Evaluation

Question 1

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

The conventions I followed were similar colours to portray a similar genre of music, using the same gender of front cover models. I also had my model look straight into the camera, this follows the convention that most magazines use t0 give a powerful effect.

The title of the magazine also follows a similar convention, it uses a large sans serif bold font to make it stick out on the front cover more, it also appears on the top of the magazine, mostly in the top left or across the top. Using the logo of the magazine at the bottom may give the magazine an ‘unbalanced’ look on the front cover.

I used the strip at the bottom as part of my magazine because it clearly shows information on the front cover, it is found across many magazines.

On my cover I challenged convention by having the title a different colour, usually this would not be done on covers but I did it due to the contrasting background colours.

I have put the barcode in the bottom left corner of my magazine, although it is not the same as the other one it is convention across various magazines as it appears to have a more natural look and fits with the background colour.

The colour scheme for the magazine I have kept to conventions using red white and black, so that it keeps its distinctive look and make it stand out on a magazine rack.

In my contents page I used the same red, white and black colour way so it doesn’t deviate from the front cover much. I have used a conventional 3 column

lay out for my contents page design, like in other magazines it keeps the page tidy and readers can easily find pages that they want to read about.

I have also made the focus point of the magazine the main article, this convention is used throughout many magazines and it gives the feel of importance towards that article also it makes it stand out on the page.By having the page numbers a different colour to the words makes them stand out on the contents page, this is found across many magazines due to that reason.

By using pictures along side the different articles headlines it helps it gives it a visual aid to the contents page and adds colour which can attract readers eyes.

Unlike conventions in magazines I have not used sub categories for articles, I believe I did not need this because the design looks neater in this style in my opinion.

Pulling a quote from the main article is what I have done for the title for my double page spread, along side using this convention I have also change the colour of some of the words due to the contrasting background colours. I challenged convention by having the quote go across both pages as I felt that it gave the double page spread a more balanced feel to it.

I also kept to convention by keeping the main picture to the left of the two pages rather than the right and keeping the colour scheme the same as the front cover and contents page to give the pages identity to the magazine. I have also challenged convention by putting the page numbers in the top corners of each page rather than the bottom, this is due to the back ground colour and ease of identifying what page when flicking through.

How ever I did not use a close up of the person who the article is about, I used a medium long shot as I felt that the whole of them should be seen, this also balances the colours out on the page as there may be too much red if my model was closer to the camera.

I also did not use a sub heading as I thought that it would not fit with the style of the page and may distract from the quote I pulled out of my article.

I used a sub picture on the right page as it relates to the article and gives the reader an different aspect of the artist, this convention is found across many double page spreads in magazines as it also makes it seem like there is less text due to it being more broken up.

Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The model that I used for my magazine is a male and the sub photos on the front cover are all male, meaning that my magazine is predominantly male based.

The clothing worn by my model represents the genre of the magazine, mainly young people who like alternative music would dress in this way, it is seen as fashionable clothing

The social group that my magazine represents best is the middle-working class, the style of his clothes suggests that it has a laid back feeling to it and ‘not smart’ approach to the style of it.

The dominant representation of the middle/working class group is the style of clothes/how they dress, very casually and the festivals that were included at the bottom of the magazine are ones that people who like alternative music go to.

The artists featured on the front of the magazine are ones who have come from working/middle class backgrounds, this can be related to by readers.

More males have been used as models to represent the masculinity of the magazine and the masculinity of the audience. The same could be said for the colour way and design, it is a strong slightly aggressive theme, no soft edges on pictures.

Relevant information to my target audience for my magazine, the type of people that go to these festivals are of the middle and working class.

This type of information that young people would find useful, with events that generally younger people would go to.

Instead of having a formal introduction for the contents page, I used the simplistic phrase of “Whats inside this month” representing the more simplistic social group of my target social groups, this is because people are looking straight for the articles and not a long winded intro on the contents page.

The pulled quote gives a sense of modesty, that he has come from nothing to everything. This can be relatable by the readers in particular social groups. In the end of the article it says how they started from just a band that was messing around, this is relatable to any young musicians who could be reading this magazine looking for a future.

Tony slouching in the picture gives it a sense of rebellious nature, by not standing up straight and slouching tony shows how he is disobedient and lack of care for authority relatable by the target social groups of my magazine.

The dress style of tony in this picture is represented by the genre of music laid back, punky style of clothing. The colours of his clothes also match the colour scheme of the magazine.Using swear words and slang relates to the social classes represented by this magazine, it also falls under the language that young adults use, which is the target audience for my magazine.

Question 3

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

A TV based media distributor that may advertise my media could be kerrang TV, kerrang offers a wide array of genres but mostly for the alternative music genre, I also think that the people who read my magazine will listen/watch kerrang TV, could form some sort of convergence with my product.

A publishing group that I think would suit distributing my media would be IPC media, they publish some magazines with similar genres already such as NME, they have a lot of previous success and experience publishing alternative music magazines.

The radio channel BBC 1 radio is a media that may advertise my product due to the similarity of genres that are featured in my magazine and played on their radio station, BBC radio 1 is a more alternative based music station unlike capital or minster FM which are more chart based radio stations. Radio 1 tailors for most music types which is why I think my magazine would be advertised across it.

Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

“James is 19 and living in York, he currently is in higher education at a 6th form college. He has a part time job on the weekend and is subscribed to alt-rhythm. He uses the money he gets from his job on going out on weekends and going to see his favourite bands live. His favourite gig he has been to was The stone roses at Heaton park and is looking forward to seeing the Courteeners there. He still believes that the 90’s era of Brit pop will never be bettered. He looks forward to the summer as it festival season, the annual trip to leeds festival will be certain for him along side his first time at Glastonbury, James is a big collector of vinyls and has all of Oasis’ albums on it.”

The ideal reader age for my magazine would be young adults between the age of 15-26 I found this out through doing a questionnaire and that most were students or just moved out.

The target gender for my magazine will be a mix of both male and female as I got mixed results from my questionnaire, how ever my pictures and articles all strongly represent masculine properties and features

It will be publicised once a month at a price of £3.99, this is because in the results for my questionnaire about how many times people read magazines its is usually only once a month.

Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

In my magazine I used various techniques and marketing schemes in order to address and attract the audience, the people I wanted to read and potentially buy my magazine, by using social norms and conventions amidst my magazine I believe it helped attract the right audience for my magazine. For example for my models pictures I made most of them have a laid back feel to the magazine and dressed him in clothes I thought fit the stereotypical apparel and dress wear of that specific genre. These tie together and give the magazine a more alternative, fashionable, rebellious and young feel to it. As well as the clothing of the model, I used festivals that I know people who are of my target age and genre go to these festivals, by including a guide to all festivals I think that young people will go to, this helped attract and address an audience of festival goers by having a wide array of festival advice and line ups.Using the red, white and black colour scheme for my magazine helped address my audience because it made them recognise that style and genre of magazine by comparing it to other similar magazines on the market already. The artists that I use are all ones that fit into the genre of alternative or bordering alternative/indie rock, such as Jamie T and The Courteeners, these also tie in with the festival guide as they are each playing at least one of the festivals listed, which addresses the audiences need for live shows and festivals.In my magazine I have tried to make the audience feel like more of a part of the magazine, for example on my front cover I have included an article “2014’s top 10 albums chosen by you”, this makes the audience feel more included in the magazine and more reader friendly. By doing this it will make the reader feel as if they actually have a say in something where as usually they would not have a say. I believe this will attract more people to my magazine because of the involvement of the audience.Some of the features in my magazine will also attract an audience such as the interviews and album ratings, I believe that if these are in the correct genre and that they are genre specific then they should attract more readers within the target market group.

Question 6

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

Over the course of making my product I have learned a large array of skills about the technologies I used to create my final product. Not just with software such as photoshop and in design, but with the hardware aspects of it such as cameras, lighting and audio recording equipment. In pre production I learned how to use an audio recording device and audacity to edit the audio to gather the interview about magazine research. Along side this, I also learned to plan photography shoots and how to take the correct photo with the right lighting. With the photography side of it I had very little experience with cameras and studios, but after using it a few times and getting to grips with these features I feel I am comfortable using a digital SLR and the basic features of it. I learnt how to use blogger.com and create a blog to upload my media work to.In the production stage of making my product I learned how to use several programs well from starting off not knowing anything about them, a good example of this is photoshop. When I first used photoshop this year I only had little experience with it, but after learning how to correctly set colour levels and balance as the basics I felt I quickly picked it up as I went along. An example of this would be the clone stamp tool, I correctly learned how to make the background of my photo shoot completely white by using other areas of it to cover it up. Another program I learned to use was Adobe InDesign, I had never used this program before but quickly learned the basics while creating my double page spread on it. At first I found putting photos in and resizing them difficult but slowly I learned how to put them in properly and efficiently. Along side creating my double page spread in indesign I created a contact sheet with all my photos on it that I took. The standard format of photos in either PDF or JPEG allows you to work across these programs at once making it easier and a universal format for photos.I have also learned that it is important to back up and regularly save files or any work to another media as your computer/program could crash and close down potentially losing all unsaved work.

Question 7

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I feel as my skills in using such programs as photoshop have progressed largely, in my preliminary the photo I took wasn’t on a white background and it was slightly blurry, compared to the actual task where I planned where to take the photo and had it on a white back ground. My use of planning photos and pages for my magazine made a major difference to the end product, it helped give me an idea of what I was going for and gave me the right direction to go in. When I was working on the preliminary task I only had a basic set of skills and that showed through with the quality of work that came out in the end compared to my final product. The magazine research part of my coursework was the biggest help in helping me design my pages throughout my magazine, this helped me see what conventions and language was used across various magazines. Alongside this it helped me realise that what ever I had done would need to be edited slightly at least, you will never get exactly what you wanted. Before I started this coursework I had no idea what a masthead was or to differentiate between the different types of font sans serif and serif. I have also learnt how to make colours stand outline a magazine and give it identity, this is key as it can make the audience quickly and easily recognise your magazine from others around it.One of the most important things I have learned from creating this product is to take time and not rush it, for example I rushed some of my shots and had to re do them due to them being of poor quality. Taking time to get the right photos and choosing the right fonts is all it can take for an audience to be drawn in and attracted to my magazine (except the content of it). My final product compared to my preliminary is very different as you can tell the skills in photography and photoshop really excel to get the final product looking how it should do in my eyes.