Media Coursework: March 2011

Evaluation

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

To me there are many key ingredients for a great music magazine; being a reader of quite a few different media magazines myself I find there are a few features a magazine needs. Firstly, it needs to have an interesting font that not only looks great but fits in with the magazines theme and style, for example if it was a magazine much like Kerrang it would have quite a disturbed and eroded font that looks quite dark and gothic, then you have modern magazines like Q and NME which need to fit in with the alternative rock and pop music of today so the fonts will be quite plain looking much like Georgia or Times new Roman typefaces. Secondly, a cover needs to have a interesting image like of a new band or perhaps an older band but it needs to have something unique about it like for example on many Q magazines you have images where the lead singer is in the rain or some other situation, so the rain is used as an interesting decorative quality on the cover, or you can also use flares that give you a realistic sparkle or shine as if your stood in the sun, this can both be done with a camera or you can edit the image and add a flare later. Furthermore, a front cover needs to have a colourful yet professional masthead that can easily become well-known and famous much like Q that is both easy to remember and not too long, I believe some of the best examples of mastheads are abbreviations or simply letters like Q, XXL and NME because they become so well known very quickly. A front cover also needs to include a few features to act as lures as well as a main headline, the main headline should be in bold capitals to make a great effect as well as interest the consumer, this can also be in a different colour to stick out as the main feature. Other than the main headlines it needs a few lures is well, again to interest the reader, these lures can include competitions, quizzes, interviews and reviews that all persuade the reader that the magazine is value for money.

The average contents page is usually quite colourful in many different music magazines, it obviously contains quite a lot of text but it also needs to show a few images to look effective and professional. When it contains an image it usually has a quote from that particular feature, this is quite an effective and decorative thing that many magazines do. You also have the feature list with the page numbers; this can also be laid out in quite an effective way like on an angle or even above an image that acts as a watermark for the text. Another simple effect to use is to change the colour of some of the text, a colour that matches with the magazines colour scheme. Other than this an average contents page usually contains a lot of images but not too many because in my opinion magazines like Kerrang have too many images on their contents pages and because of this they start to look tacky and cheap.

A double page spread usually has quite a lot of text because they are usually interviews or features of bands from the past and present, so it needs to feature a few images or even just one because some magazines use the one page for just one whole image while the other page consists of just text, an effective technique that some magazines do is add a quote to fill in an empty space or sometimes they even place the quote going straight across the page as well as the image. Other than this the double page spread can also feature captions which go with the images as well as the actual article which is usually laid out with the grid effect that actually looks quite good but I quite like trying something new and laying out my text in an effective and imaginative way.

I have included many of these conventions in my music magazine, firstly for the front cover I definitely needed to come up with a main headline and a few lures, so I added the main headline which I decided would be a band interview and this would go straight across the page as well as anchoring the images that I would later take. For lures I added some of the typical features you would have in a music magazine like looks into the making of great albums, lists of the public’s favourite bands and interviews with other well-known bands. I also needed to design and come up with a masthead so I needed something catchy, colourful and overall easy to remember so I came up with SYC which stands for Sonic Youth Collaboration which means both the public and the magazine editors contribute to the final magazine, I knew that I needed to make the logo for this quite simple yet classic so I simply had the letters with the text placed beneath it in the same font. For my contents page I knew I had to include a couple of images but the thing I was worried about was the overall layout of the page I didn’t want the typical grid effective that I found to be both boring and plain I knew what I wanted but I had a feeling that if I didn’t get it right it may have been consider as tacky and unprofessional. So to make my page more interesting I decided to place a lot of the text on an angle as well as the logo and the title I think it worked quite well but the colour scheme was difficult to get right but I believe I achieved it in the end. Finally, my double page spread was actually to me the simplest of the three I knew I needed to take a few images of what looked like average band members and I also needed to decide upon a font and colour scheme but again the layout was what I wanted to definitely get right. With the double page spread I wanted to not use the average grid effect again but to try and make my page as unique as possible, so I placed the main title beneath the article to get this unique way of using space I believe this worked incredibly well and when I later added the image I was very pleased with the outcome of the pages.

I believe I’ve pushed the boundaries by using my own way of laying out my pages, I didn’t use the average grid like so many magazines do these days, I find that by coming up with you own design you’ve really put a lot of effort into and really thought about what makes a magazine great.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have definitely represented teenagers you can tell by the colour scheme and images on my magazine pages, but there is not a definite genre of music that I have represented I think I have represented a mix of genres which are alternative rock and some modern pop music. I think I have represented them well, I have taken photos and chosen fonts that fit in with there modern lifestyle, like you see in Q magazines the photos that I have taken are all in quite dramatic or quite neutral poses like the example shown the pose is like this to make the magazine seem much more personal as if the singer is staring straight at you.

The image shown is one of the images I used in my magazine and I believe it really fits in with the look of my magazine because it relates to the target audience because he’s quite young only just starting his career in music, this relates to them because they are in the same position there studying for the lives ahead of them and they want to see some one similar to them to fill them with hope that they can do this too

The language I have used can also relate to them because it is quite informal as if I am speaking straight to them in their kind of tone. The ratio of pictures to text is also not to over the top for them is well because to much text can be seen as intimidating while to many pictures could be seen as insulting.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and

why?

Bauer Media Group publish Q magazine which is the magazine that I was aiming to be like, they maybe interesting in my magazine because it is much like Q but it is a little more colourful it also features similar bands to Q but if my magazine is too similar to Q they may not be interested in it because they already publish Q monthly and my magazine may become a competitor and may reduce the sales of Q if popular enough. Bauer also publish Kerrang is well which again would be a disadvantage because my magazine would never stand a chance at becoming popular against two very well known magazine publications. Another magazine publisher is IPC Media which have published NME weekly since the mid 1960’s, they maybe interested in my magazine because I offer a down to earth magazine that would only be published every month but would contain a lot at quite a low price but again this may prove difficult against NME magazine which has being going since the early 50’s. My magazine could stand a chance though because it can be read by teenagers from the age of about 16 to 19 which is quite a decent space; it also has a very different style to a NME so it may be found as much more modern and sophisticated because it talks about both new and old bands.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of my magazine are between the ages of 16-19, which is the age where they are starting all of the serious work in college and planning for their futures, my magazine offers them a getaway from all the stress of collage by simply reading through all the newest news in the music industry today and it is only monthly so it doesn’t act as a distraction from their work. It can also be read by a younger audience to because it doesn’t contain any bad language that some music magazines have today.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

Well referring back to my audience feedback I can tell that people liked my magazine for my interesting layouts which is a point I was aiming for and I am quite happy with this. The thing that I was surprised about is the fact that some people were not very impressed with my colour scheme but opinions can differ between others. The most important point of attracting your target audience is obviously the front cover, it is the part where the whole magazine is summed up within this A4 space and I knew I needed to create an effective front cover to achieve this. I included informal language to address my audience as well as a attractive colour scheme that some didn’t like surprisingly but then again there’s always something to improve. Other ways to attract the reader is adding the features and lures on the front cover these are a very important part of the front cover because they attract the reader especially a feature that they are extremely interested in. I think people would be interested in my magazine because it offers focuses on both new and old bands so they can learn a lot about bands from the past, they would also be interested in my magazine because its modern and stylish so it relates to there lifestyle and not past even though features do focus on the past from time to time.

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

There are many technologies I used on this project some that I have only just been introduced to in my college year starting with Gimp which is the art program I used to create all of the pages for my music magazine, I was only introduced to it a few months ago but being an art student I have got the hang of using the program incredibly quickly and now I am very good at creating posters and pages for magazines on it. There were many new techniques on Gimp that I found while working on my pages one being all of the effects like Predator and cubism I didn’t use these examples but I did use the brightness and contrast tool that I was introduced to.

Another piece of technology I also used on this project was the digital camera which I needed to take my photos and record my responses from the audience with, I have only recently brought a camera because I now need it for all of my lessons but now by using it a lot I’ve really got used to how to use it and can now take decent photos for my future projects.

I have also used Microsoft word which I think everyone should be familiar with. Word has always been a great program to use because it is away of avoiding the messy look of my fast handwriting.

The last thing I’ve used is the blog which I have also been recently introduced to in my first college year, it’s actually a very good program because it basically is an electronic diary and it works brilliantly, obviously I’m still learning how to properly use it but I’m a fast learning and I can only improve at using this program.

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

I’ve learnt many things in this project from using Gimp better to using blogger more, but the most I’ve learnt is when I was creating my pages. Looking at magazines like Q and NME showed me how good I could make my music magazine by taking some inspiration and incorporating my own design ideas I made my music magazine look as good as I could. I’ve also of course learnt a lot on the media side of things, how making your front cover as effective as possible could effect the sales of your magazine. I’ve also learnt a lot about design through looking at layouts of pages in other examples and by looking at complimentary colours and how they can affect the style of my magazine, so with this project done I should keep all this knowledge with me and projects in the future should be looking even better, thank you for reading.