Evaluation

By Frankie Molyneux

Introduction.• The product I created was a music magazine. • I worked on my own to produce a front cover, contents page

and double page spread. For a new pop and fashion hybrid magazine, ‘LOVE!’

• I took all of the pictures featured on each page, and I also wrote the article on my double page spread.

Audience testing results.

1.What does the title suggest to you? • Everyone said, girly pop magazine for a

younger audience.

2. What genre/type of music does the magazine focus on and how do you know this?

• Everyone I asked this question said it was pop music. • And everyone also said, they thought this because of

the bright colours used. • Four people also said because of the ‘girly fonts’ that

I used.

3. What makes the pages look professional and what stops them from looking professional?

• One person said that the poses that the models are doing are not very professional, but they also said the clarity of the photos are very professional, two others also commented on this.

• Two people said the bar code looks professional, as this is what all magazines have on the front cover.

4. How genuine does the front cover seem?

• I collected the answers from this question and put them in a bar chart.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

Not genuine geunine very genuine

how genuine

5. Does the contents page simply inform or does it also interest you into reading

the rest of the magazine?

• My pie chart shows the majority of the people I asked thought the contents page interested them.

6. Does the article sound like a piece of journalism, if not which bits?

• Most people said yes, however one person noticed some errors in my writing, for example where my artist Isabelle says ‘promoting my album,’ and it should say ‘our album as it is a band, and she is not a solo artist.

7. Does the article layout make you want to read it, if not why not?

• Most people said yes, the article is very clearly laid out and ‘easily read.’ however two people said, it could have been arranged around the image at the bottom of the page a bit better.

I could of taken the time to fit the text around the picture better, rather than over lapping it.

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

I put a bar code at the bottom of the page to make it look professional, all magazines have these on the front or sometimes the back cover.

I have put the title of my magazine in bold right at the top so it is the first thing peoples eyes are drawn to. I chose the name, ‘LOVE!’ because its says to the reader they are going to love what's inside. This is a typical girly heading as you wouldn’t find a title like this on a boys magazine.

I have used lots of bright colours on the front cover of my magazine, such as pink, purple and blue as these fit in with the genre of pop. And I also think It will attract my target audience of young girls who like bright colours. The colours are also a typical convection of a magazine. And they also attract the reader.

I have used my models on the front cover using direct address as the are looking straight into the camera, this is what you normally find on a magazine cover, it ‘breaks the rules’ to have the looking in a different direction. Also my models match the age of the readers in my magazine, an example of this in real life is Justin Beiber or Willow Smith.

I have used three different fonts on the front cover to make it look refreshing and not boring. Also to make each piece of writing stand out. The fonts are really girly as well especially the one with love hearts around it. This will appeal to my target audience of young girls

I wrote a message from the editor so that the readers can see who makes their magazines and then they can relate to them better. This is a technique used in many magazines for young people. This creates a relationship between the editor and the reader, and creates loyalty.

Again I have used clear fonts so its easy to see where they can find what they want to read about. The font at the top of the page again it very girly font, with the love heart, I used this font because the title of the magazine is ‘LOVE!’

I tilted the photos to make the page appear more interesting. and the photos I have used are not of the main artist as I didn’t want to use the same artists on every page., because in magazines they use more than one artist.

The chatty colloquial language I have used appeals to a younger female audience, for example, ‘OMG’

I wrote the band’s name in a big font at the top of the page, to show the audience exactly what they will be reading about on this page. I have also challenged the convections of a magazine by not writing a description of what the article is about.

The pictures dominate the page, this is a convection of the magazine genre.

I think the pictures I chose for the article are typical pictures that you would find on the inside of a magazine. I have used two little pictures of my artists, Tom and Issy, the connotations of these pictures is the close relationship between them

I have also used text grabs from the article that I thought the reader would find interesting, these are typical convections of magazines I think because if some one was just scanning the page as the flick through the magazine, the quotes would make them want to read the whole thing

Instead an article about the band, I opted for the question and answer choice. The questions are clearly stated in a different colour to the answers so the reader can clearly see what is a question and what I an answer. This is a typical format for many feature articles, in music magazines. I thought this convection was very good to use because it allows the reader to pick interesting questions and find the answer to them, rather than having to shift through a big essay to find the parts they are interested in. because generally, these articles cover a number of different topics .

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• My media product shows how the stereotype ‘teen as fun.’ As it shows two teenagers working hard to create an album, but also they look like they are having fun whilst doing it.

• It shows people that not all teenagers are ‘up too no good all the time.’

• I have represented the models looking very young and innocent, with lots of bright colours surrounding them.

Who would be the target audience for your media product?

• My target audience is young girls, around the age of 10-16. This is because the artists on the cover of my magazine fit in to this age range, so the readers can relate to them and will be interested in reading about them.

• I have also put a price on the front of my magazine, as £1.80, I think this is a reasonable price to charge as young children do not have a lot of pocket money.

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

product? • I used two different programs to create my magazine. I have never used either

of these programs before and I found them rather difficult to use because I am used to using Windows programs that I have at home. These are;

Photoshop; i found this software very difficult and complicated to use at first. But after help I learnt how to efficiently use it and it was very helpful. I used it to cut out the pictures I wanted, and enhance the colors.

• In design; I used this to put my magazine pages together, it was also very difficult to use at first as the software was very new to me. But when I learnt the short cuts and how to use the program properly, it was very helpful and I couldn’t think of a better program to put my magazine together with. For example, I couldn’t of done this layout on a Microsoft programme like word.

websites used. • Blogger.com we used this website to show our planning and ideas for the

magazine. We displayed our preliminary tasks and showed our inspiration for the ideas in our magazines. The website was very simple and I found it very easy to use.

Dafont.com; I used this website to download interesting fonts for my magazine. As there was a limited selection on indesign. This website was very simple, I just looked in an appropriate category for the type of font I was looking for, and I was spoilt for choice with options.

Cameras and lighting; the camera in thee studio was very simple to use as I have plenty experience with digital cameras anyway. The lighting I found very easy to use, as the technician was very helpful in showing me how to make the lights higher and lower.

Continued..

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

progression to your new product? I can see that I have come very far from my preliminary task. There are lots of faults in it and it is not very good. Although, I really like the picture from the first magazine, as it breaks the convections of a magazine cover as the artist is looking away from the camera and not using direct address.

In my music magazine, I downloaded some fonts from a website called ‘dafont,’ I find these font are much more interesting compared to the ones I used on my first task, as there was a much wider range of choice.

I had also learnt how to use ‘indesign’ better so I feel that I arranged the page a lot better because i had more knowledge and more of a feel for the software. And the layout is a lot better now.

Conclusion.

• Over all I can say that I am very happy with my finished product. I think the colours and fonts I used worked very well. And I think that it appeals to my target audience of young girls very well.

• I am also very pleased that I have learnt how to use the software much better.

• I think that I could of made the double page spread more interesting and varied, it looks a bit bare and if I had more time I would of added more detail to it.

• But I am very pleased with how well the photoshoot went, I think the pictures are very professional.