Evaluation Conclusion

Overall, I am very delighted with the outcome of my Music magazine. I beleive i have learnt and developed my skills in using photoshop and other technologies. My blogs have always been up to date and hopefully they all look very proffesional. If I had the chance to improve on my music magazine, I would improve on my contents page as I feel it was the only page that lacked information and detail. But overall, I think my media portfolio came out great.

Slide 9: What have I learnt in the progression from my preliminary task to my finished music magazine?

In this slide, I looked back at my preliminary task and compared it to my finished music magazine. This would hopefully show the differences and also the skills i have gained whiles doing this task.

1. Heading: As you can see from my preliminary task,  my heading was not large enough to stand out from the page when compared to my finished media product. When looking at my preliminary task, its hard to tell what my heading was. Even though both headings blended with the colour scheme, you can see that the heading in my preliminary task looks like a copy and pasted image. This was because, back then i hadn't fully mastered the use of the text and feathering tool however, looking at my finished media product, you can see how i even managed to add an electrifying effect to the text.

2. Center image: In the front cover of my music magazine, I had one center image that blended very well with the magazine. I managed to enhance the colours of the image using Photoshop as this made the image the center of attention. When compared to my preliminary task, you can see how bad the quality of pictures were. I used too many images which looked like they were copy and pasted therefore taking your eye off the main image. Even the image that was supposed to be the center of attention was too fade to see. As you can see, I learnt my lesson and improved in editing my images.

3. Shapes: In my music magazine, I included shapes behind texts to help make them look unique. This was my first time trying this and i hoped it would work effectively. In my Preliminary task, I had no idea about this what so ever hence the absence of any shapes. This shows the new skills that I have learnt.

Overall, my preliminary task looked very unorganised and messy compared to my music magazine. All the texts and images seemed to blend in well while on the other hand, my preliminary task just looked like it was made by a 5 yr old child.

Slide 8: What have I learnt about technology from the process of constructing this product?

In this slide, I state the things that i have learnt whiles constructing this product. First of all, I have learnt to experiment with camera angles. Before starting this project, I would have taken a picture and just used it without thinking about what angle the camera was facing, whether that particular angle was effective or even whether the angle i was using had a hidden connotation and denotation. I also realised that my Photoshop skills had improved significantly. I was now able to feather an image, crop an image from another image and even merge photos together. Before, I would have thought that changing the colour of a persons clothing in a picture would have been extremely difficult, but now i can do it with ease using photoshop. I have also learnt to take a range of pictures and compare and analyse them to other pictures. Doing this has taught me to see things from different views and angles.

Slide 7: How would I attract or address my target audience?

To attract my target audience, I used large bold texts to catch their eye. This would have helped my magazine stand out from others. I will also make sure that i keep the same fonts in all my future magazines so that any one purchasing them in the future would recognise it easily. Another way that i attract my target audience is the price of my magazine. We all like cheap items, so i made sure that my magazine was affordable. I place the price of my magazine at the bottom right hand corner and had it in a white font hoping it would catch a reader's eye. As well as the cheap price of my magazine, I also included some freebies. Some of these free items included Cd's, Posters, tickets and many more. This would have hopefully interested my targeted audience and urged them to buy my magazine. I furthermore addressed my target audience by giving them the opportunity to enter in competitions that may give them more free items. This would keep them loyal to my magazine and have them coming back for more. Another way of attracting my targeted audience included giving them the opportunity to read exclusive interviews that were very rare. This would enable them to keep up to date with the latest gossip and hopefully get their friends reading my magazine as well. I also included advertisements of some of the latest albums coming out. As we all know teenagers like to find out information before every one else does, so including some of these advertisements would gradually attract their attention.

Other pages in my magazine also helped attract and address my targeted audience. As my magazine is mostly aimed at the younger readers, I decided to attract them by using informal language. For example, i included slang such as "slipping" slang for loosing your way. I purposely chose to use words that were regularly used within the teenage population. This would have made them feel at home when reading my magazine.

Side 6: Who would be the audience for my media product?

In this slide I will show who my targeted audience are and the characteristics that they might have. I will also try and explain why i chose to go for this particular group of audience.

First of all, I i aimed my magazine at young adults aged 15 to 22. I did this purposely as the information in my magazine would only interest the teenage population. I chose to aim my media product at middle/working class teens of both genders. To do this, i ensured that the price for my magazines wasn't to high. It had to be affordable. Aiming my magazine at upper class teens would have been pointless due to the informal language used in it. I used some slang in my magazine to benefit the working/middle class teens. I also constructed my magazine in a form that it only attracted R 'n' B lovers. The obvious thing that attracted my targeted audience was the image of the teens on my front cover. I did this to clearly state who i was trying to attract and what genre my music magazine was. I didn't bother aiming my magazine at older readers as i knew that there were other magazines around that were purposely aimed at the older generation. Knowing this, I focused all my ideas on the younger generation.

Slide 5: What kind of media institution might distribute my media product and why?

In this slide, I am trying to figure iout which magazine institute would be better when publishing my music magazine. Both publishers are very well known and have published hundreds of magazine however, I need to think about which publisher helps benefit my targeted audience. Both these publishers have advantages and disadvantages for example the IPC media is based in the UK and sells about 350 million copies each year. IPC media also publishes the NME magazine meaning that if my magazine were to be published by IPC, I would have some competition with NME. However, when thinking about it, the NME magazine is a rock/indie mag whiles my magazine is an R 'n' B/ Hip Hop mag. This would mean attracting a wider range of audiences for the IPC publishings.

On the other hand, the Bauer media publishing is a German company based in Hamburg which operates in 15 countries. This publishing industry aims most of its magazines at the ABC1 class which are mostly women. This would be a disadvantage to my magazine as my magazine is aimed at young adults with enough money to buy it. If I was to put forward my magazine to this publishing company, I believe it would be turned down because of the genre of music and class its aimed at.

When comparing these two publishing industries together, I believe that the best publisher for me would be the IPC media industry. This is because I think my magazine would bring a new genre of music to their existing magazines and help attract more target audiences.

If you wish to know more about these companies, I have posted their links below.

IPC Media website : http://www.ipcmedia.com/

Bauer Media website: http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/

Slide 4: How does my media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents social groups in many ways. Some of these include the use of freebies. I included freebies in my magazine to help attract my targeted audience. I also made sure that the freebies i included were the kind of items my audience would prefer. For example, CD's, Posters and many more. The images i included also helped represent my targeted audience. I made sure that all participants in my images were around the same age as my targeted audience.This would have hopefully attracted more audiences. Clothing was also very important in the representation of my social group. I decided to have images of people in fashionable clothing to help appeal to the targeted audience. The layout of my magazine also represented the social group i was aiming it at. As my magazine was an R n B/ Indie mag, I based the colours and layout around that genre. I used dark and bright colours mixed together to help attract attention as well as keep that mysterious look to my magazine. The information situated in my magazine also represented my social group. It does this through the inteviews. I made sure that the interviews were with well known artists. I purposely used these artists to help represent my social group as well as attract them.

Slide 3: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products. Comparison continued ( Contents page and Middle page)

Contents Page:

7. Heading: A convention that i added to my contents page was the large heading at the top of the page. This clearly states the page being the contents page. Again, i decided to have this heading in a bold white font. This was to help keep a constant colour scheme as well as attract my targeted audience.  

8. Contents List: A widely used convention on a contents page is the use of a contents list. As predicted my magazine contents page had headings of the information that were in my magazine. This similar convention was also used in the magazine I was comparing my own magazine to. Under some of the headings, i included a brief summary of what it was about. This was to help get my targeted audience interested. I tried to make the page look more interesting by changing the direction of the text. I still kept the same colour scheme of the texts to help make the page look professional and attractive. 

9. Images: Both my contents page and The Truth magazine's content page include a picture. Both the images were long shot images. I personally chose to use the longshot to allow my audience to focus on the on the participants clothing. I also made sure that their clothing were the latest in fashion to attract my targeted audience. The image was also linked to the articles on the page.

                                                            Middle spread:                                                                

10. Heading: As with all headings, they have to be linked to what is on the page. That is what my heading "The Rainbows" does. I decided to write this heading in a very bold white font to attract attention. As the "Rainbows" are suppose to be a very popular band, i hoped using them in my magazine would attract the right attention. The magazine i am comparing mine to also did a similar thing. They also had a bold heading attracting their targeted audience.

11. Sub-Heading: I included a subheading to inform the reader of what my article was about. as you can see, the other magazine also had a subheading. This is an essential convention that most magazines have before their articles. I had a white background behind the text to help make it stand out. This also made it stand out from the rest of the text as it was the only text in a black font.

12. Main text: For my main text, i decided to create an interview. From my research, i found out that most magazines had too small text as you can see from the magazine am comparing mine to.  Knowing this, i decided to make my text a lot bigger so that it was easier to read. To target my audience, I also made sure that my interview was informal. I hoped this would appeal to my targeted audience.

13. Main subject: Just like all magazines, the main image is meant to attract attention and also link to whats on the page. Both my magazine and the truth magazine have a similar image to help attract attention. Both our images are a midshot image. I personally chose to use the midshot image to help draw my readers attention to the clothes the participant was wearing. I also kept the colour scheme of my magazine going by linking the background colour to the colour of the participants jumper. The image also links to the heading " The Rainbows". This is shown by the image of a rainbow behind the participant.

Slide 2 : In what ways does my media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real life media products?

This is my media product using forms and conventions compared to other media magazines:

As you can see, the front cover of my magazine is filled with both similarities and differences when compared to another media product. These similarities are shown in the layout of my magazine.

1. Issue date: My magazine includes an issue date and so does the other media product. I included this issue date to make sure that any buyer would be well informed of the issue of my magazine. I also had the issue date in a red font so it stood out.
2. Heading: As you can see, both my magazine and the other media product has a bold heading. I chose to use a large bold white font so that it would stand out from all the other texts on the page. It is also the only large text in white making it very visible and obvious. This idea was inspired from other media products I researched. The text font style i used, is also quite unusual making it different from the black text normally used. I also hoped using this font style will attract my targeted audience. Further more, i used an easy name such as "DIVERSE" to make it easy to remeber. The connotation of my magazine name could mean that the magazine is filled with different types of information hence the name "DIVERSE".
3.Headlines: Both my magazine and the other media product include headlines. I included these headlines purposely to attract readers as well as inform them of the stories that were printed in the magazine. Colour wise, i used a grey background behind the white headlines to ensure that they also stood out from the rest of the texts on the page, therfore making them easier to spot on a shelf in a shop.
4. Barcode: Another similarity between my magazine and the compared magazine is that they both include a barcode. This is very essential as every product must include a barcode.
5. Main subject: This final comaprison wasnt listed on my slide. The main subject is the center image that i included in my magazine front cover. This background image consists of five teens. I purposely used teens in my picture to target my audience. I also made sure they were wearing fashionable and bright colours that might attract my targeted audience. The clothes they are wearing are purposely chosen by me to co-ordinate with the colours scheme of my magazine. This is an idea i got from another magazine. As you can see, the other magazine am comparing mine to also links its colour scheme to the clothes the people are wearing.
6. Freebies/attractions: Every modern magazine has its own method of attracting its target audience, and in the magazine industry, its very essential to attract as many audiences as possible. Knowing this, i decided to include freebies such as CD,s , Posters and tickets. I also included competitions to help get my audience involved. I purposly advertised these on the front page of my magazine to attract attention and get audeinces hooked. I also hoped this would help my magazine stand out from other magazines on a shelf.

Slide 1 - Indroduction

This is my completed media producted. My media product includes a front page, contents page and a middle spread. I created this using adobe photoshop elements. In this evaluation, i will be answering a number of questions about my product. The slides were created on prezi.com by me. This is the hyperlink of my prezi presentation: http://prezi.com/qndwkvj1epyd/edit/

Feed back from class mates

In our last media lesson, we were asked to give feed back on our class mates works. We were given 10 questions to answer on each of the media products. These questions were:

1) what do we think the audience is; age,gender, students?


2)What genre of music; rock,indie,pop and dance.

3)What was the house style; did it blend with the contents page and middle page to the front cover.

4)Looking carefully at the contents page to the whole magazine; does it have what you expect the magazine to have.

5)Are the articles in the magazine what you expect in the magazine.

6)Are the images suitable for the magazine; do the images relate to your magazine.

7)What overall is in the impact of the middle page.

8)Is my music magaine in line with the gener of music.

9) Any errors in the magazine

10) Any improvments.
 
My class mates also answered these questions on my music magazine. From the range of feedback I got, I could see that people knew what my targeted audience were. From looking at my front cover, people knew that it was an R 'n' B / Hip hop magazine. They also agreed that my content page and middle spread both blended in with the house style. Others thought that the image of the city at the bottom of the pages helped keep the house style as well as attract my target audience. The feed back also showed that most people agreed with my images relating to the magazine. they also agreed that my middle page was simple but effective however, i was also told that i had too much text and this would need improving as most young reders would prefer more images than text.