Evaluation Activity 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop forms and conventions of real media products?

It took me a long time to think of a suitable name for the magazine but I finally came up with the name 'Xclusive' which I think is suitable for a RnB/Pop magazine and has connotations of a music magazine. I chose this because the magazine will include exclusive interviews and information about exclusive artists and tracks etc. Looking at the masthead of Blender and my magazine, they are quite similar. During my research before I began to create the music magazine, I noticed that most of the music magazines had used the masthead in the background of the front cover (like seen in the photos) and the photo was slightly in front of the masthead. However, for this to be able to work successfully, the design of the masthead would have to be eye-catching so that the reader can notice the title of the magazine when buying it. I used white text as I thought that this contrasts well with the black background of the front page. I also used a pink neon light around the title to make this more eye-catching and dramatic, I did this because I hoped that it would help to draw attention to the title of the magazine as well as the person on the front cover.

Most of the magazines have close-up photos however here 'Blender' magazine has a medium/long shot which is not as common in music magazine conventions. I chose this model for my music magazine because I thought that she has quite a striking and unique look - for example, her hair contrasts with the dark background of the front cover because it is such a bright colour and she looks like a someone who should appear on the front cover of a music magazine. Originally when I took the photos, her make-up was quite natural and you could not really see that she was wearing any so I edited the photo in photoshop and made her eye-make up more dramatic; I think this makes her look quite rebellious because of her dark eye make-up and the seriousness of her facial expression. Conventionally, the clothes that the model would be wearing would also be quite extravagant so that attention was drawn to the photo. In reflection, I should have made the model wear more colourful/formal clothes as this would draw more attention to the photo. However, I think that the make-up and hair help draw attention to the photo so the fact that the clothing is not very detailed or interesting is not a major problem. The layout of the front cover that I have created is similar to the other music magazine front covers in the way that the articles and what is included in the magazine is written around the photo on the front cover.

Comparing the contents page that I have made with contents pages for real music magazines I can see that I have used different elements from each different type of contents page. For the typical Rock music magazines such as NME and Q, the contents pages are designed in columns and generally with one main image in the middle of the page; also the pages are very full with very few blank spaces. Vibe music magazine is different in the way that the page is not very full and the focus is more on the photo rather than the text; there are also many blank spaces and a lot of the page is not filled with text unlike the other magazines. For my contents page, I have put the magazine title at the top of the page, looking at the other magazines this seems to be a typical convention of most music magazines however Vibe magazine has not used this. Like all of the magazines I have used headings for the different parts of the magazine such as 'features', 'news' etc. However, I did not really use columns so the layout of the text on my contents page seems to be more similar to Vibe magazine than any other.

Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I think that this photo of Taylor Swift from Blender Magazine has some similarity to this photo which I used on the contents page on my magazine.

The similarities are that the pose and posture is quite similar as they both have one hand on their hip and one hand above their head. The clothes that they are wearing are have some vague similarities as they both are wearing a waistcoat/jacket; the clothes seem quite casual. The facial expression of both models are quite similar also because they both look quite serious.

When I used this image on the front page, I cut it out so there was no black background, this makes the lighting of the images also quite similar as the lighting does concentrate quite a lot on both of the models' faces.

I think that my media product would bear some similarity to a similar social group as Blender Magazine as both Blender and my magazine have a younger girl on the front cover. This would make it appeal to similar social groups such as teenagers and young people like myself.

The images show the 'stickers' from Blender magazines and from my own music magazine. Many magazines use these to advertise something that would make people buy the magazine.

Evaluation Activity 3

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

From my research many of the music magazines are published and distributed by Bauer.

Bauer is a worldwide publishing company that publishes 282 magazines in 15 different countries. Other magazines that Bauer publishes are Kerrang and Q aswell as many other types of magazines. Aswell as publishing magazines, Bauer also work with TV and radio stations such as Kiss 100 and Smash Hits; these are both radio stations which play similar music to the genre of my music magazine.

I decided that this company would be most likely to publish my music magazine as they publish 'Blender' magazine which I think that my magazine is most similar to.

Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my magazine would be young people that listen to RnB/Pop music. From looking at other magazines, I think that my magazine is quite similar to Blender and Vibe so therefore they would possibly have similar target audiences. Blender magazine seems to focus more on Pop singers and Vibe magazine focuses on RnB music. I consider my magazine, Xclusive, as being somewhere between the two.

The target audience would be people similar to myself, so they would be interested in the RnB music genre and the music that is in the charts currently. It is mostly aimed at teenage girls similarly to Blender magazine. An example of someone in my target audience for my magazine would shop in places like Topshop, River Island etc, they would listen to RnB music and their favourite TV programmes would be programmes such as Hollyoaks and Skins. This is like the typical teenage girl who would be in the target audience for my magazine.

The adverts in the magazine would probably include things such as make-up, hair products, advertisements for shops and clothes etc. The language used would not be formal as people within the target audience would not find this very interesting to read; language would be informal and like a conversation, slang would be used that people within the target audience would understand and could relate to.

Evaluation Activity 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract and address the target audience for my magazine I have done many things. Looking at other front covers such as Q magazine I have noticed that what seem to be the effective things to do to attract and address the audience (below).

Comparing my front cover with this one and looking at the ways in which Q magazine has addressed and attracted the audience, I have noticed that I have done this in similar ways. I have used band names on the front page so that the target audience would want to read about them. I have made sure that the person on the front of the magazine reflects the target audience so that people will buy the magazine based on the person featured on the cover.


Looking at the other Q magazine front covers I can see that they have used the same techniques for all of the covers: Click here to see the other Q magazine front covers.

For my own magazine I have used many techniques that will attract the audience to buy the magazine, these include:

Photos I chose to take pictures of someone who would appeal to the target audience of the magazine which is young people who like the RnB/Pop music genre. I had to consider the types of people that the target audience would look up to and would like to see on the front cover of a music magazine. As the magazine is aimed at people similar to myself and my friends, I decided that we would like to see someone on the front of the magazine that could be a potential role model and someone that we can look up to. People like to see models that are attractive of the front cover of the magazine, so I chose someone who has striking looks and is quite unique and who I could picture featuring on a real music magazine. Generally, people on front covers of music magzazines are presented very naturally; therefore I chose someone who has very striking/unique looks; her bright blonde hair and the short hair cut makes her look different. She looks like someone that teenage girls would look up to and aspire to look like.

Fonts/Colours I made sure that the house style of the magazine was consistent throughout; this is black, pink and grey mainly. I thought that these colours would would well with the genre of music for this magazine. I also thought that most of the magazines in the industry at the moment mainly have colours like red and black so I thought that by using a house style that it different then it would make my magazine more different; like a unique selling point. I also thought that the magazine would probably mainly be aimed at girls so the colour pink would be appropriate.

Another feature that I used was by advertising the album cover of the featured artist and advertising a free download of her new song. This would entice people to buy the magazine as they would want to get her new song for free. I have made sure that the offer is clearly advertised to the reader by making it look like it is a sticker on the front of the magazine.

The language used in the double page spread article would also appeal to the target audience as it is not formal and quite colloquial in places. This would appeal to the target audience as they would not get bored reading it and it would seem to them like they were listening to a conversation. Examples of this are as followed: "I’ll write about 20 songs and out of them maybe 2 of them will have a chance of making the album and the rest are crap!...I guess you’ll just have to buy it and see what you think!"

Evaluation Activity 6

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

During this task I have learnt how to use many new programs and software that I had never used before. Before, I began the task I had never really used a Mac computer before and now I have learnt how to use them successfully and have used many of the tools which have helped me to successfully complete the task.

The main program that I used to construct the front cover and the contents page of my magazine was Adobe Photoshop CS4. I had never used this program before the task and now I am confident in using it and have learnt a lot about the program.
I had heard of the program before beginning the task but never really used it; I found it quite confusing at first but soon got the hang of it.

Some of the things I have learnt to do using this program are:

• used the skin retouch tools to make the photo look flawless and get rid of any spots/blemishes
• used many tools such as the magnetic lasso tools and magic eraser to get rid of the background of photos
• used the lighting effects tools to change the lighting of photos and make them more enhanced
• used various tools such as drop-shadow and text effects

Another program that I used during the task is Adobe InDesign CS4. I used this to create the double page spread as it is more of a desktop publishing program so is more useful to add text and make it look more like a professional double page spread. I had never even heard of this program before beginning this task so it really was completely new to me! Now, I have successfully completed my double page spread and did not find it too difficult to figure out how to use InDesign.


I had also never used Blogger before this task so it was interesting learning how to use this. I had never even created a blog before so I found it quite confusing at first but now I realise that it is not too hard to use and a good way to display my work and I feel that I am aware how to use it fully now.

To complete my task I also used other technologies and equipment. This includes the camera that I used which is a Panasonic Lumix FZ50. I found this camera helpful to use as it takes very good pictures and the lighting was very good so there was not much editing needed on the lighting after taking the photos.

I also used two different computers to complete my coursework task on. Both of the computers are Macs, but the computer that I used at school is an desktop imac, and at home I used a MacBook Pro.

Evaluation Activity 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

When I did the preliminary task, the software programs were totally new to me so I really made the school magazine by using trial and error to use the software tools. For the school magazine preliminary task, I decided to use my sister as a model for the photos. I decided that the main focus for the school magazine would be a dance showcase as it is something that my sister enjoys and I thought that it would make my magazine a bit more unique. I decided to make the photo on the front cover on the magazine relate to the topic of the dance showcase; this was useful because my sister does dancing so I was able to take photos of her dancing for the front cover. I thought that it would be effective to take a photo of her in front of a mirror so that her reflection is shown in the photo. I made sure that the contents page followed the house style of the magazine and the same colours and fonts were used throughout.

Comparing my preliminary work with the final coursework task, there is a big difference. I did much more research into the conventions of a music magazine so I knew what I needed to create for the task. For the preliminary task I did not research as much about the conventions of a school magazine so I did not know as much about what I needed to create.

By the time I came to take the photos for my music magazine, I was aware of the kind of poses and photos that I needed from my research. I chose to have a plain and black background as I knew that this would contrast well with the colour of the model's hair and skin colour etc.

By the time I came to make the music magazine, I had learnt how to use Photoshop and InDesign much more confidently and I was more aware of how to use the different tools etc.

You can see major differences between the preliminary task and the main task that show how my ability to use the software has improved.

You can see that there are major differences in the quality of my photos and the photo editing. In the preliminary task I did not really know how to use the photo editing tools so I mainly left them as they were. The only thing that I did do in the preliminary task was create a vignette around the photo on the contents page. I also did this on the contents page of my music magazine, however it looks more advanced and the photo is a lot better. I learnt how to use the magnetic lasso tools and the background erasers etc; by using these I was successfully able to cut out the photos and use other tools such as text wrap etc.

When taking photos for the preliminary task I did not really have a set location that I had chosen, I just took them at my house wherever I thought the photos would look good. However, when I took photos for the main task, I set up an area that was empty and I decided that I would want the photos to have a black background as I thought it would contrast well with my model's hair, to do this I put a black sheet on the wall and used this as a background. I also took some photos against a white brick wall as I thought this would look effective but when I looked back at the photos I decided that this did not really work very well so I did not use these photos. I decided not to use any props for my photos as I wanted them to be quite simple and plain; this is because I thought that the model has quite striking looks and I did not want any props to detract attention from this.

I knew that I wanted to have a close-up photo for the front page with the headlines around the photo, as from my research I noticed that this seems to be a typical convention of a music magazine. For the contents page I decided that I would want a long/full body shot of the model. I chose this photo as I thought it looked like she is presenting the contents page and what is included in the magazine.

For the double page spread I decided that I would have a long shot of the model that would take up almost half of the double page; this is so that the reader can immediately see who the article is about and the image would be the main focus of the page. I also included a smaller image on the opposite side of the double page spread. I used text wrap around both of the images as this looks professional and another convention of music magazine double page spread articles. I used a similar background colour/gradient as the contents page so that it follows the house style of the magazine and the font colours etc are constistent throughout the magazine.

Slideshow of Final Work

Double Page Spread

Here is my final double page spread:

Double Page Spread Interview

Below is my interview for the double page spread article. At first I found this difficult as I was unsure how to write it, but research into other interviews helped:

It may just the beginning of the road for stunning new girl on the music scene, Sophie, but this blonde bombshell is already becoming a worldwide star. With her first single 'Ego' reaching number one, we thought we'd meet up with the bubbly 18-year-old London girl before she gets too famous to want to talk to us!

Wow, what a whirlwind past few months you've had! How are you?Yeah, it's been pretty amazing. I can't believe my luck to be honest! I'm great thanks, just so busy, I've barely had a chance to sit down!

Congratulations with your debut single 'Ego' reaching number one! Tell us a bit about that, what is the record about?Thanks, I'm over the moon! I never thought it would ever do this well. It's about a typical teenage girl's life, you know, heartbreak, feeling insecure, friends - and we always seem to know someone who's life is so much better than ours, you know, the ones who seem to have it all!

Bit like your life now then! Believe me, my life's not always been this exciting, everyone has their problems. I'm just starting out.

So how did you get into the music business and where did your love of music come from? Well, I've always loved music since I was tiny. I did the usual things like singing, dancing and acting classes and always took part in the school shows...I just never seemed to grow out of it! It wasn't easy to get where I am now though - I'd been giving demos out to record companies for ages and then I got a call from a record company saying that they loved my song 'Hard', which was the first song I ever wrote, and then they gave me a record deal.

Who are your insprirations then? Well, I grew up listening to artists like Mariah Carey. I absolutely love her. She's got such an amazing voice. I'd love to think I could be as big as her one day.

We've heard rumours that you might be working with Neyo. Are they true? Well I met him at the VMA awards and he said he would like to work with me at some point so its been spoken about but nothings certain yet. I'd love to work with him, he's worked with some amazing people like Rihanna, he's such a talented songwriter and such a nice person. It also helps that he's good looking!

So if you weren't singing, what would you be doing instead? To be honest, I have absoluetly no idea! Singing's the only think I've ever really wanted to do but if I had to choose I've always loved fashion and clothes so it would probably be something to do with that.

Who are you listening to at the moment then? I really love 3OH3!'s song with Katy Perry - Starstrukk. It's so catchy and a great dance and club tune, it really gets me in the mood for a night out with the girls. I'm an extreme party girl at heart!

Is it wierd being spotted by people and paparazzi when you're out now? Yeah I find it really strange; I keep thinking 'why do these people want my picture?' My friends think its great, we were coming out of a club the other night and the paparazzi were taking photos, there were flashes everywhere, my friends say they feel like they were on a catwalk! I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Your on the line up for V festival, are you excited? I can't wait! It wasn't long ago that I was there with my friends and now I'm going to be on stage! It's amazing, I'm on stage with stars like Pixie Lott and Jay-Z, I can't believe it!

Your debut album is coming out next month. What can we expect? I've been working on this for ages, it takes me so long to write a song. I'll write about 20 songs and out of them 2 will go on the album and the rest will be crap! I'm very fussy but I think I've finally got an album that I'm happy with. All the songs are different so I guess you'll have to buy it and see what you think!

Finally, what are your plans for this year? Well, I've been busy with promo for the alnum so once thats over, I'm hoping everything might settle down so I'm planning an extreme clubbing holiday with the girls (laughs) and then once I'm back I'm gonna hopefully plan a tour and I guess I'll write more songs!