This is my AS Level Media Studies Coursework. At AS Level we create music magazines and part of the overall grade is this evaluation.

1. EVALUATION QUESTIONS

2. WHOWOULD BETHE AUDIENCE FORYOUR
MEDIA PRODUCT?
 My target audience for Ska’d For Life Magazine is people of both sexes aged between 40-60 who enjoy
listening to ska music that originated from the 70’s and 80’s era of music. I believe that this is a realistic target
audience for my music magazine because the genre of music is very niche in its appearance in modern
society, however was extremely large back in the past. I chose this target audience because I think that my
media product is suitable for this age range because it doesn’t contain explicit material and features
everything that is relevant to the world of ska and their favourite bands that was very popular back in the
past. I believe that my target audience is working class people and therefore I would choose the demographic
as C1C2D because this refers to the lower end of the demographic scale and is aimed at the working classes
which can reflect the type of music that working class ‘skaheads’ like. I also think that my media product could
be aimed at a younger audience as well because it could give them an experience of what older music is like in
comparison to modern hip hop or rap music for example. From my research and planning I discovered that my
media product was a very good example of getting people into ska music because it is made by younger
people and from their perspective which can influence other younger people’s views on the subject and has
many different categories in it including: fashion, concerts and interviews which will all influence their views
to this genre of music.

3. DIAGRAM OF MEDIA AUDIENCE:
Gender: Male and Female
Age: 40 – 60 year olds but younger people may be included.
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: I believe that the ethnicity of my music magazine is purely
White British because that is typically the ethnicity of people who
tend to listen to this genre of music.Therefore, I have focused mainly
on that ethnicity.
Interests: Ska music takes over their life – they are prepare to change
their entire lifestyle for ska music including fashion, hairstyles, trends
and general music interests just for the love of ska music.
Originally, my music magazine was not meant to be aimed a
particularly high social class of people as I am trying to
replicate the typical reader of the genre of music that I have
chosen.Therefore, the social class is rather working rather
than middle which reflects the demographicC1C2D because it
is aiming at the lower classes who tend to enjoy music with a
catchy beat to it. It would also reflect how they would want to
aspire to be their idle. For example, the model in my music
magazine dresses like a member from Bad Manners with the
trilby hat, lumberjack shirt and braces.
The target audience for my music magazine, ‘Ska’d For Life’ is 40-60 year
olds who enjoy listening to ska and reggae music. However, it is an aim in
my publication, to get a younger audience to read this magazine because it
can get them more interested in to a so called ‘feel-good’ music genre.The
reason why I chose this target audience is because they would have been
around when this genre of music peaked in the music charts and I want my
magazine to help them re-live the past.

4. HOW DIDYOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS
YOURAUDIENCE?
 I feel that my music magazine attracts my target audience fairly well with the simplicity of my design, fitting colour and font
schemes and with a large, bold image which reflects that ska lifestyle fairly well. However, I do believe that my magazine cover is
a little to simple in its design: hardly any text boxes feature on the cover and the masthead at the moment is very subtle in its
appearance at the top of the cover. In addition, I attracted my audience with my choice of features that I included in my
magazine. I chose to do my double page spread on the top 3 ska bands of 2014 and named this ‘The Ska Awards 20114’.This
allowed me to cover all areas of ska from Madness to Bad Manners which will attract my target audience because it tells them
about these selected bands and teaches them new things that they may not have already known.Therefore, this also allowed me
to attract my target demographic of C1C2D which reflects the types of people that my magazine is aimed at. Furthermore, the
strapline at the very bottom of the cover, I feel attracts my audience extremely well as it features all of their favourite bands and
uses phrases such as ‘endless skanking’ which can please my audience and can attract my audience extremely well.
 In my opinion I feel that I addressed my target audience rather well with the design of the masthead however, it could be slightly
bolder and broader so it can be seen easily when placed on a shelf in a shop. In the double page spread, I used language to
engage the audience so that they felt that they were at an actual awards ceremony. Quotes such as ‘Your votes meant that in
third place isThe Specials for example suggests that the audience was actually in the room at the ceremony when the awards
were handed out. In addition, the information tells the audience more of a timeline of events rather of each band in question
rather than a generic story that can be found in other publications.This is an extra little unique selling point (USP) that my
publication features telling a timeline rather than generic facts about each band. I feel that this can address the audience more
because making them feel like they were actually there can help them relate to the magazine.

5. HOW DOESYOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?
 The use of the young model on the front cover of the magazine can reflect one of the aims that I am trying to achieve with
this magazine in that I want to attract a younger audience into the ska music genre. However, this doesn’t truly reflect the
target audience of my magazine which is 40-60 year olds. Although from my research that I conducted, I found that hardly
any ska music magazines exist at this moment in time and therefore I found it incredibly hard to try to replicate an existing
publication and help represent to lower class social group which this music genre is aimed at.The font and the colour
schemes that I have used were designed to be simplistic so that I can reach out to a broader range of people within my
target audience and my target demographic. In addition, the colour scheme is rather neutral which I did design therefore,
this would appeal to both genders (male and female) which to conclude, would also easily reflect my target age range of 40-
60 year olds.
 I have represented gender easily by using images of men and women in the double page spread however, my music
magazine is rather patriarchal because the male gender is heavily featured within my publication. Age is represented in my
publication however, a younger audience is used a lot more in this publication because I wanted the magazine to appeal to a
younger audience however, I know for another time to feature an older audience as this is my target audience so it would
help easily identify my target audience in question. Ethnicity is easily identifiable asWhite British because this is the typical
ethnic group that listens to ska music .To reinforce this, I decided to use aWhite British model to help the audience relate to
the specific ethnicity for the publications. In the background of the front cover, the Union Jack flag is used to indicate the
ethnicity presence and the nationality of people who listen to ska music, in particular, White British people who are labelled
to be ‘skaheads’. Therefore with this presence of the national flag, the audience get a clear indication of the particular social
group and ethnicity that this publications is targeted at.
 Class and status is easily visible with a working class feel and cheap price tag to this music magazine, the working classes
are the main target class that I am aiming for with this magazine.This is shown with my target demographic of C1C2D.

6. IN WHATWAYS DOESYOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND
CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
 For Ska’d For Life magazine I chose to base my magazine on SKA 80 which was a publication from the 1980’s.This isn’t the same
publication that I used in my research and planning because it is extremely rare to find a ska music magazine and I found this
publication on the internet and based my magazine on this design, genre and theme.
 Conventions that I used in my publication were: the border around the outside of the magazine because I feel this would be a nice
feature that could occur in all publications of Ska’d For Life magazine and fits in with the ska, checkerboard designs. I also used the
masthead font style and positioning because I liked how the masthead was spread right across the top of the cover which made it
very bold and easily visible from a long distance away. I also used the tagline that is situated underneath the masthead on both Ska
80 magazine and Ska’d For Life magazine. I thought that the upbeat and easily visible beat of ska music meant that this tag sums up
this music genre in one phrase and therefore, I used this tagline in my publication.The final convention that I used was using the
same bands in my music magazine because ska music is very niche and there are very few bands that create ska music which
therefore, needed to be included however, in my publication is didn’t use the actual logos of the bands but just their names.
 Conventions that I developed in my publication were: the stories that were included in Ska 80 and Ska’d For Life Magazine.This is
because I liked the ideas that Ska 80 magazine included however, I felt that I could develop their stories with the same bands in them
however, I developed them by changing it into an awards ceremony and the top 3 bands of ska music. I developed the idea of using a
mid-shot for the cover image. I thought this would be a good idea because it can show all expressions of the ska band members and
the shot I used also shows other relevance's including the Union Jack flags and the famous slogan ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’.
 Conventions that I directly challenged in my music magazine was using the white rectangles behind the masthead letters. I chose not
to use this because the background of my cover image has relevance to my magazine and by using the white rectangles some of the
background will be lost and so would the relevance too. However, apart from that conventions, no other conventions were directly
challenged because I like the majority of features on this music magazine of which many conventions I developed and used.

7. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT
DISTRIBUTEYOUR MEDIA PRODUCT ANDWHY?
 In my opinion, I believe that Shellshock Distribution would distribute my music magazine. I chose this company
because they distribute a variety of different music genre magazines throughout the country.They also reach
out to a broad market and audience in the company. However, I believe that my music magazine would be
different publication to what they normally do and that they would display my magazine towards a very specific
and niche audience because ska music itself is incredibly niche in its appearance and tone. In addition,
Shellshock has no ska music magazines during this time, however, they do have a website and a few pages to
ska and reggae music in particular and therefore, I believe that they would be an ideal distribution company to
use for my music magazine.
 This means that the number of people reading publications from Shellshock distributors will increase even know
my publication is very niche. However, this could still be a good feature because it may intrigue people into the
magazine and also boost the number of people reading Ska’d For Life Magazine. This media institution
therefore, could be a great starting point for Ska’d For Life Magazine growing in popularity and would also mean
that the magazine can be distributed much quicker and a larger scale to a larger audience throughout the
country. I believe Ska’d For Life Magazine would be a monthly magazine because I believe the audience will like a
high quality magazine with emphasis on quality and stories so they don’t mind paying a higher price for a high
quality magazine.

8. WHAT HAVEYOU LEARNT ABOUT
TECHNOLOGIES FROMTHE PROCESS OF
CONSTRUCTINGTHIS PRODUCT?
From the outset, the construction process of my media product, I had to learn how to use particular software and learn the vital skills
needed to use this particular software to the best of my ability. In order for the construction process to be successful, I have to use three
different pieces of software, all from Adobe – Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.
In Photoshop, I had to learn how to edit, adapt and manipulate images to completely change the look, detail and the colour complexity
of my images. For my magazine, I decided to use Photoshop for my cover image and my contents page image. In both images, I learnt
how to apply a Gaussian blur around the outside of the models which can identify the model much more easily than without the blur. In
addition, I also used Photoshop to cut out the trilby from the model’s head and then pace it on the top of the image, to give the image
depth, layers and the hat will then overlap the checkerboard border.This looks very good on the finished publication and is a little
feature that could feature on all of the editions of Ska’d For Life Magazine.
In Design, is a desktop publishing piece of software which I used for the construction part of the magazine, assembling every element
(images, masthead, text, page numbers etc.) onto the page and creating a visually impressive and high quality music magazine. I had to
use InDesign for all parts of my music magazine and when creating my school magazine, I had little skills and knowledge with the
software, however, when I began the construction of my music magazine and understood a suitable house style, I enjoyed using my
knowledge and putting it into practice to the best of my ability and as a result, I am pretty pleased with the finished publication.
Finally, I used the software, Illustrator, to design and create my checkerboard border and my iconic logo called Suggs who is the logo
and the icon of Ska’d For Life Magazine. Illustrator was a great decision for the designing and creation of my border because each
individual black and white squares is identical and fit theA4 page perfectly. However, designing the logo was much more difficult due
to the angular design of the logo that would be used in the top left hand corner of the cover. I had to learn new skills and develop my
knowledge with this software and the creation took a very long time, however, was finally created and I was pleased with the finished
logo.

9. SKILLS THAT I LEARNT FOR THE
FRONT COVER

10. FRONT COVER IMAGE ADAPTATIONS
Firstly, I took my picture which is my
cover picture for my magazine.
This is the polygonal lasso
tool which I used in order to
cut out the background in this
image which could then be
blurred to make the model
stand out more on the cover.
I then applied a Gaussian blur to the
selected background which could fade
and blur the background to a radius of
34.7 pixels which helps the model stand
out incredibly well on the page.
This when then applied and the final finished cover
image was blurred and the model in the image
stands out more and also gives the image depth to
it as it looks like the background of the image is
much further away than what it actually is.

11. CONTENTS PAGE ADAPTATIONS
This is my original
image that I decided
to use for my
contents page. It is
the same model as
in the contents page
which I particularly
liked to do.
However, in this
image, the model is
in a different
position leaning
over pretending to
take his hat off to
ska music.
This is the
rectangular marquee
tool that I had to use
to feather my image
at both ends to fade
to the white
background of the
page which easily
identifies the
masthead at the top
of the page.
This image had to be feathered,
blurred and cropped in order to fit
my contents page and all features
were done in Photoshop. I blurred
the image in the same way as the
front cover and then cropped the
image by simply cutting off the
model’s body as much as possible
to make the image fully fit on to the
contents page without hiding
underneath the border around the
outside of the page.
I then feathered my image
by using the sliders in the
image above, to feather
and smooth the edges
around the outside of my
image.The image was then
placed on to the contents
page.The smoothness of
the edges had to be a 100
pixels and the feathered
edges had to be at 107.9
pixels in order to fully
notice the feathering to
the best of its ability.
I then placed on the text on my
contents page including, features,
regulars and fashion articles.This
meant that the contents pages was
then finished along with the border
that had to be altered (see Double
Page Spread adaptations) and the
page number.

12. DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD ADAPTATIONS
In addition, I learnt how to place the border on to the page which was much
more difficult to do with this border than anything else on the double page
spread.After much trial and error, the border worked by importing the
image and removing the white part in the middle (see arrow) of the border,
the checkerboard border could then be placed onto another layer which
finished off the double page spread.
Finally, I also inserted the images to create a mood board type
look underneath some of the bands that are featured in my
main article. I decided to do this on InDesign because it enabled
me to layers the images over the top of each other and show
each and every model in the images. I believe that InDesign was
the correct software to do this on rather than Photoshop
because InDesign enabled me to layer the images, resize the
images and arrange the images how I want them to look on the
page with the text formatted to look like an actual professional
article in a mainstream magazine.
I created the double page spread in InDesign and learnt to format the text in to
column to make it looks like a professional magazine. However, I feel that this
affected some of the words in the article as they then had to be hyphenated which
then spilt the words onto the next line underneath. Furthermore, I decided to change
the font for the pull quotes in my article because it makes these quotes stand out
much more on the page and therefore means it is easily identifiable to the reader.

13. LOOKING BACK ATYOUR PRELIMINARYTASK,WHAT
DOYOU FEELYOU HAVE LEARNT INTHE
PROGRESSION FROM ITTOTHE FULL PRODUCT?
 In the creation of Ska’d For Life Magazine, I feel that I have learned a significant amount of useful functions that can help me in using
both Adobe’s Photoshop and InDesign software which I can now transport over into other subjects such as ICT and removing the
background on images and feathering images for effectiveness for example. I feel that my music magazine and school magazine
publication are totally different because the school magazine was created with hardly any technical skills with new software and the
finished publication looked very poor as it lacked one basic element that needed to be run throughout the entire magazine: a house
style.Therefore, I have learnt these new skills from the initial designs and I feel that I have created a very good music magazine with
the progress in different software packages like Photoshop which I used on the two main images – the cover and the contents page.
In addition to this, I have changed the models in this publication and the way that they dress which can help determine the
contrasting looks between ska music and school life.They contrast because ska music is very informal with coloured shirts untucked
and comfortable clothes which can help you enjoy yourself when the music is blaring through your body. However, school uniform is
very formal with a smart uniform to help represent the school meant that the school magazine could be easily identifiable by just
looking at the model and the masthead.
 In both publications (school and music) I have decided to use the idea of a coloured text box which features on the front cover of
both publications because I liked the idea of using a coloured box which can stand out on the page and give extra information about
features and articles that may feature inside the magazine. In addition, I decided to use a mid-shot on both publications for the front
cover.This was because it can contain a lot of detail about the lifestyle of the topics of both publications and it is easy to see and
understand the emotions that feature is both magazines.With my research I found that hardly any ska music magazines already
existed and therefore I thought this would be a good genre of music to use because I found a gap in the market that needed to be
plugged.When I was planning my images I chose to use a variety of different camera shots because this could show all the different
emotions and expressions that the ska lifestyle contains – including pleasure, excitement, enjoyment and the chilled out vibe that it
uses.Therefore, I feel that my music magazine easily fits my target audience and the representation of ska music in general.