Question 1 – In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have shown continuity through the front cover, contents page and double page spread through colour, font and by having the same person on each. This is conventional of music magazines showing my product to develop forms and conventions of real magazines. I have also used the mast head on each product increasing the continuity throughout the magazine; this is also done on MOJO magazine which is of a similar genre and therefore a similar target audience.

 For my double page spread I have my image on one page and article on the other. As shown in comparison to this MOJO double page spread this is a very similar layout. However, they have used a pull quote as the title which I challenged using an also conventional title placing my pull quote mid article.

Overall, my front cover, contents page and double page spread conform to the conventions of a magazine of the Rock genre. This is done on the cover through the use of different fonts and text sizes, a medium close-up image, the use of a plug, barcode and price and the limitation to three colours which are carried through to the contents and double page spread. My contents page conforms to conventions through its column of feature and page numbers, multiple images, also a subscribe information section featuring past covers of the magazine and title including the mast head. These are all conventional of a contents page and share the same colours and fonts as the cover and double page spread. My double page spread also follows conventions and could be seen in an existing rock magazine. It has done this through the continuity of colour over both pages, the used if columns, drop cat, title, stand first and a pull quote. It also follows the same orange theme throughout.

Question 2 - how does your media product represent particular social groups

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

Question 4 - Who would be the audience or your media product?

Question 5 - How did you attract/address the audience?

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

 Using these screenshots has allowed me to show the process have used in order to create my media products. This has allowed me to see how effective each element of my product is showing me what works and what doesn't.

Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task of making a college magazine front cover I have learnt how to use Photoshop in order to create a magazine front cover, adding different fonts and sizes to texts. In comparison to my preliminary college magazine my music magazine front cover is much more conventional due to much more space being filled with different text styles.

There is a lot of free space on my preliminary task front cover which I learnt from as it does not look very conventional of a magazine. However I did include the conventions of a magazine such as the barcode, mast head, sky line, footer, pull quote and the feature stories.
I also learnt how to frame my images to make them appropriate for a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. I learnt that the use of a medium close-up shot is commonly used for the front cover due to it showing the main feature to be large in the frame but not to large that text cannot be places around it in order to make a conventional magazine cover.
I also learnt how to choose appropriate colour schemes and outfits for my features in my magazine. This is reflected through the darker aesthetic of my music magazine due to it being of the Rock, Punk and Blues genre as it would not fit having brighter more vibrant colour scheme.

As shown my my music magazine front covers, they are much more filled with features and have a wider variety of fonts and font sized in order to make this a much more conventional front cover. I learnt how to cut the background out of my images through the use of multiple different tools using Photoshop. Due to the shadow that was on this original image it was difficult to cut out using either the magic wand tool or the quick select tool. This resulted in me having to learn how to use the polygonal lasso tool in order to cut out my picture and remove the background.  

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

FRONT COVER

Contents page progression screenshots

Using the text tool, I typed the title, features, numbers, issue number and date.

I used the shape tool to create a solid black box to use as a boarder for my images.

I then added three different images. The largest being the cover story.

I then added three solid orange squares to use as backings for the page  numbers relating to the images.

I then added the type of the main feature placed under the image.

Using the line tool, I added two identical lines either side of the second main feature.

I then duplicated the mast head and colored it orange and added a thin orange stroke placing it in thew lower left corner.

I used the shape tool to create a blue rectangle and decreased the opacity to use a background for the plug.

I added the mast head and text over this rectangle using the text tool.

I then added the social media images to the bottom right corner and using the text tool added the website address and social tag.

Using my existing google mock up front covers, I added three front covers for the subscribe section.

I then added text using the text tool.

Using the text tool, I added a pull quote.

I then filled the space in the bottom with the date as this is conventional to have in the bottom corner of the page.