Front Cover
1. What do you associate with the name 'BEATZ' of the magazine?
Answers;
-Music
-Beats
-Hard beat music
-Drums
-Bass
-Music
-Rhythm
-Up Beats
-Music
-Music
The results from this question show that all people asked associate the masthead with Music. Seven of the people however, went into detail of associating them with a specific type or style of music. The majority of the people associate with style of music with a strong deep beat which is successful of what I wanted to create with the masthead.
2. What does the main image on the front cover make you think of?
Answers;
-DJ
-Youth
-Teenagers
-Music
-Young peoples music
-DJ
-Teenagers
-Music
-DJ
-DJ
These results show that all of the answers are associated with music, which is a positive result for it is the perception I wanted. Also four of the people in question said DJ which is successful in my main image as they can clearly see the role of the male. Three people asked also thought of a younger generation which is also my target audience of the magazine.
3.Which of the cover stories do you think is the most interesting?
Answers;
Exclusive Artist Reece White ' I Love it Large'- 6
Best 5 clubs to hit - 3
Free Holiday to Ibiza - 1
The results show that the majority of the people would prefer to read the main storyline featured with the main image which is the result that I had expected.
4. Is the front cover appealing?
Answers;
Yes - 8
No - 2
Reasons;
-Colourful
-Bold
-Eye Catching
-Attractive
-Looks vibrant
-Good music
-Looks interesting
-Not my taste in music
-Don't like music
From these results I can see that every person was appealed by my front cover apart from two who did not like the taste in music and doesn't like music. I think I have had great positive feedback and my cover appeals as a bold vibrant magazine, which is what I would expect to interest to the target audience.
5. Which of the following age groups do you think the magazine appeals to?
Answers;
-12 - 15 year old 3
-16 - 18 year old 6
-19 - 24 year old 2
-25 - 35 year old
-36+
My results are positive feedback as the most popular age of 16-18 year olds are generally the centre age of my target audience. I think the younger ages of 12- 15 year olds is understandable because of the bright colours.
6. Which gender do you think this magazine is targeting?
Answers;
-Male 6
-Female 1
-Male and Female 3
These are expected results as the majority think the target audience is men, forced by the male on the front cover. Although some may see as it targeted to females because of the male 'crush' figure on the cover, not just for his music.
7. Which genre of music do you associate with the cover of the magazine?
Answers;
-Pop 1
- Rock
-Rave/Dance 9
-Rap
-Indie
-Other, please state.
Nearly all of the answers match the genre set for my music magazine which is a successful results, other than the one answer.
Contents Page
8. Is the layout of the contents page clear and easy to use?
Answers;
-Yes 9
-No 1
The majority of the people thought my contents page was clear and not difficult to use other than one, which I feel is successful.
9. Is the contents page attractive to look at?
Answers;
-Yes 10
-No 0
This is a pleasing result as I feel the appearance is one of my strongest points of my contents page, with all people in question saying 'Yes'.
10. Does the contents page resemble a page from a music magazine?
Answers;
-Yes 10
-No 0
These are also expected results as I concentrated on 'Q' magazine when creating my contents page, which I think is what the people in question related it to.
Double Page Spread
11. Is the content of the article of interest to you? Please Give Reason
Answers;
-Yes 8
-No 2
-It's humorous
-The music doesn't interest me
-Background information
-Career life story
-Humorous
-Extremely realistic
-Not my preferable storyline
-Humorous
-Career Story
-Quotes
The two of the people in question did not like the content, which id only because did not interest them. The other reasons are also what I intended to be the people's perception of the article as they were my purposes.
12. Does the headline make you want to read the article?
Answers;
-Yes 9
-No 1
This is a pleasing result from the question other than the one person which may be because of their different taste in music, other than that I feel that it is a achieving Headline.
13. Does the main picture represent the content of the article?
Answers;
-Yes 8
-No 2
The majority of people thought that the picture did represent the content, however two people didn't. I think this may be because of the content of my article, it was difficult to capture an image including his career today and background, so just a plain image of him was successful.
14. How would you rate the layout of the article?
Bad 1 - Good 5
Answers;
-5
-5
-5
-5
-5
-4
-5
-5
-5
-4
These are pleasing results for the layout, showing that it is clear and spread out, this may be because of concentrating on 'Q' magazine's layout.
15. How would you rate the overall quality of the front cover, contents page and double page spread?
Bad 1 - Good 5
Answers;
-5
-5
-5
-5
-5
-3
-5
-4
-4
-5
This overall rating is extremely pleasing as they are all mostly high scores. The lower scores may be excused for the people who didn't appeal to the genre of music, which may have influenced the overall score. Although the majority of the answers were positive and I think my magazine pages were successful.
Thursday 5 May 2011
Tuesday 3 May 2011
Q7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I think I have improved in many ways from the preliminary task, firstly by the main image, as it is more clearer and efficient to have one main person in the image in a close up shot making it better for the reader to react to the image with facial expression.
I think that my masthead for the music magazine is also a vast improvement as it is short simple and goes well with the genre of my magazine which is good for the audience to remember.
In the preliminary task I also did not use enough sell lines, which in my music magazine I think I have improved on as it now has many ways to attract the reader.
My slogan for the final magazine I feel is much better and more professional as I think for my preliminary task the slogan was to long and complicated, again the reader will find it more amusing and remembered with my final one.
I also think the layout and colour scheme is more exciting and works well together better than the preliminary task as I don't think the colours worked well at all with the main image.
It is also down to also the way in which I used the technology, as I did the preliminary task earlier in the course, I was not as familiar with the programmes in use such as paint shop pro, therefore I did not erase the background on the main image which is visible to see. From my final magazine cover however it is visible to see the great difference and how professional and more realistic it looks and how the colours work better with the solid black background.
Overall...
I think that I have improved vastly on my knowledge of the magazine industry with the production, distributing and in ways that it must attract to the audience. By great practice on using the programmes and experiencing on the creating of my own products I have been able to improve my skills and developed a wider knowledge.
Overall I am pleased with what I have created being the cover, double page spread, and contents page. I think that they are realistic and similar to what is currently sold on the shelves of our retail shop, as my market research helped take place.
Q6
What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When creating my magazine product I used many different technologies, some which i was frequent of using and others which I have never experienced before.
Firstly I used the internet which a am familiarly used to, to do market research and research other information on magazine products which I could reflect into my own to make it as realistic as famous well known magazines.
I also used a 12.0 mega pixel camera for the photo's used in all images, this involved changing the settings of the camera to match it's environment and shot. This including the lighting and using zoom to fit the picture in an appropriate shot. By then using Windows live photo gallery I was then allowed to edit the pictures contrast to make the colours stand out on the picture, such as the artist's blue eyes against the natural colours.
I programme which I was not familiar with was Paint Shop Pro. I used this in editing the images such as the main image of the artist to remove the background by using a rubber tool and carefully working round the edge of the body to eliminate it. After time of using this programme I am now familiar with it and intend to use it in future projects. 
Another programme that I had never used before was Adobe In-design. By frequent practice of using the programme I became familiar with it and confident in using it. The programme allowed me to layout my design of my three pages, by then creating layers by making my product. It allowed me to use different fonts and techniques such as 'stroke' to make my product look efficient.Q5
How did you attract/address your target audience?
My magazine attracts the audience in many ways not only by it's content but most importantly appearance.
Images play an important role in this as they are what the audience first catch eye to, the most important image being the main image appearing on the front cover. This image is extremely vital as it is what the reader can immediately make a perception from of the magazine. My main image is the featured artist in the magazine being a young male, which works with the magazine because of the target audience being the majority young males under 21. This can address the reader as they can put themselves in the position of the famous artist. The picture is also a close up image with the artist looking deep into the camera lens, which allows the image to attract the audience into the artist and the magazine's story.
Layout and Colour are also important as it is due to the visual perception that first attracts the reader. I think my layout and colours do this by the use of bright bold colours used throughout all pages, which are also associated with the 'raving' known for the target audience. I think the boldness and the use of stand out colour also address the reader as it is an indicator of their lively personalities.
The content also attracts the reader by the main story of the artist where they can not only find out his lifestyle and background, but give them information on their favourite artists new music to be released.
Q4
Who would the audience for your media product?
The target audience for my product is known as 'The Hardcore Raver'
The reader profile
Male-84%
Average age- 21
Still Studying - 66%
Work full time -42%
Married and living with a partner - 22%
Into Dance & Ibiza Anthems
Favourite Radio Station - KISS 101
BIG SPENDERS
£30 Spent on CD'Ss and itunes
92% own a Cd player
44% own a ipod
17 tacks downloaded a month.
Music Fan Profile
Age: 18-30
What do they wear? Men - Designer vest and jeans, which then ends up coming off by the end of the night. Women- Hardly anything, very revealing. Bikini's crop tops, tu tu's, leg warmers and bright neon colours. All ravers carrying neon sticks and whistles around their necks.
A 'Mad Head' - Mostly referred to who like to 'live life to the max' and party hard. They work through the week to live for the weekends. Traditional party holiday every year to Ibiza. Local raves and clubs which they attend every weekend with the plan to get 'hammered'.
Listening- To hardcore DJ's and dance music which has a strong beat. Such as Tiesto, Darren Styles and Faithless. Dance moves consist of waving arms in the air and stamping feet like hooligans which comes easy under the influence of alcohol.
Found on a Sunday morning: In a completely strange place, unaware of how they got there.
Here are some of the 'Hardcore Ravers' in action! Click the link below.
Q3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?
The distributor of a magazine is responsible for maximising the magazine sales, and the process of which it leaves the production to in the consumers hands.
A company that I think could distribute a magazine like mine would be 'Frontline Ltd', owned by the company 'Bauer' publishing 282 magazines.
Frontline sells magazines through 55,000 retailers across the UK. We trade with the biggest multiple retailers through to specialist newsagents and small independent shops. Their mission is to give each and every copy the maximum opportunity of being sold, for the lowest practical cost.
Frontline sells magazines through 55,000 retailers across the UK. We trade with the biggest multiple retailers through to specialist newsagents and small independent shops. Their mission is to give each and every copy the maximum opportunity of being sold, for the lowest practical cost.
The way in which my magazine would reach the consumer is the distribution process shown below.
PUBLISHER » DISTRIBUTOR » WHOLESALER » RETAILER » CONSUMER
This would be the process my magazine would travel in if owned by 'Frontline Ltd' which is a very successful company.
Q2
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Social groups are presented in my product through different ways, most clearly being trough the images of the magazine.
The main images of the artist Reece White, in every photo is wearing large headphones around his neck. This indicates that he is a DJ by using music deck's and speakers, this immediately shows that the magazine focuses on the younger generation and shows that they are lively and like to party. However this genre focuses more on the male social group, not only because of the majority of DJ's are male artists, but because males generally seem to appeal to the harsh upbeat music being 'Rave' and 'Dance'. Although it also shows represents the female social group, as it is common for a female to adore a young male artist who they 'fancy'.
Also the picture of the Ibiza scenery indicates the stereotypical young party animal that would love a holiday in Ibiza (The world's biggest party destination). The picture of the club in my contents page also represents the young party hooligans. These social groups are also visible in my written mission statements of the target audience called 'The Hardcore Raver'.
The social group is also represented in my written article by the way the artist 'Reece White' speaks in young slang talk such as 'I'm loving it large!' and 'Sleep all day, party all night!'. From this dialogue it showing the social group who are a fan of this artist being to live freely and have their own style of language to the way they talk.
The social group my magazine focuses on is in the image below.
Evaluation Questions Q1
My Music Magazine Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Q1. My evaluation will include the information, planning and process of the production of my final magazine pages, including a front cover, double page spread and contents page.
My Front Cover
My Double Page Spread
My Contents Page
Front Cover - My front cover overall conforms to the conventions of a real magazine, which I think is most agreeable from my main image on the over. I chose to use as my main image the main artist featured in the magazine including in the 'exclusive interview'. The image being a close up image of the male artist showing clear face expression, and use of props giving immediate information to the target audience. I chose to do this as generally all magazine covers use this sort of image to give a clear view to the audience. The target audience for my magazine being the majority male I decided to use the most popular sex on the cover.
After eight shots of the male featured I decided to use the one used as I thought it was the most efficient with him making eye contact with the reader giving them the feeling they are involved with the artist, and can react to him. The background of the image was also removed by the programme 'Paint Shop Pro', to eliminate disturbance in the background on the image, and by using a black background I felt gave a more outstanding professional effect.
I have also conformed to a real magazine cover due to the Mast head and Slogan featured on my front cover. Like other magazines, I have used a short and simple masthead that can be remembered by the audience, also being visible on the cover in bold bright and large font to catch consumers eyes.
However I did decide to only use one subsidiary image on my front cover, and use a lot more sell lines. I challenged the conventions of a magazine cover as a majority use a lot of subsidiary images. Although with my front cover, I thought the sell lines worked better with the layout of the cover, instead of using a lot more images making the page look crowded. I think that my page conforms to the conventions of a magazine layout as I got my ideas from other covers, shown below.
Ideas I chose for layouts
By using more sell lines, I used one subsidiary image of a picture of the popular holiday destination Ibiza taken from my own experience. This conforms to other magazine conventions by using an appealing image persuades the reader in buying the magazine in order to win a competition for the prize. I chose this idea such as 'Q' magazine who offers free prizes such as CD's, one of them being 'Elbow' in March 2011 edition.
The sell lines used are generally artists names that are featured on my cover which I have challenged the conventions of, as I felt that by having artists name's on the cover the audience get immediate reaction to who is featured in the magazine and if it will appear to their genre.
The 'Exclusive Interview' featured as the main story on the magazine conforms to the conventions to a music magazine as I chose to use a quote from the interview on the cover, this way it attracts the reader more to want to read the story, giving them a slight insight on it.
Double Page Spread- My double page spread is focused on the main artist featured on the cover of my magazine, with a story focused on the artist.
I think my double page spread conforms to the conventions of a music magazine, as the article is based on an interview with the artist on his tour. I chose to do this as it seems very realistic and the reader can get their own perception of the artist without it being fake with his actually words spoken.
Although I decided to challenge the forms with my magazine as for the interview I used a very descriptive way of telling the story in great detail, unlike other magazine's who concentrate full yon the questions and answers told. With my article I chose to include a lot of background of the artist which I think would appeal to the reader more and make the magazine unique in it's own way.
The article includes information on the artist 'Reece White's' history of his music career and how he started and where he is currently in his music job. By doing this it gives the target audience and Reece's fans more information on him, and ways to follow up on his career including tour dates and tickets. I also decided a sense of humour through the artist in the article that would appeal to the audience as the pull quote being on the article 'Loving it large'. This leaving the audiences interested and questioning on what is involved in the article.
For the image on the double page spread I used a similar image as on the cover, however I chose to use a closer up image of his face looking deep into the reader, indicating him interacting with the audiences, by revealing his information. I decided to only use one image as it made the layout of the page look fully focused on the reader and simple.
The layout of my double page spread conforms to other music magazine's with the main image on one side of the page and the article on the other, similar to the one shown below.
I also used the same colour scheme as on the front cover to make it look more attractive and appealing and indicating that all music in the magazine is linked together.
Contents Page - The function of a contents is allow the reader to find the information they need immediately by page numbers, sections etc.. My contents page follows this convention of a magazine as it does this also allowing the reader to access pages they want in a short period of time.
For the main image on the contents page again I used a similar one to the image on the cover, being 'Reece White', although the image is from a longer distance which I thought indicated the distance from the reader and the artist in order of them to find the information and interact with the story.
I also used the same subsidiary image used on the cover of the Ibiza scenery, reminding the audience of the chance of winning a free prize which they would immediately want to turn to. Another image I used being a picture from a real life club which would attract the audiences as it involves their genre, also with the '5 Best Clubs' information.
I also used a similar layout to a real magazine contents page, as the main headings being the 'BEATZ' masthead and 'Contents' are fixed to the top left hand side of the page, which the reader automatically reads from.
I focused my contents page on the ones below, concentrating on the layout and features.
I conformed to the conventions of real magazines by using features such as 'reviews' which I have decided to use in my contents page to attract the reader.
Again I used a similar colour scheme to the page however, using a main colour of red.
Friday 1 April 2011
Tuesday 1 March 2011
Contents idea's
This contents page is affective because of it's main story featured 'DRUMMER' which is clear by the main image with a male on the drums in action. It is also linked with the large bold heading. It also contains 5 other subsidiary images which is good because it is more attractive than writing. They are all containing page numbers which tells the reader immediately where they will find the information they want. The heading 'features' also includes other information of what's in the magazine containing page numbers and a small description. The '+ regulars' is a good feature to the page as it is used every week in the magazine as if readers are expected to find something which is a regular to the magazine they will immediately know where to find it. Although it is unclear on the magazine to recognise what magazine it is from.
This contents page is different to other contents pages. It has a very efficient image which shows the main artist the magazine is featured on which will be found in the magazine. Although there is not a main heading to go with this as the main heading is 'contents', but I think there should be a small heading of some sort to explain the main story. Very little page numbers are used on the page and they are also in a very small font which will not appeal to the readers eye. It is also unclear to see what magazine it is from.
I think this is a very effective contents page as it includes mostly everything. The main image is good as it includes a band that is featured and the name and page number is also included below it with a small description. It is also evident to see what magazine it is from because of the 'Q' in the left hand side top corner. It is similar to the other content pages as it has 'features' with the page numbers listed below. It is also similar in the way that it has the section for the regular readers under the heading 'every month' which is what readers will be expecting.
Friday 18 February 2011
Wednesday 5 January 2011
Tuesday 4 January 2011
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