Double page spread

I'm really quite happy with my double page spread.
The main picture of my model featured on the page, with another picture of him, because on image would have been lacking on the magazine itself.
I was also particularly happy with the interview that featured on these pages, obviously I didn't start and finish the interview on these pages, because it is longer than just a few questions and it wouldn't attract the desired audience, as they probably wouldn't see it worthit (if they were mainly purchasing the magazine for the interview with 'Chris') just for a few questions to discuss about his career.
The house style was once again kept the same, however I also felt it necessary to include a purple bar running across the bottom, with the page number and "glimpse" written on it. I felt it was necessary to do so because it made the magazine recognisible if it had to be identified just by the style, and I have also noticed the same sort of style in other magazines when I was doing my research.

Overall I am pleased with the double page spread, and if I had to change anything I might have had re-thought the layout of the text, as it isn't in keeping as such with the front cover of my magazine.

Contents Page

This is my contents page for my final product. I am actually really pleased with this contents page, the colour scheme used in particular, as I feel it really meets my audience and their personalities quite well. Pink yellow and purple are the popular colour whilst growing up in the ages of 9-14, as girls that age feel it is their identification in a way. The two pictures I included, one was of my male model who features as the 'free poster' and one is of my other male model who is the featured artist I do an interview with. I felt that the contents page worked particularly well, and that it looks quite professional.
I kept the house style running the same, with the lighter purple across the top with the same colour font used for the world "glimpse, contents" and the female symbol.
It is obviously extremely important to keep the house style the same as it identifies the magazine, and makes it look as one. If it wasn't the same then it would be easy enough to take the magazine apart, and say that it belonged to different ones.

Overall I am happy with my contents page, the only downfall I would say it has, which is evident now is the fact that it appears to be a bit plain in the top right hand corner, and is lacking an image of something or some sort of text to make it look a bit more full, other than that, I would say it looks quite professional and I am happy with it.

Front cover

This is my final front cover for my final magazine.
I called the magazine 'Glimpse' as I thought it was a good name, because I saw it as a 'glimpse' into the lives of music celebrities/idols.
I thought it was a good idea to include the 'free poster' item on the front, to attempt to attract my readers into wanting to buy the magazine, even if it was simply for the poster and they glimpsed through the rest.
The main title of the interview with 'Chris', I included because I thought it would attract the young girl readers, because it is generally known if a male artist is in a relationship they become less attractive to the young girl audience, as they are then deemed unattainable by them.
The barcode and price was an essential feature as all magazines have them, so they are recognised in the shops when scanned. The date I also felt was a particular important feature to have, and the issue number. If people are intersted in the magazine and particularly follow it, then they are easily able to see what issue they have missed out or something, and what date the issue was in between.
The items down the left hand side I had were also used to mainly attract the readers, showing features that were coming in the magazine. I found out whilst making this the basis of a front cover is mainly used to actually show the audience what is in the magazine, more importantly attracting them to read it, and including features that they will be interested in.

Overall I am very happy with my front cover, if I were to do it again I think I might make it a bit more 'thrown about'. Every item on the front cover is perfectly in line, and although that is important, because it is for a young girl audience, it might have looked better a bit more put together, because then it would maybe appeal to them as it matches a young girl's personality.

My Evaluation

Now my media product is finished, I will be evaluating the ways in which my product reaches and targets the audience desired, and how I got to the finishing point.

Slide 1

My media product uses quite a lot of the same things that a typical music magazine would, that was aimed at young girls.

Slide 2


Slide 3



Slide 4


The audience for my media product was aimed at young girls, aged between 9-14. I felt that this would be a good age because this is usually the stage that a young girl is finding herself, who she is, going through the motions of growing up, starting puberty, becoming aware of the opposite sex and developing crushes on male celebrities and boys. They would also typically want to know the latest gossip in the celebrity world, and typically 'falling in and out of love' with boys that they begin to fancy at school, and their embarrassing moments they experience with them.

Slide 5


The process of construcing this product I found very very hard indeed. Getting used to all the different things you can do, and how you can construct it in very different ways. For example, one of my models needed to be edited, so I had to use the tool in photoshop that allows me to hide the spots that he had. It also taught me how to take photos correctly, and learning the different camera angles, and what my model would look best doing.
I also found it hard at first to be able to understand my desired audience, drawing from personal experiences of magazines that I bought when I was younger, I decided to buy a few music magazines, and to see if they still address the audience the way they used to, which I found they did.
I also learnt how to use blogger, because I never have before. I think it has been extremely helpful and it has also allowed me to express the difficulties I have had in constructing it. Things with images constantly kept going wrong, and to this date it still was. I had completed my contents page a few weeks ago, and it went off the schools system, and I could not retrieve it, therefore I had to re-do it again.

Slide 6

Attracting the audience of young girls aged 9-14 proved to be, for me quite simple. I realised immediately that the male singer, is the typical guy a girl would fall for, however there was more than that. By using the title I did, about "Chris talks to Glimpse, about fame, fortune, and the love he is still searching for."
Typical girls of this age would not be attracted to a celebrity that has a girlfriend, because they would either be heartbroken, or see him as unreachable. However if he is single, girls seem to get in their mind that somehow, one day, he might find her, and they could be a couple. It is a typical girl thought that this would happen, therefore saying he is still searching for love makes them think they have a chance with him, and the crush they have on him is worth having.
Female icons such as Alexandra Burke is good because she has just achieved a dream that a lot of young girls would like to achieve, as she just won X Factor. Fashion tips from her would be attractive to the young girls because they would potentially want to look like her, they would be likely to deem her fashion sense as something that helped her along the way to stardom.
When I purchased a few music magazines, it was evident to me that they ALL included free posters of MALE celebrities. I decided to include one in mine, and use the typical features that other magazines would, an boy that is from a group, with his top off, because this is what every other music magazine that I looked at featured.

Slide 7

Since I first attempted to do my magazine, the preliminary task, I have learnt that a lot of images are not necessary to obtain attention, and infact the busier it looks the more unattractive it looks, as it looks like there is too much going on to take in.
The main lesson I learnt from the preliminary task is to keep the house style the same, as that was something that I faulted in, when I first done the magazine.
Images should be arranged in an attractive and appealing way, not just chucked on the page and rotated anywhere, they also need to be appropriate to the content the magazine has.

Slide 8

In ways my magazine is the same as general pop magazines, but it is generally the smaller things that are evident. For example, I used the general colour scheme of purple, pink and yellow, to attract the young female audience.
The general idea of attracting a female audience of using a quote from the celebrity that has the main interview in the magazine.
My magazine is different because it appears to be more organised, as the other magazine seems a bit more 'messy'.
Also features that are the same are obviously the barcode, and the basics every magazine should have.

Photoshop and technical errors!

I've had such a hard session today with Photoshop and all the technical faults that just generally run with computers. I had a successful time with sessions at home I have been focusing on, fiddling around with my contents page and getting a good house style. I had a technical issue with my front cover two weeks ago at school, as images that I had forwarded would not come through.
This week was fine with images, as was last week, however I had sent my contents through and it wouldn't open, then photoshop wouldn't cut out the photo of my model who is acting as a poster, as I wanted to put it on a white background, but as soon as I managed to cut it out, it kept becoming pixelated. The hardest thing I found today was actually keeping my patience with it, and I had to have a break.
It taught me a lesson though, in the sense that I know from now on, send doubles through might help on a different format, even though I have done my pleminary task, there are still so many things that need to be learnt on photoshop!

Publishers of magazines

In lesson the other day we studied publishers of different magazines.

IPC
The link for this magazine is in the left hand tool that shows the links.
Looking at the brands of magazines it does, I came to the judgement that there would be not be a lot of competition upon using these publishers to publish my magazine. The only magazine, that proposes a high competition is one of the world's largest producing music magazines - NME. Other magazines that they do are things like Golf Monthly, TV & Satellite Week, Nuts, Marie Clare, Country Life etc.

"IPC Media is a leading UK consumer magazine publisher. Almost two in every three UK women and over 44% of UK men read an IPC magazine. That's over 26 million UK adults. "

The fact that it is distributed in the UK suggests that it would be a small place to start, rather than going worldwide, perhaps increasing my chances of my magazine being a success.

Pleminary Task - Marked and returned

I received my marked pleminary task back the other lesson.


If I were to do this task again, designing the magazine for a school, I would probably not include the background of St Marks school. At the time it seemed like a good idea, but upon reflection I feel it isn't necessary for the magazine. There aer also minor issues such as the light in the background, and the reflection in the windows.






I felt that the contents page was quite well done. The organisation of different sections in a table had a really good effect and made the magazine appear tidy. The fault that I discovered when looking at the front cover and the contents was that the house style wasn't necessarily kept identical. For example, for "Taylor's Tribe", I used the same font, although it doesn't appear the same because on the contents page I stretched the title of the magazine out, so the font appears to be different. It would have been a good idea to make the "contents" text a bit smaller, so I could have had the top of the front cover exactly the same on the contents page. The other fault was that I forgot that the requirement that it had to be original photography, and I included a joke picture that got online, which I will obviously make sure I do not do on the final task.

Overall I was happy with the magazine, and with the few changes I would like to make will be taken into consideration for my music magazine, such as making sure the house style remains the same.