1) - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The background of my magazine front cover is completely plain black. This is conventional of a lot of other music magazines who use either one solid colour as their backgrounds. This ensures that the focus of the reader is not distracted from the central figures such as the pictures and heading, and it makes the font colours and everything else stand out dramatically. My front cover challenges conventions of magazines like MixMag. Although I used a different colour schame, and a different colour background, the positioning of images and the way I made the image sit behind the text is similar. This is so the heading stands out and I made it look vibrant so it is the first thing the reader looks at.
In MixMag the central figure is Calvin Harris, who is deemed as a stylish music artist and his slickness is implemented through his wearing of glasses, in my magazine my central figure is also a stylish male artist, who is also wearing fashionable clothing. My target audience is also stylish people so they can relate to this magazine and hopefully this is a main reason for them to purchase my magazine. I used competitions and freebies to wheel my audience into my product as did the designers of MixMag, which is a fairly successful music magazine.
My contents page is fairly complimentary to my front cover, it carries on the same colour scheme and involves similar fonts and font placings. My contents page uses similar conventions of the MixMag contents page in the way that I offer relatively similar information as it does, however the layout is different. I did this because I wanted to also give the inside of my magazine a unique look, something that hasn't been seen before within a music contents page. The information conventions within MixMag are similar to mine because of the similarity in the music genre. The genre is 'House Music'. There are many variations within House Music, such as Deep House, Techno House, Soulful House etc, and I wanted to implement all of these into one to give it a good variation. This is similar to MixMag because on their magazine they are promoting different artists from different countries. Within House Music there are many DJ's from a wide variety of countries, mainly European countries, however House Music is very popular in Brazil. 
My double page spread uses conventions from MixMag such as fonts, font placings, and the information that it shows. Although the layout is different, I also add subtitles in the top left hand corner, such as MixMag and I promoted similar events etc. 2) - How does your media product represent particular social groups?
All characters used within my magazine are all teenagers, who all have different facial expressions showing different emotions. The character on my front cover is a late teenager, who shows is style and swagger. This connects to my target audience, who are people who love to attend raves and love to party. These people are stylish people who are confident on the dancefloor, love to show their moves. Throughout my magazine, the clothes that the characters in my images are wearing, is stylish, and these are connotations that these people are stylish and fashionable, as is my target audience, so this may be an incentive for them to have this magazine. In my contents page, the image of the young DJ connotates the music genre (House Music) which is seen as vibrant. This connects to members of the target audience, because people who love to party are seen as vibrant people, people who love to come out of their comfort zone etc. So, therefore I think my magazine represents, teenagers or young adults who are going through the stage of independance.
3) - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine could be distributed in most newsagents and off licenses, especially large ones like WHSmiths who sell established magazines from every genre including men’s lifestyle, women’s lifestyle, music, film, TV, hobbies, business, fitness and science. As my magazine is a music one, it may also be sold in music stores such as HMV. As well as stores, my magazine could be sold singularly or as a subscription online. It can be from the my magazines own website (for example www.rhythm-magazine.co.uk) or from the website for the publishing company that owns my magazine. Other online sites also sell magazines. These include the previously mentioned WHSmiths, who have their own separate magazine website. Another example is www.magazine-group.co.uk where members of the public can subscribe to magazines.
4) - Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my music magazine would be both males and females, between the ages of 18 and thirty years, working/middle class.
This is an example of my target audience for my media product. His name is Tom, he is 18 years old, and he enjoys listening to music. He enjoys house music, and R'N'B music, he also likes some of the recent colloborations where House record producers e.g. David Guetta are teaming up with R'N'B artists, thus making tracks. He also likes socialising and attending music events with his friends. He likes to catch up on all the latest musical news, and he reads magazines and also looks at music blogs and websites to keep up to date .He is currently studying Sociology and Business Studies at sixth form, and is looking to do well in his A Levels. 5) - How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my target audience through the use of the images, I used people who are relatively the same age as my audience, and also people who could represent the teenage/young adult social group. These are demographic teenagers who are wearing stylish clothing and can relate to the audience, when they are looking to buy this magazine. They will see the good fashion of these characters and will think about purchasing it. I used bright, contrasting, appealing colours on my fonts and backgrounds. This makes the magazine easy to read, colourful, attractive and contemporary. I also attracted/addressed my audience through my choice of music, which is very popular amount 18-30 year olds. House music is becoming a world wide genre and is very important in some peoples lives, it enables them to feel good about themselves, it puts people in good moods and installs confidence. I made my magazine £1.20 which is a reasonable price considering what it offers, as a music magazine. This is reasonable as most 18-30 year olds, have jobs which allows them to pay or subscribe to this magazines by themselves without help from parents. It is also a reasonable price, because it also offers freebies and competition offers where they can win substantial prizes.
6) - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt about Photoshop, I have learnt how to use the Lasso Tool in Photoshop to cut round original images so that I could transfer the image onto my magazine, and then the blog. Another tool helpful for cropping out of a photo is the Magnetic Lasso. The tool ‘sticks’ to colours (for example the outline of a models top) and therefore cuts out the background, and makes the cutting round an image process much cleaner and accurate. Technologies I used:
Blogger- I used this website to upload my cousework and all the different stages such as planning, research and the production. This website has been extremely useful as without it I wouldnt be able to access my work.
Photoshop CS3 - Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. This software helped me to create my entire magazine., through my previous uses of Photoshop CS3 I found it fairly easy to design my magazine as I had some experience with this software in the past.
Scribd- This is the largest social publishing and reading site in the world. I used this website to upload some of my work onto my blog. It also gives the document a much more professional look, and helps the document to fit into the blog perfectly.
Bubbl.us - Bubbl.us is an online brainstorming website, which allowed me to brainstorm my magazine ideas online and then upload this brainstorm onto my blog easily.
Google- I used this website a lot when I had to do research, this website helped me to find information on other magazines such as MixMag, who are my competitors.
Camera - I used a Canon camera to take images that I was going to use for my magazine, this was ofcourse helpful towards my coursework.
7) - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
After my preliminary task, I found constructing a questionnaire easier as it helped me to ask questions which answers would benefit me in making my magazine. I also realised that by studying existing products I could identify the conventions of the media product which, if I used or challenged, could help me make my magazine more professional. I understood that planning my shots was important and did some more preparation in taking them, while ensuring I had a variety of shot types including close up, medium shot and long shot. Using Photoshop for my music magazine was a lot easier after constructing my school magazine because I was familiar with the basic tools, I gained experience, and this experience then helped me to contruct my music magazine. I feel my skills have progressed and I hope this transformation is shown through my work. In my preliminary task, I only showed basic skills, my images were pixellated, my fonts and font colours didn't compliment my other work. I then rectified these problems in my music magazine. I developed my image cutting skills, I chose a colour scheme which was right for me, and for my audience, and I learnt to make my images non-pixellated so that they were much easier to see.
