Vicky Wright evaluated her individual project of creating a British-based dance music magazine targeted towards women aged 16-25. The magazine included a front cover, contents page, and double page article spread on a featured artist. Wright researched, planned, photographed, and wrote the magazine individually. She used conventions like large artist photos on the cover but challenged conventions by omitting descriptions on the contents page to increase intrigue. Feedback indicated the title, colors and pictures suggested the dance genre. While mostly professional-looking, improvements could be made to page numbering and photo stretching.

1. Evaluation
Vicky Wright

2. Introduction
• I worked individually to created a British based music magazine. I
developed this using In design and Photoshop.
• I did my magazine on dance music because although there all a
couple of dance music magazine out there, Mixmag(
www.mixmag.net ) and DjMag ( www.djmag.com ), there is not that
much variety but instead of doing a normal standard unisex
magazine I decided to do it specifically for women aged 16-25 as
this is the age that they are going out and clubbing so getting into
dance music so my magazine would inform them of different gigs
going on as well as new artists on the scene.
• It includes a front page, contents page and a double page spread all
on a featured artist
• I did all the research, photography, planning and journalistic work
individually.

3. Introduction Cont.
• The genre of my music magazine is dance. Although dance is a wide
genre to choose from I decided to focus on it all overall. But instead
of various other unisex dance magazine I decided to dedicate it just
to girls to give it a different angle to it, make it stand out from the
others. This then led to me choosing my target audience to be girls
between 16-25, the prime age for getting into the dance scene. I
think by using this idea of appealing to just girls makes it more
attractive to girls who would like to read it as it would include
things just for girls rather than things to males than girls don’t want
to read. People would be interested to read the magazine as it is
new and one of it’s kind therefore would be curious to read even
just the first issue. It is important to add something new to the
genre as people will eventually get bored of reading the same style
magazines but by adding a twist keeps their attention for longer.

4. Q1 In what way does my media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products? – Front Cover
• A conventional music magazine’s
front cover has a large picture of a
music artist or band that fills the
whole page, then text and other
pictures overlap this. My magazine
follows this convention. I also
followed the conventional positioning
of text and pictures. Another
magazine front cover convention is
the use of pullout quotes. Although I
kept my front page to keep with the
conventions of music magazines this
makes it more familiar to the reader, I
felt that if the conventions of the
front page were to be changed the
reader may not be as attracted to it.

5. Q1 In what way does my media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products? – Contents Page
• I also used and challenged conventions
of a music magazine’s contents page. I
followed the conventional way of
presenting what is inside the music
magazine by having the name of the
article written in larger bold font but
instead of having a short overview of the
content of that page I have not included
this to keep the reader more interested
and wanting to read on
Also the contents page has pictures with
page numbers in the top left corners
giving a visual explanation of what will
be on that page, this is another
magazine convention that I followed.

6. Q1 In what way does my media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products? – Double Page Spread
• My double page spread uses,
challenges and develops
conventions of a real music
magazine. I did an interview
written in question and answer
style. I also followed the
convention of having the page
number and magazine name
present on the page, this is in
the bottom right hand corner.
And I also challenged the
convention of putting a caption
in a picture that describes the
goings on, instead I included the
pullout quote at the top away
from the pictures and giving the
explanation of what is going on
in the pictures during the
overview of the interview.

7. Q2 How does my product represent
particular social groups?
• The people I have represented in my magazine are
teenage girls. I have done this through the use of
them model and also the layout of the magazine. I
used a teenage model so immediately this can be
related to as this a girl who would be a similar age
to the readers. I also dressed her in bright, trendy
clothes – a leopard print style dress with a large belt
– an outfit that a reader may wear to go out in. The
setting of the shoot is out which is breaking the
conventions already, most people would expect her
to most probably be shot in a nightclub or a studio
but instead I did it outside. During the interview the
artists swears a few times and talks about going out
and getting drunk which is what is expected of a
young adult again so although is not putting this
group in a bad light is just showing what girls of that
age enjoy doing

8. Q3 What kind of media institution may
want to distribute my media product
and why?
• I have looked at who distributes
Micmac and this is Development Hell
Ltd (www.developmenthell.co.uk ).
They also have a website that is the
worlds biggest clubbing social
network ( www.Dontstayin.com) so I
think they would be interested in
publishing my magazine because they
have products already in dance there
is an advantage to it. Having three
products on the market all different
means they can use them to
advertise each other so someone
visiting the website may decide they
would also like the read one of the
magazines and vice versa. With mine
having a twist to it, it makes it
different to Micmac but still within
the same genre.

9. Q4 Who would be the audience for my
media product?
• As I have stated throughout the target audience for my
magazine is going to females aged between 16-25. as I
said earlier in the project, the socio-economic status of
my product is going to be D/E as at that age most
people would have a part time job so will have some
money to spend and also they may be students and like
to go out clubbing so will buy the magazine to find out
about new gigs. They will have a particular interest in
clubbing and going out. They would buy the magazine
as they would want to find out latest gossip and gigs
and at £3.00 monthly it is cheaper than other music
magazine such as Micmac which is £4.20 a month.

10. Q5 How did I attract and address my
audience?
• I have used the title ‘ Just Dance’ as it is simple and gets straight the point. It’s not
at all confusing and applies to the magazine being just dance.
• The content on the cover includes gigs and artists to be featured in the magazine
which the audience would be interested in reading. There is a quote on the front
cover ‘ Don’t give a f***’ which is going to draw in the readers attention by using
language that is appropriate to this age.
• The double page spread is quite simple. The headline is just ‘London’ the name of
the artist and nothing else. The structure of the page is an overview of the
interview, then question and answer interview and at the bottom corner three
different pictures of the artist. Also at the top of the page is a quote from the
article. The article is about London’s music career with other bits about her
personal life but mainly focusing on the music aspect of it. Again the article. All the
pictures I used in my magazine were not altered in anyway apart from the one on
the front cover which was cut out. The article is bright and colourful so catches the
readers eye who would want to read it.
• The ideologies about celebrities I have used are that celebrities are always out
partying and drinking but at the same time hardworking. Also people who used to
be just normal people so readers will enjoy it as they are people who are like them
and have got to where they are today.

11. Q6 What have I learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
• Blog – To record everything I did to my project and all rough designs I did I uploaded them onto my
blog so that I could easily access it all in one place (www.blogger.com), I updated the blog several
times a week.
• Internet – I used the internet to research different magazines to get my ideas for mine. This helped
me a lot with designing my magazine and I wouldn’t have been able to do the project without. I
also used the internet to get access fonts to use within the magazine (www.dafont.com)
• Digital Camera – To take all my pictures for the project I used a digital camera to do this. Although
the photos weren’t the best quality and if they had been done professionally they would have been
better quality they turned out quite well. I didn’t need to make any changes to my photos apart
from cutting out the background on the front cover to give in a black background. If I had wanted
to edit my photos I know I could have done this in Photoshop.
• Photoshop – I only used Photoshop for cutting around a picture. It was quite easy to use as I had
already had experience on this software. Had I wanted to edit my pictures to be black or white etc, I
could have very easily done this in Photoshop.
• In Design – This is the program I did the majority of my work on during this project. It is quite a
complex program but after a little mess about on it, was easy to get used to even though the things
I used on it were nothing compared to what the program can do. The program allowed me to
create a professional looking page, which only this program could allow me to do. As we didn’t have
a lot of time to develop the pages I don’t think I got the full use of this program and if I had longer
to have done it I think the pages would have looked more professional.

12. Q7 Looking back at my preliminary
task, what do I feel I have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?

13. Q7 Looking back at my preliminary
task, what do I feel I have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
• From looking at my preliminary task I can see how
much I have improved from this in making my real
product. Originally it looks bland, plain and not very
attractive. Although it doesn’t look very good it gave
me sufficient time to get used to programs I was using
to make this product. In my real one I used better fonts
and colours. The layout of my new one was more
attractive. The image was more interesting as was the
layout and the colours I used. One thing I realised from
the preliminary task was how important colours and
fonts were in gaining the readers attention. When it
looks bland and boring it is less likely to get noticed
than if it is bright and bold.

14. Conclusion
• I am quite happy with my final product as it looks quite
professional in the way it was made and is eye-catching
though I felt I didn’t have enough time to make a good
enough version of it. Although it is a lot better than my
preliminary task I still think there are things I could have
done better had I had more time to do it. There are a
couple of things I did wrong when creating this product
such as the picture on the contents page is slightly
stretched and the title on the front cover could have been
more clear. Also I could have given more information in the
contents page.
• Although there are bad points about this, I am happy with
the way it turned out in the amount of time I had. I could
now learn from my mistakes and do it better if I had to.

15. These are the pictures I chose to include in my
magazine in the end. The fact that she is a teenager
makes it easy for the readers to relate to the
magazine already. I chose this range of pictures
because each one is different in their own way
therefore making them unique

16. Audience feedback
Questionnaire
I asked 10 people to give feedback on my project.
*********************************************
What does the title suggest to you?
Everybody said dance magazine

17. What genre/type of music does the magazine
focus on and how do you know this?
As you can see the majority of people thought the
Title title gave it away as being a dance magazine, 7
Colours out of 10 people said this. 1 out of 10 people said
the fonts make it look like a dance magazine and 2
Picture
out of 10 people said the picture.
Fonts
What makes the pages look professional and what
stops them looking professional?
Professional – Fonts, Pictures, Layout, Journalism
Unprofessional – Page numbers on contents page don’t match up, picture on contents
page slightly stretched

18. How genuine does the front cover
seem?
Number of People
7
6
5
4
Number of People
3
2
1
0
Very Average Not at All

19. Does the contents page simply inform
or does it manage to interest you in
reading the rest of the magazine?
• 6 out of 10 people said the contents page
manages to interest them into reading the rest of
the magazine but 4 said that it just informs them.
• People who said it only informs also said that not
a lot of information was given so they weren't
that interested with it. They said if they had been
a small amount of information with each part
they would have been more interested in reading
it

20. Does the article sound like a piece of
journalism?
• Everybody answered Yes to this. They said it
was written very professionally and they
would been interesting in reading this.
Does the article layout make you want
to read it?
• Everybody answered Yes to this. They said the
layout looked good and would make them
want to read on