Media College Magazine Evaluation

Q: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media productsMasthead: My masthead is the largest text on the page and is also in a unique font and colour to the rest of the page. This makes it stand out and follows the conventions of real media products.

Main Image: My subject is in medium close up but is not looking straight into the camera (no direct address) which challenges the conventions of real media products because generally they are looking straight in the camera. But, the image featured on the front is of a good quality, the subject is in sharp focus with the background less sharp and is also bright. Image: There is only one image used on the front cover, this follows the conventions of some media products but not all.

Cover Lines: Cover lines are around main image and don’t cover the face, this follows the conventions of real media products as the focus is still on the main image.

Main Cover Line: is in a different font to the masthead and also a different colour which attracts attention. But the main cover line should be larger to attract more attention.

Splash: Splash featured at the bottom of the page to give an incentive to buy the the product. Featuring a splash is common but featuring a splash as big as the one shown here is unusual as a result it does not follow the conventions of real media products.

Q: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products

-My magazine contents page contains large colourful contents lettering, this follows the codes and conventions. -A large image at the top of the page is also common in magazines, as well as featuring the front cover on the contents page to remind the reading what they are reading. -My magazine challenges the codes and conventions through its layout of text and page numbers, usually pages are columned with the same font for headings of each section, however mine does not do this.- However my user of a splash does have a splash, at the bottom left, which is common in magazines. -My main articles have pictures to illustrate with them which follows the codes and conventions. -Social media links featured in the bottom right which is common in magazines.

Q: How did I use new technologies in the construction of my media product

Adobe Photoshop 2015I used the type tool to add my cover lines and masthead to my front cover.

I used the international paper size when I created my front cover

Main image was dragged onto the page

I repositioned the image to crop some of the hedge behind my main image out to make it stand out.

Quark

I made the colour of my cover lines a contrasting colour to the background so that they stand out to make them more visible, I did this using the colour change tool

I used the photo draw tool to add photos to my contents page by drawing the image box onto the page and aligning it using the blue and purple lines to ensure there is no bleed.

I drew text onto the page using the text drawing tool and changed the colour to a unique colour using the colour tool. I could then typed the text in different font sizes to make different parts stand out along with large page numbers.

I aligned the text so they are even using the red lines which assist lining up to produce a more professional looking product.

Strengths of my media product and my use of new media techniques

Strengths of my media productMy media product follows the codes and conventions of magazines, such as the masthead being in the largest font and in a unique font with cover lines around the main image but not covering the face. My magazine front cover has all the key features you usually see on a magazine, such as a positioning statement, cover lines and a simple background. The photograph's featured on the front cover and the top of the contents page look professional and are correctly exposed. On my contents page, text was aligned left and the main image also had the front cover in the right hand corner.

Strengths of my use of new technologiesPhotoshop allowed me to crop my front cover image to make it fit the frame better The text tool on both photoshop and quark allowed my front cover to look attractive and professional by the use of different fonts and colours.Quarks alignment lines made keeping photos and text in line and the same distance easy which improved my media product.

Weaknesses of my media product and my use of new media techniques Weaknesses of my media product-The splash on front cover is too large and takes up too much of the page, as a result space was wasted. -The masthead, positioning statement and headline take up too much space-My contents page needs to be aligned and in columns and the numbers in numerical order as my current layout is hard to follow. -Ideally I should have split it up into features and regulars.

Weaknesses of my use of new technologies•Photoshop is difficult to navigate and the settings are complicated to understand at first.•When beginning the front cover on photoshop, I found understanding how to use the text tool difficult.•I found it difficult to correct mistakes that occurred when using the shape function, which has meant my splash is larger than I had planned. •On Quark, I found navigating at first complicated. I found inserting photos difficult at times as Quark could not read the file size which was a weakness and photos also appeared at first overly large which meant my media product took longer to create.