Evaluation

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

For my front cover, I have decided to use the genre of R&B to represent music. While I was designing my front cover, and doing research on existing front covers, I noticed that there were many similarities and differences between each and every magazine. The first similarity would be that the colour scheme of the majority of magazine are carried on throughout the magazine. I have taken this idea, and adapted it within my front cover. The same font is mainly used throughout the magazine, and the magazine articles. Another thing is that for the front cover, the cover lines are not all one colour, they change colour, which attracts the reader more to the magazine, and makes it more eye catching. The colour scheme that I have used on my front cover is very eye catching, and I have also made sure that I have changed colour of the cover lines, which makes it look professional.
On magazines nowadays, there is barely any space left on the front cover, which is normally either taken up by the image, or by cover lines. For my magazine, I have tried to take up as much space as possible, but at the same time, made it so it doesn't look too clustered. I did this by experimenting with different sizes, and different places of the cover lines and the images. I even put text on top of the image, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, it makes space for other cover lines to be placed on the page, however if the image consists of a few different colours, it could make the text on top of it fairly hard to read.

For the contents page, the principals are basically the same as the front cover. The font, size, and colour scheme are mostly carried on from the front cover, which creates a house-style theme for the magazine. Starting with the title, many magazines only have "contents", instead of "contents page". The purpose of this would be to cut space, so that there is more space for the image, and the article titles and description. Another reason is that simply, it doesn't need to be there. For the colour scheme, like I said before about the colour scheme carrying on, I kept it the same, using a blue and orange colour, with a grey and white background. I noticed that these colours didn't contrast the background very well, and it was fairly hard to read the text. Because I had also put some text over the image, this also made it fairly hard to read. On most magazines now, they make the text easy to read. If I was to do it again, I would have changed the colour to a more darker colour, to contrast the background colour, which would also compliment all of the other things on the contents page, such as the image and the title.
I also noticed that even though some magazines are in columns for the contents page, some of them won't. I picked up on this, and didn't use columns on my contents page. This makes the magazine look more professional, and like it is a real magazine. For the image, I decided to only put one image on the contents page. most magazines have more than one image on the contents page, however I think that this makes it look to bunched up, and doesn't leave very much room to include the article titles, and the article descriptions. I wanted to make the image have a direct mode of address, meaning that the person on the image is looking directly at the audience. This draws the reader in, to read the magazine. It also makes the person in the image look more superior to the audience.

For the double-page spread, while doing my research, I noticed that the principals were the same again. The font, colour scheme, and size of font all continue through the magazine, giving the whole magazine a house-style theme, and giving it an element of continuity. For the images of the double-page spread, I decided to add more than one image, which is considered the norm for magazines nowadays, as I found in my research. As well as the other images throughout the magazine, I wanted to have the image in direct mode of address, again, looking straight at the reader. As for the the colour of the text, I noticed that most interviews in magazines have at least two different colours. One for the question being asked, and one for the answer from the person. I have done this in my magazine, having the blue colour from the front cover as the question being asked, and having the orange for the answer given. However, I had the same issue with the double-page spread as I had with the front cover and the contents page. The colours are too light, so they don't contrast the background colour that well, so it makes the text quite hard to read.
The use of space on the double-page spread is also the same. Again, I tried to take up as much space as I could, without the article looking too cramped, or too busy. However, I didn't put any text over the image on the double-page spread. Most double-page articles don't have text over the image, which makes the images easily seen to the reader. This makes the reader understand the article more, as they can see in their peripheral vision, what the person being interviewed looks like.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My product has represented age as a young, fairly mature audience. The target audience that I chose for my magazine was 15-18. I have taken images of people within that age group, which makes this target audience age group seem more believable. I have chosen to make up my own R&B artist for the magazine, which I believe to be within the age group that I have selected. For the person in my images while I was taking the pictures, I wanted to have him wearing stylish clothes, which he was. This represents this age group, as this age group is more likely to want stylish clothes, and are more likely to copy from their idols.

As for gender, I have chosen the male audience. The colour scheme of all three of my products have fairly masculine colours, with a masculine colour background. If I wanted to include the female gender in my product, I could have maybe substituted the orange colour with pink. Stereotypically, blue is associated as a masculine colour, and pink is associated as a feminine colour. Therefore, I would have made my magazine for both genders, in which case it would be classes as unisex. Because I have chosen the genre of R&B, again, this is stereotypically associated with the male audience, as the genre seems to have quite a bass to it. However because I have used males in my images, it could also appeal to females. Females could be attracted to the male figure in the images, who then may be attracted to buy the magazine for this reason.

My product shows sexuality because it doesn't show that any sexuality is greater than the other, I have shown that they are all equal. I haven't shown, in any way, that any sexuality is greater than the other, so in this case, I have shown that all sexualities are equal.

Social class is represented in my products by suggesting that the celebrity that I have made up, is a rich and famous R&B star. People who read this magazine would idolise who they want to be, as people who buy this magazine would mainly be working class and lower class, so they would want to be the star in the magazine. Because I have used a white person as the main person in my magazine, this is stereotypically associated as upper class. If I was to use a black person as the person in my images, they would stereotypically be associated as a working class. However, it could be perceived as ironic that black people live the rich and famous lifestyle.

My product represents physical ability as a positive, and disability as a negative. All of the people in my images have no disability whatsoever, which shows that my magazine is showing disability as a negative. If I had a disabled person as the main image on my front cover, people that buy my magazine wouldn't idolise to be them, and wouldn't want to know about them, so they wouldn't necessarily buy the magazine and read it.

Regional identity isn't really represented in my magazine, but it could be shown by showing that American are more superior to the likes of England. This is because I have included more American R&B artists on my magazine than I have any other regional identity.

My product represents ethnicity by not discriminating any type of ethnicity, this is shown by making my magazine appeal to everyone in one go, by having white R&B stars, and black R&B stars' names on my magazine front cover. However, my images only contain one ethnic group, which is white, which I could have improved by putting more than one ethnic group for the images on my front cover, contents page and double-page spread.

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

For this, I have looked into 3 different media groups. These were http://www.ipcmedia.com/, http://www.condenast.com/ and http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/.
Firstly, I looked at the IPC Media website. I looked at the brands that they do and I then came to the conclusion that this media group would not be suited for my magazine. Even though they have many well known magazines, they only have one type of music magazine, which is NME. This is a magazine that I had analysed in my research, and I discovered that this magazine is concentrating more on the rock genre than the R&B genre of my magazine. Because of this, I don't think that this media group would not be suited for my magazine. If I was to choose to distribute my magazine with this media group, I think that their inexperience in ths music magazine industry would be a worry, because of their expertise in distributing lifestyle magazines such as "Nuts", and "Ideal Home".
The second media group that I looked at was Condé Nast. This media group seems to be for the more exclusive magazines, so I don't think that this media group would be ideal for producing and distributing my magazine. Because they don't have any music magazines, this media group is more unsuited than the previous media group. If I was to go with this media group to distribute my magazine, I don't believe that it would do well at all, purely because of their inexpertise in music magazines.
The third media group that I looked into was Bauer Media. Out of the three media groups, I believe that this would be the best one to choose to produce and distribute my magazine. This is because they have more experience in distributing popular and well known music magazines, such as "Empire", "Kerrang" and "Q". However, none of these magazines are of the R&B genre, that I chose for my magazine. Therefore, this company could have a space for a magazine of this type. They would also be entering a market that there is no other magazines of this type, so therefore I think that this is the media group that I think my magazine would do best in.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

For my media product, I wanted the target audience as between 15-18, but I was hoping maybe to capture the whole youth in general, so maybe a little bit older than that. People of this age are the people that are most into the R&B genre. Even though people younger than this age could be into the R&B genre, I think that the minimum age of 15 is more appropriate for my magazine. People of this age range are also beginning to see who their idols are. People who read my magazine could maybe make the R&B star their idol, and want to be like him when they are older. To capture the full attention of this age range is a hard task. This is done mostly by including bright text, and large images, and not too much text. This is because people of this age range don't normally read texts, they just look at the images, so the images have to tell most of the story.

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract and address my audience, I have used a few different features. Firstly on the front cover, I made sure that I used bright images, even though they didn't contrast well on the background. I also used a fairly big image to attract the reader to read about the person on the front cover. I also did this by using a direct mode of address, which draws the reader in to read the magazine, as it builds a relationship between the  reader and the person on the front cover. By using other well known celebrity's names on the front cover, this also attracts the reader, as they like to read more about it inside the magazine. People would recognise the names of the well known artists straight away, which would help to promote my magazine. I also put these names in a bright colour, to make them stand out to the reader.

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

During the process of constructing this product, I used many different types of technology. I used cameras, computers, different programs, and I also used this blog, which I have never used before.

For taking the images, I had to use a camera. I only have a basic knowledge on cameras, so I only know basic things, like how to turn the flash on and off, how to take the picture, and how to view the picture on the camera, but that is about as far as it goes, so photography isn't my strong point. There were different modes for the camera, and I didn't know which mode it was in, so I just hoped for the best. I knew how to put the pictures on to the computer, I knew that you needed a card reader, and needed to plug it in to the computer, but I didn't have any idea on how to edit these images for my magazine.

The next problem I had was how to edit the images, as I was new to photo manipulation. I used Macromedia fireworks, which I had never used before, so I was new to the program too. I began learning how to use this program thanks to the Preliminary task, but I still only had a basic knowledge of how to use the tolerance tool and the rubber tool to take the background out of the picture. This then became a lot easier as I progressed with the project, creating the front cover, contents and double-page spread.

To create the products, I was using Microsoft Publisher, which I was familiar with, as I have used this quite a few times before, so I knew what I was doing with this program. However, there were still some things that I was still unfamiliar with, such as the crop tool, and the transparent tool, to help me with the images.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt from the progression of it to the full product?

From my preliminary task, my products have improved dramatically. The standard of my preliminary task magazine cover is nowhere near the standard of my final front cover. This helped me to understand the programs, which helped me to design my final front cover, contents page and double-page to my full capability. I also learned how to maximise my search results from Google, to find more results. I had also analysed some magazine covers and contents page on my preliminary task, which helped me to analyse the magazine covers, contents pages, and double-page spread article for my final project. By doing the preliminary task, I have realised just how important the analysis of existing products is. Without analysing the existing products, I wouldn't have known what to include in my magazine front cover, contents page or double-page spread