Before the construction of my product, I had in mind the common conventions of a typical magazine. Some of which consist of a bar code, issue number, footer note and border lines. These became apparent to me whilst researching real magazine covers, spreads and styles. When comparing the first drafts of my magazine to the final drafts, one can see how my visual understanding of a magazine had developed through trial and error. My first double-page-spread, ‘Budget’ or ‘Deluxe’ is a good example of this as one can see how my first draft lacks presentation, sophistication and sense. In my second and final drafts, on the other hand, one can see progress in all of these areas as I accessed each attempt and altered them to suit a common magazine spread which I thought worked. During the creation of my front cover, I followed the key conventions, which are usually included in a front cover such as a bar code and issue number. Although I appeared to tick all of the common convention boxes, there was still something, which caused my front cover to seem different. It became clear that this was due to my logo. My logo has a mixture of shape and text, unlike many of the popular magazines out there, such as ‘Rolling Stone’ or ‘Q’. Here, I challenge the conventions of a real magazine, however; I believe it was successful due to it’s simplistic title, ‘SQUARE’, it’s bold, black cube shape and the way it is positioned so it slightly overlaps the main figure of the cover.
My magazine is aimed at both a male and female audience from the ages 18 to 22. It is aimed at those who are interested in music, enjoy seeing their bands live and those who are more interested in light articles which focus is mainly on the presentation rather than the information. In order to attract and address this type of audience, my double-page-spreads are designed visually and take care for presentation. They demonstrate a light and easy read, including alliterative quotations such as ‘Forget grungy green this year’ and ‘Blue nosed Brigade’ which causes the articles to flow. I purposely chose neutral colours such as red, blue and yellow to suit both the male and female audience. All of the imagery in my magazine is based around teenagers, which should infer that people of a similar age would enjoy reading the magazine. They would be able to relate to the articles and find use in the financial advice given, as young people tend to not earn a lot of money. All of these aspects of my magazine represent ‘festival goers’ which is the social group I was aiming to attract.
During the process of constructing my product, I used the programs Indesign and Photoshop. I discovered Indesign to be perfect when text and layout was concerned as it allowed you to move objects around with ease. Photoshop on the other hand was more useful for altering images. In my double-page-spread, ‘But what did the People Think?’ the six images I used were altered into monochrome, leaving the noses of the figures, blue. I used text wrap so that the larger quotes were positioned inbetween the article to present a more realistic spread. I also used the border line tool which had an equal effect. I used the feather tool on the double-page-spread to blend the bright yellow into a variety of shades across the article which created a more sophisticated look as well as presenting a more realistic display.
I believe that Bauer media institution may distribute my media product because it is similar to some of the magazines they produce such as Grazia, Closer and Kerrang. The funky, grungy style of my magazine emulates many Bauer magazines and reflects their target audience.
From looking back at my Preliminary task and then looking at my final product, I can see now that I obtained knowledge about the layout and conventions of a magazine from my Preliminary to which later made a huge impact and inspired my final product. The Preliminary task contents page for example, presents an edited image of two sixth formers and a simplistic way of displaying the contents. I took into account that the magazine was to be read by sixth formers and therefore didn’t abide by the traditional spread of a contents page which you would usually find in a school magazine. In my final product, I also took my targeted audience into account to create a simplistic, image based contents page with little text. One aspect of the Preliminary task, which I did learn from and change for my final product was the front cover figure. As I stated in my blog, I thought the medium shot I used wasn’t very effective and eye catching. I learnt from other magazines and by creating the Preliminary task front cover that a dramatic close up on one figure was more effective. This thought is emulated in my final product as you can see I used a close up of the figure’s face which I believe is far more eye catching and powerful.
