Evaluation

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

My media product challenges forms and conventions of real media products as it is very busy compared to most music magazines. Looking at the front cover the reader would presume that it is a magazine only directed at a certain age group, but no, this magazine could be read fondly by a range of age group, that all share the love for this genre of music. My magazine challenges media product by giving lots of information, giving most things away, but yet keep the reader in suspense. Most magazines give only one liner as sell lines to intrigue the audience. I developed my magazine by using Photoshop which is commonly used in the magazine making industry at the moment; I used this and go used to it as a tool to create my magazine.

My magazine also holds ideas of real media institutions. On the front cover, I have used a bright, eye catching image of four rather good looking musicians to sell my magazine. In the industry they would do this a lot to entice the reader; to buy and read and then buy again. The use of sell lines, barcodes and layout also make it look as authentic as possible. The use of my colour scheme throughout my magazine shows coherency and follows the conventions of a magazine. The use of the CD available with every copy, follows these forms and conventions too as many music magazines these days do this to attract the reader and wider target audience. It also makes the magazine look more professional.

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

My media product represents a particular social group of 14-30 yea. The image on the front with the band of a certain genre and social class represent the magazine, what is in it and the coherency of it? The genre of this kind of music is commonly liked among the youth of this generation and especially in London, Camden where youth have grown up with this kind of genre of music and are accessible to gigs all around them in the Camden area or around London. A magazine that attracts such a wide age range is hard to do, but will work with the genre of music around today.

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

My music magazine would be distributed around London, in newsagents and shops, also bookshops and music shops to attract the full audience. IPC media is one of the United Kingdoms leading consumer magazine and digital publishers. It was created in 1963 as International Publishing Company. They publish over 80 different magazines that are of various genres at attract all audiences. They publish NME music magazine which is the most similar to my music magazine; therefore making them a possibility for publishing my music magazine. As they specialise in different genres of music this would also be ideal as my magazine covers two main genres. It is alsoconvenient as it is based in the United Kingdom therefore easily assessable.

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

The target audience for my music magazine would be aimed at teenagers or young adults who are into the more indie/rock and roll style music of today’s generation. This magazine can be directed at both boys and girls, but primarily attack a more masculine feel to it. The boys, in the band, on the front of my magazine would attract males who think about being musicians and also girls who would be attracted to them and their look. The reader profile I aimed for was a boy aged 16, like indie music like ‘The Libertines’ and ‘The Maccabees’ who would appreciate band members being able to play their instruments well. They would also be a frequent gig goer, who enjoys music and studies bands and up and coming bands.

I have made my magazine quite cheap for what it is, so that the audience at this age will be able to buy it. I also included the CD, which attracts this age group as this generation listen t CDs and put them on their “Ipods” now to listen to the music all the time. The attraction through my unique selling point of the band on the front cover is important as they attract different sex as well. The colour scheme would also attract different people from different genres.

With inspiration from other music magazines such as MOJO and NME, I have developed a piece that will attract this primary audience in all areas of it. The questionnaire that I took around students my age at school also helped identify what age group is buying or listening to what?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

There were many techniques that I used to try and attract and address my audience: I used bright colours to attract the audience for if the magazine was on the stalls, their eyes would wonder over all the magazines and be attracted by this one. I also used large bold writing of everything on my front cover to attract the audience. I used a catchy, short title of my magazine, ‘Play.’ to make it simple and easy to remember from the audience. The use of the band members on the front also helped, as it displayed a well took photograph of bright colours to attract the audience, and the band may either be well known or might entice someone to read more about them. The band is also roughly the same age as my target audience so that the reader could relate to them and show that anyone at any age could achieve their dreams.

The sell lines on my magazine would attract my audience as they promise bands of the same genre, gig line ups which would be useful to audience who listen and enjoy going to gigs. They would also be attracted by the free CD given away with each issue, so they can have their own opinions, and the latest gossip around.

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

I used a digital camera to develop my image of the band and all the images used inside, I put them through a memory stick straight onto the computer to edit and correspond with my colour scheme and layout. To edit them I used Adobe Photoshop, I find this very hard to do as I have not had much knowledge of it, but with some practise while making my magazine, I have got the hang of the simple ways of editing to still make it an effective piece that would look professional to the target audience.

Using ‘stroke’ on Photoshop, I was able to develop fonts and shadowing, dimension and colour, this gave my piece much more depth and made it look like a real magazine as it looked very professional. I also learnt to ‘duplicate’ items and images so that I didn’t have too do it all over again and that I could use the same font and structure of the title more than once. This was done using ‘layers’ in Photoshop. Using the skills I had learnt from making the front cover of my first magazine, I was able to make my own barcode according to the magazine and generally just develop and become better at using Photoshop to create my magazine, front cover, contents and feature. Sometimes I found it harder to do something, but I was determined to do it alone, so without asking anyone I would use the training videos that they have for Photoshop on ‘Youtube’ this helped a lot to control my ability on Photoshop.