My magazine evaluation

1. Magazine Evaluation
1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventionsof real media
products?
My magazinerevolved around dance music, so the closest forms and
conventions werematched with MixMag which is also a dance
magazine. I used a menustrip to advertise my magazine around the bold
title so that both stood out and it showed that my magazine was the
best of its type: ‘The best NEW dance magazinearound’. Looking at the
main photo on my front cover, mine contains a two shot, which slightly
differs fromthe normin MixMag, usually featuring only one artist. I did
this to show two very important articles in my magazine which will
hopefully attract more people to buy the product.
Another way I challenged real magazines was by offering things like free
posters to readers. I thoughtthis was appropriatebecause my target
audience is slightly younger (teenagers) than that of MixMag and that is
probably the main difference between my magazine and a real one. By
including freebies it again incises the reader making them want to buy
the magazine.
If I was to comparemy contents to a real magazine, take Q for example, I
would say there are obvious similarities and differences. Visually, the
photos in Q’s contents are far larger and take up a large majority of the
page and although my contents do contain photos they are not as large
scale, but I feel it has the same impact as in Q becauseeven though you
do need photos they are not the main attraction of a contents page, the
actual contents are! And on this frontthey are similar due to the amount
of contents and with clear titles and a description of the page below in a
smaller font size.

2. Q’s colour scheme is very straightforward (red, black and white) and
DanceMag is similar in the amount of colours used but not the actual
colour scheme (red, blue and yellow). I felt I needed brightcolours
because as a dance magazine aimed at teenagers especially you need
something out of the ordinary and that is visually representativeof the
mood you are trying to create throughoutthe magazine.
My double page spread is fairly conventional. It contains a very large
image, a tagline in the formof a quote and a large section of small text
which is the main article. Mixmag also follows the majority of the forms
and conventions, including colour consistency, theactual article and
masthead. Both pages are very structured in the layout and use easily
readable fonts and clear photos representing whatthe article is about.
For my photos I used a studio and a professionalCanon camera. This was
so that my photos wereof consistently high quality and I could easily
edit the photos to how I wanted them to be. For example cropping out
certain parts of the photos that I didn’t like and making them ideal for
use in my magazinespecifically. On my frontcover I used a close-up
(medium) to show two separate people. This differs froma conventional
frontcover of a magazine as it would normally justhave one artist or
group in a photo. My contents page features a photo of an object (chair)
and two artists. The fact that I used a chair is slightly different to what
you would normally find in a music magazineas it would usually contain
photos of justthe artists featured further on in the magazine. However,
the chair featured in my contents page is relevant as it asks ‘Who is on
the hotseat this week?’
2) How does your media product represent particular
social groups and who is the target audience?
My magazineis aimed mainly at teenagers and both genders. Obviously
it is also aimed people with an interest in dance music. I think this is
reflected by the slightly less sophisticated look of my magazine

3. compared to MixMag, which parts of my magazine are based on. This is
because I believe that MixMag is aimed at the slightly older generation
(18-35 years old) so I needed to adapt my approach subtly. I reflected
this by using a brightand bold colour scheme, which is generally seen as
more ‘fun’. The content also represents particular social groups as it is
100% aboutdance music, and the magazine is aimed at thosewith a
strong interest in dance. I featured big names in dance in the magazine
(like Diplo, David Guetta and Avicii) because that is the responseI got
frommy survey.
My magazinerepresents different and specific social groups in varied
ways. Firstly it is aimed at mainly English speaking people as the
magazine is published in English. Furthermore, thephotos taken are of
two of my friends and on the front cover, they are shown to be looking
directly at the camera, which shows confidenceand perceiving an
upfrontkind of attitude. Dance music is seen as a very positiveand
upbeat genre of music and the fact that the two cover stars aresmiling
reflects the type of magazine is and this could therefore replicate the
personality of the reader accessing different socialgroups in the process.
Dance music is very much dominated by white people in terms of
producers and artists as a whole, with the majority fromAmerica, the UK
and Eastern Europe. The trend is followed with the photos as they are of
people of white decent. This could perhaps suggesta representation of
social groups.
3) What kind of media institutionmight distribute your
media product and why?
Media institutions interested in distributed would be music magazine
companies, solely becausemy media product is a music magazine. The
closestrepresentation of my magazine to another, as I mentioned
earlier, is MixMag as it also focuses on various genres to do with dance
music. Therefore I think that the company that publish MixMag,

4. Development Hell Ltd. would be the best option and the sortof media
institution to distribute my magazine. Other options would include well
known music magazine publishers in general as they have good
knowledgeabout what makes a successfulmagazineand the right ways
to advertise it. Not to mention the profits that big corporations make,
which would be appealing for that reason.
4) How did you attract/address your audience?
People are attracted to magazines by using appealing words, fonts,
colour schemes and a good page layout. Firstly, I intrigued the audience
by immediately bringing to their attention that my productis a dance
magazine. This is shown by me using the phrase‘The BEST new dance
magazine around’. Also by using the word ‘new’ it appeals to the
audience as it adds a senseof freshness to the magazine potentially.
Furthermore, by using words like ‘exclusive’ on my front cover, it
attracts people as whatever is exclusivewill only be in my magazine,
which adds something different to my product. In my contents, I used
some specific words concerning what’s coming up in the magazinewhich
require pragmatic knowledge, but this is a way of addressing my
audience as they understand whatI mean by the terms used. These
include: new releases, DJ sets and shows and remix. On my double page
spread, I talk about a brand new type of house music, and this attracts
the audience because it’s all about dance music, which attracted them in
the firstplace, but with a slight twist. In general I think that all the
words used would attract and personally address theaudience of my
product.
The photo on my frontcover is of two people showing direct address,
which will make the audience see whatthe magazine is all about. The
people photographed arewearing fashionable, brightcoloured clothing,
which in my opinion represents dance music as a whole very well and
basically addresses the audience fromthe firstthing they’ve seen of the
magazine. On my contents page I used photos that reflect different
articles and features in the product. One of the photos is of someone
dancing which is obviously a big part of dance music and attracts the

5. audience as a result of the action shot taken. My double page spread has
a more calm approach with the solephoto being of a male artist with a
guitar in hand, but it also attracts and addresses the audience because
the article as a whole has an unknown factor to it.
I kept a consistentfeel with my fonts, becausealthough they are very
important in portraying your magazinein general, it was not necessary
to go over the top with the amount of different fonts I used. One of the
fonts used ‘WhoopAss’featured predominantly as I felt it was a very
relevant font for a dance magazine. Itis very funky and bouncy in my
opinion which reflects the feel of the product. Itwas used on all of my
magazine pages in various different sizes.
The colour schemes I used consisted of bright and bold colours again
reflecting the feel of dance music. The main colours I used were red,
blue and yellow, which are all primary colours, emphasising whattypeof
music dance is. This attracts and addresses thereader because the
magazine is very much themed.
My page layout was fairly straightforward as my audience is mainly
teenagers, so I need to make surethere’s a compromisebetween
physicaland visualcontent within my publication. There werecertain
parts of my magazine that I felt needed to be emphasised like certain
quotes and headlines, so they’re placed in fairly unnaturalpositions,
whereas there rest of the publication is structured similarly through the
frontcover, contents and finally double page spread.
5) What have you learnt about technologies from the
process of constructing this product?
6) Looking back at your preliminarytask, what do you feel
you have learnt in the progression from it to the full
product?

6. Even though I had used photoshop before, I had never used it in this
detail. Looking back to my preliminary task and comparing it to my
finished piece, I have made a lot of progression. Thefirstthing that
strikes me is the professionality differencebetween the two. My
preliminary task was very basic, firstly becauseI was justgetting started
with using photoshop for this type of production and secondly wewere
limited on how long we could spend on the preliminary task.
The colour scheme was poor on my firstattempt and not really relevant.
This is becauseI didn’t realise the importanceof having an initial house
style. Also the fontsize was not consistent, and the front cover had no
content on it whatsoever. I realised that my final productneeded to be
jam-packed with content and I changed this when I made the actual
thing, showing a clear difference. The photo on my ‘College Life’
magazine is out of focus and this is very noticeable and clearly makes my
preliminary front cover unprofessional. For my actual frontcover, I made
sureI had a range of options for different types of frontcovers, so that I
could choosethe one that suited my magazine best. Furthermore, I used
audience research to build on my previous knowledgeof photoshop and
so that I could make my magazine as suited to the potential reader as
possible.