Evaluation: Looking back at your preliminary task (College magazine) What have you learnt in terms of progression from that to the full product?

 

By comparing the front covers of the two magazine I created it's easy to see how much improvement has been made. The preliminary task was to get used to the basic of photoshops, like changing the brightness and adding in coverlines.  After learning the basics it became easier to learn how to change colour and add in different effects. I realised after creating my college magazine that having the writing horizontal instead of slanted made the magazine more professional so in my actual magazine I made sure I didn't slant any of the coverlines. I also added in more coverlines as the preliminary magazine looks very plain and has a lot of blank space so I made sure any blank space was filled in without the magazine looking untidy .
By improving my basic skills I was able to learn how to air brush images, however I didn't need to use this skill as simply by changing the brightness improved the image and there wasn't anything to airbrush out.

Evaluation: In what ways does your media product challenge forms and conventions of real magazine products?

I decided to use simple conventions as I felt using more complicated ones would make my magazine tacky. However the genre pop is popular with magazines and it was hard to find a basic style to follow except for smash hits which is now out of business. Some structures of smash hits front cover was easy to replicate and change. Every smash hits magazine had a colour scheme that they followed so I decided to add this into my magazine.

In order to make my music magazine look professional, I took the essential features such as issue numbers, barcodes, advertisements and often a twitter link. I also noticed that most magazine front covers have a plain background so when planning my photoshoot I found a pale wall that I could use instead of a white screen. By doing this it made it easier when constructing my front cover as i didn't have to remove much of the background except a few marks and unnecessary shadows on the wall.

When researching other magazine I noticed that for each coverline on the front cover the font changed so it was easy to seperate each coverline. So I made sure that I did this for every coverline so that it was easy to tell them apart when they were in a list format.

Evaluation: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represent young teenage girls and the images I used were of people in girly clothes, such as jeans or leggings. In one of my images the model is wearing sunglasses as this is something that this social group tend to wear, especially in summer. I have also represented this group by adding in a free one direction poster as this band is one of many artists that this social group listen too. X factor is a program that this social group tend to talk about so I featured contents and some other things about the X factor in my magazine. My media magazine represents this social groups with the style of images and the models used in them, the articles featured in my magazine and the colour scheme used.

Evaluation: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Media instituions like HMV might distribute my media product as the shop sells media products such as DVD's, CD's, computer games, posters, books and some music magazines. My media product would fit in the section where the music magazine and books are. HMV is a media based shop and sells all kinds of media so they might distribute my product as it goes along with the style of the shop.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?

My media product is aimed at girls between the ages of 11-14. I chose this to be my target audience as they are more into pop music and pop artists like Justin Bieber, than any other age group. The genre of my magazine is pop so it's perfect for the target audeince. My target audience also like girly colours which is why I chose pink to be one of the colours that would feature through-out my magazine.

Evaluation: How did you attract your audience?

In order to attract my audience, I made the front cover colourful by using a colour scheme of pink and green. I also made the main image quite big and bright so that it caught my audiences eye. I made the main coverline big so that they could see what was in the magazine and I also used images that were associated with other articles in the magazine, this made the front cover more interesting rather than just having written coverlines all over the page.

Evaluation