Evaluation Q2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

When designing my media product, one of my aims was to create a magazine that appealed to fans of all different kinds of indie music as I felt that music such as Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, The Kooks, The Killers etc was all unrated in the music market for teenagers and younger adults especially which is why I decided that as my target audience. Additionally, it was important for me to represent them positively in the magazine. I did this by using stylish costuming and main artists who were of a similar age to my readership. These things present young people as youthful and fun ensuring that the product apples to my target audience. Moreover, I wanted to represent this age group as intelligent because often magazine targeted at teenagers can be quite patronising and have a negative attitude towards them. I made sure the text within my double page spread especially was sophisticated but informal enough to be suitable for teenagers.  

I originally intended to aim my magazine at just the female gender but along the process I changed my mind. This was because my final product turned out with a balance of each gender with I did not anticipate. However, this ended up being a positive as it was easier to appeal more then one gender rather then create a product just suited to females. To represent girls positively in my product I chose a typically feminine colour of pink and used female models throughout my magazine. To represent boys I used dark colours and the main model for my magazine was male. Because everything in my magazine is focused on both male and females it portrays them as both as important as each other, successful and admirable, which is attractive for both gender readerships. 

As I explored my social class and demographics research, my product is aimed at all class readers. I represented all class's positively through the price of my magazine, and the writing style, which I tried to make professional and sophisticated but also with a side of informality too. I wanted a price high enough to reflect the quality of the product, but low enough that it was affordable for everyone as the target audience are young and may not yet have any profession. 

Evaluation Q1

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

I used continuity by using a house style throughout my product; I used similar font types in each product as it makes the overall presentation of my magazine professional and consistent. Additionally, the fonts that I used work well with the genre of my magazine being indie as the font is edgy and wouldn’t be associated with genres of music such as classical.

I used the colour black, grey and light pink for my scheme colours as it works well with the audience, attracting both male and female which creates a bigger audience for the magazine, persuading more people to buy it. I kept the colour scheme throughout each product in different sections as it creates an even distribution which I feel will attract the target audience well.

The same artists are on my front cover, contents and DPS as they are the main content of the magazine. I decided on the same people to feature on each product as like the font type and colour scheme it is consistent and creates a professional outlook on the magazine.

Continuity represents my magazine well as it keepers the readers engaged whilst reading. 

Additionally, with the house style being the same and consistent it makes it easier for the readers to follow and understand. An example of this is if a well-known artist is stopped on the front of a magazine, it would automatically attract the audience to buy it. Additionally, if they were to skip through the pages and see that continuity of that particular artist featuring elsewhere in the magazine it’s going to persuade them more so to read/purchase it. 

Updated Front Cover