Evaluation

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

Front cover

 

This is my front cover with VIBE magazine. As you can see, they are both very bold and noticeable which I think is important. Like vibe, I wanted my text to be bold which I thought would help to reflect the genre of the magazine and relate to my target audience. The colours were something I had to think carefully about when it came to creating my cover lines and the masthead because not only did they need to be boId they had to be readable, they had to link in with the genre of the magazine and also the images on the cover. Also my magazine and vibe magazines masthead are both slightly covered by the main artists head slightly, I think this is a convention of a magazine that was important as not only vibe magazine do this.

The image on the front cover is the most important image so it was vital I got the look right so that it would attract my target audience. I had to find a model for my front cover who acted as a sort of representative for the magazine and immediately portrayed the genre and style and what people could expect from my magazine. I think a clear image of my artist face was quite effective as all the focus is on him, also by him having his hood up helped to represent my genre of grime as I think that you need confidence for that genre and also a stereotype is that hoodies would be associated with this genre of music, so I tried to embrace this in a not so negative way, similar to vibe magazine with a close shot of Kanye Wests which brings more of the attention to him. Also the colour of the cover lines for both magazines compliment the image and the masthead which makes it all flow into one another.

Contents page

I tried to three different sections to my contents page to try and differentiate from the common layout of other magazines. I had the features page which most magazines have and mainly focus on like vibe magazine. But I didn’t want this to be the main focus of my magazine and wanted everything else to be just as important to my target audience, as I think it would make them look forward to the next issue. Organisation was important to me and I wanted everything to be clear and readable yet still be eye catching. I found this example of VIBE magazine (left) in which the contents page was clearly organised and that's where I got the inspiration for my features page. One other key convention which I found in every magazine I looked in was sub-headings. These are important to me because I think that they act as a navigation tool for the readers. I wanted to make these bold and clear for the readers to see and have them in a clear and logical layout. I had a lot of things to fit onto my content and I had to make sure that the layout was correct and not messy.

Double page spread

                                                                                                                   When I was researching magazines I saw that most magazines devoted a whole page to an image to the cover artist so I kept this key convention for my magazine (left) and is also shown in vibe magazine (right). Also quotes across a photo seemed to also be a common convention and I thought pulling a quote from out of the interview would draw readers in a bit more. In addition to this I put a photo in between the interview questions which I thought would make my magazine differentiate slightly from others as the text page wouldn’t completely be filled with text and be a little boring and less attractive to read.

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

I used mainly black people in my magazine as this is what I believe was my main target audience for my magazine. I think that I conformed slightly to the stereotype of what a grime artist would look like with some of my pictures. But my main artist didn’t completely conform to the stereotype which is what I wanted. I tried to make it this way so that it could show that anybody could do this kind of music and change the way the social group is represented. I also think that my magazine enhanced the idea that my magazine was for 16-25 year olds as it showed that they’re not that interested in reading a lot but prefer to look at things through images.

I did add text in my magazine but not a lot unless it was for articles on artists as these things would be interesting to read about, however the style of writing I used applied to my target audience as it was slightly less informal. In addition to this I also added a lot of things about making it in the industry which I think people who are interest in this genre are interested in. I think that my social group would be interest in these kinds of things as people in that age group try to make it in the industry and this is enhancing their skills on how to do it. In addition to this the choice of clothing was based on what my audience thought was trendy and in style so in that sense I did to conform to particular social groups.

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

The publisher I would use is Bauer media because they do publish quite popular magazines however there is a gap in their market as they haven’t published a grime music magazine which I think would be good as then I would mean that they would be exploring more fields of the magazine industry. Also my magazine is also for a younger audience and from a slightly different racial background. In addition to this I think that they would help use to develop a radio station later on when my magazine will be more well-known as they already own a lot of popular radio stations.

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

My target audience for my magazine would be young people that were interested in grime music and a little bit of house that are aged 16-25. Also my target audience is also for people that take interest in clothing and shoes and what grime artist are wearing and where to get stuff from. My audience are aged 16-25 because I think that this age group enjoy music magazines and they look for something that has less writing and seems as if the magazine is directly written for them and would help them forget about school, work, college or university. Likewise my target audience will attract mainly young black youths and mostly boys as they are more into grime music because there are mostly males in that industry.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I used slang for the masthead of my magazine which I think would catch my audience’s attention also I used a graffiti font for the masthead which I think stands out. In addition to this for my cover line’s I added well-known names in the grime industry on the front cover so it would make them want to read more about it. I also used a young model that had a good sense of style that people of my target audience would like. Similarly we added competitions to countries that 16-25 year olds would most likely want to go to but may not be able to afford. My magazine is also quiet cheap which would make it affordable for young people.

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

I think that through the process of constructing my music magazine, I have learnt a lot about the different technologies involved in the creation of my product.
In the past I have had experience of using a camera but, there was much more to think about when I was using a more professional camera for my photo shoot. I had to think about lighting and background as well as what position I wanted my model to be in. I learnt about when the flash was necessary and when it was necessary to take a portrait or landscape photo. I also found that I really got to experiment a lot with Photoshop whilst working on my magazine. I also learnt a lot about Blogger because I had never used it before and so I had to quickly get to grips with it in order to make good progress with my magazine. Once I got into it, I found it very easy to use.

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

I think that when I look back on my preliminary task I can see a big improvement from then to now. I think my preliminary task was an opportunity for me to experiment in preparation for the real thing and I think without it, I would not have gathered the necessary experience that I needed, in addition to this I think that it motivated to make my music magazine better.