2. Task One – Audience Feedback
• What did you like about the front cover?
There was only a few colours and the layout was quite simplistic.
What did you dislike about my front cover?
The cover image was a little bit pixelated.
What did you like about the contents page?
The colour scheme and overall layout worked really well, the best page of all three.
What did you dislike about my contents page?
Nothing, I think it worked really well. Maybe a wider range of colours.
What did you like about the double page spread?
The images used looked really professional and worked well with the genre of the magazine.
What did you dislike about my double page spread?
There could have been a wider range / better colour scheme.
Would you buy my magazine ‘pulse’ if it were on the market?
Yes!
List the features you’d most like to change:
Colours
On a scale of 1 – 10, rate my over house style and colour scheme:
House Style – 8
Colour Scheme - 7
3. Evaluation 1 : In what ways does your media product
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
• In mixmag (left), they have chosen to give away a ‘free mix CD’ this is used as an
extra incentive to buy the product as you are getting more for your money.
Typically, a CD from iTunes will cost between £5 - £7. As my magazine only costs
£3.99 and contains a free music album from a world known artist ‘Calvin Harris’.
This is a great way to entice the readers.
Mixmag use colours and unusual shapes to draw the reader to this offer they have.
I have chosen to keep the colors the same but dramatically increase the font so
this is the first thing they see. This combined with the other cover lines should
maker the reader want to purchases the magazine straight away.
This is just one way magazines try to engage their audience.
4. Evaluation 2: How does your media product represent
particular social groups?
• I believe that my magazine represents similar social
groups to magazines such as mixmag magazine. This is
because the content is almost the same and they both
target the same audience. From both mine and the
mixmag front cover we can see the similarities used to
target the audience.
First of all, the cover models used are very similar, both
male, not smiling and in relatively plain clothes. The
shot used to take this is a ‘medium close up’. This is
used to convey emotion and expressions shown or not
shown. By looking directly at the audience addresses
them directly, engaging and persuading them to buy
the magazine.
There is a significant difference in the range of colours
used between to two magazines. The first (mixmag)
ranges from yellow to brown to white. They can do this
as there is already brand recognition present. Whereas
my magazine is debuting its first issue. Hence the
reason why the colours are simple, yet effective. They
are used as they represent ‘the underground
scene’, hence attracting the teenage market.
5. Evaluation 3: What kind of media institution might
distribute your media product and why?
• As dance music is very popular amongst late teens, the best way for them
to access this music magazine would be through online. This would be in
the form of downloads, ‘read online’ and podcasts (iBooks etc).
Possible retailers would include: HMV, Play.com, Itunes and Tesco. As
these are all well known in the industry and have national bran
recognition. They are easily accessible and target my specific audience.
The market for music magazines (especially dance) is very niche. Although
the music market is very competitive, the magazine side is not.
6. Evaluation 5: Who would be the audience for your
media product?
• The audience for my music magazine, is targeted between late teens to early
twenties. This is because I believe these are the ages that fit the ‘student’
category. They are stereotypically known for going out often where they hear
dance and house music. My specific audience are familiar with worldwide artists
and see them perform at festivals, this makes them inclined to become interested
about the history, subsequently, buying my magazine. As I am targeting the ‘typical
student’, I have set the price at £3.99, I believe this to be affordable, especially
with the free bonus content provided.
As dance music connects with so many different people, I have chosen to make it
unisex.
To some people, dance music is a way of life, it is a beat which is always there.
Hence my cleverly titled magazine; Pulse.
7. Evaluation 6: What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
• Equipment I used for taking photographs for my project was an IPhone 5 as it was easily
accessible, transportable and produced a high quality photograph. Another piece of
equipment I used was a professional cannon camera. This was used to take the photographs
of the main artists as they needed to be more clear so editing was easier. Whilst taking these
pictures I learnt how to use the zoom and pan buttons, how to focus the camera and how to
add filters using the programs embedded in the device.
The main programs I used to edit the photographs was ‘Photoshop’, here I used a range of
different techniques to manipulate the photos for their purpose. I did this by changing the
filters, brightness, hue / saturation, layer masks, blurs, eraser effects etc.
I then used Quark Express to arrange and compile all of my text and images together to
create the final product. This included to zooming and cropping of pictures, size and shape of
text etc.
I used SlideShare and Prezzi to create a presentation off all the different aspects of my
magazine from; the preliminary material to the evaluation. This is all embedded onto my blog
(Wordpress), which enables myself and others to easily access this.
8. Preliminary Material –
To create a magazine aimed towards Sixth Form
students. About their Sixth Form.
9. Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to full product?
• Throughout the process of the project, I have learned lots of different skills that are evident in my
final piece. These include: The importance of colour scheme / house style, the effects of different
colours and fonts to the reader and vectors and the key part it plays in the positioning of
text, colours and images.
The colour scheme for my preliminary material is mainly blue, however, consists of different
contrasting shades, this, as a house style does not flow nor look professional. On reflection, I would
have used a primary colour from my main image and used it as a running colour.
The contents page again follows the same colour scheme as the front cover, when analysing
customer feedback, the said a range of colours would be better so that the magazine was unique.
With my final magazine, my colour scheme is: grey, white and black. These were thought of carefully
as they needed to portray the genre of magazine this is; dance and house. These colours often have
connotations of drugs and alcohol which are often associated with this specific genre. The colour
scheme for my final contents page is: yellow, white and black. These colours again portray my target
audience as well as interlinking well with the images. Although not exactly the same, the contents
page shares some of the primary colours shown on the front cover – this is the house style. In
addition to this, my double page spread also shares the black and white theme with a flourish of
blue taken directly from the taken images. This adds individuality to each page
10. Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to full product?
• There is a significant difference in the standard and layout of the work produced from
the preliminary material to the finished product.
In the first attempt, there is no clear definition to what the magazine is about, due to
the changes in sizes, fonts and colours, the magazine looks unprofessional and
unstructured. I believe this is partially down to the technical skills learned prior the the
final magazine being completed. In the final piece, the same font was used
throughout, size was varied based on importance and relevance and tactical positioning
was much more thought through. The contents page contains a lot more information.
This is positioned to the right hand side and uses two contrasting colours (white and
yellow) to help it stand out. On the left of the page, we see three pictures, one being
significantly larger to convey its importance in retrospect to the others. These contain a
variation of colours, however, they have been adjusted using Photoshop so they don’t
overpower the rest of the page.
