evaluation

My magazine achieves the conventional features of a pop magazine for teenage girls as its background is pink, which is popular for girls as their favourite colour so it will attract them.

It also has the typical bar code, date and issue number which are all included in a magazine.

The is an attractive young girl on the front who is smiling and looks welcoming. Most pop magazine have a model as the front cover who is smiling so i think i have achieved that conventional feature for my magazine.

However i did challenge one controversial topic which is being discussed over the past coupe of years. And that is too skinny models being on magazines which influence young girls to go on diets, leading some times into anorexia or bulimia.

For my model i didn't choose an exceptionally skinny girl to be on my front cover and contents page and double page spread because i wanted to break that convention and get the message across that looks aren't as important as they seem.

Another way i broke this convention is that i didn't put that much make-up on the models as i wanted them too look natural because i didn't want to influence my target audience to put piles of make-up on as they are on young teenage girls.

This was my model for my front cover:


As you can see she isn't the typical skinny model who is barley wearing nothing at all.
She also doesn't have that much make up on either.

My next model who you see in the contents page and the right hand corner of the front page is also not the typical skinny model you see on nearly all the celebrity/fashion magazine. She also is wearing considerably more clothes than typical models do.

Some media institutes like WHSmith, Boots, Superdrug and large supermarkets would distribute my magazine as most of the shops like WHsmith, Boots and Superdrug are all popular shops for young girls when they go into town to do some shopping, that would be one of the main reasons that they shops would agree to sell the magazine.
Large supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Asda would be good to distribute my magazine because you are more likely to see daughters and mothers shopping together and they may persuade their parents to buy the magazine for them.

My target audience was covered in a previous blog:http://milliegladwin.blogspot.com/2009/11/target-audience.html
The way i dressed my models (fashionable yet basic clothes) suited my target audience as in my profile for my typical reader she wore fashionable yet relatively cheap clothes. This would attract that type of person as she would be able to relate to them and would be able to buy some of the clothes advertised in the magazine.

After using Photoshop and Indesign for the first time i found it considerably more helpful than if i hadn't of used them.
For example i was able to cut out an image and put it on a transparent background, which was very useful as my original background wasn't appropriate for my magazine.
I was also able to get fonts from http://www.dafonts.com/, where i was able to download fonts and use them in my magazine to make it look more professional

Looking back to my priliminary task, i think it helped me with the main task by reminding me of how to design a magazine. Also it prepared me to think of a design for my main task.
I saw it as a sort of draft for my main magazine as i wanted to experiment with the two different designs, what style and colours look better.

Photo's

I chose this photo to be my main photo on my front cover.

I took it on a normal background because i new i wanted to crop her out and put her on a plain background.

I wanted most of her body in it because i wanted to show off what she was wearing and her whole look as she was the main concentration on the front cover.


I chose my model to wear a plain yet stylish dress to modestly bring out her celebrity status, as my target audience isn't that old i didn't want to glamorize dressing up and focusing on looking nice as that's not what it's all about, like present magazines now, causing you girls to feel pressurized into looking perfect.

Continuing with that point i didn't want to have my model with loads of make up on as i wanted her to look natural and real. So i put on the basics, Mascara, foundation, eye liner etc.

I chose my model to be smiling so she looks welcoming and isn't intimidating to the reader. I also made her look at the camera as it looks like shes looking at the reader which makes it more personal.

The way she has both hands behind her back shows her innocence which is good as it doesn't give off a bad impression to the younger audience.

I chose this picture to be in my contents page to show the different celebrities that will be showing in my magazine.

The colours the models are wearing are all colour coordinated as they are all wearing blue or black - simple colours. Their co-ordination of colours reflects the groups connection with each other, it shows their closeness and strength as a group.

The way they are all leaning into each other also reflects their closeness with each other, which is good when you look at a band, it makes them come across as more friendly.

The poses the models are doing are modest and not too flamboyant. Which gives off an innocent look which is good to have for you teenagers and sets a good example.

They some of the models are wearing glittery clothes which links back to the genre of the music by girls between age 12-14 liking glittery things and also links to celebrity status being all sparkly and great.

I chose this photo to be in the double page spread as the larger photo because it shows her innocence as she is smelling a flower.

It is also seen as very feminine when you see flowers and especially to younger girls which are my target audience for my magazine.

I chose her to be facing to the side because it suits the action she is doing and it captures the details of her facial features and the features of the flower.