Media Lesson Overview

In today’s media lesson, we conducted a marking task. My flat plan was presented to my partner, who then filled out a sheet reflecting her views about it; 

From this task I was able to receive criticism about my work, which would help me improve it and make it look better. To improve this piece, I will think about what background may work as I was told that it looked too simple at the moment. I was also told that there should be a way in which both pages of the double page spread link and for this, I could perhaps add a microphone in my artists hand from which the wire could be curving across to the other page linking them together. The way in which my artist is posing on my double-page spread was said to be too similar to the front cover and so the microphone idea may help my artist to pose in a more unique way.

My Magazine Flat-Plans So Far

Here are my flat plans for my magazine pages so far. I have chosen the colour scheme to be red and purple as I think that this would be appropriate for my target audience. Yellow has also been added as I noticed that this is a common convention in pop magazines and its used to catch the audience’s attention. The age group my magazine is aiming at is elder teenagers. The purple adds the ‘young/modern’ effect whilst the red gives it a grown up look. The two colours work well together and balance out the pages (for a young audience, with a sophisticated look).

Media Lesson Overview

Since yesterday, I have been working on my magazine flat plans. I am being extremely detailed and this is helping me think about ways to make my magazine work. For example, initially I was just thinking about one image being on my front cover. However, whilst planning the front page I looked at other magazines and with ‘We Love Pop’ magazine, they included smaller pictures of other things rather than just one. I therefore caught onto this idea and thought it would be good to add this to my flat plan. My front cover flat-plan has been designed and I am currently working on my contents page. To help stick to the conventions of pop magazines yet give my magazine a unique look, I have looked at a variety of pop magazines and used ideas from all of them. For example I concentrated on the facial features of pop artist Miley Cyrus on the 'BillBoard' magazine, and merged it with the pose from the ‘Inked Girls’ magazine. I also started to consider various fonts that I could include when I start actually constructing my magazine. I have been exploring fonts on the website ‘DaFont’.

Planning- How to make my Flat-Plans Successful

I have come up with some ideas that will help me create a successful flat plan;

Reader Profile

Here is an example of how a typical reader of the magazine I aim to create will be;

Focus Group

Conducting Focus Group

Today I carried out my focus group using three 17 year old teenagers. I presented them with 2 magazines and asked them several questions which will help me when I come to produce my magazine. The results will be posted tomorrow.