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

When planning the design for my product I intended to make it equivalent to a well-known hip hop music magazine brand such as Vibe, in order to do this I needed to take inspiration from existing products so I created a mood board, this gave me a rough idea of what I should aim to make my magazine look like. After observing various hip hop magazines I selected a few of my favourite conventions and combined them with conventions I made myself to make my music magazine; I used many conventions but the main conventions that make my magazine stand out are: the colour scheme, the tag line, the position of the main image, the font, the quote from a famous popular hip hop artist and the main story being mentioned on the front cover, not all hip hop magazines have all of these conventions but majority of them do have at least 3 of these conventions, so by combining all of these conventions I have made a unique front cover that appeals to the target audience as the reader is likely to be attracted to a variety of conventions rather than a few similar conventions.

Here are 2 of the sources I used as inspiration for my magazine cover. the layout for the text and the sizes of the different fonts and styles are closely mirrored in my cover, this is to create an identity of a general Hip-Hop magazine. However, the image I have used in my cover is slightly different from a typical hip hop magazine. This offers my magazine the uniqueness required in order for a new magazine to be picked off from the shelves. It also challenges the stereotypes of the way Hip-Hop artists are represented in magazine covers. Sports cars, jewellery, guns and half-naked girls are very common in these magazines, which portray achievements/desires. Therefore the image I have used represents a new generation of hip hop as it converts from the normal dress code. By this, I hope my front cover will help unveil another side of the Hip-Hop world.

How does your media product represent particular social

groups?

Hip Hop is part of a mass market when it comes to music, over the years Hip hop has gained major recognition from various social groups but if I had to single out a main social group that it appeals to I would say teenagers and young adults, I have represented this social group in particular by the use of images, layout and the informal language I have used, I believe I have met all the aspects of a ‘Hip hop’ music magazine and have represented the particular social group well. My media product also appeals to social groups through gender and age, for example the main image I used is of a person that is around the same age group as my target audience, if used an image of an older person on the front cover I may not have attracted the audience I was aiming for or represented their social group. My media product is unisex as I wanted to attract a larger audience; by using a young male on the front cover I feel I was able to attract both genders.In order to attract this social group I looked at existing products and carried out research on the internet for various hip hop artists, after doing this I noticed that there was a stereo typical view on “hip hop” and I have tried to represent this in my magazine through the dress code of the person in the main image, but rather than going fully for the “gangster” look I have mixed smart clothing with gangster clothing which will hopefully start a new trend.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media

product and why?Although there are many leading distribution companies who publish a vast range of magazine genres, targeting different audiences all around the world, its still not easy to get your product noticed. Therefore picking the right media institution to publish your product is no walk in the park, the media institution has the ability to increase or decrease the revenue of your product dramatically. The media institution that might distribute my media product (a hip hop music magazine ) would be Bauer Media. The reason for this decision is that Bauer Media is one of the major worldwide media empire, offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. Although the founders state that they want to appeal to all the older generation, I still think there is room for them to expand and reach out to the younger generation as well as the older generation. Baring that point in mind I think my media product would be appropriate for Bauer media, as my magazine is targeted at young males and females whereas Bauer media mainly aim their products at older men.

Due to Bauer being a recognized publisher it means that there will be new opportunities for me to engage with other media brands. Using opportunities and partnerships available to Bauer I can use more advertisement options making it both easier and cheaper to advertise and increase income profits of my media product. Finding the best distribution market is very important to any media product, Firstly I will use the common way, famously used by most media institution which is printing of hard copier of their magazine and displaying them at various popular retail shops and supermarket I.e. HMV, WHSmith and other newsagents. In this day and age upmarket superstores such as Asda, Sainsbury and Morrison are becoming the main seller of magazines which are usually place near the tills and check up point in order to attract more costumers. With this knowledge it is very essential that I distribute my magazine to supermarkets to ensure fairly high purchase rate from consumers.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product would be teenagers and young adults, this is because young people are constantly looking for new trends to follow so by designing my media product based on magazines that young people read already such as Vibe I believe I can appeal to this audience and hopefully set a few new trends.

How did you attract/address your audience?

the main image I used is of a person that is around the same age group as my target audience, if used an image of an older person on the front cover I may not have attracted the audience I was aiming for or represented their social group. My media product is unisex as I wanted to attract a larger audience; by using a young male on the front cover I feel I was able to attract both genders.In order to attract this audience I looked at existing products and carried out research on the internet for various hip hop artists, after doing this I noticed that there was a stereo typical view on “hip hop” and I have tried to represent this in my magazine through the dress code of the person in the main image, but rather than going fully for the “gangster” look I have mixed smart clothing with gangster clothing which will hopefully start a new trend. I also attracted the target audience by offering a free CD that comes with the magazine, this helped to attract the audience as most people tend to like being given things for free.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

During the creation of my media product, I’ve learnt a lot about technologies and I must admit they have helped me a lot to improve my media product, with out them I would have had great difficulty in creating my product. There are various technologies that I used to create my product but I’m only going to name a few of them, I used adobe in design to put my magazine together, the reason why I chose adobe in design over every other software is because its made specifically for the production of a magazine so by using it I put myself at an advantage, at first I struggled to use all the different tools but after asking my class mates and teachers for an explanation of how to use it I began to get a hang of it. I used adobe photo shop in order to remove the background from my main image, again the reason why I used this software is because it was made specifically for tasks such as this, I didn’t struggle as much to use this software as I have used it before. I used the internet in order to search for a special font to use for my title, obviously this was the easiest piece of technology for me to use as I’ve been familiarised with it for a long period of time.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have

learnt in the progression from it to the full product?