Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

FRONT COVER

Masthead

Introducing main colours (black, red, white)

Cover lines

Relating to inner article

Price and date

Basic info for reader

Barcode consumer purposes

Main image used in background to make cover lines stand out and to relate to article inside

Footer to emphasize something important with a flash box

Front cover similarities and differences

In my music magazine there are various similarities and differences. Features that are a basis to all magazines and are similar to my

compared magazine are used, such as; A masthead, cover lines, a barcode, the price and date and the use of a main image. Features

that differ include: A footer. There is also the use of the magic c which is used in my magazine and the compared magazine XXL, It is

a common format to a front cover of a magazine. Underneath my masthead I have used a sell line that says “Cats In The Hood

EXLCUSIVE” rather than including a sell line that reads like a slogan representing the magazine, such as XXL’s sell line “HIP HOP ON A HIGHER LEVEL”. The colours used on my product (red, black and

white) are also used on XXL, as well as many other magazines under the genre I have picked. The colour black has connotations of

authority and power, the white is neutral so it goes with everything and the red immediately attracts the attention as it is bold and deep.


CONTENTS

Images that can relate to inner articles

Bold header to stand out

Similar page listing set out with different colour for number

Page reference easy for reader to find relevant page

Page number to easily flick to

Contents similarities and differences

When planning my contents I researched contents covers that I liked the look of and that stood out to me, through this I found one that I wanted to base my contents cover around. It uses a very similar layout and used conventions such as; the use of images, a bold subheading and the page number. I

wanted to keep my colours continuous so I have used the same 3 colours; . black, white and red. One of the differences that my magazine has to my compared one is that it introduces the magazine feature in a rectangular

box with the use of capitals, i have used this to highlight the importance of the feature. Another difference is that I have used a page number

reference to caption the photo, I decided to use this because it provides more visual information for the reader and makes it easier for them.


Double page spread

Main image

Illustrating the article

Article heading Naming the article, big and bold, with continuous colour theme

Separate images

Relating to other bands or relevant to the DBS subjectArticle

Information on a certain subject, e.g. a band interview

Grab quote

Pull the reader towards something interesting/important in the article

Quotes

Link to article content

Page number

Reference for contents page

Photographer by line

To credit the photographer

Article summary

Main image

Illustrating the article

Page number

Reference for contents page

Article

Information on a certain subject, e.g. a band interview

Drag quote

Pull the reader towards something interesting/important in the article

Separate images

Relating to other bands or relevant to the DBS subject

Article heading Naming the article, big and bold, with continuous colour theme

Flash

To stand out

COMPARISON

Double page spread similarities and differences

There are conventions on my double page spread that have been used in many other magazines. In the magazine I have compared my product to, it has a

main heading that titles the article, I have used a main heading similar as it is important to make the page stand out with something important. The font

is bold and in capitals, it again uses the continuous colours of black, red and white. It is also similar as it has 3 images on the right hand side of the page, however the images I have on my product are directly relevant to the article, where as, the compared double page spread uses images that are indirectly relevant. Both my product and the compared double page spread has a drag quote, I used this as I’d seen it before in magazines and it had immediately stood out. There are also page numbers on both magazines, this is a convention that is highly essential, and the use of columns to set out my article, this makes it neat and easier for the reader to read. There

are differences such as the format of the image, the image on my product is set out to mimic a Polaroid picture, where as the image on the compared

magazine is covering the whole A4 side, with no frames.

Questionnaire Results: “On a scale of 1-10 how realistic does my music magazine look compared to

real products?”

Cover

0123456789

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Scale of 1 - 10

Res

po

nse

Contents

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Scale of 1 - 10

Res

po

nse

I asked 20 participants to complete a questionnaire about my media product, these are the collated results involving question 1.

Article

0123456789

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Scale of 1 - 10

Res

po

nse

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

As my music magazine is targeted at 16-24 year olds interested in the genre of hip hop, the social group i have chosen to represent is of the typical

ethnicity black and from the urban adolescent. The images are clearly representative as they reveal the stereotypical ‘street’ wear of hoodies and baseball caps, which is highly relevant to the genre of hip hop. I believe my product has represented the social group in a positive light as it highlights

the success and talent they have through the interview. Because hip-hop is generally a black genre, I have used a white male on my contents page to contrast. With my intentional target audience including both genders, one

thing I should have included is the representation of females, e.g. images or cover lines.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

“Bauer Media owns more than eighty influential media brands spanning a wide range of interests, including heat, GRAZIA, Closer, MCN, FHM, Parkers, MATCH, Magic 105.4, Kiss 100, Kerrang

and Q”• I believe Bauer Media would be the ideal publishers to publish my magazine as they already have

experience within music magazines such as Kerrang, Q, Mojo and Pop. • It would be highly beneficial for Bauer to publish my magazine as it would fill a gap in their roster as

they don’t currently have a hip-hop magazine, however they do have Q magazine which covers a variety of genre’s including hip-hop, proving to all that they would be a great representative for my magazine. Not only is there the difference that my magazine only covers hip-hop and Q covers other genre’s, but it is also targeted at a younger audience of 16-24 compared to the target audience for Q being consumers over 25 years old.

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/home

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/home

4. Who would the audience be for your media product?

As my magazine genre is hip-hop, the audience would generally have the interest of hip-hop music or the culture of hip-hop. The target

audience would also be in the age range of 16-24 year olds which can be seen immediately as the people in the images range from 16-18,

male or female. However, in my product there are no images or many mentions of females which can portray that the genre is highly

dominated by males. The social class I have aimed my magazine at would range from C1/C2-B, the images used can present this due to the clothing being worn. Also the use of san-serif text, providing the sense of informality. As hip hop has become a mainstream genre I

have aimed it at the psychographic profile of mainstreamers/followers.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Before designing my magazine I used a questionnaire to ask people a variety of questions ranging in my preferred target audience. I included questions giving the

choice of a variety of preferred features so I knew exactly what my audience wanted to see in my magazine.

Content my participants would most like

Interview s w ith artists/bands

Gig Review s

Competitions

Upcoming artists

Upcoming events

Quiz's

Here we can see the most important features, so I used this to incorporate exactly what my audience wanted into my product.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

• Another thing I used to attract my audience was the use of images. As my audience were fans of hip-hop, I used ‘artists’ that were from the genre of it, and that resembled the style of the genre (street).

• One of the most important features to attract my audience was the colours used. Throughout my product I have used the same three colours; red, black and white, in all three of my pages I have kept these colours consistent. I believe the importance of the colours were significant as all the text/headings were the things that stood out immediately to the reader.

• The use of font was also a great attraction as it was stylized to create reference to the genre, as it is bold and striking. There was a high use of capitals which can create the immediate eye catching effect, and can highlight the importance of certain things, such as the masthead. Not only did I use capitals for the masthead I used impact as the font and also used ‘fx’ bevel and emboss to make it even bolder and eye catching.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

PhotoshopThe first thing I needed to do was place the main image in, so I selected file, and place

It then lead me to select the image I wanted to use, to which I then selected place.

It then replaced a white background with the main image.


PhotoshopTo insert my masthead, I clicked the ‘T’ on the toolbar and it provided options of font, size and colour, I chose all to match my drafts. I intended for my masthead to be bold and eye catching.

Because I wanted It to stand out, I used font size 166 and used the font ‘impact’, I also used black to make it simple. But to make it a bit different I changed the ‘MA’ in the middle of the text to red to match my colour scheme.

I was then happy with the outcome for my masthead, this immediately can be seen and would be very eye catching for a shelf product.


Photoshop

To increase the eye catching effect I wanted to use ‘fx’ to make it even bolder, I used ‘Bevel and Emboss’

This then increased the intensity of the masthead, guaranteeing the attention of consumers


Photoshop

To create my cover lines I again used the ‘T’ on the toolbar and chose text to write

The text didn’t quite stand out across the background, so I used ‘fx’ and stroke to make it more noticeable.I think the stroke

outlining the text made it more immediate and eye catching


PhotoshopAfter inserting all my cover lines, I decided to use a flash rectangle box to highlight an important cover line I then filled it black to

make it bold

I used an important cover line so that the consumer would see this immediately as it stands out

However I wanted to emphasise it more so I added the stroke affect to outline the writing and make it stand out even more.

With the flash including text that has effects on it creates a massive attraction for consumers


In Design

To create text on in design I used the ‘T’ in the toolbar

Because i wanted to create a grab quote to stand out between the columns of my article, I moved it to the place I wanted

The text setting was on ‘text around bounding box’ so I changed this to ‘wrap around object shape

This then created a grab quote that stands out around the article


In Design

I wanted to place a photo on the side of my DBS so I selected the rectangle frame tool and created a box where I wanted my image to go.

I then went on file and place to select the image I wanted in the rectangle frame

This inserted the picture but at a large scale, so to make it fit the frame I used right click to then select fitting and ‘fit content to frame’ my image was now how I wanted it to look.


In Design

When I created my text box and typed my article I needed to make sure it looked professional and in columns

I changed the number of columns from 1 to 2 and it then created the two columns that looked a lot more professional than the one column of text. This made it look like a proper magazine article.


In Design

I wanted to make a rectangle box to use for quotes below each photo

I typed in a quote and changed the font and font size to make it stand out

As it didn’t quite stand out as much as I wanted, I created a frame around the rectangle box using stroke and increasing the weight to 4pt

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Progressing from the preliminary task to the real product, I have learnt a lot and it has helped me to

improve the realism of the magazine product. As the products were different types of magazines, there were

things that had to be different due to the variety of content. When comparing both products there is a

massive difference, including use of colours, images and text. I have improved the image quality, as I

believed that the image I used for my college magazine didn’t quite make the impact it could have,

so for my full product, I made the image stand out properly and also a lot more relevant.


Bold Masthead with use of different colours- better use of effects

Issue date and price

Cover lines, variety of subject

Flash box in different positions, good to attract reader

Barcode

Main image


Heading- with the difference of angle, font, size and colour

Use of images with variation

Page number for picture reference

Page number- with the difference of a rectangle backing the number- this helps it stand out a lot more, it also represents the colour theme a lot more

Again in both contents pages I have used square and rectangle frames to frame the content, this creates a more eye catching effect for the reader as it stand out


Because I didn’t create a double page spread for my preliminary task I had to make sure I researched as many

double page spreads that would be relevant to my genre of hip hop, I also used a questionnaire which I handed out to peers of my target audience, this helped me decide what

the double page spread content would be on e.g. An interview/article.

The main thing I have learnt from the process of preliminary to main is the

variety of skills needed for the different pages. Also I have learnt that the quality

and variety of images is very important to keep it professional and realistic.

Evaluation

Art & Photos

Transcript of Evaluation