The document summarizes the key aspects of a magazine product created by the author for an evaluation. It discusses how the magazine's design and use of color both emulate conventions from real magazines as well as challenge conventions. The target audience is described as those aged 13-17 and 18-25 interested in indie music. The author believes the magazine would be best distributed by IPC Media due to its similarities to NME magazine. Advertising techniques like a music festival ticket competition were used to attract the target audience. The author learned industry standard skills through the process like using Photoshop and how to design a professional quality magazine.

1. { Evaluation}
By Karl Gillings

2. In what was does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
When comparing my magazine to already existing products, I feel that in some aspects it may show similarities to
popular magazines that I have analysed and evaluated. This is because most magazines have a very simple layout,
like mine, which I personally felt was the most effective and in some cases most suited the style and demographic of
the magazine. A prime example of this is my contents page. In my opinion I would describe my contents
page as simplistic, however it is very neat and designed efficiently so the reader can receive information
easily and quickly, which was a purpose of the design.
My front cover could also be seen as similar to popular and well known magazines because of its
features. It isn’t complex and again is neat, which I purposefully did so that the sell lines and anchorage
title stood out to the reader, adding a sense of individuality to the features making them seem more
important and exclusive to the magazine.
What my magazine challenges in convention is the use of colour on my magazine's pages.
Where I feel this is present is the double page spread that I produced as a main feature of the magazine.
What I did was contrasted the images and the font’s colour to represent the name of the band that was
being interviewed. The band was called “Broken alchemy” so I used a contrast between a warm and a
cold image, which also contrasted each other by being on different pages, to reflect the meaning of the
bands name. The images are also of nature which is again representative of alchemy. Another unique
feature of my magazine is the change of colour that I used on the contents page, to show the exclusivity
and the importance of a specific article, which I continued onto the double page spread as I wanted the
them to continue so again it would highlight the article, perhaps making the audience more engaged
and interested in the article.
What I feel I developed was the used of colour, in many cases rather than just what I have previously mentioned.
Across the products that I have produced I have used colour as a highlighting tool, to indicate the reader the
importance of particular features.

3. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The way that my magazine represents social groups is through the genre of music
that it is most bias towards. In the case of my magazine I personally enjoy “indie”
music, even though I have an appreciation for all kinds of music, so the sell lines and
articles of the magazine may be, unintentionally, aimed towards a social
group/subculture that also enjoys indie music.
My magazine also appeals to a social group through the style of the writing, as it has
a “youthful” colloquial tone that may be more appealing a younger audience in the
range of 13-17 and 18-25. This could be a positive action as the main demographic
and larger target audience are in that age group but it also limits it.
This can be viewed as a good thing, as it tailors the magazine to a target audience,
but it may also be seen as a negative as it limits the audience that will be interested
buying the magazine. In some cases I understand that it may deter an individual
because they see the magazine from a bias viewpoint.

4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?
I believe that the best suited distributor for my magazine would be “IPC media”, as
they are the company that distributes NME magazine. This would be the best suit
for the magazine that I produced because my magazine and NME both share the
same demographic, theme and view on style as it was the main inspiration when I
was designing mine.
My magazine shares the same simplistic values and writing style.
IPC are also a British publishing company, this again is suitable for my magazine
as the best audience would be British as it would allow the writers to use a specific
dialect that may be best suited to a British audience.

5. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for my magazine is 13-17 year olds as well as 18-25 year olds.
This is because the genre of music largely discussed in the magazine is of large
interest to target audience. To reach and interest the older target audience the
magazine would have a good standard of English and grammar. This would
interest them as the articles would be of the same reading ability.

6. How did you attract/address your audience?
To attract the main target audience for my magazine, I used a specific writing style.
The writing style was colloquial with good grammar to attract a demographic of 13-
17 and 18-25 year olds.
I also implemented advertising techniques to persuade the possible reader to buy
the magazine. To do this I created a competition. The competition would convince
the target audience to buy the magazine for a chance to win. The competition was
aimed at festival goes and gave people the chance to win free tickets for a the
festival. The advertisement for the competition was accompanied with an
advertisement for the festival that the free tickets were for. I did this to make sure
that the reader would most definitely know what festival tickets were in the
competition. In my case I fictionally used “Reading and Leeds festival”, this adds to
my target audience as people interested in going to the festival may buy the
magazine for a chance to win.
Lastly, I attracted my target audience with the cover article and main image as fans
of the fictional band may also buy the magazine to get the exclusive content of the
band.

7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
the product?
I used Photoshop as the editing software for my magazine. I used Photoshop for
two reasons. The main reason was because it was industry standard to use this
editing software. As it is the norm I felt that it gave me an equal opportunity to
create a magazine that had the same kind of quality that a professional one did.
To take the photos of my fictional band I used a canon 650d, a beginners DSLR. I
felt confident using this as it gave more control over the end result of the image. It
gave me control over the aperture, exposure and iso of the shots. Overall this made
my magazine look more professional.
To present my work I used wordpress, a blogging website. The blog allowed me
to present my work in sizeable chunks that was of interest to my magazine. I
presented my end product aswell as my research there.

8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt
in the progression from it to the full product?
• Quality of images
• Style of images
• Design reasoning and quality
• Graphic detail and ability to design a professional magazine
• Editing ability
• Understanding of advertising techniques and how to interest the target
audience.