Evaluation

1) In what way does your media product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (I.e. music magazines)

My media product initially was an idea from a vintage magazine called Creem. From handing in my draft, I changed the entire look and style of my magazine to something to that of more Mojo, NME and simple covered magazines with indie genre. through looking at these types of magazines I picked up several elements from them to expand on within my own magazine. Things such as headings, contents page layouts and general structures of the magazine 

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

My Music Magazine represents particular social groups. It does this due to its significant grab to the audience I wanted it too. By using fonts, colours, themes, models and music genre I created a magazine to grab the attention of the young, male and female, indie/rock/punk lovers. The colour schemes I used were bland, stuck out and are a well-known and often used set of colours on a few music magazines such as NME, Mojo and Q magazine.

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

For my magazine, it does have a price on the cover of it. This means that it would be sold in shops. Places that may distribute it could be HMV, W H Smith and other magazine/book shops. The internet could also distribute my magazine, as it could advertise it on the website, or on other social-networking sites such as facebook, twitter, myspace, youtube etc.

4) Who would be the audience of your media product?

The audience of my media product as I have previously mentioned, are those of young age, from around 16 years old to ages of about 25-30. I have also aimed my magazine at both male and female, the colour scheme chosen does not represent a certain sex. It appeals to both sexes, and I also made my magazine with audience in mind that have a love and passion for rock/indie/punk music. For my draft, my initial idea for the RAPTURE magazine was to have vintage as a main theme. So, for example the music I was using and the artists I had in mind were those just from the 60's and 70's. E.g. Blondie, Fleetwood Mac etc. The music included in my final magazine is not just modern music, I have still brought small amount of vintage into my magazine by using some bands and artists that have been around for many years.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to attract and address my audience I have used some certain techniques within the design process of my magazine task. Obviously, picking out a colour scheme is a huge part of a magazines personality. As I’ve said before, the colour scheme I used is simplistic and is used on many music magazines already. I used the colours red, black white with the occasional gold splash throughout the magazine to bring a little more colour into it. I believe this grabs the attention of my audience readers as it is bold and easy to read. Another tactic I used to attract and address was to use certain fonts that were outstandingly bold and that went well with the genre of magazine. My magazine cover is quite simple and minimalistic; I therefore used a simple bold, yet powerful structured text and font type. To also attract my audience I used bands and artists on the contents and front cover to pull them into the magazine. I used well known bands such as Ben Howard, Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, The Vaccines and Bon Iver. Instantly from reading these, the audience would be lured into my magazine to read more onto the bands that they enjoy listening too.

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

From the process of creating my music magazine I have learnt a lot of skills when using Adobe Photoshop. I have also learnt to use various editing websites, animoto, using cameras, and photography equipment in the photography studio. Before I began creating my magazine I had a basic knowledge of these, but now I have completed the magazine and I look back on what I have learnt in the process, I have learnt an exquisite amount of skills. I can now take a lot more photos that look more professional, transfer them onto a computer and then begin editing on Photoshop. I can use various tools on Photoshop to fix images I have taken to the exact standard I want them to be. I can put together a magazine using Photoshop, and add in my own fonts, images, colours and logo’s to make it my own.

7) Looking back at your preliminary task (The continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary task, I was a beginner at using magazine making software and cameras etc. I was also a beginner at how to start thinking about designing a magazine to look professional, structuring pages to look neat and tidy and how to make my magazine appeal to my audience. Although my preliminary was not a huge failure, it has taught me a lot to get where I got to today with my final RAPTURE magazine. I have learnt to take control of my time in order to spend specific time guidelines on certain tasks that need more attention.