EVALUATION

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE,

DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

FRONT COVER COMPARISON

FRONT COVER CONVENTIONS: ANALYSIS OF Q

Masthead – Behind subject

Large main cover line – convention is to relate to main article and also

the cover model

Plain or simple background

Limited colour scheme, sticks to 3 or 4 colours; Red, Blue, White and

Black

Barcode including name of magazine and date

Multiple cover lines including a range of fonts and line

weights

Design additions / motifs

Minimalist overall layout

Subject looks ‘through’ the camera, creating eye contact with the

reader

3 layers creates depth and adds a sense of realism

Use of studio lighting – eliminates shadows and provides added

highlights to subject

FRONT COVER CONVENTIONS: ANALYSIS OF GENIUS

Masthead – Behind subjectConnotations of the word genius include the idea of intelligence,

skill and technical ability; some of the attributes of Acoustic artists

Large main cover line – convention is to relate to main article and also

the cover model

Plain or simple background

Limited colour scheme, sticks to 3 or 4 colours; Red, Blue, White and

Black

Barcode including name of magazine and date

Multiple cover lines including a range of fonts and line

weights

Design additions / motifs

Minimalist overall layout

Subject looks ‘through’ the camera, creating eye contact with the

reader

3 layers creates depth and adds a sense of realism

Use of Three-Point Lighting: Removes shadows, and highlights

the subject

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD COMPARISON

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD ANALYSIS: NME

Image spills over right facing page to

left facing page

Copy is very small on page – 9 points

Large Article Headline– Character Spacing is

reduced so letters are almost touching. Line

stroke is also increased to add

weight

Smaller logo paced in corner to identify

publisher

Stand-first in a smaller size than the title but still larger than the main body

of text

Two large drop caps – both in colour and happen to relate to name in stand first– ‘J’ and ‘F’ for ‘Jamie

Fullerton’

Pull Quote – Letters match colour of drop

caps, character spacing is reduced to bunch up letters like title. Quote marks

indicate someone has said it. Text is centred as opposed to aligned

to the left.

Footer: Issue date, magazine name and

page number in bottom right corner

Full bleed image – use of three point

lighting to ensure no shadows are present.

‘Washed Out’ and vintage appearance

as if it has been processed. Mid-Shot

ensures space is filled

Margin

Gutter

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD ANALYSIS: NME

Image spills over right facing page to

left facing page

Copy is very small on page – 9 points

Large Article Headline– Character Spacing is

reduced so letters are almost touching. Line

stroke is also increased to add

weight

Smaller logo paced in corner to identify

publisher

Stand-first in a smaller size than the title but still larger than the main body

of text

Two large drop caps – both in colour and

relate to name in stand first– ‘B’ and

‘H’ for ‘Ben Howard’

Pull Quote – Letters match colour of drop

caps, character spacing is reduced to bunch up letters like title. Quote marks

indicate someone has said it. Text is centred as opposed to aligned

to the left.

Footer: Issue date, magazine name and

page number in bottom right corner

Full bleed image – use of three point

lighting to ensure no shadows are present.

‘Washed Out’ and vintage appearance

as if it has been processed. Mid-Shot

ensures space is filled

Gutter

Margin

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD ANALYSIS: QR BARCODE

Although the double page spread I had chosen to use as a template didn’t feature a QR Barcode, I noticed they were

conventional in many popular music magazines. As they are still relatively new and exciting to people who see them, I felt it

appropriate to include in my magazine. I created a custom barcode that linked to Ben Howards website ‘www.benhoward.com’. This

way readers can be taken directly to purchase tickets and keep up on the latest news concerning Ben Howard. This is all possible

through the use of a smartphone.

This is made possible through the camera on most iPhones, Blackberry’s and Android phones.

CONTENTS PAGE COMPARISON

CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS: QHeader

Secondary Image

Main Image Small Masthead / Logo

Headline

Small Masthead / Logo

Footer: Issue Date and Page Number

Gutter

Contact Information

Border

Eyes Looking at Reader – Draws Attention

Page Numbers

CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS: GENIUSHeader

Secondary Image

Main Image Small Masthead / Logo

Headline

Small Masthead / Logo

Footer: Issue Date and Page NumberGutter

Contact Information

Border

Challenging the convention of eyes looking at reader by instead having eyes

focussed on an object. This creates excitement

and energy.

Page Numbers

3. WHAT TYPE OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT

DISTRIBUTE YOUR PRODUCT AND WHY?

Magazines are distributed through out-sourced courier services

usually in the form of large fleets of vans. My case study magazine, Q, was produced by Bauer Media Corporation, and that is what lead me to use them as the publishers for my media product. I liked the style and design of Q magazine,

but noticed Bauer had a gap in the market for an acoustic style

magazine, and planned to fill this void with my magazine.

Using Bauer to distribute my magazine would be beneficial, as it would be possible to create a large brand for ‘GENIUS’ due to Bauer’s cross-media ownership. This

would effectively allow me to set up a television channel, a website and possibly even a radio station for Q, which

would attract a larger market of buyers. In doing so, sales of GENIUS would rise, increasing profits. Although the content of a magazine is very important, as this is what

convinces buyers to part with their money, so it profit to the company. Without high profits, the quality of the magazine would be forced to decrease; such a lower

weight paper, less content or perhaps a lack of a cover mount.

4. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA

PRODUCT?

Through completing an audience survey on a range people from different cultures and ages, it became clear that my target are young adults, from 18-28 years old. My audience like to shop in high street fashion shops such as Topman and River Island, and have an interest in

keeping up with current trends in both clothes and technology. As they are a relatively young audience, some like to consume magazines in digital formats, such as form the iBooks store,

or online - although the majority still preferred to read magazines in the traditional hard copy. I feel the number of people who liked to read them as a digital download would

decrease proportionately as age increased. My audience would be based in smaller towns and counties, instead of large built up areas such as central London. This is because most

acoustic artists come from such places; for example, Ben Howard originated form Cornwall and Devon. This is also where smaller venues for gigs are located.

5. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

The majority of the people who took part in the survey said they would prefer

a magazine with a minimalistic design, leading to me basing my own design off Q’s. To achieve the minimalistic design, I

used Helvetica as the font that ran consistently throughout my magazine, as this has endlessly been the font of choice for highly popular and innovative design companies and brands. I made sure to use a simple colour range; through the front cover, contents page and double pages spread, I did not use any other

colours than black, white and red. I feel more than 3 or 4 colours leads to a messy overall appearance. It is also

unconventional to use more than this as I learnt through my magazine research.

I also made sure that my use of imagery was typical of magazines from this genre, featuring

a simple background so as not to detract from the subject, but also to allow space for

features such as cover lines, in the case of the front cover. My audience survey told me that they preferred shorter articles written in an

informal style. I tried to keep my feature article as short as possible whilst still

remaining captivating and educational, and also written casually, without the use of slang.

For example, at the end recommending readers to ‘check out his new album’.

I made sure the price of the magazine was priced in the middle range, so as to earn enough profits to keep it high quality but

cheap enough that people of this younger age can still afford to buy it.

5. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS

PRODUCT?

• To create even these simple products, it required knowledge on a multitude of different softwares:

• Wordpress - used to publish the work that was created

• Photoshop - cropping the images / selecting resolution

• InDesign - layout, typography, copy

• iPhoto - colour correction and grading

• SlideShare - embedding Keynote presentation on Wordpress

• YouTube - posting a video on the internet

• It also required the use of a range of different hardware:

• Point and Shoot style camera - taking photos for the preliminary exercise

• Digital SLR - taking photos for the final product

• Studio Lighting - key light to light subject’s face, 3 point lighting to eliminate shadows

• Tripod - maintain a well composed shot

Wordpress has been the most important available to me when completing this project - it has been my

online and digital portfolio, no paper has been used to complete this assignment. It is completely free to use for anyone around the world, meaning it readily available to anyone who wants to create a blog. Most of the tools are simple enough to use, such as adding a new post

and uploading media (photos). However, the only thing I did struggle with was creating drop down menus for my

blog, to neatly file and categorise my work. Once this issue was sorted though, everything else was seamless.

At first, I found InDesign very tricky to use, and would have preferred to use my native Pages for the layout of the. I

thought the interface was quite difficult to become accustomed with unless you had been told directly how to do something - unlike photoshop where something can be ‘discovered’ by guess work. Once I had worked out how to do something it was easy to do, but even towards the end of the product, I was still learning new things which I wish I had known at the beginning (such as holding down the shift

key as a shortcut to resizing an image proportionately). Unlike WordPress, InDesign is a paid for piece of software,

and in my opinion, very expensive, although I can understand why it is priced the way it is.

SlideShare was another new tool to me, however it was very easy to understand how it worked - I was able to log in using my Facebook account details, and found it easy to embed my presentation on my blog. SlideShare is free to everyone, and a variety of file types are

compatible, making it vary accessible to Mac and PC users.

YouTube is another free service, and something else that was very easy to use.

The hardware we used was also very easy to use. The point and shoot camera was self explanatory, and the SLR was just as simple. Perhaps to

people who are not familiar with such cameras might find them difficult to use at first, but studying photography meant it was already something

natural - this was helpful when composing and framing the shot as well. The point and shoot cameras are more accessible as they are priced from

£100-200 whereas the SLRs can cost upwards of £300-500.

7. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE

LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE VS FINAL PRODUCT

• Some of what I used to create my final media product was completely new to me, including using photoshop to resize and crop an image, using InDesign to design a layout for a page, and WordPress to publish my work.

• When creating my magazine pages for the preliminary exercise, I designed the layout in the way I thought it looked best. This was not necessarily the case, the difference was clear when next to my final product. This was because of the planning and research done into looking at real existing media products. I have learnt that magazines follow a set of conventions, such as copy being size 9, and a central image on a plain background - two things I failed to include on preliminary exercise. When looking at my final product, it is clear that it features much more content, made possible through smaller text and a more complex design. I now understand that colours are very important, in my first I used a yellow that matched the jumper my model was wearing simply because I thought it would be good, however now I realise that magazines use a certain palette of colours.

• I have developed the skill of using InDesign to create a template using placeholders for images and text, and also designing mastheads.