Task Evaluation

My magazine (the product) uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real magazines in a number of ways. The first way I used the forms and conventions for my magazine was when I was planning. I needed to view enough magazines so that I had a strong understanding of what covers, contents pages and DPS's all involved, and what they needed to appeal to different audiences.
My magazine cover develops the usual 'perfect' images you see on magazine covers, into something much more innocent and girly. Instead of my model dressing provocatably which a lot of magazines have these days, I chose to follow the younger conventions for girly magazines, and have her wearing something admirable, rather than nothing at all! The cover has the typical form of a usual magazine - masthead, cover lines, bar code, price, date, photograph, logo and unique selling points. All of these are put together to create a colour theme across my page, and make my cover look like it's one for a magazine, rather than a poster of some kind! I chose my colour theme carefully; the conventions of magazines for teenage girls (or younger) tended to have a lot of pink and purple. I used pink, blue, yellow and black. I'm challenging the conventions slightly with my colour choice because blue is a colour often associated with boys, but I felt it would definately not only look a bit more contrasting, it might just bring in a wider audience. The typical covers I looked at all had a model dressed (occasionally anyway) with clothes on that represent either their own persona or one rivalling theirs. They usually are in a studio for the main photo so that the lighting can be controlled, but I decided to go against this usual convention and have my model outside. I challenged Ellie's (my model's) persona by getting her to wear a coat and holld it close to her. She is a 'WILDFLIES' member, but by closing her coat, appearing to the audience to be reserved. I only wanted her to hold the coat ever so slightly, so that it didn't draw attention to it, but it was still nticeable enough to contrast with the name. I didn't however use clothes or surroundings to contrast with the name, I used them to have a part of the magazine which is very obvious and easy for onlookers to pick up on. They were that the shoot was outside, and 'wild' flies are out there in nature. Also, the leopard print is associated with living in the wild, which is a) why Ellie is in a tree) b) connected to the idea of 'wildflies.'
For my contents page, I followed a lot of the usual magazine conventions for young teens. The heading 'contents page' is bigger than any other text on the page, there are plenty of pictures to break up the text, and I included an editor's note. The background I chose wasn't too harsh on the eyes, and allowed the text on the page to be clear enough. I made sure I put page numbers, logo, website references, date and magazine name somewhere on the page, simply because that is what is expected before anything else on contents pages today. I didn't really challenge any conventions on my contents page, other than my choice of colours; in a lot of magazines, (for young girls) the background would be pink and text white. I'm glad I chose the more original route for my contents page.
For my DPS, I again did follow the usual conventions for the majority. Key things included an article (obviously) page numbers, headings, set format, pictures to break up the text and a USP for the magazine. On my dps I used a question and answer format, 4 pictures and a photo of a CD cover, and had 'win a brand new WILDFLIES album' as my unique selling point. Challenging the conventions on the DPS was quite difficult because there is a huge variety of ways you can design and therefore interpret a double page spread. I decided to go for the relaxed approach due to my younger target market, and had made sure that the whole page was filled with something really interesting for readers! You don't want to leave any space on a DPS. (or a cover or contents page for that matter!)
Finally, my album cover is the last section of my media product I created. It uses typical album cover conventions in that it has a photograph of the artist, title, album name and is shaped like a cd case. On my album cover, I did a lot more developing the conventions than I did using them! The ways I developed the album cover conventions were that instead of making my artists show their faces and be instantly recogniseable, I made them have their backs to the camera. This firstly leaves a lot of imagination and anticipation for the onlooker, but also allows them to make their own decision on the interpretation they get from the positioning of the image's contents.

My magazine represents the social group ABC1. The reason why I have chosen this group is because these people will have time to sit and read a magazine. Ones who are manual workers perhaps won't get a lot of money, and certainly not any they would be willing to spend on a music magazine. My age group is girls aged 9-16 years, and of course the vast majority of this group won't have even considered the prospect of getting a job just yet! This means that any money they are likely to recieve will come from parents or grandparents whom have enough money to be generous with it. It represents that group because it shows all the priveleges money can give you, (because of fame) and things you can do, like travelling to another country to watch a show, or being able to afford tickets to the latest concert.
The media institution I would like to distribute my media product (magazine) is IPC media. My reasoning for this choice is that it has five titles within it's instituition. Connect, inspire, ignite, south bank, and TX. 2 out of these, connect and south bank, are for women's lifestyle and home, as well as celebrity gossip! The third one, 'inspire' is for leisure and specialist. The other two are for men! I felt that the 3 women's and inspirational magazines would be well matched to my younger generation magazine, and that it would also be another section for IPC to develop. The reason why it is relevant for music magazines is because it owns two music magazines already; NME and Guitar and Bass, Even though these are male magazines, I still feel that because the company does own some women's magazines, that they would be able to provide a younger product. This company is the strongest standing -companies like emap aren't very stable, and so I want my magazine to go to a company with a high profile, which IPC matches well.
The audience I have chosen for my magazine is 9-16 year old girls. Even though this audience is very confined, younger and older girls can still read it if it appeals to them, but my language choice is aimed at this group of youngsters. This group of girls will want to be up - to - date with the latest music and also need role models. My magazine provides both of these things, and fufils their wants at their ages.

I attracted my audience by using conventional strong, girly colours, as well as making a fashion statement on my front cover. This meant that my age group would most definately know it was aimed at them, but also be drawn to it due to it having the conventional colours! It was important that I used pink a lot throughout my cover, contents page and dps because all of the magazines I looked at that were aimed at teen girls all had pink as their majoring colour. It is the colour that signals to onlookers who it is for. Girls are associated with pink internationally from birth, because you see 'baby girl' items in pale pink! (boys in pale blue). When the girls grow older, some of the innocence is gone, therefore making the colour go deeper (closer to red) and become a strong pink. Strong pink is the colour used widely for teenage girls (also known as fuschia). My fashion statement of a leopard print jacket is making the girl readers aspire to be more outgoing and individual, just by seeing someone 'famous' doing the same! It was good to have such a vibrant item on the cover as it really made the magazine stand out more, in turn attracting my audience.
I addressed my audience by using the appropriate language. A lot of punctuation and simple explaining really made my audience obvious. Without using punctuation (!,?,!!) my audience would perhaps have been a lot harder to reach! It is unusual for younger generations to not respond to punctuation because it's what makes the item sound exciting, young and vibrant! (Just like they tend to be at their age!)