AS Media Foundation Portfolio Evaluation

Oliver

Mitchell

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? Front Cover.

Mast-Head

Main Image

Pull Quote

Footer

Barcode/Date/Issue

Similarities

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? Front Cover.

Differences

NME gives images of the of artists as opposed to just naming them.

NME does no really show the background so it does not draw attention away from the main image.

NME has a clearer masthead that can be consistent through out all future magazines whereas mine may have to change because with certain images it will not be very clear.

NME include more sell lines. By doing this it advertises more about the articles inside and gives more description as to what they will be like.

I have changed the gender of the model being used as opposed to just using a male character which is usually related to Indie music

Similarities

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? Contents Page.

Both magazines contain a featured column on the left third of the page.

They both have a main image showing the article in the right third.

They have a clear contents title with the magazines name below / next to it.

Both magazines have used the same rule of third sections for their images and contents.

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? Contents Page.

Differences

Q has included a review section whereas I have used the space to show images of other artists that will be featured in the magazine.

I added a little memo from the editor thanking the reader, but Q included an “every month”, proposing the articles that will be included every month and won’t change

Q magazine have also included a date inside the contents page. This also lets the reader know that it is the most recent edition.

The NME magazine creates a much more effective Mise-en-scene. This is because for my magazine, the photograph I have taken was in his bedroom, and you can see his door. This does not look very professional.

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products? Article Page.

Similarities

Differences

Both magazines have included the article section on the right page. This is so it does not cover any of the image and you can clearly see who it is.

Both magazines have pulled a quote from the article / interview to make it seem more interesting.

On my magazine I have included the artists name in the left third. This lets readers know that they are on the right page for the article they want to read.

My magazine has included page number at the bottom of the page. This makes it a lot easy for the reader to find the page with the article on,

My magazine has used a background where the artist looks more at home whereas Q have used one which looks unnatural to make the artists seem more attractive and of a high stature,

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Indie Music is a genre of alternative rock. It is extremely diverse with lots of sub-genres including Indie-pop, Grunge and Lo-fi amongst others. It originated in the UK and USA around the mid-eighties. Nowadays, Indie music is associated with being laid-back, and being unique.

Nowadays, the stereotypical social group for the genre would be working class Caucasian’s between the ages of 15 – 22, mostly males.

They are recognised for having a wide-fashion sense ranging from snap-backs, polo shirts, shirts, sweaters, chinos, crosses and sneakers.

I decided to challenge this particular social group as it expands even more and creates more sub-cultures.

I have done this so my magazine can represent a variety of social groups instead of just one main target audience.

I have represented a number of social groups by –

-Gender

-Latest Trends

-Being individual

-Having confidence

The Wombats

I chose to base my model on a female. I have done this because stereotypically, the majority of indie musicians are males with only a handful of female indie musicians. However, Indie is also about being different and unique, which is why I have based my model on a female.Isabelle Mitchell

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

IPC media produces over 60 iconic media brands.

Throughout the UK two thirds of females and 42% males read print alone. (26 million UK adults).

The websites IPC media incorporate have 20 million views each month.

They produce a wide collection of media, which suits everyone’s needs not just focusing on one social group.

They already distribute the highly known magazine NME. This shows that they have a lot of experience and knowledge in the music industry.

Because IPC is such a large and well know publishing organisation, using IPC to publish the magazine will help to raise its profile because it is being published alongside other magazines such as NME.

"IPC" media stands for International Publishing Corporation Media. They are associated with a wide range of of magazines varying from gardening to television, sailing to firearms, photography to music.

Who would the audience be for your media product?General Background Information

Name: Hayden Atkins

Age: 16

Ethnicity: White British

Lives: Solihull

Music Interests

Hayden listens to Indie music on a regular basis. He will often listen to music from YouTube as background music. He does not buy/download music as he doesn’t feel the need, but he still likes listening to it.

Favourite Artists

Blink-182, The Kooks, Bombay Bicycle club.

Likes

Football, Reading, Parties, Journalism.

Dislikes

RnB music, Villa, Reality TV, Brussels Sprouts.

General Background Information

Name: Harriet Castle

Age: 18

Ethnicity: White British

Lives: Solihull

Music Interests

Harriet loves Indie music. She tries to listen to it on a daily basis before and after work. She will often buy music and attends concerts whenever possible. She also enjoys festivals such as Reading.

Favourite Artists

The Wombats, The Kooks, A Day To Remember

Likes

Reading, Relaxing, Pancakes, Parties

Dislikes

Chavs, Peanuts, School, Drama

Who would the audience be for your media product?General Background Information

Name: Annie Thomas

Age: 17

Ethnicity: White British

Lives: Solihull

Music Interests

Annie loves listening to music. She will regularly attend Indie concerts and downloads a lot of her music. She also synchronises her music to her IPod so she can listen to music wherever she goes.

Favourite Artists

The Kooks, Example, Los Campesinos!

Likes

Scooters, Geography, Relaxing, Sunday Roast.

Dislikes

Walking, Dyed hair, Heavy Metal, Computers.

General Background Information

Name: Toby Railton

Age: 17

Ethnicity: White British

Lives: Solihull

Music Interests

Toby occasionally listens to music, he is not a big fan but he appreciates that it is helpful and often listens to Indie music to relieve stress after a long day.

Favourite Artists

Bloodhound Gang, AC/DC, Arctic Monkeys

Likes

Economics, Xbox, Movies, Walking his dog.

Dislikes

Geometry, Chavs, Decorating, Ovens

How did you attract/address your audience?

New And Upcoming News being Detailed to let them know what is going on.

Main dominant image with clothing that relates to the audience and its latest trends.

From my questionnaire, I noticed that the majority of people said they would pay between £2-£3. Therefore, I made my magazine £1.50, which is lower than what they said they would pay and so they would more likely buy my magazine.

Top artists in that genre that my readers would be familiar with and enjoy.

Celebrity gossip.

Showing new and upcoming artists that are going to be big.

I included a main header in large bold letters, to make it stand out, appealing to the audience by becoming obvious.

She has a friendly attitude which attracts the reader.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I included a main contents header so that the audience can clearly see what page it is

I have also added the masthead so the audience knows that this is the contents for this magazine and it’s not from another one.

I have created my contents page with a white background. This is to simplify the page, it also makes it incredibly easy for the audience to read.

I added images of some of my artists to the contents page. This was so that the audience could see who the articles were about. Also if they were looking specifically for one of those artists, they could easily find them and the page they were on, as opposed to scrolling down the whole contents just to find them.

A little editors not was added to the bottom of the magazine. I did this to add a personal note to the readers. This makes it seem as if the editor is more in touch with the readers and shows some acknowledgement to the audience.

I used clear and legible font to make it easy for the audience to read.

How did you attract/address your audience?

For my double page article, by making the background an image of the person being interviewed it creates an extremely professional look. It also makes it clearer for the audience who they are reading about.

Also, by creating the whole article just as one main image, it makes the whole page appear a lot more professional.

Adding a quote from the article at the bottom of the page makes the article seem a lot more interesting. This is because it gives the reader an insight as to what the article will be like.

Adding small page number in each of the corners it makes it easier for the reader to find the article they want to read.

The article I have created attracts the audience by standing out. I have included a white background behind the actual article. I have done this so that it stands out against the image and is easy to read.

Audience Feedback

Over-all my audience feedback was very good.

The strengths of magazine were:

Cover Page

Article Page

Colour Scheme

The weaknesses of magazine were:

Contents Page

Lack of Text

Quality of Text

Audience Feedback

Strengths

As part of my audience feedback, I asked my target audience to list some of the strengths they found about my magazine.

One of the strengths that they listed about my magazine was the colour scheme. When asked why, they said the colour scheme worked well with the overall magazine layout and theme. This is because, using the colours I have selected, the texts and fonts are easy on the eye and so it is extremely easy to read.

They also said that they liked the footer at the bottom of the magazine. By including this, they found that it gave them more information as to what would be inside the magazine and what other bands would be featured.

Finally, they said that the enjoyed the variation of the magazine. This is because most Indie magazine’s include men on the front cover, therefore, by using a female for mine, they said they found it new and refreshing.

Audience Feedback

Weaknesses

However, not all of my magazine was a complete success, and it did include some weaknesses. For example my contents page.

From my audience feedback, they said that they found my contents page too plain, because I used a white background. By using a white background, they said it made my contents page look like it had a lot of white space.

They also said that I could have improved my title of “contents”. This is because they felt that it was out of place and it did not fit in with the rest of the theme.

The last thing they said about my contents was the detailed. It was not detailed enough and did not give the audience a lot of information as to what content would be included in the magazine.

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

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

Adobe PhotoShop enabled me to create my magazine front cover. It was extremely effective and allowed me to edit all of my photographs to create an effective and realistic magazine.

I have been using PhotoShop for well over a year now and have managed to pick up on a lot of the techniques and skills required. Without PhotoShop I would not have been able to make my magazine look professional.

It was incredibly easy to use and it was easy to get the hang of it. For example using the polygonal lasso tool allowed me to select certain items that I wanted to edit, leaving the rest of the rest of the image original.On my cover page, for example, I edited my main image. On the far left I have my original image. To start with, I used the polygonal

lasso tool to outline the background of the image. I did this so that it would be the only part of the image that would change. I then altered the levels on the selected section to make it seem a lot darker and thus make the person stand out a lot more.

I then did the same to the person. However, this time I altered the levels the opposite way making the person seem a lot brighter. By making her brighter, it makes her stand out a lot more and she seems a lot friendlier compared to if the image was very dark.

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

Using Adobe InDesign, I created both my contents page and my double page article. In design is simple to Photoshop. However, InDesign allows you to layout all of your work as if it were the actual magazine. It is slightly harder to use than PhotoShop, but it was still useful and helped a lot.

I had not used InDeisgn before this. At first, I struggled to use it and did not understand how all the tools worked. However after a few attempts with some of the tools and some help I got the general idea of how they worked.

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

I used Microsoft word quite a lot throughout the course.

I used it to type all of my research so I could spell check the work and ensure that it was all up to standard and made sense.

Microsoft Powerpoint was also an extremely useful tool. I was able to write up research information and upload it in to blogger.

The reason Powerpoint was so useful is because it made my blogger file appear more interesting as opposed to having lots of information just written up.

I used internet explorer to help with everything. I used it to find ideas for my magazine, to find new fonts, to help research.

I was able to use internet explorer as my main research base, and got most of my research from it. It also allowed me to use blogger to upload all of my work.

I used blogger to keep track of all my coursework. I uploaded all of the work I did, and all of the research leading up to the completed work. Working my way through the task booklet, I uploaded a piece of work every time I completed one of the tasks. This was extremely helpful and motivating as I was able to see how much work I had done and what was being completed.

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

From my preliminary task I feel I have learnt a lot more about the colour schemes and content of a real magazine to give an overall more professional look.

I developed my skills using certain software such as Photoshop and InDesign allowing me to create better quality designs.

For my college magazine, I attempted to create it so I looks friendly and appealing. I created my header so that it was at

a slant with a patchy background around it. However, from research I found that professional magazines do not do this

and they create simple, yet bold and effective headers.

My skills with colour scheme has also improved since my preliminary task. I can tell this because with my college

magazine, a lot of my slogans and sell-lines are difficult to read. This is because they blend in with my background and so they are not legible. However I fixed this problem with my

music magazine as I had a better idea about the colour schemes and which colours went best together. This made it

a lot easier for my audience to read.

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

I feel that my contents page has also improved since my preliminary task. I have taken certain concepts from my preliminary task into my music magazine such as including the same font in the header.

I have found that I have managed to slightly improve my contents page. I have done this through including

simple things, for example including the magazine title at the top of the page to remind to the reader what

magazine they are reading.

However, I do feel that I could have improved the background of my contents page. My music magazine

is similar to that of my preliminary task and the background seems too plain. This has the effect of

making the contents seem slightly too dull and having too much empty space.