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

The technologies that I used for my music magazine were Desktop Publishing, Serif PhotoPlusX4 and Picnik. I used these because they were the ones easiest available to me. I had access to Desktop Publishing at school and at home so it was easy for me to learn how to manipulate copy and images. Picnik is an editing software that you can have access to anywhere if you have the internet. This was really helpful because I had access to it both at school and at home. Because I have used Picnik before, I already knew how to manipulate the files and could use it relatively well. Another editing software that I used was Serif PhotoPlusX4. The problem with this was that I only had access to this software at school and because it was new to me I didn’t really understand and know how to use it well.

I conducted a lot of research into existing magazine products so that I could get a rough idea of what kind of magazines are already out there. I didn’t find a lot of magazines that were aimed at my demographic which was good for me because I could make the most of this space in the market. I used some ideas and conventions that other magazines had and developed them further for my magazine to give my magazine that little bit of edge. I found that a lot of the magazines were heavily edited to a professional standard and I tried to incorporate that and achieve that standard of editing.

I had to manipulate images to create different types of meanings and representations. The front cover was edited in many ways. I brightened the white of the eyes, removed any blemishes and lightened the picture as well as cropping it.  All of these were done so that is becomes more socially acceptable and attractive to the audience. The person in the image was also made to stand in a unusual position and follows the Male Gaze theory.

Here are the steps I went through to create the images used:

Airbrushing the images gives out the impression of perfection and it is something that the readers will want to achieve. Everyone is insecure about something and when they see the perfect celebrities on the front cover they will want to buy it because they will want to achieve that perfection themselves. The media industry makes a lot of money out of people because they use these technologies to create what is seen as an ‘ideal’ image or person and advertise it so that it becomes socially acceptable.

The backgrounds in the images used help create different meanings. The plain white background in the front cover was used because I found in my research that a lot of young girl magazines used a simple white plain background and I also used it to show and represent purity and innocence.  One of the images in my double pages spread was done with a homely background and included a bit of nature. I wanted to show how although this person has become known or is famous through her parent, she is still a down to earth kind of girl. The sky at the top was aligned with her head to show that she is trying to reach and aims high, that she has big dreams and thoughts. She wants to become known and successful, the quote ‘the sky is the limit’ fits in very well in with this point. The props that I used for this image was a violin because after all this is a music magazine and I am trying to represent her as someone very talented, especially musically.