EvaluationMatthew Winfield

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? A conventional layout for a contents page would be articles

on the left and images on the right hand side, i chose to put the articles on the rights hand site and images down the left. I did this to make the page look different and stand out. My front cover is conventional as it uses dark colours which fits with the genre of music, has a typical layout of magazine title at the top, then main article below that, an image of a band in the whole cover and other articles on top of this. It chalenges convention because, as in the contents page, the articles are on the right hand site; not the left. My double page spread follows conventions as it has an introduction explaining what the article is about, then a small summary, then the main text.

How does your media product represent particular social groups? My front cover of my magazine represents social

groups strongly as the main image, which stands out, is of the front man of a band. The fashion of the people in the magazine represents the social group that would buy this magazine. The bands used are young bands which appeal to younger generations, so represents the magazine as modern; with new music. The genre of music used is hardcore and metal, so the names of the bands and reviews seem dark and sinister, representing the bands as depressing.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I could advertise my product on social networking

sites like Myspace and Bebo, and sell my product from there. I could use digital publishing to sell my products. If i was able to secure a deal with a publisher i think my magazine is viable for release in this from.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product would be teenages and young adults because these ages are interested in music and buy magazines. The stereotypical image if a young frontman to attract both genders of the ages between 14-25. The bands used on my magazine will attract younger generations only.

How did you attract/address your audience? The colours on my magazine will attract the

audience. Dark colours are prominent in metal/hardcore music and will attract the buyers for this genre. The image of a stereotypical front man for the genre is used to attract the consumer; you can see the microphone while the vocalist is singing and you can see a stypical stage in the background. I used black and white on the image so the image does not overpower everything else on the magazine cover, so that the bands on the front cover will be seen easily. The fashion used in my magazine is stereotypical of metal and hardcore fans; the dress style and long hair.

This will attract people into this style of music that dress this way. I used bands on my cover that appeal to my target audience. The fonts used, varsity font, are used regularly in logos for hardcore and metal bands so this will attract the right buyer. A broken effect is used for some of the text on the cover; this shows the music is aggressive. Bold and upper case fonts are used on the whole cover which makes the text jump out.

This is a stereotypical look of a hardcore/metal band and the logo’s used.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product? I have learnt how to edit pictures and how to make

fonts. I did this in fireworks. I leanr about fading and smudging the ende of images so they dont have a hard edge, and i learnt how to change effects on the image to make them look better on my magazine. I leant how to use blogger by uploading my work onto there and how to use font websites and then edit the fonts to make them individual. While making my products i learnt how to contruct a magazine and what works well. I challenged conventions to see what worked and found out how to be uncoventional but still look good.

Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I have learn how to construct magazines better. I

learnt how to take good pictures for my magazine and edit them to make them look better, whereas on my preliminary task my pictures were not so good.

With my preliminary product, my magazine was conventional and looked stereotypical of a school magazine, whereas with my music magazine i tried to make the product look different and stand out by being unconventional to an extent. I also improved my skills form my first mock ups to my final magazine.