Evaluation of Final Products

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

My chosen logo was an Adaptation of Kerrang’s

Only I manipulated it to suspend it at an angle, the title style is conventional with magazines, where a white title and black background are common, however the arrangement of my Title is not, another aspect to be Mentioned is that my title is on the left hand side of the page, following the proven ‘Z’ pattern of reader’s instant analysis of magazine covers, I placed a ‘more inside’ at the beginning, in order to manipulate viewers to continue reading, the next object that would be viewed is the title ‘Revolt’ a name chosen to represent the attitude and rebellious nature of heavy metal and hard rock that has been characteristic of the genre’s since their creation. A fairly conventional aspect of the magazine is that the main picture of the artist overlaps the title, ensuring that the readers know that it is the musicians and not the magazine, that is the focus inside this magazine.

Another unconventional aspect is my situation of the main picture, to the left, offset from the centre, however this is done so that the Guitar neck is located so that the ‘Z’ glance is followed down the guitar, which instantly attracts the audience, and the familiar front man of a band and guitarist, and finally at the bottom I have situated an advertisement for a international festival, where tickets can be won by entering in a competition or event associated with the magazine, another incentive to carry on reading.The page split is a uneven one, with the title section, and image and main article making up the majority of the page, the lines of the page suggest that it is a rugged look to the divide, so that there is not much separation between the two areas. The colour scheme of Gold, Black, White is a very unconventional one, the White serves as a identification of the magazine’s typical contents, such as title, list of bands included, and offers, whilst the gold text is representative of specific issue content, and the main article, Gold was chosen in this case to complement the artists gold pattern on his t-shirt, the black backgrounds of the magazine are used to separate the title, and main image.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For my magazine I researched hard rock and heavy metal magazines, and found that my suitable target audience would be 15-28

year olds, this provides a fairly linear range of style and character to use within a range of about 13 years, with +/- 2 or 3 years discretion.

Heavy Metal and Hard Rock is generally considered a male dominated genre, with few female fans, or at least the minority, I used this by showing a male dominated magazine, with my main image being a masculine dominated style, and the surrounding themes I chose what were deemed to be male colours and style, to give it a industrial, metallic feel.

My language used is designed to target the 15-28 audience, with catchy, easy to read phrases and text, however, the absence of slang or colloquialisms also ensures that any advance on the age range is catered for, the title, and language used is one to personify the rebellious characteristics of rock and heavy metal, rebelling against mainstream pop , I showed this by using text which looks torn and tattered, to give it the dirty, rebel look, whilst using title name of ‘Revolt’ which itself shows revolution, and rebellion. This targets the young, testosterone fuelled male psyche. Whilst still appealing to older fans, who can relate to their experiences as youths.

I've advertised modern bands such as Rise Against, Autopilot Off and From First To Last, whilst advertising events such as the Sonisphere, where older bands such as Metallica, Iron Maiden and Anthrax are playing. Appealing to the older audience as well.

What Kind of Media Institution might Distribute your product and why?

I think my magazine would interest many media distributors, my distributor must be capable of publishing magazines, and probably needs to be a more niche publisher, specializing in all areas and not specifically music, although this would be beneficial, as the magazine does target a focused area, and not a majority percentile.

I decided that MusicMags would be the best possible publisher for my music magazine, formed in 1996 by a number of small publishers, MusicMags is an independent publisher that specializes in music magazines, Music Magazines claims to have more value and expertise than most distributors, however this could alter the cost. Magazines are able to be shipped out to houses and can be sold for free or at a cost, for my music magazine I could distribute the music magazine free until it got enough awareness, and then charge for the subscription. Music Magazines do a wide spectrum of genres, however they lack conventional rock, which is another reason as to why I chose MusicMags as my chosen publisher. 2 Million musicians in 12 months asked MusicMags for some form of advice.

MusicMags will publish my magazine to music specific places, such as record stores, or instrument stores, or venues, this would allow my music magazine to efficiently and quickly target its target audience, people actively interested in music.

The MusicMags gallery at (www.musicmags.net) shows the type of diverse publishing's that it puts out, my music magazine would be well suited to be published as part of MusicMags.

Who would be the audience for my media product?

After my research into what magazines such as Kerrang and NME consider their target audiences to be, I discovered that I also wanted ‘Revolt’ to aim at a audience similar to those magazines, this target audience would be the Male orientated 15-28 age group that I discussed earlier, I chose this audience as I fit into this category, and my personal music taste influenced my chosen genre and artists, then I would be more able to relate personally to the magazine, and I knew what would attract me to buy this magazine, as a person interested in the heavy metal/ hard rock music genre, and what would put me off buying it.

I used this to shift my magazine so it targeted the 15-28 males, using my own personal knowledge and tastes as guidelines, and asking other people with the same tastes as me their own personal opinions.

How did I attract/address the audience?

My First aim was to maximise the potential sales I could achieve by first glances, which is why I utilized the ‘Z’ line of sight that many people use to analyse anything they quickly glance at, it is subconscious, and so can not be avoided nor altered, my placing of the guitar neck and the positioning of the images and titles were crucial to this.

Another key point is my title, the font and style it is in give the title a metallic, industrial look which is both familiar and conventional in the heavy metal/hard rock areas, this style is paramount in informing the reader that this is not a pop, or country and western magazine, the genre is easily distinguishable by the style of the page. My music magazine title/logo is characteristic of its genre, however a logo such as ‘Q’ magazine is very ambiguous about its genre or target audience.

My magazine address’s the younger end of the target spectrum by creating a youthful, rebellious nature; meanwhile the lack of colloquialisms and slang language suits the older end of the spectrum, the gritty appearance of my magazine will attract anyone of the Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Indie Rock ... Ect, known as the ‘Alternative Music’, my magazine would again appeal to any of those natures, and will be able to showcase either of those subcategories of Alternative music without losing its character.

Advertising and Marketing for my Magazine would be broadcast on radio, and music TV channels, which would attract the older end of my target spectrum, mean whilst focusing on the younger end, a facebook campaign and other internet advertising would prove , I think, to be highly successful, and would quickly spread inside the audience catered for, my music magazine showcases any rock or heavy metal, so any concert advertising could be included in the magazine, so people looking for details on a concert, could find it inside an issue of ‘Revolt’, this would target the more active end of my audience too.

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

What I have learnt about some of the technological applications used that helped assist me in creating this media project is very extensive.

The first program I came to terms with is Macromedia Fireworks, a program I had used in the past on numerous occasions on small projects, however none of which compared to the scale of this project, which I needed to use fireworks extensively and thoroughly to manipulate and edit my Photographs and magazine Covers and Pages, my understanding and application of Fireworks has improved vastly thanks to this project.

Another thing I learned was the importance, and simplicity of blogging and uploading any saved work that I had accomplished, this both reduced the amount of paperwork that would have been used for the course, the ease of uploading my work was discovered during this project, and so were its advantages, such as the ability of my peers to easily view and assess my work, and the ease for me to do the same, it both shortened the length of time between creation and marking, and assessment and editing.

Slide share was another useful resource that I used during this course, the program allows you to upload PowerPoint Presentations, such as this one, onto the Slideshare website, and then upload them to blogger.com so that it is useable as if it was opened using PowerPoint itself.

Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression to the full product?

The first thing that stands out to me is that thePreliminary task is a lot more unprofessional than my later work, the PL follows a set of conventions that were put in place for school magazines, in comparison, my final product is very unconventional, to establish itself apart from all other magazines of its type.My PL does not look like a professional magazine, this is down to my small capability and knowledge of Fireworks to create music magazines, however the PL is not completely flawed, as i did work with Fireworks prior to my PL.

The differences in the products visually is significant, my Final Product is much more sophisticated, The editing on the Picture on my Final Product is much greater than my editing on the PL, where is there is little, if any.Another key note is my photography on the PL is poor, my understanding of the light source, and the usage of a clean background were limited, only in my Final product did I use a clear background where I wanted to edit out the background, and position the light source so that it does not interfere with the picture, but still give enough light.

My Utilization of the ‘Z’ concept came in full bloom in the final product, however like many other techniques that were first used in my PL, the full end result of experimentation was my Final Product, which used different, and the same techniques as the ones used in my PL.