Evaluation

Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have adhered the codes and conventions you would expect to see inside a music magazine. I believe this will make my music magazine more successful as it is what the audience would expect to see from previous magazines they have read. I think the fluent colour scheme and ongoing story makes my magazine flow more therefore making it more professional and not look randomly placed. I think my overall magazine is quite sophisticated and is well targeted towards my target audience.

Question 2. - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The postures of both women are similar in the fact that their heads are both slightly tilted where their eyes still capture the heart of the camera. They also have similar facial expressions where there is near to no emotion present in each of the front covers and has quite a serious tone, they seem to be more posed rather than smiling for the camera. Both women have similar hair styles and make up in each front cover. In addition, the costumes used in each front cover is quite simple where what the celebrity is wearing matches in with the colour scheme of each magazine. Adele is wearing red lipstick which relates to the well known colour scheme of Q magazine, where Lily Hudson is wearing pink lipstick which relates to the ongoing colour scheme of Swerve magazine as seen in the masthead. The mastheads are similar in the fact that they use a block of colour for the background of the name of the magazine, red is the colour scheme in Q so the colour is red, whereas in Swerve magazine the colour is pink so pink is the background. Both mastheads have the name of the magazine in white writing accompanied by this background. As well as this, both magazine front covers were taken with similar background settings - both pictures were taken against a plain coloured backdrop.

However the lighting used in the front covers varies, the lighting in Q magazine makes the background light up at the same time Adele is lit up, whereas the light is only on Lily Hudson which does not reflect on the background. The stance of Adele is different, where it looks as if she is hiding behind her hand, where Lily Hudson is boldly standing in the center of the frame. Overall, I believe these elements put together represents a normal, edgy, urban social group which I am presenting in my magazine which reflects throughout. The celebrities featured in my magazine are all of similar genres and who are quite normal looking - people you expect to see on a day to day basis, where there is nothing to extreme or obscure about their appearances.

Question 3. - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

             

Question 4. - Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience for my music magazine is 17-24 women. This is an appropriate age range for my magazine as it is the age range that is most influenced by music and the concept of it, therefore would appeal most to them. The audience would rather read about gossip and laid back but informative articles than serious stories, therefore my stories inside my magazine are light hearted and fun.  My target audience will read my magazine as it is about new upcoming artists which will interest them as the music industry is quite big right now, where music is very influential to teenagers and young adults.

Audience profiles

Name - Ellie Hood
Age - 18
Favorite music genre - Hip Hop
Favorite artist - Rita Ora
Hobbies - Shopping, fashion, photography
A link below is a song that Ellie is interested, the song is part of my genre of magazine therefore would be a story included in my music magazine. As a result, my music magazine would appeal to Ellie as she is part of my target audience. Both Rita Ora and Ellie dress like the models seen in my music magazine as they have an edgy urban feel to the way they dress.

Name - Dianna Saunders
Age - 21
Favorite music genre - R&B
Favorite artist - Chris Brown
Hobbies - Song writer, dance, art
Below is a link from a song Dianna likes, the artist is part of the genre included in my music magazine therefore it would appeal to her. From Dianna's interests and fashion, my music magazine would be the most suited to her as it includes aspects of which she likes. Chris Brown in the video is the prime example of a typical male in my genre that would be included in my music magazine from the way he dresses to his cheeky behavior.

Question 5. - How did you attract/address your audience?

Question 6. - What have you learnt about technologies from process of constructing this product?

By creating my music magazine I have learnt a lot about the technology used, the time given up and the processes that go into creating a music magazine. To create the overall product and blog I needed to use a number of different technologies such as a camera for my images, Adobe Photoshop to edit the images, an Apple Mac computer, the Internet for sites such as blogger, Slideshare and Prezi and Microsoft word.

The camera I used for my images was a Nikon D5100, I was not experienced in using the camera therefore I asked the help of my friend to teach me how to take images, zoom in and out and how to look back on the images I had taken. After a few practice images I was then confident in taking the images for my double page spread, as I was very familiar with the camera.

Before creating my music magazine I had never used the programmer Photoshop therefore it was not easy for me to start using, I had to take a lot of time to practice and learn all the different tools. From learning how to use Photoshop allowed me to be able to use all the tools I would need in order to create a music magazine for example I learnt how to cut the background off of images and edit the images for a brighter tone to the magazine as a whole.

The overall main technology I used was an Apple Mac computer, which is very difficult to use if you’re new to the idea, you have to use different applications in order to get a feel of how it works. Copy, pasting, cutting text and images are different on this computer than on a normal windows computer therefore was slightly difficult to start with. After I understood how to navigate around the laptop it was easy to use the laptop to create my music magazine.

I used the Internet in the process of creating my overall product for blogger, blogger was easy to understand and use which was helpful as this is where most of my content for my overall product will be situated. Slideshare and Prezi are websites, which I used on numerous occasions to show my work in an interactive way and both were easy to use. Although I found these websites easy to use I did have slight difficulty with working out how to get the presentations onto my blog, after researching I found how to embed the videos in order for them to be visible on my blog.

I feel like I have gained skills in using technology to create my music magazine. I am now more confident with using different applications and websites and am now not afraid to try different edits or positioning of photos in the future.

Below is a collage I have made of all of the technology I needed to use in order to create my music magazine.

Question 7. - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the full product?

Representation of men and women

Representation of men and women

Follow the above link to the video of the representation of men and women in my chosen genre.

Changes to my magazine

   Changes to my front cover of my magazine

This was my original front cover for my music magazine, but I had to change the background to a light grey colour so my overall product didn't look too feminine. There was a lot of the colour pink so by changing the background made it look more professional and sophisticated rather than young and girly. The change to the background also makes it look more edgy which goes with the theme and genre for my magazine. I also did a last minute change to my masthead, I believe it now stands out more and isn't hidden behind my model anymore. I think the masthead looks more like previous music magazines I have analysed therefore I believe changing my masthead was a good idea to do. I increased the brightness to my overall front cover where all the components now flow and feel like they merge together rather than looking like they have been placed on top of each other where it looks amateur, as shown in my previous front cover above.
My final front cover for my magazine is below.

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Changes to my contents page

This was my original contents page to start off with, I had sectioned off the feature stories and cover stories off from the regular stories in order to break the text up on the page. By doing so I had realized the attention either went straight to the images in the top left hand corner or the bottom right hand corner. The text did not seem as important that the separated images as I believed these were more attention grabbing in this layout. I decided to change the layout where I placed all the images on the left hand side of the page accompanied with all the text on the reverse side of the page. I think this layout was a good change to make where both the text and the images are not equally important rather than one being more attention grabbing than the other. My final contents page is below.

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Changes to my double page spread

This was my original layout for my double page spread. From analyzing the work I had already produced and by asking my friends I was aware that there was quite an apparent gap between the text of my main story and the main image on the following page. I decided to extend my double page story where it follows onto the next page where the gap would be filled. I talked about her new album as well as the genre of it and the track list which is on the new album. As well as this, I decided to actually create an album for her where an image of the album would be part of the story which would promote the album as well as fill the gap in my double page spread. My double page spread now includes an inside story with Lily Hudson, as well as information about her album, her album track list and images of what her album looks like. This will be successful as it would make the audience recognize her album when looking in music shops or online. My finished double page spread is below.

Final magazine

My music magazine front cover

My music magazine contents page

My music magazine double page spread

Comparing institutions

The most evident similarity between NME and Q magazine would be the colour scheme used, both magazines use a colour scheme that mainly consists of black white and red but the main difference between the magazines is that NME has an informal layout whereas Q magazine has a formal layout. As a result this makes the magazines not look like each other although the same colour scheme is used.

Both magazines use well known celebrities where neither magazine have a set genre so each artist used on the front covers would not be from the same genre each week the magazine is published. 

Both magazines include the main codes and conventions in their magazines, which makes them successful, they both have a distinguished name and logo for their magazine as well as including a large main image of the artist, main story line, cover stories and flash news. These are used in order to show what is inside the magazine to get the reader to buy the magazine to read the articles.

Annotations & typography of front cover

The masthead of NME is bold and red, it is always placed on the top left hand side of the magazine. The colours used in the masthead are black, white and red which are distinguished colours that are always known to be related to NME magazine therefore is recognizable for the readers.
The main image used on the magazine front cover is not directly in the center of the magazine as it a little to the right of the thirds rule which makes the composition more interesting. Anchorage text is used many times on the front cover, it is text that are underneath the smaller images. This text attracts the readers to read the inside stories.
The main text on the front cover is "Broken man?" which entices the reader to read the story to go with the caption, this text is in a different colour to the rest of the text on the front cover, it is white text on a black background which makes it stand out.
In the flash news, it follows the same colour scheme although the colours used are mixed around meaning the white text on the red background can be found nowhere else on the front page.
the cover lines are are poisitioned either side of the main image which give an insight to what the other stories inside the magazine are about. these are not as imoportant as the main story, this is shown as they are smaller sizes and are not the main focus of the magazine front cover. the colours used are still part of the main colour scheme where they make the magazine as a whole look more professional and recognisable.

My school magazine flat plan

A mock layout for my school magazine.

Front cover.

Contents page.