Evaluation P2

Rebecca Paterson

How does your media product represent a particular social group?

The social group I have represented belong to B, C1, C2, social grades. The social group of 19-25 year old of both genders this is represented through my colour scheme, turquoise, red, black and white because my questionnaire suggested that this would be most appealing to my audience because my target audience associated these colours with this genre of music. I used simple fonts throughout my magazine to ensure that it was quite simple and easy to read, and that it was attractive and consistent all the way through because I found that magazines which were consistent in colour scheme and font were most successful an professional looking.

The images I used I tried to reflect my social group in. for example the way model is dressed in a leather jacket and in a “rock chick style" mirrored the way that the people who would buy this magazine would dress because it was associated with this genre. Aswelll as this on my front cover, double page spread and contents page the same model is depicted holding a guitar which is also associated with this genre so my target audience would be interested by this, this is also a representation of my social group as the audience is likely to pay or listen to this instrument and would be attracted by this. On my context page there is a picture of Kasabian as they are a well known band of my music genre my target audience would also be attracted to this as they are iconic of this music genre and represented the kind of music my social group would be listening to

When I started researching magazine distributers I found IPC media who published NME and Uncut which are rock\indie magazines, and which I have taken some code and conventions from to make my magazine successful, and therefore IPC media would be suitable to distribute my magazine.Aswelll as having 2 other similar genres of magazine, adding my magazine to their production would beneficial to my magazine as they already sell successful magazine in my music genre. They also publish for a wide audience of men and women, and this also may be beneficial as it would allow my magazine to be attracted to by a wider audience as their other magazine ranging from lifestyle to sport would help boost sales in advertisement.IPC distribute their brand to a range of supermarkets which broadens the audience for my magazine and make it available to more people.

Bauer media is also a very successful publishing company and are a worldwide media institution that would distribute my magazine as the produce similar genre of music magazine such as Kerrang, Q and MOJO which I have used a lot in inspiration from so it would be successful in sales. Aswelll as this the produce 230 magazine to the mass market, as well as online, TV and radio stations.They offer a wider range of ways to publicise my product Aswelll as more experience in production and advertisement of my product as they have successfully produced other magazines in my genre, because of the ideal targeted audience that would be provided and they substantial experience I would chose Bauer media as my publisher and distributor for my product over IPC Media which would also be suitable but offer less experience and prospects for my product.

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

Who would be the audience for your media product?The target audience for my product is 19-25 year old mostly male but a small percentage of females, who are interested in Rock/indie music going to gigs , instruments etc… I made a reader profile like many other magazines for my product, sowing images of the sort of product and things my intended audience would be attracted by in my magazine because they represent my social group like playing the guitar and social network sights and browsing the internet on the latest technology, and having an Xbox. My target audience occupation on average would be college, full time student, university or part time work.

READER PROFILE LIFESTYLE:

Owns an IPOD or MP3: 85%

Owns a IPHONE or smart phone: 80%

Attends gigs regularly: 50%

Has a Facebook account: 97%

Owns a games console: 95%

Our readers say that they download music rather than buy cd’s

Average amount of money spent on music annually: £150

READERSHIP

Male: 75%

Female: 25%

Average age: 19

Readership: 20,000

Student: 80%

Work part time: 14%

Work full time: 6%

When speaking to my Target audience they said that they enjoyed playing instruments like guitars to create their own music and that they were influenced by other indie/rock artists in music and fashion and often spend money going to gigs and on band merchandise.

AS my target audience are students or minimum wage part time or full time workers the magazine comes out monthly with a cheap subscription advertised on my magazine (See slide 7) and without the subscription costs £3.50 this was the most popular price on the questionnaire results.

price tally

£1.50 ///

£2.50 ///

£3.50 /////

£4.50 ///

How did you attract your audience?

• I created my magazine using code and conventions used in popular and similar genre magazines to ensure hat my magazine would attract my intended audience as I knew that the magazines I were following were successful and popular. I also created a questionnaire that allowed me to gain an insight of what kind of techniques I could use to attract the audience and give them opportunity to give their opinion of what they would like to see in a magazine. my questionnaire came back and the most popular selling point on a magazine was the image, and a free give away. Selling

pointstally

images ///// 5Free gifts ///// 5articles // 2colour // 2

From my results I there fore used an attractive midshot of my model who is dressed like my target audience so that male 19-25 year old would be attracted to the image and used a sticker type technique to lure them in with a free give away as well as into the banner at the top of the front cover. These were all conventions of other magazine which attracted their audiences so this would be affective in attracting our intended audience as well as using the questionnaire to get the audiences view.

Aswelll as this I gained from my result what type of articles would attract my intended audience to my product I found that they wanted gossip stories, latest information in gigs and tours and also well known artist stories that would help them get more of an insight to the Rock/indie music scene

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

I used Photoshop elements 9 to create most of my product, I had some basic knowledge by during the making of my product I learn how to effectively create an attractive and professional magazine front cover, double page spread and contents page.

I learnt how to effectively manipulate photographs, layer text and images together, and how to resize the images without losing detail that could have not been achieved on publisher or word. I also learnt how to effectively create effects on images and text to make it stand out or add a drop –shadow.

I also learnt how to use sights effectively such as blogger which keeps a digital record of all my media coursework and how to use sights such as slide share to upload my power points to blogger and how to use zoomerang to help me with my research each technology has allowed me to successfully develop and research my product aand make my product more effective.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the

progression from it to the full product?I named my preliminary task magazine Wickhem wonders and used the colour scheme of Turquiose, and Black. I have learnt that consiteancy in the cololur scheme makes it look more proffesional by keeping a running theme thriugh the magzine.I also learny that publiksher didn’t not allow you to make changes to your images as effectivly as PSE did . Aswell as colours the layout of you magazine like text and images is important as it can make a magzine front cover look attractive and grab the audience attention or not. The images are important as they attract the audience. I used a long shot and a midshot which I later learned is a code and convention ofIndie/rock music magazines. Aswelll as the quality of the image which I later learned was important when using PSE.

On my preliminary taske I used 2 smaller images instead of using one large image, and text on the front cover I think that tis isnt as effective has having a limited amount of text and one large image on the front cover as it isnt as attention grabbing but on other siilar types of school. Magazines I found that this is how it is set out but it would not looke effective on my music magazine.

LOGO

Page numbers and information on stories.

Images that relate to stories with page numbers

Exclusive Stories

Date and issue number

Contents Page I used the same colour scheme that I used on on preliminary front coveri though that this wasn’t ffectivent suit the genre that I was representaing. Although it would looked on my music magazine as it would associate with the genre was producing.I used the layout of a similar college magazine, and would have the articles heading and page number down the right and the images that go with some of the stories down the left . Also I would have the logo to act as a masthead as I followed code and conventions of mother college magazine.Aswelll as this I used the same text as on the front cover to keep the theme running to make it look professional. Also I found that language would be important ion different styles of magazine, as this was a college magazine written by students it would not have the same style as a music Edie/Rock genre magazines because they are targeting different types of people.I tried to keep the layout smile as it would hold a lot of information and needed to be clear and easy to read.Looking back across my preliminary task I fund that I should use a better software to create my magazine as Publisher was no suitable for creating a well produced effective magazine, as well as this I found that the images hold be of high quality so it can be easily manipulated on software such as PSE, so that your magazine looks more successful as well as looking at code and convention of similar genre magazines to make sure that my magazine would be as effective and successful as popular and that would fit in to the magazine market already available.

My Progression

I made a draft of my layout of the music magazine, I then made a mock up on publisher which didn’t allow me to manipulate my image or edit and add effects to my text. I then created the same magazine on PSE manipulating image and chg. the layout and text fonts. I then decreed to use a different image to make it oak more effective and attractive to the audience as the image I was originally using was dark and not appealing to the intended audience. I then experimented with different texts and layouts and design features, to most represent my intended audience and create an attractive effective magazine that follows other codes and conventions of other successful, Indie/rock Genre music magazine. I also did this for my double age spread and contents page which you can see on my blog.

I think that my product is successful. However I think that my magazine front cover could have more text on it as it has a lot of free space, as well as this I think that some of the text could have been more interesting as I think that it doesn’t follow the genre of my music magazine like Kerrang.

As well as this I think my contents page could have more images on it as it is quite plain, and have a more interesting Background colour as it isn't as bold as it could be.

I think my double page looks professional and is effective, but the text for the masthead does not follow the Indie/rock genre. To make it look more attractive.

I asked my intended audience to look at my magazine and fine any improvements that would make my magazine more successful in appealing to an audience.On my front cover I changed the layout, and the text so that it would look more appealing to the audience,. I moved the banner at the top to the bottom and changed the type of sticker effect . I also changed the size of the title of my magazine so it was bold and then changed the font type and size of the main article so that it was the effective in grabbing the readers attention.On my contents page I also changed the layout of this as well to make it more simpler and less crowded. I made the band index longer, the contents banner larger and changed the font to make it more affective I made the subscription bar and the editors letter bigger so it looked more professional and so that the page was simple and easy to read.On my double page spread I changed the size of the quote , the colour and the font so that it was easier to read on top of the images. I added a small banner with the artists name on so that it was easy to make out the name of the artist. I then changed the layout of the article, changing the colour of the boxes and the font type of the title. Also making the sub-heading easier to read by re-wording it.

I made these changes so that the intended audience would be more attracted to my magazine. so that it would be successful in accordance to the successfulness of this magazine.