Cyclone Media

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

When I started to look at magazines in preparation for my task, I looked at different types to gain a feel for how the different genres used conventions. For example, a heavy metal magazine may have a band dressed in all black with dull lighting on the cover. Whereas for the pop genre your more likely to see an artist in a suit etc. After seeing some Indie mags, I gained inspiration as to what I would like to achieve – so I looked deeper into Indie and did some research. I set my target audience at teens to young adults, this is because these are the kind of people that will buy my product, as the indie market has reached an all time high for this age group. These magazines often feature the same kind of thing; a new/ upcoming band, a few interviews of recent popular artists, news and dates of tours and also a freebie. Once I gained an insight as to what was appropriate for my magazine I had to come up with my exact headlines, features and images. Firstly, I took some pictures for my cover – I told my model to wear something which stood out from the rest, this would assure my magazine was taken off the shelf. Now I had my pictures, I did a questionnaire which I gave to my peers so that I knew exactly what people were looking for. Based on the results I could see what to feature and what to leave alone.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

There is a range of social groups represented in my magazine, because it has an average age range from around 15-25, there are social groups such as college students, younger workers and university students. The genre of my magazine has a representation of individuals dressed how you wouldn't expect, for example; wearing an oversized t shirt - and this is the take I used on it, which changed the way in which I edited my photographs; I tried to jazz them up and make them catch the eye. My images also have good connotations, this is because I used mostly the same aged models as my target audience, so the social groups are able to look at these images and relate them to themselves.

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

I looked at a range of media institutions for example: The National Magazine Company and Future Publishing. The media institute I decided my magazine would benefit from is Bauer Media this is because they distribute magazines which are similar to mine such as Q and Kerrang! magazine and I think that Bauer would suit my magazine as they would know how to market and distribute my genre. They are good at what they do and have great experience with distributing magazines – this is because they own more than eighty influential brands and have over 300 magazines in 15 countries. They are well experienced and manage to distribute many magazines, therefore, I feel that this is a very wise choice to choose them to distribute my music magazine.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I aimed my magazine at an age range from 15 – 25. This is because I feel people who are into the indie genre are most likely this aged, however, it's not just about the age – it is also about their music taste so I made sure it was not strictly for these people by adding in some material which would relate to all ages. I feel my audience would be into the same things as I am e.g. listen to some of the same bands as me, which makes it easier for me to relate and to make the magazine content more interesting and fun for an indie lover. Because I didn't want to take any chances, I made a questionnaire which I gave to peers in my year, this gave me more of an idea of what people wanted from the magazine. Once this was over I evaluated their responses and injected it into my product.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

I thought that it was important when creating my magazine that it would catch a viewers eye from the second they saw it, to do this I used a model of the same age group as my target audience and got them to dress in a stylish and individual manner, this would relate to the audience themselves. Next, I thought about my font – I tried my magazine cover with a few different styles which gave the magazine alternative feels to it. I decided on a 'Courier' font which fitted great with my genre of choice. Another element to my magazine which I did to entice my readers is the way I wrote the text, this being informal, the reason I did this was I believe it makes the audience feel more at home and at ease with my magazine and made the reader want more.

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

During the creation of my media product I have learnt a lot about technologies which has greatly helped. Throughout the construction of my magazine I uploaded information about what was going well and what wasn't, I also blogged some drafts of my front cover, contents and double page spread. I used lots of different technology and some software to create and manipulate my product, some of these were: digital camera; this was used for capturing my images, adobe illustrator; which helped me piece together my magazine, and adobe photoshop; which was used to manipulate my images. These were all key elements in finishing my product and were all fairly straight forward, although, I did struggle with getting to grips with adobe illustrator, although after some use I started to experiment by altering hue/ saturation, contrast and other manipulation tools – which in the end paid off as I was happy with my final product.

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

I have learnt a lot producing my product. One factor I have learnt is how important planning is, for the prelim I don't feel I knew enough about my target audience and what they wanted to see from my magazine, which lead to my piece not containing enough interesting material. However, it was vital that I made this mistake as otherwise I wouldn't of noticed what my magazine was missing. I have also learnt a great deal on composition of a front cover and what looks good or not – this meant I could apply my knowledge for my final product. For example, in my preliminary task, my cover was bland and one dimensional, but I managed to pick up on my mistakes and was able to position and create the best ratio between text and image. Finally I have gained knowledge on how to address, and interest the audience – by this I mean what the audience want to hear, in terms of band gossip all the way to freebies. I am glad that my preliminary went how it did otherwise I wouldn't of been able to pick up on the mistakes I made.