1. Evaluation of Preliminary
Project
• Magazine Cover • Magazine Contents

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• My magazine uses several conventions of real media products. Through
conducting research on broad range of magazines whilst researching student
magazines specifically, I was able to develop an understanding of various
conventions used. I endorsed a lot of these conventions in both my cover and
contents page. Through my research I leant that student magazines tend to use
warm colours for their fonts and boarders; I used this generic convention in my
artefact as warm colours can connote positivity. When constructing my front cover
I generally followed the conventions with the student magazines that I researched
that only used two colours for the textual information, whilst other magazines such
as music magazines used three or more colours, this influenced me to only use two
colours for my textual information. When constructing my contents page, I
challenged the conventions more than when making my cover. When I was
researching contents pages, I found that they tended to have columns and grids
that they we’re strict in using/following. I followed the conventions of contents
pages, as I utilised two columns and a baseline grid to create my contents
page, which helped to keep my text and placement of images organised.
However as it is a student magazine, I challenged the conventions by breaking the
rules slightly as I overlapped some images and text out of the columns, I done this
as I didn’t want my contents page to look too formal and through the structure of
the contents page being too organised and structured, it would look formal, this
made my contents page slightly subversive.

3. How does your media product represent particular social
groups?
• My media product represents my selected social groups in
many different ways. It is aimed at urban teenagers. This is why
I have chosen a lot of the cover lines to be about
technological appliances. Whilst if I was aiming at teenagers
that lived in rural areas, I would have chosen cover lines more
appropriate to them and their surroundings. My student
magazine is aimed at urban teenagers who are in the middle
class or higher, this is influenced by a lot of the cover lines and
features being about expensive products that less fortunate
people may not be able to relate to. Through my magazine
consisting of language such as ‘swag’ enhances the social
group it is aimed at as urban teenagers tend to be quite
fashion conscious, hence the phrase used in the cover line ‘is
your swag in check’. I wanted to ensure that my magazine
was quite informative, as a lot are profound users of the
blackberry services, I made sure to make ‘blackberry busted
services’ a feature in my magazine as it’s relevant to the
majority of the urban teenagers,

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your
media product and why?
• The type of media institution that would distribute
my product would be SFX College. This is due to the
magazine targeting students. My magazine
specifically targets students of SFX this is due to my
cover lines referencing features of the college such
as the ‘Moodle’ cover line on my front page. Some
of the cover lines on the contents page such as
‘Rampant Ravers’ connotes the fun times a
teenager can experience in their social like. A lot of
young people that attend raves an parties are
students, hence why it should be distributed in a
college such as SFX.

5. Who would be the audience for your media product?
• The target audience of my product is college students at SFX,
who live in urban areas. I have tried to address my target
audience in several ways. I used the colour navy blue as the
background colour as it eliminates the chances of the magazine
looking subjective to one gender, i.e. through the use of pink.
Through the use of the cover line ‘moodle goes major’ the target
audience is easier to identity as only students who attend the
college will have a shared understanding of what moodle is, this
demonstrates the use of field specific lexis’. When conducting my
research on student magazines I found that they only really used
one image on the cover, which was evidently the main image.
When making my cover I broke this conventional feature and
placed one image and two images that co-sided with the
relevant cover lines. Through using more than one image allowed
the target audience to be easier to identify, as it isn’t just a
picture of a student, I also used pictures of designer brands
relevant to the youth. My chosen main cover line has the term
‘youth’ in it, this helps to identify the target audience as they are
youths themselves.

6. How did you attract/address your adueicne?
• I attracted my audience through the use of the main
image being a student, I tried to ensure that the
student’s facial expressions looked rather serious to
indicate that he is a focused students. In addition I used
a vibrant colour scheme as blue and yellow are warm
colours; by doing this it allowed my front cover to
employ a fun approach. When conducting the cover
lines I tried to use colloquial language that was relevant
to the youth, as urban students tend to be fashion
orientated I used the colloquial term ‘swag’ in one of my
cover lines. All of my cover lines were specifically
relevant to the students for instance my main cover line
‘upsurge in youth employment’, this showed direct
address to the target audience.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process
of constructing this product?
• Through utilising both InDesign and Photoshop to create
my artefacts. InDesign gave me the ability to
incorporate document grids when producing my
contents page; this allowed me to align my text
accordingly to how I wanted it. When conducting my
research on contents page I noticed they tended to use
two columns or three columns, using InDesign allowed
me to follow this generic convention in which I divided
my contents page into two columns. A key tool that I
used in Photoshop was the magic wand tool that
allowed me to crop out a main image from it’s
background, efficiently. This allowed my pictures to look
more professional. Photoshop allowed me to construct
auto-shapes effectively to construct a cloud with my
slogan inside of the cloud.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have
learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• During the preliminary task I enhanced my ability of using both
InDesign and Photoshop, as I hadn’t used them previously. I
got to grips with utilise tools like the marquee tool more
effectively and accurately, this allowed my final artefacts to
look more professional. In developing my skills of using
Photoshop It was easier for me to transform an idea to an
artefact, as I became aware of features such as how to
operate the layers effectively. During the task I continuously
reflected on my research to see what features made a good
media product such as the use of a colour scheme that
complemented each other, as a magazine I saw used red
and yellow, in which these colours complement each other.
This influenced my colour scheme as I used blue and yellow
under the influence of both these colours being warm and
vibrant as blue connotes purity and the sky whilst yellow
connotes the sun, overall giving the colour scheme a vibrant
approach.