Here is a screen recording in the process of making my front cover. I used a new technology called 'Quicktime' to do this. I was selecting a photo, Cutting it out and placing it onto my front cover page.
I have created a target audience customer profile to show the type of person which I have made my magazine for. The main people I have aimed to target are people aged 14-19, both male and female.
Typical reader:
She is a former student at college, studying Art, photography, and maths. In her spare time she likes to meet up with her friends, experiment with her camera taking photographs, and listen to calming acoustic music whilst doing her school work. She listens to artists such as; Colbie Caillat, James Morrison, Paulo Nutini, Joshua Radin, and Joe Brooks. She has a passion for playing the guitar, however could use advice and contacts to progress her talents further. My magazine is aiming to meet these needs for her and many other people in the same situation.
How did you attract/address your audience? I created 3 polls on my online blog, for my target audience to take part in, so that I could have an idea of what they would prefer. Also, the mode of address of my magazine attracts the kind of layed back casual teenagers and I have done this in my editorial profile on my contents page. I have also used many features on my front cover to attract my audience. Firstly I used a bold striking image of a teenage guy to appeal to both males of the same age, and females of the same age as they can recognize straight away that it is targeting their age bracket.
I have also used colours such as black, white, red, purple which will appeal to both genders and are calming colours as supposed to using bright ones like yellow and orange which would connote pop or rock. I think that the grey background and black and white image makes the magazine more civilized which would appeal to the older ages of my target audience age bracket. I have used lures such as 'free 10 page poster inside' and 'exclusive interview' which makes the readers think that it is going to be better than any other magazine and they can get free extras if they buy my product.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? When I first made my Preliminary task, I had no idea what I was doing with Photoshop, and didn't have much experience with taking photographs. I also had not done any research about what existing magazines looked like or conventions which they had. I didn't know about the golden line, or rule of thirds or any photographing techniques of which existing magazines all had already. As you can see, I have learnt a lot about the proxemics of my page, text, colours, techniques and photographing. I think that my final magazine is a major improvement from my preliminary task as it looks a lot more professional and I had a considerably more amount of time to produce it.
I think that researching existing music magazines front covers, Contents pages, and double page spreads definately made the biggest difference to the making of my product. I learnt many things about the placings, colours and text which I took on board and used in my products. My final product definately appeals more to my target audience than my pre lim task as I had time to ask them what they would like to see and act on it, whereas with my pre lim, I couldn't do that, and so it doesnt really appeal to the target audience I was aiming for.
How does your media product represent particular social groups? Representation is the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature. We all read images with different interpretations depending on our cultural and social experiences.
The social group that my magazine is representing is mostly teenages who are just getting into listening to or playing music and want to know about new and existing artists/tracks and tips. The magazine genre is acoustic so it targets those who like to chill out in thier spare time and listen to calming music instead of those who prefer rock/pop or dance music. I have used many things such as; all sorts of different pictures, texts, colours of which would appeal to these social groups, and making them want to buy it.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Before I started creating my music magazine, I had little experience on Photo Shop, and no experience of using blogger. I had also never used an Apple Mac before, which made the task harder to complete. After a while, I got used to the Apple Macs, and improved my skills on Photoshop which enabled me to finish quicker and to a higher standard.