The final product for my music magazine

Evaluation Question 7: Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task (The School Magazine Task), What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To Full Product?

 I feel that I have progressed quite a lot from the start of media because I started with no skills of Photoshop or Indesign and I have been able to create two media products which I feel are quite appropriate for the tasks that were set. I have learnt about how to change contrast and to make the writing with a glow around the edge to make them stand out more. I have also learnt about being able to make the writing look as if it is hovering above the picture so that it doesn't blend in too much with the background. There are still many aspects of Photoshop that I would have liked to have learnt about to make the magazines look more professional but I feel that I have done the best to my ability.

I think that there is a real difference between the school magazine and the music magazine, I am not completely happy with either but I feel I did the best to my ability. With the school magazine, at the time I was making it I thought that colouring the bricks would make it more vibrant and colourful but instead I think it is a bit too overpowering and I don't think the picture really says "school magazine"




The biggest difference for me was the capability of creating a contents page, there is a real difference of skill between the two. With the school magazine I found Indesign too complicated so I made the contents on Photoshop, although at the time I thought the school magazine contents page was quite successful, now I look back on it and think that it is quite amateur and there are many things that I would do now instead.


 Overall I have learnt many new things from media this year that have been really useful and I believe that there is a clear difference, with the imagery, placing of things and techniques

Evaluation Question 6: What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process of Constructing This Product?

This year has been the first time I have properly used photoshop at first I found it quite confusing but with a few lessons I have been able to confidently use it.

At first I did not think I could possibly make a magazine with the little skills of photoshop I had but I have progressed quite a lot since then and have been able to create a unique magazine that I feel has the essence of folk that readers would be attracted to.

This was the picture that I started off with and there is quite a large difference between the two pictures, I changed the contrast to make it stand out a lot more, I also took out the background because I wanted the magazine to be plainly about the musician and I felt that the background was a bit too distracting. I also made the violin a brighter shade of red so it becomes a lot more vibrant and I think it would attract the audience. I also cut out parts of the picture to make sure people are solely looking at the musician.

Overall I think by using photoshop I have made a appropriate front page that people would be attracted to because it is bright and bold and quite clean looking, compared to mainstream magazines that are edgy and dark looking.

I have never actually used Indesign before as I had used photoshop on the preliminary task because at that point it seemed a lot more easier to use however it did help with lining up writing and pictures and making columns, when making my double page spread and contents page I combined both Photoshop and Indesign together because I couldn't really edit any pictures on Indesign.

I made all of the tabs on Indesign by creating a straight line and then transforming it into a circle and then filling it in with the colour and that is how i was able to make a border on all of the tabs. The one thing that I would change if I could is the heading on the contents page because it is slightly different to the heading on the front cover but I had trouble re-creating the same font and colour etc.

Evaluation Question 5: How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

                                                   

 I attracted my audience by using the vivid colour of green which I think would stand out amongst other magazines. The colour green is quite natural and because folk is associated with country music it makes it quite appropriate to use.

I looked in to magazines and they had written a lot about music awards and so I decided to see if there was actually a real folk awards and I managed to find one, from there I found artists who had been nominated and won awards which I have then been able to use in my magazine which would attract audiences because they might want to find out about upcoming artists and by having an awards ceremony for folk it makes the genre a bit more prestigious so more people might be interested to find out what it is all about.

I feel that my contents page could attract an audience because again the bright colours of green and all of the tabs make it look quite interesting because I found with a lot of people from research that they tend to look past the contents page because they find that there is too much writing and they would rather just read on through the magazine. However I feel that people would read what is actually in the magazine and would address them about what my magzine is about and what it contains.

Out of the three I feel that my double page spread lacks the most because it is quite simple but I think that the large picture on the right might make people stop to read because I looked in many magazines and the majority had a large picture on the right, a large heading, a small introducing paragraph and little writing, I didnt want to make the writing in Question and answer form because I think it makes it too chatty whereas I want to inform people about who my act is and what they are about.

Overall I think my magazine attracts and addresses my audience because I think the captions on my front page would make people want to read the magazine but I would change my double page spread because it doesn't quite go with the overall layout of my magazine.

Evaluation Question 4: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

Overall I think that my magazine is mainly targeted for women, from responses by people I talked to the majority of people thought that the magazine was more targeted for a female audience.

The age of the audience that would probably read my magazine would be 16-20 year old, even though initially I wanted to make the magazine for an older audience, the magazine is more appropriate for a younger generation.

As I live in Hastings, there is a strong base of teenagers who would prefer alternative and "different" types of music and I know people who promote themselves online or other bands that they like and as I have said before the majority of people who would read my magazine would prefer to watch live performances unlike music videos which are more associated with mainstream music. I found that with research a lot of people share music online, via YouTube, myspace or facebook and as my audience is a young audience they are more likely to communicate online about bands that they like which is what my magazine is trying to do, it tries to tell people of new and upcoming artists.

Evaluation Question 3: What Kind of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

I did briefly look at distribution companies for an institution that I could use for my magazine, I looked at the magazines that I was looking at and  "songlines" is an e-magazine that a lot of inspiration came from and I noticed that they only have 8 issues a year which are subscriptions. Songlines dont actually have a distributon company behind them, which is probably what I would do for my magazine because it is quite unique and wouldnt have a huge population of readers it so it would probably be more appropriate to have an independent distribution company. I have also made it accesible to subscribe to my magazine which might bring in a larger audience because I found that quite a few people at my college read online magazines.


I also looked at "The Fly" which is another music magazine that I looked at, which again is an online magazine so it does'nt have a distribution company, however unlike "Songlines" you dont have to pay anything to read the magazine online and there are 12 issues evey year which is what I thought would be more appropriate for my magazine.

I did however want to look at a magazine that wasnt online so I looked at NME because it is a very popular magazine amongst young readers and it is successful, therefore I looked in to the magazine for some influence for my magazine. IPC is the distributor behind NME and overall they have over 60 brands and around 26 million readers. If I had made my magazine more commercial and with a more popular genre of music then I would most likely have gone with IPC but because my magazine genre is folk I think going with an independent distribution company.

I did look at an independent magazine which is called "Indie" which even though it is more of a style magazine than music, it is quite relevant for my magazine because it is simple and which could be another magazine that my readers could also read to get influences from.

Evaluation Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

My magazine represents a social group who are dedicated to their music and will stand up for what they like but aren't necessarily shown widely in media because they are seen as "different". They are people who continually go to gigs to support their bands and genre of music and tend to go to festivals because they want to express their love of music and prove that you don't have to be "mainstream" to be successful.

On my front cover I did add the "New and Upcoming artists" as a caption because my readers are people who want to see new bands and by also adding "Folk Awards" as another caption it makes it look more prestigious and important and something that more people should look in to.

At first I was going to make my music magazine for 18-24 year olds but as I made my magazine I noticed that it would probably be better for a younger market so my magazine would probably represent 16-20 year olds who would have an essence of the 60's and an alternative type of style.

I used the artist Laura Marling as a source of inspiration because she optimises the type of people who would read my magazine, she has the type of style that would represent many of my readers and also the type of music that they would listen as well.

The main people that would read my magazine would be female because the main artist on the cover is a girl and I think many girls would associate themselves with the magazine, at first I did try to make it for boys as well as girls by putting male artists on the front cover and on the contents page but in the end it still looked like a female magazine so I kept it that way. I did ask many people who they thought this magazine would be for and the majority said female which would  represent a media group who are not advertised much because if you look at magazines such as Kerrang and NME, the majority of acts are male.

Overall I think I represented my particular social group quite well and even though I havent quite kept with the initial ideas that I began with, I adapted to these changes and I think I have made the magazine  far more superior because my aim was to challenge media institutions by making more people accessible and representing groups who arent shown enough within media.