My evaluation

Evaluation

By Emily Lee

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

FRONT COVER My outlined masthead with a dark drop shadow contrasts with the white font colour. This is a serif font.

Bright flash at the top of the magazine, in a star shape, looks different and stands out to the consumers

Barcode at the bottom, it is the least important

Issue DateMain Cover Line that anchors the main image

Main image

Sans Serif Font

Consistent font colour contrasts

with the blue background of

the photo.

Cover linesSan serif font with a drop

shadow, bevel and emboss and a stroke

Price

Follows the rule of thirds

Similarities • In my music magazine I have stuck to the same codes and conventions that I have established in my research in any music magazine. Most of the mastheads that I have researched stretch across the page of the magazine whilst some like to be on the left hand side. I have decided that the masthead would be more recognisable if I had it stretched across my magazine.

Compared to the magazine on the right hand side, which influenced me to create a similar magazine, there are some similarities. One of them is the rule of 3 that has been applied to both magazines. The rule of 3 creates a neat and tidy magazine, one that is instantly easy to read.

Also the colours for the magazine is quite simple and plain, contrasting the background and the main image, therefore making it stand out.

In addition, there are three articles on each side of the rule of thirds, keeping it straightforward and uncluttered. Also the emphasis on certain words using a different font making them eye catching, “ Lily Allen Dodd” and “20” both are an example of this.

I have also added a stroke of pink and a drop shadow of purple to highlight the name. Also in my research most of the front covers has one block coloured background and this is what I decided to incorporate in my music magazine.

There are some differences that I have made to challenge the conventions of a front cover.

Differences

The dark drop shadow that I have added so that it brings out the masthead so it is visually noticeable.

The bright flash that I have added entices customers to buy the magazine. However, flashes are not always placed on magazines. The reason that I have placed a flash in my music magazine is to add some colour into my magazine, as there are only the white font and the blue background.

Another difference is the barcode, price and issue date; all of these are at the bottom right hand corner in my music magazine, I had a difficult decision on where to place it because in my research the barcode, price and issue date all vary in each issue of each magazine.

CONTENTS PAGE Clear contents masthead spreads out across the page to make it noticeable

Different photos on the right relate to other articles inside my music magazine. These are indicated by page references so the articles are easy to find.

Page number

Sub titles on the contents page so that it is clear for the readers to come across the article that they want.

Page references

The bright blue sans serif font to contrast with the white background and the main image.

Main Image in the middle of the page to show the reader that the person in the image is the main “talk” of this music magazine.

Both of the mastheads are spread across the top of the page making it clear for the audience to spot.

Similarities

Both of these magazines have sub titles for the articles to go under, this makes it apparent to the reader.

In my music magazine, I decided to incorporate this similar layout to the right using a main image in the middle of the page because it makes the page very eye-catching.

Another similarity is the different photos on the right hand side to show that there are other articles in the magazine.

On the pictures they have a page reference, this makes it easier for the reader to find that specific article following the codes and conventions for any magazine.

DifferencesThere are some differences that I have made to challenge the conventions of my contents page.

Page number at the bottom right hand corner to show that the music magazine is organised and it is a lot more accessible for the consumers.

Page reference in a serif font makes it straightforward for the readers to find the exact page for the article that they need.

Double Page Spread

Polaroids

Article Headline, serif font

Introduction to the interview

Q and As format

Page numberNames in different colours to show whose talking

Main Image fills ¾ of the page

Matched up the two background colours

Magazine logo in the articleDrop Capital

Similarities

The main image fills up ½ of the double page spread which instantly grabs the attention of the reader, and the blue background connotes peace, freedom and power relating to the how they wrote their song.

Large bold sans serif headline so that the readers are able to find the article even when they flicked through the magazine.

Drop Capital shows that it is a start of the article and it establishes the convention

Page numbers at the bottom corners of each page to represent the page number which makes it simple for the readers to an article

The article is in columns so that it makes it easier for the reader to read instead of one big paragraph, also splitting it into columns fill the spaces of the magazine.

Differences

I have decided to include Polaroids so that the article looks fun and interesting by adding a bit of colour to the back ground of the Polaroids. This also relates to the genre of pop because most of the pop magazines that I have researched have a very colourful magazine even in the articles.

Colourful page number that stands out from other page numbers.

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

What music people listen to?

pop

R&B

Hip Hop

Grime

Dance

Electro

Rock

Heavy Metal

Classical

Country

Other

The representation of my music magazine are mainstreamers who listen to the majority of music that are on the radio, TV programmes etc. This would be pop, R&B and rock as shown in my questionnaire results after they were collated together.

I have also incorporated different ethnicities and race in my images to show an unbiased representation of a particular social group and to associate egalitarian of the music industry.

In addition, although my music magazine is aimed for guys and girls, it is particularly in favour for the girls as all my images are girls, there is no representation of any guys at all, and this is a problem because there are the same amount of boys as there are girls so that is 50% of the audience that will not buy this magazine. Also the pink stroke and purple drop shadow for the name Lily Allen-Dodd does not help the fact that the magazine is for both genders even though it is a girl’s name.

Furthermore, the background of my music magazine is blue/purple which also suggests that the target audience is aimed for girls and this does not connote the target audience that was originally intended. However the magazine does portray the pop and R&B genre because of the smiley images of the two girls posing which relates to the mood of the songs in both Pop and R&B.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute

your media product and why? For my music magazine I would like Bauer because the IPC company does not publish many music magazines. The only music magazine they have done is NME, although that was a big hit in the 50s. So in terms of a big hit, IPC have done very well with their NME magazine. On the other hand Bauer has a broad media variety which ranges from magazine to radio to TV and to their own independent websites.

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/http://www.ipcmedia.com/

Some of the well known music magazines from Bauer are Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Empire and Heat. These magazines are very well known around the Uk, Kerrang had the highest circulation to date of 85,377 in July to December 2006..On the other hand NME’s circulation was 33,875, down 17.3% year on year . In addition, Bauer have been the top 3 with their music magazines , Empire, Mojo and Q in 2010 as shown on the picture, with NME in 9th place which is gradually decreasing in their figures, which is why I prefer Bauer to be my publisher as they have sustainable numbers. And more experience dealing with music magazines.

IPC OR BAUER ????

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

My target audience is for both males and females aged around 11 – 17 years old. I have targeted young teenagers because the majority of them are “mainstreamers” and they spend most of their time listening to music whether its via the radio, TV or internet. On some occasions teenagers want to buy a music magazine because it is colourful or for the free poster of their favourite band/artist. This is why I have taken this idea and put it in my own music magazine which matches with the codes and conventions of a professional music magazine. I think this should be aimed at all teenagers from any social class A,B,C1,C2,D,E, however, on the whole teenagers who are from B,C1,C2,D are the most likely to buy my music magazine.

The profile of a teenager who is most likely to buy my music magazine is:

Favourite Bands: N-Dubz, Justin Bieber, Take That, Jessie J, Rihanna.

Favourite TV Programmes: Horrible Histories, Big Bang Theory, CSI,

Hobbies and Interests: Football, Basketball, Hockey, Drums, Electric Guitar, Cycling

Education: School

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In my music magazine, there are a variety of fonts, colours and images which appeal and keep the reader interested in my magazine. All of these bright colours and fonts appeal to my audience as this is how a pop or R&B music magazine would attract their audience as all of these colours would make the magazine less sophisticated giving it an informal tenor. One of the main things that catches the eye of an audience is the main image, the masthead and any flashes.

The sans serif font and serif font was used in the front cover , which highlighted both the Pop and R&B genre because the font gives an impression of what type of music magazine it is or how formal or informal the tenor for the magazine is which leads to what audience the magazine is aimed at.

The front cover isn’t cluttering the blue background so that the readers are able to access it easily. The colour blue connotes peace and calmness which gives the reader time to read article headlines.

Whilst the yellow flash instantly grabs their attention because yellow is associated with happiness, energy and intellect.

This masthead is bright blue at the top of the page so it makes it stand out to the reader

These range of pictures make it visual for the readers and it attracts them because the teenagers would rather look at the pictures than the writing itself.

These canted Polaroids make the article a lot more fun and exciting for the reader to read. Pictures like these are important as it automatically captures the awareness of the reader making them concentrate when reading the article as they will be able to follow what is happening.

Columns make it easy for the reader to read. Also the article is in a Q and A format which makes the reader feel as those they are in that interview. The highlighted names shows who is talking so the reader doesn’t get confused between the two artists. The questions are in a different colour to demonstrate the difference from the answer.

The artists names that are highlighted show the importance that they are being featured on a double page spread article.

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

I have used Adobe In Design and Photoshop to create my music magazine. For my front cover, I used Photoshop. It was fairly easy to use, once you got used to it. When I started my music magazine, I had an original plan of how I wanted my music magazine to look like. When using these programs, I have learnt a great deal producing my music magazine. These are some of the techniques that I have learnt in Photoshop.

In these 2 photos I have learnt to use Drop Shadow with an additional angle to the shadow for example in my masthead it is 29 degrees, the shadow would edge left. I can also change the colour of the shadow and the opacity to make the shadow darker or lighter depending on how I would like the masthead to be. With the “Lily Allen-Dodd” text, I have used a Bevel and Emboss, and a stroke, I have used these two because I wanted the outline of the word in pink, so I have clicked on Inner Bevel so that the whole word is individually outlined in pink. The stroke allows me to choose the colour I want for the outline of the word. This looked too plain so I decided to add a purple drop shadow to bring out the name.

1

2

Original Image From the original image, I have edited the photo so it looked more professional for my music magazine. I did this by adjusting the levels on the photo, making the photo brighter by adjusting the red/green/blue input level. I have also flipped the image because the articles fit in better with the guitar neck on the left, so I flipped the canvas horizontally.

Here on the left is the text icon, it’s what I use to write my article headlines

On the right after I have filled in my text in the text box I then can change the font, size, colour and softness of the letters. So with my articles on the front cover, I decided to the font should be Arial Rounded Bold, size of 34, softness of the letters “smooth” and the colour is white as it a unisex colour and it contrasts with the blue background

From the previous slide, this is another way that I could change the font, colour and size. It also allows me to underline words, make them bold so they stand out.

And this is my final copy of my Front Cover music magazine

For my contents page, I did most of it on Adobe In Design, In Design was very different to Photoshop and needed some expert advice along the way. Along the process of making my contents, I discovered a quick and simple way of importing the images that I wanted, the size that I wanted to. This saved me a lot of time, instead of decreasing the size of the picture by going to one of the corners to keep shrinking it by using the mouse.

With this rectangle tool, I simply draw a square box, go to file, import, click on the photo I want and when it opens up, you won’t be able to see the photo as it is too large to fit in the box, so you right click, scroll down to fitting and then you choose fit content to frame. The box that you have draw depends on how the picture will be fitted. I had to try a few times before I could find the correct box for my photo so they wouldn’t look squished or stretched in any way.

I have used this rectangle tool for the 3 square photos on the right hand side.

The screenshot on the left shows the features of editing text. This is the same as Photoshop, which was one of the methods I found that was simple as easy to use.

The screenshot on the right shows the features of how to change the text colour. This was harder to use than Photoshop because you had to highlight the text, click on swatches, make sure the T box was on top otherwise it wouldn’t change the colour of the text and then click on the colour that you wanted. However, if the colour wasn’t in the swatches panel you have to go to colour, click on the colour you wanted than click add to swatches, which was quite confusing compared to Photoshop.

For the contents page, I wanted a image of an artist down the middle of the contents page as inspired by the Paramore Christmas Billboard edition. This was not as simple as I thought. Firstly in order to create my main image on my contents page, I had to capture a person, in this case, Lily, on a plain background or a blue screen. I decided to use the blue screen as the contrast of the blue background and the product stood out, therefore I was able to use the whole image without editing for the whole of my music magazine as shown in my front cover, contents and double page spread.

After I decided what image I was going to use, I had to edited it in Photoshop. Firstly I had to crop my photo, so it would be easier to edit.

After cropping the photo, I then had to use the magic wand tool to crop out the only part of the image I wanted which was Lily and the guitar. I had to right click and as soon as I clicked on the image, most of Lily and the guitar was highlighted however there were some bits that the magic wand missed out. So I then had to press Shift and continue clicking on the blue bits until 98% of it had been highlighted. I then press delete to remove any traces of the blue that was highlighted.

This was not finished as there were still bits of blue still surrounding the image. I had to then use the Polygonal Lasso tool. By using this tool, it allowed me to cut out all the blue bits that surrounded Lily.

This is the edited version of the original photo.

This is the one that I used for my contents page, as you can see I have put a transparent background so that my texts are able to overlap the image.

This is my final version of my contents page that I have created on Adobe InDesign.

In my double page spread I have inserted columns to my article to follow the codes and conventions of a music magazine. To do this I had to click into the text, click the ¶ on the top left and then increase the number of columns.

¶

To make the Drop Capital for the introduction of the article, I highlighted the “I” and clicked on paragraph and the drop cap number of lines, as seen in the screenshot.

With the Polaroids, I used a website called Picnik to create the Polaroid effect and adding a coloured background to create a more interesting double page spread.

In the introduction of the article, there are 2 logos of “Mixed”. I have included the logo as it reminds the reader of what magazine they are reading. When I included this, I knew I could get the logo from my masthead on the front cover, however when I placed it into the article, the background was not the same. So I had go to Photoshop, print-screen the masthead and paste it as an new image. I then made it transparent by decreasing the opacity level and I was then able to copy and paste it back into my article.

This is the final adaptation of my double page spread.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to

the full product? I have learnt a great deal from when I started my preliminary task. One of the many things that I have learnt is the plain background when you take an image. It makes everything a lot easier, especially when you choose the colours for your front cover. In my preliminary task, I did not use a plain background which made things very difficult as I wasn’t able to co-ordinate the colours with the background and I had trouble placing the article headlines. As you can see from the picture on the right, the colour of the text contrasts with the background making it unclear for the reader. There are to many colours in the background in my preliminary magazine. Whilst with my music magazine, I used a blue screen, so I was able to quickly choose the colours I wanted for my article headlines and the colours theme used for the rest of the magazine.

Similarities

White text

Barcode in the same position

Underlined text to show importance

Differences Masthead spread across the page, it looks more noticeable

No header or footer, to keep music magazine simple

Only used one colour for the text to keep it plain, not over complicate it.

Added a flash to brighten the magazine and to draw attention to consumers

Decided to put the main article at the bottom so it doesn’t disturb the main image, still anchoring the image. I am able to make the name stand out at the bottom with any size and font.

In my old preliminary task, the one major thing that I forgot to add in my contents page was the headlines for the articles, making it look really messy and unorganised. However, I did learn from my mistake and categorised my articles with headlines. In my music magazine, I looks a lot more organised than the preliminary contents. The layout on the right looks very neat and tidy because it follows the rule of thirds, but the one on the left doesn’t, and it rotated images on the left doesn’t help with the layout, it makes everything very messy. The pictures on the right contents were planned, I had an idea of what pictures and what poses I wanted in my music magazine, however, on the left, I just took anything and anyone, without having much thought put into it.

Summary of what I’ve learnt

Similarities

Contents is spread out

across the page, and both colours match with the colour scheme

Page reference

I have kept the same style for

the page reference but outlined in a

different colour

Differences

The individual gap between each letter is less wider on the

right.

Headlines

Main Image in the centre, relate to

front cover

Images on left rotated, looks

messy, on right less means neater.

Stylised page references to add

significance

In my preliminary task, I did not create a double page article, so I was anxious of what and how I will produce in my music magazine. I really had to think and plan out an idea before making my music magazine. One thing, I did not want to do was to dive straight in, not knowing what I was doing.

Firstly, I had to research many double page articles to get some inspiration of what my magazine would look like. After, I had to plan how to layout my music magazine. From the pictures that I had already taken of Lily and Tembi, I had an idea that it wanted Polaroids to make it look fun and quirky.

From the images, I instantly knew that they were solo artists and I made a quick decision that Tembi was going to feature in Lily’s new single. The introduction that I wrote was more than intended, but that didn’t bother me. The columns, I initially planned for 4 columns, but it looked to squashed together and didn’t look very tidy, so I opted for 3 instead, which was a better option.

But this meant deciding what photos to put in the Polaroids. I took more photos than I needed so choose the best ones. Originally I was just going to fit one main image of Lily and Tembi, but when I put it in, they looked very stretched out, so when I decreased the image that’s when I went onto Picnik and made colourful Polaroids to add next to my main image.

Audience Feedback on my music magazine

This is my questionnaire that I got 20 people to fill out, 10 boys and 10 girls.

Looking at the results for the questionnaire, the majority of people thought that this magazine is looked quite professional with the majority scoring my music magazine a 6/10. I am happy as no one thought of the music magazine as really professional or really bad.

The majority of the people would like to buy my music magazine, which is a positive however some of the guys wouldn’t because it seemed too girly. This means that I didn’t achieve my target audience in terms of gender.

When I got the results back for this question, the age was quite accurate. Some people thought that the magazine was younger than I intentionally planned. From the graph, it shows that people thought it was aimed for an younger audience than late teens.

These results show that the genre for my music magazine is quite precise with the common result of Pop. This is want I intended so this is a good indication that my magazine is for mainstream fans who listen to pop and R&B.

This is another one of the important questions that was being asked. From the questionnaire, 17 people out of 20 said that they thought my magazine was for a female audience only. This is worrying, as it was for both genders. Only 3 people said it was for both females and males. This is a negative representation for my magazine as my target audience for gender has not been achieved. For any successful magazine, you would have to meet all criteria's and I did not do this, therefore it would not be at a high professional standard and my magazine would not get published.

Conclusion

Overall I feel that I have learnt and improvement massively compared to what I have achieved in my preliminary task. I think my music magazine looks more professional now but there are still some areas that I need to improve. The questionnaire results were not as accurate as I only surveyed 20 people, so the outcome would vary if I chose a larger group to survey. The audience feedback was significant as I now know what to change if I were to publish my music magazine to Bauer.