John Wood evaluated his media magazine project. He followed conventions of real magazines in his front cover, contents page, and double page spread. For the front cover, he used a masthead, cover lines, and placed the barcode and price in the bottom right corner, taking inspiration from magazines like Vibe. He kept his color scheme consistent throughout. His contents page included page numbers, a chart list on the side, and a subscribe box. The double page spread featured an image on one side and text on the other. Overall, he strove to make his mock magazine look as professional and realistic as possible by adhering to standard magazine formats and designs.
2. IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OR REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS: FRONT COVER
My Music Magazine follows many codes and conventions like any
other magazine that is being sold today. The first code and
convention I have used is the ‘Mast Head’ which is the ‘T10T’ title
at the top of my page. It is very important when creating my Mast
Head because it gives my magazine its identity. I had to make it so
it is eye catching yet simple so that people will remember it the
next time they see it. To test and see which ‘Mast Head’ looked
best I tried different fonts. The type of fonts I used where Arial but I
felt it wasn’t bold enough for my mast head. I also tried Calibri
which also looked to thin. I then spotted the ‘Franklin Gothic
Heavy’ text and felt that this worked best as it is easily readable, it
looks good and it is very bold and stands out. I have used the
‘White’ colour text for my Mast Head as It stands out from my blue
themed background of the image. I took inspiration from the
‘VIBE’ magazine as shown above (top left of this slide), As the
white text worked really well against the blue theme setting and it
looks very good and it will attract the teenage age audience as
of which I am trying to achieve. I also took inspiration from it as I
have made the person in my image ‘black and white’ as It looks
good and it also stands out from the blue background.
3. I have used another code and convention when
creating my magazine front cover, this is a thing called
‘Lure’ this means that I have put something on my page
that will persuade people to buy the magazine, for
example on my magazine I have added ‘Lisa Rankin
Give Us some inspirational tips’ this may then persuade
people to buy this. An example of where this has been
used is in the NME magazine shown below, it tells us that
there are 6 free posters in this magazine, this is slightly
different to what my magazine is offering but it is still
selling you something and my text on the front page will
persuade the person to buy the magazine.
Another convention that I have used when creating my magazine
is that I have added a barcode and price at the bottom ride
hand-side of the page, this is so that the shop keeper can scan it
to check how much the magazine is when a customer is buying it
off them. An example from a magazine who also put the bar
code in the bottom right-hand side corner of the page is the VIBE
magazine shown above.
IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE
FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OR REAL
MEDIA PRODUCTS: FRONT COVER
4. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions or real media products: Front Cover
I have followed another
convention when creating my
magazine and that is I have not
put any text on the person’s face
on my magazine. I stuck by this
convention as I think it looks better
to do it this way and looks much
more professional.
I have also added artists names
down the side of the page, I got
the inspiration of this from the
magazine on the bottom right of
this page as I thought it would be
suitable as I am creating a ‘chart
music’ magazine and it is
basically informing the buyer of
who is inside this magazine. I
chose the black colour text as it is
a different colour from everything
else on the page and it makes it
stand out from everything else so
the buyer may spot it easily due to
this.
I have added a website link to the front
page so that the reader can visit the
website if they need to find out any extra
information on my magazine, I have used
a slightly glowing texting to catch the
readers eye so it is easy to find.
My magazine also has a main cover line
which is ‘R-Jay & Waz-T Return’ I used this as it
sounds really interesting to readers and will
instantly make them want to buy this if they
like the sound of this main cover line whereas
if it was really boring they would be put off
buying the magazine. I have created this text
using photo shop CS5, this is to first of all give
the top line a glow affect, and then to also
make the bottom line ‘return’ to make it very
bold so that it stands out, I chose the colour
white and blue to match my colour scheme
as they both go really well together.
I tried facing the girl in the image the
opposite way as theories say that it is
meant to look better but I felt that
facing the person in the image this
way look a lot better. I took
inspiration of this from a magazine
with Taylor Swift on facing the exact
same way. Shown on the right is the
magazine cover that I used to get
this inspiration.
5. IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OR REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS: CONTENTS
PAGE
• My Contents page theme is
very similar to my main
magazine theme, I did not
make many changes to the
colour scheme but I did add
more colour such as ‘red and
pink’ due to that on a grey
background these colours
stood out really well and felt
that they worked better than
the blue’s or black colour
text.
I have followed codes and
conventions of other
magazines by adding the
page numbers to each
contents to inform readers
where everything is in the
magazine so that they can
navigate themselves around
it easily.
I used other conventions in my
contents page such as the ‘Chart list’
down the side of the page, I took
inspiration from the magazine NME
where they have a band index down
the side of the page, but since I am
creating a chart music magazine I
have replaced that for a ‘chart list’
instead as I think it would be more
suitable for this magazine.
I have also added a ‘subscribe’ box to make
this contents page seem more realistic, I took
the inspiration from the NME magazine on
the left, I have made it look very similar yet
using my colour scheme so that it fits in with
my magazine.
6. IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OR REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS: DOUBLE
PAGE SPREADOnce again I have kept my
colour scheme when creating
my double page spread
also, this is to make it seem
very professional throughout. I
have used conventions in this
magazine as I have put an
image of the left hand side of
the page and I have put
mostly all of the text on the
other side. I took inspiration
from the Kerrang magazine
shown below.
I have used conventions of a
real magazine also by adding a
‘main heading’ on this page to
inform the readers what all of
the text on this page is going to
be about, I haven’t used that
much text for my article as I
didn’t want to bore the reader, I
have given them enough
information to keep them
interested.
I have used a drop capital
which indicates the start of
my article, I used this as it
makes the magazine seem
most realistic and
professional. I asked media
students in my class and
there opinions of this was
that it made it look very
professional.
7. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
REPRESENT DIFFERENT SOCIAL GROUPS?
• My magazine is aims at the younger audience
of people who are interested in all the different
types of music in the charts. Roughly the young
teenage audience to the young adult
audience so around 11-22 year olds. For my
front cover I have tried to make the person in
magazine look like Rihanna or a typical famous
female singer. I have tried to give the whole
magazine a new modern look, as the charts are
always producing the newest and best songs
up-to-date so I have tried to keep up with this. I
have tried to make the person in my magazine
look as good as possible as it will fit in with the
chart music genre as on most magazine such
as ‘vibe/billboard’ they have also done the
same thing to impress the buyer.My magazine
clearly proves that the genre is ‘chart music’ as
for start it mention all artists on the front page
who are in the charts and secondly on my
contents page it had a ‘top of the charts’ top
10 list which makes it pretty obvious that it is a
chart music magazine.
8. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT
DISTRIBUTE YOUR MAGAZINE PRODUCT AND
WHY?
• The media institution I would like to publish magazine would have to be
Intermedia as they also own the magazine ‘Vibe’ which mine is quite similar
to. They also own radio stations which they show on their website. They
advertise the vibe magazine on there website giving people offers to
encourage them to buy the magazine. They also advertise it to many shops.
This would be good for me as the more advertisement I can get the better
as I am bound to sell more copies of it and build a wider audience every
day and end up having a world wide audience. When this starts to happen
‘T10T’ magazine will go from just being a magazine to a brand, this means
that it is a very world wide known magazine and everybody will know what it
is, like the magazine ‘Vibe’ most teenage magazine readers will know what
this magazine is.
10. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND ADDRESS
YOUR AUDIENCE?
• As the front cover is the first
page of the magazine it has to
be eye-catching and look
really good so that the reader
will want to instantly buy this
magazine. I have purposely
chosen a good looking girl for
my front cover as if it was
someone not so good looking
they may be put off buying it.
This can be linked to attracting
males as if I used an ugly
girl/woman for my front cover
they may not want to buy it.
But since I have used this girl
for my cover they will hopefully
be more attracted to it. I have
made the girl on the front
cover in black and white to
make her stand out
completely from by blue
themed background, I feel this
was a good idea as apart from
the mast head, this is one of
the first things that they will see
when buying this magazine.
I have also used quotes
on my front cover to
persuade females to buy
this magazine. This is
because on the quotes I
put on it, it will make girls
think that hey can make
themselves look better
and get tips from famous
female singers. This will
instantly persuade them
into buying this magazine
as it is giving them
exactly what they want
to see in this magazine.I have also included the main
heading ‘R-JAY & WAZ-T
RETURN’ which may make the
audience very interested into
reading more about the
magazine reading the new
latest gossip.
11. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND
ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
I also attracted my audience by
picking a good price for my
magazine which is not to
cheap, but not to expensive so it
is affordable for most people to
buy and so they do not think that
it is a ‘rip-off’ and give it bad
reviews, this all took a lot of
thinking through… I have done
this to try and give my magazine
a good value for its music and
make it seem like it is worth
something so that people will
actually buy my magazine.
12. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT AND
ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?
It wasn’t till looking at my second draft of
my magazine that I realised, will people
know what ‘T10T’ actually stands for? I
thought it through and came up with an
idea. The idea was that at the top of my
front page I should write at the top of
magazine somewhere ‘Top 10 Tunes’ so
they will know what it means. As you can
see on my draft of my front cover I never
did this, but on my final copy I did and I
believe it looks far better. I realised that
my opinion wasn’t enough though, so I
asked media students in my class what
they thought of it and they all thought it
looks far better and much more
professional.
DRAFT ^^ FINAL COPY ^^
13. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT
THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES
• As mostly all of my project was created over the computer I used many
different programmes and tools to create my final over all front
cover, double page spread and contents page magazine covers.
The first programme I used when creating
my whole project was blogger. Blogger is
the place will I will be posting all of my
work so I feel this is most important. It will
help show throughout my work my
introduction, my research and
planning, my final outcome and now this
evaluation which I will be posting on when
it is finished. It allows me to post anything I
want that will help me with my final
product in the end which have no been
completed.
14. ANOTHER PROGRAMME I HAVE
USED IS ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS5
• I have used this programme to basically edit all of the
images used in both my prelim task and my final magazine
covers. We were taught how to use Photoshop in our
media lessons in school so that we new how to use all of
the tools when it came to editing our photo’s so that they
looked as good and professional as possible. This software
lets me use the type of following tools:
• The tools I used to edit this image was firstly the polygon lasso tool
where I would highlight around the person in the image then I
would then go to image then click black and white and would
give that affect. I would then go to select and click on inverse to it
would then instead highlight the background which I then went on
to image then colour balance and change the background to this
blue colour. I tried other blues but I felt this was the best.
• I also used the crop tool which I used to crop off any unnecessary
parts of the image off for example anything else in the background
of the image.
• Also the ‘text tool’ which is the ‘T’ button, when clicking on this then
clicking on the age allows you to write text on the page, this
involves editing the text in size, colour and style that you want it in
for your work. You can do this by selecting the its tab then edits
what it looks like on there.
• I also used the ‘move’ tool which is a cursor that you click on which
allows you to move things around on your document such as
images and text into a position which you think looks best etc.
15. LASTLY, I HAVE USED ‘PUBLISHER’
• Publisher is a programme in Microsoft Office. It
allows you to create leaflets, posters, magazine
and booklets etc. It is used by many business to
create leaflets etc. for advertising their business
and many, many other things. I have used
Microsoft publisher to create my magazine. It was
a main tool in the whole process as I create my
mock ups, prelim task and now my final magazine
covers. I felt that it was very easy and simple to use
and is very easy to get the hang of. I did however
have to use Photoshop when creating the text for
my magazine but when creating the layout and
everything else this is the programme I used. I feel
that it went very well as it has helped me to
produce my over outcome of the 3 magazine
pages. As shown on the right is an example of me
using publisher when using it to create my
contents page.
16. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO
YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION TO THE
FULL FINISHED PRODUCT?
• I feel that since my preliminary task, I have learnt many new things. Since creating my Deyes High
School magazine I have had more experience editing images on Photoshop. This experience
helped me to understand how much time I needed to spend on my overall product in order to
make it look professional and good enough for people to buy.
I felt that my preliminary task was extremely basic and looks like I
didn’t have a clue what I was doing when creating the product. So
before creating my final product I had a bit more practice and
have ended up producing a magazine cover of a much higher
standard. I have used a lot more of Photoshop that I used for my
preliminary task, I feel that this was a good idea as I got to explore
and have a look at many different text ideas to produce my over
text for my pages, that’s including giving my texts a ‘glow’ or even
just making it really both, like my mast head on my front cover.
I also referred back to publisher a lot using the guides on the page
to make sure everything was very tidy and looked professional when
on my preliminary task I never did this, I think now my overall
outcome it far better as it has proven to look much more
professional than my first task.
After researching more magazine getting tips and ideas it helped
aid my final overall outcome of my 3 pages of my magazine. When
I created my magazine I did not really do much research, I
analysed another school magazine cover but that was also very
basic and did not give me many tips when it came to creating a
new modern music magazine.
17. MORE PROGRESSION FROM MY PRELIMINARY TASK TO MY FINAL MAGAZINE
• When creating my preliminary task I used a very basic mast
head created on publisher. For my final magazine front cover I
created my mast head using Photoshop, I used the text tool then
picked the text style ‘Franklin Gothic Heavy’ and made it extra
bold and white and a perfect size whereas I could not do this on
my preliminary task. I think that my overall mast head looks
professional and really good and will now give my magazine its
identity of a new modern up to date ‘chart music’ magazine. I
also learnt that it looked better to put my mast head in the
middle of the page in bold writing instead of squashing it all on
one side like my preliminary task. I have made it seem like it is a
world wide known magazine by putting the image over my mast
head where as I did not do this on my preliminary task.
A suggestion was given to me by my class mates that I should have
an image covering my whole background of my magazine as I did
not do this on my preliminary task. I have now done this with my
final front cover and it looks very professional and really good.
18. MORE PROGRESSION FROM MY
PRELIMINARY TASK TO MY FINAL
MAGAZINE
Another suggestion was given to me to have quotes on my
front page as I did not do this on my preliminary task. I have
added 2 quotes on this page to show what people are
saying inside my magazine to attract them to buy it so that
they can read what is inside.
Another suggestion to me was I should have a big bold
heading on my front cover that will instantly catch the
readers eye and want to make them buy the magazine as I
did not do this on my preliminary task. On my final front
cover I did this and gave it s glow affect using Photoshop
tools to make it look very professional etc.
My last suggestion for my final outcome was to add a
barcode to my front cover. I did not use one on my deyes
high magazine as I felt that it was not needed, but I have
gone and put one on my magazine and it looks very
professional like a real magazine. I have put it in the bottom
corner of the page as that is where most magazines would
put there barcode.
19. MORE PROGRESSION FROM MY
PRELIMINARY TASK TO MY FINAL
MAGAZINE
• The difference in creating these to
magazines was that with my preliminary
task I only used publisher to create it
whereas on my music magazine
contents page I used Photoshop as well
which I believe has made it look much
more professional than my deyes high
version of the contents page. For
example of the mast head I only used
the publisher font creator, whereas on
the music magazine contents page I
used Photoshop and gave my mast
head ‘THIS MONTH’ a bit of a glow to
make it stand out and clear enough to
know what page you are on. To make
sure my final product was professional I
used the guides on publisher to make
sure that everything was net and tidy.
20. MORE PROGRESSION FROM MY
PRELIMINARY TASK TO MY FINAL MAGAZINE
• When looking back at my preliminary task
with other media students we both decided
that my ‘Deyes Magazine’ contents page
was quite boring and not had much on the
page apart from a bit of text and a few
images. When creating my drafts of my
contents page I had to take this into
consideration and make sure it was detailed
and to make it look as realistic/professional
as possible. I feel I achieved this as I have
spoken to other media students once again
and they think that this is far better and looks
much more professional than my deyes high
magazine.