Thursday 5 May 2011
Friday 25 March 2011
Evaluation - Progression
"Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?"
I think that my design skills have improved drastically since completing my preliminary task, although it is difficult to compare them as they are both of completely different genres. However, i had a much better understanding for conventions in a music magazine than to a school magazine because of the amount of research i did prior to designing my final magazine, which was a lot more in-depth than my research for the preliminary task. Because of this, i was more able to learn and follow the conventions. I think some of the main things i have improved from comparing my magazines, is the layout. I've been much more aware of using the route of the eye and principal of thirds to create an effective and accurate magazine that is much more appealing to the audience. With more planning, i was able to choose exactly which fonts i wanted and which worked best with my magazine. Also for my preliminary task i wasn't very aware of colour schemes and also on my contents page wasn't as specific as i could be with what was going to be on each page. I have definitely learnt how to construct a much more appealing and professional looking magazine that will attract my target audience. My preliminary task helped me in ways, especially with making sure i plan exactly how i want my magazine to look in order to make my magazine appeal to more people.
I think that my design skills have improved drastically since completing my preliminary task, although it is difficult to compare them as they are both of completely different genres. However, i had a much better understanding for conventions in a music magazine than to a school magazine because of the amount of research i did prior to designing my final magazine, which was a lot more in-depth than my research for the preliminary task. Because of this, i was more able to learn and follow the conventions. I think some of the main things i have improved from comparing my magazines, is the layout. I've been much more aware of using the route of the eye and principal of thirds to create an effective and accurate magazine that is much more appealing to the audience. With more planning, i was able to choose exactly which fonts i wanted and which worked best with my magazine. Also for my preliminary task i wasn't very aware of colour schemes and also on my contents page wasn't as specific as i could be with what was going to be on each page. I have definitely learnt how to construct a much more appealing and professional looking magazine that will attract my target audience. My preliminary task helped me in ways, especially with making sure i plan exactly how i want my magazine to look in order to make my magazine appeal to more people.
Above is my preliminary task next to my completed product. It is clear that my final product is much more professional compared to my preliminary task. Both of my magazines followed conventions through the photos, we can see this as the person representing the school magazine is studying in the photo and the people representing the music magazine have a band look about them. There is however a lack of cover lines that i used on the preliminary, which makes it seem much less interesting compared to my music magazine. My photography has improved drastically because of the use of technologies such as Photoshop whereas my photos on my preliminary were only edited slightly to make them appear brighter. I didn't use a range of fonts for my preliminary task, although this could have been one of the conventions of a school magazine. These factors show that as a whole i have improved drastically and become more able to create a professional and successful looking magazine.
Evaluation - Technologies
"What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?"
I used lots of camera work for my magazine to take a variety of successful pictures for my cover, contents page and double page spread. I used many different shots on the shoot, although mostly mid-shots. This is because i felt that this way the audience could see the people closer up but they could still see what kind of clothes the models were wearing, thus they could make their own judgements to what they think about the people representing the magazine. I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit my photographs such as the one below and make them look exactly as i wanted them too, here i edited the photo twice and then decided which one of the two i felt would look better for an indie genre magazine using my analysis of other magazines. I used different kinds of editing such as using filters to boost the images contrast and brightness, turning photos black and white, as well as touching up certain areas of the photo and airbrushing slightly too.
I used Microsoft Publisher to create all my pages and drafts as simply and easily as i could, making them look professional and creating the layout of the magazine in a clear way, an example of the way i used Microsoft Publisher is to put everything where i wanted it to go, the programme enabled me to do this easily whereas if it was done on another programme such as Word there would have been a few issues with keeping things in the right place. However, Microsoft Word came in hand and was used a lot during my research so that i could show my research and findings in a clear and ordered way before uploading the documents to my blog via scribd which is the website that allowed me to upload and embed my word documents. I used the internet in other ways to, such as to find fonts from the website www.dafont.com, i simply downloaded (by picking the size of the text i wanted and then clicking download) some of the fonts that i thought were most effective for an indie genre magazine and used them by opening them from my 'downloads' folder on my computer where downloads are automatically saved, i only downloaded these fonts for mastheads, for example the masthead used on the front cover. Other ways in which the internet came into use was through search engines for my research into indie genre magazines such as google where i could simply type in what i wanted such as "nme front cover" and could easily look through and decided which image i wanted to analyse. Surverymonkey.com was where i created my target audience surveys and then after doing so used the website to embed the surveys onto other pages such as facebook and other social networking sites in order to get participants to fill in the survey, enabling me to gather a larger amount of results and thus have more results and more accurate findings. My blog is an important technology used as it is where all my work was uploaded as a way of keeping it organised and well-displayed.
I used lots of camera work for my magazine to take a variety of successful pictures for my cover, contents page and double page spread. I used many different shots on the shoot, although mostly mid-shots. This is because i felt that this way the audience could see the people closer up but they could still see what kind of clothes the models were wearing, thus they could make their own judgements to what they think about the people representing the magazine. I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to edit my photographs such as the one below and make them look exactly as i wanted them too, here i edited the photo twice and then decided which one of the two i felt would look better for an indie genre magazine using my analysis of other magazines. I used different kinds of editing such as using filters to boost the images contrast and brightness, turning photos black and white, as well as touching up certain areas of the photo and airbrushing slightly too.
I used Microsoft Publisher to create all my pages and drafts as simply and easily as i could, making them look professional and creating the layout of the magazine in a clear way, an example of the way i used Microsoft Publisher is to put everything where i wanted it to go, the programme enabled me to do this easily whereas if it was done on another programme such as Word there would have been a few issues with keeping things in the right place. However, Microsoft Word came in hand and was used a lot during my research so that i could show my research and findings in a clear and ordered way before uploading the documents to my blog via scribd which is the website that allowed me to upload and embed my word documents. I used the internet in other ways to, such as to find fonts from the website www.dafont.com, i simply downloaded (by picking the size of the text i wanted and then clicking download) some of the fonts that i thought were most effective for an indie genre magazine and used them by opening them from my 'downloads' folder on my computer where downloads are automatically saved, i only downloaded these fonts for mastheads, for example the masthead used on the front cover. Other ways in which the internet came into use was through search engines for my research into indie genre magazines such as google where i could simply type in what i wanted such as "nme front cover" and could easily look through and decided which image i wanted to analyse. Surverymonkey.com was where i created my target audience surveys and then after doing so used the website to embed the surveys onto other pages such as facebook and other social networking sites in order to get participants to fill in the survey, enabling me to gather a larger amount of results and thus have more results and more accurate findings. My blog is an important technology used as it is where all my work was uploaded as a way of keeping it organised and well-displayed.
Thursday 24 March 2011
Evaluation - Appealing to audience
"How did you attract/address your audience?"
My target audience are both males and females (though mainly males) aged 16-25 with a strong passion for indie music.
One of the first things that the audience can see when looking at my front cover is the masthead, which I have placed in the top left corner following conventions of other indie genre magazines. It is important for the masthead to be one of the first things the audience see’s because then they know the name of the magazine. The masthead is in a red and bold font and also the largest so that the audience know it is the title, just as other indie magazines, which makes it look more professional and addresses the audience because it’s a slight hint to what the genre of the magazine is. The next part of the cover that is also one of the obvious things that the audience will see before anything else is the picture of the band which has been placed exactly in the middle of the page following the route of the eye. This is placed in the centre to address people who may listen to the band’s music and so it is important in whether people are going to be interested in buying the product or not. The boys are looking straight into the camera which also gives the effect that they themselves are addressing the audience. The layout on my magazine is ordered, making it look more mature and for an older audience. I achieved this by placing coverlines around the picture, and the band name in the centre under their faces. The next thing that the audience see is the ‘kickback’ logo, this is in yellow because in my research on other indie genre magazines I found that yellow is quite a common colour to be used on an indie genre front cover so once again I was following classic conventions. It also gives variety to the cover page, making it look more exciting which will appeal to the young audience. At the bottom of the page I have placed a list of band names on one corner which will be one of the last things the people will see on the cover, this tells the reader what other bands will be featured in the magazine and is one of the things they will consider in their decision to buy the product. In the terminal area is where I have placed the price in a small font, as this is something that we don’t want the audience to see first as it will convince them not to look at the magazine, however as it is down here it is the last thing on the page they will see and they will then know that it is worth it. Across the top and bottom of the page are some bold coverlines also that are along the route of the eye, and will address the audience who are into these sorts of things such as the festivals. I only used a small range of fonts on my front cover as I didn’t want it too look too cluttered and wanted it to have a simple effect. I kept the colour scheme as black and white with red mainly but also used a bit of yellow to follow conventions and make the magazine look more fun, enticing the audience.
As you can see, 30% of participants that took my survey rated my front cover as 7 out of 10, 20% rated it as 10 out of 10 and the majority of people voted it as 7 or above. Showing that my magazine is relatively appealing to the audiences eye.
My columns are separated well into columns as we see with the principle of thirds, this separates my information from each other to avoid confusion to the reader, it also gives the page a neat and ordered layout which will appeal to the audience without boring them. At the top of the page placed in the centre, along the route of the eye, i have used my masthead again which is a convention that i took from other magazines such as NME and Q. This reminds the audience what magazine they are reading and it also adds some boldness to the page as we can imagine it would look quite plain without it. I have placed the contents column on the right hand side of the page, the articles are quite essential in enticing the audience because they are telling the reader what to expect within the magazine, therefore this is important because it's the readers decider of whether they're interested in what's inside or if they're not. One of the main things that is going to stand out most on the contents page is the main picture in the centre of the page, this would appeal to different audiences because she is female, it would attract the male gender as it's not very common to see a female in these types of magazines and it would also appeal to a female audience because they may look up to the artist and aspire to be like her. At the bottom of the route of the eye i have placed a subscription box which would appeal to the audience because they can see the types of offers that the magazine has for subscribing and they would also notice that the magazine has a website, as well as this there is the picture of the front cover which reminds them again of the front cover so that they don't change their opinions too much on opening the magazine to the contents page. I have used text such as "The moment.." and "This week.." on my contents page as it is a good way of catching the audiences attention as they want to know what it would be relating to. I used the same colour scheme that i used on the front cover to keep the magazine stable as completely changing the colour scheme would look too much and probably repel the audience as well as confusing them as it would seem like a different genre. The colour scheme is a convention of indie genre magazines which i have kept. I used red on the masthead and band index so that the page didnt look too over the top, the rest of the text i left black to maintain the black and white colour scheme.
Double Page Spread:
The double page spread is the main article in the magazine so this is relatively important as it will be the main feature appealing to the audience. For my double page spread i decided that following the conventions would be vital in making sure the audience don't get bored. Keeping this in mind, i used the left page for the text and the right page for the picture and fact file. The picture takes up almost the whole page and it is probably one of the first things the audience will see. This is also successful as it means that all the text will be on one side making it easier for the audience to read and also making it look as though there isn't too much text. As you can see the route of the eye goes through all the images on the page, as well as the title and it goes straight through the centre of the text, meaning that the route touches upon all the majorly important factors on the spread. I have kept an ordered and non-cluttered layout throughout the spread because this way it makes the spread look much neater as well as making sure the audience don't get confused. The text i used is all very small so it's important to keep it clear, i did so by formatting the questions into a different colour as well as making the kicker bold. I used a different colour scheme to the rest of the magazine as i have used blue rather than red, i did this to break up the magazine a bit and make it seem more interesting and exciting as keeping it the same throughout the whole magazine would no doubt bore the audience. It also gives a theme to the article as well as associating the colour blue with the band featured in the magazine. I have used three different pictures across the spread, using one of the band together as the main image and using separate images of the band members to make them seem as individuals as well as a band, i have added captions to each of these images. In the photos, they wore colours that stick with the colour scheme of the magazine as they are wearing black and grey coloured clothes.
In the question above, you can see that 60% of people that took a look at my magazine would be interested in buying it, which gives me a good idea of peoples opinions on it and also shows that i have succeeded in appealing to the majority of the audience.
The print screen below is also from the results of my survey, i have had a good response from the audience as the majority of people (30%) said that they rate my magazine 10 out of 10 over all meaning that i have produced a successful indie genre magazine, however 30% also said they would rate it 7 out of 10 which would give me an average of 8.5 out of 10.
My target audience are both males and females (though mainly males) aged 16-25 with a strong passion for indie music.
Cover:
My front cover was the most important part of my magazine in addressing the audience because of it being the first thing they will see, and the thing that will be most successful in catching someone’s eye. Therefore, keeping this in mind, I tried to stick to simple conventions of an indie genre magazine that would appeal to the right kind of audience.
One of the first things that the audience can see when looking at my front cover is the masthead, which I have placed in the top left corner following conventions of other indie genre magazines. It is important for the masthead to be one of the first things the audience see’s because then they know the name of the magazine. The masthead is in a red and bold font and also the largest so that the audience know it is the title, just as other indie magazines, which makes it look more professional and addresses the audience because it’s a slight hint to what the genre of the magazine is. The next part of the cover that is also one of the obvious things that the audience will see before anything else is the picture of the band which has been placed exactly in the middle of the page following the route of the eye. This is placed in the centre to address people who may listen to the band’s music and so it is important in whether people are going to be interested in buying the product or not. The boys are looking straight into the camera which also gives the effect that they themselves are addressing the audience. The layout on my magazine is ordered, making it look more mature and for an older audience. I achieved this by placing coverlines around the picture, and the band name in the centre under their faces. The next thing that the audience see is the ‘kickback’ logo, this is in yellow because in my research on other indie genre magazines I found that yellow is quite a common colour to be used on an indie genre front cover so once again I was following classic conventions. It also gives variety to the cover page, making it look more exciting which will appeal to the young audience. At the bottom of the page I have placed a list of band names on one corner which will be one of the last things the people will see on the cover, this tells the reader what other bands will be featured in the magazine and is one of the things they will consider in their decision to buy the product. In the terminal area is where I have placed the price in a small font, as this is something that we don’t want the audience to see first as it will convince them not to look at the magazine, however as it is down here it is the last thing on the page they will see and they will then know that it is worth it. Across the top and bottom of the page are some bold coverlines also that are along the route of the eye, and will address the audience who are into these sorts of things such as the festivals. I only used a small range of fonts on my front cover as I didn’t want it too look too cluttered and wanted it to have a simple effect. I kept the colour scheme as black and white with red mainly but also used a bit of yellow to follow conventions and make the magazine look more fun, enticing the audience. 
As you can see, 30% of participants that took my survey rated my front cover as 7 out of 10, 20% rated it as 10 out of 10 and the majority of people voted it as 7 or above. Showing that my magazine is relatively appealing to the audiences eye.
Contents Page:
As you can see i've had very good feedback for my contents page as 40% of people rated it 10 out of 10 which shows that i have been very successful in appealing to the audience with my contents page. 50% of people overall gave the contents page 6 or above.
Double Page Spread:
The double page spread is the main article in the magazine so this is relatively important as it will be the main feature appealing to the audience. For my double page spread i decided that following the conventions would be vital in making sure the audience don't get bored. Keeping this in mind, i used the left page for the text and the right page for the picture and fact file. The picture takes up almost the whole page and it is probably one of the first things the audience will see. This is also successful as it means that all the text will be on one side making it easier for the audience to read and also making it look as though there isn't too much text. As you can see the route of the eye goes through all the images on the page, as well as the title and it goes straight through the centre of the text, meaning that the route touches upon all the majorly important factors on the spread. I have kept an ordered and non-cluttered layout throughout the spread because this way it makes the spread look much neater as well as making sure the audience don't get confused. The text i used is all very small so it's important to keep it clear, i did so by formatting the questions into a different colour as well as making the kicker bold. I used a different colour scheme to the rest of the magazine as i have used blue rather than red, i did this to break up the magazine a bit and make it seem more interesting and exciting as keeping it the same throughout the whole magazine would no doubt bore the audience. It also gives a theme to the article as well as associating the colour blue with the band featured in the magazine. I have used three different pictures across the spread, using one of the band together as the main image and using separate images of the band members to make them seem as individuals as well as a band, i have added captions to each of these images. In the photos, they wore colours that stick with the colour scheme of the magazine as they are wearing black and grey coloured clothes.
I got relatively good feedback for my double page spread, as you can see the majority of people rated it 8 out of 10 and 90% of people overall rated it 6 or above showing that i have produced a successful double page spread.
Wednesday 23 March 2011
Evaluation - Target Audience
"Who would be the audience for your media product?"
I found through my target audience research with the survey I made that my target audience would be males and females (although mainly males) from about 16 to mid-twenties, despite the most popular answer in my survey being 16-19 year olds, I decided I wanted to make the magazine more mature and consider 20-25 year olds as well, which also gives me a larger target age range, this is because I knew from research that the average age of the audience for NME magazine was around 23 year olds. 60% of participants that took the survey said that their favourite kind of music genre was ‘Indie/alternative’, these people were who I considered to be my target audience. They also happened to be mainly males who showed an interest, which gave me the target audience of mainly men aged 16-25 who like the Indie genre of music. When i asked what people would be most interested in, the majority said interviews and tour dates.
I posted my survey onto different websites to ensure that lots of people took my survey in order for me to get the best results I could. I asked in my survey what people would most like to see in the magazine and a lot of people came back to me saying that they’d like to see interviews and articles about new and upcoming bands, so to appeal to them I took advantage of my double page spread and created an interview of a new cool indie band that were releasing a new album. When I asked about the colour schemes, 90% of people who filled in the survey chose the colour scheme of black and white with red, which is the same colour scheme we see in NME so this gave me a good idea of what the audience wanted to see in my final product.
NME’s audience was mainly ‘ABC1s’ who have a very strong interest for music, which is also what participants chose as their main interest in my survey, which suggested that I could have the same target audience as NME have.
Evaluation - Institutions
"What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?"
Institutions
Institutions
In my research, I looked up the kind of companies the made magazines such as NME, which is the magazine I think my final product is the most similar to. When doing my research, I found that the people who publish and distribute NME and many other genres of magazine are IPC (International Publishing Incorporation) media. IPC media is a very well known digital media publishing company in the UK and produces over 60 iconic media brands with something for everyone with 26 million adults in the UK reading a magazine published and distributed by them. It publishes all sorts of magazines of all kinds of genres adding up to 85 iconic brands, which reach different target audiences throughout the country. Print brands alone are reaching two third of UK women as well as 44% of men - while their online brands reach about 20 million users each month. The company currently five magazine categories in which different genres of magazines are listed, these are:
'Connect' which are women weeklies magazines, 'Inspire' which are leisure magazines, 'Southbank' being womens lifestyle for example hobbies, 'Ignite' which is lifestyle and entertainment for men, which is where NME comes under and therefore where my magazine would also come under.
A few examples of other popular magazines produced by the company are ‘Look’, ‘Nuts’ and ‘Rugby world’.
IPC media is owned by Time Inc., which is one of the largest companies in the world and the largest magazine publisher in America as well as being a leading publisher in Britain, holding a portfolio of 22 US magazines and more than 25 US websites including some of the most popular brands. Time Inc. do lots of other products as well, such as television, mobile devices and branded products.
Time Inc. is owned my Time Warner, which is the second largest entertainment conglomerate who have businesses in all fields of television, films and publishing. They are also the owners of many recognizable things products and companies such as: Warner Bros studios, LEGO batman and LEGO harry potter video games, Digital Cinema, HBO on Demand, HBO on Broadband,HBO on iTunes, People.com, CartoonNetwork.com.
I think that, through making such a variety of different magazine genres aimed at all sorts of audiences, that IPC media would be likely to publish and distribute my magazine. It would also be likely because they publish NME, uncut and other magazines that are all similar to the magazine that I have produced as they are all indie music magazines. These magazines also use the same conventions that I have used and have the same sort of contents within them and all contain very relevant information and articles. In my magazine I made NME magazine ideas my own by changing them round for example keeping the layout the same but using a girl in the contents page which you don’t see often in these genres of magazines as they are mostly boy bands.
'Connect' which are women weeklies magazines, 'Inspire' which are leisure magazines, 'Southbank' being womens lifestyle for example hobbies, 'Ignite' which is lifestyle and entertainment for men, which is where NME comes under and therefore where my magazine would also come under.
A few examples of other popular magazines produced by the company are ‘Look’, ‘Nuts’ and ‘Rugby world’.
IPC media is owned by Time Inc., which is one of the largest companies in the world and the largest magazine publisher in America as well as being a leading publisher in Britain, holding a portfolio of 22 US magazines and more than 25 US websites including some of the most popular brands. Time Inc. do lots of other products as well, such as television, mobile devices and branded products.
Time Inc. is owned my Time Warner, which is the second largest entertainment conglomerate who have businesses in all fields of television, films and publishing. They are also the owners of many recognizable things products and companies such as: Warner Bros studios, LEGO batman and LEGO harry potter video games, Digital Cinema, HBO on Demand, HBO on Broadband,HBO on iTunes, People.com, CartoonNetwork.com.
I think that, through making such a variety of different magazine genres aimed at all sorts of audiences, that IPC media would be likely to publish and distribute my magazine. It would also be likely because they publish NME, uncut and other magazines that are all similar to the magazine that I have produced as they are all indie music magazines. These magazines also use the same conventions that I have used and have the same sort of contents within them and all contain very relevant information and articles. In my magazine I made NME magazine ideas my own by changing them round for example keeping the layout the same but using a girl in the contents page which you don’t see often in these genres of magazines as they are mostly boy bands.
Tuesday 22 March 2011
Evaluation - Representation
"How does your media product represent particular social groups?"
I have represented the people in my magazine as people that the reader should appeal to. To achieve so, I have made them indie genre band members because those are the type of people that the readers would appeal to.
I have represented the people in my magazine as people that the reader should appeal to. To achieve so, I have made them indie genre band members because those are the type of people that the readers would appeal to.
I've represented the genre of the indie magazine throughout by using words such as "parties, drink, sex and music", "festival" and "world tour", this emphasizes the genre of the magazine and is successful in attracting audience and is a constant reminder that the magazine is of an indie genre. The reader can relate to these words and make them feel as thought they are a part of it as well as creating the right atmosphere throughout the magazine. These words are all also very stereotypical of an indie genre magazine.
The picture to the left is shot at a similar angle to the people in the photo, however they are standing as though they are crouching down to be at that angle, which gives the impression that it is a low angle, meaning that the people in the picture come across as powerful and dominant which represents their genre of music because their music would be quite powerful. They are giving a direct address by looking at the camera which attracts the audience. They are also both wearing black and white clothes with an ‘indie’ hair cut, which shows that they are both representing indie people. Their clothes are similar too, as are the necklaces they are both wearing, showing that they are both quite similar people and it also brings the band together as one. The serious look on their face gives a ‘moody’ and ‘cool’ look to their image which is quite typical to see in indie genre magazines because it gives a whole ‘I don’t care’ attitude.
This picture is of one of the band mates on his own, I took separate pictures of them to give the idea that although they are a band, they are still individuals as well as that. The image gives a different effect to the photo above because as you can see, the ‘moody’ look that was coming across before has disappeared and I’ve pictured him as happy instead as he is messing around, which is also quite typical to see in pictures of an indie magazine. However, although we can see the expression in his face, the main focus of the picture is the prop I have used which is a rubix cube he is playing with. The person pictured in the image is focusing on the cube whilst looking ridiculously happy, which gives the impression that the person is easily pleased and very easy going which is a completely different personality to what we get from the first picture, suggesting that the artist isn’t the same as every other boy band you find within these kind of magazines. Another way we can see that he is easy going is the fact he is at the same level as the photographer, and not crouching, which represents that he doesn’t think himself as ‘higher’ than people and shows he is just another regular person. We can slightly see that he is wearing the same top as he was wearing in the previous photo, however the rubix cube is very colourful, showing that they don’t just put themselves in the indie and ‘moody’ category. The photo in general is very happy looking.
The image to the right follows conventions of an Indie artist. Her hair has been put up into a messy hairstyle to show that she isn't really that bothered and as well as this she is wearing quite a black dress to stick to the colour scheme. I have edited the photo so that it's in black and white as a way of creating variety between the different images i have taken. The photo is a mid-shot so we can see the upper half of her showing that she is an indie artist. I have made the background plain but there are shadows which highlight the dark side and the light side of the indie genre. A direct address is made to the audience to entice them, and as the main target audience would be for boys, it would be likely that a female looking straight into the camera would be successful in attracting them and making them look further into the magazine to find the article about her. It could also attract more of a girl audience as well as girls could look up to her as a role model type figure.
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