Evaluation Q7

Q7: Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?  

In this task i have gained many skills that i never had coming into the project. the most evident being the improvement in my Photoshop skills. early on in the project i was very evident that my skills in Photoshop were very limited as the work i was producing was at a very low quality compared to now were my work, i believe, is at a good quality. through this task i have also gained a much better understanding of magazines and their convention. before starting the task i never really read magazines and had hardly no understanding of the vocabulary, like cover line, masthead etc but now i have a more in depth understanding of magazine terminology. in the project i learnt a lot about photography. composition, framing, angles, lighting. over the coarse of this project is is very evident that my photography skills have improved. as a creativity orientated persons these skills will become very useful in the future.         

Evaluation Q6;

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

In the process amking my magazine i have learnt a lot about technology. firstly i have been able to expand my understaning of photoshop. going into this project i knew the very basics of photoshop but through photo manipulation and using more complex tools i have a much higher level of understaning of photoshop. coming into this project i also have no experience using DLSR camera which i used for my phootshoots. from this i have leant how to take high quality photos and now also have a better understanding of compsition and light due to using these cameras. for my magazine i also used a site called Dafont. this website allowed me to use a wide range of fonts for my pages and not be limited to the apple font collection. the use of dafont also contributed in my learning to edit texts in photoshop. when i started the project i also had as no experience with using blogging sites and for the project i had to learn how to uses Blogger. at first i found using the site quite difficult but as the project progressed i became much more comfortable with it.  

Evaluation Q5;

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

A way i have addressed the younger side of my audience is through the cost the magazine itself. i made the magazine fairly cheat as most student don't tend to have a steady income and by lowering the cost (£2.00) the magazine will make it more affordable for them. 

Front cover;

In my front cover i addressed my audience throught the overall style of the front cover. i wanted to keep up with this edgy look for my cover to appeal to the younger side of my audience. i also used the contrast of the desaurated colour of the image and the boldness of the font colours to stand out and catch the eye of the viewer. i chose to have a very bright colour for part of the cover to appeal to the younger majority of my audience. i wanted the cover to stand out more for them as they will most likely be the dominant consumers of my magazine. i also made the models used in my magazine young to relate more to them. however i did consider the older majority of my audience as i made the layout and colour scheme very reminiscent of 1970s/80s style music magazines. the fonts, shapes and colours on my cover are very age neutral. when making the cover i looked at a range of different fonts and colours before i decided which ones would work the best corresponding to my target audience.

Contents Page;

For my contents page i distributed the features on the page so that they would appeal to all of my audience. i added a feature about 'The Velvet Underground' to appeal more to the older audience. i also added segments about musical theatre for the  older audience. for the younger audience i added features about much newer bands (craft spells, Restless natives) to appeal more to them. for my contents page i also kept the same bright, bold colour scheme to appeal to my audience. i also made the layout of my contents page quite busy as from looking at magazine like 'Keerang' which also appeal to the same audience as mine also have quite busy contents pages. the distorted image on the page can also appeal to the majority of my audience as it is common in most indie rock magazine (appealing to younger audience) and also influenced by the technicolor, hazy look of image used in magazines in the 70s (appealing to older percentage). 

Double page Spread:

On my double page spread i have again continued with my colour scheme (appeals to my audience). for my DPS article i cater more to the younger majority of my Audience by interviewing a younger band appealing more so to them. for the article itself i slightly backed away from making the article read to long as most young people don't prefer to read for too long. i also chose to layout the article quite precise and neat as they seem to prefer a nice, neat straight forward page to read. were they can simply read the page and flick the page. at the bottom of the page i added links to social media sites which adheres more toward the younger generation who gene really use social media a lot more. the inspiration for my double page spread did however come from looking at different DPS's from vintage magazines. from these magazine i used a similar layout. the half black, half white pages, the washed out coloration of the pages and images. i did this to relate to the older readers.     

  

Evaluation Q4;

Q4: Who would be the audience for your product?

I chose my target audience based on the sub genres i have covered in my magazine. as my magazine is open to a very wide range of different lifestyles i figured that this would mean within those different categories there would people of very different ages therefore which drove me to make my target audience range between the age of 18-30 and make the magazine gender neutral. i also had to think about a more realistic age range for the magazine, which means thinking about who acutely reads music magazines and who would be interested in my theme, which lead me to come to the conclusion that this would be the perfect age group for my magazine. 

the colour scheme and style of my magazine allows the magazines overall aesthetics appeals to the majority of my target audience. even though the colour scheme is mostly pink (commonly associated with females) i have used it in such a way throughout my magazine pages to allow it to appeal to both male and female readers as the colours revolve more so around the theme and style than the actual individual. 

Due to the higher percentage of young people who read magazines over the older generation of readers. The majority of people who purchase/read my magazine would be within the 18-22 region of my target audience. i took this into consideration when making my front cover so i made the model on the cover be within the same age range to appeal to them more.       

Evaluation Q3;

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

My magazine will be sold in small shops and supermarkets. this will make the magazine more available to a wide range of buyers and make buying the product easy giving them a wide variety of places to purchase it. my magazine will also have a online feature (website) to keep readers up to date with the magazine. my magazine will also be distributed ate concerts and festivals (common locations of my target audience) and small newspaper and magazine stalls around the country. My magazine will be promote via internet applications such as Facebook, twitter etc. the magazine will be have wide spread promotion to appeal to my wide spread audience (different lifestyles). the magazine will be fairly frequently distributed over a space of a week so my audience needs to be kept up to date with the magazine which is why wide spread promotion is important for my magazine.         

Evaluation Q2;

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

before i began making my magazine i set out to make my magazine appeal to a large audience. form different ages. (around 18-30 yr olds), different lifestlyes, cultures. i think my magazine represents the social groups as first of all the theme of my magazine is rock which appeals to a wide range of different people. rock has been a popular genre of music over the years as it his so many different variation and choices (indie rock, heavy metal, classic rock etc.) unlike other music genres that are fairly linear. which is why i decided to not pin point a specific genre of rock for my magazine to cater to different people. this is evident in my magazine as there is a bold contrast in my models. the first being toward the indie side and the second toward the more metal side. 

Through research i have noticed that vintage sheek has become very popular over a very wide spread variety of people, from trendy hipster groups to the gothic style. each of these different groups seem to add elements of 1960s/70s fashion into there style. which is why i wanted to take this approach with my magazine style and decided to incorporate elements of 60s/70s pop culture in to my magazine. another reason i did this was to allow my magazine to appeal to a much older generation, and add a element of nostalgia into the it. the colour scheme of my magazine is very reminiscent of 70s and 80s pop culture. bright florescent colour are very similar to the colours used by the likes acts from the same era like David Bowie, The Beatles etc. 

the contents of my magazine are also quite neutral. containing interviews, information etc. quite generic features that would be found in most magazines. i have however made the contents of my magazine appeal to the poeple within my target audiences age range, meaning parts of the magazine don't appear to be too mature or too childish as the age range varies from 18-30.     

Evaluation Q1;

Evaluation;

Q1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For my magazine i looked at creating a rock magazine. For the magazines style i looked at a more old school rock theme, so taking inspiration from magazines from the 70s/80s era. 

my mag cover 

inspiration from thrasher
magazine 

For my font cover i looked at replicating this style. in the front cover i used very bold contrasting colours. i made my masthead and other fonts on the cover pink over a black and white image. I used a black and white effect on my image as through research i noticed most rock magazines use black and white images as it adds a more edgy, grungy appeal to the magazine cover, i also noticed that this colour scheme worked well with my target audience, as other magazine that appeal to them such as 'Rock', 'Q' magazine use similar colour palette which seems to appeal to the audience. i have however challenged the conventions of many rock magazine covers by adding bright, bold colours on my cover. most rock magazines use a very dull, toned down palette throughout their the cover. In made my magazines masthead pink. This is an extreme contrast to the black and white and it also adds a slightly more fun element to the cover which other rocks don't. the idea for my mast head was inspired by a non music magazine 'thrasher'. what i was inspired about when looking at the magazine was how the masthead contrast the rest of the page. they usually have black and white image with a huge bright, bold masthead stretched over the top of the page like on my magazine. the reason i decided to take influence from this magazine was because 'thrasher' magazine is highly influenced by 60's and 70s pop culture even in the newest issues they publish. this fits in really well with my theme as in my own magazine i wanted to take the same approach.

When looking at other rock magazines i also noticed that the majority of them have there main cover image overlaping the masthead. this is done to put the the main focus on the models in order to give the reader an insite into what the magazine contents are. i also decided to do this with my own magazine cover.

3D effect on contents page

3D effect from clash mag 

For my contents page i decided to keep with the traditional conventions of magazine contents pages with images, features, captions etc. and like other magazines i set up the layout of my contents page to suit my magazine style. so keeping a similar colour scheme, similar fonts. for the page i wanted to have quite a technicolor theme. this idea came from looking at 'clash' magazine. the 3D effect give the image a very bold, striking look which i thought would work well in my contents pages main image. 

 In my double page spread i mostly kept with the typical conventions of magazine DPS's. with images related to the article, consistent colour scheme, slightly generic layout. bold fonts (titles, Logos). For in my DPS i stuck with a slightly more indie rock theme with the colour scheme of the page in order to appeal to my target audience. i also kept a similar colour scheme with the rest of my magazine pages. i wanted to also keep the 70s, 80s rock them consistent throughout my magazine, so i added a slight discoloration in the page to give it a more vintage look.