EVALUATION

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

My initial idea for my magazine since the start was to resemble existing magazines like Kerrang because it was a magazine which i had a lot of knowledge on, it interested me and i had acess to the type of bands it would feature. Most of my magazines aspects are similar to that of kerrang as i used it as a template however i added my own ideas in to make it my own magazine and to adress a wider audience than just mainly rock which kerrang caters for. Most magazines focus on one music genre so people tend not to listen to anything out of the ordinary to them and they dont explore other styles, but with my magazine i wanted to combine genres so people get a taste of a range of music styles.







2. How does your media represent particular social groups?

Indie: Any form of culture (such as pop music from a group not signed to a major label) from outside the mainsteam; a type of rock music, generally soft-style without screaming or agression mixted with synthesized music and electronic.

Grime: A genre of urban music

Emo: A style of hardcore punk-rock, an individual or group of people assosiated with the subculture and musical style.

Goth: A punk-derived subculture of people who predominatley dress in black. A style of glam rock influenced punk rock and gothic rock.

skaters: People who skate and particually wear baggy tops, surfer shorts and baseball caps, this social group would be found in skate parks, shopping car parks and roaming the streets.

My magazine represents 'Indies & Rockers' as hardcore music loves and festival 'go-er's' with endless gig, tour and festival dates.
Most the band members are wearing trendy fashionable clothes which are very up to date and reflect the 'indie/boho' style.
The front cover image of an indie/punk-rock band is very playful which represents this social group as lively, fun, up for a laugh and friend orientated.

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

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

My Audience would be very musically experienced and interested in all aspects of music from just reading about it, listening to it to playing it and attending large festivals.
They are individual and have there own music taste such as Indie/Rock and Punk-Rock.
Also very fun loving, care-free, friend orientated and always up for a laugh and a joke.
My audience would shop in such places as Topshop and H&M for clothing as it has its own unique quirky style very different from other mainstream shops.
As i am very interested in my magazine and i would classify myself as 'Indie' so i would say people similar to me and my audience would be interested in bands such as All time Low, Biffy Clyro, You Me At Six, Fall Out Boy, Boys Like Girls, Flyleaf, Fightstar and Bullet For My Valentine which are a mixture of typical Indie, punk rock and rock bands.
TV taste would be funny comedy series such as srubs, friends and two and a half men.
For Music and Fashion lovers interested in my magazine it would be America's next top model and project runway and for the individuals with a weird sense of humour which i include myself it would be The Mighty Boosh.
My audience profile matches Kerrangs in many ways, so i believe any body who reads these magazines such as Kerrang, Q and NME would buy my magazine as it offers weekly music updates, tour dates, posters, freebies and chances to win gig/festival tickets.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Front Men confessions, deep secrets that the audience never knew, revealed in my magazine in exclusive interviews.


Festival 'go-ers' will be interested to know about up and coming festivals, the line up and any new and exiting updates exclusive to Kerrang.
The best ands on the front cover which will attract fans.


Free posters of our audiences favourite bands/Artists


Free Fall Out Boy t-shirt to mark the break-up of a memorable band another exclusive only to Kerrang.


Kerrang: Frequently offer free posters of rock bands and artists and sometimes memorial posters for people who have passed away such as Kurt Cobain which will attract fans.
Interviews with band such as You Me at Six ranging to Slipknot so they cover all audience bases.


Q: Free women in music magazine targeting the women audience and 100 most shocking moments in music which have been forgotten or never shown which exites the audience.
Big faces in music on the covers.

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


I Learnt how to enhance my front cover image and other inside images by using a software called Photoshop where i increased the brightness of my image to make in clearer and crisp. I also used the spot healer tool to remove any blemishes on the band members faces.


Also in Photoshop i learnt how to add different effects to my text to make it stand off the page such as drop shadow, inner and outer glow, stroke, bevel and emboss.


I wanted to try something different with the images so instead of them being flat i wanted to add a 3D dimension, like it was coming off the page, i did this by distorting the image and pulling the edges in different directions until i got it how i wanted.


In Publisher i learnt how to use margins to keep my work at the right scale and to keep a small 1cm border. To again keep my magazine interesting i used different shapes to put my writing in such as circles and stars.


I used a site which has a wide range of fonts that i could use for my magazine called http://www.dafont.com/ when i found the fonts that i wanted i saves the target then opened it up before opening my photoshop or publisher files then i could just use the font like any other in the list.

I learnt that google images was very useful for research and ideas for my magazine by researching existing front covers, contents and double page spreads from similar magazines.


Magforum was very helpful when researching magazines and audiences. It had information on every form of magazine which was useful when looking at magazine company's that would distribute my magazine.


BauerMedia.com helped me when researching into Kerrang and there distributors, platforms and audience profile.

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

Over the progression to my final product i have learnt many new skills that i didn't know when making my preliminary for example my main image on my preliminary is very dull whereas my music magazine image is very clear and crisp which i learnt to do in photoshop whilst playing around with the tools. I can now use the space around the magazine better whereas at the start i was worried about putting on too many stories and taking away focus from the main image but now i can manage my space and have enough stories and images. I have also learnt how to pick text that reflects the purpose and theme of my magazine by using a variety of fonts then choosing the best fitting one. My photography skills have improved as during my music magazine photoshoot i started to change the angles instead of just being straight on. In my prelim i learnt how i like my magazine colours to be limited to 3 as it doesn't over complicate it.

My second contents is a lot more detailed and eye catching as i learnt to play around with different shapes, fonts and layout. At the start i wasn't very familiar with publisher and the tool it had but over the process i became comfortable with the software and i also found it a lot easier when i could do certain thing in photoshop then save it to a jpeg and export it into publisher such as edited images and text. Again i didn't put a lot into my prelim because i didn't want to over complicate the layout but as i started to add different boxes and shapes i found that the page looked better with more in it. The columns have more order to the page than just one big box and it also breaks everything up.

Thoughout ive liked my images being distored and off centre so i rotated my image and put a box around it but it looked very messy because i had never done it before but since playing around with the tools in both photoshop and publisher i learnt how to distort the image and the border so they look joined and not out of place.

When i first tried importing the text i found that it left a white border around the writing that i couldnt erase but i found that if i just opened the text in publisher instead of saving it as a flat image it wrote like an ordinary font would and didnt leave any background.

I learnt how to imporve the quality of my images bye using enhancing tools in photoshop such as brightness/contrast, levels and exposure.




Because my colours where black, white and red the image consisted of 2 of them colours so when i put text over the top it blended into the image so i had to find some way of getting the text to stand out, i found an effect called stoke which puts a border around the text which you can increase or decrease.
I finished my magazine quite early which gave me a lot of time to tweak it until the final hand in, it also gave me a chance to show my teachers the improvements and to point out any mistakes that i could amend.
I learnt from my first magazine photoshoot that i needed to pre-pick images that i liked and would like to re-create or poses and shots that i liked because i just went straight into the photoshoot without planning so i only got a couple of images that i could use.
So for my music mag i printed of some band images and poses that i showed to the band so they could get a feel of what i would like them to do which saved a lot of time and i got a lot of images that i could of used.

Feedback
Feedback helped me to see what aspects of the magazine people were interested in and bits they thought wernt as interesting so i could change the bits in order for my magazine to appeal to everybody. I also asked the public what would they like to see in a magazine and people were really keen on pictures and interviews which i encorperated the best as possible.