How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My target audience in terms of demographics falls into the class category of ABC1, making them middle class with a fair amount of disposable income. They also can be of any age, however, they would mostly be a younger age due to the genre of music being more modern and not something that is usually liked by older people. In relation to this, the gender can be either male or female. They will tend to be people who live in the city as the genre of music suits a city life. The psychographic side to my target audience would be that they have to have a passion for the genre of music, whether it them being a DJ themselves or just to be a fan of the genre. My audience could also be fans of gaming, this is because the style of music included in the magazine tends to be hits with gamers and is even sometimes included in games or films. An example of this would be the soundtrack to the newer Tron film, this was made by DJ's Daft Punk who produce music similar to that which would be featured in the magazine.

Through the use of my media products, I have mainly represented my target audience as a selected group of people who enjoy partying and tend to be very sociable. I have implied this by featuring articles in my magazine that talks about clubs and parties. Clubs are also usually related to drink and alcohol. This means that companies who produce alcoholic drinks could be interested in advertising my in my magazine due to the stereotypical reader being interested in such a thing.

I have also assumed that my target audience are fairly intelligent in the genre of music through my choice of language in my DPS (double page spread article). This is showed through terms like 'King of the Decks' which the reader can now assume, means the best DJ in the world.

The photos in my final products are all very laid back and fairly casual. This is a representation of my target audience, as they would be fairly relaxed and this is shown in my photos through certain poses like this one for example. The looking away from the camera and the smile/laughing face all adds to the relaxed feel. I also feel that I have challenged some stereotypes to do with the younger generation of today. I feel they are usually shown to be aggressive and violent, however, as I just previously explained, through the use of softer poses and less aggressive colour schemes. Another challenged stereotype is that a 'geeky' look being 'uncool', however, in this photo the geek glasses are used to make a cool look rather than making something 'uncool'. The colour scheme I have chosen links with my target audience as it's all quite bright, the reds and yellows, which again sells the club and party theme.  

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

On my cover for my music magazine, I have a numerous amount of the common conventions found on a traditional processional music magazine cover. These include, my masthead, coverlines and layout choices

Masthead:

My masthead is placed central in the cover and is covered over by the main cover photo and its backing effects. This is because it indicates that the company is confident that the audience it's targeting will recognise the masthead from what's is actually on show on the cover. This also ties into the effect of making the audience feel as if they are in a certain little 'club' if they can spot a Turntable cover with ease. The masthead is obviously used to show the title of your magazine and with mine being labelled 'Turntable' it has a instant relevance to my genres of music chosen to cover, making the start of my 'house-style' Adding to my style, I have added a simple colour scheme, I have chosen these colours as they are very simple and the white stands out from the rest of the cover, to the masthead, nothing to detailed, apart from the specifically chosen font that suits the style of the magazine and compliments the other fonts on the cover.

Coverlines:

The coverlines I've used on my cover are placed in a certain way to compliment the lay out. This is done by keeping the coverlines away from the main attention drawer of the main photo. As you can see I've placed the secondary coverlines away in the corner, however they are coloured to stand out from the background and so they aren't blending in with the rest of the cover. The main coverline however, is meant to stand out from the cover and be one of the main attention grabbers and advertises they main article in the magazine. The colouring of the main coverline still keeps with the rest of the cover despite standing out. My coverlines are also justified to the side in which they are on. This is because it gives the cover a more sleek and tidy look.

Layout:

They layout of my magazine cover was chosen after close analysis of other professional music magazine covers. I chose to have my main photo slightly overlapping my masthead, and to have my main coverline below the eyes (direct address) of the main photo as it draws a viewers eye down and then would lead it towards the 'Headlines' section which covers the main talking points in that weeks Dj'ing music world. The main cover image is very large and covers the majority of the cover. The photo has direct address which catches the persons eye

This is my double page spread and it also holds important conventions of the magazine industry.

Pull Quotes:

I've chosen 2 pull quotes from my article. Pull quotes are pieces of text that should be somewhat surprising or shocking. They entice the reader and they will they be left wanting to find out more about the quote and will continue to read deeper into the article. The quotes are clearly wrapped by the text so they stand out, they are also a separate font to the main article so they are easy to differentiate between quote and article and so it makes the whole thing look a lot more professional.

Kicker:

I've also used a kicker at the top of my article. This tends to stretch across the columns in which the main article is in. The kicker also is used to somewhat set the scene of the following article, for example saying where a interview took place and who it was with etc. I've also made the name of the artist interviewed in my kicker stand out my making it a separate colour to the other text, this helps the reader know who the article is about if the didn't already know and will also stop the reader from missing the name if they are skim reader or something similar. Finally, the kicker is also written in the article and magazines house style. It includes somewhat inform phrases that suit the magazine like 'newly crowned'.

End Sign:

The end sign of the DPS article is the smaller Turntable masthead. End signs are used to indicate to the reader that the article has finished and that they should either move on through the same page or turn over.

White Space:

White space is key to a double page spread article for a few reasons. The space makes the page feel less crammed with information and text and more spacious. The space makes the whole pages look better on the eye as otherwise the reader may get confused by all the text and lose interest in the article itself. White space also works well with my neat column structure. The 3 columns per page layout and the fully justified on both sides gives a clean look to the double page spread.

Drop Caps:

They are used at the start of articles and they are a fairly simple convention to use in a article. The use of it is to indicate the to the reader where the start of the article is. The letter drops into the article and the rest of the article wraps around it like a normal picture.

Contents Page:

Colour Scheme:

I have the same colour scheme through out the whole 3 final products. These are a bright red, bright yellow and a more pale blue that only really features on the contents page. The use of a colour scheme gives the whole magazine that feel of a 'house-style', a style that is the same through-out and that can be related to your audience. Mine for example is bright colours as it shows the partying and rave tenancies that my readers will no doubt have. This is also known as a 'dayglo' look.

Regulars and Features:

My contents page is split into a 'features' section and a regulars (not labelled). The features is a collection of pages that contain articles on content that is not always in the magazine. This tends to be things that a exclusive to that weeks edition, including my cover story. The regulars section is things that are frequently in the magazine and sometimes change what they are about, for example 'weekly album reviews' would be reviews on albums every week, however obviously the album would change.

How did you attract/address your audience?

http://prezi.com/imxv2andxgfr/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-imxv2andxgfr&rc=ref-23733025
This is a link to my Prezi that contains my Evaluation Question 5

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

This is Adobe Photoshop CS6, it is the program I used to create my 3 products and it's the best program available for the task I had to complete. An advantage to using Photoshop is that it has a huge variety of tools and effects you can apply to your work. The tool I think I used most inside Photoshop was probably the soft edged rubber. This tool allows you rub around a picture/photo but gives it not such a harder look and somewhat fades the picture and removes the sharp edges to the photo, perfect for using in my magazine pages. 



Flickr is a photo-sharing website that you sign up too and can post photos for other people using the website to see. It's a useful resource when doing analysis of other magazines. It allows you to attach these 'notes' to the picture and when someone views it they can hover over the noted section and read what you've wrote. This feature makes it incredible useful when doing quick analysis, however it isn't the best when it comes to presentation as it lacks that diversity that other programs have, such as Prezi. 


I used this website in a similar way to how I used Flickr, to present my analysis's. This however, was better than flickr as it was different. It's like a slide show, but its more exciting and overall a more interesting way to present information. However, a point against Prezi is that it takes a while to make one and that it isn't the best for displaying alot of information in one go, in my opinion.

The use of the website Blogger to store and present all my final work is definitely something I felt was a benefit to using technology rather than using a folder for example. It has a very useful labels feature which allows you to filter through work and products very quickly allowing you to get what you want when you want it. Blogger also allows me to edit my posts very quickly and effectively. These features are why I find this online method of storage and organisation better compared to physical copies in folders. 

As previously mentioned, i personally prefer blogger and these other online applications, like Prezi in comparison to traditional techniques. This also applies when i was analyzing other products. Prezi was a much more appealing to me than writing traditional essays to analyse. This is because it is a more creative way to do things and overall more fun. An advantage to these online methods is that they are easily be uploaded onto your blog through embedding whereas the paper copies would have to be scanned and uploaded where they would lose quality or they would have to be word processed which would be incredibly tedious. However, a advantage to traditional methods would be that they are easier to change if mistakes are made they can easily be adaptive and changed. This is lost in the online software's as the method of editing is a lot slower and can be boring. 

Double Page Spread Analysis (2)

 



Click on the link below to see my analysis of this double page spread.

http://prezi.com/voj5ssjl9hn1/double-page-spread-analysis-2/?kw=view-voj5ssjl9hn1&rc=ref-23733025

Double Page Spead Analysis (1)

 

Click the following link to view my first analysis.
http://prezi.com/pg4ssb3plqfe/double-page-spread-analysis-1/?kw=view-pg4ssb3plqfe&rc=ref-23733025

Paper Draft of Magazine Cover