COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION SEVEN

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For my preliminary task I had to produce a school magazine, the magazine had to be aimed at the the different age groups of students from year 7 up to the sixth form. The magazine needed to be educational as well as fun and creative. As the school is a specialist science school these aspects were present in the school magazine.

During the process of both tasks I was able to learn about various ways and techniques of creating a magazine, and the different features and components needed in order for a successful magazine. Whilst creating the magazine for my preliminary task I was not able to do a lot of research about the different features that make a magazine right for the readers. Creating this magazine as a preliminary task was very useful as I was able to use this opportunity as a draft magazine attempt. I gained a larger insight on the particular program used and the construction of the magazine.

This task made me understand that when proceeding with my music magazine I would have to do a lot of research in order to expand and make the magazine successful for the chosen target audience. From the first task I developed a larger understanding and knowledge about what readers want to see in a magazine and I found it easier to create my music magazine as I looked at existing magazines and the different features these magazine have to offer. Also I understood why the particular features were popular for the target audience and how I could include these in my own product and making them my own in a creative way. When creating my music magazine I researched the different features and components that make a magazine appealing to the readers. I learnt what features worked and those that did not in my preliminary task, therefore I was able to change and improve those features that were not appealing to the readers and make my media product successful.

There are large differences between my school magazine and music magazine which can be seen clearly when both pages are placed together. I experimented with various features and components during the transition from the preliminary task to the music magazine. There is a big improvement from the first task to the final and I think the final magazine is much more suited to the reader than the preliminary task I had produced.

COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION SIX

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

In the process of creating my media product I used different types of technologies and software’s including my dell laptop, Fuji Film camera, adobe reader, memory stick, Microsoft word and power point, photo plus, page plus and online websites such as hotmail, blogger, twitter, slide share, facebook, survey monkey and prezi. I was familiar with many of the programs used although it was the first time using some of the particular programs. Mostly all my work was processed on my laptop and posted on my online blog using the website blogger. My main magazine was constructed using the software page plus where I was able to learn new techniques and various tricks to make the magazine unique and right for the chosen target audience. There were some compromises that I had to make for example the fonts that I used, some of the chosen fonts were not used because there were some problems whilst using them on different computers that were used therefore other fonts had to be used. All the programs and software that were used gave me a chance to add creativity and uniqueness to my magazine. I was able to create presentations using Microsoft power point and convert the presentation using slide share in order to post it onto my blog which is just an example of the many techniques I have learnt in the process of generating my media product and media coursework.

COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION FIVE

How did you attract/address your audience?

Question Five on Prezi

COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION FOUR

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product? on Prezi

COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION THREE

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

After researching many different media institutes I think that Bauer Media would be the right institute to distribute my media product.

I researched media products that were similar to mine, the music magazines 'Kerrang', 'Q', 'Empire' and 'Mojo' are all published by Bauer Media. IPC Media distributes popular magazines such as 'NME', 'Guitar and Bass' and 'Uncut'. The magazines of Bauer Media

have a similar target audience to mine and similar features to my own magazine however IPC Media distribute to creative media products and mainly distribute to magazines for an older market. Which is why I do not think IPC Media will be the right institution to distribute my media product.

COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION TWO

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The magazine that I have produced represents the chosen target audience of sixteen to twenty four year olds. The particular target audience are interested in both existing and upcoming music from signed and unsigned music artists. I have chosen mix genres of indie and alternative music as this is a popular choice within the particular target audience. As the particular social group like to portray themselves as unique and stand out from the crowd. Therefore I needed the models in my photo shoot to be dressed in an individual attire, in a way that will make them look confident and individual from others. This is an image I saw on an NME interview article and this is an image of a model that was included in my own magazine:

I didn’t like this image, I thought the model looked very boring and not confident at all. The artist did not have any individuality or uniqueness. To be a successful music artist individuality is important or there is nothing that makes the artist stand out from other artists. The model is slouched against a plain white wall and wearing black and white clothing, there is nothing particularly exciting about her. Therefore I did not find the image very appealing and it would not be something the target audience of my magazine would be interested in. This is why my chosen image for the magazine is of an artist who is wearing an edgy attire and who looks very confident. I think this image is more appealing to the target audience because this type of person is aspirable and they stand out from the crowd. The magazine needs to be individual and different for it to stand out from other magazines, this is why I had to choose specific text and features that would be suitable for the particular target audience.

COURSEWORK EVALUATION, QUESTION ONE

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

The media product I created is a music magazine for a target audience of sixteen to twenty four year olds with a mixed gender. Before creating my product I researched three different magazines which were Kerrang, Vibe and Q magazine. I decided to look at these particular magazines because they were very different styles from each other. Looking at these magazines gave me an idea of how the particular product is put together in a certain way to attract a mass audience successfully. They gave me inspirations for my own product; I liked different aspects of particular sections of the magazines and decided to include variations of these in my own magazine. This magazine is based on an Indie and Alternative music genre which is a popular music genre for my particular target audience. I used a colour scheme that will be used throughout my magazine and other issues of the magazine to provide brand identity which are black, white, green, red and yellow. The reason I used these particular colours is because I needed to use mixed gender friendly colours which I think these colours are.

FRONT COVER

I wanted to create a magazine that was a merge between existing magazines for a target audience of sixteen to twenty four year olds because I needed the magazine to be unique in order to stand out to be successful for the particular target audience. For the main image I used a female artist that is in the same age range as the target audience, it is a posed image and the artist is wearing sunglasses. I felt this image was very dramatic by the way she was dressed, she is in a very confident pose which attracts the audience. As she is the main focus of the page I layered her on top of the masthead which is a technique used by many existing magazines. I layered other headings, captions and components of the the on top of the image. I decided to have a simple plain background on the image and the magazine, using photo plus I edited the background. I wanted to this because it gave more attraction to the artist and gave the magazine a simpler look, it also made it easier for the reader to read the text and other features included on the front cover meaning that they would not get distracted. I used the circle stamp effect to act as an advertisement puff which attracts the audience to read the magazine and the bottom red strip advertising free posters of a popular band.

CONTENTS PAGE

The contents page for my magazine is parted into different sections which gives it a simpler look at makes it easier for the reader to find the particular stories that they are interested in quicker. I was inspired by the NME's contents page, NME use grid lines to section off their stories which I thought was a good feature. I used a quite a few images as I think images are more responsive rather than text. Therefore I used more images compared to text. I have used the stories that will be most relevant and popular for my chosen target audience and added pictures with page numbers on the bottom right corner. Also with quotes or a caption at the bottom of the image to give the readers reason to read the story and attract the audience. The main feature story is centred with the largest image and text as well, which gives the reader the knowledge of the main story and hooks the audience. Using grid lines I separated the different sections which made the page a neat and organised which makes it easy for the reader to interpret the information and not overwhelm the reader. The 'plus' section is the part where the reader will find regular features; the same layout would be featured in other issues of the magazine. The page only uses two different styles of fonts, if had used many different font it would have made the page look tacky and messy. The images are mixed addressed and include a mix of live, spontaneous and posed images as they were all popular from the survey I had previously taken from my target audience. The colours of the text and page are simple and plain (black and white) as I wanted a clean page, so not to distract the reader with a heavy background. Using the same font styles and colours provided my magazine with brand identity which meant it would be more recognisable.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

For my double page spread I wanted to make the layout chique and simple so that the it will be easy for the audience. Also so it was a page that if I personally saw would actually read as I am in the particular target audience. This is why I used one main image; I used a posed image of the duo and enlarged it so that is takes up one whole page. The duo are dressed simply like any other person would in the target audience, which is why I think this is a good image as the readers will be able to relate to the artists. I didn’t want to have too much text as it would look boring and overwhelm my readers. I have used the same colour scheme to provide brand identity and the page numbers include the magazine name. The fonts styles are recognisable as they are the same ones that have been used previously in other pages of my magazine. I have laid the text out in columns to make it easier for the reader. Also it has been separated into paragraphs with quoted from the article in a different colour. Using the circle box out technique have I used this to show the reader that this is an exclusive page in the magazine, which will make it more interesting for them to read. When writing the article I kept in mind that it should be easy to read and in colloquial form so that it is simple for the target audience to read.

FINAL MAGAZINE

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

FINAL MAGAZINE

CONTENTS PAGE

FINAL MAGAZINE

FRONT PAGE

Magazine Pages Developments

FRONT PAGE

CONTENTS PAGE

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

Masthead Developments

I did many edits to my masthead to make it correct for the final edition of my music magazine, these are my devlopment stages:

I chose to name my magazine PLAY and decided to use block lettering because it will stand out from the rest of the page. This is only Times New Roman font which I will change for the final piece.

The font I used here is Weathered SF I thought this was an effective font style because it gave a torn looked which I thought was good for the music genre the magazine is based on.

Using an online website called http://www.urbanfonts.com/ I found this font which I thought looked really unique and different from other music magazine mastheads. I really like the dotted effect and think it would look great for my final magazine.

To make the masthead look more individual and creative I decided to create a dotted play logo to insert on top of the 'a' of the masthead. So using the software Paint I added white dots to a black triangle.

This is how it looked when I put the parts together.

I decided to make the background of the masthead black and put a white filled box around the play logo, I was happy with this masthead as I believe it looks effective and will stand out from other magazines.

Questionnaire Response

This is the response to my survey from my target audience.

Questionnaire

Using an online website called http://www.surveymonkey.com/ I created a questionnaire to collect responses from my target audience for my music magazine. Below is the questionnaire that I created.

Edited Images

I edited a few of the images that will be included in the final music magazine to make the images more suitable and fit the magazine. All these images have been edited using Serif Photo Plus. The images have been added below, I explained what I did to the particular image and why I did this.

This image of the band members of Fusion, originally had a background which was quite random and irrelevant to the music magazine. This is why I made the background of this image plain white, this way the image could be easily put anywhere in any on magazine pages and it gave the image a simple look which is what the upcoming band are portraying.

The image above originally had two people in the shot however I edited the image so that there was only a solo music artist, this image I think is really good for the contents page. I changed the background so that it looks like the artist is actually performing, with the mixed coloured lights which I thought made the image look very effective and fits the music magazine.

The band were initially sitting on a window sill however this wasn't very musical so I edited the image so that the duo were sitting on a piano which linked more to the magazine. The background of the image is white which I may change when actually using the image in the magazine, I think I may change it to a bluey/purplely colour to may it look more exciting and different.

The edits I made on this picture is the headphones the solo artist is wearing. The person didn't look very musical so this is why I edited headphones into the picture and I made a graphite/stony effect also to give the image an edgy look to it.

I am going to use this image on the double page spread article, which is based on this duo. I changed the hair colour of the artists and their makeup to make it look more relevant to portray the music that they play. The background is white because I want the particular page also to be white so the duo will look like they are almost floating on the page.

Unedited Images

I have chosen some images that I would like to include in my final edition of my magazine, I have added these images below unedited and I will post these images again but after I have edited them for the music magazine.

Draft of Magazine Pages

Using Serif Page Plus I made drafts of the magazine pages that I will be producing, I added improvements to the sketches I made earlier to make the pages more effective.

Front Page Draft

Contents Page Draft

Double Page Spread Draft

Sketch of Magazine Pages

I made some rough sketches of the magazine pages, I made sketches of the front cover, contents page and double page spread. These pages have been annotated and I have scanned them in.

This is the magazine front cover sketch

This is the magazine Contents Page sketch

This is the magazine Double Page Spread sketch

Cover Story Article

This is my cover story article which will be featured in the double page spread, it is only a short first draft which will be edited for the final edition of the music magazine.

Introducing the new duo fusion the upcoming duos fun and excitement burst through in the entertaining photoshoot we had with the girls. Play will be the first magazine to feature this pairs first personal amusing interview. Everyone in the studio were immediately hooked by the mixture of bounce and electrifying vibe they both gave.

Paige and Hannah are just average school girls who do the normal stuff you know go out and have a laugh but their life turned around when they were offered to get signed. "Its crazy one day youre playing for your mates next day you get a chance to perform to thousands". Theyve only played at small gigs and partys in their hometown "we love the buzz before gigs the excitement is actually insane we spend ages afterwards just running around!"

From a young age fusion have been around music. Hannah comes from a musical family. Her mother is a well known pop music writer so its no surprise Hannahs so into this industry. The girls write their own music their upcoming single bistro will be available very soon. Paiges nan was their biggest inspiration nan always said to us "sometimes its better losing doing the right thing than winning doing the wrong thing" said Paige "thats why despite the risk of failing as musicians we'll never have the regret of not trying and doing something we love.

Featured Artists

For my music magazine I will be featuring particular artists, both existing and upcoming artists. In order to feature these artists in the magazine I held a photo shoot, I also took my own pictures at particular gigs because my questionnaire results showed great popularity in live images. For the posed images I chose locations that were casual and musical like music studios/rooms to give a natural feel. It will give the images free feeling just like the particular music genre the magazine is based on.

I have added a few images into a collage which I took during the photo shoot, some of which will be included in my music magazine. I will edit most of these images so that they fit to the magazine scheme and are more suitable.



I decided to invent music artists which would be featured in the cover stories, this is because this way I could make the genre and artist suitable for the magazine. It would have been a little difficult to feature existing artists as I don’t know any real music artists, personally therefore it would have been hard to find someone to interview and take pictures of. Therefore I decided to invent an artist and would be able to photograph the artist in the way I wanted him/her to be portrayed. As I created the cover story some challenges that I faced included the type of language I wanted to use for the article, I wanted the text to be a colloquial form as this is the form of language that is usually used in typical music magazines. However I found it difficult to make the text informal and chatty although I think my final article was successful and is appropriate for the particular chosen target audience.

Magazine Editorial Presentation

We presented this magazine editorial presentation to our class so that we could receive some feedback on our ideas and critical criticism for the music magazine.

Editorial presentation

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Target Audience

• To make our magazine stand out from others we are going use a bright colour scheme to attract readers, different fonts to add interest and a relaxed layout to not overwhelm the readers.
• As we have chosen a range of music genres, we will be able to add a lot of information in the magazine.
• Whereas if we only had one particular genre it may have been quite repetitive and boring.
• We are going to use a mixture of posed, backstage and live images which will be appealing and will give a variety for the readers, because from the response we received from the questionnaire we didn’t receive one particular preference.

How Music Fits Their Lives

• Our ideology for our magazine is to provide a variety of different types of music to appeal to our audience.
• To do this we made a questionnaire to help us find out what they are looking for in a magazine.
• This enables us to be more direct to the readers and receive their input and responses.

Ideology

• Music fits into their lives because everyone talks about music and it is played in most places.
• Now that technology has become more advanced, music is more accessible and a lot of people use music.
• A lot of people have Ipods, MP3s or phones which stores music.
• Music is used in a lot of media for example music magazines are promoting new bands and upcoming artists.

How The Magazine Will Stand Out

• The target audience for our magazine is 16-24 year old's and for a mixed gender. We found out that pop, indie and alternative were the most popular genres of music that our readers listened to.
• Most magazines target a much older market for example Q magazine, so we thought we would be more successful targeting a younger market.
• We can relate to the target audience because we are at the particular age group, therefore we will have similar interest.

Final School Magazine

This is our final school magazine, we kept in mind the feedback and suggestions we recieved from the class and thought this final outcome would be right for our particular target audience.

Music Magazine Research

Researching magazines

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Magazine Front Cover Developments

These are the developments we went through as we created our magazine front cover. We made changes in many different areas keeping in mind the feedback received from the class. The first sample image is the cover we produced and got feedback from and the last image is our present production sample, which we may add some tweaks to.

Class Feedback

We asked the class for some feedback on our magazine cover so that we could make it right for the particular target audience stated in the brief. This is outlined in the presentation below;

Class feedback

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Original Ideas and Changes

After roughly creating the front page of the school magazine, using Serif PagePlus 11. I analysed the page and added the changes I would make to the original ideas to make the final page better.

Contents Page Final

This is my final contents page, although I may add a few changes depending on the feedback I receive and if I feel I could make the page better. Although I think this page, overall has interesting features and a good layout.

Images

We took pictures for the image on the front cover of the magazine, we took a variety of images so that we have more choices when choosing the final image.
The image is of a student from the school and there will be an article related to this student and image. The images are a mix of direct and indirect shots.
According to the preliminary task brief, the image for the front cover needs to be medium close up. Therefore we would have to edit the images to match the brief.

Contents Electronic Page Draft

Using the sofware of Serif PagePlus 11, I created a computerised draft of the contents page. As you can see I stuck to the first paper based draft which I posted earlier. The fonts that I chose to use were Bradley Hand ITC for the main heading and Century Gothic for the other text in the page. I think the fonts that I chose to use are good because it makes the text look interesting and clear, its looks hand written making it more casual. I havent chosen the images and advertisement yet but it will have to be something suitable for the particular target audience and related to the articles in the magazine.

Contents Page Draft

This is my first draft of the contents page:

First Magazine Ideas

Magazine ideas presentation

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Possible images and text

I have thought about possible images and text that could be added to the school magazine also about the target audience, layout and design. I have added these in breif and will be writing about them in more detail :

• Target Audience

The magazine will be for an all girls secondary school, so from the age of 11-18 years old.

• Masthead

The masthead will be a bold, girly font maybe in higher case keys so the mastehead stands out from the rest of the page. But as they are at a secondary school I wouldnt use a pink font as it would be too girly, I would maybe use a purple or a red font as it would make the masthead stand out and these colours are good for the market.

• Text

The text should be colloquial laughing, text that is chatty and informal. This means that the readers will be able to understand the text as it communicating in their form. It will suit the needs of a mass audience, if the text was formal it would only attract a niche audience maybe of the parents and tutors however the brief states the school magazine is targeted at the students.

• Images

As the magazine is about the school the images will have to be relevant and related to the school. The images should be of pupils from the school as it would attract the market successfully. The main image on the front cover could be of someone whos age you cannot tell therefore it will not only appy to a particular age group.

• Topics

The magazine could have topics based on the school and the subjects, it could also include social life activities. There could be information on outdoor and leisure activities for the readers, news about new changes about the school or genaral information.