Here is how my media product develops coventions and forms of real life media products.
SIMILARITIES
1. Both the titles are some what similar in the concept that they both stand out on the covers, although they're not the same colour or Font they both would stand out to the buyer. The text links with the type of genre it is, for example because its rock/indie people expect to see a edgy, scruffy yet bold title in which I believe it is.
2. Every magazine has a main image, this is what makes the magazine look professionl. The main cover image is usually the focus subject of the magazine, I therefore like 'MOJO' focused my cover on an artist. My image is black and white and 'MOJO's' is blue yet I still think they're similar as they both have that manipulated effect that contrasts it to the original photograph.
Another reason why I chose to use just one image and no others was because I think it looks more professional than lots of scattered images, I wanted the focus to stay on the main subject also.
3. The colour Scheme of both magazines are alike, both use the Black, white, red and Blue. This is resemble the rock colours, black and white together resemble the rock genre and with the blue and red it gives it the indie edge, blue and red both show its a mixed gender magazine, blue is the traditional boys colour and pink is girls however red is also a girls colour.
4. All magazines should include a barcode, Both mine and the professional product have one, mines a slight bit bigger however they've both been placed in recognizable places.
DIFFERENCES
5. On MOJO's cover they seem to mention Free stuff quite a lot and on top of that you get a free CD with it, mine however is very different It doesn't mention anything itgives away to its audience. This may seem like a disadvantage because thats what keeps the audience loyal however I feel my audience will be happy enough with updates on all their favourite bands.
6.Unlike MOJO I only have one image on my cover, they have their main image and a small one in the corner aswell as that they have the CD on the cover which distracts the whole theme of Paul Weller being the main focus, I feel with mine nothing takes the focus off my artist.
7. My lacks headlines down the side of cover, Mojo's cover is full of them. This could be a disadvantage on mine however I have included headlines at the top and bottom this gives hints on whats to come inside.
8. MOJO gives away a free CD which I have already mentioned, however giving away things such as CD's would mean making a magazine more exspensive and this could impact on how many people would be willing to spend that amount on a magazine.
I am comparing my contents page to NME's contents page.
SIMILARITIES
Both contents pages include the 'This week' and the noticeable name of each magazine, this is to show the audience that its the contents page telling you whats occuring in the magazine and it also links it to your cover by including the magazine name.
Another similarity is the way both contents pages have headlined each section in the magazine boldly, this helps the reader find the section they want and then select the page in which their intrested in. One other thing thats similar in both these magazines are that they include not just one picture but a few, this gives the contents page a bit of variety and makes it easier to look at.
DIFFERENCES
NME includes part of a story in their contents however mine doesn't, I think it gives too much away to the audience. The difference between my ictures in my contents to NME's ones are that mine are their to show the audience what some stories are about and even have the page numbers on them. NME have included a band index down the side of their page, I think this has its good qualities and bad, on the positive side it gives the audience a list of bands in which they may be intrested in and may make them more engaged to the magazine and for the disadvantage if I included that it would make the page too busy and because I have bands on the front cover its all a bit too much adding a list in the contents also.
Now onto comparing double page spreads i'm comparing it to a double page spread in KERRANG.
SIMILARITIES
My main colour scheme is some what similar to Kerrang's for example we both use the same black background, white and red text, this works well due to it linking with the whole colour scheme throughout my cover and contents, Kerrang uses the same colour scheme also. As mentioned early I think this is to resemble the whole idea of it being a rock magazine.
They both have a bold headline at the top of the page, this stands out and tells the audience the subject on that page.
Both magazines have a news feed down the side and this updates the audience on things that could be of intrest to them.
DIFFERENCES
Some things that are different are that my double page is based on an interview where Kerrang's double page isn't, my interview led to me picking out a pull quote, this stands out and makes the reader want to read the interview.
One other difference is the way I have only included two pictures of which have relevance to the artist in the interview, where as Kerrang have atleast four of which are in black and white. I have also included 3 images in my news feed, this links to the news i'm giving and gives variety on my page. To sum it up I have included a litle text box to provide the reader with in insight to the images where as Kerrang haven't done so.
On this slide it shows the particular social group that my magazine may attract.
Even though I have selected a women it doesn't mean my magazine is only aimed at women I just felt she was an approproiate person to use as she has that retro/indie look with her dress sense and the way she has the typical rock star sunglasses on and headband.
She also stands out from a crowd in which most my readers would, she's roughly in her twenties and she looks quite laid back and relaxed with the way she's casually walking through a crowd at a festival, my reader enjoys music especially festival music in which festival are included in my magazine.
In this slide I am discussing the target audience and how I attracted them. The reason I have made my magazine the way I have is because I wanted it to be for males and females in which the colour scheme does fit both a boys and girls prospective, the reason its not just for one gender is because I feel both genders listen to this genre of music. I have said its for ages between 15 - 20's because my magazine included things such as gigs and festivals and I don't believe anyone younger than 15 would be at a gig. The particular pictures I have put on this page do represent the audience that would buy this genre of magazine as they look quite individual as if they have their own sense of style and on top of that they look like there into rock and roll music with the whole idea of one of them images being at a festival and another being people playing guitars.
My front cover image represents the whole rock idea with the whole guitar and rock star look, the rusty writing also fits with the idea of indie/rock music being a unique style.
Now in answer to the question of which media institution would distribute your magazine and why.
I would go with the media institution BAUER because not only do they own most of the magazines their magazines are global, They own the 3 magazines in my slide.
Although my magazine is the similar genre to the other 3 mine is a weekly and not a monthly unlike MOJO and its generally cheaper this is to attract the audience and I give things such as posters and give the audience a chance to win things such a festival tickets.
The fact they already publish 3 music magazines with the similar genre shows they have an advanced understanding in the rock/indie genre, they could take this into account and maybe understand what I am trying to achieve out of my magazine.
What have I learnt with technologies in the construction of my magazine.
To begin with the typed of technologies I have been using are camera's, Blogspot and photoshop.
All in all I have learnt how to blog and use http://www.blogspot.com/ fluently, When I first made my account I wasn't familar with blogspot and you wouldn't think if you looked at my blog now that I had no idea what it was. On my blog at the start I had very minimal text and input on here however as I have got further on I use it a lot more and include a lot more text.
Another technology I have adpated skills in the use of camera's, it all seems pretty simple however I feel I now take pictures with more variety as I now look into the angles and composition of my photo's.
To sum it up the technology I have progressed in the most would have to be photoshop, to start with I had no idea how to use it and now I use it effectively, you will see in my first task of making a school prospectus cover that I couldn't do much with it, I only new how to crop things and now I can crop things, change the way a photo looks in colour and style etc and can now blend photo's with other photo's.
If you look at both the image of my artist and Ryan adams you can see both images have been manipulated and they both have that rock look, the guitars resembling they enjoy their music, they're both alone and this is a sign to show they work and produce music alone, this is why my artist from my magazine does fit the rock image.
Now when I look back at the preliminary task, I have noticed Both headings/titles stand out and are can be easily recognized, You can see i've developed an understanding in what makes it look professional and what doesn't for example In my music magazine I have used just 3 different font styles where as in the preliminary one i've used four. I learnt also that using lots of different images wouldn't work so well on a music magazine as it would take the focus of my main subject.
My headings in my music magazine vary, where as my preliminary task is all about doing well in school, it all seems tideous and the same.
I use a colour scheme in my music magazine where as I didn't give the colour scheme for my preliminary much thought.
Overall I feel happy with the outcome of my music magazine, I feel my main task looks professional and Theres not a great amount i'd change, however if I did have more time I would have adapted my contents page as it is reasonable but I feel as if it could of had a bit more text included.
