Evaluation

AS G321 Magazine Production Coursework Evaluation

Daisy Tarrant

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

The masthead of my magazine ‘Headlines’ defines the stereotype of real media products. It has similar characteristics to magazines like ‘Vibe’. I chose to interpret this as I thought it reflected the genre and age criteria well. Similarly the title of my contents page also reflects the targeted genre (hip-hop) and age criteria (15-25). However placing the title in the top right hand corner the way I have does not seem to follow conventions, as both ‘Q’ and ‘Rwd’ didn't do so. On the other hand my double page spread (DPS) title follows conventional patterns. By placing it on the left in bold lettering it grabs the eye of the reader which is what most DPS do. Double Page Spreads from magazines like ‘Vibe’ have influenced my own through the different types of fonts and size.

The decision of my location was easy as I knew that I wanted to cut out the background on Photoshop, using a room in my house with a plain white wall reflected light while also not distracting away from the model. I took most of my images in the same room so that the lighting didn’t differ in any way, apart from the image on my contents page with the mask. This was done in the studio and used for my photography a-level coursework which I thought also would work well for this coursework. This reflected the genre of my magazine because most images in hip-hop magazines have a plain background so that the focus is on the artist. This is what I tried to do with my photographs so that I could follow conventions successfully. For my front cover I used a low angle to create a sense of importance. On my contents page I used a the same angle throughout as I thought this would be more conventional but used different distances. The image of ‘Milo Zedd’ displays cockiness, and the image of the mask shows a girly side to hip-hop.

The costume of my main shoot consist of sun glasses, a ski jacket and a tag necklace. These represented my artist because they create a sense of masculinity. They reflected hip-hop been cause most artist in that genre wear glasses and big jackets where ever they go. It was important to identify this in my images as it is one of the main subjects that is brought up in the media. For these images I followed conventions heavily. On the other hand the image of the mask does not follow conventions because it is too girly and unrealistic, however this is what makes artists like Nicki Minaj stand out so well.

The people I featured in my magazine were not conventional to the hip hop genre. I chose these people because I wanted my magazine to stand out in the genre. Even though my main artist doesn’t follow conventional ethnicity he still had a certain look which draws attention and seeps the hip hop genre. The age was slightly younger than most however this just creates a type of artist that started young whereas most artists in that genre are much older. The gender is very much conventional to hip hop, the majority of hip hop is male so this is about the only thing which follows stereotype.

The font for the masthead was created in DaFont so that I could have an original style for my front cover. I used photoshop to take out the background image so I could layer the other images in Adobe InDesign. I chose the font by researching various CD covers in the same genre of my magazine to get an idea of how its presented in media products. I used an everyday font throughout my magazine which made sure it flowed as one. I used different sizes to vary the fonts so that it didn’t get too boring yet it still kept the same feeling. On my double page spread title I used a different font to make it stand out from the bigger bolder lettering. My research gave me inspiration for this as it really stood out from the rest of the magazine and made it look much more like a media product. I wanted my fonts to have an impact on my audience in a way that some magazines don’t grasp. Too much of exactly that same font can make a reader uninterested yet lots of different fonts can end up confusing a reader making a magazine unsuccessful.

My written content used an informal style of language, I didn’t use slang or un-necessary punctuation because my audience wouldn't appreciate that. Even though my magazine is aimed at the hip-hop genre which is famous for phrases and sayings, I wanted it to be accepted by a wider audience that may want to experience the hip hop genre and I also wanted my target audience to be able to read my magazine without getting distracted by slang which may not appeal to them. ‘Rwd’ magazine uses this type of writing, as it appeals to a variety of people.

My front cover follows conventions more than any other page of my magazine. It has a low angle image with convention props and clothing, The balance of image and test on this page is un-proportional, as the picture takes up the whole page and the text is only in little chunks. This is a conventional approach to a front cover which is similar to a very high percentage of magazines. For example the magazine ‘Vibe’ takes this approach in creating a front cover.The contents page follows conventions in some aspects however not in some. For example the text to image ratio is very high, but the title isn’t very conventional at all. Depending on the magazine the text and pictures vary in percentage each. I felt like my contents page needed more information than images so I included more text to make it look more professional.My double page spread follows conventions nicely as it includes a big image and an article. I’ve used this idea from the magazine ‘Vibe’ where Nicki Minaj featured as the artist. I tried to use this idea in my own way so that it follows conventions. Overall I believe that I have mostly followed conventions so that my media production looks more professional. I wanted to give my audience a magazine that both gives something new while also following the most important conventions for a magazine. I thought it was important to make my magazine behave like a real one so that it would appeal to audience’s expectations. The conventions of my magazine really create a sense of the hip hop genre.

Question Two: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF9c_xOP3rY&feature=youtu.be

Follow link to view my answer

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

To distribute my magazine I would pick Future PLC publishers as they already publish magazines like ‘Classic Rock’ and ‘Metal Hammer’. Even though these magazines are based solely around the rock genre, I believe that my magazine could make an influential difference in their market. Bringing in a different audience would help them to widen their market.

My target audience is 15-25 year old males and females. However I think that my magazine will appeal to males more as it is dominated mostly by this gender. I think that many male magazine are based around things that are not related to music which means that there is possibly a gap in the market for my magazine. As my magazine is aimed at the mass market it would be possible to distribute it worldwide which would emphasis the hip-hop genre rather than the stereotype. As Future PLC has a lot of experience distributing music magazines, it means that they would be very good at distributing mine, even if it isn’t the same genre. If Future was to distribute my magazine it would bring a whole other genre to their portfolio. This would mean that they could then set up other products and/or gigs to fulfil needs of hip-hop lovers as well as rock lovers. Even though my magazine could offer so much to a distributer I think that a magazine publisher like IPC Media wouldn’t because they do not publish any music magazines. They seem to only stick to women and hobby magazines. This means that my magazine wouldn’t have a place in their portfolio, it would be out of place and they wouldn’t have any knowledge of the best way to distribute it.

Question Four: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The core buyer of my magazine will most likely be young adults. This is because they will still be into the informal text yet be intrigued by the hip hop genre. The percentage of male to female would favour males as I believe this gender will have much more in common with my artists. I think that my magazine will appeal to most ethnicities and between the ages 15-25. Even though my questionnaire focused more on females I believe that this didn’t effect the production of my magazine.

The results from ‘Find your Tribe’ website showed that ‘Townies’ are the type of people that would be most interested in my magazines. This is because they listen to music like hip-hop and rap.

My audience are most likely to be lovers of free time, they prefer to relax and chill rather than use out of work/school hours playing football or golf. Even though they are quite laid back they prefer to have the latest gadgets be that mobile phones or the next laptop. Their mobile phone of choice would be a blackberry as this is one of the latest phones. Brands like Nike and River Island, some may stereotype that brands like Nike are associated with ‘chavs’ however many people wear Nike trainers and apparel. They spend money in places like Starbucks and shop in places like Sainsbury's. Their music taste doesn’t effect the shops they go to as they are just average people. Comedy, action and horror movies are their preferred choice when visiting the cinema, which in some cases is quite often depending on their disposable income. As most of their favourite artists are American they don't get to see live music often. It is rather important to them to buy the latest things and know the latest gossip before anyone else. All of this is important to my magazine because I have aimed to include all of this in it.

My magazine is aimed at a variety of socio-economic groups. As I have aimed to establish a respected version of hip-hop, I believe that my audience belongs to the groups: C1, C2 and D. This is because they are still intellectuals as they have good jobs and pay bills, yet they aren't the top ranking. I believe that my magazine will appeal to these people as they are the stereotype of hip-hop.If I were to psychographicly profile my audience I would put them under both aspirer’s and mainstreamers. This is because they want to be seen as having the latest clothes and mobile phones but also cant be seen as different from their peers. I have used this information to ‘strike a cord’, with such things as exclusive interviews and brand adverts in my flat plan. This will appeal to these types of people because they seek to fit in, yet still have everything new. My magazine has used all of this to make them feel in control of what they are reading.

Question Five: How did you attract/address your audience?

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/13309113/g321-media-coursework-evaluation-question-5

Click link to watch part of my answer to question five.

My audience feedback shows a variety of criticisms and positives. I decided that some of the feedback didn’t fit in with my research and would possible look out of place. But it was said that my magazine represents my genre well.

My audience feedback has shown that the colour scheme works well for the genre I am targeting. However some criticisms say that parts of my front cover do not follow conventions. I did try to correct this but found that it didn’t look right changing the sizes of font.

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

Photoshop

InDesign

Research Planning ProductionEvaluation

PresentationPowerPoint

InternetMovieStorm

Xtranormal

slideshare

Internet

PowerPoint

Word

slideshare

wix

PowerPoint

Digital Cameras

slideshare

DaFont

Internet

wix

wix

wix

ResearchMy main technology that I used for research was the internet. I used this for pictures and information from various sites. Using a range of websites made it easier to establish a variety of images and magazine cover, contents and double spread pages. Using google to firstly search things I wanted I then used any website that came up to eventually get what I needed for my research. Using google has made me realise that you have to be specific when searching for various things. This has made me wiser when ‘googling’ something. I also used Microsoft PowerPoint to put together my research in an effective way. I then uploaded this onto slideshare which is an internet site that lets you upload PowerPoint presentations online. Using PowerPoint was quite easy for me as I use it a lot in my spare time. I also used PowerPoint to create my audience questionnaire as I thought this would be far easier than using a word document, I found that it was in fact much easier as I could place text and images where I liked rather than following the rules of a word page. I then uploaded all of my research onto wix.com where I have uploaded all of my coursework. This website is very easy to use but it can get complicated when trying to make more pages which I found out when creating my research page. However it proves effective in presenting my coursework.

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PlanningWhile planning my magazine I used plenty of different technologies. For example digital cameras and dafont.com. Firstly I had to take images myself on a digital camera for my main images in my magazine. This involved me using a Nikon Digital SLR camera. I then uploaded the photos from the SD card onto my computer. This was very easy as I do photography A Level. I made a PowerPoint presentation of my planning as I thought this would look much neater than how I uploaded all of my research onto slideshare.com. When copying the images onto my PowerPoint I had to crop some so that they fit well on the page. I then used dafont.com to produce a masthead for my front cover. This website is very good when looking for a different kind of font. After some more research using the internet I found a masthead that would work well for my genre. Putting all of this on a presentation worked very well and looks tidy too.

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Production

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For the production of my magazine I only mainly used two technologies. These were InDesign and Photoshop. InDesign was the main software that I used to actually create my pages whereas Photoshop was just used to crop, edit and cut out my images so they worked well on the page. I first used Photoshop to edit the image on my front cover, I changed the light and changed the contrast which was easy as I do this all the time in photography. Then I had to cut out my artist so that I could add a background behind him. I used the lasso tool to do this which made it much easier to cut him out. Then behind him I wanted a background colour so using the paint bucket I changed it. This was all relatively easy. I then placed this image to InDesign, moving it around I found the place that it would fit best then moved onto the masthead. I needed to take away the background so that when I put it on my front cover there wouldn't be a white box around the writing. To do this I opened Photoshop. I had to double click on the layer and press OK to get rid of the lock key. After this I used the magic wand stick and clicked on the white. This formed marching ants around the lettering. Pressing backspace cleared the white background and left me with a checked grey and white one. After saving as a psd file, I could place the header into InDesign without a white background.

I also had to cut out my artist again using the same technique so that I could place him in front of the masthead. Then using InDesign I could complete my front cover without photoshop, I just used their own text for tag lines and all of their software to create the front cover.

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Evaluation PresentationMy evaluation presentation has used a variety of different technologies. Firstly I have used PowerPoint to create a flowing evaluation. I have also used the internet to review over my wix.com website so that I can take images from their and use them again as example for my evaluation. I have used two kinds of software called moviestorm and xtranormal which lets me create moving, talking avatars which explain my evaluation in a much more creative way. When I have finished, I will upload this presentation onto slideshare so that I can then post a link onto my wix.com website so then it is accessible to everyone. Overall creating my presentation has been relatively easy, and I’m sure uploading it will be as I have done it before. I have learnt a lot through out my evaluation which has been useful when answering further questions.

Question Seven: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?At the beginning of my preliminary task I was lost as to what to do for that only. I didn’t realise the work and effort I had to put in to achieve an actual product. Since then I feel like I have learnt a lot, I believe that it has not only shaped my final magazine but also made me better at researching and using the software we did to make the magazine. I have found that my knowledge on conventions of magazines has become wider which helped me a lot in the production stage. I used conventions like skylines and drops cap. I think these types of features have made my magazine look more professional which I wouldn’t have achieved before. I found that it was very easy to get used to InDesign, although it was hard to begin with, while producing my preliminary task, I could work much better with it while producing the real thing. I think that the preliminary task was a good way to introduce me to the software we would be using. However with Photoshop I already had a good understanding of changing contrast etc., so I only really needed to develop my skills in cutting out an image and adding a background.

As I do photography A level I found it easy to capture the shots I wanted for my magazine. I didn’t necessarily need to improve these skills because I already had them to complete that task. This is the same for location and camera angles however the use of mise en scene was much easier with my knowledge of media and what would work well for the magazine. I think that my preliminary task helped me do this because it gave me a quick insight of what works well for a magazine. While evaluating other peoples magazines I have become more critical of my own work. I think this is a good thing because it lets me develop my skills further to eventually get a higher grade. This critical skill was not so apparent in my preliminary task which looking back I see how different both my magazines are and why this is. I think it is because I used far more inspiration from research for my actual magazine whereas for the preliminary one I didn’t really like any magazine in my research. I think that this really helped me to think of some good ideas that I would like to interpret in my own way and include in my final magazine.