The document is an evaluation by Ibrahim Patel of a music magazine he created using Macromedia Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop. He summarizes the key elements of the magazine, including the front cover with masthead, date, news headlines and large artist picture. He compares his magazine to real ones and evaluates how well it follows conventions. He also discusses potential distribution methods and target audiences for the magazine.

1. EvaluationBy Ibrahim Patel

2. IntroductionIn the following assignment I was asked to create a music magazine, a contents page and a double page spread. To do this I will be using Macromedia Fireworks and Adobe Photoshop. These are the best programs that are available to me. The programs mentioned have all the required tools needed to produce the best magazine possible. I will try to make the magazine look as professional as possible and to ensure that it is of a high standard.

3. Comparing my magazine with real media productsAfter analysing a couple of magazines I have gained sufficient knowledge to produce my own magazine.I developed new skills, techniques and ideas that I have incorporated into my music magazine.

4. Front CoverMasthead – Big and bold Date and price of magazineNews headlines – These are structured and easy to readLarge picture of song artist – This takes up majority of the space on the pageMy magazine develops forms and conventions which are shown on traditional magazines. These items indicated above are on around .95% of all magazines.

5. ContentsMy contents page contained a main picture of the same person who was on my front cover, but a different photograph. This develops forms and conventions of real magazines. As out of the magazines I researched nearly all of them had a picture of an artist, the one which would be the main story to issue. I also laid out the text including the page numbers all around the page and added colour to link the front page with the contents page. The contents page itself looks a little plain at times as I have not taken time to add some advertising to the page.

6. Double Page Spread My double page spread does not have a large picture. This is not the case with most music magazines as they use large pictures of the artist being interviewed on a double page spread. I think my design does not follow the forms and conventions of real magazines because I have changed the original colour scheme. This means that the double page spread is its own page which does not follow the theme of the overall magazine.

7. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE MY MEDIA PRODUCT?I think my music magazine could be distributed through shops, which Is how most mainstream magazines are distributed, but in particular i think it would be more beneficial If it was sold it small shops such as newsagents. I think this would be beneficial because newsagents are popular in a small community and because my magazine would appeal to a wide range of audiences this would make the sale of the magazine more popular. I also think my magazine could be distributed in larger shops such as supermarkets and larger newsagents.

8. Why?I definitely think that distributing my music magazines via newsagents and large supermarkets would be very beneficial to the sales of the magazines I think this because going into the supermarket and popping into a local newsagent is part of some peoples daily life, so for them to spot and want to buy my magazine would be very easy for them and they wouldn’t need to go out of their way to find my magazine, if they have heard about it and wanted to buy it. I also think It would be beneficial to the sales of the magazine because selling my magazine in large supermarkets means it will hopefully get to a larger audience whereas if the magazine were to only be sold as a prescription only magazine, this would mean that limited people would have access to it and advertising of my magazine would be non existing which would have a considerable effect on the amount of magazines sold.

9. MAGAZINES THAT ARE LINKED TO AND PROMOTED ON WEBSITESI also think my magazine could be successful if it is distributed online, I think this would have a positive effect on the sales of my magazines because their being a website linked to my music magazine would show people how successful it was and may make people want to buy the magazine.

10. Why?This is because the use of internet is in most peoples daily life. This will give my magazine a high advantage of people seeing it on the internet. If people see how popular it is from the website and the websites reviews then this may encourage people to go out and buy my magazine from their local shops.This is because it will be on the internet which means it is likely to reach a larger audience than if it was only sold in shops as people of all ages use the internet from children-adults. My magazine is mostly aimed at adults from the ages of 18 to about 25. This gives the magazine sales a higher advantage.

11. Does my magazine address any particular social groups?I have not tried to attract a specific social group but as the magazine will be about R&B music and so will appeal to a younger age group. This will most likely be from around 16 to about 25. Otherwise I think the magazine will attract the interest of most cultures and both male and female.

12. AudienceFor my music magazine I have decided to target an audience of over 16 to ensure that there is an understanding of the content in the magazine. This is important as we want to attract an interest so that sales are high to guarantee a success for the magazine.

13. ResearchTo attract the interest of the general public I have created a questionnaire to see what people look for in a music magazine. This questionnaire helped me to design my media product. The questionnaire is shown on the left.

14. Evaluation of ResearchTo gain some ideas on how to approach my task I gave out questionnaires to 20 people. This was to ensure that I had gathered enough knowledge on what the public look for in a music magazine. After gaining the feedback I produced pie charts to show the results that I obtained. On the left are a couple of the pie charts that I produced.

15. PROGRESSION FROM PRELIMINARY TASKI think the quality of my photographs have improved a fair bit as the photos I took and used for my school magazine were very basic and I didn’t take a lot of time when taking the photos such as, I didn’t do close up shots. I also did not think of what I wanted to capture and how I wanted to capture it.On my music magazine, I had more of an idea of how I wanted my model to be when I took their pictures. For example, how I wanted them to stand, what I wanted them to wear and how I wanted their facial expressions to look likewhile at the same time thinking of my genre of my magazine. These factors which I wanted to interpret into my photographs helped portray the genre of my magazine. Whereas on my preliminary task of the design of my school magazine I think I just took the pictures without really thinking what I wanted them to stand like and their facial expressions, one thing I did think about was the clothes they were wearing as it was a school magazine I obviously wanted to photograph the people wearing their school uniform.

16. PROGRESSION FROM PRELIMINARY TASK CONTINUEDLooking at the front cover of my school magazine I think it looks like there is no structure. This wouldn't work as a real school magazine because they are expected to be very informative. Whereas on my front page of my music magazine is well structured and contains text which is very informative, explaining exactly what is inside the magazine.I also think the use of quality language has improved a lot on my front cover, because in my school magazine I think the text is very complex and simple and is not very informative, with one line explaining what will be inside the magazine for example, “new study area for students” and “buy tickets for the concert” this does not particularly express what you will find out by reading the magazine.

17. What have I learnt about Technology ?The program I used to produce my media product was Macromedia Fireworks. This is the same as when I produced a school magazine. I already knew how to use the program. I could have used adobe photo shop but as I was not familiar with how the program operates I decided to use fireworks. This program is well capable of producing the best magazine possible. Here are some of the tools that I used on the left. The bitmap and vector sections were used to edit the pictures and design the final media product. As before I also used a digital camera to take my pictures.

18. WhyI have used macromedia fireworks as I am familiar with how the program operates. This meant that I did not have to waste time in learning how the other programs worked.The digital camera was used as it was more effective. The camera can be plugged into a computer using a USB data cable. However I found it difficult to use the camera as I could not hold the camera steadily in order to take a picture.

19. General commentsOverall I think I have done well to produce a front cover, contents page and a double page spread which is of high quality. I have worked very hard to ensure the magazine will attract its targeted audience. I have enjoyed working on this project. I did not have any major problems when accomplishing this assignment. If I were to do this project again I would take more time in designing my contents page as this was weak and needed more attention. Otherwise I would keep everything else the same to ensure that I would finish the final product on time.