2. Q1: IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR
CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA
PRODUCTS.

3. MAGAZINE INFLUENCES
With the help of many different sources, I was able to research any regional magazines around
the country. It was harder than I thought, however with the help of a certain website called
http://issuu.com/search?q=regional+magazines. I was able to look at regional magazines
which were potentially magazines I would be inspired by.
Through this website I was able to find a
numerous of magazines which in my opinion were
influences and inspirations towards planning my
first draft of my magazine. The magazines which I
was looking into were mostly not in Birmingham,
however I came across two magazines which had
been regional lifestyle magazines for Birmingham.
In particular I really liked the “Scene” magazine
because of the powerful pictures, colour choices
and very bold font which straight away caught the
readers attention compared to the Style
magazine.
However, the magazine which I got
influence and inspiration from, was from a
magazine called “I-on Edinburgh”

4. MAGAZINE INFLUENCES: I-ON EDINBURGH
MAGAZINE
This magazine in particular stood out to me the most out of all the ones I
looked at on the ISSUU website. I really liked the pun of the “i-on” as well as
the whole layout of the front cover and contents page. I like how every single
magazine had a lot of similarities by using the side of a very powerful looking
woman. There was always a main cover line, surrounded by a few of extras
inside of the magazine. This magazine in my opinion however may of come
across as a girly magazine due to the powerful features of the girls eyes, lips
and overall facial expressions.
Overall I liked the feeling that this magazine was giving off, it was not too busy
or too plain making it very pleasurable to look at and read. The contents page I
feel look very classy through the pictures they use and the layout of the page.
There is an obvious link in with the front cover and the contents page.

5. MAGAZINE INFLUENCES – DRAFTING
AND PLANNING
I began to create something very similar to this
magazine. I really liked the thought of having
eyes on my front cover as I knew that this
would represent “seeing” or “looking at”
Birmingham without writing the word. Therefore
by placing the eyes before Birmingham I would
hope that the readers would know the message
behind the eyes. I liked the idea of Birmingham
being in very different “city scape” font to
represent the city being the main subject in my
magazine.
http://kamilasawzdargoa2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/research-into-similar-products_20.html.
The link below takes you to a blog post I did
back in November comparing the similarities
between the layout of each magazine issue. I
really liked the layout of the contents page
particularly as it included 3 different types of
pictures that refer to what is inside.

6. MAGAZINE INFLUENCES: TRUE DETECTIVE
However, from the feedback I was receiving that my magazine was looking like its aimed at girls,
this is something I did not not want the male students to think as it may put them off.
Therefore I began even more research into how I can make my magazine even better.
Through the research of a film program called “True Detective” I was able to gain
inspirations and influence through the viewing one of the trailers.
Gaining this type of inspiration had caused me to change my whole magazine completely
and making it appeal to both male and female students.
http://kamilasawzdargoa2.blogspot.co.uk/2
015/02/research_6.html.
The research into the True Detective program had
inspired me to take all of the previous pictures I have
took of the city and put them together into a collage
like this one shown. I like the effect of there being
strong male features shown with faded out images
of landscapes. This is something which I knew would
work well, as I could choose to use a student as the
model and fade in pictures of the city into his face
and body.

7. MAGAZINE INFLUENCES: TRUE DETECTIVE
The True Detective series influenced me to use the Photo Shop program to
have a go at creating something very similar. I was able to use the best photos
I had taken previously and combine them together into the figure of my model
which I had taken a picture of before hand. I had to use a number of tools in
order to join the pictures together to create a layered collage of the different
places in Birmingham. This took a lot of time as I also had to make sure that
the models facial features were still visible because I felt that they would work
well amongst the Birmingham sceneries. The pictures below are there to
show the comparison between the true detective collages and the process of
making my collage. This was my influence and I straight away knew it would
work very well with the front cover of my “Student issue” magazine. This I am
sure would represent the City as very dynamic, outgoing and busy.

8. BILLBOARD INFLUENCES
When it came to billboard influences I found it hard to
search for billboards advertising regional magazines.
However I came across busses which advertised regional
magazines in Birmingham in a similar billboard layout.
The “social animal?” and “party animal” would perfectly
describe somebody who would enjoy my magazine.
However I wanted to connect my billboard to my
magazine front cover and use one of the photos which
featured in the collage inside of my model on the front. I
picked the panorama picture of the library and the city
because I knew this would look incredible on the shape
of the billboard. I wanted to use a panoramic photograph
and keep it simple due to the fact that there cannot be
too much writing on billboards and the picture is very
powerful already.

9. ADVERT INFLUENCES
For my advert I wanted to advertise
something which will attract the students.
Picking an American Diner in my opinion
would be something perfect as its fatty
food. I researched into student offers and
got influences from restaurants like Frankie
& Benny’s and the Tiger Bills which offered
20% off for students. I decided to do
something similar as it’s a Student
Magazine.
The “Students receive 10% off” should be something
which also attract the student into reading the magazine to
get the 10% off. The little types of information I gathered
from research had influenced me to make some
amendments to my magazine for it to clearly refer to the
students and make it more clearer that this is a student
issue.

10. SOCIAL GROUP
I have decided that my media product will be aimed and focused at the
student sector of the region. I believe that there is a huge mass of
students who would happily get a free regional and lifestyle magazine
which will hopefully guide them in a sense of knowing what’s going on
in Birmingham. I wanted to make something a little bit more different
from the rest of the regional magazines and this time have a specific
target audience within the region. My media product is a Student Issue
of an already existing magazine.
I know that a lot of students will be able to relate to the topics of my
magazine and hopefully be interested in what is has inside. By
choosing

11. HOW DID I ATTRACT THE AUDIENCE?
It is vital to have something on the front cover in order to attract the right target audience. The
front cover, in my opinion, is very strong due to the fact its includes so many different
places in Birmingham which are combined, faded and layered into a students head/body. I
feel that just by looking at it, it would attract the audience with the colours used and the
layout of the magazine.
• The left third layout would make my magazine stand out
massively alongside other magazines as the masthead is
along the left side of the page. The colour of my
masthead makes the magazine a little more live from the
rest of the cover stories on the page.
• The images inside of Jae clearly represent buildings,
roads, landscapes in Birmingham which can be easily
recognizable as I decided to use picture of the Library,
Selfridges and Digbeth in order to highlight the well
known student areas of the city.
• By using the symbol “#” before Birmingham is what
younger people would most likely use on social media
sites in order to find out more about the City. Therefore in
this case I do feel that this also attracts the audience as it
demonstrates that the subject of this magazine is
Birmingham.
• Having a young cover star relates back to the target
audience and supports the idea that this magazine is a

12. HOW I ATTRACT THE AUDIENCE? MASTHEAD
The way I wanted to attract the audience with my masthead is to include a part of
the punctuation that most young people use, both of social networks, TVs and in
life. I thought that the “#” would be something that could work well as I know from
my own experience, people love to hashtag a lot of things. The hashtag is also a
symbol which is used when someone wants to find out more about something,
whether its pictures, posts or updates. Therefore I felt that this would be a perfect
link to my magazine as its an article full of news, events pictures and updates for
Students to read about Birmingham.
Hashtags are on all of the social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr,
Facebook and many more. This could hopefully enable them to type the
“#BirminghamMagazine” into social media sites and gather more information on
my magazine. A hashtag on social media has the power to make a certain subject
popular as its what people are reading about. The hashtag is also part of the
vocabulary in test messages which is a link to students as they are obsessed with
their mobile phones.

13. HOW DO I ATTRACT THE AUDIENCE? BILLBOARD
For my billboard, I have decided to keep it plain and simple as I know that too much information
can be dangerous and make the billboard boring. By using one of my original photography
of the Library I decided to use the panorama photo and use this as a background of the
whole magazine. By doing this it will make the billboard noticeable and easy to read. The
social media links are useful as there is many students that can have rapid access to any
social media sites which could lead them to the link of my magazine.
This will especially attract the audience because of the colour choices I have picked and the
quality of the photo. It is clearly about #Birmingham through the text and the choice of a City
Centre photograph. I made it clear that the topic is Birmingham by using the name of my
magazine #Birmingham and the student issue would be out now. “The Student Issue” also
indicated that it is the magazine.

14. HOW DO I ATTRACT THE AUDIENCE?
The radio advert for me was something which would have been difficult in order to aim the
advert at a specific target market. However, in my case I used two young students to
advertise my magazine, and clearly stated in the advert that it was a limited edition of the
student issue. This is hopefully a stepping stone towards an attraction of my aimed target
market. The jingle which I have chosen is one that isn't annoying and in fact is pleasurable
to listen to. The beat is also a sign that it may be for the younger generation as older
people prefer calmer music.
I have made the script short and simple, asking rhetorical questions at the start of the
advert in order to involve a student listening to the radio. After the first 3 words, “student”
is mentioned which already affects a specific target audience. The chosen
jungle/soundtrack was one I found appealing to a student magazine. Its upbeat, fun and
enjoyable to listen to. I also think that its not an annoying jingle like some advertisement
songs could be.
https://youtu.be/DZIRwPSyo
Fc
The advert is clearly stating an advertisement for a
magazine and its not hard to work out within the first 2
seconds of the radio

15. HOW I ATTRACT MY AUDIENCE TO MY ADVERT?
The reason why I have chosen to advertise an American
Diner in a Student regional magazine, is because I feel that
students spend a lot of the time going out and eating out. I
chose to have something which is easily attracted when the
magazine is first opened, using the American flags to
attract attention to American Style food.
The address at the top is “Selly Oak” which I have also
chosen on purpose due to the fact that this place is full of
students as it’s the area of University of Birmingham with
halls of residence and flats. I decided to add social media
links at the bottom of the page because students are
constantly on social media which should make them realise
that they have easy access to find out more about this
Diner on these social media sites.
By having “Students receive 10% off” is hopefully also
something that grabs their attention. It’s a discount which
they are able to use through having a student card.
The “Opening Soon…” should be seen as giving the student time to have a look into the Diner
through the option of social media sites etc. And the most popular social sites are listed at the
bottom as a reminder for the easy access of information,

16. Q2: HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF
YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY
PRODUCTS?

17. #BIMRINGHAM MAGAZINE BRANDING
Throughout the magazine I do feel that there
is a sense of branding and they are all
connected to each other. The colour scheme,
fonts and photographs are linked and
repeated throughout the magazine. The
colour red is featured on every single page as
well as on the billboard. The pictures used in
the front cover collage are also very similar to
the one used on the contents page and the
billboard. They are powerful through the use
of camera angles.
I also feel that there is an obvious sign that my magazine is a student issue. Its clearly shown
through the articles, features, advertisement, news and pictures throughout the magazine.

18. Q3: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

19. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
When I designed my first magazine, it came across to me that there had been plenty of
comments about the eyes making the magazine seem like its appealing to females. in
this case, the feedback helped me to improve on how to make my magazine a lot more
successful and appealing to both genders. The audience’s feedback from social
networks like Twitter Facebook and Whatsapp gave me a range of opinions from different
types of audiences which had answered questions to improve the layout, positioning and
the first impressions.
Audience feedback had encouraged me to change the complete setting of my magazine,
from the start to finish, it had improved massively in everything. This was crucial to me as
it made me realise the things I did not see and helped me to improve.
I asked the social media on Facebook about the improvement I have
made since my first draft. This type of feedback enabled me to do
something and improve on my magazine

20. FEEDBACK FROM MASTHEAD
After changing the masthead completely, I had to gain feedback
from any of the social media sites in order to see how this will
work on my magazine.
Both of the feedbacks commented that they liked the idea of
the “#” in front of Birmingham as it is commonly used in any
search bars to find out everything about Birmingham. It had
been said that this had a huge link in with the “student issue”
as a lot of symbols and acronyms are used the young adults
in their vocabulary making it far more easier to search
anywhere online.
The feedback also mentioned the good idea of keeping the
masthead simple with a simple font as the rest of the front
cover is very busy which could make is clash. The colour was
also mentioned as successful due to the connection of the
colour scheme through the whole magazine it is bright, clear
and easy to read which is important. The idea of the masthead
being flipped on its side give the magazine the sense of it
being different from the rest. This is something good as it
connects to the idea of it being a limited student issue.

21. FEEDBACK FROM THE MAGAZINE AND
BILLBOARD
I had a lot of people giving me positive feedback, however in this case I had a comment about
the front cover being dull and grey looking. This I improved by changing the brightness
using the Photoshop program which had massively improved the grey colour and made it
a lot more yellow/happy looking.
There has been positive feedback
especially on the layout of the
magazine which has encouraged
me to see that there is a link
between the 4 pages of my
magazine. The positive feedback
on the fonts chosen, and colours
used makes me aware that there is
no specific gender for this, which is
good as its aimed at both genders of
students.
The choice of articles is also
successful as it is easily recognised
as events and news are based on
the things students could do around
Birmingham.

22. FEEDBACK FROM THE BILLBOARD
The feedback from my billboard has also been positive as its been
mentioned that there is a flowing link between my ancillary products. This
is good as it is easily identified as the same subjects advertised. A link is
important because it will make everything more noticeable and
remembered
The photograph I have chosen to
use is also one that has been
referred to as the correct photo for
a billboard. It is powerful as it
clearly shows the city of
Birmingham which could signify
looking at/observing what is going
on around the city and this is
exactly what my magazine is for.
The Masthead is also powerful
because of its simplicity and the
size of it, it is clearly noticeable
which is important for something on
a billboard.

23. Q4: HOW DID THE USE OF MEDIA
TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND
RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION
STAGES?

24. TECHNOLOGIES USED DURING RESEARCH AND
PLANNING
By using Blogger
http://kamilasawzdargoa2.blogspot.co.uk/. It
has made my research, drafting and planning a
lot more easier as I have began to see the
difference in improvement and track all of my
progress. It had me far more organized and
made my work accessible easier. I had the
opportunity to embed a lot of YouTube clips
when I needed them for my radio advert during
the search of the right sound for my radio
advertisement as well as copy any pictures
from Google search to post and write about in
my blog posts.
Blogger allowed me to keep all of my
progress in chronological order to make
sure I was able to see when I did a certain
post. I was also able to save certain posts
as drafts and later on go back to add any
more information and posting them. There
are comment boxes available for anyone
who views my blog to comment what they
think of any certain post. This is good for
any sort of feedback.
Apart from Blogger, I also used websites like YouTube,
Audacity and free sound which have guided me throughout
the production of both my ancillary and main product.
YouTube was the website which helped me find the jingle for
my radio advert, and audacity was the program used to
make the scripted advert combine with the jingle. I was then
able to edit it in the way I knew it would work best, changed
positions of the script, faded the music in and out and made
cuts to the sentences not needed in the script.

25. TECHNOLOGIES USED DURING RESEARCH AND
PLANNING
Photoshop has been the main software I used in order to create the True
Detective inspired front cover of my magazine. This program enabled me to
explore the different things that I can do with photos, I was able to layer
photos on top of each other and change their brightness and contrast. It also
let me change the different layers so they work well with each. I was able to
play around with all of the photo inside of my model and choose how much of
Jae’s features I want alongside the photos.
Without this software I know that I wouldn’t be able to create something that
now is on my front cover. I also really liked how I was always able to go back
to the original, first attempt once I was done playing around with it and having
a go at experimenting with the tools such as colour blending, the gradient
tool etc.
http://kamilasawzdargoa2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/planning.html.

26. PROGRAMS I HAVE USED
I have been a huge fan of the programs like PagePlus and Paint.Net where I
have had the opportunity to make amendments and edits to improve my
magazine.
PagePlus was a program I much preferred using as it enabled me to make
my magazine look realistic giving me an exact size template of the pages.
PagePlus was my favorite as it was easy to use with a lot of tools and editing
techniques which really helped me on my magazine masthead, fonts and
effect on my advertisement page.
When it came to my billboard, Pant.Net helped me with the text and the
layering of the font on top of the picture.
It also allowed me to use layers to choose what part of the picture I have
been working on and pick what layer I would like to have in front and in the
back. This helped me to compare various projects of my Billboard alongside
seeing what worked best with the text sizing and the colour.

27. PROGRESS FROM AS TO A2
The progress is quite easy to see as the magazine in my AS
especially the contents page and front cover, look quite
plain and simple. It was much more easier last time as I
was creating a Pop music magazine which was evidentially
aimed at young girls. The colour scheme was easy to
choose, the model and articles also. I used programs like
Paint.Net and PagePlus which were both quite new to me
and therefore I could explore as much as I wanted to.
In my A2 project I was able to have a look at exploring the
programs further and also using Adobe Photo Shop which
had many editing possibilities for my chosen photos. I Felt
that this project was more difficult as there was no specific
target audience to aim at, therefore doing a student issue is
something which makes it different from the rest of the
regional magazines
I think personally I have
improved massively in the
editing and creating as I
was able to do a lot with my
photographs this time, I
was able to edit them by
fading them in and out as
well as combining them
together to create an
effective collage.