Magazine Evaluation

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

Some of the ways that my media product uses some forms and conventions of a real media product are visible on the front cover of my work. The front cover that I had made has tried to suit the mainstream way in which top range rock magazines today are produced, such as the way in which the text is laid out on the front page, this is a common theme among rock magazines. Some of the fonts that I used on the front of my media product are there to suit the style of what the word itself spells, such as the Title Amp-lified is in a waved style of writing that’s smooth, this is semiotic of the waves of an amp and is fitting because it’s suited to the target audience who are interested in music, the words Amp-lified is a play on words as amps are used by guitars.

I had the title black and on a black background as it helps to catch the eye of anyone who may walk past the product, this helps to get the magazine noticed. I also put the Free 2 months subscription sticker on the front cover, as I noticed whilst doing research into a lot of top magazines such as Kerrang! And Rolling stones magazine also included products and offers on the front page, so to add authenticity I added a sticker to the front of my magazine.

After the texts and fonts I had to decide on a cover picture for my front page, for this I decided to go with a model playing a guitar, so that it would make it fairly obvious that it was a music magazine, and I decided that I would saturate the image back to black and white, as it added more of a professional feel to the front cover, this made the front cover look much better as a product.

Also in my Double Page Spread I was able to make the writing bend around a photo based in the middle of the page of my guitarist as a colour outline playing guitar, as this centres the attention onto the artist, who even though isn’t viewable by features, is still able to be identified as being the guitarist on the main cover, and this adds a really rock feel to it as he’s playing guitar, also I had the font change colour throughout the interview so that whenever the model is answering his interview questions it was easy to distinguish that it is him talking, and allows fans who would want to read the main interview part of the article to be able to just read that part.

My Contents page I feel follows a very rock feel to the magazine, as it contains a slightly faded image of a guitar that spans the whole of the back page, yet doesn’t obstruct the writing on the page so that you’re still able to easily read what’s on each of the pages, as it all fits in together very well, it gives a very clear idea that the magazines a mainly rock and guitar Magazine, this is also accompanied by the faded out Amp, which helps to give the image to the reader that the magazines completely music orientated, if they hadn’t got that yet, also that because the music’s the only visible image on the page, that the only thing in the magazine would be Music.

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

My product helps to represent a particular social group because the model that I chose to use is 18 years old, this helps to give the representation that the magazine is based for a younger generation. The use of the model I used is a plane model playing his guitar, completely focused on playing his guitar, and not giving the old stereotype that all rock and roll stars are into sex, drugs, & Rock and roll, and to help build a much more positive opinion of the younger generation. And for those who do fall to drugs it shows that it’s possible to get help and get off any drugs, and that drugs don’t have to be the answer to stress, as it shows a member of the band who did turn to drugs, but was able to go to rehab and completely turn his life around with help, this also helps to build a good image that the younger people would be willing to stop their life from going down hill, and to instil some hope in their life’s, building a good image of the band, and younger generations.

My magazine would be aimed at middle class, to lower middle class families, as the artists that I have on the magazine don’t look all glammed up Hollywood rock and roll party goers, they come across as 2 normal people, who enjoy to play their instruments, this is so that people are more likely to be able to relate to the artists, and can be able to read about people who could be more around their age group, so this should increase people from this age group who would be willing to buy and read the magazine.

And because a lot of these semiotics, it’s very important that the decoders who would be buying the magazines, are able to see this magazine on a shop shelf and take interest with the magazine above the other magazines that could be displayed, this would help them to be able to find a greater interest in the magazine, and could help them to decide that it would be the best choice for them to get. Being the Encoder of the magazine, I had to have my own idea of what the target audience that I would want it to be aimed at would look like, and what I would think that they would want to see, so I couldn’t have semiotics like Fender guitars and top of the line cloths and gorgeous models, so I chose the pictures that I used from a bunch of pictures that I was supplied with so that It would show the semiotics that I needed it too.

I feel that I was able to send a very good message through the semiotics, this is shown in most of the pictures, from the front page, where the artist is sitting next to his Amp, playing on his guitar, the image is very basic, and he’s not surrounded by loads of expensive products and expensive guitars, and the other picture on the front page shows a very plane faced ‘Chris’ on his way to recovery from drugs, this shows that they’re normal people, who are just as able to come off the ‘right tracks’ and are able to pick themselves back up and get right back on with their lives, showing they’re normal people, just like everyone els.

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

For my Media product, I believe that it would be sold in supermarkets and small franchises, such as one stop, or premier. This is because of the target audience that I had originally imagined, my target audience was younger people, both male and female between the ages of 16-25, and because of this age range, supermarkets and franchise stores are the most common places that people of this age are likely to visit regularly, which would then make it possible for them to be able to buy the magazine frequently, and also be more likely that more people might see the magazine and purchase it, such as parents looking for something for their children etc. Supermarkets and franchise stores are also good for distribution because people will frequently visit these stores for grocery shopping or drinks, this means that a lot of people are going to pass through the shops, increasing chances of being noticed much more than if it was sold in a book shop or a library, so I feel it would be the most appropriate place for the distribution of the magazine.

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

The Magazine that I created was aimed mainly towards younger males, who were either musicians, or were interested/enjoyed Rock music, however it could also be for females who enjoy the music, as the magazine would be for just lovers of the rock genre. The audience that I imagined would be between the ages 16-25, so that they could still be in education/university, or working, and would be a keen music enthusiast, this would help to make for the ideal target audience, as I can slightly relate to my imaginary entity, this allows me to be able to give a fairly good idea on what I would want the magazine to look like and be able to catch the eye and draw in the ideal audience that I would want to read my magazine.

Whilst I was trying to get information from people so that I could further expand my ideas and experience with the magazine, I handed out a few questionnaires, so that I could later use them as a reference when I was later on through designing the magazine, to see if there was anything that I thought should be changed on the covers etc, the Questionnaires helped me to create a ‘Lifestyle profile’ for my imaginary entity, and to further form a vision of what I thought the person would like.

Through the use of this ‘lifestyle profile’  I was then able to be able change some of my ideas that I had thought would be good originally, and later decided that it wouldn’t be the best of ideas,  one example of this is changing the picture to greyscale, as I felt that based on the feedback that I had received from my questionnaires I decided that I would put the image in greyscale, because it could add more of a rock theme to the magazine, this gave the front cover a different feel when you looked at it, a much more rock feel, with a rougher touch at the end.

I got the feeling that the questionnaire that I had to hand out was vastly successful, it allowed me to be able to make some changes to my magazine for the better that without taking the questionnaire, I wouldn’t  of been able to make, as I ended up completely changing my front cover, and being able to improve it so much more than what it was at, when I decided to start again.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

When I started to design my media product, being the encoder I had to have an idea of some of the characteristics that I would want my audience to have, and from these characteristic’s I was then able to form an imaginary entity. From this imaginary entity, I was able to start working my ideas into a magazine that I thought my imaginary entity would like, as my imaginary entity was the exact idea of what my target audience were, I was then able to start to decide how I could use different semiotics to then catch the eye of my target audience, and from the questionnaire that I had handed out I was able to use that feedback to be able to start improving all of my ideas, and improving them around all the feedback and my target audience, this way I could start to make a magazine that would attract the attention of people similar to my imaginary entity, with roughly the same income and same interests. When it comes to the front cover of the magazine, I chose to have 2 pictures, one main picture that showed who my main focus of the magazine would based around, the artist I used was a friend of mine, so I could get the artist to look how I would want him too, so I chose to have him dressed in simple cloths, and using a not so expensive guitar, the reasons for this are because I wanted the magazine to be based around a middle class to lower middle class audience, with a mid to low range income, and this helped to paint that image for my audience as he’s dressed in every day cloths, and is just enjoying playing on his guitar, like any regular musician would, this helped to give a more authentic feel, and the greyscale that was used in the picture helps to paint the image that not everything in the world is perfect.

On the contents page, I used 2 images that I lowered the opacity of, so that they would blend easily into the background of the page. I did this so that it planted the thought in the persons head that the magazine was very music based, as the images are a guitar and Amp, because you view the contents page before any other part of the magazine interior, I thought that the semiotics of the images were acting as a buildup effect, that would get you ready for the main article, as the main article is always the main reason that people would usually buy a magazine, as it has something interesting to them that they would be willing to purchase to read about. The language that’s used throughout the magazine is found to be very casual/formal, as it has a lot of interviewing in the main article, however I don’t think that this is a bad thing because this then enables my target audience to feel more familiar with the language that’s used, as it’s based on ages 16-25.

When it comes to the interview section, I decided to change the color of the text for the artists response to some questions, this made it much easier for people to be able to distinguish between the interviewer and the interviewee, so that it was much easier to find the interviewing section of the article, compared to the lead up to it. And I decided to make the writing bend around the color scale picture of the artist, this is semiotic to show that he’s the center of attention around the interview, this helps to keep focus on who’s being interviewed in the magazine.

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

Throughout the creation of my media product, I’ve come across a few new programs which I have had some mixed feelings about.

The first of the new programs that I come across was called Corel Draw, Corel Draw is a common design tool among some companies, and is used a lot when editing magazines, it has many tools and options that allow for a great level of customization, and changing the appearance of the text, or the way the pictures are shaped. I first took an attempt at using Corel Draw to design and create my front cover, however I come across many problems when I was trying to design my front cover.

The first design of my front cover couldn’t wasn’t very clear and was a bit messy, in all the quality of the cover was low, and not worth keeping, as my grade showed at the time. So I was able to get some feedback from class mates, comments such as “Could be more focused on the main artist” And that the colors didn’t blend well. From this feedback I was reassured that Corel Draw wasn’t the software for me, as I lacked any skills in using it, and wasn’t very good at learning how to use the software. From the first draft I was sure that it had been a complete failure, as it wouldn’t encourage my target audience at all, and was very dull to look at.

After failing at using Corel Draw, I turned to a program I’m much more familiar with, Adobe Photoshop. I’ve had much more experience with Photoshop, and have been using it for a much longer time. I found creating the magazine on Adobe Photoshop much easier, this is because it’s specifically image editing software, and I already had all the images that I wanted to use throughout the magazines design at hand, and this enabled me to create a much higher quality media product with much more ease than using Corel Draw. I feel that Adobe Photoshop was much more appropriate for me to use as I had much more experience with it, and was able to do a lot more using Photoshop than I personally would have been able to with Corel Draw, and the feedback I received on my second piece of work was much better than what I had on my first.

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

Looking back over all the work I’ve done, I feel that I’ve vastly improved my ICT Skills with creating the new magazine compared to the preliminary task.

As you can see, there’s a vast difference in the quality of the products that I managed to produce. I managed to cut the amount of pictures that I had on the main cover down to 2, and the artist is the main focus of the main picture, I changed this by researching other famous magazines like Kerrang! And Rolling Stones, this makes the main person much more eye catching, and likely to catch the decoders attention if they were looking for a magazine, however the Preliminary task is aimed more at a secondary school, so the target audience for my primary task will inevitably be vastly different compared to my main task, as It would have to be much more colorful and able to be presented to people ages 11-18,

I have also come to notice that leaving any unnecessary white space on the front cover of a magazine can give off a very unprofessional feel, and seem very amateur, this is obvious to me from seeing my main task and my preliminary task, and is something I’ve been able to take on board and make sure I could improve my main task with, as my front cover of the Magazine has no unnecessary white space on it, and is filled with text and an image that contains all the lighter colors on itself, so the eyes are drawn to it, which removes attention from the background and focuses on the artist.

So from what I’ve been able to pick up from my preliminary task I’ve been able to  apply these tips to my main task, this has helped me to improve my products.

Through all of my work, I would say I had to rush my main product which has reduced the overall quality, and have learned that I need to take more time to do things for a higher standard, and also manage my time more efficiently.