Samantha created a music magazine to look as professional as real publications like NME and Rolling Stone. She looked to their layouts, fonts, cover photos and lines for inspiration. While keeping similarities like female covers and artist names in big letters, she challenged conventions by using a close-up cover photo and more writing in coverlines. Samantha targeted her magazine at young music enthusiasts and represented them on the cover. She would ideally distribute through Conde Nast to attract their audience of wealthy buyers. Her typical reader would be female aged 18-30 interested in music, fashion and social media. Samantha addressed this audience on the cover and used design elements like colors and photos tailored to them

1. MEDIA EVALUATION
Samantha Rothery

2. Question 1. In what ways does your product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
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3. Front Cover
When planning to make my magazine I knew from the start that I wanted to
make it look as sleek and professional as possible, to do this I looked at
the structure of some big magazines such as NME and Rolling Stone, and
tried to find out the small things they did to make their magazines stand
out from the others I took ideas from many different parts of the magazine
such as the layout, the fonts, their cover photos and their coverlines.
Similarities Differences
• Female cover photos. • Both magazines have different colours for
• Name of featured artists in big letters to stand out their title.
from everything else. • I have used a puff on my magazine whereas
• Rolling stone and my magazine stick to the theme the other two have their advertisements just
of white writing. with the rest of the storylines.
• Direct address to the camera from the cover • I have used a more dramatic pose for my
artists. cover photo.
• Rolling stone and my magazine has writing all • NME have used 3 different colours for their
down one side. font.
• NME and my magazine both feature a pull quote • I have slightly more writing in my coverlines
taken from the interview. than the other two magazines do.
• All magazines have lists of artists down one side. • Other magazines have more daring
coverlines.

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5. Double Page Spread
When planning for my double page spread I also looked at other magazines, to
get an idea of how I wanted mine to be layed out. Due to the kind of magazine
that I was trying to create I knew that I was going to use a photo across the
whole of my double page spread I did this as I think it looks more
professional than simply having random photos and colours. I did get a lot of
my inspiration for my magazine from fashion magazines such as ‘Look’ and
‘Vogue’ this is because the target audience I have continuously had in mind
is more female focused. I noticed that with the magazines I did my research
looking at that when their picture was across two sides I felt much more
compelled to read them as they looked more interesting and their wasn't to
much to look at at once.
Similarities Differences
• All of the magazines start their writing with a • The other magazines have a small introduction
large letter.
for their celebrity before they go into the
• My magazine and the one with Florence on
interview.
the front have plain writing on one side
• The NME magazine hasn't used a picture across
whereas the other has cut out pictures.
their double page spread it is only over one side.
• I have taken a close up shot of my model
whereas these magazines have used further
away and in one case a full body shot.

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7. Contents Page

8. Overall I think that my magazine very much conforms to the style and conventions
of other media products, it does this in having a similar style, theme and target
audience. A lot more thought would have gone into the creation of a real media
product such as would the pictures be offensive? And would everything that is
said have been acceptable. The image used would also have been a lot more
edited on Photoshop to make the models look different to how they look in real life
often giving unrealistic ideas to others about how they should look. My magazine
challenges the convention of real media products in this way, I have not changed
anything about my model to help keep her as real and relatable to the public as
possible the only difference to the original pictures is that I have changed the
overall colours to make them blend in more/ stand out more and to make the
background more discreet.

9. Question 2. How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
My media product has been directly made to represent young music enthusiasts. I
have targeted it at one particular social group that are above the middle on the
socio economic scale, I wanted to make a magazine to represent this group of
younger people because most of the magazines now days are based on the top 40
and these suit people lower down because they are not as bothered or interested to
find new music and well known artists, I wanted to use my magazine to show case
newer artists and to preview exclusive music events.
The mise-en-scene of my front cover shows an up and coming singer, she is
dressed remotely smartly with an eye catching earing this outfit would represent a
wealthy social group.
Other social groups they belong to I will go into further detail in the target audience
section.

10. Question 3. What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
The media institution that I would ideally imagine distributing my
magazine is Condé Nast.
Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications,
is a magazine publisher. In the U.S.,
it produces 18 consumer magazines,
as well as four business-to-business publications,
27 websites, and more than 50 apps for mobile
and tablet devices.
The company's headquarters reside in New York City.
Condé Nast was founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast
and has been owned by the Newhouse family since 1959.

11. S.I. Newhouse Jr. is the chairman and CEO of Advance Publications, Charles H. Townsend is
Condé Nast’s chief executive officer and Robert A. Sauerberg is Condé Nast’s president.
•Vogue
• Teen Vogue
•Glamour
•Vanity Fair
•GQ
•Conde Nast traveller
•Bon Appetit
•Golf World
•Wired

12. I think that my magazine would suit this institution because of the Look
I have given it, and because the social group I have given it of wealthier
buyers, this social group also suits Conde Nast and the other
magazines which they distribute. I think that this distribution company
have a large gap in their portfolio for a music magazine especially one
such as mine as they do not currently distribute any music magazines,
by distributing my magazine they would be attracting a whole different
audience specifically including younger people and music fans. The
magazine would be able to offering them a magazine with the newest
music exclusive parties.

13. Question 4. Who would be the audience for your media
product?
A Typical audience member for my magazine would be between 18-30 I have
chosen these ages because I want my magazine to attract its audience by
offering passes and invites and to exclusive parties which would not be
appealing to a younger audience.
My magazine has unintentionally drifted towards being more female orientated I
think this is because I took a lot of my inspiration from fashion magazines which
I personally read.
Other interests that a reader of my magazine would have would be fashion,
socialising, new music, attending small gigs, Other kinds of media that a reader
of my magazine would consume would be the radio (radio 1, capital fm), and
into television shows such as ‘Made in Chelsea’ and other reality TV
programmes.
A typical member of my target audience would be interested in beauty and take
care of their appearance possibly with long hair and fake eyelashes they would
be quite dressy and often wear dresses out and things that are in with the latest
fashion they would shop in

14. Question 5. How did you attract/address your
audience?
Cover girls name in big letter. Female cover photo,
Attracting Female readers. direct address to
audience.
Pink-orange filter colors,
femenime colors.

16. Question 6. What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this product?
In the process of creating my magazine I
used various different programmes
and websites to create the product,
such as InDesign which is the
programme that I used to put the
whole thing together and to edit my
fonts and all of my writing on, this is
also how I made my double page
spread and how I created the columns
for my interview. I found InDesign to be
the most useful technology. I also
learnt that InDesign can do almost
anything you want it to when you have
the right skill. It has made me realize
how much work goes into real
magazines.

17. The programme that I used to edit all
of my photos on was Photoshop. I
used this programme to change all of
the lighting on my pictures so that it
was able to suit the mood of my
magazine. Using Photoshop on the
photos makes them have a much
more sleek and professional edge I
especially found this with my double
page spread. The things that you can
do on photoshop are limitless and I
didn’t want to take the editing of my
model to far like some of the
published magazines do.

18. Two other programmes that I used but not for as
much as I used the other two were, Adobe
Illustrator and Word.
I used adobe Illustrator for making the Puffs
shown on my music magazine I then transferred
the puff over to InDesign I found Illustrator very
helpful for creating small editions to the magazine
such as the puff you are able to make them look
exactly as you want.
I used word to write my interview shown on the
double page spread into. By writing it into here
first I was able to spell check it and move it all
around to find which bits were best where before
I put it on the actual InDesign version it was very
helpful for putting draft versions into.
I also used word to copy and paste my research
from other magazines into and then to post on
Blogger.

19. The final two technology's I used
in the construction of my media
product are Blogger and The
Internet.
I used Blogger to post all of my
research and the different steps of
editing into

20. Question 7. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?