Evaluation Question 7 - What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

When looking back at the task to create a front cover, contents page for a college magazine, I had learnt a number of skills on Photoshop and information which helped me and gave me a better opportunity to create my final products.

When I look back when I started the first task to make a college magazine I think I spent my time much better in organising and management skills as I felt comfortably introduced to the task which made me feel more relaxed and made it easier to get on with the task but in making the full product I felt rushed and I didn’t organise time as well as I did in the beginning but I think I could have done much better. When preparing for the full product I knew which models I wanted to use before I started to take pictures but because of finding a right time to schedule the room to take the photos and when my models were free it lead to me taking my own photos using my own cannon camera and only using a few models when there should have been more. What should have done to solve the problem would have to plan the times I needed to take photos more carefully and much early so that when creating the magazine it would have run smoothly and not roughly done.

Through the decisions I made I think that I did make a suitable music magazine that fits the genre that I set it out to be and also that I captured the audience with the style of the magazine and the use of expressions of the models and different photos used. I think the concept was very good and also the use of props from pictures and the models made my magazine seem more realistic.

   

   

Audience feedback:

To see how successful I was in creating my front cover, contents page and double page spread, feedback from people aged 16-25 was needed to see if I attracted the target audience. By posting my work on my wall on Face Book it allowed my friends and others to comment on my working stating the positives and negatives or if I should improve on my work. Once people responded I found that the comments were highly useful as they supplied me with mostly positive points but also negative points showing where I went wrong.

As I looked through the comments the most common negative point that occurred was that there were some spelling and font size mistakes. I would agree with that since it was rushed but it was easily fixed. Many people thought that my magazine looked like a real one for example one person said ‘that’s looks exactly like Kerrang would make’. Another improvement that was suggested was that the double page spread and the front cover were much stronger when compared to the contents page because the other two looked more professional and the contents page was said that it was basically the same thing that Kerrang did. I would agree with what they said because I was inspired by Kerrang magazine and I may have copied the style too much, but the way I would intend to fix it would be to have a collage of images on the left hand side making it more appealing to the audience and to change the fonts as they were to plain and dull.

The strengths of my work were the photos used in the magazines pages and also the how the magazine fitted the genre that I was going for.

The weaknesses of my work would be that I didn’t plan and managed my time correctly but I would be happy if I was given more time so I could improve it to its best potential.

However, when we finished the second task I think that my worked improved by a lot, in terms of skill, creativity and quality. Also it was down to learning how to focus the camera we were given to take such high res pictures.

Evaluation Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine follows the genre of rock so when I have made it, it will appeal to the people of that subculture. After collecting my information from the audience research I decided to make the magazine targeted at people aged 16-25 who have general interest in rock music and by making my target audience between age 16-25 I will be competing with Kerrang magazine as they are do same. Also since the magazine reviews bands that are from a young age and include images of teens aged 16 and upwards this how the magazine shows what age group they want to be targeting.

This model on the left was used in the double page spread and he represents the type of audience that my magazine is targeted audience. From the image taken you can see that he ties in with the genre of the magazine as his hair and expressions shown in the picture show rebellion which rock is all about.

When looking at other types of magazines genres like hip hop or RnB they show their status through explicit lyrics and what they wear for example, jewellery and money. When you look at rock artists today you can see that they are not concerned by having expensive and shiny things to show who they are but they rather show individuality. As you can see from the model on the right which was used in my contents page the simplicity of his style to make other features like the long hair to stand out to show individuality. The style of clothing was done deliberately to show the independence of the model and how little effort is put into the style, this was done because rockers don’t wear fancy things to show who they are but wear simple things and let their music tell what they are like and this is expected by the audience because they wouldn’t see a rock star dress up like a rapper.  Also, in the picture you can see that I planned for the model to give a fierce presence through his expressions to show how rough and wild rock music is and how the model ties in with genre. The expression on the face also shows anger which ties in with rock music since loads anger is put into singing the songs.  

With my knowledge of rock stars and through my research I have found out that most rock stars have certain features that show they rebel against the law because they have difficulty obeying the law because of what they earn.  The way I have shown how rebellious that can be is by picking a model that doesn’t meet the stereotypical idea of boys hair (short) in the picture he has long hair and also by the expressions on the face you can see he is a rebel.  I think this is a picture chosen for the target audience because it is a very stereotypical image of a rock star. This picture was taken for the double page spread and represents two subcultures which are the rock community and teenagers. Also through the models stance and expressions you can see that he has angry attitude which can tie in with most teenagers today.

In my magazine you could see that they all looked the same so you can tell they tie in with the rock genre so it meets what the target audience expect to see.

Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Before I created my media products in my magazine that I designed, I researched and observed different professional magazines such as Kerrang and this helped me realise what conventions were and what was needed to make a good magazine.

Also when creating the media products, the textual analysis I did helped as it gave me ideas on how the magazine should be structured and helped me visualize what my magazine should look like.

In the magazine I designed I had many different media products which used many different forms and conventions so it can attract the target audience by its professional/ recognisable format.

First of all you can see that my masthead is placed at the top of the magazine in the centre. This is a standard convention used by all magazines to make the title clear and recognisable to the public. The masthead is always uses larger text compared to the other pieces of text on the magazine and also written in a different font to make it standout, to give the magazine originality and to attract the reader’s attention. Also by using a bold font which I used, it helps it stand out which is another convention which links with the masthead.

My magazine masthead

Since the genre of my magazine was rock, I decided to use the magazine Kerrang as a case study as it is the most familiar one to me. Kerrang guided me to create my media products and helped me base my design round the same way they design their magazine and this made them one of realistic competitors.  As you can see from above it is similar to how Kerrang present who will be featured in their magazine by framing the text and using contrasting colours to help it stand out to the reader. Also this is placed at the bottom so you don’t take the focus from the main image.

My magazine also has the convention of having a colour scheme. During my research of magazines I found out many magazines like NME or Q have a constant colour scheme of red, black and white but when I looked at Kerrang magazine I saw they liked to change their colour scheme every time they release a new magazine, this is done because they would want to keep their magazine fresh and exciting but they keep the same colour scheme throughout the magazine. I followed what all these magazines did and kept the colour scheme throughout the magazine, the colours I used was black, grey and yellow as I thought that these colours go together and create a neutral and inviting feel towards the magazine. Also I included a bar code on my magazine as I could see from research if you are going to be selling your magazine it will need a bar code. By doing this it made my magazine seem more realistic and professional.

Also in my magazine i thought I would include a selling line on the front cover. I think this is very important as it would be used as a marketing technique as it challenges the reader and make them feel like they need to read the magazine as it challenges the reader. For example the selling line is ‘TAKE A CHANCE ON THE WILD SIDE’ as shown below.

By using a selling line it shows what the magazines view on music is and from the selling point I used the reader would thing that they feel music is wild.

Throughout the magazine I followed the different forms and conventions that I was able to use. On my magazine I used a typical feature that all magazines used which is the date and selling price but I didn’t put both together I thought it would be more useful to keep them apart because I thought it would give it better structure and presentation.

Evaluation Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During this coursework, I have learnt many different ways and things on how to use the software of certain technologies. I think by learning all these new skills it has equipped me to make my music magazine and also has improved my skills as you will be able to see if you compare my college magazine to my music magazine.

During the long process of planning, the very first piece of technology I used was the internet as I needed to create an account on Blogger.com to present my work. The process of posting and writing your work on blogger was very useful at times but became fairly difficult to keep up with work and remembering to post every single piece of work that you do on blogger. Also when it came to upload photos and graphs it became frustrating because you would need to convert them in suitable file content which annoyed me at certain times. After getting use to blogger it became quicker and easier to use.

Also when using the internet another factor that assisted me in my work was using search engines such as Google to find images and research on existing magazines so it made it easier to plan and also I used an image of a magazine to write my magazine front cover analysis. It also helped me find information about publishing companies to help me write my case study.

In my planning I also used software such as Microsoft excel to create spread sheets to create my graphs and pie charts to present my data that I got from my audience research questionnaires but sadly I didn’t learn anything new with excel since I have been using it for some time.

In order to obtain my images for my media product, I used the Canon E05 400D 10.1 camera and also the Cannon E05 500D which was my own camera to capture the images for my front cover, contents page and double page spread. After the first attempt using the camera provided by the teacher it was relatively easy since we could take photos anywhere we wanted to. However when it came to using the blue room and the other pieces of equipment I found it harder to use because some photos became out of focus when taken because I didn’t know how to use the camera. The first thing I learnt was how to put the camera into focus which helped me a lot since then my pictures came out much clearer. To make sure it is in focus is to press the button on the top right of the camera so the red dot moves around till you get it to eye level which will put it in focus.

When taking the photos I had to consider many things such as conventions of the magazine and what type of shot should the photo or if it should be portrait or landscape.  When I took my photos, I took most of them in portrait orientation, then I took a few in medium close ups for my front cove of the magazine then I experimented with close ups and long shots and used these images in different parts of my full product. I also learnt how to achieve maximum results with three technical elements that make a photo, and the three elements are (aperture, shutter speed and ISO speed) and these control how much light is let into the camera.

When using the Cannon E05 400D, another problem occurred with the lighting because I wasn’t using the soft box well enough, the model stood to far back and some pictures came out really dark.

Once the pictures were uploaded on to the computer, I now had to pick which ones would be most suitable for my magazine.  Then once selecting the image, now I would need to open that image on a photo editing software, the software I used to edit my pictures was Photoshop CS5. This allowed changing the brightness and contrast of the picture to make it suitable for the magazine. By using Photoshop I was in my comfort zone since I have worked with it before and knew how to edit the pictures. The first thing I did once the image was on Photoshop was that I used the pen tool to cut out the image from the background and this was very time consuming, so later on I decided to use the quick selection tool to cut the images out.

Magic wand tool     

The pen tool

  Once completely cutting the image from the background it gave a me a final result which allowed to add to my magazine. Overall I think that Photoshop Is a great editing software.                                                  

Evaluation Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

Circuit Rocks main audience people who have an interest in music especially rock music. My music magazine targets English and an American audience since my magazine is made up from English and American rock bands. The reason why I chose these two countries is because they consist of the most world known bands that are main stream and this would benefit my magazines as the target audience as they will want to know the latest songs and news about the bands which my magazine will provide.

Example of american rock band (All Time Low)

Example of an british rock band (Queen)

 

I decided that my target audience will be people aged 16-25 years old because I think a younger and slightly older audience will benefit more from the magazine as they will know the bands and newer bands that will be featured within my magazine and also by having this type of audience this means I will be in competition with other real magazines such as Kerrang or NME.  Features and content that is in the magazine such as reviews, interviews and gigs may interest this age group as they can be able to travel to go to gigs and by supplying information about this people with in this age group would be more attracted to the magazine. Even though the target audience age group starts at 16, I think some 14 and 15 year old people may choose to buy the magazine because the magazine may appeal to them because of how they viewed by the public meaning what type of person they are. However I think any age below that won’t buy the magazine because it may be to mature for them.

Since I targeted a younger audience it may attract new groups of people who like to imitate and look up to celebrities or artists featured in the magazine. Also it will attract who like to keep a sociable life so they can keep up to date on the latest information about bands and also attract people you like to keep active a travel to music festivals or gigs.

If you look at the ethnicity of my magazine you will see that it is made up of white Caucasian people but this doesn’t mean that it is discriminating against any other people because the target audience is targeted at anyone who has a general interest in rock and ethnicity doesn’t come into it.

Q3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

When looking back at the case study the publishing company I would choose to work with is Bauer.

The first reason why I chose them was because Bauer distribute loads of different types of magazines like TV magazines and others but have very little music magazines, so by distributing my magazine it will attract a new and fresh audience.

The second reason why I chose this publishing company was because there will be less competition since they don’t produce many music magazines and this means money won’t be spread  between music magazines since my magazine will give the Bauer a new audience and will give the company a wider range on what magazines they sell.

The third reason is that I think it will be very beneficial for my magazine since they have connections to top man and by have connections to top man it can support the style of clothing in the magazine.

Having a subscription for my magazine I think would be a good idea since it is a quicker way of paying for the magazine as long as the person has money in the bank and also it would be easier for them since it would be sent straight to their door.

To make my magazine as popular as such leading magazines like Kerrang or NME I would try and sell my magazine in as many places as possible such as WHSmiths because they mostly sell reading material like magazines and books and this would be good because loads of different people go to the WHSmiths, or any other shop or corner shop will be good then people won’t need to travel far to buy the magazine.

The price I am selling my magazine at is £2.99 which is quite cheap and a younger audience would be able to purchase the magazine and from my audience research most people said that they would be able to pay for it.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

The way I attracted my audience to my magazine was to have a large image on the front cover of a guy who meets the stereotypical standards of a typical young rock band member so that it can attract people who are interested in rock music who are around the ages of 16-25 to my magazine, he also dresses similar to the target audience so they can relate themselves to it, also the model is relatively attractive which may bring a female audience to the magazine.  Also on the front cover of the magazine you can see that the magazine was offering posters and one poster has a person holding a musical instrument which can connote live music as there could be extra information inside the magazine to tell them where live gigs are happening and music festivals too, people who are active and like to travel to gigs and music festivals will be drawn to this because they will want to know what is going on.

The colour scheme on my magazine which is black, yellow and gray is a simple combination of colours that make the magazine stand out from the rest and to give a calm feel to the magazine, also some brighter colours are used to highlight certain aspects of the magazine to stand out to when on the shelf’s and to show the buyer which information is more important since eyes will be drawn to the brightest colour. One of the key aspects of the front cover of the magazine would have been the main image in the centre of the magazine as it would be the first thing to draw your attention because of the size and expression used. The reason why that certain expression was used is that I wanted him to come across as a wild person because that’s how most rock stars live their lives and this attracts the audience by making them think why has posing like this? Who is he? And these questions can lead the buyer to purchase the magazine and found out what’s going on.

On the front cover of my magazine I placed a few different band names at the bottom of the magazine. The reason for this was if a person saw a band they like they will pick up the magazine to buy and read it.

When making each part of my magazine I spent the most time developing the front cover since I wanted it to look the best since it will be the first thing the customer will see and after doing some research I found out that 40% of purchased magazines are judged by the content on the front cover.

In my contents page I decided to follow the way Kerrang designs their magazines but I chose to have the images of the contents page to overlap each other which I thought was a cool way to present the images and also added drop shadowing on the images to give them a 3D effect.

On my double page spread I decided to keep it simple and use simple pictures of the band members and kept the same colour scheme black, yellow and grey. This worked very well since it tied in with the rest of the magazine and doesn’t confuse the readers because I didn’t use different colours for different pages. Also the clothes worn by the models would attract teenagers as it is fashionable and also the information presented on the page will attract the audience to the magazine.

Feedback:

Ashley- there is lots of planning work which is not here, and also, you have done no evaluations? this component is worth 20 marks, so you are risking two grades by not submitting evals. please do this by the 26th April.

Case study

Bauer Consumer Media

• Total circulation down 5.8% to 2,814,745 per issue (average net circulation/distribution; all percentages are year-on-year comparisons)
• Biggest rise: Classic Cars, up 5.2% to 37,424
• Biggest fall: Zoo, down 27.9% to 80,026

Of Bauer's 21 consumer titles, only three - Classic Cars, Car and Kerrang! - managed to post year-on-year positive sales increases during the first six months of 2010.

Bauer Publishers

 Bauer Media who joined Bauer Media Group in 2008 to work collectively, the German company publish over 300 magazines within 13 different countries.  They are the Largest privately owned publishers in the whole of UK and since opening in 1875 it has remained within the Bauer family, starting as a small printing business and progressing to become what it is today.

Here are some examples of the magazines they distribute:

·         Women’s:  Closer/Heat/More

·         Men’s Entertainment: Mojo/ Kerrang!

·         Men’s Lifestyle: FHM/ Zoo

·         Equine: Horse deals/ Your Horse

·         Gardening: Gardening Answers

·         Transport: Model Rail/ Rail

·         Football: MATCH!

·         Golf: 2 Fore 1/Today’s Golfer

·         Pets: Pet product marketing

·         Angling: Gofishing.co.uk/ Angling Times

·         Motorcycling: Bike/RiDE

·         Motoring: Car/ Classic Cars

·         Automotive B2B: AM/ Fleet News

·         Outdoor: Live for the outdoors/ Bird watching

·         Photography: Digital Photo/ Practical photography

·         Lifestyle: Pregnancy and Birth/ Mother and Baby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publishing

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/About

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands/