• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I have now completed all the tasks on this project and I am also quite happy with the outcome of my magazine cover and contents page, with this finished i have learnt the key items a student magazine needs to be successfull. It needs many different features to interest the reader such as articles about problems that relate to the age group that the magazine is targeted at, features like dangers of drink driving, drug abuse and passing your driving test, these features help the readers because they are at this age and can relate to this, plus they need the info. Other key ingredients include colour pages including many images to make the magazine look like it was worth the money and to make it look more professional, there can also be quizzes, competitions and games added in the magazine to make the readers become more involved in the magazine.
The front cover is the most important part of the magazine it needs to show the features it includes without telling too much information, it needs to be able to persuade the reader into buying the magazine. It also needs to have a interesting and attractive image on the front because this will also catch the reader and persuade them to read on. It obviously needs to include a masthead and a couple of lures these need to be in a interesting font because a simple font can link into the theme that the magazine has, and the masthead needs to be in large text because it is the name of the magazine and the bold, clear writing will make the magazine look ver professional and reliable.
A typical contents page can include a few images linking into the features in the magazine, it also needs to include a clear view of the layout of the rest of the magazine, the reader can use this by skipping to the article they are interested in. It can also include different fonts again to make the magazine look interesting, to make it look even more interesting you can put the titles verticly or on an angle to use space better.
I have including many of these features in my magazine, for example on my front cover I have added a couple of lures showing some features included in my magazine like quizzes and games, also articles like the main banner which shows one of the main articles in the magazine, for example mine is on stereotyping and how this can be a problem. I have also used large text for the banner and the masthead like most magazines this makes it look more official and makes the layout look like its been well thought out. I have done a few features differently like in my magazine unfortunately i do not have any images linking to the articles in the magazine but i have used a small image of the front cover above the editorial as a introduction to the magazine, i have seen this done in many different magazines. In my research I have looked at many differnet student magazines including one from my own college, they are different in a few ways mine seems to have a bold masthead while the other has a masthead that looks like kind of a animated title with some added effects to make it look like it was written and designed by students, which it actually is.
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
I have represented teenagers by making my magazine look much more modern and stylish to fit in with the teenagers today, it also has a cover picture which is made from three different teenagers faces which i thought would work quite well but i'm not fully happy with the front cover some of the colours seem a bit too tacky. I have represented the students by adding features that help and relate to them such as the feature in mine whic was stereotyping. I have used not as images as i hoped unfortunately i do not own a very good camera but i did have a few great images taken with a friends camera which made my cover very interesting. Unfortunately with the lack of images on my contents page the ratio of text to image is quite high, so i wish i had used more images on the contents page this is something i will have to improve when i get another project similar to this.
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine offers help to the students with issues they have to live through in modern day life, this is why a magazine institution would be interested in my magazine. It also offers many great features and information they will need, we already have a student magazines which already offers some great stuff but mine is very similar it has many great articles and the layout that i created works well I think.
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my magazine would be the students of course because it has the information and features that we usually find very interesting in magazines.
• How did you attract/address your audience?
Someone would want to buy my magazine because well it relates to the difficulties that they go through and it has many features they will find interesting, i have made the front cover feature an image which includes students like the readers themselves so that they can see that the magazine has been written by students like themselves.
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt alot in this project especially using the programs on the computers to create and mess with all the things i need for my magazine cover and contents page, i have also learnt the features and images that a magazine needs to be a great magazine. I have used a few different programs including Corel Photoshop & Gimp for the images and contents page setup, i also used Windows publisher and word for some of the layout designs for the pages. For the images to be put on the computer i used a mobile phone and a digital camera for some other images so that i could later adapt them on photoshop. I must also mention the help that i have had from fellow media students and thank them for all there suggestions thay have given me.
