Download to read offline
Evaluation
- 1.
- 2. 1. In whatways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My front cover uses the conventions by having the main image on the overlapping the masthead which asserts the importance of the image. It also does not have his face covered at all which gives him a more powerful look. The price and issue are kept in the same place. This gives some amount of quality assurance as if the issue number is higher then the buyer will know that the magazine is successful and may be able to justify the purchase price to themselves. The anchorage text for the image is written across the top of his shoulders. This allows the reader to know that it is related to the image without sacrificing any of the power that the image has by cover his face. The barcode is small and out of the way as it is not important to the general public, it is only important to cashiers who will need to scan it. This gives more space to the cover-lines, which means there can be more of them and they can be bigger. The incentive banner offers a free CD in this issue which makes people want to buy it more. Putting this in the incentive banner is good because magazine are usually stacked face-to-back in the shops with a slight elevation the further back the magazine is. This leaves only enough space for the incentive banner to be shown, so it is best filled with the most attention grabbing feature of the magazine. The front cover challenges these conventions by having both an incentive banner and a footer/bottom-line. Usually a music magazine will have either one or the other, having both gives 2 large points of interest once the magazine has been picked up (Not including the main image). Also the cover- lines that are present on the front cover are grouped around the face of the main image for the most part. They follow the edge of the image which gives the impression of being closely packed and having a lack of space. This makes the magazine seem more content filled than it otherwise would. Front Cover This is good because it makes the potential buyer feel like they would get more for their money if they were to buy the magazine.
- 3. 1. In whatways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Contents Page My contents page uses the conventions of other magazines by having the image directly adjacent to the contents. It also has some anchorage text, as well as a page number in order to direct people to the source of the image should they wish to read the article that a company's it. Having it next to the content means that after the reader is done looking at the image they may read about what other content is in the magazine which may encourage them to read more of the magazine. If they enjoy reading the other content they may buy the next issue of the magazine and if they enjoy that they will buy the issue after that. It also has the features split up into feature articles and regular content (Every Month). This allows the reader to know what will be in the next issue and what is just for this issue alone. This means that the reader will not buy the next issue expecting to read more about one of the features that were in the previous issue giving them an idea of what they can expect if they buy the next issue. The feature articles are given the bigger amount of space out of the two types of feature. This is because they are a one off. This means that if the reader does not take interest of them in this issue then they will go unread whereas, with the monthly features, these are going to be in every issue to time and effort is not wasted regardless of whether or not they are read as they will be written no matter what.
- 4. 1. In whatways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? My double page spread follows the conventions of other products because it has pull quotes within the article. These quotes are large and easy to see. This means that it draws attention to them allowing the reader to get an idea of what is in the article before they read it so they know what to expect. It also has a large image of the person that the article is about on the page to the left of it. This helps because it also gives an idea of what the article is about as the person in the picture is playing a saxophone with a piano in the background. My article has two pull quotes in it. This is a little unusual as articles of this size usually only have one pull quote within them. This gives an even better idea of what is in the article. I did this because it would make waste less of the readers time. I feel this is important in a new magazine because the reader is taking a risk buying a magazine that has only just been released and it is not under an umbrella corporation such as Bauer Media. Being honest with the reader makes them more likely to want to read the rest of the magazine and buy consequent issues of the magazine.
- 5. 2. How doesyour media product represent particular social groups? My product represents social groups in positive ways. This is because there is no article that says anything bad about the people that would read the magazine or the people mentioned in it. It was not meant to represent any group in a negative light not only for the reason that it may harm the magazine, but for the reason that the magazine is new and readers would be more likely to ignore the magazine it voiced any opinions that they disagreed with. In later issues it would be possible to voice more controversial issues as the magazine would have gained a loyal reader base that would be less likely to leave if the magazine gave a opinion that they disagreed with or that offended them. Instead they would likely respond with a letter to the magazine explaining their own stance on the topic.
- 6. 3. What kindof media institution might distribute your media product and why? I believe that my magazine would be published by development hell Ltd. This is because they lack a real dedicated indie magazine. If they adopted this magazine then it would help with their sales figures and allow them to attract a wider reader base. They would then be able to advertise their other magazines within mine. This would allow them to get more readers for their current magazines further increasing their sales and allowing them more money to continue advertising all of their magazines.
- 7. 4. Who wouldbe the audience for your media product? The audience for my magazine would be people aged between 15 and 30. They would be people of both genders who are bored of traditional pop music. This would be because the magazine is focussed on indie or undiscovered artists and attracting people who are already highly invested in a particular genre of music would be hard to interest in something that doesn’t already get a lot of attention. If someone is bored of the current generation of music then I would intend my magazine to be the best place that people could go to get a taste of something new if they wanted it.
- 8. 5. How didyou attract/address your audience? I attracted my audience with a bright colour scheme and an easy to read font type. The main image on the front cover is also giving direct address makes people pay more attention to it as you are more likely to notice an image if it looks like it is looking at you. There is also a good text to image ratio on the inside of the magazine meaning people will be less likely to become bored when they are reading through it because there isn’t as much writing as you might find in other magazines. My audience is addressed in a very informal way whenever they are spoken to directly. This is because I intended my reader base to feel more like friends than customers or business partners. This help build a relationship with the readers allowing them to feel more confident about suggesting ideas for the magazine.
- 9. 6. What haveyou learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? I have become more effective and efficient at using Photoshop to complete design work where previous to this task, I had little experience with image editing software. I have also used quark to, what I believe to be, the best of my abilities although I do not consider this very high as it took me some time to get used to it and I still could not use it effectively. I believe that it would take me some time to become truly efficient with both of these software packages as the interfaces for both of them appear to be designed with expert users in mind as they are not very user friendly or easy to understand. There are no tooltips that explain what a particular tool does, you are just expected to know.
- 10. 7. Looking backat your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I think I have become better at laying out front cover and contents pages. I have also learnt that efficient space usage is key when designing any part of magazine as blank space makes a magazine seem ugly and unprofessional. When designing my double page spread I found that an engaging heading is important in getting peoples initial attention which makes them want to read the rest of the article. Pull quotes are also something that I learnt about when designing my double page spread as previous to that I did not know what they were or what there purpose was when placed in an article. Bright colours also help to attract attention to the magazine cover which get more people to pick up and look at the magazine. This increases the amount of potential buyers that the magazine has which is also something important that I have learnt while designing this product.