1.

In what ways does your media

product use, develop or
challenge forms and
conventions of media products?

Magazine Cover Similarities

Masthea
d

Tagline
Puf

Coverline
s
Main
coverline
(anchors
image)
Colour scheme
(consistent
colours)

Barcode

Rule

Of

Thirds.

datelin
e
Main
image

Rule

Of

Thirds.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of media products?
I used one main image and placed it between the hotspots of the front
cover to emphasise it, just like the Classic Rock Mag. My masthead
was at the top of my magazine, big and bold so its easy to read. I had
a suitable colour scheme and my cover lines were in appropriate
places. I anchored my main image to my main coverline to give my
main image some context. I also used a tagline; this was placed just
under my masthead. I used a puff in a circular shape to advertise an
offer as well as my barcode with the date and edition in the dead
space (bottom right) of my magazine cover. My magazine is for a
niche audience therefore my cover was attractive to my audience of
students. I developed my codes and conventions by using the
appropriate college colours (purple and green). Classic Rock also
used a consistent colour scheme. I kept the cover lines minimal like
classic rock and mostly used the Font Arial Rounded MT Bold for my
text. This keeps a theme to the magazine. The main cover line
anchors the text just like in Classic rock these cover lines encourage
the reader to read on. I also used rule of thirds throughout my cover
which is an effective magazine technique as it give structure to my
magazine cover and highlights all the dead spaces and hotspots. For
my main image, although I didnt use direct address, my model looks
very intense and intelligent, as though he is thinking about something.
Consequently, this attracts the audience. My main image has good
lighting and is edited nicely therefore is easy to see from far away.

Comparison of final magazine cover to draft

Taglin
e

Colour Scheme
(college colours)
No
colour
Masthead

Coverline
s

Main
coverline to
anchor
image

No main
coverline

Puf
Barcode,
dateline

Main
image

Taglin
e

My final magazine cover is very developed unlike my draft. I have no colours

on my draft and on my final I used college colours to make the theme of my
magazine. My mastheads are similar and are used to appeal to the target
audience of college students. I related my coverlines to my draft but I
developed them more in my final. I anchored my main coverline to my main
image in my final unlike my draft, where a main coverline isnt present. I put

Contents Page Similarities

Contents
title
Magazin
e title

Page
descriptio
ns
Page
reference

Colour scheme
(consistent
colours)

Rule

Of

Thirds.

Rule

Of

Thirds.

Contents Page Diferences

Volume, date, issue,
website

Social
Media
No social
media
More
images

Only
one
image

Less detail, less

pages

Lots of pages and

detail

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of media products?
I used the rule of thirds on my contents page. I used
multiple images unlike the Marie Claire contents which only
used one picture. I stuck to college colours again as my
colour scheme therefore its similar to my magazine cover. I
used appropriate images with page references and added a
short description to each page. I used a stroke effect from
Photoshop to make my text stand out. I made the page
descriptions easy to see as they were in open spaces. I put
my magazine title in the top left dead space of my contents
page so it is noticable however its not the main title of the
page. I made my contents title large and easy to see. I also
added social media logos so the magazine can further
appeal to my target audience of students. I put an image of
the college in the bottom squares of my page therefore it
attracts the students.

Comparison of final contents page to draft

Social
media

Magazine title

Colour Scheme (college

colours to match magazine
cover)
No
colour
Contents
title
Page
references
with
description

Image of
college

My final contents page is very developed unlike my draft. I have no colours

on my draft and on my final I used college colours to make the theme of my
magazine and to match my magazine cover. My titles are similar and are
used to appeal to the target audience of college students. On my final, I
included the magazine title in a dead space as well as social media logos
which arent present on my draft. I related page references to my pictures

2. What have you learnt about

technologies from the process of
constructing this product?

Blogger
Scribd
Mobile Phone
Scanner
Emaze
Photoshop
Digital camera
Prezi
PowerPoint
Presentation
Microsoft Word

Blogger
One of the new skills I have learnt to use is blogger. This is a website where you can
submit posts with diferent texts or embeds in them. It was easy to log in and update
our blog whenever we wanted to. In our first blog post, which was our introduction, we
wrote about ourselves and inserted a picture; this was simple to do. After the
introduction, we had a diary entry which we could write anything in. This was a
helpful post as we got to update the post whenever we wanted as we just had to add
a diferent date. This allowed me to remember what I did on each of those dates as it
is easy to go back to the post on blogger. I found blogger very easy to use as you can
create a new post whenever you want, and you can view your blog whenever you
want. I also learnt that its easy to post embeds from diferent softwares as most
softwares have an embed option to share.

Mobile phone
After completing our blogger introduction and diary, we
were told we had to go around campus and take
pictures on our mobile phones. Although I knew how to
take pictures on my mobile phone, I learnt how to put
them on the computer as a form of JPEG. I emailed the
pictures from my phone to myself and was able to
open/save them on the computer, which I never knew I
could do. It was easy to get a number of pictures onto
my computer for my inspiration.

Presentation/ Scribd
After transferring all our pictures from my phone to the computer, we made a
PowerPoint Presentation of the inspirational photos for our student magazine.
After this, we had to insert our PowerPoint into a software called Scribd,
which allowed us to embed the presentation into our blogs. I never knew how
to embed PowerPoints before so this was something I had learnt. It was fairly
easy to use as all we only had to find the file and then embed it. In blogger,
you can clearly view the presentation using Scribds software. As well as
inspirational images, we made a word document of our target audience which
we embedded through Scribd; this was also simple to do after I learnt it.

Scanner
We drew drafts of our front
cover and contents page on
paper with annotations with
pencil and pen. To transfer
the paper onto the computer,
I had to use a scanner for the
first time. I learnt the process
and was able to successfully
scan my drafts. I understood
which way to scan my paper
and how to preview it as well.
After being scanned, we
saved the image as a JPEG
and inserted it as a new post
for my blogger.

Emaze
We took pictures from our phone of various locations
which would be highlighted in our magazine. After saving
these onto the computer, we had to use the Emaze
software. This was an easy sign in and the templates for
the presentations were all very appealing. I never knew
how to use a software like this so I learnt how to use
Emaze with time. We created a presentation with an
explanation of why we chose the places; it was relatively
simple to insert text and pictures. After inserting a variety
of pictures with explanation, I learnt how to share and
embed the presentation on my blogger.

Photoshop
After we had our images and
drafts, we had to use
Photoshop to finalize our
magazine front cover and
contents page. I found using
Photoshop the most
challenging as we used new
features such as the magic
wand to make our Masthead
look attractive and the
selection tool. Regardless of
this, I finally got the hand of
making the new layers and
editing my magazine cover
to make it look appealing to
my target audience;
eventually the software was
less challenging to use.