Drafts/Progress

Here some of my original drafts, and some images showing the progress I made towards them. These show my original ideas of the magazine, and the extent to which they changed becomes clear when you look at my final products. In this original design of my front cover, you can see minor differences in the background fog, and faded black edging. I eventually decided that it looked better without the extra fog, and with the black fade, before I decided to use a different image for my final product.

There are also some p

Photoshop images of when I was adding the Cover Lines.

Original Images

Qu 6:What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From constructing my products, one of the technologies I have learned about is Photography. I Have never really took "serious" photos before so this was new for me. I used a high quality Olympus camera to take my photos, and I watched a 10 minute DVD that came with the camera in order to use it effectively. One of the keys things I learned is to make sure you take a lot of photos, certainly a lot more than you need. Even if you think one photo looks perfect, it's always best to take several more anyway just in case your other Photo does not turn out quite as good as you think. The more Photos you take, the more chance you have of getting one that you want. On the night I went out with my friend to take photos, I took 25 photos and only used 4 of them (The others were photos I had previously taken of friends). Two of the 4 I used were not the photos I originally planned to use, but actually turned out better. This is why it is so valuable to take considerably more photos than you think you will need. Unless you have a particularly specific idea in mind, I would also consider it important to take photos with a variety of backgrounds. The genre of my music fits in with an "urban" look, and I live in a small country village, so I had to think about my locations a little more carefully. To start with, I took photos looking down a road. We then moved to some garages, and then to the factory which is also conveniently placed in my village. These locations gave me the urban look I needed. Since the factory had a lot of lights, it was also better to do that photo shoot at night, when it was dark.

Two of the internet applications I have had to use and learn are Flickr and Blogger. I had never used ether of these websites nor anything similar, so they have both been a new experience for me.
Although a little confusing at first, I learned the layout of blogger quite quick and I am now very comfortable with using it. The most important things I have learned would be how to use "Labels" and generally finding my way around the website. Since blogger is the website which my entire project is on, it has allowed me to keep adding things as I go along, which is very important. One distinct disadvantage of using a free blog hosting website would be the picture size limit. In my Final products section, my Products are somewhat compressed, and therefore have lost some of their quality. Also, in these sections where you add you your blog, they way in which you add and organize photos is very awkward. You cannot place a photo exactly where you want it, and sometimes the photo will be in a different place within the "Edit" screen than it is when you look and the published version on the blog. Overall however, blogger has given me all the options I to create my project.

Flickr has also been useful for annotating photos. As I write this I have not used it all that much, but when I have done it has been very simple to use. Like Blogger, I had never used a website like Flickr before - but it is very simple to import photos and annotate them effectively. I have used ti to annotate my own projects aswell as other magazines and it has broadened my knowledge of the websites available for a project such as this.

As mentioned in my "Skills Development" section, I have also learned a lot about Adobe Photoshop CS4. Before this project, I had only very briefly used it and thus was not capable of creating professional looking pieces of work. Now I am capable of doing so, and I am very comfortable with using Photoshop. Most of the things I have learned I have learned from just using Photoshop and finding things out by myself, or by using Google.

Google has also helped me in this project. I have used it to search for many things, including institutional data, photos for my Moodboard, and other information and help about target audiences. I also used google to find out about Vibe magazine in the first place, which has been an influence throughout my project.

Font Ideas

For the Masthead font, I think I will use either Birth Of a Hero, Sterofildelic, or Trashco. This is because these fonts seems to be the most interesting, yet appropriate. I did think of using a more Standard font Like Vibe does, but after looking at these fonts (particularly Birth Of A Hero) I feel that these will work better for my magazine, which is aimed at a slightly younger audience than Vibe.

For sub-titles and front cover titles I think I will use CopperPlate Gothic Bold since it seems to look good when In a bigger font, but not so good when smaller - for my smaller writing I think I will use Gill Sans MT or Arial, since these are standard fonts which are very easy on the eye.

Full Analysis of Vibe Magazine Oct/Nov '10

In my opinion the magazine as a whole is a very good one, and has a great style which has given me something to work alongside when making my own magazine. You can see my Analysis of Front cover, contents page and feature articles to see what I thought of the style of those specific parts. Despite is great style and appealing looks, I think that the magazine is a little to confusing as to what things are and where they are. This is partly to do with a confusing contents page - which is split over 2 pages, with adverts in between, and doesn't seem to cover everything (although it probably does). Not only this, but the amount of adverts is the magazine is huge, especially near the start. I feel that the adverts could have been all before the contents page, or all after it, and the magazine could have much more defined sections to make it less confusing.

I think it would help if the contents pages did not have adverts in between and were next to each other, and also if the title pages for each 'section' were a little more clear. For example, for one section called "The Splurge" there is an advert for books on the left page, and then the main picture on the splurge page is a TV, which makes the page look like an advert itself. Then, when you go into this section, it is laid out as 'Page,ad,page,ad,page,ad' and only a few pages further in are there any pages at all which manage a double page spread without seeing an advert. When you get to these sections, the magazine starts to look good, but with adverts every other page it gets confusing and un-attractive to read.

The magazine is clearly aimed at Middle class Males around the age of 25-35, but also at aspirational people at the 18-30 range. On vibe's website (Which is the company, not just the magazine) they say that "The new Vibe is the premier destination for urban music, entertainment, culture and lifestyle for the aspirational 18-34 year old." You can tell this by the way the articles, pages and adverts are - The contents pages feature one person dressed in designer clothes on each page, all the adverts are for things such as cars in the £20,000-40,000 range, designer clothes and perfumes. Some of the articles are about very expensive things themselves; one section is about fashion and features a $200 bow tie. Most articles and interviews feature a lot of writing, which also suggests a more educated audience. This can be compared with something like The Sun newspaper, which features and lot of pictures and minimal amounts of writing and is not aimed at such an educated, intelligent audience.

However, you can tell from it's style that it is aimed at a younger audience. For a start, the type of music that this magazine is about is usually liked by younger audiences anyway (RnB,Rap, Hip Hip) and this is further illustrated on the front cover, where you see Usher, and Usher only. The word "Usher" also appears on the front cover with a small quote from him, to further clarify who it is - you can probably tell just with a glance if this magazine is about the type of music you like just from a glance at it. It adopts a sort of "Smart-Casual" style, in which it looks professional, but certainly not Formal. Throughout the magazine, whether it is an article, contents page, front cover, interview, special feature, it keeps the same type of style in which writing varies in colour, size and format, but only on a small scale. For example. the front cover involves only 2 colours of writing - yellow and white. On a feature article I have talked about the only colours are white,red, and black. By doing things like this, the articles always look interesting, but still maintain a professional and casual look.

Feature Articles - Ideas and Analysis of Others

In the October/November issue of Vibe magazine, there are 2 very different types of feature article. Although neither of them would be the style I am looking for, I could use ideas from them both to help me with my feature article.
One of the feature articles is to do with twitter, and more specifically, what famous artists have been tweeting lately. The article is colourful and visually attractive - it uses and very simple blue/white colour palette which works well, and the layout is good too, with rounded boxes, rounded pictures and once again - varied text size. Although this is not the type of article I will be doing, (Mine will be more like an interview) there are defiantly things that I could use from this article to make my article better. In the rounded boxes there are specific bits of information aside from everyones tweets - there is a box about Kanye West joining twitter, a story about FABOLOUS and T-pain, and 'displays of public affection,' of course, all on twitter. In between and around all these boxes are the tweets themselves. The name of the person tweeting is in bold white letters, and the tweets themselves are in standard white letters. Some of the tweets have a small picture next to them, and these tweets have a bigger font size as they are most important/funny/controversial tweets. The variation of Short stories, tweets, pictures and small bits of text keep this page interesting and appealing to look at. With a layout like this, is does not seem a chore to read a lot of writing, since it is all spread out, varied and with a good colour scheme.

The other article is an interview with "Soulja Boy." It's very much a simple article, which is laid out nicely and will appeal to people who are interested in reading about him. It is a 6 page article, and has an "order" of picture, writing, picture, writing. The main background colour is a plain white, and the only other colours in the article are white and red (aside from the pictures) This is very much a colour scheme which I am interested in for the magazine generally, since it is kept simple, but because the background is white it makes the simple colours stand out.

For the first page, there is a title which says "Life of a shooting star" which takes up half of the first page. It is a centered title in a graffiti style writing, which large speech marks and a stylish underline. Under the title is a short sentence which gives an overview of what the article is about - this is written in black. Further below this is the name of the writer and photographer, with a little symbol so you know which person is which - This is in red writing. When the article begins, the first sentence is "Soulja Boy is boiling inside." The 'S' takes up three lines, and his entire name is in red before the rest of the article is in black. From what I have just said, you can see how the page is varied in it's simple colours and styles to keep the page looking interesting, and this is what I would like my article to be like - very simple, not to many colours, but interesting due to varied colours, font sizes and shapes.

On the other 2 'writing' pages, the page is essentially filled with writing, all apart from in the middle in the page, where there is a quote. This is obviously one of the most interesting quotes from the page, and once again, is colour is varying. It has large red speech marks, the middle of the quote is red, with the start and end of the quote being black. Once again, this makes what is essentially a small bit of writing in the middle of a page full of writing, look like an interesting variant to the page. Also, every time a new subject is started in the writing, the start of the paragraph is emboldened and in capital letters.

Mood Board and analysis of Target Audience

This moodboard I have created is one for my magazine, but also slightly based on Vibe magazine, since I want them to appeal to roughly the same audience. I got this quote directly from Vibe's website:

"The new Vibe is the premier destination for urban music, entertainment, culture and lifestyle for the aspirational 18-34 year old."

The items/people on the moodboard represent what these people are likely to enjoy, like, eat, play etc. Since it is aimed a a young age group (And my magazine may have a slightly younger target audience, perhaps 15-30) I have things like video games, and food like Mcdonalds, as younger people so do enjoy these things more than older age groups. I have a picture of Usher and Eminem to represent the kind of music my readers would like, to represent that my magazine is aimed more towards Males, and also to represent that my magazine is aimed at and black and white people, not just black people who are usually associated with this type of music.

My target audience in terms of class will be B,C1,C2, as it says on my moodboard. Those who are middle class may be to afford some of the things that the C1/C2 are aspiring to get, but they will all want roughly the same things that the moodbaord suggests. For example, the B class readers may be able to afford the designer clothes on the Moodbaord, but the C2 class may not - but the C2 class would still want them, which is what the readers would have in common regardless of class.

Demographics:
Band: B,C1,C2
Age: 15-30
Mainly Male Readership: 90% male, 10% female
Single 65%, Living with partner 25%, married 10%
Students/graduates/Young Single Men

Contents Page - Ideas and Analysis of Others

The contents page of Vibe is spread over 2 separate pages - one page for features, and one page for "Departments," which is essentially the regular features of the magazine. There are several adverts between, before and after each contents page too. Personally, although these pages are professionally designed, I do not like the idea of having things between the contents pages. The magazine has a confusing feel to it because of the mixture of adverts, contents pages and actual magazine story's near the front. I would prefer my contents page to be on one page (maybe 2, but they would be next to each other!)

On each separate page, there is one main picture on the right side of the page, and the listings of the contents are on the left. The writing is small, but much like the front cover it varies is colour, size and format. For example, on the contents page with the features on it, the page number is black, the title is white and bold, and the description is white. Here is an example:

84 STORY OF A SHOOTING STAR
Since 17, De Andre "Soulja Boy" Way has
consistently crafted mindless jingles while
maintaining a touch of naivete. Now a
year short of 21, the tatted web fiend
comes clean for the first time about
his most lethal shots fired.

The other contents page (Listing the regular features) Has a bit more colour to it, almost a colour code for each section, with also a little symbol. The layout of each item listed is the same as the other contents page, except the page number has a colour, and about each section is a small symbol which is the same colour as the number. I think this is good because it keeps the same style, but is more interesting to look at, and it mixes things up a little bit to ensure the readers interest in these contents pages.

The contents Page on Mixmag is very different to the contents pages of Vibe. It has a very "square" style, with 1 square picture in the middle of the page, and one smaller image just above where (some) of the contents is listed. Several straight lines separate different parts of the page, for example a Line at the bottom with information about the free CD underneath it, and a line at the top which has "Mixmag December 2010 Contents" written above it. The style is much the same on the other page, but somewhat reversed - the pictures are this time in the middle and on right side of the page, with the contents listing on the left. Personally, I think that this page looks on a lot better than the first contents page, because your eye is naturally drawn to the left side of the page because we read left t right, but also to the right side of the page because of the pictures, which gives the page a good balance. However, on the first page, I found myself just ignoring the contents listing.

One thing that both magazines have in common is the varied font sizes and colours on the contents listing themselves. Much like vibe, mixmag sticks to a simple colour pallet, only using white and yellow to list its contents, with variations in front size, format and even the actual fonts. I think this is defiantly something I will do in my magazine, since it gives the contents listing or more interesting, but certainly not over-the-top look.

Initial Ideas for my own music magazine

I think my music magazine will be about the Genres of Hip hop, rap, and RnB. After speaking with a friend who is very much into this type of music, (And has a wider knowledge of it than me) we have come up with a few names. The best of which (For the magazine name) so far has been "Dubbed." I like the idea of having one main image of the front that overlays the Mast Head like Vibe magazine, and I think my best current idea would be a cover like this, but with the main person being a sort of silhouette. I thought of this idea because it could tie in with my feature article - the silhouette would add a sense of mystery as to who the person is (There could be a cover story with a clue, for example "The Next Eminem)" which might make the reader curious, and want to buy the magazine to read about them. I would like my feature article to be an interview with the artist who is on the front cover. I am not quite sure how it would be laid out, but I have thought of having the same picture that is on the front cover (or similar), but not silhouetted.

There could potentially be other pictures of famous stars down the bottom to ensure the reader is interested in buying the magazine, and to further clarify the target audience of the magazine. I also think that my magazine will aim at a slightly younger audience than Vibe does, with more recent artists mentioned on the front, but still trying to keep the reasonably professional style that vibe has. I have limited ideas for my contents page at the moment compared with the ideas I have for my cover and feature article. I would like it to be a sort of "irregular style, perhaps unorganized, with a generally limited colour pallet (Depending on the front cover) with small splashes of colour, although at the moment I'm not sure on specific details of how it would all go together.

Original Images

All Images were taken with my phone, for the real magazine, I plan to use a better camera to get better quality pictures!

Existing College Magazine Analysis:

Click The Image To
View Annotations.

Researching the Product

From conducting a Questionnaire around the College, I discovered that nearly 95% of people do not read the college magazine, so it clearly does not attract it's target audience. Also, nearly Three Quarters of people would not be prepared to pay for it, and those that would would only be prepared to pay a small amount, (Maximum £1) so if I where to be creating the whole magazine it may need adverts to fund it.

A lot of people said they wanted the magazine to be colourful, and have lots of pictures and graphics, grab their attention and have more publicity. Because of this, I searched for colourful images which I could edit and use as a template. I also found out what students would like to see in their college magazine, which effected what I planned to have on the front cover. I tried to make the most important things stand out with small bubbles or images behind them.

Since whatever the current college magazine looks like clearly is not working, I decided to directly appeal to my target audience with a lot of colour and quirky images, something completely different from the current college magazine. I kept "conventional" ideas the same such as the Name of the magazine at the top, and one main image in the middle of the magazine. This is so it keeps the basic look so that people do not have to think about what it is - despite it's unique design people still understand it is a magazine without having to look twice. I think this is important if you want people to buy and read your magazine.

College Magazine Pages

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Front Cover - Ideas and Analysis of Others

My magazine will be similar to "Vibe" magazine, since it it mainly about the rap/hip-hop genres, and it also has a slight focus on the celebrity's themselves, and you can see from the twitter article on the magazine to the right.
The cover of Vibe magazine usually has the mast head at the top, with one main image of a particular artist that usually overlaps the title. I think that this works well, since everyone will still be able to easily work out what is says, but will also get a good idea of the type of magazine Vibe is judging from the person on the front cover. If you have no idea who the person on the cover is, then it may say who it is (Bottom Right) or it may just not be the magazine for you.
This magazine is probably aiming for a young audience, and this may be why there is a limited amount of writing, and what writing there is is large, and brightly coloured. However, there are only 2 colours for the writing (White and Yellow) and they vary in front sizes. This is to keep make sure the writing is easy on the eye, and appealing to read. Having not to much to read means someone may be more like to read everything that is written on the front page, and obviously these headings will be the main features that drag people in and make them want to buy the magazine. I personally think that having minimal - but attractive and important writing will be good for magazine too, since my magazine and vibe will be aimed at roughly the same audience.
The combination of one main image and small amounts of highly visible writing gives this magazine an interesting, lively, but still overall professional look. Judging from the artists the magazine is about, (but also considering its more professional look) I would say Vibe magazine is aimed at young people who are lower middle class.

I think that mixmag is aimed at roughly the same age group as vibe, (Perhaps a little younger) but still around the same class. Mixmag is a more of a clubbing magazine, which maybe a slightly different culture, but this still is not a cheap hobby, and the adverts inside of both magazines are generally about expensive items. However, Mixmags front cover is quite different to Vibe's. The front cover of Mixmag is a lot more vibrant (which suggests a younger audience) and once again, has minimal wording. The masthead is at the top with writing above it (similar to Vibe) however there is only one main cover story, which is compiled in a short sentence on the right. They make use of varying font colours, but the sizes remain the same. They also make use of 1 main image, (Partly obscured by the CD) although the main image on Mixmag is a computer generated one as appose to a real image - it is a bright and vibrant image which keeps with the colour scheme of this particular colour, a sort of "neon blue." It also has a blue "Star" near the top0 right which includes more information, which again adds to the information on the front of the magazine, but keep it interesting and appealing to read - this is something I made use of when doing my preliminary task. Personally, I think that my magazine will be more like vibe - I like the idea of small bits of writing with different sizes and colours rather than a whole sentence, and I also prefer the idea of a real image.I also prefer the more professional look of vibe compared to the more vibrant look of Mixmag, and when I asked my friends (Aged 16-17) which magazine they preferred the look of, near enough all of them said Vibe.

Qu 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

In the preliminary Task, my audience was a lot more specific then it was for the main task. For the Preliminary task, it was very simple - College Students where my audience, and being one, it was very easy to ask people what they would look for in a college magazine (If they were interested in buying it. However, for the Main task, my magazine has a lot of influence from "Vibe" magazine, with my target audience being Male 15-30 year old's, mostly aspirers.

I created all my products using Adobe Photoshop Cs4. When I started creating my products for the Preliminary task, I had a very ,very basic knowledge of Photoshop, since i had used it before, but had never been capable of producing anything remotely close to being good. When making my College magazine cover/contents page, I learnt the very important basics such as how to use Layers, selecting the right tools at the right time, and various shortcuts such as pressing "Enter" after transforming an object, and Ctrl+T to re-size the object in the first place.

Once of the most important things I learned was how to fade out the edge of images. To do this, I took either the elliptical, or rectangular marquee tool, and draw on your image. You then click Add layer mask, and click Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. I founded out many tricks such as this by simply going onto Google, or working it out for myself via Trial and Error. After making the Preliminary products, I also had a much wider knowledge of the fonts I could use, which helped me greatly when deciding upon fonts to use for my Final Products. I also tried out many of the "blending options" (By right Clicking the layer) which also helped me with basic effects such as Shadows, glows and Gradient Overlays.

I also very quickly learn that I needed to use a much better camera. In the preliminary task, the pictures were taken on my phone, which has an okay camera, but no-where near good enough to be blown up onto an A4 page. For the Main task, I used an Olympus SLR camera, which had a significantly better quality and was more than capable of taking pictures at the high quality which I needed.

As well as a better camera and more Photoshop knowledge, I also had much better planning and research for my Main Task than I did in my Preliminary. My prelinary was essentially an experiment, and was not specifically based of any magazine - just general ideas I had gathered from magazines I had read in the past. With my Main Task, I looked at quite a few magazines aimed at a similar target audience to grasp a good idea on how the magazine should look. I looked at and Xbox magazine, since is will be aimed at a similar, young audience, and I looked at Vibe, since it has a very similar audience and a similar music genre. By doing this, I had a good idea of what my magazine should look like in terms of organization and amount of colours.

Here is what my original front Cover looked like. To start with I was pleased with it, but after looking at it (And other magazines) more, I decided it needed some changed. I thought this particular version did not look as organized as my current version, and had to much empty space on it. I also thought It need a darker photo to ensure that the text stood out more. I addressed both these issues to eventually make my Final cover (See Above).

Other things I learned within Photoshop were things such as how to use rulers, and the "paragraph" options for editing text spacing. Rulers were particularly important for creating my Feature Article, since I added a ruler line down the middle to act as the middle of the gap between the two pages. This allowed me to align my Feature Article properly so it would work as a double page (A3) spread in a magazine. Learning about the paragraph options was also very important. These options allow you to change the horizontal and vertical spacing between letters and words. The default Vertical space is very large, and decreasing this space gives a much more professional look, particularly with larger writing, such as contents page headings or cover titles. This is something I did not do in my Preliminary task. If you look on both front Covers, you will see that Dubbed's cover titles have a small vertical spacing, whereas the cover titles on 'Enorf' have a large vertical spacing (see Above).

Qu 5:How did you attract/address your audience?

Qu 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Demographics:
Age: 15-34
Mainly Male Readership: 90% male, 10% female
Single 65%, Living with partner 25%, married 10%
Students/graduates/Young Males, the 25/10% above will have a full time Job.

Psychographics:
Aspirers:
Since my audience is mainly Young Males, they will be aspirers. They will look up to the people that they read about in my magazine, and will want the rich lifestyle with the designer clothes, expensive cars etc. A decent proportion of my readers will have a disposable income, so they will spend their money on expensive things such as designer clothes, expensive technology and expensive aftershave - which they would probably not be able to afford without this disposable income. Those who do not have this disposable income will still occasionally buy items like this if they have the money to spare. My audience's appearance will matter to them, they will want to be looking sharp, smelling good and will probably have an air of confidence about them. This means they will probably buy a lot of "Males Grooming" products such as hair products, a good shaver, aftershave etc. My audience may be slightly disconnected from society, but certainly not outcasts, they may even be looked upon as High up in the "Social Ladder." My audience will range from 'D' (Working Class) up to 'B' (Middle Class). Their levels of aspiration will may vary because of this. I would think that most of my audience will be in the 'C1' Category (Lower Middle Class).

Music:
RnB, Hip Hop, Rap
Films:
Fast and Furious, Bourne Films, Inception, 8 Mile
Shopping habits:
They would shop at places like Republic, JD, Bank, and may go for more expensive shops occasionally depending on whether their income is disposable or not.

The sort of products that would be advertised in my magazine would be clothes, Cars, an expensive type of alcohol, and products such and Hair wax and Aftershave. The clothes would be expensive, designer clothes, but the cars may be a bit more "realistic," perhaps cars that cost up to £30,000, but nothing ridiculous as this would be way to far out of my audiences reach. Expensive alcohol such as whiskey may be advertised, as well as hair products, since my audience will care about their look.

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

InterMedia Partners are the publishers of vibe magazine - and since my magazine is very similar to vibe, this would mean I would need to go with a "Rival" publisher such as Bauer, which is the largest privately owned publisher in europe. Since the genres of my magazine are very popular genres (Certainly not Niche) I would want a large publisher. This way, people outside of my target audience might end up buying the magazine anyway just because they are interested in the genre, which can only increase profits.
Bauer will also have deals with big distributors such as WHSmith. Going this mainstream will mean that I may end up concentrating more on profits than my audience - but the magazine is a business, so profit is what matters - but of course enough attention must be payed to the audience to keep them interested.


The need for synergy will be vital for my magazine. Since the people buying magazine will be young males, this means they are familiar with technology, so this makes it crucial to have a website, Twitter, and a Facebook page. This means my magazine will spread though "word of mouth" very quickly. If one guy reads the magazine, he tells his friend about it, and his friend can just go to the website and see if the magazine is for him, rather than having to go out and find one. This means the knowledge of the type of magazine it is will spread quickly. By having a facebook, if one guy "Likes" My magazines page, all his friends might see it and take a look. By having these 3 things, knowledge of my magazine will spread quickly. If I am being backed by a large publisher such as Bauer, it would be possible to get a website up quickly, and pay to be "Promoted" on twitter, meaning everyone would be able to see my magazine on their home page for a certain amount of time.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Here I have chosen an image from my feature article, and the front cover of the Vibe Magazine which I have been analysing. One major difference (Which may not seem Important) is skin colour. Vibe is aimed at a black audience, but my magazine is not aimed at any race specifically. Both images show the subjects in an urban area, with a shot of their whole body, and also with a serious glance. They differ in the way in which they look, but this is because of the different parts of the magazines in which they belong.

On the vibe front cover, Usher is dressed to suit his surroundings, but the aspirers will still notice his watch and sunglasses, which no doubt will be expensive. In my shot, you can see the subject is well dressed -not at all "Chavy," but certainly dressed in a way which my audience will - white trainers, nice jeans, and showing off their belt. His designer T-shirt also attracts the aspiring audience. I feel that my image defiantly re-enforces certain stereotypes of my audience (Being a young person, urban background) rather than challenge them, and this is defiantly what I want, since my image does not paint them in a negative light like the media usually would.

My magazine is defiantly of a "Pro-Consumerist" stance, mainly due to the target audience being mainly aspirers. My magazine (Like most magazines) will rely on advertising as a form of income anyway, but since my audience are aspirers, they will be very interested in what is advertised in my magazine, such as clothes, grooming products, cars and technology. The adverts will usually be items that are slightly above what my audience can realisticly afford - it will be Items that they save up for as buy as a one off. In fact, it effectively suits my audience to have adverts like this in my magazine - while most people are annoyed by adverts, my target audience will probably enjoy looking at the adverts, most likely wishing that they owned whatever is advertised.

Qu 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions are things that are regarded as the normative example - a basic structure if you like. They often help with defining what something is. For example, cars have 4 wheels - 4 wheels is the convention, once you have you convention you can start doing your own thing. You may then decide to make a luxury car, and a typical convention here would be that luxury cars have leather seats - but you may go on to design the seats in your own way.

Essentially, a convention in the norm, the standard, the skeleton structure. When creating anything from a car to a magazine, you will usually follow some sort of convention before you venture out and turn your item into your item.

Depending on the target audience, some magazines may follow conventions more than others. Am magazine which targets a very specific sub culture may not follow conventions as much as a magazine which is very mainstream.

This front cover of Vibe which influenced my magazine does follow a few conventions. The masthead follows conventions in 2 ways - It's at the top of the page, and the cover subject (Usher) overlays it. The other conventions this magazine follows is having one main cover picture, as oppose to several pictures, and of course, cover titles around the picture. It also has a main cover line (One that stands out more than the others)Usher "There is no competition)) which includes a quote - another convention that a lot of magazines follow.

Above the masthead, you can also see names of other stars who are featured in the magazine at some point - another convention that particularly music magazines do seem to follow.

The front cover of my magazines follows a lot of conventions - but breaks some others. The front cover of my magazine features a masthead at the top, with featured artists above the masthead. It follows the "One main image" convention, but changed it slightly, since the photo is a close up, and it goes behind the masthead as oppose to over the top of it. Like most magazines, it features many cover lines, and one of them is a quote, however, it does not have a "Main" cover titles which particularly stands out from the rest - although one of the titles is related the the main picture. One thing I included which most music magazines do not is a sort of bar at the bottom, which includes more featured articles, and arrows which appear to "point" to the next page. I included this because I saw a similar "bar" on a gaming magazine which had a similar style to my magazine, and is also aimed at a similar age group.

Contents pages tend not to have such set conventions like Front covers do. For the background picture in my contents page I chose a very urban photo, with a sense of mystery about it. I feel that my audience will be intrigued by the photo, since it suggests a very solo approach from the artist. I also chose a more light hearted image to go in the middle of the page. This very much breaks the conventions of magazines like mine, but I think having an image like this makes my magazine different, and makes it stand out from competitors. It still has all the normal, 'serious' stuff, but with a funny image and article to go with it, it breaks conventions and stands out from the rest.

I very much stuck with the colour scheme from my front cover, and carried it over in to my contents page and double page spread. I feel that something like this is to big of a convention to break, as it can alienate the audience, and feel like a different magazine if you change the colour scheme to drastically. For this reason, I stuck to my main colours of Red,Black,Grey and white throughout each piece of my magazine.

In my Feature article, one of the conventions I stuck to was pulling a quote from the text, and putting it elsewhere on the page in order for it to stand out. I done this 3 times : In the bottom right corner, and near the middle, where I pulled 2 quotes which relate to each other. Having quotes like this somewhat breaks the usual convention, but I felt it was suited to the style of the Interview. As I have mentioned, I tried to keep for the same kind of style and colour scheme from the rest of the magazine. I also chose to have 2 photos, whereas most magazines tend to have 1 main picture. Since this is a double page spread, I wanted to have a picture for each page, with neither words of pictures crossing over the page - this keeps the pages separate from each other, so that the 2 images don't look to "over-powering."