Evaluation

1/ In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the form and conventions of real media products representing a particular social group?

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

My magazine represents young, female, teenagers by using music artists and colour schemes that appeal to them.

3/ What kinds of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I would want IPC Media to publish my magazine because they have a lot of experience as they have published many magazines including Marie Claire and NME. They don't however have a music magazine for young females so it is a niche in the market for this publisher.

4/ Who would be the audience for you media product?

My target audience is young, female, teenagers who enjoy music and knowing about their favourite artists.

5/ How did you attract/ address your audience?

I used a model at the same age and attractive that my audience can relate to easily. The picture was specifically taken to look fun and interesting and I used informal language so it feels more personal to the reader. It has bright colours that would attract a younger audience and the poster pictures look stuck on like a scrapbook again making it more personal.

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

I used photoshop a lot to get rid of any blemishes on the model and changing backgrounds. I also had an accident with the lollipop and it snapped. I had to selotape it together then blur the crack on photoshop. I also have learnt how to use Blogger and been able to upload pictures and edit posts.

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

When I look back at my preliminary task I feel my knowledge has increased considerably. My IT skills have advanced with photoshop, Blogger and publisher. I have gained insight into the process of developing a media product. I now have better understanding on this aspect and how much planning and construction it actually takes.  

My Work Plan

Final Piece

My result from the questionnaire gave a wide variety of colours people liked so I decided to go with the prime colours blue, red and yellow. I had a photoshoot with my model and I dressed her in black and white check so she wasn't wearing something boring but still fit into the theme. I chose my model on 3 aspects; hair colour, facial features and smile. This is because I wanted my model to have a hair colour that went well with the colour scheme(bright pink for example wouldn't have worked) I wanted them to have interesting but attractive features because I want her to catch the audiences attention, my model has a strong jaw line and big brown eyes.  I then wanted them to have a good teeth as they were going to be showing them while biting on a lollipop. I couldn't have wonky yellow teeth as they wouldn't look as good once I had edited them. I wanted my model to have long hair and so I asked her to wear hair extensions. This is because I wanted to connote an expensive magazine and long, well looked after hair shows that message. I wanted the magazine to look fun and interesting so I bought a big lollipop and asked my model to bite it and I took a lot of shots of this, it connotes fun and young which every girl could look up to. I have observed many other magazines advertising free posters in the magazine as to entice more people to buy it. I found this a good idea and decided to include it. I also found I had a lot of good shots which I wanted to use. I wanted to put a competition on it as I found all the magazines I studied had one in it as well. I specifically did her make up to match her clothing as i wanted her to look well dressed and made up. I wanted my front cover to have a close up shot but I tried all sorts of shots and angles, including cantered, to give me a variety. All the subtitles are in a different font because I wanted them all to look different and therefore give an impression you get a lot for your money. I learned this from my preliminary task. I always wanted my model to be interacting with my title so we tried a couple different ideas and then I decided that making an 'o' with a thumb and forefinger worked best.  

My contents page I wanted to tone down what is happening as I wanted it easy to read and understand. I wanted to carry on the theme of sweets as it connotes fun and young like I said in my analysis of my front cover. I wanted something that connotes expensive and new. This made me choose bubbles as they are round and shiny but still connote the fun, young feel. I wanted to stick to the colours I had introduced on the front cover so it was obvious they were from the same magazine. I wanted to again make the background interact with the edited work so I put the information in the bubbles to show the connection. I wanted the contents to be personal to the reader so in the editors letter I wrote informal using phases 'for you' and 'hello lovely readers'. I ended it with 'Love Tegan Xx'. This I hope would make the readers more loyal to the magazine. When I deconstructed other magazines there where a sense of urgency to let the reader know everything. I didn't like this approach so i decided that i would attract my audience with giving the littlest amount of information as possible so the want to find out more. This made me design the contents as a relaxed style page. 

My double page spread I wanted to be really wild with the pictures and make them all abit different. My inspiration for this design was the X Factor magazine doulble page spread and I really enjoyed the layout and wanted to include a similar one in my own work. The colour scheme is similar to the front cover how ever the yellow is much more vibrant to attract people to the writing inside it. 

Planning

This is a very unsymmetrical layout but it is different and could attract an audience. On the hand it might discourage an audience as it is new and different and doesn't look like an average magazine cover, that might make people not treat it as a magazine because it doesn't look like one.

This is one of my ideas for my magazine front cover as it is fairly standard of a magazine cover but looks very professional and official. A disadvantage is it's like a lot of the other magazines which would be it's competition and wouldn't make it stand out.

I have decided to call my magazine note because i wanted my model to interact with my title and it looks better with note than tune. This is a sketch of what i am planning on doing. The 'o' is made by the model's thumb and forefinger.

The two names I have considered for my Magazine are 'Note' and 'Tune'. This is because they both are associated with music and so my audience will know instantly what my magazine is about.  

X Factor Magazine Deconstruction



The front cover has bright colours to draw the audience in and the x factor logo will catch X factor fans attention and increase loyalty. It has three big pictures of contestants on the music show. It connotes three big, interesting stories about the celebrities. It has big bold writing with an average font which is easy to read. The page is packed with information which makes it look worth the money. It has an advert above the celebrity pictures with a girl looking down at them. This connotes that this is what the celebrities have and it's good quality.. Everything on the page looks slanted like it's been stuck on as a diary or a scrapbook and the none symmetrical layout makes the stories look different from each other and making it look worth the money. It has four main colours, pink, yellow, blue and white. Then the X Factor logo in red. All the bright colours are quite feminine and so I think the target audience is for women who watch X Factor. There are three words at the top of the magazine which would interest the public ‘Music, Stars, Style’. It has personal writing on it like ‘New denim looks that suit YOU’ this makes the audience feel more addressed. This makes it more personal to the reader. Magazines like this are known for not always being truthful so '100% Official' has been stamped on to make the reader feel the magazine is more trustworthyand have more authority. It also has titles for the pictures which match each other well. For example Cher Lloyd's 'Weekend Meltdown' she looks in the picture fairly fragile and unhappy. Matt Cardle isn't looking too happy next to his 'Backstage Fury' and Kate Waissel is looking fairly 'Desperate'. The stories make the reader want to read them as they give just enough information to get you interested, 'House Of Pain'.

The contents doesnt have nearly the same amount of colour as the front cover but it has the X Factor logo again and a short message from the Editor. 'Hello!' in big blue writing makes the magazine look friendly and the page numbers are more organised and have colour coded sub headings.It still has the slanted layout of the pictures and writing. so it matches the front cover. It has a big picture of what was a small picture on the front page so this makes it look like all the little pictures and stories on the front cover are actually big stories. All the writing is now in the same font and again makes it look more organised. The bottom of the page has the all the contestants that have left and still going which would be useful for someone who might of missed the that week's show. This would make the magazine look helpful and up to date which could influence you to by the buy the magazine. The page numbers aren't in order and are only pointing out the special features in this issue. This would be to cut down amount of space it takes up and would make the person flip through and see the advertisments on pages not put on the contents page. That would make it less likely that people  would skip passed them knowing they don't want to look at them. They have another three pictures which are new so they look like even more reading material stuffed in the magazine. 

 

The double page spread has one big picture on the first page of Joe McElderry the last X Factor winner. This would aware the reader what this story is about and below with the bold, unbold writing as a standard interview layout. A little joke 'Actual Size' would make the reader smile and make them enjoy reading the magazine. The picture takes up half the page so it doesn't look daunting to read as there isn't that much writing. The picture is of him filming his music video instead of a snapshot from his new video so it looks more exclusive. The picture and title again is slanted like the front cover and contents. This is a particular theme through the magazine. The colours aren't as bright as the front cover or contents with only a few spashes of yellow and the rest is black, excluding the colours in the photos. I think they did this to make it easier on the reader's eyes when reading this much. The page is fairly simple and maybe they did this because the writing is very interesting and doesn't need brightening up. The second page of the double page spread has much more medium close up shot of Joe McElderry. They all are from his music video and he is looking quite attractive in them. This again makes me think the target audience is for women. There is little writing on this page, a box with 'Five other things we learnt in our chat with Joe'. This would be quick and easy to read if you were in a hurry and couldn't read the whole interview. 

Kerrang Magazine deconstruction

This front cover has a theme of yellow and black on it. The picture has a band with plain black t shirts that continue the theme. It connotes that the magazine has had a lot of planning and work put into it as it all matches. The layout is very unsymmetrical as most of the information is on the left side. There are lots of pictures that suggests the magazine has a lot of information in it. I think the magazine wants to look harsh as it uses bright colours, phrases  like 'prepare for battle' and 'living dangerously', and the title looks like smashed glass. This makes me think it is for an audience that prefers punk, rock and heavy metal. What also would give this impression is the bands they have pictures of as all of them do rock music. Having red, bold words like 'exclusive' would entice an audience because they would think that not many other people will know the information that is inside the magazine. I feel this a good idea and a possiblity to put on my front cover. The free posters and stickers would attract an audience, especially if there was a poster of their favourite artist or band. It also says free twice in bold writing which could subliminally make the audience feel the magazine is cheap. Big writing in the middle of the page of the main story, this will connote that the story has more information as it is bigger than the rest subtitles.Most of the subtitles are different fonts and different sizes. I want to do this for my magazine because it makes the tories look more differrent from each other again more information in the magazine.   

The contents looks abit more organised but there is still a lot going on and you don't really know what to look at. I do not want this feeling for my contents page. It has the 'Kerrang' title again to increase loyalty and a big picture at the top to look like another big story like the front page. It has an editors letter which I like the idea of and apart from that bit it doesn't look like a lot of writing, so somebody in a rush can look down the contents page quickly and decide what they want to read. I like the slanted pictures in the top right as it looks again like out of a scrapbook and that makes it more personal. It already has an advert at the bottom right and from my questionnaire I did, more people liked advertisement than not so that could be helpful towards getting customers. It also is an advert for the magazine and so this again is encouraging loyalty to the magazine. The information is organised into subtitles which would help the reader find what they are looking for if they were looking for a certain story or page. It would make the magazine look helpful to the reader.

Questionnaire results

I asked 15 people what their 3 favourite colours were and these were the results. 

The colours blue and pink scored the highest but red, white, yellow and green scored fairly high as well.

I asked 15 people if they would prefer a snapshot of a famous artist in their music video or styled up especially for a photo shoot.



Most people decided they would rather see a music magazine with a famous person in a photoshoot rather than a snapshot from their music video. I think I am going to have my model in a photoshoot.

I asked 15 people out of these five front covers which appeals to you the most and these were the results. 

Rolling Stones and Miss Behave both got chosen 6 times. They were both the most colourful choices and therefore I want my magazince to be a colourful choice as well.

I asked 15 people if they would prefer a magazine in detail of their favourite genre or a more general magazine on all the genres.

More people wanted a general magazine. I noticed that the more trouble the person had with the question before 'What's your favourite genre?' tended to want a general magazine but the people that found it easy to answer that question wanted a detailed magazine on that genre.