Evaluation of Preliminary Task

In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product follows the conventions of a real product of the same medium as it is presented in the same format of a real magazine. My magazine includes all the stylistic conventions of a magazine, such as a masthead, a main photo, a headline, a barcode, a price, a date and plugs of other stories. This makes my magazine look effective and realistic.

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
The social group that I have tried to represent in my media product is young students, as it is a college magazine. My idea to make a 'party special' magazine, featuring stories and photos from college nights out was my way of aiming my magazine more at students rather than the teachers and parents involved with the college. I made sure the image that I used portrayed a night out, with my model being dressed up and glamourous. I think this helped portray the right message about my magazine, as the model is happy and smiling. It represents students as being happy and cheerful and having good clean fun rather than the usual stereotype of students getting drunk all the time and causing trouble.

What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The institution that would distribute my magazine would be Wyke College itself as it is a magazine designed to give students information about goings on around college and the like. I have included the college's name in my magazine masthead so it is clear by whom the magazine is distributed by.

Who would be the audience for your Media product?
My target audience that I have tried to reach out to through my magazine would be young students studying at the college.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I used a variety of different techniques to make my magazine appeal to my target audience. I tried to use bright colours to make my magazine stand out so it would attract my target audiences eye and make them want to buy and read the product. I tried to use quite an ordinary yet original masthead font so that it would be unique, although would not overpower the main image used on my magazine, which I wanted to emphasize as the main feature of my cover. I only used one image on my magazine front cover, so that it would be the main focus, rather than using a few images and the cover seeming too crowded. I chose a colourful and eye-catching image for my front cover, so it would attract my audience and would make them want to see what the product was all about. I also made sure that the photo was appropriate for my target audience and would reflect the main headline of my magazine. Another very important feature of my magazine is the main headline, which I tried to make as colourful and bold as possible. I made the font rather large so it would stand out on the page, and placed it overlapping the main image so the audience would know that the headline related to the main image. I chose a bright pink font which would connote the party idea and would also stand out against the image I had used as well as the turquoise background I had picked. I used a fairly ordinary font but just made it large so it would stand out. For the rest of the smaller features of my magazine, such as the plug headlines, I used bright and smaller fonts to make the text stand out against the background.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Creating my magazine I have learned a lot about the kind of process that real institutions go through when creating a product like mine. I had to use some fairly new software that I had not had much experience using before, such as Adobe Photoshop, which was an interesting task as it made me able to learn something new, which I would be able to put into use in the future. It was a good practise opportunity, before I completed my main task for my exam, so that when that time came, I was able to use the software needed without much difficulty.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learnt that it takes so much more work than I had thought to produce something like this, and to a high standard. I went throught the trial and error process a few times and through this I have managed to create a professional looking product that my audience would want to buy.