Monday, 20 January 2014
Evaluation Text only
Question 1:
Question 4:
Question 5:
Question 6:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
My magazine has used and developed conventions of real media
products. My magazine has been inspired by SOURCE magazine in terms of colour
scheme, layout and house style and even their masthead. For my masthead, I knew
to make it bold and the biggest text on my front cover so that it stood out. My
colour scheme was black, red and white. I put details such as the price and
finally the barcode at the bottom.
Following the conventions, I placed the masthead at the top
of my front cover and made it red because it matches with my colour scheme and
is appealing to the human eye. My cover lines were laid around my main image so
that it didn’t interfere with it. Also ,so that it distract or confuse the
readers I made sure my cover lines linked to the cover star meaning I made sure
they made sense. Looking at other magazines, I knew to place my skylines on top
also making sure it related with my cover lines and cover stars. I used names
of artists on my front cover (Beyoncé, Rihanna, Keri Hilson, Drake and Kendrick
Lamar) so that my magazine will appeal to all the fans of these artists as well
as fans of Sammah. My other reason for using names of popular artists was to
also give readers an idea the variety of artists my magazine covers.
I used the convention of a magazine following one genre so
that my magazine could be focused on one genre only. My colour scheme utilizes
red, white and black. From my research XXL and source magazine which I also
used for my case studies, change their colour scheme weekly but I wanted to
challenge this convention so I made sure this was consistent throughout my
magazine. Also, I kept the colour scheme consistent so that there weren’t any colour
clashes making sure the colours weren’t too many, too dull or too bright so
that it also appeals to my young audience.
Most magazines have their main image in medium shots on their
front cover but again I challenged this stereotype taking my main image of
Sammah in medium long shot. I also made Sammah face the audience (direct mode
of address) because it is essential in most popular magazines.
On my Contents Page, I developed and used conventions. Like
other contents page, I used more than one image to show the audience what
artists were going to feature in my magazine. Also, I used a range of images so
that my contents page didn’t seem boring so that it caught the eyes of the
audience. I placed page numbers on the images as well to give the audience a
hint about what was happening on each page to create suspense and maybe jump to
the pages that excite them more. I separated my contents page into regulars and
exclusives instead of ‘features’ which most magazines normally use.
Additionally, I included an editor’s note to start a conversation with readers
as I’ve seen most magazines do.
On my Double Page Spread, I followed the convention by
including an interview session with my star so that the audience especially the
fans of Sammah would get to know a bit about her. I went on to develop the
convention by putting a Q&A session, a fan who won a competition
interviewed Sammah. It involved questions about Sammah. This was at the left
bottom of my dps and this was to make my magazine different from other
magazines. I followed the conventions by putting my text in columns like I’d
seen most magazines do to make my dps look neat and at the same time
presentable. I used a medium close-up image on my dps so that the audience
would know that the interview was all about her and also so that they got a
better view of her up close.
Question 2:
How does your media group represent particular social groups?
My target audience for my magazine is young people from 18 to
27. I decided on these ages for my audience because people from these ages mostly
listen to R&B music. Sammah, my main cover star for INSPIRE magazine is
exactly 18 so represents my target audience. Her fashion sense and costume appeal
to people within this age as they are quite similar. We can see this through a
simple but nice dress that compliments her curves without showing too much. I
made Sammah wear a black and gold dress because from my research R&B
artists normally wear black clothes but at the same time black matched with my
colour scheme as well. My case studies XXL and SOURCE magazine also gave me the
idea for Sammah’s costume. She also has a gentle, sexy pose which may appeal to
young men and lead them to buy the magazine and this will help in the selling
and promoting of INSPIRE magazine. Conventions from VIBE and BILLBOARD made me
choose a pose for Sammah on my front cover. Also, Sammah is a single parent at
her young age and young girls who may be going through this same phase will
have someone like Sammah to encourage them that they can still make it in life.
She is Asian and the reason why I chose her for my cover star is because it
will encourage more Asians to start singing R&B songs as few of them do.
The language I used for my interview was informal and I showed that Sammah ‘giggled’
and some other things teenagers and young people were more likely to do. I did
this so that when my audience were reading the interview it would make them
feel comfortable and ‘giggle’ too.
Question 3:
What kind of media institution might distribute your media
product and why?
IPC media will distribute my media product. My reason for
choosing IPC media is because statistics show that it is the UK’s leading news trade
sales, marketing and distribution business and market force is the link between
publishers and retailers.This shows that IPC media is well-known and is good in
doing its job. Its Marketforce also exports 12.1m copies of magazines
worldwide, including managing the international-only business for HELLO! With, IPC Media I will have little problem in
distributing and publishing my magazine as they are able to export 12.1m copies
of magazines worldwide as shown in the statistics. This means that it will be
reliable and has good resources to be able to distribute such a large number of
magazines. Another reason why IPC Media will distribute INSPIRE Magazine is
because IPC Media publish NME magazine and with NME they have earned the
world’s biggest standalone music site with over 7 million users per month. So
with this success, it would hopefully be repeated with INSPIRE magazine which
is music as my magazine’s audience is a younger audience.
Who are your target audience?
Both males and females aged between 18 to 27 will be the
audience for my media product. My reason being the magazine focuses on music(R&B)
that people within that particular age group listen to. My magazine focuses on
chart music which is what young people listen to at the moment. However, the
magazine must also appeal to people outside of this age bracket that are
interested in this same type of music, ‘R&B’ so that it can sell more. But
I need to bear in mind that my magazine should appeal to the target audience more
than any other audience.
See Personal Profile of Rosie (question 4 )on blog
I am Rosie and I’m 18. I live with my Mum and Dad in London
and I’m a single child. I’m a single University student with a part-time job. I
have few family responsibilities because I have no siblings to look after. I
like to party a lot and go for festivals. On Saturdays, I go out with my
friends to relax my brain. At other times, I go to concerts instead. My other
interests are reading and dancing. I love to read INSPIRE magazine because it
gives me more information about celebrities I love. Celebrities influence my
fashion sense.
Question 5:
How did I attract my target audience?
First and foremost, I attracted and addressed my target
audience by using Sammah who was on my front cover because she is an R&B artist
and this is what her target group like and listen to. I used other popular
artists who are R&B artists like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Drake, Keri Hilson and
Kendrick Lamar to also attract my audience especially fans who loved them.
These artists are also on other front covers of magazines such as VIBE and XXL
and they appeal to the same target audience as well. I also attracted my
audience by using red and white against a black background for my cover lines.
I used these colours because they are appealing to the eye and stand out
against the black background. Also, I used these colours because from my
audience, most people said red and white looked much better than white and
yellow as I was quite unsure of what colours to use before. I used informal
language in my dps so that my audience can relate to it thereby attracting them
to read throughout the rest of my magazine.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
Cameras and software like Adobe Photoshop, InDesign and
Illustrator has taught me a lot when I was constructing my media product.
Websites such as Time toast, Prezi and Survey monkey contributed to this as
well. Even, Blogger taught me a lot as well.
Using the cameras in the studio was a bit tricky at first
because I only had basic knowledge. I learnt that too much lighting can make a
picture too bright meaning the amount of lighting affects the image you take.
In the photography studio, I got to know that there were white reflectors which
hide shadows on an image and there was also a gold reflector that adds warmth
to an image.
I used Adobe Photoshop to produce my front cover as it was
compulsory. Using Photoshop wasn’t as challenging to use because I used it to
produce the front cover of my college magazine. I got much better on working on
layers as it was a bit confusing at first. It also made constructing my front
cover easy because my because it divided my text into layers so that my text
wasn’t all over my magazine. I also played with different effects on making my
image darker or lighter and I also got grips with using the tools as I had used
Photoshop before.
I used InDesign for my contents page and double page. Though,
I had used InDesign for my college magazine as well it was still a bit
challenging because InDesign doesn’t divide your work into layers like
Photoshop does. Also, I thought some of the tools would be similar to Photoshop
but they were different so it was a bit tricky using InDesign. Now, I am
comfortable and confident as I have learnt to use the tools and play with
effects as well to create a professional magazine.
Time toast helped me
plan and organise my work. This reduces panic because it makes me you more
aware of your work. It also made me aware of the deadlines so that I knew what
I doing ahead of time. Prezi made me organise and put my work in an orderly
manner. I also used survey monkey which is a unique way of getting responses
from your audience.
Lastly I used blogger, it helped me upload my media work and
I didn’t have a blogger account before so creating one gave me an experience. I
am able to post and organise my work on blogger.
Question 7:
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you
have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
My student magazine didn’t look as professional, attractive
and authentic as my music magazine (main task) because I had no knowledge of
shot types, lighting and cameras. Now, I feel I can confidently and
successfully create a magazine that appeals to my target audience as I can now
research appropriately and use the right conventions. Additionally, I learnt
various conventions from my case studies. It gave me an idea of what colour
scheme to use, what costume to choose for my cover star and gave me ideas of
poses too.
I also learnt about lighting and how it can affect an image.
I also learnt about different shot types like medium shot, medium long shot and
full shot as I knew nothing about it before. Also, I was taught cameras need to be on a particular camera type when taking
pictures in different locations because it’s setting match the location better.
I also learnt more about planning as I made a layout of my
front cover, contents page and double page spread and this made me confident of
how I want my magazine to look like. When constructing my college magazine I
rushed with it so when it’s compared to my music magazine (main task) it
doesn’t look as authentic.
Evaluation Q4: Who would be the audience for your media product?
Personal Profile of Rosie
See link:
http://www.spiderscribe.net/app/?752acdae8e51b2a0c35eeb305eb99d09
Friday, 17 January 2014
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