Evaluation

Evaluation of practical portfolio- Music Magazine

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The magazine I have created uses conventions of real media products by sticking to a similar guideline as another magazine would. It has a front page that would be similar to a real magazine, where it has a typical large image of the main issue being discussed or in our case the main article of the magazine where the artists are being interviewed. We have also used sub headings to show which artists are included in our magazine. The mast heading is a large bold text across the top of the page which could share similarities to other magazines. We have used a cover line by taking a quote out of the interview with our two related artists. The double page spread is similar to other magazines as it has the main article on a separate level, and then we have included a number of images to liven the page up. We have also included a quote on the double page spread which could be similar to other magazines. The magazines we have looked at and partially influenced the set up of our magazine are Q and NME. These are two popular magazines and have possible similarities to our magazine. We have however created our own style of layout on the contents page and double page spread. The front cover of our magazine share similarities where there is one main imagine on the front cover with surrounding sub-headings. We have included an editorial on our contents page which is repeated over the two different issues.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The main target of our magazine is 15-30 year olds it is popular music that ranges from a variety of different music genres. For example Hip-hop and R’n’B to Rock and Pop. The style of our magazine would also suggest that it is predominantly aimed at males the colours used and the front covers suggest this trend. Our magazine is aimed at the C1 category of people and above. The magazine is a monthly issued copy, similar to Q but different to NME which is weekly. The magazine we have created is slightly stereotypical in the way that we have stuck the guidelines of having a mast head at the top of the page. The difference that our magazine has is that rather than focusing on one music genre, which most magazine would we have broadened out to a variety of genres.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think our magazine would be a large company publisher similar to Q or another large magazine company rather than a smaller one. This is because our company would include large acts and artists so this would need to be a large company. The products that would be advertised in our magazine would most likely be male orientated items, for example aftershave, luxury watches, cars, sports and clothing brands. I think the magazine would want to be sold nationally at all newsagents and book stores. I think that an online website could easily be created for the magazine with a latest news feed, latest articles, information, subscriptions and images. I think that the magazine could be linked to music channels and could be highly advertised on these channels.

How did you attract/address your audience?
The audience could be attracted by our large brand name mast heading which would be easily distinguished each month. The colours used and the close up images on the front cover could attract a customer and set a feeling tone for a magazine. The big acts which have been included on our front page could attract a number of customers as it would show that the magazine is of a high quality. The language used throughout the magazine is relevant and something that the 15-30 year old male target audience could relate to and become a part of. The reasons why a person would want to read our magazines would be for one the large name acts included in the magazine and the fact that the genre of music is aimed at a wide variety in our magazine. The magazine reflects the customer’s interests by including a number of different genres which could attract a number of different people.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For the preliminary task we created a template of our school magazine issue which could be used for both of the issues. We used Adobe Photoshop to complete this. Using the template we created our own headlines and article headings and also used a photo we had taken for our front cover. All of the headings, quotes and images were then replaced for another set for the second issue. The research task we had to complete we used the internet, our own knowledge and other magazines. For example we used the NME and Q magazines for research on a magazine industry. Throughout the whole of the main task we also used the Photoshop software and used this to a good effect. We also used a template for this magazine as we had the Mast heading at the top of the page and the date and bar code in the bottom left hand corner for both issues. We then inserted an image to use for the background on each of our issues. The articles, quotes and features were also different in these two issues. We used Photoshop to add in sun glasses and a cigarette to one of our magazine front covers. This gave the effect of the artist being a bit of a rule breaker. We feel that the smoke worked well with the black background used. In each of our images used throughout the magazine we used a brush up too and the lighting contrast tool too create the greatest effect for each of our images on each page. The changes we made often were background colours and image sizes. The ratio of the size of the images to the size of the page was key so we were constantly rearranging the size and position of each photo until we had reached a successful end product.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I feel that when we were first introduced to the preliminary task we were new to the software we were using and only had a basic understanding of what potential the software offered. We only used basic text boxes and only inserted the images onto the front cover without changing the contrast of them to create a more professional feel to the magazine. When we got around to completing the main task we were more skilled in using Photoshop and were able to manipulate the images to create the most professional and successful effect. We managed to Photoshop in some other images to our final product to add to the effect and to distinguish our magazine from others. I feel that our technical and creative skills have majorly improved throughout the course of the task.

Main task- final product

Preliminary task

In the prelimanry task we were required to create a magazine cover for a school magazine. we had to create to seperate issues of this magazine this was to show that we could make a magazine cover. Firstly we took a number of photographs around school and made them so they

Music Magazine Research

Introduction

For my Media AS level magazine project i paired with Dan Read. (www.danread01.blogspot.com) we created two seperate issues for a magazine. we gave our magazine the name encore as it is relevant for a music magazine and could be significant.
During this project we had to include:
A research task- we had to gather infrmation on ideas for our music magazine by collecting relevant information which we could use in creating our magazine
A preliminary task- this is where we had to create two sepearte issues of a school magazine
A main task- Which was a music magazine. this had to include a front cover, a double page article and a contents page.
Evaluation- lastly we had to evaluate our performance of our magazine