my readership figures that I conducted.
- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learned even more about GIMP whilst making my music magazine because I used it a lot more than I did for my preliminary task, as I changed contrast, curves, brightness and edited colour a lot on this magazine compared to my student magazine. I also used Paint and Microsoft Publisher more in this task as I changed my designs a few times to get them as close to a real music magazine as I possibly could. I also used a better camera for this task going from an 8MP camera to a 14MP camera which makes the quality of the magazine look more upmarket than what my student magazine did. I started to use Coral for some of my editing but found that GIMP was a lot more easier to use and I preferred the final outcome when using GIMP to Coral. All in all, I have learned a lot by creating both my student magazine and my music magazine and I'll feel more confident using all of these programs in the future.
- 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 first drafts for my preliminary task, I feel I have become more confident and more comfortable using programs such as GIMP and Publisher to create a magazine. I think the final outcome of my music magazine looks a lot more professional than my student magazine did. I also kept my target audience in mind a lot more for my music magazine as I think my student magazine maybe came out a bit more feminine than I originally planned. I have also learned how to blog as well as this coursework is the first time that I've blogged before.
