EVALUATIONAlex Wilman

FRONT PAGE

CONTENTS

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

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

FRONT COVER

The first convention that I have followed is the location of the masthead at the top of the page. Much like the Kerrang! Example, I have decided to use a bold font, Bebas Neue, as this will make the magazine more identifiable as it will be easier to read. I have also chosen to use a blue font as it is more stereotypically associated with the male gender which is my target audience. I have chosen to use more vibrant colours in my magazine as I believe it will be more attractive to teenagers as well as the fact that my magazine is being published in march, linking it to the connotations of spring such as freshness and vibrancy.I have also followed the convention of including the use of buzz words on my front cover. An example in my magazine would include the use of “EXCLUSIVE” as it is likely to persuade the audience of my magazine that they should purchase it as they will be unable to find the same stories anywhere else. It is also likely to make the audience feel more involved as if they are one of the first to hear the latest news.I have include a main image on my front cover which follows set magazine conventions. The person featured in my image is using direct address to the audience which makes the audience feel connected with the image. This is important as she is the main focus of the page, and so needs to interest the audience. The layout of my magazine is vibrant but still represents the male genre through the use of blues, blacks and reds which are typically associated with the male sex and as being more masculine. I have also linked my colour scheme to the main image through the use of the same shade of red on the “Return” part of the main cover line as is found on the woman's lipstick in the main image.I have also included the convention of a barcode as without it, the consumer would be unable to purchase the magazine.I have included the commonly found convention of the date and price of the magazine. I have chosen to use a smaller font than the masthead for example as I do not want to draw much attention to this feature. The price of £1.99 also reflects my magazines audiences socioeconomic status as teenagers would not have as much money to spend on magazines etc.

CONTENTS

The first convention that I have followed is the situation of the headerat the top of the page. I have done this as it will be one of the first things that the reader will notice. It is an important feature as it allows the reader to easily identify what section of the magazine they are currently on. I have used the Bebas Neue font as well as it shows continuity throughout my magazine and as it is a bold font, making it very easy to read. The black font colour that I have used also makes the masthead standout against the light grey colour that I have used as the background, also making the magazine easier to read.I have also followed the convention of including a menu along the left hand side of the page. This is useful as it provides the reader of my magazine easy access to the different sections of the magazine. I have also used a bold font on the band names as well as used capital letters as it will allow the reader to more easily identify the articles that they are interested in. The headings labelling the different sections of my magazine have been written in a white font and have been placed on a black background, further increasing the accessibility of my magazine as the reader can look at sections that they are most interested in. Also coinciding with the accessibility of my magazine, I have included the convention of page numbers at the bottom of my magazine. This allows the reader to easily identify what section of the magazine they are currently on and will allow the reader to identify what page they should be looking at in regards to what article they would like to read. I have used a small font size as I did not want it to detract attention from the feature s of the page it was situated on. I have however used a black font colour as it stands out against the light background, making it easy to read.I have not include the convention of featuring a main image on my contents page, I have instead included the use of three equally sized images placed on the right side of the page. I have done this as I did not want to detract the importance of one image by placing a much larger image next to it. This should attract the reader equally to each of the images and their related articles. Linking to this is the use of page numbers situated on the image. This has been done as it links the image with the article that it is representing, giving ease of access to the reader as they can easily identify their favourite artists from the images provided.I have also followed the same colour scheme as is found on front cover as it shows continuation in the magazine. An example of this is the use of the same shade of blue that is found on the masthead on the front cover, on the menu.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?/ Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine has been aimed at the age bracket of 10 – 20 with a largely male oriented audience who are likely still in full time education.This has been largely reflected in my magazine and the way it has been designed. Due to the gender of the audience of my magazine, I decided that I should use a colour scheme that reflects the male gender more than the female gender. This is shown through the use of colours such as red, blue and black, which tend to have connotations of being more masculine than other colours such as pink for example which would be much more typically associated with the female gender. My choice of images has also been affected by the audiences gender as well. I have chosen to include a female of the same age range as my audience on my front cover as to entice the male gaze. This attraction would likely persuade the reader to read the magazine and the use of direct address would also likely create a link with my audience, persuading them to read it also.The age and class of my audience also had an effect on my magazine. As my audience is likely to be in full time education, they would likely be in the lower class due to a lack of money. This has been reflected in the price of my magazine as I have set the price at £1.99, making it easily affordable by students. As my audience is quite young, I have used a range of images as they are more likely to attract the attention of a younger audience than perhaps an article would. I have also included bright colours in my header and masthead for example as they are also likely to attract such an age ranges attention. In my contents for example, I have used short sentences to describe the different articles and features as I believe that it would be more accessible to those of this age range as they would prefer to get their information quickly. This age range is likely to have a wide variety of social groups but as my magazine focuses mainly on the pop punk and indie genres, they are they two types of social groups that I have focused on. This is evident through the use of bright colours in my magazine to represent the more punk social classes and the use of filters for example on my images to give the magazine an indie theme as well. My choice of bands to include in the magazine also reflects these social groups as well for example, the use of Fall out Boy to represent the pop punk genre and bands such as Paramore which are described as more indie. The mise en scene of my images also reflects these social groups as the female that features in my double page spread is wearing clothes that would be more associated with being indie.

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

I have chosen to use the media institution, Bauer. This is firstly due to the fact that they publish similar music magazines such as Kerrang! Which I believe is an advantage as one magazine would be able to cover the stories that the other would not be able to do. The differences between the two magazines would also mean that Bauer would be able to reach a broader audience as my magazine focuses on the indie social group as well as punk whereas Kerrang! does not. Bauer also publish a wide range of other magazines revolving around a wide range of subjects, this could be an advantage as Bauer could advertise in these magazines which would result in a much greater amount of public awareness and therefore more magazines being bought.A disadvantage however would be the fact that both magazines share the pop punk genre. This could result in some articles being very similar to one another as well as many of the stories that would be featured. As Kerrang! Is the more well known magazine, it would likely be that any of the exclusive stories would be featured in Kerrang! Due to it’s larger audience which would be a disadvantage to using Bauer.Bauer also publishes the radio station, “Radioaire” as well as the television stations, “Kerrang!” and “Q”. This would be an advantage as Bauer would be able to advertise my magazine on both the television stations and the radio station. As Kerrang! And Q share a similar audience as my magazine, I believe the advertising would be very effective as the audience will already be interested in the types of music that are featured in my magazine, resulting in a greater amount of sales.

How did you attract/address your audience?

One of the first things I have used to attract my audience id the colour scheme. As my magazines audience is the male gender, I have used colours that would generally be described as more masculine such as blue, red and black. The use of a more bright blue colour however reflects the pop punk genre of which my magazine features, as pop punk has connotations of bright colours. I have used this same colour scheme throughout my magazine, be it on my masthead, contents numbers or headings.The font I have chosen for my masthead will also attract my audience as it is very bold and therefore easily read. The use of the blue from my colour scheme also helps to create a striking attraction on my front page as well creates a sense of continuity throughout my magazine, making it more visually appealing towards my audience.My choice of image on the front cover is also there to attract my audience. As my audience is mainly of the male gender, I have decided to use a female on the front who is of the same age range of my target audience. This has been done to entice my audience as they will feel more connected to the magazine as it will appear that the magazine has been designed around there age range. A female has also been choses as to entice the male gaze, which should persuade the male readers to purchase the magazine. Direct address has also been used on my image as it will create a link between my magazine and my audience, further persuading them that they should purchase the magazine as it will feel more personal towards them. To address my audience, the model is wearing clothes that would typically be found on someone of my audiences age range, thus attracting them to the magazine. I have also created a link between the image and the heading, “The Scene Kids Return” by using the same shade of red as is found on the woman's lipstick and placing it as a colour overlay on a section of the heading. In the other images featured in my magazine, most of my models appear to be happy and having a good time. I have done this as it will likely have an affect on the way that my audience feels when looking at my magazine.As another way of attracting and addressing my audience, I have used the buzz word “Exclusive” on my front cover. This has been done as it will persuade my audience that they will have to purchase my magazine if they want to read the exclusive story as they will not be able to find it in any other magazine. This will also make my magazine stand out as I have used a bold black font on a light background, making it more striking towards the audience.I have also used pull quotes on my magazine as a way of attracting my audience. The aim of a pull quote is to give a sense of the article that it is from to the audience and to hopefully attract them to read the magazine. I have also placed the pull quote on a white background with a black font as it is much more likely to stand out on the page and therefore attract the audience more.

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

The different types of technology I have used include: Photoshop Microsoft PowerPoint E-mail Blogs Cameras Lighting

All of these pieces of technology have allowed me to create my magazine as well as do my research before hand.The most major piece of technology I have used is Photoshop. I had no prior experience of this software before I began the production of my magazine. I have learnt a multitude of different skills including photo editing as a way of making my images more visually appealing and the ability to use colour overlays if I did not believe that a certain font was not as appealing as it could be. While Photoshop was used to construct my magazine, I had to use a camera in order to capture the images that would feature in my magazine. I have learnt about the rules of photography such as allowing the subject of my image room to move so that they do not look too confined as well as the rule of thirds to help with composition.I also used the software, PowerPoint as a way of storing any data that I collected from my surveys or audience research that I did. PowerPoint allowed easy formatting and an ease of sharing on to my blog whenever I needed to through the use of the website slide share.I widely used my e-mail as it allowed an easy source of organisation as I could store any work that I needed to take home on it and access it whenever I needed it. This also acted as a failsafe as a digital copy of my work would always be stored on the e-mail in case of loss or damage.Another piece of technology I have used for the first time included the lighting in the photo studio. This allowed me to create a variety of images and gave me the ability to choose an image based on light and shadow for example.

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

I believe that I have learnt a lot since I first started this task. In comparison with my college magazine, there are many differences between the two. The main difference is the quality of the two magazines. It is evident that I did not know much about making a magazine aesthetically pleasing when I first began.The first improvement is my choice of font. The font that I used on my college magazine in quite difficult to read in comparison with my music magazine. The colour that I have chosen for the font also has no link with the image. At points, the colour also makes the font hard to read as the shadows on the image do not contrast with the colour, they in fact blend with it, making reading it difficult. I have also just placed the text anywhere on my college magazine which has blocked parts of the image which does not appear very pleasing. The quality of the image has also vastly improved since I first started. On the college magazine I had no experience of photo editing or acquiring the right composition of the image. I had not left the model much headroom which resulted in him looking confined in the image. The shadows on the image are also not pleasing as I had not used any studio lighting as I have done in my music magazine. I have also not left much space for any headlines or buzz words as the background of the image would cause any text that I placed on the page, to become difficult to read. On my music magazine I have used photo editing skills such as changing the brightness, contrast and exposure of the image in order to create a better quality photo. I have also learnt how to use tools such as the lasso tool which allowed me to erase any part of the image that would not look very good on the finished magazine.I have also learnt how to create a magazine for a specific audience or social group. In my college magazine, I did not pay any attention to the colour scheme I was using so it wouldn’t have attracted a specific audience. As I learnt that my music magazines audience was of the male gender, I was able to plan my colour scheme and use colours that would attracts such a gender e.g. masculine colours such as red and blue. Another way I have learnt to attract an audience is through the use of buzz words which I had not used on my college magazine. This was an important feature that I used throughout my magazine as a way of enticing then to read and buy the magazine.