Front cover and contents page of my student magazine

Ok, so here is the title page i did. Picture was taken by me to use in this project.

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

To aid myself in creating this magazine, I did research on what existing magazines use regularly to appeal to their consumer markets. I then took note of these recurring conventions and during the creation of my magazine I added them in. This made my magazine more appealing and more realistic. For student-based magazines, many magazines contained articles about college-based events and goings-on while also providing articles that allowed the reader to combat boredom. To make sure my magazine had both college articles and ‘boredom-busters’ I included pages relating to students such as gift ideas(it was a Christmas themed magazine) and music reviews alongside the college achievements pages.

2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Because my brief stated that it should be a student magazine, I made sure that my magazine was more suited for students than adults. Despite it being aimed at students, the articles are also suitable for adults to read and aren’t only interesting for students. To reinforce it being aimed at students I used a picture of two students messing around in the college refectory. I also used a bright colourscheme that was associated with the festive theme(red and green) and also eye-catching and attractive to student readers.

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

The college would distribute my magazine rather than any official institution. This way the magazine would remain made by the students for the students and would be available at any time students needed something to read in free time. This form of distribution also keeps the magazine unique to the college, no other college would have a student magazine like this one and therefore it would be more pleasurable to read because it is one of a kind and tailored to suit the students locally.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

my target audience is primarily 16-18 year old college students of any gender. The reason for this is because the articles are more suited toward teenage readers however it is suitable for adults to read if they want to learn about college-related subjects covered in the magazine.

5. How did you attract and address your audience?

I attracted my audience through my choice of colourscheme and my choice of cover image, both of which were chosen by students who answered my questionnaire. These aspects mean it should be eye-catching to students and the simple layout both inside and out should mean they read it without feeling that too much is going on in the pages. The images I chose were faded slightly into the background so the edges of the photos weren’t visible and thus reduced clutter on the page. This also made the pages look more sleek because there were less straight lines.

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

Much of the technology I used in the making of my magazine was new to me so I had to learn how to use them before actually beginning to design my magazine. Photoshop and Indesign proved difficult to use at first but I managed to get the hang of using them and quickly became accustomed to them. I also had to use an iMac which I also had difficulty with at first but quickly learnt how to control properly after a few turns.