Media studies!

School magazine evaluation
My school magazine relates to existing examples of these media forms in ways like having only a few topics of interest that will be inside the magazine on the front. I have a large masthead on the left of my page vertically that has the school’s logo at the bottom of the masthead and at the top. I designed my front page like this because every other school magazine I see has the name of it either at the top or the bottom, and I think this is rather boring for every magazine to have this idea.My central image is different to some other school magazines as you concentrate on the landscape instead of a student being portrayed. I think this gives a good effect as it shows the students reading the magazine part of the school that is sometimes never looked at. Although I do not have a central picture of a student I do in fact have pictures of three students on the page, but they are related more to the topic names next to them than to portray the image of a happy working student.My mode of address is to the 6th form and parents/staff in Rego school. I have done this in a way that the language is simplistic but formal. I have also made sure that not much writing is on the front, using anchorage lines to grab the attention of the reader to delve in further to find out more on that article.
My magazine represents typical styles for teenagers in my school that are in the 6th form. I aimed my magazine at this audience as we do not have a magazine and I felt that we needed as a form to be more exposed to formal information. I have to be formal as parents and staff should also read and enjoy this magazine. The front page appeals to my audience as it tell the events happening in their school that they may never find out or read about. I also made my magazine attractive to teenagers in the use of my colour and pictures.


Music magazine evaluation
My music magazine relates closely to other magazines in the front cover as I have a central image of a person, and a masthead at the top of the page. My anchorage text is ‘Roxi Roll exclusive!’ I think that as ‘Roxi Roll’ is a well known popular band people will jump at the chance of an ‘exclusive’ about them that is not written anywhere else.
For my contents page it does not relate so well in a way that I do not have many pictures but these are big to show that they are my main articles. I do not show every article/page in my magazine as I like to promote the main ones. Other magazines have many smaller pictures, instead of two or three big ones. My double paged spread has a large masthead similar to other double paged spreads on magazines such as Q and NME. I only have one picture, although it is not the same as other magazines as my picture is not of a person, but of a stage. My anchorage text is in the middle of the page to grab the attention of the reader. This is like other anchorage texts as they are normally in the middle of the pages or in the middle of the text.

My use of imagery in my magazine is unique to my style. I used fonts that are more ‘cool’ or ‘rock’ like on my front cover, contents and double paged spread, this is to help the reader think they are ‘cooler’ when they read this magazine. The images I used are detailed in a way to connate what they are meant to, such as for my front page there is a picture of a woman playing a guitar. This connates the music part about the magazine but not only that but the main topic will be about that person in one way. My mode of address is to people aged about eighteen to thirty; I used ‘catchy’ language to draw readers of this age in, for example ‘Rock’s Roxi Roll’. I also used pictures with a black and white ‘retro’ theme that would connate highly with people that age. My design was taken from many different sources and blended together. For example, my front page many magazines have a single person in the middle but as a close up. My picture has props as well as being a full length mid shot of the woman.

Working in Media Production
I approached the tasks one by one, and overcame them one by one. I used props, camera and a computer as my equipment.
I had a few issues of having too much on my front cover, but I fixed this as I moved some of the article topics to the contents instead.
My human resources in the production was only one person. This also happened to be my sister which meant I could take several pictures at home at any time we wanted. I also had props such as the guitar at home so this also made it a lot easier.
My draft was not very final as it was only a sketch. I did most of my design as I went along.
I mainly managed my time correctly as I had all pictures and text done for my double paged spread and contents page. My front page on the other hand gave me a lot of problems as I was never happy with it as I could not decide what picture to use with what font etc.

Using Technology
I used programs such as: Photoshop 5.0; Xara and Microsoft office publisher, this allowed me to extend my creative control.
There were parts which I had trouble on, but with a little help from my IT teacher I overcame these problems.

Thinking about the audience
My ideas came mainly from three sources: My questionnaire; A few friends and peers I interviewed as well as giving them my questionnaire; my experiences what I want as a student of my age. My work was influenced by the opinions from my peers and friends as well as many of the music magazines in the industry today.
Did feedback surprise me? No not really, and I think this is due to me being around the same age as the people I handed my questionnaire out to.

Representing-constructing the ‘real’.
My magazine represents typical music magazines quite well according to feedback when I printed out my magazine and handed it around to peers. They found that my main topic was well put forward and an interesting topic even though the band does not exist. A sense of reality has been created and in this case people about thirty plus have been excluded as this magazine is not to their tastes. This is because they do not like the language I use to draw in younger readers. People in my view adapt less to new music as they mostly remember and prefer music from their early age from around eleven to around twenty five. Younger people prefer this magazine as the wording is more to their liking, words such as: ‘Music 4 life’ as the ‘4’ in ‘non slang’ is ‘for’.