Devon McManus

Media Evaluation

The magazine I have created is similar to magazines such as Rocksound and Kerrang! Therefore my magazine includes many of the same conventions as them as well as some that challenges conventions.The masthead is in a big bold font, clearly visible at the top of the page, like other professional magazines. The colour was chosen as white to contrast with the dark colours around the page so that it would stand out. Many magazines of the rock genre include band images as their cover stars, to develop this I included only one member of a band playing live to represent the rock culture as a connotation.The colour scheme stays the same throughout my magazine so that it avoids looking tacky. Similarly to professional magazines, I have employed both light and dark colours to highlight important information and to make the magazine look appealing.For the cover line, I decided to put the text on a Dutch angle to make the cover look more interesting than the standard layout. By using the two contrasting colours, black and white, the cover line is able to make an impact on the page without overpowering any of the other features.

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

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

When creating my contents page, I thought that it would use photographs to break up the information. By doing this, the page does not seem to have excessive amounts of text and also is aesthetically pleasing for the reader. -

I utilized columns on my contents page to structure the page. Similar professional magazines use columns so the reader can easily locate what page they would like to see.-

-Additionally to this, I have included headings to make the location of certain pages much easier by listing them under categories such as ‘Live Reviews.’ -

I have tried to maintain a professional standard to the magazine throughout by sticking to the same colour scheme. Just like the main cover, I have chosen to have the text in a white font so that it contrasts with the dark colours and stands out from the page. -

Different fonts have been used over the page to represent different parts of information, this is similar to magazines just as Kerrang! Because they feature a lot of content in the magazine and structure it so it is easy to look through.

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

This is because the article all comes under one main focus, the rise of a new band. I also included another picture challenges the conventions of other magazine which only use one to again break up the text. The colours used apply to the colour scheme, and also one picture is in colour and the other in black and white. Considering the black and white photograph is only there to break up the text, I have decided to put it in black and white so that it isn’t the main focus of the page. The language used relates to my target audience as I have used high frequency lexis to make sure it is understandable for a wide audience.

Similar to other magazine, my double page spread consists of one full image on one side and then information on the other. The point of this is to put the main focus on the band that is being talked about in the article, and to do this the band have been displayed on the whole left page. Columns have been employed again as in many articles because it structures the page neatly so it is easy to read. Unlike many articles, mine includes only one heading.

2. How does your media product / products represent particular social groups?

My Magazine represents many social groups. One of

these groups includes Musicians. Rock musicians are represented in my magazines and loud, lively and dedicated

– as well as rock fans. This can be seen in many of the

images in my magazines such as this one

The age represented in my magazine is any age from 13 onwards. This is because my magazine features heavily gigs. Concert goers are mainly teenagers so this represents them well as in my article it talks about how good the crowds response was which puts teenagers in a positive light.

Mainly males are represented in my magazine because they appear to be most associated with rock music. They also feature in all the bands included in my magazine were as females aren’t specifically. This is because in the band index on my contents page, there are some women members but generally not.

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

I think the most appropriate publisher for my magazine

would be Bauer Media Group.

They would be best to distribute my magazine because

they publish other rock magazines such as Kerrang!

Festivals would also be a great place to distribute my magazine. Festivals such as Slam Dunk and Kerrang! Relentless Tour. These are most appropriate because they are both rock festivals like the genre of my magazine.

Furthermore events such as Vans Warped Tour, which is an extreme sport and music festival, would be a suitable place to distribute my magazine. The festival is very popular with rock fans so therefore my magazine would sell there well.

4. Who would the audience be for your media product?

When creating my magazine, I decided that the ideal audience would be for teenagers. However, by looking at professional magazines that are similar to my own such as Kerrang! Their audience is much older at the age of 22. This shows my that a more appropriate age for my magazine would be late teens

and early twenties.

Furthermore, it appears that it is best my target audience being late teens because then, being similar to kerrang!, it will have an audience highly interested in music and

they would be 5.5 times more likely to attend gigs. This is good for my magazine because it features heavily gigs and lots of rock music and rock bands.

4. Who would the audience be for your media product?

By establishing that the target audience most suitable would be late teens, to develop this further I think the target stereotype for my

magazine would be Rockers and Emo’s. These are the best stereotypes for my magazine because my magazine includes rock music which Rockers and Emo’s are considered to be heavily influenced by.

In addition, people to follow other magazines such as Rocksound and Kerrang! Would

appreciate my magazine because my magazine features a lot of the same content.

Furthermore, people who are interested in music like YouMeAtSix would like my

magazine because the bands are of a similar genre and sound to YouMeAtSix.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my target audience by using bright colours and lots of images of live gigs that would interest them.

By using the incentive of a free music download, my specific audience would be targeted when seeing the genre of magazine and therefore this would appeal to them.

To appeal to my target audience I included many bands on my

front cover which would interest them if they could see a band

they like.

From my research I found that my target audience are very interested in gigs, therefore by adding a gig guide it would appeal to them best.

I made sure the price was suitable for my audience so that they would be more likely to buy it.

I employed contrasting colours and bold fonts to attract my audiences attention.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

By using quotes from band members, this would give an insight to what is in the magazine and interest the reader.

A description of what is in this weeks

issue and what was in last weeks will

interest the reader to know what to expect from the

magazine.

I included a band index to promote bands that would interest the reader. Furthermore, with a reference to what pages the bands are on, the simple layout will avoid being complicated for the reader.

The design of the magazine follows

the expected design of a rock magazine.

This is automatically recognisable as a rock magazine by

the design and colours. This would

attract my target audience.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?By putting the magazine logo on the double page spread, this remindfollows the designs of other popular rock magazines such as Rocksound.

The font avoids the standard design and attracts the audience for the rock music – the genre being

promoted.

Tour dates being

promoted link to the

gig guide on the cover page. Both provide information the target

audience would want to see.

Image of the band on thedouble page spread would be aesthetically pleasing for theaudience to see. It also promotes bands which could interest the reader.

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

I also learnt how to use a digital camera well so that I could take good quality pictures that look professional and not amateur. This was important because I didn’t want my magazine to look poor due to poor quality images.

When in the process of creating my magazine I learnt how to use the internet in depth to do all the research I needed before starting to design it. I was able to find similar magazines and then information on them that would help me create mine such as the price and the frequency of production.

Furthermore, I learnt how to use Blogger effectively to organise and keep up to date with work I had completed and deadlines that needed to be met. I was also able to use this website to look back on work I had completed and if needed improve it.

Quark is also a software I used in the process of creating my magazine. I was able to use it to make columns to structure my layout and so my text was aligned properly.

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

Photoshop is a software I can now use to a decent standard because of the process of creating my magazine. I am now able to change the quality of images and edit them to a way I consider better. An example of this is these two images. The one on the left being the original image and the one on the right being the one feature on my magazine after being edited.

I used Photoshop to create my magazine. The picture here is an example of me creating my cover page on Photoshop. I now have a range of design skills due to Photoshop, which are seen on my magazine cover. I was able to adjust images, add text, construct a unique layout and make it look professional all due to the software.

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

• Since creating my preliminary task I have no learnt a variety of skills due to the creation of my main magazine. One of these skills include researching. I can now find information that is appropriate and beneficial to my work as I found when

researching other similar magazines when planning my magazine.

• This is the next skill I learnt – planning. I have learnt how to plan my work so that I can keep to deadlines and always know what needs to be done. I have also learnt

how to organise my work, this is because when I was creating my magazine I had to organise my work to make sure I knew everything I had completed and what

wasn’t.

• Furthermore, I have developed my photography skills by taking images for my magazine. I learnt how to use a camera best to achieve the best possible standard so that when I was putting the picture on my magazine, they looks professional.

• Finally, by using Photoshop, I was able to improve my design skills. I learnt about the many different tools on the software that can achieve professional results. I can

now edit my work to a better standard than I originally could when doing my preliminary task.