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

There are basic conventions included in most successful or mainstream magazines which are used as helpful ways of including information and attracting the auidnece to to product. The most common conventions are:

• Masthead
• Menu bar
• Burst
• Sell lines
• Blue line
• Font scheme
• Colour scheme

Conventions I have used:

Masthead

- I have included a masthead to the cover of my magazine for the conventional reason of drawing in the audience. The red masthead against the black and white image makes it stand out even more, and therefore draws the audience's attention to the title of the magazine, which is included in the masthead.

Menu bar

- The menu bar I have included is at the bottom of the cover, which is where it is often found on popluar magazines. I have included it as a way of advertising two of the main stories in the magazine, so that any potential members of the target audience may be interested in buying the magazine.

Burst

- I have included one burst on my magazine as a way of filling a large amount of white space on my cover, and again it can be used as a way of attracting people to a story in the magazine.

Sell lines

- The sell lines I have included are a way of introducing the featured band in the issue of my magazine. Whilst there are two seperate lines used, they make up the same story, and are there as a way of enticing the audience.

Blue line

- The blue line is the barcode, price, issue number and date. I have chosen not to inake a lot clude this convention as I felt it may take a lot of space up on my cover, and as I was going for a more minimalist look, I thought it would be best to not include this on the cover. However this information is necessary so I would include on the back cover as that is looked at less by the target audience, and will therefore not affect how they view the design of my magazine.

Font scheme

- I stuck to the normal convention of using a three font scheme for my magazine. I have used one font that is for the masthead and page numbers, one font for general text within the magazine; such as story titles, and one font for the main page text. The reason I have limited myself to three fonts is so that it my magazine has a unified style and doesn't look too cluttered. Also because each font has been used for a specific type of text, it becomes easier for the reader to know the importance of each section.

Colour scheme

- Throughout my magazine I have stuck to a simple colour scheme of black, white and red, again using the rule of three. Due to the simplicity of the colours black and white, the pieces of information that I want to stand out from the page are put in red, this sticks with my minimalistic design, whilst allowing me to highlight keys pieces of information.

Comparison

- This image is the cover of an issue of Kerrang! magazine. It shows the usual conventions of a real media product, and as this text is successful in a genre similar to mine, this can be used as something to compare my cover to.
- My text has a similar style to this, as the main mage is of a guitarist playing their instrument live, there also seems to be a source of light illuminating him in the same way that I have used a lens flare.
- The header is also similar in the font style and size, and there is also a menu bar, although mine is at the bottom and this one is at the top.
- I have challenged the conventions of this magazine due to the fact that I have approached it in a more minimalist way, meaning that I haven't included as many bursts or sell lines as are on this text.
- I have also not included things like the barcode for the same minimalist reason.

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

Mass or niche?

My text is aimed at a niche audience as the fans of this genre represent a reasonably small portion of the population. This means that although it will not be as widely popular as other genres, such as pop music, the target audience I am aiming for will be more loyal to my text as they will feel it is specifically targeted at them. Also, as there are few other magazines dedicated to this genre of music, due to it being a niche market, the audience will be more likely to continue buying my text as it is one of the few magazines that include the information they are interested in.

Which publishing house would publish this text?

I have researched a few of the big publishing houses, and based on this I have decided that it would be most likely that Bauer Media would be the company to publish my text. The reason that I think this is because they publish many music magazines, such as Q and Kerrang, and these magazines are targeted at less of a mainstream audience as they are not considered to cover the 'Pop' genre. Also Kerrang magazine is targeted towards a reasonably similar audience as my text would be, because they would both be considered sub genr
es of Rock.

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

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As I have already established, the target audience for my magazine is fans of the hardcore genre of music, aged between teenage and late twenties.
Below is an image of the typical fan of this genre.

I have chosen to represent this group of people as people who are a lot of fun, but are also very passionate about their music as I feel that this is a very accurate image of the target audience I am trying to appeal to.
As you can see from the image above, this audience appears to be as I have described them as they are all smiling and jokingly doing the 'Sign of the horns' with their hands, which is a typical pose for fans of rock.
The image also shows that there can be a range of styles for my target audience, as the man in the centre is wearing all black and has long hair, which is what people would describe as the typical hardcore fan. However the person to the left is dressed much more formally and has short, neat hair.

Below is an image I used on the contents page of my magazine. I feel that I have represented this social group positively and accurately in this image, as it shows the two main character traits of my target audience. The person on the left is enjoying himself and making a bit of a show by waving his arm around, which shows that they are fun. Whereas the person on the right is focused on the playing his instrument well, and it is clear from his expression that he is putting a lot of effort and emotion in to this performance.

The images I have used throughout my magazine are aspirational images, meaning that my target audience will be able to relate to them and feel much more like this magazine is being created specifically for them. I believe that the social group I am representing in my work would be pleased with how I have represented them, as I have done it in a purely positive way.

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

I used many different technologies in the process of creating my final product, each of them played an important part in a different area of production:

Apple Mac: I used this mainly for all research purposes for my magazine, for example all of the deconstructions of original texts that I did at the start of this project, were done on the Mac. I also used this to find some fonts suitable for my magazine, by downloading them from http://www.1001fonts.com/ this was an important part of the design for my magazine.

Photoshop: I used a version of Photoshop Elements in order to make adjustments to the images that I would be using in my final piece. I mainly just adjusted the brightness and saturation of these images as I was happy with the way the images had turned out. However I did use the lens flare effect on the image that I put on the front cover, and I feel that this was very useful as it makes the front cover look more attractive.
I have previously used this software and I have had training on how to do all basic, and some more complicated tasks. However I feel that this project has confirmed my ability in using this program.

Serif Page Plus x5: This is the software I used to create each page of the magazine. All finished items, for example images and text, were added to this program, where I then placed them on to the final product. This was my first time using this software, therefore I feel that I have learnt some useful skills and am now fairly confident in my ability to use this.

Canon 550D: I used this DSLR to capture all of the images that I used in my final task. I am fairly confident in my ability to use this camera as I have owned it for a while and have used others like it before. I had my camera on the manual setting, meaning that I was in control of all settings, and I adjusted settings such as the ISO and aperture in order to make each image look exactly how I wanted.

Google Chrome/Safari: I used two web browsers for my research, Google Chrome when I was using my laptop and Safari when I was using the Apple Mac. These browsers were obviously useful in the fact that they helped me to be able to easily access lots of information on any subject I needed, it also allowed me to access websites such as Blogger, where all of my work is stored.

Blogger: I had never previously used Blogger, therefore it was a little awkward getting used to some of the features. However the time spent over the course of the project has helped me to become reasonably confident in my use of this website. I have uploaded all of my progress to this website and it has been a vital part of my task.

Packard Bell Laptop: This is the model of laptop I used when creating my magazine. It is where I have all of my software, including Photoshop and Page Plus, therefore it was a key part in the production of my magazine.

How did you attract/address your audience?

Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is my evalutaion for the question:

• Who would be the audience for your media product?