Q7 Evaluation

Front Cover: Preliminary 

The lack of eye contact on the model makes it seem uninviting and repulsive, this is not good for a magazine because it would stop people from picking it up and wanting to read it and find out about what’s inside. However, using an action shot showing the head and shoulders and some of the body makes the magazine feel more energetic and based at students as they don’t look like professional photos taken to look artificial they look real. But at this point I wasn't aware of the codes and conventions of a magazine I therefore didn't use any such as using a colour scheme or having the front cover shot me a medium close up of the head and shoulders.

The text wrapping I did under "other articles" is poorly done creating a very messy look to the page not keeping it streamlined and visually appealing to the reader. I also wish I had spelt the word articles right. 

The colours are lifeless and dull, overall it doesn't look very eye-catching or visually appealing. There isn't a lot to look at, there is only one photo and very little text, I could have incorporated a few pictures just to make it a bit more exciting and eye grabbing. I have used a basic font, which makes it look standard. To improve this outcome, I would change the house style to something that looks more professional. My finished preliminary front cover I think has a nice angled shot which shows off indexical signs of what college it is through the hoodie making it recognisable to college students.

Front Cover: Final

In my final front cover, the shot and pose I used fits very well with the conventional style of a technical equipment magazine it shows off the instrument and the model. The eyes are bright and engaging which is also a convention of pop magazines but I chose to include it in my magazine as I believe it makes it visually appealing and engaging with the reader. I chose the lighting for my shot carefully to make it look like she was coming out of the darkness which can mean different things to different people but I intended to mean it as she came out of nowhere and quickly became a success.

The shot type used was a mid-shot which enables the reader to be able to see the model’s head down to the waist which is a conventional shot type used for most magazine front covers because it makes the reader feel as though they are involved with the model and that they’re looking at them with their own eyes. I have put the artist’s name right across the middle at the bottom of the page as it doesn't interfere with the magazines main image of Lauren. The positioning and sizing of the masthead was also done for this reason as I feel placing it somewhere different would break conventions too much and leave the page looking odd. The colour scheme fits well with the front covers main image as the white and blue counter acts the black making the image look lighter and more visually appealing to the reader. Also by using the brown colour on the puff’s it makes them eye grabbing and could interest a potential reader into picking up the magazine.

What I feel I could of done to improve this would of been to improve the text in the ukulele as it doesn't look as well now that I look back as I thought it did. Another thing I would of liked to do was find a better twitter logo that doesn't stand out as much, it draws attention away from the front cover.

When I first started media studies I had no idea what I was doing most of the time with technology ,I didn't know how to use a mac and I never would of been able to use photo-shop but now knowing the things I do over my journey with media I feel I have progressed greatly and that my finished product shows this.

Q6 Evaluation

I am a very technological person, I enjoy technology such as computers, phones and tablets a lot and find technology interesting seeing the ways it can progress and

thought I knew enough to do well straight from the get go. I soon found out that I was wrong. When I first began using all the technology that was in the media department such as the mac, scanner I was in all honesty clueless but soon found my footing.

Blogger is a website that I had never used before or even had heard off. It’s associated with Google and allows people to publish blog posts on their own personal profile for other people to see. Blogger is hugely important regarding my media studies work as it contains all of my work for the examiner to see. Every piece of work I completed needs to be uploaded in chronological order publicly for anyone to see. It is extremely useful and I have learnt the ability of using embed codes to stream technological advanced pieces of work e.g. from slide share or Prezi and the ability to use Blogger well in general. Photo shop is also quite unfamiliar. I have never used Photo Shop as an editing tool for photos therefore this is something new and useful I have learnt. I uploaded all the shots I took for my magazine onto it and then edited them for a more professional feel, the tools on photo shop got easier to use. I was able to compare similar photos and then choose the best one for ‘techniques’.

Photoshop Elements 11 offers two workspaces, the Organizer and the Photo Editor, and you can toggle between the two. 

On photo shop the first tool which I would confidently I could use was the spot healing brush. I used this on all of my photos used throughout my magazine to make the models look aesthetic and professional. I learned how to use a lot of the tools raging from ones to make the eyes look sharper to turning someone purple which I found by accident. All of the tools on Photoshop are very useful when editing all the photos for my pages for my music magazine. 

Photo shop is a very complicated piece of software with many different tools such as a layer mask which makes the possibility to modify the same object again and again and, if you’re not satisfied, go back and return to the original image possible.

Another tool I found useful was to change the light levels on a photo as some of them were in not the best light while others were in unflattering light which made the quality of my photos lower and didn't look as aesthetic so by using the light tool I could fix this and make it look better. By using all of the other tools it made my photos look magazine quality very aesthetically pleasing.

One of the things I found hardest about photo shop was the organization skills it required with making sure your layers are all in order and don’t interfere with each other, while on of the easiest things I found I could do on Photoshop was actually to change the colors of objects. I did this on my final product and changed the blouse colour of Lauren Sharpe from red to blue and then used the colours from the blouse to decided my colour scheme tying her to the page.

One thing I really enjoyed using was the camera, I chose the lighting, angels and locations carefully to get the best outcome I could from the photo shoots I held. Also, by adjusting the ISO and aperture I was able to take photos in a range of different lightings to try and show different things through the photo and the art of photography. One photography idea I readily used on all my photos was the rule of thirds which makes all of your photos balanced and look right I felt that this was a crucial idea as I wanted the best quality photos.

Q5 evaluation

How did you attract/address your audience?

The audience I have in mind for my product is 16 to 25 and is an equal gender split.

One way I attracted a female audience was through the use of Lauren by presenting her how she could be anyone. I did this through the use of her make up and clothing, by having her makeup look nice but not extravagant it gives her the star image that she is anyone and she simply followed her dreams the clothing gives this effect as well.

On my front cover I included well known artist names. They are all very popular artists who have sold a lot of records meaning that they would be in the public knowledge. This automatically connotes quality and knowledge of the finished product. This attracts people as it connotes quality of the magazine making the magazine as a brand seem more established.

Another way that I attracted a female audience was that by using a female model for a technical equipment magazine it encourages women to get into a normally men dominated genre. By having Lauren in the front it acts as encouragement and speaks out as if to say " you can do this".

I used large font and different styles of font in my heading to emphasize the artist’s name. This attracts my target audience as once they have seen the name, they will recognize the artist and want to read more. I used the same color as the heading to advertise the main feature ‘Lauren to promote synergy. This helps entice the reader as it makes the product more visually appealing.

My front cover has a colour scheme which fits together nicely, and is well organised which follows the convention of a technical equipment magazine. The reason I choose for my front cover to have a blue and white colour scheme is that both of those colours appeal to both genders which supports me wanting an equal gender split, Looking back the writing on the ukulele could off been arranged better as it looks a little too close to the edge and does not feel right when you look at it.

one way I attracted an audience was by having my contents page have various photos and articles to try and appeal to anyone who would have an interest in music by including things from learning how to read sheet music to achieving that punk rock sound. By having something for everyone this creates a "one stop shop" feel to the magazine that people would only need to by this and then they would have everything they need.

 It appeals to a younger audience through its use of social media links as this is a modern thing which appeals to a younger crowd, this creates the feel that they can keep up to date with the magazine and know such things like when the next issue comes out it also makes the audience feel like they have a say in what articles appear in each issue.

I used an enlarged font size for the page numbers of the features mentioned on my contents page as this makes it easier for my readers to see what they want to look at and flick straight to the page and story they want. This is particularly aimed at my sub target audience of teenagers, as they are known for not wanting to read too much text. This feature is a common technique used for other magazines.

I used semi formal language to make the audience feel like they were learning something and to try and make it interesting reading so they want to carry on. My original idea was to use more informal language to try and make it appeal to a younger audience but after researching the technical equipment genre i found that more formal language was conventional. On my front cover i used a more aesthetic colour scheme to highlight particular features to try and entice the reader to buy the magazine and read it. It appeals to musicians or people who have a ken intrest in music as it uses specialised language in certain places but it does use enough specialised language that would limit the TA.


My DPS was aimed at attracting a a young and modern audience, one way it did this was through the unique andy warhall style by using the bright colours and unique pop art style it made it stand out and memorable. From my target audience I found that the audience i wanted 16 to 25 preferred the brighter colours so i kept this in mind when making this page.

I used a drop capital letter in my initial paragraph of my double page spread feature as this attracts the audience to continue reading. If they have seen the first letter they often want to find out what the word that follows the letter is. Once they have seen the word they might want to read the whole sentence, followed by the whole paragraph. I did this to make my product look more appealing and try to appeal to a larger audience not just my target audience as some people are more easily distracted than others.

By using a pull quote it gives the reader an initial look into the interview without having to read the whole thing. By reading the pull quote this will make the audience want to find out more about the artist. My target audience is okay with reading large amounts of text but I wanted to include a pull quote to try and make it appeal to a larger target audience.

One theorist i kept in mind when constructing my DPS was Blumler and Katz who say that people consume media products for a few reasons one of them being diversion. My media product creates a diversion as it allows the reader to learn about Lauren Sharp.

My house style and choices I made when constructing my pages, appeals to both genders I think this was the correct decision to make and will stand by it.

Q4 Evaluation

My magazine would be seen in the shop by 16 to 25 year olds of any gender and also may interest anyone with a passion for music, it would have to interest them enough to buy it.This means that my front cover would have to appeal to a wide range of people to try and sell it and generate a good profit.

I made sure that my magazine was able to appeal to both these target audiences, by using neutral colours that appeal to both genders it makes it so both male and females felt it was aimed at them. I also did this through including a wide range of articles on the front cover meaning there was something for everyone.

Q3 Evaluation

Q2 Evaluation

Media q2 from Jshepherd1460

Q1 Evaluation

Front cover

This is my magazine front cover, after research into existing magazines of the same genre. I knew that my page would have to be organised and structured to be organised for it to be recognised as a technical equipment magazine. To stick to this convention and organised a few Photo shoot's but made sure that they were studio so all shots look professional and are of the best quality through the studio setting and rules like the rule of thirds being applied.

 As it is technical equipment I made sure that my model looked professional and confident with the instrument so it shows that she is a master of the instrument and would be able to instruct other people how to play it. My original plan was to have the model posing in a tunnel and have other versions of her photoshopped behind her. The weather played an issue with the location and we were not able to get there so i adapted to a studio shoot and was happy with how the end product looked.

I felt that by adding the different sections it makes it easier to convoy what genre the magazine is as well as who it is aimed at.  It also gave me the opportunity to add in more puff, shapes and try out different layouts for my front cover to try and convey the genre. I challenged conventions and included an article for " 50 albums you must own" to try and appeal to a larger target audience and make my magazine more appealing.



The use of the colour blue throughout the magazine was a house style which follows the conventions of most magazines . I used the same shade of blue on my front cover, contents page and DPS to tie the pages together and to give it a colour scheme. The blue I chose was from the models shirt to make her involved in the rest of the page.

Other genre conventions I stuck to was having the masthead 1/5th of the page and to have different parts of the magazine advertised on the cover to make it appealing to the target audience

Another convention i did follow was to have three colours on the front cover which were the signature shade of blue i used to create a house style, a white to provide a appealing contrast to the white and a peach like shade for the same reason. I did this as it makes the magazine look visually appealing and professional.

One theorist i had in mind while producing my front cover was Ryall who said "Genre provides a frame work" I agree with this statement as by having this in mind while I was producing my pages I know what things I would have to include to show the reader or someone picking the magazine of a rack what genre it was.

Contents 

                                                                 

On my contents page I followed the colour scheme I had  created and carried on with the shade of blue. I choose to make a feature of the blue as it appeals to both genders instead of only focusing on one. The fonts were chosen carefully to make it look professional.

I placed the ukulele in the bottom right hand corner to fill the blank space and to link it back to the magazine being a ukulele issue as well as also linking back to the double page spread advertising "Lauren Sharpe"and her ukulele's.  I focused on the ukulele issue not take over the magazine as this would beak the conventions of a music magazine.

I followed the convention of having three columns of text and large numbers. I also used a technique in not only technical equipment magazine contents pages  but all music magazine contents pages, to add a small caption about what the article is about underneath the heading. This serves the purpose of advertising what the article is about at a glance and where you can find it.



I followed the recently established convention of including social media links on the contents page as it makes the reader feel more in touch with the magazine and that they have a relationship with it as well as having a say about what they like and don't like.


I decided to arrange my page like this to try and gave it more of a unique shape and to look more visually appealing to the reader.It gives the page character and lays it out in a way that is clear to the reader where things are from a glance at any of the particular  photos.



I decided to include ticket master on my contents page as it makes it appeal to a younger target audience as they are the generation that would want to go see a band live over an older audience who would not want to. I included a section for gigs on my contents page to manipulate conventions to appeal to a younger audience.

The conventions I adhered to on my contents page are to include freebies, banners, puffs and to have group and individual shots with modern fashion and modern genre representations. I included modern fashion and genre representations as it appeals to a modern target audience who like to go out and try new things  and spend money compared to an older audience who are different.


I included a gear of the month section as that is a well established convention of the technical equipment genre and by including one it makes the genre easy to identify.

DPS

A lot of research went into existing magazines for the double page spread, the language used and displayed was decided by manipulating the typical conventions of a technical equipment magazine. The art style was also manipulated to be like the artist Andy Warhall as it was bright and retro, it managed to breath life into the page and make it appeal to a younger target audience.

The biography style was done as it gave context to the person I was writing about and made her seem like a real person who could relate to the reader as she followed her dream.


Things I feel I could of done better on the page would of been to manage my time better when creating all 3 pages and to be more organised with my ideas clearly presented and drawn out.