This is the evaluation for

1. Jack Lay-Flurrie MEDIA AS EVALUATION

2. When looking at other magazines my print based coursework shows that I’ve stuck to classic conventions of modern magazines such as using a masthead and a singular medium shot picture of the issues main focus, in this case a specific artist. When looking at other magazines such as NME magazine I noticed that they usually stick to particular colour schemes throughout; the red, black and white which is the colour of their logo. If you look at the cover below, you can see that the red, black and white house style is effective because of it also matches with the colours of the picture effectively. When comparing my magazine front cover to the one on the left, it’s clear that I've followed the conventions of a masthead, banner, tagline, plug-ins and main title. I’ve used a single image in the centre of the page and its subject is the main focus of that issue. I‘ve used contrasting colours such as white on black and black and purple on white to make certain things stand out clearly. One way I’ve challenged common formations is by not making the image bleed over the masthead, I did not think the looked as effective on my magazine as it does on others because you could not see some of the letters of the masthead. When looking at the masthead, banner, plugs and main title you can see that the colour scheme is never changed, and that it stays the same throughout the whole page. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

3. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? When looking at contents pages, I notice that a common convention of them is to put as much information on the page as possible at once and although it’s a common convention, I don’t think it’s as affective as a simple layout with not to much information. In my contents page I’ve challenged classic conventions of listing everything in the magazine all on one single page and instead kept it simple and spaced all the points out effectively. I’ve used page numbers next to the stories and reviews and I’ve also used pictures to illustrate the bigger articles. I’ve kept to my colour scheme and I’ve included my masthead at the top of the page to keep in step with my house style. When looking at this contents page and many other from magazines such as ‘Q’ and ‘MOJO’ it seems that although they’re common conventions to list everything in the magazine in detail and add lots of pictures in there too, it looks too crowded and it’s hard to single out one thing if you were looking for it.

4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? When looking at double page spread pages, I’ve noticed that some common conventions are a main picture taking up the majority of one page, and then the article’s text written on the other, I’ve adapted this convention into my double page spread as well as using a quote from the article made bigger and standing separate from the rest of the text. When looking at NME’s double page spread I notice the convention of one main picture filling most of one page and the article on the other, also this double page spread changes it’s usual colour scheme of red, white and black to blue, white and black, I think this is effective for the page because it makes it stand alone. In my double page spread I used the common convention of the main image taking up the majority of one page and also changed from my house style colour scheme to blue, white and black. I think it makes these pages stand apart from the rest of my magazine and this is good because it’s an exclusive interview and the subject of the article is the main story of the issue. I’ve used the convention of a separate quote from the article to entice readers into looking at the article in detail, I think this is a good way of pulling in readers.

5. How does your media product represent particular social groups? I think my magazine appeals to a certain social group of indie/rock listeners, although my target audience is broad. It could appeal to teenagers and young adults, but because of the large musical genre it could attract older social groups who are fans of modern rock and even indie bands. My main social group would definitely be C2, D and E classes, this is because I don’t believe that older professionals would be interested in my musical genre because the music focuses on teen life, love and drugs. I don’t want people to associate these subjects with my magazine but I do think that seeing as most of the music talks about these objects and so it’s likely to be linked. I think that the lower classes will relate to my magazine because of the articles about lower class issues such as money woes and certain goings on with new bands trying to make it big.

6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? Both IPC media and emap are British organisations that specialise in the publication of magazines. IPC media (International Publishing Corporation) is one of the biggest British consumer magazine and digital publisher in the UK. I would like to have my magazine published by IPC because it is a major company which deals in publishing successful magazines across the UK. After researching NME magazine, I found that it is also produced by IPC, this gives me a very good indication of the success my magazine would have if it was released on the market. It would be fantastic for Musica to be published by a major company such as IPC.

7. Who would be the audience for your media product? My target audience will depend on what genre of music I base my magazine on, which is indie/rock so the genres of music I have chosen appeal to a broad audience, they relate to male and female genders, all ethnicities, upbringings, ages and sexualities.My primary audience will be teenagers and young adults as the informal tone and terms I will include will relate to that age group; however my magazine will also appeal to adults because of the broad music that’s covered. The main focus will be the music type; the audience will be those who are interested in it because it reports on the type of music they listen to and follow, regardless of ageMy magazine will provide the news on the latest music goings-on and will also be used for fun and entertainment when reading the articles inside meaning audiences looking for some light reading or entertainment on music will be the types of people my magazine is aimed at.

8. How did you attract/address your audience? I addressed my audience by using specific gender colours such as purple, blackand white which is a house style throughout my magazine. As my audience is younger adults, female and male, I needed to make sure that I addressed and attracted them to my magazine. My font choice was Aharoni, a simple and bold font which appealed to my target audience. I tried out a variety of fonts and tested them by asking people from my target audience. I chose the font that was most popular for the masthead, a bigger size and a joined up different typography as the main body text. The photograph that I chose for my magazine cover was the most important thing in respect to attracting my target audience. With every magazine, no matter what genre or type, the main cover shot would be what attracted the audience. Being a reader of magazines myself I know that who is on the cover plays a major part in whether or not I buy the magazine. It may be a magazine that I have never looked at before however I would still buy it because of who was on the cover. I spend a lot of time choosing the cover shot, I finally chose a posed picture, which sways towards an indie genre of magazine because of the subject and his clothes.

9. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? In editing and creating my front cover, double page spread and contents page I used Microsoft Publisher. It was difficult to put exactly what I wanted on it and at times the complexity of the program was a major hindrance, but after I developed my skills on the program and eventually got to grips with it I appreciated the simple ways in which you can add things to a publication. I also used Adobe Photoshop 4.0 in editing and changing my pictures and masthead for my magazine. I found it extremely difficult to crop images around a specific shape and as a result the cut out looks quite unprofessional although when it’s on the page it’s harder to notice. We have been posting out coursework on Blogger.com and it’s widely appreciated that this was a difficult task for the editing of pages and posts was very tedious and there were times when some people could not log on or access the site. But it’s relatively simple to use when posting and after it was used properly it was an effective way of posting my coursework.

10. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? My preliminary front cover and contents page were not as good as my main task’s. I think this is down to the quality of planning and research I did in my main task, in my preliminary I did what I thought was relevant to the initial ideas I had, and that turned out not to be enough in terms of what I should of done. I think this is reflected when comparing my two front covers: When looking at these two covers, you can see that the one on the left (my main task front cover) looks a lot more professional, this is because of I’ve followed more common conventions of the same type of publication, whereas with the student magazine it looks unprofessional and as though I’ve just made it as I go along, which isn’t the case at all. I think that my music cover is better solely because of the fact that my research and planning was more thorough and effective.