Media product analysis and evaluation

1. My media product closely relates to the forms and conventions found in real media
products
firstly through the interpretation of a music magazine. I analysed magazines similar to
the style of magazine that I wanted to represent and create so I looked at magazines
like NME as well as VIBE and a few more to inspire me with my front cover design.
The conventions within any music magazine are a masthead, title, sub-heading or
selection of other text on the page, a large cover photo and a theme. I reflected this in
my magazine with all of the above and kept a theme of red, black, grey and yellow as
my recognisable magazine design colours. This worked well with my product as it
reflected the aims other music magazines set out to achieve however I had to make
sure the colours I used were exactly the same across my magazine to gain a
professional outlook. I was pleased with how I planned my front cover in relation to
other music magazines however next time I will focus more on the photo perhaps
capturing the shadow of the modelled artist so it doesn't look photoshopped and a
bit unrealistic in areas.
Evaluation
In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?

2. How does your media product represent particular social
groups?
A social group is a collection of people who interact with each other and share similar
characteristics and a sense of unity. A social category is a collection of people who do not
interact but who share similar characteristics.
I took this into consideration when I created my product, I wanted to interact with an audience
who shared the same interests in music who would then identify key features another would like
and recommend it. This method would result in a main social group that interact with the media
product who then pass off the product to smaller social groups who will then do the same. My
social group was based on young people aged 16 to mid twenties. I found this a relatively good
category to work with as I could involve not only the thoughts of my interviewed artist but what
would appeal to the younger eye. I found that a big photograph would attract attention, a big title
that would be significant to the genre but also expressing the magazine's aims to show to the
audience. With artists like Rihanna and Florence + the Machine being Soul and Rn'B artists, they
as artists need to make themselves powerful in a sense tostand out, this is seen by Rihanna's
bold red hair, something symbolic and memorable.
This influenced my colour scheme, red is associated with STOP or LOOK so with such a colour
bold on my magazine it will show to my social group what is being advertised. As well, I included
a photograph of a female artist meaning my magazine is more aimed towards the female gender.
This to me looks effective as it shows immediately who you're trying to interest, what would appeal
to them and how you can get them to read your magazine.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your product?
Bauer magazines features many types of genre magazines and a lot of them are music based.
I would expect this institution to distribute my product as it fits into the music category offering
over 300 magazines in 15 different countries. With my magazine focusing on the genre of Soul
and Rn'B I would expect it to categorise as artists within such as Usher or Rihanna are big
worldwide so if social groups see specific artists named on the cover it will interact with them
and be passed on to other social groups with that interest in a particular artist(s).

4. Audience for your product?
Pretty much the same as social groups, a social group are people who share interests
who further share with others who like something that is linked in some manner.
My product is relatively both male and female adapted through the colours, despite me
not showing this through the cover photo if a specific artist attracts a member of a social
group and they pick up the magazine they won't hesitate the brand if the theme of the front
is Unisex and the colours are relatable. I'm focusing on the younger audience as they have
a lot more interaction with the music genre of my magazine based on specific artist's ages
so it's common if someone of a similar age to the audience does something those younger
will be inspired. I chose such a young audience as of my own age, it would've been
challenging to create a magazine for an elder categorised audience as many do not have
this daily interaction with Rn'B or Soul music wherever the younger groups do.
This was especially supported by both my artist photographs as my interviewed artist is
18 years old whereas the band range between 18 and 21 so can appeal to those within
the audience criteria.

5. Attracting and addressing
COLOUR – My theme of colour is red, black, grey and yellow. Why? I chose these colours
as they aren't too overpowering, with the red having a pink touch to it and the yellow being
quite glossy and florescent it overlays well on the black and grey backgrounds being much
more eye catching and powerful. It was also a good way to show to the audience what would
interest them by using colour to highlight areas of text that would appeal to those reading so
the pages of my magazine were a lot more audience interactive.
FONT – I used fonts such as SoulMission, Blackleafs, AlphaSeven and DIN Alternate on my
front cover as well as on the rest of my media product pages. What I found beneficial is the
range of fonts became a lot more interesting than the same font and although these fonts are
near similar to each other in some way it was effective as it set out an expectation to the
theme and made it obvious to the audience what to look for. I managed to use them within
my DPS which was especially hard as it is a lot of block text but with bold titles, drop caps
and pull quotes. It engages what is happening and some of the main features the reader
should be interested by when turning the page.
SIZE – Font size is crucial in magazine work, the bigger the font the more childish it becomes
and the audience downsizes to those much younger. I varied my fonts in titles from around a
14 to 28. I made sure to limit this as in children's magazines they are less factual and more
colour expressive and associated. Music magazines are informative so you expect a lot of
text, interviews and professional photos so I recreated this within my work. This benefited
me allowing me to focus on specifically who my audience are and what their interests are.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing your product?
From constructing my product I have learn that you need to have everything drafted and
know what you want everything to look like before you start. Detail is crucial so you have
to allow a lot of time for each part of the product to get it to a professional standard. I learnt
that instead of relying on technology to reform your work it's much easier to prepare and take
a good photograph or use a correct font as it does save a lot of time and it's easier to get it
right the first time than have to waste time repeating processes you could've made a lot simpler
earlier in production.
When I conducted my music
research and analysis I had
to create a blog to record all
of my information and findings
within. I used Blogger as that
is where I secured the rest of
my product research.
I used slideshare to present my powerpoints
enabling my coursework to be clearly seen,
it was also a good way to show development
of technologies other than my editing
programmes.
I used photoshop and indesign to create my
front cover, contents and double page spread.
I used it on a Mac computer which allowed
me to clearly see my work in detail and it was
made much simpler to use on a bigger computer.
I used a memory stick to
store my information and
work documents enabling
me to access them quickly
and so I could work from home.
Additionally I used OneDrive to store
my work and back it up incase I lost
any work files and also to access from home.

7. Progression

8. This is my preliminary task of the college magazine.
I feel I have really progressed since doing this task.
This is because of how quick I picked up using
programmes like Indesign and Photoshop when
doing my work. Looking back on this I can see I
chose very feminine colours and was quite biased,
despite this the shades of pink I used in my front
cover look very off and a bit grey making my
magazine look a bit dull. As for my contents page I
feel it's unnecessarily packed with information, it
may be a college magazine but there is so much
going on for a contents page I feel I could've just
included one big image as opposed to two little
ones which don't do the contents page of the
magazine any justice and it looks a bit tacky and
childish.

9. Music magazine

10. This is my final product of my music magazine; front cover, contents and double page spread. Just
at a first glance you can see immediately the difference between the level of skill within the
programmes used. I really focused on a colour theme and who my audience were to make my
product relate well. I had a repeated background of a cool grey which worked well as it wasn’t
overpowering on my product and allowed me to combine other colours with it for an initial
theme. I used red, grey, black and yellow. The yellow was quite limited as I needed certain areas
on my contents page to stand out and be bold but other than that I think my scheme of colour
worked really well and it meant that my product wasn’t overloaded with unnecessary text
likewise on the contents page similar to what you’d find on an actual music magazine.
I think my skills increased quite rapidly as I drafted all of my work beforehand making sure
everything fitted on the page that I wanted as well as the image on the front cover to be a good
size with good lighting and positioning. The thing that lacked in my preliminary task was the fact I
took some quick photos this meant that they were rushed and the lighting was terrible to work
with. I learnt from this mistake and did a photoshoot with a proper camera with good lighting
allowing me to gain the professional look to my magazine that I had aspired to create.
As for my contents page I used many smaller images from another band I went to see rehearse
however the studio wasn’t too appealing for photos so I was limited to what photos I could use in
my product. Following this I focused on the professional side to my product allowing me to
rework my theme of colour back into my product, have images and a proper informative contents
page. I needed it to appeal to not only my specific social group but to others so had to really think
about what content I put in, what artist names that I used and the type of music I used to set the
genre of my magazine off.

12. My double page spread required a lot of attention due to the fact I needed to put a lot of critical
information onto it to make it look realistic and similar to other music magazines that had
interviewed artists and displayed it in such way in a magazine. I firstly focused on my photograph,
I wanted something big that would cover a lot of space as my interview wasn’t exceedingly long
compared to other interviews. I reworked a photo from the photoshoot with one of my artists
putting it into black and white to fit the theme of my magazine. I then adjusted it to cover three
quarters of the page so it stood out well. Then I added in a pull out quote; as my interview was
quite short it meant to position it within the text would make my work look a bit unrealistic and
that the plan of my work hadn’t been referred to or thought out well.
I used a bold font for my main title so the audience know exactly who the artist is and singled out
key points with red text too to add to this effect. When writing my interview I used this same red
font again to cover my questions that I had asked my artist. This worked well as yet again it made
my magazine look professional and showed I had done a lot of magazine analysis before creating
my own product.