Magazine Evaluation1) In what ways does your media product

use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My magazine revolved around dance music, so the closest forms and conventions were matched with MixMag which is also a dance magazine. I used a menustrip to advertise my magazine around the bold title so that both stood out and it showed that my magazine was the best of its type: ‘The best NEW dance magazine around’. Looking at the main photo on my front cover, mine contains a two shot, which slightly differs from the norm in MixMag, usually featuring only one artist. I did this to show two very important articles in my magazine which will hopefully attract more people to buy the product.

A typical convention of music magazines as a way of attracting an audience is by offering things like free posters to readers. I thought this was appropriate because my target audience is slightly younger (teenagers) than that of MixMag and that is probably the main difference between my magazine and a real one. By including freebies it again incises the reader making them want to buy the magazine.

Another convention I use is placing a fairly large photo on the centre of my front cover and placing text around it (to the left and right) with the name of the magazine in a large font size above it. I thought that this was vital because it is the most important convention for every music magazine to have so that they’re easily recognisable.

If I was to compare my contents to a real magazine, take Q for example, I would say there are obvious similarities and differences. Visually, the photos in Q’s contents are far larger and take up a large majority of the page and although my contents do contain photos they are not as large scale, but I feel it has the same impact as in Q because even though you

do need photos they are not the main attraction of a contents page, the actual contents are! And on this front they are similar due to the amount of contents and with clear titles and a description of the page below in a smaller font size.

Q’s colour scheme is very straight forward (red, black and white) and DanceMag is similar in the amount of colours used but not the actual colour scheme (red, blue and yellow). I felt I needed bright colours because as a dance magazine aimed at teenagers especially you need something out of the ordinary and that is visually representative of the mood you are trying to create throughout the magazine.

My double page spread is fairly conventional. It contains a very large image, a tagline in the form of a quote and a large section of small text which is the main article. Mixmag also follows the majority of the forms and conventions, including colour consistency, the actual article and masthead. Both pages are very structured in the layout and use easily readable fonts and clear photos representing what the article is about.

For my photos I used a studio and a professional Canon camera. This was so that my photos were of consistently high quality and I could easily edit the photos to how I wanted them to be. For example cropping out certain parts of the photos that I didn’t like and making them ideal for use in my magazine specifically. On my front cover I used a close-up (medium) to show two separate people. This differs from a conventional front cover of a magazine as it would normally just have one artist or group in a photo. My contents page features a photo of an object (chair) and two artists. The fact that I used a chair is slightly different to what you would normally find in a music magazine as it would usually contain photos of just the artists featured further on in the magazine. However, the chair featured in my contents page is relevant as it asks ‘Who is on the hotseat this week?’ Throughout I used studio like photos to give my magazine a professional look like in proper magazines. By not always having the subject looking directly at the camera it creates an edgy feel

and might make the audience want to read about the artist in further detail which will obviously be inside the magazine.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups and who is the target audience?

My magazine is aimed mainly at teenagers and both genders. Obviously it is also aimed people with an interest in dance music. I think this is reflected by the slightly less sophisticated look of my magazine compared to MixMag, which parts of my magazine are based on. This is because I believe that MixMag is aimed at the slightly older generation (18-35 years old) so I needed to adapt my approach subtly. I reflected this by using a bright and bold colour scheme, which is generally seen as more ‘fun’. The content also represents particular social groups as it is 100% about dance music, and the magazine is aimed at those with a strong interest in dance. I featured big names in dance in the magazine (like Diplo, David Guetta and Avicii) because that is the response I got from my survey.

My magazine represents different and specific social groups in varied ways. Firstly it is aimed at mainly English speaking people as the magazine is published in English. Furthermore, the photos taken are of two of my friends and on the front cover, they are shown to be looking directly at the camera, which shows confidence and perceiving an upfront kind of attitude. Dance music is seen as a very positive and upbeat genre of music and the fact that the two cover stars are smiling reflects the type of magazine is and this could therefore replicate the personality of the reader accessing different social groups in the process.

Dance music is very much dominated by white people in terms of producers and artists as a whole, with the majority from America, the UK and Eastern Europe. The trend is followed with the photos as they are of

people of white decent. This could perhaps suggest a representation of social groups.Gender-wise, my magazine isn’t aimed in particular at males or females singularly, so I haven’t changed my magazine to incorporate either gender specifically. This also means I haven’t really used any stereotypical male or female colours because the magazine is for everyone. Looking at age, my magazine is aimed more specifically at teenagers and young adults as I found that they were the group most interested in the genre of music I chose, however I think that my magazine is accessible and interesting for all.

Stereotypically teenagers are all ways on social media and in particular mobile phones so I have taken this into account by including ways to interact with DanceMag via social media as hopefully this is another avenue of interest to my magazine. For example, instead of people hearing about DanceMag as a result of the actual magazine they can see it online and go to the website or Facebook page which could potentially lead them into buying the magazine every time it is released and therefore making the company more money.

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

Media institutions interested in distributed would be music magazine companies, solely because my media product is a music magazine. The closest representation of my magazine to another, as I mentioned earlier, is MixMag as it also focuses on various genres to do with dance music. Therefore I think that the company that publish MixMag, Development Hell Ltd. would be the best option and the sort of media institution to distribute my magazine. Other options would include well known music magazine publishers in general as they have good knowledge about what makes a successful magazine and the right ways to advertise it. Not to mention the profits that big corporations make, which would be appealing for that reason.

Development Hell would be a good option for a media institution to distribute my media product. DevelopmentHell.com is the world's #1 on-line resource for Writers and Writing, featuring information, interviews and articles by, with and for, screenwriters and novelists. This means it is well-suited to be able to produce my magazine: DanceMag.

4) How did you attract/address your audience?

People are attracted to magazines by using appealing words, fonts, colour schemes and a good page layout. Firstly, I intrigued the audience by immediately bringing to their attention that my product is a dance magazine. This is shown by me using the phrase ‘The BEST new dance magazine around’. Also by using the word ‘new’ it appeals to the audience as it adds a sense of freshness to the magazine potentially. Furthermore, by using words like ‘exclusive’ on my front cover, it attracts people as whatever is exclusive will only be in my magazine, which adds something different to my product. In my contents, I used some specific words concerning what’s coming up in the magazine which require pragmatic knowledge, but this is a way of addressing my audience as they understand what I mean by the terms used. These include: new releases, DJ sets and shows and remix. On my double page spread, I talk about a brand new type of house music, and this attracts the audience because it’s all about dance music, which attracted them in the first place, but with a slight twist. In general I think that all the words used would attract and personally address the audience of my product.

The photo on my front cover is of two people showing direct address, which will make the audience see what the magazine is all about. The people photographed are wearing fashionable, bright coloured clothing, which in my opinion represents dance music as a whole very well and basically addresses the audience from the first thing they’ve seen of the

magazine. On my contents page I used photos that reflect different articles and features in the product. One of the photos is of someone dancing which is obviously a big part of dance music and attracts the audience as a result of the action shot taken. My double page spread has a more calm approach with the sole photo being of a male artist with a guitar in hand, but it also attracts and addresses the audience because the article as a whole has an unknown factor to it.

I kept a consistent feel with my fonts, because although they are very important in portraying your magazine in general, it was not necessary to go over the top with the amount of different fonts I used. One of the fonts used ‘WhoopAss’ featured predominantly as I felt it was a very relevant font for a dance magazine. It is very funky and bouncy in my opinion which reflects the feel of the product. It was used on all of my magazine pages in various different sizes.

The colour schemes I used consisted of bright and bold colours again reflecting the feel of dance music. The main colours I used were red, blue and yellow, which are all primary colours, emphasising what type of music dance is. This attracts and addresses the reader because the magazine is very much themed.

My page layout was fairly straight forward as my audience is mainly teenagers, so I need to make sure there’s a compromise between physical and visual content within my publication. There were certain parts of my magazine that I felt needed to be emphasised like certain quotes and headlines, so they’re placed in fairly unnatural positions, whereas there rest of the publication is structured similarly through the front cover, contents and finally double page spread.

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

Even though I had used photoshop before, I had never used it in this detail. Looking back to my preliminary task and comparing it to my finished piece, I have made a lot of progression. The first thing that strikes me is the professionality difference between the two. My preliminary task was very basic, firstly because I was just getting started with using photoshop for this type of production and secondly we were limited on how long we could spend on the preliminary task.

The colour scheme was poor on my first attempt and not really relevant. This is because I didn’t realise the importance of having an initial house style. Also the font size was not consistent, and the front cover had no content on it whatsoever. I realised that my final product needed to be jam-packed with content and I changed this when I made the actual thing, showing a clear difference. The photo on my ‘College Life’ magazine is out of focus and this is very noticeable and clearly makes my preliminary front cover unprofessional. For my actual front cover, I made sure I had a range of options for different types of front covers, so that I could choose the one that suited my magazine best. Furthermore, I used audience research to build on my previous knowledge of photoshop and so that I could make my magazine as suited to the potential reader as possible.