1.How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
While my magazine does not necessarily challenge conventions, it definitely does use them in order to appeal to its target audience. The target audience, which has morphed throughout the creation of this project, is finalized to be airplane pilots and those interested in becoming pilots. After performing research regarding this specific social group, It was evident that this group of people are most generally middle-aged men, sitting in the upper class. To target them most efficiently, I went through the process of viewing the covers of various similar magazines and recording what their main articles are about. After doing this and viewing the list, a recurring sub-theme, besides aviation, of course, was evident. Most of these covers mentioned articles which had to do with explaining certain parts of aviation. Because of this, I decided to create an article about the science behind the plane, which directly appeals to the curiosity of younger and upcoming pilots. An article such as this one would obviously not attract more experienced pilots, but, as seen in the table of contents, the magazine is comprised of a mix of various types of articles which, as a whole, appeal to most of the piloting field. Since my magazine does not have anything to do with problems in society, it doesn’t represent any social issues.
2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
As stated in the previous question, my magazine has articles which are directed towards interests of its target audience, which are pilots and those interested in becoming pilots. To engage with this audience, there is a range of articles that cover pretty much the whole piloting field, such as plane reviews, interviews, tips, lessons, and other topics of interest.
To distribute my magazine, I first have to look at where exactly my target audience tends To be frequently, and there is no clear answer to that. Selling magazines in storefronts will simply not be efficient, as approximately only 0.18 percent of the US population are pilots. Because of this, my magazine will be primarily a subscription magazine, in which magazines will be mailed periodically to the subscriber. Along with this, and the fact that the majority of people, including pilots, have smartphones, my magazine will also be available digitally. This allows the subscriber to have direct access to their magazines, considering they are almost always moving, and will create a significant amount of savings as digital copies of magazines require no paper and minimal expenses to distribute, compared to paperback magazines.
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
To design my magazine, I began by using simple ideas we were taught in class, such as the basic design of most magazines, and, more importantly, the bad design decisions which can be made whilst designing one. While that is an important aspect of the decisionmaking in this project, in my opinion, it mainly has to do with visuals, and what colors clash together and which don't. While I could’ve looked up at the beginning which are acceptable color combinations, I chose to follow a simple trial And error process in which I simply play around with color settings, font designs, sizes, and positions to see what works and what doesn’t. Because of this learning experience, in the future, will be able to design more attractive texts without needing to go through all of that again.
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
In the beginning, in the research phase of the project, I began by using this website called google.com. It is a quite astonishing resource, really. It allowed me to search the internet for pretty much whatever I needed to find, as long as it is online somewhere. Software-wise, I used this graphics editing/ creation program which comes built-in on windows computers. It’s called Microsoft Paint and was an essential resource in the creation of the drafts which I planned. While it isn’t, by definition, software, as its an online resource, Canva was the single most important site I used for the creation of my magazine. It is a website which allows you to create magazines and various other types of posters, with hundreds of templates to choose from. Hardware-wise, I haven’t really used any physical objects for this project, other than my computer and phone camera to work with.
