Target Audience Research

My target audience is anyone who owns a pet or loves animals.  The age range can be from teenagers to adults.  Since I live in Florida, the articles will be based on animals in a temperate climate, rather than cold and snowy because I do not experience those things.  Income level and education level of the audience are not very relevant to the magazine.

The magazine I have researched is Modern Dog magazine because they have a similar target audience and a similar subject as my magazine.  It is similar because the magazine is about pets and appeals to pet owners.  This magazine offers a newsletter that people can sign up for that is delivered right to your inbox every week.  I think this would be a good idea for me to do with my personal magazine because it is an easy way for people to be notified when a new issue of the magazine comes out. 

Use of Conventions

How does your product use or challenge conventions of your genre?

Every pet magazine I have researched had a main animal centered on the cover page.  I decided to do this also so that it would be clear the the viewer what my magazine is about.  I made my title big and bold on the top of the page to stand out.  Another aspect I wanted to add to my magazine was a bar at the top that had a few words to describe what my magazine is about.  Most magazines have this feature so that when magazines are stacked on top of each other at stores, people are still able to read a basis of what your magazine is about, and it attracts them to buying it.  Overall, I payed close attention to each magazine I researched and picked certain characteristics from each one to add to my personal magazine, in order to make it look as real as possible.

How does it represent social groups or issues?

My targeted audience is any pet lover or owner, so my magazine is based around appealing to those groups.  There are many articles that are there to help anyone who owns a pet and help them understand their animals better, to give them the best life possible.  Also, I wanted to incorporate articles about pet stores, puppy mills, and sheltering to give people more information on topics that they might not know are actually very harmful to pets.  I hoped these articles would make people aware of how bad these systems actually are, and how they are able to help.

Feedback

After sharing my magazine to the class, I received very positive feedback.  My background photo for my cover page got very many compliments, such as the low angle and the filter I had used. My table of contents also received good feedback.  Some people commented that they liked the way my article names wrapped around the picture of the dog, along the sides of the page.  The mid-angle of the picture worked well with the low angle picture on the previous page.  Next, my article had some white space, so I will write more to fill up a maximum amount of the page. Also, on each page of my article I have a high-angle picture centered on the page.  To add some variety, I would like to incorporate different angles and put the pictures in a different spot.  One suggestion that I got was to use a main photo to take up about a quarter of the page.  This would help cover some white-space and also add a visual element that would draw the reader's attention.  Also, I will add page numbers and my name under the article's title.

Magazine Midterm

Scheduled Photo Shoot

I scheduled to take pictures at Camp Bow Wow with Madi Lay on Friday, December 15th.  This date worked for both of us because Madi had work that day and was able to take me.  We also had a basketball game that night, so we went straight from her work to the game.  At CBW, I photographed many different kinds of dogs and was able to play with them.  After I had gotten all of the pictures I needed, I decided I wanted to include a picture of my own dog as well.  I went home the next day and took pictures of my American Bulldog outside in our front yard.  Finally, I had gotten all the pictures that I needed and was able to start editing them and putting them in my magazine.

Scout Locations for Photo Shoot

For my pictures, I took them at Camp Bow Wow.  It is a  dog day care center on 17th St. in Sarasota.  I chose this location because my friend Madi Lay works there, so it would be easy for me to get in and take pictures.  There were many different types of dogs for me to take pictures of.  I used the portrait mode setting on the iPhone 7+ to take the pictures.  I also took pictures of my dog at home to use for my cover page.  After the pictures were taken, I edited them on my iPhone using VSCO Cam.  I added filters to make the colors of the pictures stand out.  I also used the contrast, brightness, and temperature setting in order to make the pictures as clear and crisp as possible. 

Research For My Article

My article is about the benefits of adopting dogs from shelters rather than buying from a pet store.  I got all my information from www.peta.org because they have a lot of information about this topic.  I wanted to do an article on this because I thought it would be very effective to readers because not everybody knows about the harmful effects of pet stores.  Pet stores are harmful because they sell dogs that are bred in puppy mills, which are illegal businesses that abuse dogs in order to make a profit.  Pet stores sell their dogs for thousands of dollars, while shelters have dogs for a fraction of the price.  Overall, this article was very important to me to write to stress the issue of pet stores.