1. My Magazine Evaluation

4. Who would be the audience for your media product? So HOOD attracts a audience that defies Hip-Hop and Grime. In further detail; a audience that reflect s and portrays the genres. The target audience for a real media product that are associated with these genres are, mainly young adults and mature adults of the male genre. This is due to the use of some explicit content within the genres music itself. My magazine being part of these genres I decided to aim towards the general audience, but also chose to aim it a bit more towards a female audience and towards a younger age, maybe old teenagers. This was due to my research information when I surveyed the question, “Would you be interested in purchasing a Grime/Hip-Hop magazine regularly ?”. The results the guided my design process are displayed; Male Audience-15 for each age surveyed. Female Audience-15 for each age surveyed. My results showed me the younger age are attracted to the genres contained in my magazine. They are the age bracket that would buy a magazine based on Hip-Hop and Grime so it would benefit my media product to aim towards that age. The results also show that the female audience do have a slight attraction to my genres, so they should equally be targeted. In conclusion my audience for my magazine consist of both females and males, of the age of 15+.

5. How did you attract/address your target audience? So HOOD attracts a audience specifically based on the persons appeal of its profound genres. It covers two fields; Hip-Hop and Grime. The magazines images are the main focal point of So HOOD and are the near enough the selling point of the media product. It attracts a audience by reflecting the conventions of both genres, mainly through the emotions the central image exhibits. Normal Grime/Hip-Hop magazines are usually dark to portray the stereotypical views of the streets. My image was utilized to construct a negative emotion which mirrors the darkness in order for So HOOD’s genres to become more recognisable and attractive to its audience. The same sort of constituents are applied with the fonts through my editing process. The main element though for the text was the terminology utilized. It displayed the street through terms like “ Freshest” and many more throughout the magazine. This assisted the magazines emotions in attracting the audience due to the terms originating from the streets. Moreover I used symbols ( microphone and speaker ) which highlight music in order to attract my audience by attempting to make contact with them. The use of pugs for free items and bottom strips for competitions also attract the audience because of the opportunity to gain something huge for free or be entered in a competition to gain it. This element alerts purchase prone persons and therefore attract more of my audience. An essential factor of attracting my audience was my cover lines. This convention gives the reader an insight what is in my magazine. Which covers the best topics in this specific genre, so again this attracts my audience.

6. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? My preliminary task and my final product show many similarities but there is a clear sense of improvement. In contrast it is quite obvious that I have a much better understanding of codes and conventions of a media magazine. I feel this has happened because of my experiences and mistakes I made within my preliminary task, because I then analyzed them and made sure I never made these mistakes again. I feel this has also broadened my knowledge with all the technology and programs I used the first time around, because where I made the errors, I went back on to the software and looked where I could make corrections. After this I made sure I noted the corrections I made to the problems so they could be prevented if they was to occur while constructing my music magazine. I feel I have also learnt how to evaluate my process correctly and recognise any mistakes in my production and criticise constructively. Furthermore, I have learnt how to plan my process more accurately so the designing processes are much easier. I have also learnt that the typography utilized needs to be legible and at a standard size. In conclusion, in the time gap between my preliminary task and my final magazine, I had time to reflect on my processes and gain a understanding on how to better things that have room for improvement.

7. What have you learnt about technologies during the process of constructing this product? Technologies play a big part in production processes in this present era. To construct my media product and make it as realistic as possible, I utilized Photoshop elements and InDesign. Also to collect imagery the use of professional camera equipment was needed, so knowledge on how to use this was appropriate. Photoshop elements; During the process of creating my media product I had to utilize the program called Photoshop. I had to use this to edit images and other like-wise factors. Photoshop was the program that assisted me in establishing my masthead and creating a proficient product . I feel my masthead creates emotions that dwell around Grime and Hip-Hop this is due to the use of the font used, and the effects I added to it on Photoshop. In Photoshop I learnt about the use of layered effects, i.e. the ones I used On my masthead ( grey tiled, gradient and bubble wrap effect ) . I also learnt how to use most tools effectively on Photoshop , these include the magic wand, magnetic lasso, spot healer and many other things but I felt these were the biggest of them all. InDesign; I have learnt loads about this software and how it works. In comparison to Photoshop I feel the program is not really as good but, only helps in creating the product with better organisation skills and this is due to the use of guide-lines on InDesign. Before this task I had never used InDesign before and on my first few attempts found it difficult to master. The final product though clearly reflects the use of InDesign as it looks much more professional due to better tools it has for organising a project. Furthermore typography on InDesign is another features that is better than Photoshop’s and this is because, it is much more realistic and when you chose to use text you can vary it a lot much more and morph it in many other ways.