Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full project?

First of all, preliminary task allowed me to decide how to manage my time while working on music magazine. Also, I was trying to make the pictures and pages look more professional.

These are my two cover pages. My music magazine cover page looks much better and it had improved a lot. The colours are brighter, cover lines are more realistic and the photograph is more eye-catching. 

My contents pages look quite similar but still, the one for the music magazine looks much better in my opinion and more professional.

Also, preliminary task didnt involve working with the InDesign and creating a Treatment Sheet. However, during my real project, The treatment sheet helped me a lot, as in a way  it summed up all the research I've did previously. This involved such things as ABC figures and closer look to the potential audience through the gaps in the market or looking at the distributor companies. 

For me, preliminary task was more of a skills training, which prepared me for the creating of music magazine, however, without it, I would spend much more time and do a much worse music magazine.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

These are some logos and images of technologies and programs I've used while creating my music magazine.

1. For the photoshoot I've used Nikon 1 camera. It is very small but good quality camera and for me it was easy to work with. I've also used white backdrop and two spotlights for the photoshoot.

 2. For creating the pages themselves I've used InDesign. It was very difficult for me and I didn't quite like it but now I know the basic tools and skills for putting up pages and text together.

3. For changing and developing the pages before putting them into pages I've used Photoshop.

I have some experience working with it so it was easier to work with it than with InDesign.

                                                                4. Another program I've used is Afterlight.

It was a very useful app for me and it was easy and interesting to work with it. The picture I've used for the double spread page was edited in this app.

5. For my audience feedback I've used Instagram.

This social network allowed more people to see my pages and comment on them.

6. For some of the posts I've used PowerPoint. It was very useful for the evaluation especially.









For the music magazine I've used a lot of different technologies, and first of all the blog itself.

This website allowed me to post my ideas, pictures videos etc. With time it got easier to use and it became a habbit to post something at least once in two days.

All these programs allowed me to understand what a difficult and hard job the creation of magazine is. Now I can use Photoshop and InDesign, and this skills are useful further in life. I've also found social networks very helpful and important in my work. 

Stacey savrasova from carolinebirksatwork

Who would be the audience for your media product?

First of all here is a part of my treatment sheet, which I did before starting the magazine, describing the audience I'm aiming for:

So to sum up again, I am aiming for young boys and girls, 18+ but really the age may vary from 16 to probably 30. My readers are mainly students, they would live in University accommodations or renting a flat with friends, what means a lot of fun and parties, as well as studies and exploring new every day. This is why "Vox Populi" has a lot of dance, pop and even sometimes club music and artists. Also my magazine gives lists of festivals and events for young active people who are not too busy with full time job. However, my audience will also study a lot and begin their careers an hence a lot of information about music, artists, producers, news and technology etc. Even though the readers are young adults of both genders, there is no taboo language but it is quite chatty and sometimes slang what again suggests the young age of the readers. As it is said on my treatment sheet my audience is "confident and ambitious", full of energy, ideas and interest. 

This is my friend Yana.She is very active 18 years old girl who studies in uni at the moment. She always been very active, she loves dancing and mostly indie and electro-pop music, and she really loves dancing and always listens to music. She is very energetic and interested in fashion, and quite often is influenced by the looks of singers she likes. Yana also likes reading about different people in media, especially something new and unknown before. She fits in my target audience perfectly. 

This is another friend of mine, Alex(left) with his brother. Both of them are into DJing and go clubs a lot. They are 20 and 26 years old and even though they are not teenagers they would still fit into my audience as they are interested in new information, gadgets and events etc.

This is Marina and she loves traveling, is very active and loves live music. She is 17 years old but she is a perfect reader of the "Vox Populi" as she is interested in people who are usually not the faces we see on the screens but who are behind the camera or mixing deck. As most of the girls she is also interested in fashion and loves dance music. Often Marina and her friend come up with ideas for pictures so she might be interested in the photo shoot with the artist in the "Vox Populi".

This is Tolya and he is a student of 19 years old. He is a guy who often goes to the clubs and parties. However he also sings, but they are opera performances. He would be interested in events, news and also some fashion as he is quite a stylish guy. 

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Even though my magazine might look similar to already existing ones, I never really happen to see or hear about music magazine which will not just provide latest music information, but also aim to the people who want to work in this industry, so there might be a little gap in the market. After research and a lot of reading I stopped on the top companies on UK market - the IPC Media and Bauer Media. 
These are the "big sharks" of media industry and publishing on the UK' market and working with them means success and popularity of the magazine. 

This is what I found on the IPC webpage:

This little paragraph gives numbers and statistics which are pretty impressive, they really show to people how big they are and for a newly created magazine being published by the IPC Media is a very, very good start.












And this screen shot is from Bauer Media:

It also has a lot of numbers and names of their products, many of which are very well known and heard about all the time. 

I personally feel more sympathetic to the Bauer Media because of the "we connect people and communities" as this is what I wish my magazine would do. 




I think both companies would have interest in distributing "Vox Populi" because as been mentioned earlier it will close a small gap but also it is different to the pop gossip magazines or rock magazines with a lot of wild pictures. It is much more informative and allows to broaden the audience. 

How does your media product represent particular social group?

"Vox Populi" is aimed for young people aged 18 and older, however it might be read by younger or older people. The images are of young and enthusiastic artists, both men and female (in my first issue its female) and the colours are quite light and cold, representing modernism and technology. "Vox Populi" concentrates on everything new in music and media industry, so the fonts are very sharp and technological, as well as contents are more serious and more important for young adults (e.g. music news, short biographies of artists, singers, producers etc.). It doesn't have bright neon colours or something of a kind but it represents seriousness of audience, combining quite hi-tech fonts with quite feminine pastel colours and images.

"Vox Populi" was created to satisfy the readers as well as help and advice them, especially if they are planning to study or even work in music area. This issue might seem as aiming for females because of the very feminine model and images, however, this will change from issue to issue to satisfy both sexes and attract them. The language I've used quite chatty and reflects the way young energetic and social people would communicate. There is quite a lot of text, in terms of reviews, news, short biographies, and different charts, however it is balanced by a couple of pages from the cover page photo shoot and taking my DPS as an example - the picture takes more place of the page comparing to the interview.

I wouldn't say that representation is stereotypical and "Vox Populi" attempts to be an "equal" magazine in all ways. Before creating my magazine I has a questionnaire and I've asked the same amount of male and female and so based the contents on their feedback.

Overall I think the magazine achieved the aim of equal representation of young, modern people who are interested in music, technologies related to it, some fashion and upcoming events where they can have fun. I would also say that "Vox Populi" doesn't represent any particular genre of music or it's fans, however it is more often concentrated on dance and festival music, again, highlighting the age and energy of audience. 

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

The three pages:cover, contents, DPS

Audience feedback

For this part of the coursework I've posted my pages on the Instagram and asked people to comment on them, what they like what they don't like and any changes that they think could be made to the pages. These are some of the comments (some of them are in russian though):

and some of these:

So overall there were some positive comments as well as different suggestions and I am pleased with my work and myself. People seem to like it, especially the DPS, and putting these in social media was also a good idea to get my feedback. 

DPS final draft

This is my final draft of DPS and the last page posted for this magazine. I didn't change much except for the website and page putting them in the corners of the pages. Ive added my text and as it it quite hard to read from the image here it is:

enjoy :)

DPS draft 1 and 2

This was the first draft of my DPS. I've used the picture for the background and let it bleed from the left  side onto the right one. I've chosen different fonts for the heading and centralized them as well as the standfirst and highlighted her name.

The second draft had very minor changes.

I've added the website of the magazine and a sign "interview" in the top right corner, however the website is placed right a the center and it will be half hidden when the magazine is folded so I will need to move it. 

I really like my DPS and there are little changes I need to add, as well as the article, but overall the page is very tender and light.