Forms and Conventions In what ways does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines? I made a clear attempts to adhere to conventions of music magazines as we can see on the following slide by looking at examples of real magazines being compared to mine. From these comparisons we see how my magazine uses conventions of real music magazines. I believe giving my own magazine a bright masthead with the neon lights look reflects the genre very well too. I used very colourful writing for the sell lines which made the whole front cover stand out and make it more appealing to its readers. The model in the image is also welcoming as she has a supersmiler, even though she isn’t dressed very pop-like style which is meant to be colourful, loud and extravagant. I could say that this develops forms and conventions of real music magazines because even though she is a pop artist, her life doesn’t revolve just around pop and the big funky fashion. This is meant to show what a normal day in Vanja Johanson’s life is like so that explains her mise- en-scene.

Forms and Conventions: Comparisons

Representational Issues How does your magazine represent particular social groups? On the front cover of my magazine, the model is a young, white, female artist who makes pop music. On this issue she represents one particular group in society and that’s of white women however this is due to the issue and the fact that usually there is just one artist/model at the front covers of magazines. But my magazine represents different groups in different issues which means that the following issue might be a male or a black/white or Asian female/male or a pop band of different mixed groups of people. Also the model is not shown as a conventional pop artist who is all glamorous, with big hair, big jewellery and colourful clothes, but instead she is wearing something more casual showing what she would wear in a day to day basis. Which shows her as an independent artist. She isn’t trying to be like anybody else, she is herself.

Institutions What kind of institution might distribute your magazine and why? I believe that if my magazine was a real magazine, it would be a mainstream magazine with a large audience and due to its demand, it would have to be published by a big company like IPC media and it would then be distributed to businesses like WHSmith; which sells a wide range of magazines and it’s one of the biggest newsagents in the market, also supermarkets, newsagents in general, etc. However, because it’s a magazine aimed at teenagers and these days teenagers are highly technological, it might also be distributed online. Since teenagers spend a lot of time on internet it would allow them to have an easy access to it.

Target Audience Who would be the target audience for your magazine? The target audience for my magazine will be people who like the pop genre and young people between the ages of 12& 20. It also appeals to both men and women and people in general who enjoy pop music, famous pop artists and the pop environment. Although it is more likely to be read by females due to the use of the colours lime green and coral.

Addressing the readership How did you attract / address your audience? I attracted my audience through various different techniques, I created a questionnaire in which one of the questions asked was whether or not they would want to see celebrity gossip in it and most people said they would so I decided to put some celebrity gossip in my magazine which can be found on the contents, I also used a few images to attract the audience as in my questionnaire they would all prefer to see lots of images. Another technique I used was the colourful writing on the front cover to attract readers, the model with a supersmiler on the front cover to appear welcoming to the audience and I tried making sell lines also very eye-catching.

Technical/ Construction Issues What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing your magazine? (software, photography etc) I have learnt a lot about technologies from the process of constructing this magazine. I have definitely learnt useful photography skills on how to get a perfect shot and the desired style of the picture. Some useful skills I have learnt with photography are things such as lighting, rule of thirds, how the model has to stay still so the picture doesn’t come out blurred, make-up, mise-en-scene/ props etc. At the beginning I wouldn’t think photography would be a huge deal but it has definitely taken a lot of hard work and many shots in order to get the right one. However, the main thing that I learnt about technologies was how to work with certain software. At the beginning of the whole coursework I didn’t have a clue on how to work with Photoshop and since we started the construction, we’ve been having Photoshop workshops in school which has taught us a lot to get to know how to work with program. We’ve learnt things such as how to manipulate pictures, images, the shade, how to write and create texts, how to create different fonts, etc.

Comparisons between prelim and main tasks. Looking back to your school magazine cover, what do you feel you have learnt between creating that and creating your music magazine? How did the school magazine task help? As we can clearly see below, on the left, there is a picture of the front cover of my preliminary task and on the right is the front cover of the main task. From them we can see that the front cover for the main task is much more sophisticated in terms of photography, sell lines and mise-en-scene. Through the preliminary task, I prepared myself and got an insight of what the actual task would be like. I got ready for things like research and it has helped me a lot to create the actual main task. We can clearly see that I have learnt a of lot of skills using new software I have never worked with before which makes my magazine have a much professional look with better quality.

Final Product