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

It is important that I find a magazine publisher that can handle demands of a mass audience and who is familiar with rock pop music. This is important to me because I want the magazine to be distributed correctly and by somebody who know what they are doing; which is why I would prefer a distribution that has has experience.

A magazine publisher that I feel is a good example for my magazine is IPC (International Publishing Corporation). The reason I chose this publishing house was because I decided to research the relevant magazines that were similar to mine, to see who publishes their magazines. I looked at NME; the reason for this is because I feel that it is similar to my magazine by the genre of music and TA. Their publishing house was IPC, after looking at the details of the publishing house, I decided to use this as an example. I felt comfortable with this publishing house because NME uses it and doest seem to have has any major problems. Here are some images of NME covers:

 I have also been thinking about where I want my magazine distributed and where i would like it sold. Businesses such as WHsmith, Top supermarkets, HMV etc. I chose the supermarkets because many people go looking around the magazine section o see what there is; also there is a range of age range. This could mean that it could attract a older audience. HMV, I feel is one of the main places to go for music. All of the best magazines will be sold there and I think that it would attract a larger audience.

I feel that if I decided to chose IPC, I will have a good deal and will not have any problems. With a very successful magazine using this publishing house, makes you a lot more confident about choosing them.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In my text it is mainly aimed at the younger generation, even though I did aim to have it general age. I feel that in the text, I have represented the younger generation positively. I would have to say that this magazine would probably not attract 'grebs', metal fans etc. because that music is much louder. Artists such as Slipnot would be appropriate for 'grebs'. This is not to say that 'Grebs' and anyone else can not read the magazine, it just gives a overview at who may like and who may not. Even though I feel that younger generation (teenagers) were represented positively, it was unintentional. I know that when I portray people in a certain way without meaning to is a unintentional signifier. Luckily my preferred reading for them to be portrayed positively.

Different social groups:

Some of these may not be in UK; I chose these because the magazine could be distributed internationally.

• Jocks
• populars
• Geeks
• Grebs
• Rich
• Poor

Even though Rich and poor may not be a social group name; many people stick to people who have money; likewise for the poorer people. These are just a few; the ones above are mainly teenage years, this is because as you get older I don't think there are 'clicks' like the ones in school. I just feel that a lot of people concentrate on money. I mean to be honest, who would go and hang about with a homeless person? I don't think people mean it as discrimination but it is not the up bringing that many people have to be around, even though they could be very kind people. This is why I produced this magazine, I want people to be able to have a common interest, whether they have a difference in what they dress or hang out with.

My magazine is aimed at a audience of many ages, I feel now looking back at the magazine, it was very 'girly'. the artists were girls. If a girl picked up a magazine then I feel that they would be more likely to buy it then a male. On the other hand, some Male's like to have women on the front of the magazine; most of the time, I would say that the female on he front attracts many different people. Overall the magazine cover does seem to have it positives and negatives. Also the colours of the magazine are plain and dark, this means that it attracts the different gender.


I tried to add difficult articles such as 'what would you do without music'. This may not seem like the most exciting article ever but it can attract people by seeing others opinions. There would have also been a chance to write in and express their own opinion. I feel this is good because then it makes the magazine seem much more personal than others. For the layout of the double page spread I decided to keep it simple and stick to a simple column; this could be represented as boring. I wanted to keep it nice and simple and concentrate on the image and text. I am happy with the layout overall, just a few slight changes would have been made.

I wanted to use colours of the magazine that would attract both genders. For my magazine cover the main colours are black, grey and white. These are all neutral colours, so they should attract both male and female. The same for the contents page there is brown. one of the brown is light; this could uncover a problem because it could come across to soft and 'girly'. For the DPS, I think I made a a mistake in the colours. the colours are a lot lighter and have a hint of pink. I feel that this is a no no when trying to attract both genders. Although if I did want to attract just women, I feel that the colours would be appropriate for this magazine.

Who would be the audience for your media Product?

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real life media products?

My magazine is different to this existing text by NME because of the layout and text. I am happy with the image, as I feel that it looks as professional as an image from a NME magazine. Some points that I would suggest are not so good are the text. I have added a little bit of text on the page and it looks quite bare and clear. The NME text all works well together and stands out without using bold bright colours. The masthead is very large and stands out which attracts the reader a lot more than what my personal magazine does. I know that I am not a professional and I would find it very challenging to even get my magazine as good as this one but it shows the difference from someone who is creative and someone who may not be as much.

The similar things about this magazine are the font; the two magazines don’t have the same but they both keep to the same font in the magazine. They both also have a different font for the masthead which stands out further. The image is different; a close up attracts the reader to the face of the artists more than what mine does. The audience are more likely to look around the background in my image because there is a lot of empty space. The two magazines both have the text on the left and right to keep the image the centre of attention. The NME magazine has very neat columns of text which makes the magazine look tidier and professional, whereas my magazine doesn’t have text in a neat column. This makes the magazine look untidy.  I tried to add my own element by adding two different colours to the masthead. I haven’t seen any magazine that has this yet and I think I can understand why. Has much as I think it looks ‘ok’ it doesn’t do much. The masthead is not screaming out at you, which is what I would like. I would want somebody to look at the magazine and remember the magazine. From the survey I decided to add some of the artists that were preferred by my target audience.

These are DPS for NME and my target audience. Again they have used large writing to give the reader an insight to what this magazine will be about. The colours for NME DPS were a mixture of 3 colours; black, white and red. I am happy with my DPS since I feel that it is nice a simple; the colour makes it stand out and become quite summery. I think an improvement would be making the DPS look more musical. The layout of the DPS is different because mine is in a block; it is all in one neat paragraph. The NME magazine has used a few of columns. The text is also a lot smaller than mine, so you can fit a lot more information in it. The main part in this DPS is the image which is what the reader is instantly drawn into. The text in these two different texts are very different, the NME DPS has different types of text which makes the page look a lot more exciting. Whereas my music magazine has the same font because I knew that it would look better with different fonts but I just didn’t know how to work them together. I thought that instead of ruining it with a couple of different fonts.

These are the contents of NME and my contents page. The NME magazine is full of lots of information about what is in the magazine. As you can see this magazine is a lot bigger that what mine is. This is a negative on my side because people buy a magazine which has a lot of information in it, not one that has a few ages. There are a few images of the NME contents page which is about different things. Most things which attract the reader are the pictures; the audience like to visually see what they are reading about. My contents page has one image and that is the same person that is on every page, even though it is different images. The NME has an index on the side of all of the bands which are in the magazine. This is good compared to mine because they can quickly see whether there favourite band has been added to this magazine and find the page. Also on the contents page they have a small story. This is different to mine because I don’t reveal what the stories are about. This is good because it gives a hint of mystery about what may be in this magazine. Some people like surprises some don’t; I need to take that into consideration. NME has used a few colours; red, white, black and yellow. These colours are use so that the reader is drawn into the important parts of the magazine. My contents page has two different shades of brown. This is good to keep it simple and to keep it matching it with the image, but sometimes making something stand out I important and this does not happen.

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

During this whole experience of making the magazine from scratch, I have realised what goes into making a fully functional magazine. While carrying out this task, I learnt many more skills and used them to my full advantage while constructing this magazine. Since this was an individual magazine, I was in charge of everything that had to been done. Images, text, editing etc. These were all examples of just some of the things that we has to do while creating this magazine. The roles that we had to take on for ourselves, which would normally be done my one person fro each were:

• Editor-in-chief
• Associate Editor
• Advertising manager
• Business manager
• Circulation manager
• Design Editor / Art Director

Some parts of a magazine were not on mine; this is the reason why some of the roles would not have been carried out by me, such as the person who gets all competitions ready. It would not have been possible to carry out every role in the magazine industry, but I feel that the roles that I did take on were challenging enough to learn a lot.

Now looking back at the work that I did on my preliminary task, I have noticed a huge difference in the way that I did work to the way that I work now. Before I only had only the picture of a magazine; anything that was on the front I wanted to add to mine. What I didn't realise was that there was so much more that I could use and that I didn't have to go for the template of an 'ordinary' magazine. From looking at different magazine artists such as Ray gun. When I first saw his magazines I was not sure about what they were for and how he edited these images. I then learnt how to edit a photograph to make it look better. I used Pixlr to edit many of my draft photos; this then made then look much better. Here is an example:

I feel that from this first image to this edited image, I feel that the image looks much better. Before the image is edited it looked very unprofessional. The editing is not perfect but it does look much better than the first image. Here is my Preliminary task magazine and my final magazine cover.







From looking at these two magazines you can see such a massive difference; the first magazine, which is on the left.as the word 'sound', this suggests to the reader that this is a music magazine.The masthead's are completely different; the first magazine is more of a title rather than a masthead. The other magazine has a much bigger masthead and this stands out to the reader, it also h I am happy with for my first attempt, I would just say that I used too much colour. I feel that this magazine looks a lot more childlike than what it is meant to be. My final magazine page has a lot less colour, it all fits in well together and there is just not any random and any unwanted pieces of text or colours. The image is much bigger in the final magazine; I like that because it draws the attention away from any space that doesn't look great there. In my Preliminary task, I think I made the mistake of trying to fill every gap that there was so that it didn't look empty. Now looking back at the magazine I think that I could of put less information and it could of still looked good. I can see the amount of improvement that has been made and I am very pleased with the end result. Working in nearly every role of the magazine I feel has been challenging but rewarding as well.

How did you attract your audience?

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