Media Evaluation

• The aim of this project was for us to create the cover, contents and double page spread of music magazine for our own chosen genre, suited to an audience of our choice. In order for our final piece to be effective, this project process included individual market research for our genre so that we had an idea of what conventions make a great magazine, also to get feedback from people that would be our target audience to see what they would like to see in their ideal magazine, since they would be the ones buying it.

• My chosen genre was POP music because I enjoy listening to it and tend to buy quite a few pop magazines myself. The music genre is very fun and in your face which meant that there was a lot I could explore. Also I realised that POP music seems to be exploding the charts currently and that a lot of girls enjoyed it. This lead me to an idea for my target audience, in which in the end I chose girls between the ages of 12-18. By choosing my target audience this enabled be to begin my market research.

• Because I am a frequent user of twitter and other social networking sites, I decided to ask some of my followers that were in the age range of my target audience what they would like to see in my magazine. Using social networking sites were affective because most people in my target audience use the net, it was also very quick and easy to do. This process of interacting with my target audience enabled me to really understand what they would like in their ideal magazine. By posting all of my market research on my blog, I was able to refer back to it throughout this process.

• The researching and studying of current music magazines within the pop genre was really effective in helping me to realise what things worked and were eye catching to the reader. It also gave me an idea of some of the conventions that I could possibly use in my magazine.

As I expected, my final turned out completely different from the scamps I drew at the very beginning of this project. Looking back on the scamps I drew I kinder think “What the hell was I thinking”, but it just goes to show when you research more about your genre and really start to pay attention to detail on other current pop magazines how drastically your original idea change, to create a more realist looking magazine.

• After doing the intense market research needed to create the ideal magazine for my chosen target audience, I then had to take some test shots of my artist that I would possibly like to use in my magazine. Leading me on to the topic of my artist, I decided to go with my niece who is young, new and fresh. I realised that creating a whole artist story around her would be pretty easy and fun. I decided to make her story like the amazing Justin Bieber, the whole discovered on YouTube thing and now selling out arena tours, I’m sure you get where this is going. I thought this would be a good idea because lots of young girls would relate to my artist’s story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ESvLgxymCM&safe=active

These were some of the shots I took. What I liked about these was that they were all fun and inviting. I decided to use lots of medium close ups and some medium long shots to created an inviting look, so that the buyers are drawn in. By using these type of shots I feel like it creates more of a bond between the artist and the reader as the readers would feel like they are really getting an up, close and personal insight into the life of the artist. The majority of the shots are also very bubbly and fun which represents the pop genre and the audience I am trying to appeal to. I also took shots that would show off different sides to my artist, showing that she is a regular young girl who goes through all the things a girl her age would. This makes her relatable to girls her age and my target audience. People like to read about people just like them and like to feel they have something in common with the artist they like which is why I tried to make my artist as relatable as possible.

Since I chose the name OMG for my magazine, I decided to go with the picture above since her face is showing a shocked expression that suggest “I know something you don’t” which is what the title is all about, new, exclusive amazing gossip. My initial front cover that I started to explore with and like was the picture on the right. However going further along with it I bucked up on a load of problems which was that first of all it was too dark to be a pop magazine and it was hard to find colours to co-ordinate with it without it looking un-coordinated and in effective. Getting the text to stand out was also an issue and therefore I went through a series of trials and errors to eventually come out with something that was still bold yet readable and more magazine like.

• Through trial, error and feedback from students and my teachers I eventually decided to go for a simple white background. In order to achieve this I had to cut out the image on Photoshop and create separate layers for each the image and the background so I could manipulate them to what I wanted the image and the background of my front cover to look like. This is something I found tricky in the beginning because I don’t particularly have the most steady of hands, however through help from Mr Varghese I was able to learn ways that were easier and suitable for me during this process. By keeping the background white, enabled me to play around a bit more with my colour scheme and there wasn’t issue with the text not standing out anymore. Also it made the images stand out a lot more too, making my artist the centre of attention.

• Through the process of creating my front cover I learned that less is more, because at first I got carried away with using lots of fonts and bold colours because that’s what I thought pop was. However by paying close attention to details on the current pop magazines out I realised they use bold colours but not loads of colours. Also the majority of pop magazines use a maximum of 3 fonts. This lead me to change my confusing, crazy front cover to something that looked more cohesive. At the beginning my text was all over the front cover, taking the attention away from the image, however I learned how to adjust the text to the left and to the right which made a cleaner cut finish.

To evaluate how effective my magazine front cover, contents and double page spread is I decided to compare it to current pop magazines to see how well mine matches up.

Masthead

Caption

Cut out

Issue

Barcode

Pull quote

Puffs

By comparing my pop magazine to a real pop magazine made me see whether I did everything needed to make a successful, realistic looking pop magazine.

• Overall I think my front cover is very conventional and I didn’t really challenge the conventions of a pop magazine on my front cover. I stuck to the bold, loud look because I think its effective and eye catching, meaning that people would want to buy it, also it really does portray my target audience affectively. I realise it is important that you magazine is eye catching because you have to spot it in the midst of other magazines that would be on the same shelf. So it is important that people would want to buy yours.

Unlike my front cover, my double page spread does challenge the conventions of a pop magazine double page spread. The majority of pop magazines have the image of the artist on one side and the text on the other with a quote from them. However I decided to have a trail of pictures at the bottom of my page showing the different sides of my artist and the motto she lives by on top of them. This re-enforces my idea of showing my target audience that my artist is relatable and has many different sides to her. This also left a good amount of space for the interview, meaning that her fans could have a detailed insight to her life, so they feel like they are getting to know everything about her. This could make them feel apart of her fame, like they are taking the journey with her. By doing it this way also allowed me to have more than one image without losing lots of room for where the text could be. I think the big R in the middle which is the first letter of her name, and the text revolving around it works really well because it symbolises it being all about her.

• My contents page was quite conventional however it was less cluttered than pop contents pages I had researched. I tried to go for a neat look, structured contents page but still with all the Bold colours. My fonts were cohesive throughout as I used the same fonts that I used on my front cover and double page spread, so that the overall magazine had a nice flow. I used the Top Of The Pops magazine contents pages as inspiration for my own as I liked the lay out.

• I think that my music magazine represents the fun and boldness of young teenage girls. The colours and the images are very inviting. My magazine although made for the age range of 12-18, I think is relatable to all young girls who look at a pop magazine and wish it was them on the cover. The story of my artist is also very relatable to young girls Personally I think teenage girls will read/buy anything that looks interesting, whether there is a guy or girl on the front cover, it just has to look eye catching and relatable. All teenage girls can relate to each other therefore my magazine shows that social group of teenage girls, who probably aspire to be a star, or have a crush on certain male celebrities...etc.

• By mentioning the likes of Justin Bieber, The Wanted, One direction...etc on my front cover really pulls in my target audience as they would be attracted to look inside of the magazine and find out more about why they have been mentioned on my front cover. The use of pull quotes also tease my target audience making them anxious to by and read more. Teenagers love Freebees and competitions and therefore by putting these advertisements on my front cover would attract them therefore making them more willing to buy it. My magazine is quite friendly so my target audience feel like they are apart of the magazine. The language used wasn’t too formal so it feels like more of a conversation rather than like they are reading a Broadsheet newspaper.I think that the Off license would sell my magazine, and supermarkets. I say this because I see a lot of pop magazines in these shops. Not only this, but teenage girls usually stop in Off license shops before they come to school, usually to buy lunch and a magazine to read on their way. I’ve also chosen for my magazine to have a website, meaning it can be distributed online, this is good because people are becoming very dependent on the internet and download more than they go out and buy. I think it would be pointless to mass market my magazine as only a segment would by it due to its target audience. However a mass market would help my magazine to become worldwide and well known.

• During this project I have learned how to successfully manipulate an image effectively using Photoshop. I have also learned how to make things stand out and also what works and what doesn’t. Through practicing on Photoshop I have also learned how to get a crisp, clean and well structured finish that helped make my magazine look my realistic. Looking back on my preliminary task I realised that it was awful and that there was so much more I could have learned on photo shop. I have also learned that fonts, colour scheme and grammar makes a real BIG difference it terms of the effectiveness of your end product. This process has also enabled me to realise less is more.