Evaluation Questions
I have included many different typical features of music magazinses. Firstly I have including the name of the magazine in bold text at the top of the page as if it was at the bottom, the heading would not be seen by the reader on shop shelves. I have also included a large image of my model taking up most of the page. I have inserted different sized and coloured fonts to draw attention to different parts of the magazine and make it appear more attractive. I have also typically included a price, barcode and date in the left hand corner.
The only thing I haven't done typically in my magazine is the heading which is not partly blocked out by my model's head as usually demonstrated. Instead, I have placed it to the left of the picture.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine is aimed at girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty five as I feel that my design and content within the magazine is most appropriate for this age range and gender. The picture on my front cover of my model portrays a young, stylish, white female which demonstrates the social group it is targeted at.
The pictures of Dappy and Fazer also represent this particular social group as they demonstrate the music that people in this age range listen to. Older people may read the magazine and not know who they are. I have grey back and males would not necessarily be interested in reading about them.
I have used grey, plain backgrounds on all the pages which make it look professional.
The picture of Sarah displays a fashionable, sexy young artist whereas the pictures of Dappy and Fazer demonstrate more rebellious artists.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
There are a few media institutions that might distribute my media product such as Bauer Media, IPC and EMAP. I think the most suitable one would be Bauer as they own more than 80 influential media brands. Results show that Bauer is extremely successful and distribute some of the biggest selling magazines. This tells me that they are a reliable, successful company, are not likely to go bankrupt and having them as my publisher would make my magazine look more professional.
4. Who would be the audience of your media product?
As previously stated, the target audience for this music magazine is going to be young people interested in music as it will have 'current' bands/ artists. I will have it aimed at females as I want the design of the magazine to appear girly and it is easier than having a uni-sex magazine. I will target it at white girls in secondary education and above for young people aged between sixteen and mid twenties so I do not have to restrict the content too much. I will dress my younger sister up and make her look like an already successful artist. I am going to have a 'scandal' to make it an interesting read and give her an interview to set the record straight.
5. How did it attract/address your audience?
The name of the magazine attracts my audience as it is bold and stands out against the grey background. I've used eye catching fonts and colours and a striking picture of my model to attract the reader. I have used text on the cover worded to make the reader want to read the content and intrigue them. I have inserted a picture of Dappy to make it more appealing to the reader as it shows that it includes artists that girls in this age range would be interested in.
In my contents page, I have included pictures of Fazer, Sarah and Young Jeezy to show what the magazine is including and to make it more attractive. I have kept the same font colours and background colours throughout my magazine to encourage consistency and professionalism. I have alternated the colour of the text in the contents betweebn black and white to draw attention to it and make it look appealing to the reader.
My double page spread only includes one image which I believe is very effective as it makes the reader immediately focus on it. It is a very striking picture and I have placed it in the middle to ensure it is clear that it is the most important part of the page. I have made her name 'Sarah' bright red and in capitals and a very large font to make it look powerful and draw the reader in. The interviewer's speech is in white and Sarah's speech is in black to separate and distinguish where the different people speak in order to make it easy for the reader to follow.
I have used an informal style of writing to appeal to the reader, making it light hearted to read and in the language of the younger generation.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I used a Nikon digital camera as it had 14 mega pixels and I believed this would enhance my photos making them have the best quality possible.
Advantages of this are that it had a huge amount of space and so I could take as many photos as I wanted and i did not seem to run out of space. It was very quick to transfer them onto my computer and it had a very high resolution.
Disadvantages of this camera were that it did give Sarah red eyes in a couple of photo so I had to edit this out in photshop which removed the impact as it lost the natural shine from her eyes. The flash was also very bright so Sarah appeared to look shocked in a few of the photos.
In a few of my photos, a yellow smudge appeared around the edge of my model. To solve this problem, I changed my model's location and retook the photos.
I used a Dell laptop at home to photoshop my pictures and update my blog. I found this very helpful as it is a very fast computer and I could use it anywhere as it is a laptop. I have a large amount of storage space meaning I could save it easily. However, I still insured I backed up all my work onto a memory stick so I did not lose it and so I could continue with my work in my media lessons at school.
I used Photoshop to edit my photos which I thought was a really good software as it made the photos appear unnedited and realistic.
Advantages of this software were that it made the photos perfectly edited and has an array of editing opportunities as well as the opportunity to make the photo appear professional and flawless.
Disadvantages of using photoshop were that I had never used it before and so found using it extremely difficult at first. I also did not have this software at home so purchased the it so that I could continue completing my magazine outside of school.
Problems I had were not knowing how to use the editing tools. To solve this, I practised editing different pictures in my spare time to get used to it and asking people who were good at using photoshopb to teach me.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what have you learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In the preliminary task, I used a different software. I used http://www.picnik.com/ to edit my photos which was nowhere near as effective and professional looking as photoshop.
I liked the fact that I kept a natural background in my preliminary task, however having a plain background in my music magazine made it look a lot more professional and sophisticated. I did not decided to carry this into my music magazine. I used the same model in both magazines making it easier to compare the progress I have made between the two. The pictures in the bottom right hand corner look very unprofessionally placed onto the cover compared to cut out of Dappy on my music magazine.
I used the same camera and computer on both magazines as I believe they are high resolution hardware and do give my magazines the effect I wanted. However, after doing my preliminary task, I realised that using Photoshop would be a much better software to use if I wanted my magazine to look professional and as if it could be seen on a magazine shelf in a shop.
Advice I would give to people doing the same task as me next year would be to try and use photoshop for the preliminary task as it will give them the practise they need to create a flawless magazine cover for the main magazine.
posted by Alex at
07:07
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