Contents Page Analysis

This contents page has typical conventions of magazine contents pages, there is a large image that is relevant to a storyline in the magazine, and the pages are advertised in a red font down the side with black text that have bigger font for the subheadings and then smaller for the information about the topics underneath these subheadings. The magazine contents page above however differs, as the pages are referred to as 'departments' which is obviously something that is connected to the magazine 'icons' and so the reader will understand that this is the style the magazine have chosen to use, the old fashioned formal style. The 'departments' are typical to conventions of magazines contents pages because they are the 'features', which is the main pages that the issue is advertising specifically as the reader dosent usually get to see these stories or content, as the features are specific to each issue, but also there may be regular content like 'news' and 'letters to the editor'.

The contents page fits to the house colour, this magazine sticks to red, black and white, even the image is in black and white, however this also may link to the old fashioned icon theme.

The contents page also has borders with information of the issue number and date to remind the reader of the magazine they are reading being constantly advertised with the date, so they know the information is new and unique to the issue/date.

This contents page is also very typical to conventions of magazine contents pages, there are images with captions that show the extra information about the image, but also reference to the cover, and content that will appear further in the magazine. There are sections of content, the 'remix', 'headliners' and 'features', the remix and headliners sections are showing that the content of this magazine is music related, and the mainstream genre is occuring with the lexis of the subheadings. We can connotate that the sections are mainstream artists that are important to the audience or maybe are the use of the words to describe importance of a range of topics, for example, 'TV' is under 'Headliners' maybe to show the popular TV content of the month/week of the issue. The features are left with more body text because they are unique to the issue so are advertised because impulse buyers will be attracted to features as they are not buying the magazine every issue, so are not loyal to the magazine.

Evaluation Of Skills Development.

7. Looking back at your premilinary task, What do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?


My Front cover my main product that is on the left image above, is the product that I produced after a very basic start with the right image of a college magazine 'ENCM', by just analysing both of the above images, you can see that I learnt a great deal about the conventions and formatting of magazine front covers. They need to be bold, clear to read and attractive to the target audience. For example of a change between the two products above, I have used a image of the model but changed the background to a back colour rather than include the original background by feathering the image so it is smooth against the background, this gives emphasis on the model rather than a unprofessional magazine image that includes the classroom. The model on 'Buzz' also has a outer glow, and has been adjusted to colour so that she is black and white which relates to the house-colour, something which isnt clear at all in my premilinary task.
The use of conventions on 'Buzz' magazine cover are much clearer to the audience and much more typical to a real magazine than 'ENCM' magazine cover, for example.. 'Buzz' has bold coverlines that have a range of font type, and colour to show the difference between a coverline title and the coverline information underneath. The premilinary task failed in the coverline perspective as they are uneadable in certain parts of the cover due to the background clashing with the font colour, something that I learnt about Photoshop that you can change font colour very precisely within changing a very small part of the text or maybe even just half of a letter so that the background dosent cover the text you want to attract the audience with.
I have also used a sticker on the 'Buzz' magazine, as I know that they are typical to magazines that are advertising something inside that may be content or a competition. Also, the headline of the name of the magazine is clear, bold, and stands out from a far distance rather than the 'ENCM' premilinary cover that fails to stand out, and is not the main eye-catcher to the cover like it should be. The barcode looks alot more part of the magazine cover itself on the main task product rather than the premilinary, as the white background on the barcode section on the 'ENCM' cover looks extremely unprofessional and cheap.
The coverlines on the front cover of 'Buzz' also start with a subject, the subject being 'EXCLUSIVE' at the top attracts the audience to that issue, so people who are impulse buyers may see that issue and be attracted to the magazine that month in particular, and solus readers who are loyal will be attracted to see what exclusive content the magazine has to offer that month. However, my premilinary task has unspecific content under each subject as the reader will know nothing about the genre of the magazine from the cover, the audience that should be targeted is not clear at all, 'Buzz' contains conventions that make the 'Indie' target audience clear. 'ENCM' could appeal to anyone in the college, because of the lack of direction to advertising the content and style of the cover.
The overall complexity of the magazine cover has increased a fair deal, the layers and image editing in Photoshop is more effective to the audience rather than the simple basic editing and cutting of the image for the premilinary task. By gathering results that I have shown on my blog to prove the preparation of understanding the audience that I wanted to target and what they would want from my magazine, as well as how the magazine should come across.
On my premilinary task, the cover was based on something that I designed without full knowledge of format, conventions and looking at a range of real magazine covers, this may be the consequence of the cover being so unprofessional, whereas with more knowledge of real music magazine front covers, analyzing them, I came up with the main product of 'Buzz' that seemed more professional.




The images above are: on the left, my main product contents page, and on the right, the premilinary contents page. The two are very different, again, due the lack of understanding of conventions and editing of magazine contents pages. The premilinary task is very simple Photoshop uses, like the boxing, and using the shape tool to line out certain areas for different information. The main product content page contains one simple bold title next to a indentical headline of 'Buzz' next to the 'contents' title, this advertises the magazine again, the constant reminder of the brand name makes the reader fixed on the magazine and influences them to be loyal to the brand name. This technique is also used in real magazines, so this made my main task more realistic to magazine formatting. The date issue is at the top of the main product magazine contents page, so the reader knows what issue they are reading, so are not confused by any content that may not be relevant as much by the end of the month or the next months issue. In contrast to this, my premilinary task had no dates on the contents page, this may effect the professional look and reliability of the magazine.


Again, I used a image that was cut, feathered, shadowed, and colour adjusted so that the image appeared professional and in-place in the contents, the 'ENCM' magazine doesnt show an image, but if it did, it would probably be untidy, with clear selection failures, where my basic skills were letting the magazines appearance down. For 'Buzz' I used real magazine contents pages to come up with a style model for mine, using similar colours of the numbers and seperation of the features and regular contents, completing a tidy, order of appeal to the issue itself (featurs first) and didnt overwhelm the readers with contents, like in 'ENCM', most page numbers are shown, whereas there is more mystery to the rest of the magazine in 'Buzz', giving a modern style to it.


By applying text features like shadowing, glows, and font size and manipulation to look a certain way the text looks more readable and professional to the reader, also by layers that make the editing of the text alot easier to do rather than in the premilinary with large text boxes.


The only thing that I didnt use on the main task contents page was the synergy of media platforms, the use of a website on the premilinary task is a choice that may advertise the website rather than the contents of the actual magazine, I chose to keep the synergy of E-media to the double page spread, so that the website isnt advertised when I didn't think it was relevant to what is in the magazine itself.


The double page spread above is my main task product, something that I didnt create as part of the premilinary task, so being thrown straight into designing something without having any knowledge or practice of the product was something that made the spread a harder task to complete. However, I feel that with constant learning of Photoshop effects like warping text to fit around images, gutters created by changing text box sizes with rulers that seperate the page into sections so it was much easier to create borders, space and guttering of the body text. The premilinary of the double page spread would probably be equally as unprofessional and unclear to the audience that is targeted as the contents and cover, so with the spread, I used the house colours, story that was relevant to the cover advertising and something that the target audience (age and style) could relate to and understand completely. I also looked and analysed typical magazine double page spreads on Google, the conventions used, such as borders, headline, kicker, drop caps, side-bar, images, captions, pull quotes etc, these were applied to the main task and I felt that the double page looked like it could appear in a real magazine, using page numbers also helped link the contents page to the spread.
For the double page spread, I wrote a draft article, using my english skills too to make the story a success, keeping the audience interested, constantly reminding yourself that the story is aimed at the 'Indie' readers that will be attracted to the magazine due to the main features which included this article. The skills development during this project were definately due to the learning of conventions, using Photoshop to its potential and having more knowledge on what these products should look like and appear to get a target audience.


The overall development of research for my premilinary task to my main task was extremely different, firstly, I didn't research and question a random selection of people who could be interested in my 'ENCM' mag, contrasted with the main task as I set up a specific questionnaire on SurveyMonkey, to properly plan my main task by knowing my audience.

Evaluation of Technologies.

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

I used the sites of Flickr, Blogger, SuveryMonkey, Google and Photoshop when it came to editing and bringing my products together as well as the preparation for the products with my planning tasks and analysis of real magazine covers and double page spreads.

The logos above are of the programs I used for the production, analysis and editing of my preparation and main task products. I used Flickr to upload photos of magazine covers and double page spreads to add notes to and then forward to my blog, Flickr made me able to add important notes to my preparation work so that I understood the conventions of real magazines and how I then could apply this to my own work.
I used Blogger to display my whole project, the main tasks, preparation, analysis of real magazines and my research. It allowed me to keep updating my work and editing things that needed editing. Blogger is easy to use and straight forward, with a efficient way of presenting my work in particular categories and order.

I used SurveryMonkey to advertise a survey that I linked to my facebook, so that all of my facebook friends had access to the survey and could complete the survey that asked all questions that I displayed in the product planning section of the coursework in charts. The site made me able to ask specific questions that would allow me to know the exact content that should be in my magazine. The use of the survey maker would be easier and more efficient than simply collecting results as I wouldnt know who was answering the survey and so there would be a wide variety of people including my target audience.
I used Google to research conventions of existing magazines, as well as the format of real magazines so I could analyze some magazine covers and double page spreads on Flickr, once found typical similar magazine models as 'Buzz' would be. Google also helped me search for my institutions so that I found a company that would be likely to publish my magazine.
I used Photoshop to create my main products, the preliminary tasks using Photoshop helped me learn the basic uses of Photoshop, as I didn't know much about the program, so I was worried about how I would be able to edit my magazine and make it have the same format and conventions as real magazines. However, when I had started on the main task, I found that I was learning about Photoshop, applying it to my work and developing my skills of using the program. I used cropping, magic wand tool and shapes that would help me edit my pictures by cutting out backgrounds and unwanted parts of the pictures to make them look effective and naturally on my page. Also I learnt how to use 'rulers' that outlined the doubtle spread into sections so that I was able to write in specific columns and have straight border lines so the magazine looked more professional and tidy. Using layers was something that I learnt was very important in Photoshop, at first I just had lots of layers that were in order, and I needed to get certain layers on top of existing ones, this is something that I learnt whilst using the program. I was able to change the image size to fit in with the surrounding texts, make texts smaller in certain parts and change colours of text when they overlapped with images. I feel that I used Photoshop well, though there is still so much I have to learn about how to use it because there's so many techniques of editing and there is so many effects that I didn't learn about.
I was proud of the images of the double page spread and the contents page as I had to edit these closely so they fitted in with the background rather than having small white areas and parts of the image that weren't supposed to be on the page.

Addressing of Audience Evaluation.

5. How did you attract/address your target audience?

'Buzz' is a magazine that will address its audience with a friend-like persona, the content will be written as to inform in a friendly, indie, more-knowledgable way that will allow the reader to connect and almost become connected to the writer. The writer's style of being an upbeat and friend-like is more attractive to the audience as they will not feel the magazine is authoritive because the target audience is one who dosent like being told what to do, what to wear and what to listen to, as they are people who are individual to their own idenity. So I feel the magazine will have more success if the content is written in a non-authoritive way that connects both writer and consumer.
My magazine attracts my target audience through the use of language that links to the type of language the audience in every day life. Language on my DP is formal to an extent because the magazine will have educated young adults reading it, by hiding swear words with ***, the formality and stays in the up-market style. The language of pronouns like 'you' and 'welcome' suggest that the magazine is directly talking to the reader, giving the reader a engagement with the magazine, therefore feeling like they can be loyal to 'Buzz'.
The style of 'Indie' groups and individual styles of fashion and music, directs the attention to that target audience, the audience will feel like they can relate to the magazine because of the care in the content being so well-fitted to their style. The addressing of the audience using the style of 'Indie' and competitions etc, events and even lifestyle is a way of being able to sell the magazine, as the reader will be directly interested in the contents and the advertisements that address the audience because they relate to the products that would interest the readers.
My front cover above, uses all the techniques that give my magazine the addressing of the audience. The genre is clear of 'Indie' by the use of the model with the representation she gives to the audience, the types of bands like 'The Arctic Monkeys' that attract the audience because they are not of the mainstream genre. The unique selling points that are seen in the cover is the exclusive features that will be in each issue, like the talk with Sophie from 'The Trick' and the fact that 'Buzz' is selling at a lower price than similar magazines, with a large content of music, fashion, events, lifestyle and interviews and involvement in prizes.
The layout of the magazine cover is spacious, with typical conventions of a magazine cover that addresses the audience because its typical to content and the way that the layout allows the reader not to be overwhelmed by information is something that will make it appealing to purchase.

The layout of the Double Page Spread, is in coloumns with gutters to space out the writing, this allows the audience to see the text clearly in a order, as well as having space so they are not overwhelmed with text. The double page spread links to the audience and addresses them as the reader may be in the same shoes or have the same problems as Sophie did in her story. The involvement of a young person who would probably be the target audience herself gives the audience a feel that they can relate and personalize the story.
Addressing the reader through 'Prizes' and 'Events' is attracting the audience to what they want to purchase or go to, so the magazine will be able to persuade the audience to buy the magazine because of the content of events that appeal to them and the prizes that appeal to them directly due to their 'Style' and age group. I asked for feedback about all the contents of my magazine, asking people what they thought could be included, what people were interested in, particularly people who would be my exact target audience. The production process was helped by the quizzing of people, who would give information about what they expect from a magazine, willingness to pay a certain amount and what exactly their style is and how music relates to the style or not.

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?

4.Who would be the audience for your media product?



The images above represent examples of the types of people for my magazine, they show their fashion style is very important to them and their music most likely links strongly to their 'indie' style. 'Buzz' magazine is aimed at the group of probably A-C1 on the socio-economic scale because the target age range is 16-25 year olds, which means that they will either be students or first-time jobs that are not professional or of high-quality with a large income, the target audience will be on a lower income so I think my price is reasonable when it comes to the income the audience may range to. However, the high level on the socio-economic scale is due to the students will be classified by their parents jobs and the university and first time jobs will be high on the economic scale as they will have more achieving jobs than lower pay and untrained jobs.
The psycho-graphical profile of the target audience I believe is 'Individuals', because they are trying to be unique, with their fashion style, their music and their opinions. They don't follow any particular trends that are mainstream, and the age range means that they are not ' Suceeders' because they most likely are on a lower budget than older readers. The acronym of the psycho-graphical profile that fits my target audience I believe is YAKS, the young, adventurous, keen and single, the readers are probably fitting into this group due to age, and their attitudes being ambitious.
The target audience I think would have a lifestyle that is busy, because they are either studying at college or university or have first time jobs that will be demanding so that they can work up the career ladder in what they have chosen to do for experience as well as competing against so many other young people who need work. The lifestyle section of 'Buzz' magazine will relate to the problems and discuss topics that are relevant to their lives, the age range is typical of problems that need solving because they are going to be looking at magazines for advice with money, housing, careers, university and relationships.
The target audience, being 'Indie', or known to not want to involve themselves in mainstream music and clothes, will listen to 'Indie' bands, or bands and singers that are not well-known, and ones that may be well-known but have stuck to a alternative style that makes them different to mainstream chart artists. This is why I will include music that will interest these 'Indie' readers, for example, 'The Arctic Monkeys'.

I think that the particular target audience would buy my magazine as they would have an option rather than relying on the only similar magazine to 'Buzz' which is 'NME', except my magazine is cheaper and has more on lifestyle and fashion than 'NME'. I think that the price of '£2.10' is very reasonable due to 'NME' having a price of £2.20 but being weekly rather than monthly, so my magazine has a great deal of content for a cheaper price than a weekly magazine that is similar. The target audience will also be interested in the magazine because the magazine centres on lifestyle, music, fashion and events, the features are always attractive to the target audience as they are exclusive to the issue with information and interviews relative to 'Indie' bands and singers.
Advertisers are extremely important to the profits of magazines, the adverts need to be relevant to the target audience so that advertisers will pay for their adverts to be in your magazine. I think that 'Buzz' magazine would be successful when advertising CD's, Gig tickets, clothing that will relate to certain brands like 'Fred Perry', 'Lyle&Scott' and maybe even 'Abercrombie&Fitch', but I feel that Topshop, and vintage shops could advertise, for example, 'Beyond Retro'. The fashionable adverts are inspiring the individuality for the readers whilst pleasing readers that don't dress as uniquely as some 'Indie' readers.


The other advert types that are not clothes could be beauty products, 'Indie' female readers will be attracted to makeup, hairspray, nail varnish and hair products or dyes. The male readers will also be attracted to adverts like hairspray, gel, hairdye and maybe even spot treatment. Adverts that appear in 'NME' are things like clothes from specific bands, album promotions and phone adverts, for example: Blackberry Messengers. I think that 'Buzz' would also include all these things, but I would be able to charge more as the magazine is a monthly magazine rather than only being on sale for a week.

Evaluation of Institutions

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

I think that my magazine would be suggested as being published by the company of IPC, which is a very successful multi-national media company.
The advantages of publishing with this company would be that they are well-known, successful and most glossy upmarket magazines are published by IPC, including the music magazine that influenced my magazine, NME. Another advantage being that IPC would have connections to selling points around the world, with distributions in W H SMITH and supermarkets, etc. However there are also disadvantages like the fact the focus of the company is men, mass-market women and upmarket women, when my Magazine Buzz, is targeting young audiences of both genders. As well as the disadvantage that the company will not be reliant on Buzz for income, so they could drop the magazine if it wasn't as successful as they needed it to be for them to publish it. The IPC may also focus primarily on advertising revenue rather than the content of the magazine itself, this might affect what Buzz actually contains in articles and content valuable to the reader because of focus on adverts.
Although, a important disadvantage of IPC is that NME is similar to my Buzz magazine, by having a similar target demographic and the style of 'Indie music' rather than mainstream bands, so the rivalry of the magazines under the same publisher may cause problems. In contrast, it could be a good thing because they are varied, but NME being a huge success may interpret that Buzz could become as big as a success as NME. I feel that IPC would still be the best publishing company as the magazine is upmarket, alike to NME and distribution would be successful in the company's like W H SMITH.
My magazine would have a website, so the magazine would have synergy of two media platforms, print and e-media. The website would allow the audience who are growingly updating their technology and using e-media more often than they are buying magazines to be able to visit Buzz, keeping loyalty to the brand name, but using the website rather or as well as the magazine. The target audience of young people often visit websites for their magazines, music and fashion so Buzz's website may be just as popular as the magazine, maybe even more so, so this makes the synergy of both media platforms important. The magazine needs to have enough profit to keep running whilst a website is running too, if the website is bringing in almost all the profits and more popular than the magazine then perhaps the magazine would be stopped and the website continued instead.
Similar magazines, like NME, have a wide mass of synergy, they have Print, E-media which is their own website, a music channel on TV- so a broadcast platform too. The NME is a popular, well-known brand name that appears on all media platforms, so the promotion has been a success, from turning a magazine into a multi-national success online and by 'NME tours' that bring bands together every year for gigs around the country. I think that Buzz magazine would be able to do the same thing if the magazine was a success.
Another reason for IPC, is that the marketing, distribution and circulation management is all handled by the sister company, MarketForce, that maxises oppurtunity and helps the magazine flourish, no matter what type of magazine it is. So I feel that because of MarketForce, IPC working with this company would make 'Buzz' a success because all factors of selling the magazine itself would be handled.

Representation

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I wanted to attract the audience age range of 16-25 year olds, the age range is for mostly students of college or university, so the readers are interested in the young music genre that involves festivals, gigs and fashion with lifestyle. The type of reader stereo-typically aimed for is an 'indie kid' or someone who is not interested in the mainstream music and fashion style that everyone else follows.

My main image is of Sophie who has very similar representation to the real magazine model, as shown in the image above, both girls have the blank expression which shows carelessness and confidence in their self image. Both are long shots that contain the 'indie' clothing and long hair that appears effortless, the type of style that the readers will appeal for, and they would look a both images with the same interpretation of the confident indie girls that they can admire or look up to as role models. By using longshots rather than close-up's, it gives the model a physical appearance for her body not her character, also allowing the model to cover emotion and appear to have confidence in their own skin.
The difference being that the real magazine cover girl is looking directly at the camera whilst Sophie is acting more laid back for the cover, as that's the type of mood I wanted to portray for her. However, both images are youthful, and attract the specific audience stereo-type that I intended for. Both girls seem confident with their style but also the gender issue of girls being in their own control not displayed as sex objects that appeal to male readers, because my magazine is for both genders so this wouldn't really fit the aim of the model. They are there to inspire role models for the female readers but also be attractive to the male readers.
The clothing represents the subculture of 'Indie' of both models, Mine being showing a typical shoe brand that is attractive for the subculture, but the rest of the image is no branding whereas the other real model dosent show any particular brand name shown, that's because 'Indie kids' appreciate individuality rather than mainstream branding. The representation of my target audience is fashionable, unique and opinionated with an attitude that isn't negative to the eye of mainstream adults but happy in their own skin., with beauty and confidence. The promotion of converse may be a controversial argument about the front cover image but there is no particular aim for the advertisement of any clothing on the image. However the bands are advertised on the cover, but no particular brand names or advertising of any kind on the cover, the advertisements settle under the content like 'Fashion','Events' and 'Music' etc.
The use of bands that are under the 'alternative' or 'indie' genre allows the audience to be able to see the front cover and connect with the bands, perhaps ones that they havent heard of before, because 'indie' people want to explore new bands that add to their style by portraying this through their music. I think that if I advertised mainstream music that appeared in the 'charts' or 'top 40' then the magazine would be much less successful as it would undermine the individuality of the readers needs and become aimed at a different audience altogether, so by advertising less well-known and 'indie' bands, then the readers that I aimed for are more likely to buy the magazine.
I feel the content of the magazine also is aimed specifically at the 'Indie' culture as it allows fashion to be a important section, and self-image is very important to most stereo-type groups and with fashion pages, the readers can browse at clothes that suit their style and advertises the shops they choose to go into. I think that the typical 'Indie' reader would take alot of pride in their style, as I feel that they are stereo-typically one of the most dress-sense consious groups under all groups (such as goths, emos, mainstream, skaters, chav... etc) and so a large fashion section is vital in 'Buzz'.
Also content that is applied to the needs of the 'Indie' culture is so that the readers are constantly satisified with what they are reading, and the content is relevant to them because of age group and because of their style.