This is my evaluation of my music magazine for the front cover, content page and double page spread, answering 7 questions.

1. Music Magazine Evaluation By Zoe Williams

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Front Cover My Main Image gives the audience a sense of what this person is like by the way she is dressed and also by the way she stands or moves like she is standing up leaning to her left with two fingers pointing up from her right hand to show peace which gives a sense that she is cool. This will appeal to the male audience. I positioned the image on the right side because the way the person is leaning, its like she is about to lean against the front cover or off the front cover, gives a bit of mystery to the image. My Masthead needed to stand out on the front cover so I decided to have a theme of stars to go with the name of the magazine. Also have yellow stars to make the magazine bright and people associate stars with the colour yellow. Also the plain black writing makes the stars in the text stand out. Also the black text stands out against the white background. Cover Lines are essential to the front cover because it will give an audience a feel on what the magazine includes. I have used three popular artists for my cover lines which in my readership profile, I have found are the most popular artists for my targeted audience. Also highlighting the names of the artists makes them stand out more against the white background. Using the colours blue and red match with the colour on the main image jacket and the secondary lead t-shirt. I decided to have a Secondary Lead on the front cover because I think it will interest the audience more so they know that there is another person in the magazine instead of just showing one person. Plus this will appeal to the female audience. Also having the image against a yellow star makes it stand out more. The sunglasses the guy is wearing in this image gives a sense of coolness and he is smiling which may seem as flirting for the female audience.

3. I also included a Banner on the front cover to give a feeling towards the audience about what the magazine is about which also connects to the name of the magazine. ‘Shooting Stars’ makes the magazine seem magical. I decided to have a Selling Line at the top of my magazine to give the audience a feel on what else to except from the magazine. I used yellow stars in front of each pop artist to keep with the theme of stars. Front Cover My Headline is basically the name of the person in the main image on the front cover. I used the same font style as the masthead but this time I left the stars white to stand out from the black in the text and also the main image and also I used a stroke effect around each letter in the headline to make it stand out from the main image. I chose yellow to match with colour theme of the stars. I decided to have an Exclusive story in my magazine to attract the audience but I didn’t want to have another female artist because it wouldn’t attract the female audience so I decided to have a male artist to attract the female audience. My Anchorage describes Joanna Jarvis as a good guitarist and is a goddess with can mean beauty or powerful. The font style keeps with the theme of stars which are yellow and the black text makes the stars stand out and the black text stands out from the main image. I needed to include a Bar Code on the front cover of my magazine so I found one and edited it by erasing some numbers and adding some new numbers. Also I included the Price of the magazine and also a Date for the issue of this magazine to make it like real magazines. I decided to include another image of Joanna Jarvis but in a different position than to the main image. It looks like she is crouched into a small space. I decided to have a yellow frame which will be at the bottom on each page to give some brightness to the white background.

4. Content Page My Masthead needed to stand out so I used the same font style like the masthead on the front cover with yellow stars. The yellow stars stand out from the black text and go with the theme of stars. I decided to have an image of Joanna to show the article on the content page. It is a different position from the two images on the front cover which shows a happy Joanna who looks like she is dancing or about to walk. Joanna is still wearing the same clothes as the images on the front cover. I needed to include the articles that were mentioned on the front cover onto the content page including the page numbers on where the articles are in the magazine. I decided to have an image of the new hottest male singer as well to go with the article mentioned on the content page. This time, he is wearing a different coloured t-shirt but he still has the sunglasses on which gives him a sense of coolness. The number next to the image represents the page number of the article about him. I decided to have another image of Joanna Jarvis on my content page but a different position from the one above on the content page like on the front cover. This image shows a funny side to Joanna. I decided to have an image of a musical instrument to go with the idea of Joanna being a guitarist.

5. I decided to have two yellow stars next to the masthead to keep with the theme of stars and plus it makes the black text stand out more between two bright yellow stars. Content Page I decided to have the content page seem like it is spilt up into three sections by placing a frame below the masthead separating it from on the cover articles. I chose the colour blue because it matches with the blue highlighted words on the front cover along with the colour of the male artist image on the front cover. I decided to have a section where the cover line, headline and exclusive story were mentioned on the front cover. I used the same font style as the cover lines. I decided to have a border around the text so I positioned the text on a white rectangle and used the stroke tool to give the rectangle a border and I chose yellow because it matches with the stars. ‘On The Cover’ main heading is popular in real magazines. I decided to have a section for other articles/ pages in the magazine which weren’t mentioned on the front cover. The main heading I chose was ‘This Week ‘which is popular in real magazine. I chose the same font style as the word ‘Exclusive’ on the front cover. I placed another frame below the on the cover articles to separate them from other articles in the magazine. I chose the colour red because it matches with the highlighted cover lines on the front cover along with the colour of Joanna’s jacket. I needed other pages for my magazine so I thought about what would be mentioned in real magazines and decided on pages like competition which are popular in real magazines. I chose a variety of different pages to give a different feel to each page for the audience. Since this is a magazine, I needed to include page numbers on pages for my music magazine like real magazines so the audience would know what page was where to find what they wanted to read like an article or find the competition. I again chose to place a yellow frame at the bottom to give some brightness to the white background.

6. I needed Joanna Jarvis’s name on the double page stand out so the audience knows that this is the interview with Joanna Jarvis so I used the same font style as the masthead on the front cover to stand out. The yellow stars stand out from the black text and the black text stands out from the white background. I decided to spilt up her first name from her second name to show something different plus it matches with the idea of the words exclusive and interview being spilt away from each other. Double Page Article I needed to state what type of article was on this double page even though it stays on the content page. I used the same style font as the cover lines on the front cover. I wanted to make this interview with Joanna Jarvis sound good to attract the audience so I decided to have the word ‘Exclusive’ on the double page to make it sound exciting and make the audience want to find out what is exclusive. I used the same style font as the word exclusive on the front cover. To keep with the theme of musical instruments, I decided to have an image of a guitar to match with Joanna being a guitarist and match the type of magazine this is. I positioned the guitar on the right page on the right side because that part of the interview mentions the anchorage on the front cover which is Goddess of Guitar which Joanna is being described as. I needed an image of Joanna Jarvis which will attract the audience’s attention and make Joanna look like she is a fun, laughable girl and make the audience want to read the interview to find our more about her. This image shows a weird but laughable side to Joanna with her sticking her tongue out when she is upside down which gives a different sight for the audience to see when they open the page. She is still wearing the same clothes as on the front cover and content page.

7. I needed an introduction about Joanna Jarvis before the interview to give the audiences background information about how Joanna became a pop star without revealing a lot of information. Also it needed to finish with the introduction to the interview. The colour of the text is black which stands out from the white background. Also I found out in some real magazines that the first letter on an article is sometimes fancy and stands out from the rest of the text so I decided to do that and keep with the theme of having stars in font styles which are yellow and also with the style of black text which makes the stars stand out. Double Page Article I decided to have a yellow star next to the word ‘exclusive’ to make that area more colourful and attractive. Also it matches with the theme of yellow stars. I decided to have a yellow star next to the word ‘interview’ to make that area more colourful and attractive. Also it matches with the theme of yellow stars. I again chose to place a yellow frame at the bottom to give some brightness to the white background. I needed to include the page numbers for each page in my magazine to match with the content page. I needed to include the page numbers for each page in my magazine to match with the content page. I needed the interview article to show the two different people speaking so I decided to use red text for the Pop Star person and blue text for Joanna so the audience are not confused even though the name appear before the text but it is much more clear this way. I chose red and blue to match with the highlighted cover lines on the front cover and the two frame on the content page. The interview spreads to both pages and isn’t too long so it won’t lose the audience’s attention when they read it.

8. In my research, I have found out that magazines have a house style which fits in well with their magazine. Also they have a colour scheme which will be seen throughout the magazine and not changed half way through. I had a look at a website which my teacher recommended to have a look at different font styles and also I had a think about what my colour scheme will be. House Style Green arrows: I decided that I wanted the theme of stars throughout my pages to match with the name of the magazine. I went onto a website called http://www.dafont.com/and found a few different fonts that have a style that include stars. In one font, I edited the text by colouring in the stars yellow to give brightness to the white background and stars are normally the colour yellow. Blue arrows: The other two fonts are different because each word is made up of small stars to create the letters for the stars which matches with the theme. I decided not to colour the tiny stars because it would of took me ages to do each individual star and I think it looks better with the plain black stars against the white background. Purple arrows: The text on the content page and double page is a common font style that I like the most which is called Comic Sans MS. I chose to have a colour yellow for the stars and the frame at the bottom on each page to give brightness to the pages and it stands out from the white background. Also I chose the colours red and blue for the highlighted words on the front cover, the frames on the content page and the article text on the double page spread to give some colour to the pages and also matches with the colour of Joanna’s jacket and the male singer’s t-shirt.

9. How does your media product represent particular social groups? My magazine targeted audience is for young children to teenagers but it is hard to decided what social groups my magazine represents. Young children are not really in a social group because they are still learning new skills and information and they are normally in just one big group. But at that age range, if one of their friends does something, they will normally copy them to fit in with different types of groups. Also at that age, young children will believe a load of things which they may grow out of when they get older. Teenagers are a lot more open minded about trying new things than young children and also following things like fashion. Also they want to fit in so they will change themselves to fit into a particular social group or some won’t change at all and decides for themselves if they fit in a particular social group or not. Also at that age range, some teenagers will try and copy or follow a style of a famous Pop Star they like to be cool and be accepted. I think my magazine represents not one particular social group but a range of different social groups but just not in great detail using fonts, pictures and colour scheme. The fonts I chose to use in my magazine theme around the name of the magazine along with the selling line because I believe the fonts will attract the young children audience because they like bright colours and star shapes.

10. My colour scheme is made up of using the colour yellow for stars which are in text or just images because it makes it seem more realistic to young children. Also I chose to use the colour red and blue because it matches the images I have used and also red, blue and yellow are primary colours so they work well together. The text is black which contrasts with the white background of the magazine. With my images I have in my magazine, they can represent two social groups. The images of the girl Joanna Jarvis, the clothes that she wears shows off her personality which is mixture between rock and pop music. Her red and black checker jacket along with her black jeans makes her seem like a rock type person which would appeal to people who are into rock music. But her t-shirt even though it’s black, the images on her t-shirt are bright coloured and cartoon which could appeal to people who do art or just like to draw, which could also appeal more to the young children audience with the bright colours and cartoon images. Also in some images, Joanna is holding her mobile phone which could appeal to the teenage audience because they have are into technology at that age and will also have a mobile phone, along with other technological devices like IPods and laptops. The images of the guy in the magazine; the clothes that he is wearing on the image on the front cover, he is wearing sunglasses which can be seen as a symbol of coolness and most guys at teenager stage start to be attracted to girls more so they want to look cool to get them and the sunglasses could influence the guys. He is wearing a blue t-shirt with writing on it which is also brightly coloured which shows he wears bright coloured clothes which shows his personality. Also the black tie he is wearing contrasts with the blue t-shirt and shows that he is mature. The other images of the guy which is on the content page; he is still wearing sunglasses which could show that the sunglasses are his trade mark. He is also wearing a white t-shirt which still shows that he likes wearing bright/ light coloured t-shirts and it has black writing on it. The two colours contrast each other. Most guys will influence pop stars or movie stars because they want to attract a girl, so if a girl likes a certain pop star, the guy may start to style around that particular pop star. Also I decided that I wanted a couple of images of musical instruments in my magazine because some teenagers may play a musical instrument or want to start playing a musical instrument.

11. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? The media institution which I think might distribute my media product is either Bauer Media or IPC Media. IPC Media has over 60 media brands from fashion to sport to reach the three core audiences: men, mass market woman and upmarket women. This would be a good institution to distribute my media product because the IPC Media distributes NME, a well known music magazine and I believe my magazine is different and unique, something that the IPC Media would of never seen before, I think it would be a good investment to the institution. Even though my magazine targeted audience is for young children to teenagers, it’s one of the audiences the institution doesn’t distribute magazines for and I think my magazine would attract young children to teenagers to buy the magazine. Bauer Media owns more than eighty influential media brands spanning a wide range of interests from magazines to radio broadcasts. One of the magazine they sell is called POP- this is a pop magazine which is what my music magazine is about so this institution would be good to distribute my magazine. Also the institution connects with the audience with compelling content, whenever, whatever and however they want to which would be good for my magazine because on my content page, I have a page called vote your favourite 2010 song which gets the audience involved in my magazine which would be good for the institution.

13. How did you attract/address your audience? I looked at the targeted audience for my music magazine and I thought about the use of language I would need to use in the magazine. Since my magazine is aimed for young children to teenagers, I used informal language because then the audience will be able to understand and read the magazine without any problems. Also I wanted to keep the theme of stars throughout my magazine to keep with the name of the magazine. So I decided to have a look at different font styles using star shapes. I found a few different fonts using stars. But I wanted to catch the audiences’ attention more so I decided to colour all the stars being used either in text or symbols in yellow because yellow is bright and the audience would associate stars being yellow. But not all the fonts I used are coloured in like the font used for the word ‘exclusive’ because it would take too long to colour all the stars in yellow. Also the text writing is black which makes the yellow stars stand out more to get the audiences’ attention. I wanted my magazine cover to be more colourful because the only colours I used were yellow and black to start with so I decided I need at least two more colours on my front cover of the magazine so I chose red and blue because Joanna’s jacket is red and the guy’s t-shirt is blue. Also I wanted my cover lines to stand out more so I decided to highlighted the pop artist names to make them stand out more. Even though the background of the magazine is white, it makes the images, text and colours stand out more to attract the audience. I wanted to make sure I attracted both female and male children so I decided to have a male and female artist picture on my front cover.

14. I needed my content page to be colourful and use informal language which it does to attract the audience’s attention and make it easy for them to read and understand. I used the same font on the front cover in the content page to keep the same theme and style throughout the magazine and this time I wanted the name of the page which is the content page to stand out more so I decided to have two yellow stars on either side of the text to make the text stand out more. I needed to include another image of Joanna but in a different pose to fill the white spaces on the page and also go with the article which is next to the image. The image of Joanna this time, she looks like the she is dancing and she is smiling which might attract the male audience. Also she is holding a mobile phone which relates to young children and teenagers. I wanted the on the cover articles and the other pages in the magazine to be separated somehow so I used the idea of colour banner/ frame. I placed one in between the title of the page and the on the cover article which is coloured blue which matches the colour scheme and the other one is placed between the on the cover articles and this week other pages which is coloured red which matches the colour scheme. I needed to include other pages in my magazine which I think would interest my targeted audience. For example, I chose to include a page about tour dates for pop artists because my targeted audience would be interested to see who and when on tour next year. Again, I wanted to catch both gender audience so I decided to have another image of Joanna since the front cover is about her and the guy artist again but this time he is wearing a different t-shirt but still has the sunglasses which makes him cool and the male audience may want to attract girls and seeing him with sunglasses may influence the male audience to wear sunglasses to be cool and attract girls. I also wanted to include an image of a musical instrument because teenagers play a musical instrument or they want to learn and Joanna is known as goddess of Guitar so I placed an image of a guitar in between the two images.

15. I again needed my double page to be colourful and use informal language to attract the audience’s attention and easy for them to read and understand. I chose the same font style as I used for both the name of the magazine of the front cover and the title from the content page for the text ‘Joanna Jarvis’ because the article on the double page is an interview with Joanna Jarvis, so I wanted her name to be bright, colourful and stand out from the rest of the sub title text on the page. I needed to have the type of article on the double page so the audience knows even though it is stated on the content page and I wanted the article to sound exciting and would want the audience to read it so I added the word ‘exclusive’ to draw the audience in and seem like it is restricted to only this magazine. I also wanted the plain black text to have some colour to it so I decided to have one yellow star in each top corner of the double page next to the text to make it more attractive for the targeted audience. I wanted my interview article to be colourful and stand out more, so I decided instead of just having all the text in black, even though the audience would know who is saying what, I decided Joanna’s text would be in blue text and pop star text would be in red which makes the text stand out plus it matches with the colour scheme. I decided I wanted an image of a musical instrument on the double page because Joanna can play a few instruments. I needed an image of Joanna which would show her personality for the audience to see and I thought this image would be good because it shows that she is a funny and has a cheeky attitude since she is sticking her tongue out which would relate to young children and teenagers and young children can relate to her more and think she is funny and may want to be like her. On the front cover, content page and double page is a yellow banner/ frame at the bottom of the page which gives colour to the plain white background and matches with the colour scheme.

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

17. Looking back at your preliminary task (the College magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? Looking back at my preliminary task which is the front cover and content page of a college magazine, I feel like I have learnt a whole new range of skills. I never had really much skill in using Photoshop so when I started doing my college magazine, I wasn’t that confident in using Photoshop to create it but when I started going and sorted to work out the right tools to use to create my college magazine front cover and content page, I found it a lot more easier to use. Also before I worked out how to edit the pictures on Photoshop, I used to use the software Paint to use the eraser tool to edit the pictures but I found out that on Photoshop, there is an eraser tool and another tool called Quick Selection tool and both of them can erase any part of the pictures that I didn’t need anymore. Also I have learned that all magazine must have some kind of theme with them otherwise the magazine wouldn’t be as good and the audience may get confused. My college magazine was pretty much basic to start off with because I needed to re-learn how to use Photoshop but once I got the hang of it, I started to fiddle about placing text and pictures in different positions to see where it would be best and find colours that go with my pictures used and stand out from the colour of the pictures. I have also learned that using different types of effects on plain text can give it a colourful effect and make the text stand out more plain background or over images. I have also learned what is good to use in a photo shoot like props, lighting, setting etc because it is a good way to show off the person in the pictures personality and also a good way for the person in the picture to connect with a social group in the targeted audience. Also having the person in different position instead of the same one is good because in some ways, it can show off the person’s attitude and what they are like. Also I have learned to not use loads of different colours in a magazine because even though it will make the magazine more colourful and bright, it’s a bit too much and can ruin the magazine so finding a good colour scheme for the magazine is a good start.

18. Also using different shapes in a magazine to emphasis a cover line is a good way to make that cover line more attractive to the audience and also using shapes with smaller sized pictures is good too because it will make that picture more eye catching for the audience but not too much that it will distract the audience from the main article picture but it won’t make the audience ignore the smaller sized pictures. Also I have learned that I need to cover as much space of the front cover and content page as I can without making too much cramped and make it hard for the audience to read and without confusing them. I have learned that I shouldn’t use different types of font styles for each word because it may confuse the audience but having font styles which connect with the name of the magazine would be a good way to keep a theme going through the magazine and also using the same font style for articles and other pages in the magazine would be good too so not to confuse the audience. Also I have learned that if I wanted some text to stand out more than other text on the same page, highlighting the word/words that I want is a good way to bring out the text and also if the text is coloured, using a contrasting colour will make the text stand out more. I have also learned that having an image as a background can be a good way instead of using a plain white background but I think it will distract or ruin any other images that will be used so having a colour background I think would be better than having an image for a background. There are some skills that I already knew like for example, I knew that I needed to choose an audience that I think would be more confident in on creating my music magazine. Also I knew how to create a magazine because I have created one before but in Microsoft Publisher and not Photoshop so it was new to me how to create a magazine in Photoshop. Also I knew about layouts of a magazine but I learned what type of conventions are used in real magazines. Also I knew that I had to include a barcode, price and date on the magazine and I knew how to edit a barcode.