Evaluation

Jessica Sergeant

IntroductionFor my coursework project I decided that I would create a music magazine. Before

creating this I completed lots of research and found different shops and websites that in some way related to the style of my music magazine that I would create. One of these websites was - http://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/, I chose this website to look at because ‘Wonderland’ is a quirky fashion magazine that inspired the style for my magazine. The reason I chose to create a music magazine is because I am very interested in music and also there are no magazines out there that are of this certain style which gives this magazine a unique selling point. The style is a mixture of many genres such as- ‘indie’, ‘mod’, ‘vintage’ and rock, also mixing fashion into this music magazine which gives it an edge over any other magazine by having a wide range of different stories included inside.

Everything included in the magazine was created by me, all the images included I took myself and all the ideas were my own, obviously helped my many influences including other magazines such as ‘NME’ music magazine- http://www.nme.com/home

This is where I got the ideas for the colours that the magazine would be based on, and also the ideas for the layout.

I decided to keep the magazine very British and for the target market to be both males and females between the ages of 15 + 25.

Q1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real

media products?

• The genre that I focused on was a magazine to start with, by looking around in the shops I then chose what music genre I wanted to focus on with my own magazine. By looking at magazines such as ‘Kerrang’ and ‘NME’, this is how I chose my genre.

• I would say that my magazine turned out to have different aspects of some music magazines that are already out there, however looking at the magazine all together, it is totally different by mixing music and fashion which no magazine has included yet so this would be challenging the conventions of real media products. It is very imortant to add different and new ideas to this genre so that if my music magazine was to be sold on the shelves then it would be sold over any other being controversial yet successful its its own way.

• Most of my choices for the magazine appeared to be effective, maybe if I had looked around more at totally different shops/websites or anything else that is not a magazine that still relates to the style, I could have included a lot more variety of ideas in the magazine rather than just music and fashion.

• However against all these changes, it was still important to keep with the typical elements of a British music magazine that is already on sale so that the audience can still relate and know what they are buying and are comfortable with buying something different.

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• In my magazine I have mostly included young men and women, aged around 19. I think that the readers could relate to this by looking at the clothes they are wearing, mostly high street clothes so they could relate in this sense. The whole appearance situation is very important to young people and how other people see them so this would be a big thing that the young group of readers could relate to.

• The next thing would be actions and speech. In my double page article, I chose to talk about some normal life situations, like relationships which obviously every reader would be able to relate to in their own way.

• The next topic that is relevant is that on the contents page I included real bands names that are in the ‘indie-rock’ genre already such as Kings of Leon. I chose to include these so that the readers can relate to well known artists and bands and then become more familiar with the magazine and what styles are portrayed through the media product.

• I think I have followed the stereotypical indie-rock magazine style in most ways with the colours and overall style of the magazine, but then obviously I have challenged it by including fashion as the other main genre as well as music. No other magazine already out there does this so I think that is why my music magazine would sell really well to my target market/audience of 15-25 year old male and females. This turned out to be very successful and I made sure that everything fit in well with the target audience and that I carried this through when creating the three pages that I was set to create.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• I have linked my music magazine in most ways to a magazine already out there- NME (new musical express). I have been researching NME magazine and all about it and I found out that their publisher is ‘IPC Media’. For this question I think that IPC Media would be the best company to publish my magazine because they will be publishing the familiar, they would know that it would sell very well along with NME because they are similar styles.

• NME’s target audience would be the same as my music magazine’s there fore this would be a big selling point for the publisher, also if my magazine was sold at the same places as the famous NME then the people from the target audience will see it and then choose to pick it up linking it to the other magazine.

Q4. who would be the audience for your media product?

• The music magazine that I have created is for a specific target audience, you could say a niche in the market. I decided to create an age range between the ages of 15 and 25. I decided upon this because the people that are featured in the magazine are of that age group so they would be able to relate a lot to the people included.

• All models and artists included in the magazine are of all ethnic backgrounds, this is a selling point because not many magazines will do this, this means that the magazine will cater for everyone and anyone in the age group can read this and relate to what is included inside. The magazine is also for males and females because of the amount of different types of stories that are included. Also the fashion section is male fashion as well as female fashions for a range of clothes and models so that it is always changing.

• Inside the magazine are gig and festival listings so my overall aim was to create this magazine around college and university students and are fun and out-going. I decided on this because these are the main people that would purchase magazines already in the shops like mine to read about music and fashion so I thought I this is what I would base mine on to follow these footsteps.

• After collecting audience research, all my questions gained positive feedback which I thought was very successful considering all the people I asked were both male and female and inside this age range.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• I thought very carefully about how I was going to layout my magazine and what colours and fonts I would use etc.. Firstly my title, the name ‘Tone’ came from me thinking of a name that relates to both music and fashion so I looked in a thesaurus under both titles and found out that that word fit in for both of them so I had found the perfect name for my magazine.

• Colours- I chose to stay plain yet appealing with black and white all the way through and then picking out the first letters and changing them to red. I did this to add colour into the magazine and I thought red was really eye-catching for the reader, also the important bits I selected and changed the whole section to red to highlight the importance.

• The main front page photograph- I chose this image on the front page because I wanted to stick with the simple yet eye-catching theme. Basically I chose this photograph so that it looked professional and not over thought and therefore cheesy. I decided not to use a setting and to just place the image onto a black background so that it really jumps out at the audience when looking at it in a shop. I decided that I wanted to choose an image for the front cover where the model is looking straight at the camera like he is looking at the audience and pulling them in.

• Headlines- again I used big bold headlines on the front page to really catch the audiences attention and to let them know what the main stories are in the magazine for them to read.

• Contents page- I chose to again follow through with the colours of black white and red in this page, I decided on a big title at the top and then three medium sized images underneath to show the main artist I was to focus on, with the page number that the story would be on clearly located in red. Then underneath all this is all what is included in the magazine, very clear to read and stories to relate to and know about by just reading the title. The titles and colours set the mood by showing the reader what they about to see in the rest of the magazine.

This is a photograph of my final contents page, I am very pleased with this, it fits in really well with the rest of the magazine and looks really professional.

I think that the location of by a river waterfall fits well, makes everything seem really calm and that the artist is a really relaxed person which will make the reader want to hear more about him as they see on the front cover and on the contents page that there is an article about him.

• Double page spread- for this article I decided to use the name of the artist ‘Chris Marcus’ for the title and then just simply wrote the article out normally and then picking out the interesting and amusing quotes out and making the writing red so that they are clear to see and that it will make the audience what to read on or read the article in the first place once they have read the snappy quotes.

• For my unusual fonts I used a website called ‘dafont’ which has hundreds of different named fonts and you can chose any one you want, this was really handy because which ever theme you wanted there was always a font that I liked under that themed name. – www.dafont.com

Bold font and colours showing exactly what the magazine is about

Snappy phrase above the title explaining what is included in the magazine.

Eye contact from the model to capture readers attention, fans will like this and feel like they know the artist

Subtitles telling the reader what to expect inside the magazine so they know what they are going to be reading before the buy

Big bold sub-headings showing main story

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

• Blogs- first of all I have learnt how do complete my work on the internet using a website called- www.blogger.com which was very useful, basically every week I would log on to the website using the class log in details and then find my blog name and simply type out what progress I have made on my coursework that week, and then upload any images if I wanted. I had the choice of making this blog personal by adding my own backgrounds etc… this website gave me new skills and introduced me to a whole new way of working. I found it a lot more effective that writing essays and just simply writing things down because the work that I did could all the shown off and displayed in one place.

• Photoshop- I already had some skills when using this programme, however doing this project has enhance my skills a lot further by teaching me new ways to cut out images and to erase the backgrounds and then change the colours of the backgrounds. It was really helpful to learn these skills.

• InDesign- I had never used this programme before, so I have come a long way from the first time I used it, I have learnt basically how to make everything to do with the magazine on this programme and it has shown me just how many techniques can be used in one piece of software.

• Pen drives- all the way through this project I have used a 1GB pen drive that I have stored all my work on to take from college to elsewhere to bring images in and things similar. This has been very useful and I have learnt how easy is it to transfer images from computer to computer. This has been a great help.

Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the

progression from it to the full product?

• I have improved a lot since I completed the preliminary task, I designed a college magazine that would be sold weekly to the college students and as shown on the left it looks really unprofessional. I like how I have captured the image because this looks like it could be on the front of a college magazine, however the title and subtitles do not look professional at all. I think I have come very far from this stage and have learnt an awful lot from when I completed this task.

• I think I could have chosen a better font to fit in with the whole college theme and also a smoother and better lay out. For college students the magazine should be colourful and fun, but I made the mistake of creating a very boring lay out and colour scheme.

This is how much my skills have improved from my preliminary task to the real magazine.

Audience FeedbackI asked ten people of my age group 7 questions about my finished product, here are three of the

completed ones that I received- 1. What does the title suggest to you?A1- that the magazine is ‘indie’ and for both males and females- colours show this. A2- That it is about music, ‘Tone’ shows clearlyA3- That it is a music magazine.

2. What genre/type of music does the magazine focus on and how do you know this? A1- indie, I can tell because of the bands mentionedA2- this isn’t obvious, looks like it could be a mixtureA3- not sure, pop because it seems fairly neutral.

3. What makes the pages look professional and what stops them from looking professional? A1- all professional, black background, the colour scheme and also the fonts work well with the style. A2- The picture on the front cover looks professional, the price is quite bland. A3- pictures, fonts and layout all looks genuine.

4 How genuine does the front cover seem? A1- I would pass it as a magazine!A2- it looks quite genuineA3- Very, everything seems genuine.

5. Does the contents page simply inform or does it also manage to interest you in reading the rest of the magazine?

A1- font and pictures catch the eye, colours link to front cover and also very informative of what is in the magazine.

A2- it doesn’t really interest me that much as it is quite bland but the layout it good.

A3- Yes, the different sections make it a lot easier to find things.

6. Does the article sound like a piece of journalism? If not which bits don’t sound right?

A1- Yes, really well written, love the quirky style!

A2- Well written but could be more detailed

A3- Good article, the red quotes work really well.

After completing my audience testing of my final product, I chose three of the questionnaires, one of the being quite negative, I did this because it helps me to realise what went wrong in bits of the magazine that I might not have noticed. This has been very helpful to know how successful my magazine would be to my target audience and it seemed to go very well so I am very pleased with my end result.

Learning new skills and finding out new techniques have obviously payed off and i have achieved what I would have liked to achieve so this project has ended up being very successful!