Evaluation Of My Music

Magazine

By Emaan Adnan Khan

Q: How does your product use or challenge

conventions and how does it represent social

groups or issues?

My media product uses many codes and

conventions that are commonly seen in many

magazines, for example the masthead, which is a

very important part of a magazine as it tells the

reader the name of the magazine and sets it apart

from other magazines. Like most magazine my

masthead is placed in the middle and top of the

magazine but I feel that it also challenges the

convention as my masthead uses more than one

color, unlike most magazine that only use one

color for the whole masthead. Another important

convention is the main cover line and the

coverlines these are both very important and they

show what the reader may find inside the

magazine so the reader is interested in buying the

magazine. The name of the artist being big and

prominent is also very important in the main cover

line to catch the readers internets and to make

them buy the magazine. The puff I used, I feel,

really challenges the conventions as the shape of

the puff, which is a heart, is not very common as

most puffs are circles and unlike most puffs I have

put headphones on of the puff to further reinforce

the concept that this is a music magazine. The

main cover image has the conventions that are

usually seen in many magazines for example the

Looking directly in the camera and the camera angle is mid shot which is also a very

common convention in magazines. Other important conventions that I have included are

the coverlines that are seen in almost every magazine along with the barcode and date

and the tagline.

The content page

challenges a big

convention that music

magazines have. Music

magazines for example

have very colorful and

filled up content pages

full of images and

information whilst my

content page is very to

the point and clean cut

with only one image

and not so much

information. I wanted

my content page this

way because I feel like

too much information

and images confuses

the reader and I want

my readers to

easily find the page number to whatever article they are interested in no time. I also

added additional information in a very sensible way, so that readers don’t miss it

because of too much information cramped into one page, I added information about

how to win prizes in a bright yellow box to the readers attention and making it hard to

miss and also added a strap line in the bottom for people who want to always stay up

to date with what the magazine is up to. I also choose the image as it is the most

important article of the magazine and so I wanted more emphasis on it which is what

most magazines do when something is most likely to be read by most of the readers .

My magazine follows the most common

conventions

of a music magazine double spread. Like the

title of my double spread is a pull quote from

the magazine and just below it I gave a little

insight of what the interview is about and

highlighted the important information in red,

Just like in the example below. Other

conventions I have followed in my music

magazine like the standard 3 columns of the

interview. One big image of the artist being

interviewed and one small and one or more

small ones. I also followed the conventions of

the different colours you use for the interview

Other conventions I followed in my double

spread are the drop capital I used in the

beginning of the article, to clearly show

where the article begins from and the little

box I the end of the article to show that it

has ended. Another important convention I

used was writing the page number and the

name of the magazine at the bottom of the

page this is done in many magazines . A

convention I challenged in my double

spread is that I kept the background of my

image to the original background I took it

in whilst most magazine Photoshop a

different background or choose a plain

background.

The social group that I’m trying

to represent are mostly teen

girls from the age of 13-19, who

are up-to-date with the latest

music and upcoming artist. As

you can tell by the model I

choose who is about the same

age as our readers dressed

modestly and fashionable

attracting those audiences. The

price of my magazine being

Rs.150, you can safely assume

that my magazine will be

purchased by the middle class

and higher classes. The clothes

that I have chosen for my model

is only worn by a certain

percent of Pakistan and

my magazine is only being

targeted to them also

about 30% of Pakistan

can read English so this

also targeted to only that

class.

Q: How does your product engage with the

audiences and how would it be disturbed as

a real media text?

My magazine tries to engage

with the audience in several

ways. I used bright colors

and bold writing to catch the

readers attention. I also try

to engage with the audience

by having competitions and

giving away prizes and also

including quizzes in my

magazine so my readers

stay interested. I also give

the audiences a chance to

connect with us personally

by following us on social

media websites such as

Face book and Twitter.

The institution I have planned to

publish my magazine through is an

through an independent magazine

publisher who are based in Karachi.

They publish a teen magazine

called “SMASH” every month for

teenagers aged 13-17 about the

latest news in the media world about

celebrities and movies etc. The

magazine is well-known and read by

a lot of teenagers in Pakistan.

I selected this publishers for my

music magazine because they aim

at the same target audience and

age group as I do, as teenagers and

most up-to-date with lasted songs

and best albums in pop music this

would be a perfect publishing

company for my magazine.https://www.facebook.com/SmashMa

gazineOfficial/info

Smash is Pakistan's best selling

magazine for the young. It cover

wide ranging interests. From

movies & games to trends and

styles. Books, arts and crafts, the

copy is packed with information any

young mind needs to know!

Q: How did your production skills develop

throughout this project?

My production skills improved vastly

throughout the production of my the

magazine. I learned so many new

ways to improve my magazine and

make it look exactly how I wanted it to

from the help of Photoshop and by

learning to use different tools and

techniques. By learning to use these

tools my magazine not only looked

professional but very well produced.

Moreover I learned to incorporate

codes and conventions of magazine

more skillful way and in way to make

the magazine standout and look ideal.

On top of that I learned the importance

of layout and typography when making

the front cover, content page or double

spread and how you really need to

understand the importance of knowing

what should go wear and what looks

best and how something should look

which I believed really improved while

creating this magazine.

Not only that but I also learned how to

take

better pictures for my magazine and

learned to take pictures form different

angles to make it look better and more

attractive.

Q: How did you integrate technologies –

software, hardware and online- in this

project? Description of components.

I have learnt a lot form the

duration of constructing my

media product for example

they’re a number of

technologies I have used in

this project. The first thing

that we had to do was make

a blog where I posted all my

work and all the things I

produced throughout making

the magazine there.

I used www.wordpress.com

to make my blog. I choose

this as I found it the painless,

simple and easy to use apart

form that it was highly

recommended to use for

making a media studies blog.

Making a blog can be

challenging at first as

choosing the right theme and

how to write a post were

some of the thing that I had

Another technology I used

for developing my media

product was Photoshop.

Photoshop was one of the

most important technology

for the production of my

magazine. It helped me edit

my magazine and made it

look exactly how I wanted it

to look.

Photoshop also included

different tools and

techniques that helped in the

production of my magazine

immensely. I learned how to

edit the lighting and contrast

and other ways of

manipulating the images to

make them look more

professional and well

qualified.

I frist faced a lot of problems

when I stared to use

Photoshop but slowly as

I used the internet for a lot if

different reasons. Most

important of them being for

research. I used the internet to

know the codes and

conventions of a music

magazine and what were the

things I would have to do to

make my magazine look like a

music magazine.

I researched on the internet for

masthead fonts and other fonts

I would use in magazine.

Moreover I used the internet

for times when I was stuck in

Photoshop and it helped a lot

as I would across video tutorials

or step to step images showing

how something was done.

The internet also helped me to

look at different magazines and

get ideas and inspirations. This

really helped me in

understanding the different