Final product

This is my final cut and I think its my best yet. There are some alterations to my cover and contents page by direction of my teachers and it looks better for it. I feel this is the best I can do for I have reached my zenith on this project. My cover now continues the colour scheme of the whole magazine, my contents page has more articles and so consequently less unused space and my contents is left as it is.

Product coparison

Q: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

It's difficult. Since when I started I couldn't hold a candle to the computer skills of any human being, I have come a long way and came to realise the enormity of the challenge set and have come to appreciate the skill used to create magazines which line the racks of newsagents nation wide.

Everything from changing fonts to uploading the pages to the blog was hard but I feel I am better for it.  I still cringe at computer work but my skills have improved exponentially compared to my position at the start.

The concepts of cropping, light specra alteration, copy/paste and even the magic wand tool along with other methords of photo manipulation was something completely alien to me and would never be approached but now it is just second nature to me. Even if my magazine gets a low mark I will still have benefited in the long term going away with some new skills.

Q: How did you attract your audience?

I attracted my audience by choosing a genre of music that my target demographic would listen to (young people 17/25, hipsters) either out of enjoyment of the content or out of irony. Either way I've got a large audience.

I also used a mixture of  the subjects featured, very intranet relevant topics and it is something every audience member can relate to. Since my genre is border line main steam/obscure this leaves my audience range open to these two social groups, but not going out there to alienate anyone else by specifically not using jargon. This leaves room for anyone unfamiliar with the genre as well as my target demographic.

I hoped the masked figure on the cover would trigger our natural curiosity. But if that failed the chance to get a free song on itunes might tempt the uncertain.

Q: Who would be the audience for your media product?

My audience are young 17/ 25 year olds but I have not alienated others. I chose my genre to attract a large audience since dub step has increased in popularity as of late, so that targets the younger audiences. But the genre has not gone main stream so this attracts those who listen to the music ironically or because 'the music is wholesome and is not corrupted by the consumer driven society we live in'.

But I did not limit myself just to these people, the way my featured article was written it did not exclude other up and coming electronic/ indie music listeners.

Q: Looking back at your preliminary task (College magazine) What have you learnt in terms of progression from that to the full product?

I have learnt that this task was a lot harder than initially anticipated. The process was far harder than simply using a picture and pasting text over it and boom there's my magazine. I had to plan meticulously the photos and features I would include.

But as I've said in previous posts this fear of photo shop and computing in a whole has gone and I am revitalised with new skills I could not have conceived before this year and for that I am thankful. On a whole I believe my music mag genuinely looks and feels more professional. Weather my mag measures up to my style model is another matter but on that I am proud. To have accomplished something that I would not have thought remotely possible the things I can take away like mise en scene, the placing of images and text to create something that doesn't burn your eyes out of your skull, but some thing that is legible and is (depending on your own definition of 'well') well done.

Q: In what ways does your media product challenge forms and conventions of real magazine products?

I had intended on having a magazine designed to be short and sweet you know to the point. This would mean few articles but they went into great detail. But this idea was scraped for two reasons. 1 these super in depth articles I had planed would not fit on a double page spread and 2 this idea of a cut and dry magazine would simply not sell so for that reason Pulse was changed in the way that it has been.