Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group I am aiming to intrest would be the young female fans of R&B who appreciate fashion. Maybe not the 'typical' teenage girl but the stereotypical young girl. Blair sponsors a high street chiffon jumpsuit, accompanied with colourful beads around her neck and a loose, messy up-do with a simple pallet of make-up; this supports the idea she is fashion fanati, however she is facing to the right - eyes avoiding the camera with a hand on her hip, maybe this represent the attitude that comes with fashion - not that they are 'up themselves' but that they do have a visible attitude.     

     The colour scheme includes pink and black is also very feminine which represents women in general where pink is recognise as the 'girls colour', like a boys is blue. EUPHORIA's text is in both lower case and capital letters, with a range of fancy text types; possibly suggesting that those who belong to this social group do care what other see as it has to appear attractive.

     The other artists mentioned on the front cover are also highly recognised women such as Rihanna, Beyoncé and Alicia.K they are also very feminie women, who many idolise. They support Blair's image on the cover; the image of fashion, make-up and attitude that represent's the typical women who would be 'into' R&B music.

   I believe it's safe to say that EUPHORIA represents the 'girly' girl social group of an age range from 15 to 25 who are into high street fashion and R&B music.

I believe my double page spread supports the representation of the social group that my front cover achieved. Blair portrays a positive image of the girls around her age who are into the same things as her; she talks about all the stereotypical things that 'girly' girl social groups of that age do... boys, fashion, food, best friends and texting but with just the right attitude.
    

Question 1 - In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I don't think my magazine challenges any real media conventions, as I based my magazine on a real magazine called VIBE. I believe it's a classy, modern looking magazine and doesn't seem to cram too much onto the front cover - which I think can spoil a cover. By using a cover like this as a base I was able to achieve a similar look - which I was aiming for.
     I like the look of VIBE magazine but I chose this kind of lay out because it has already been accepted in the media world, and it seemed easier than making up my own look which would have challenged media forms. I did originally try and challenge the 'norms' by having my title positioned vertically in the top left corner, but then decided it wasn't a risk worth taking.
     I did however develop from my base cover and create my own - I didn't completely copy it. Both have similar texts and identical colour patterns, the bar codes are also positioned in the same place and both feature a singer's quote. However each have a different colour schemes, and our featured artists are positioned differently, Ciara is in the centre of VIBE magazine, but Blair is placed to the left or Euphoria. VIBE has a banner of text at the top of its cover, unlike Euphoria, but Euphoria does have a tag line under its title, whilst VIBE missed that out. Euphoria only contains 5 cover stories, compared to VIBEs 8 - not including those in the banner.
     So although I did have an idea and a magazine cover in front of me to copy I did make my product my own.

04/04/11

   

I have FINALLY finished my 3 tasks: front cover, double page spread and contents page. I'm really pleased with how it all turned out, although I made some teaks according to people's views, I'm very happy with my finished product.

28/03/2011

Today completed my contents page, sticking to the colour scheme on my front cover.

21/03/2011

I couldn't blog last week because the internet broke down, however....

I have finished both my front cover and double page spread!
I finished the final touches to my front cover using Auto Colour in Image Adjustments on Adobe Photoshop CS3, so my picture looked a little brighter and stood out more.
I completed writing up the interview on my double page spread, and made adjustments to the red eyes in the picture through Adobe Photoshop CS3

14/03/2011

Today we were spoken to about our evaluation task and given a booklet with information. To help us in our evaluation task we played 'speed evaluation' just like speed dating, we all swapped papers and said one thing we would change and one thing we liked about each project. My results were very positive for my front cover, a lot of people commented on the colour scheme, the text and my layout. However I hadn't realized there was a few spelling mistakes, and almost every one said they couldn't see the 'HOT100' title, so I corrected them both, and my lecturer advised I put a price on too.

I also continued with my double page spread but not quite there yet!

07/03/11

As you can see i have changed the picture on my front cover because my other picture was too pixilated, i've also rotated the date so it's now next to the bar code instead of above it.

My contents now has a 'top stories' title and rotated the top stories

I've started my double page spread but  need to finish the interview