evaluation question seven

I believe that I have learned an awful lot since. Looking back at my prelim there are a lot of things that I would change. My text is very bland and the titles do not stand out, if I were to change this I would make the title bigger and maybe a different colour so that the audiences attention was brought straight to my stories and this would intreig them. My picture does not look professional at all as it is not good quality, the lighting is very bright and overall the image is not very eye catching. Compared to my actual front cover there is a great difference in quality, I believe my front cover looks alot more professional than my prelim.

Looking at these two images above I noticed the mistake I made with my prelim, I left lots of space on the right hand side and all my stories were featured on the left. I solved this problem by adding a barcode and a label and a picture of my band 'Facing Paige'. This filled the space and made my magazine look more professional. It is a common convention of magazines to not leave much space.

The paragraphs of text on my prelim magazine are long and bland whereas the paragraphs on my coursework magazine are short, entertaining and eye catching. I believe that this gives it the professional look and will attract my audience.

I compared my different fonts used. For my prelim I used a very casual and grungey looking font which made the magazine look less professional. In my coursework I used more suitable fonts for my genre, my font for 'Brooke Kelly' is more grungey looking which is suitable for my indie magazine. My colours on my prelim are very plain and boring and will not catch my audiences attention. However my coursework has deep reds which really stand out and will catch the audiences attention. This is a good technique to use as it will stand out more than other magazines.

evaluation question six

Media evaluation q6

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evaluation question five.

Title:
I called my magazine 'N' which I believe makes it stand out and look bold. It's short and catchy so that potential customers can remember it well. I felt that the name would bring attention to my magazine as it is quite rare for one letter titles, although 'Q' has done this also. It will be easier to remember the letter 'N' than it would be to remember a word. The letter 'N' stands for 'Noise' which obviously belongs to the semantic field of music which I believe fits in well. I purposely used a simple yet sophisticated font to give my magazine a classy and professional look. I deliberately chose the background to be red and the font to be black as it made the N really stand out, the white stroke around the font also made the N stand out even more. I believe this is a good technique to make your magazine title really eye catching.
Cover:
The first thing that the audience would see before buying my magazine would be the cover, which is why I had to make a great first impression. I chose a medium long shot of my model as it draws attention to her. The image will be the first thing the audience see, then their attention will be brought to the stories and title of the magazine. By having direct eye contact with the camera and having an emotional expression this makes the cover look more intense and dramatic. Her black clothes make her very striking and eye catching. Her volumed hair, headband, many rings and bracelets will portray her indie/pop image. I purposely chose this outfit and hair style to attract my audience.
Colour Scheme:
I purposely chose the colours red, black and white as they were simple yet striking.I found that the colours worked well together and were easy to read which would influence my audience to buy my magazine as they would be able to read all the features of my magazine which would appeal to them.

I also tried to attract my audience by including artists that they would like for example, Artic Monkeys, Snow Patrol, Lady Gaga and 3OH!3. By seeing these artists my audience will immediately want to read this magazine as it features the artists they are interested in.



I also included an inside story of my interview with the band 'Facing Paige'. They appear to be a fun teenage indie band which my audience will find appealing as this will be their genre of music.

Here I tried to attract my audience with my story, Brooke's name is in a large font so that it will catch the audiences attention. Then there is a tag line 'NEW indie girl on the block' as she is new the audience will want to get to know about her as it is very common for people to want to be the first to know about something new.

The Contents:
I followed a very similar style to 'Q' magazine, this is because I liked their classy and professional look. I believe that this look would attract my target audience as it contains lots of images which will grab the readers attention and lead them to want to see more.

I have included many artists that my target audience would like. Lady gaga is very in fashion right now so this would really attract the teenage side to my audience as Lady gaga is also a fashion icon. Back to the 80's would attract the older side to my target audience as they could reminisce on the great songs the 80's gave us. Florence and the machine recently won the Best British Albums Awards 2010, so they are obviously very like able right now, so by featuring them in my magazine this would attract many potential customers.

Double Spread:

I have included many images in my double spread, this is to entertain my audience as lots of text would be boring. Although I have included valuable information into the artical to entertain and inform my audience. I have stuck to basic colours, pink, black and white as it makes the images and text stand out and easy to read which will benefit my audience.

I inserted a pull quote which is a common feature of these types of articles. I chose to pick an inspirable quote to portray the best side of my artist and to motivate the audience.

I have clearly set my interview out in Question and Answer form, i have clearly indercated this as the questions are in bold. This is a simple layout which will make it easier for my audience to read as they will not be met by large paragraphs of text.

The main photo I have used for my double spread gives off the indie feel as she is wearing playsuit she appears to be a typical teenage girl. This relates to my magazine genre so my audience will be able to relate to this.

evaluation question four

my target audience would be a mainstream indie audience from the age of 13-25. There prefered music would be quite indie from artists such as snow patrol and florence and the machine. They would shop in places like Topshop and Urban Outfitters, as most of them would be college students they would be on a budget so would also shop at Primark. Their favourite tv programmes would be 'One Tree Hill', '90210', 'Shameless', 'Friends', 'Scrubs' as these are mostly on Channel 4 and E4. As E4 is UK's number one digital channel for 15-34 year olds.

Here is a link to E4's website.. http://www.e4.com/

I believe that this audience would buy my magazine as it is affordable and very entertaining. It contains gossip and facts on many different artists so it will be very satisfying for the buyers. The artists and information is very suitable for my age group, for example 'florence and the machine' is very current and up to date, which my audience will like.

evaluation question three

As my magazine is of a very similar genre to NME magazine I decided to look at the company who published NME. IPC Media produces 85 iconic media brands, with the print brands reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of men and almost 27 million adults. This shows what a large, successful company they are.
I then looked closely at the NME magazine, they had a very specific idea of what their audience are like. They knew all about their ages, class and music preferance.




The nme.com audience is made up of key demographic groups-
• 65% Male*
• 50% 16-24*
• 23% 25-34*
• 79% ABC1*
• 80% of NME readers feel that music is an important part of their lives
• 79% of NME readers like to listen to new bands
• 63% specially choose to listen to indie/guitar bands
• 49% specially choose to listen to live bands in studio
• 52% are interested in taking a musical course/qualification
• 36% are thinking of buying a musical instrument in the next year
By looking at this I realised how alike mine and NME's target audience are. I decided that IPC Media would work well with my magazine.

evaluation question two

(2) The left image I took in the studio of my model Chloe, the right image is of Cheryl Cole, this was taken for 'Q' magazine.
My background is not as light as the 'Q' photo as I didn't use bright lighting. The light background for Q makes Cheryl stand out more. I took my photo from a high angle so that the camera is looking down to my model. Both females have rather straight hair and are sharing the same expression although Cheryl is not looking directly at the camera. My model is looking directly at the camera which makes the photo more personal. Cheryl has headphones as an extra prop whereas my model does not, the headphones follow the sematic field of music which follows the conventions of a music magazine. The 'Q' photo is a medium long shot. Cheryl is wearing a jacket made from chains and over the knee boots, whereas chloe is wearing a playsuit and ankle boots. Cheryl gives off a 'rock' image whereas Chloe looks like an average indie girl. I believe that these photos would attract rock kids between the age of 13 to 19.

evaluation question one.

As media studies

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feedback

finished products

Noise.

I then began creating my magazine. At first I used the dark green colour as it gave my magazine a grungey look but it did not stand out as much as I had hoped. So looking back at my research I realised that reds were used often so I then changed the green colour to red.

1. I clicked 'Image' and then 'Adjustments' and then 'Brightness/Contrast' This was to brighten my image.

2. I edited the brightness.

3. I then clicked on my layers and duplicated the layer.

4. I named my new layer and then selected 'ok'

5. I then clicked 'Filter', 'Blur' and 'Surface Blur'

6. I then edited the radius and threshold until I was happy with my image.

7. I then clicked the 'eraser' button.

8. I edited the size of the brush and then erased all of my image besides the face.

9. I then clicked 'Layer' and 'Flatten Image'.

10. Then I clicked the spot heal button and erased all of my models flaws.

photoshoot and editing

These are some of the original photos I have taken. I chose to do these in a studio as I wanted the photo's to look professional and classy. I directed light sources from above and both sides. I wanted my images to fit in with the style of 'Q Magazine'. I made sure that my model kept this look by choosing her outfits, hair style and make up style to keep in with this indie image. I do believe that these images need brightening up as they are still a little dark.

research into poses

Here I researched into poses for my model. I liked the indie style of Pixie Lott and I loved Cheryl Cole's fashion sense. I merged these two ideas together and picked outfits, poses, hair styles and make up for my model.

Here I researched more into fonts and colours to see which would look most professional and indie. Although I did like most of them, I still wanted it to look more classy.

Here I looked at the font Times New Roman which I felt looked very simple and professional. I decided to use this font.

Font Ideas.

Then I began looking at the titles themselves. 'NME' and 'Q' were small and catchy whereas 'Blender' and 'Vibe' were longer and were less likely to be remembered. At first I began thinking of words that were music related like, Amp, Music, Notes, Bass but decided they were a little boring. I really liked that 'Q' was so short and simple so decided to think of letters, I debated 'M' for Music, or 'C' for Cool, but these were a little cheesey and not what I wanted my magazine to be about. I then decided on 'N' for Noise as it had a punky/pop feel to it. I believe 'Noise' represented music well.

Here I looked at a few font ideas. I quite liked the idea of a grungey look. Which I later on decided made my magazine look more rocky than indie. I wanted my magazine to look professional so decided maybe a more elegant font was needed.

Here I looked at many music magazine fonts and colours. There seemed a very strong theme of basic colours, reds, blacks and whites in particular. I loved the Q logo as it really stood out and was extremely eye catching however I also liked the stroke on the NME logo. I decided to merge the ideas together as this would then make my title stand out even more.

Further Research.

Here I looked at more music magazines. I looked at their images and studied their texts. I liked the classy look of 'Q' and 'Rolling Stones' and wanted my magazine to look similar. Quite a few of the magazines contained a label or speech bubble containing a story which I thought was a good idea as it added extra information and layers to the image. Although the 'Top of the Pops' magazine looked great it was not suitable for my ideas as I did not want a cheesy looking magazine. I decided that I liked the images of a single artist, although they did not fill the whole frame (which would be harder to make look professional as there would have to be more stories in order to fill the extra space) I believed they were very eyecatching and really stood out.

I decided that for my photo I would use a sinlgle model and use a medium long shot as this would fill some of the frame leaving enough room for stories to be placed on my magazine. I would also make sure that my image conformed to my idea of an 'Indie' magazine.

Each magazine contains different characteristics of the genre, 'Rolling Stones' has a more classy look as it is aimed at 20+ whereas 'Kerrang' has a young, grungy and busy image. I would like to aim for something in between these magazines as my target audience is preferably going to be large for example, 13-25 year olds. I began thinking of places for my photo shoot, many pictures are taken in a studio which I really liked as they gave a classy feel to it, I also considered giving my magazine a little edge by having my model posing on an amp or up against a brick wall or grafiti. I looked into these ideas further and found that carrying an amp around would be very difficult, although I loved the idea it was very unpractical. I did my first photoshoot in the studio and liked them so much I decided I would not try the grafiti or brick wall photos as it may make my text on the magazine harder to read.

Research

I then began my research, I looked at magazines such as 'NME' and 'Rolling Stones'. I noticed that all of the titles were situated at the top of the page and if the text was too small, the title was placed to the left hand side. Instantly the 'Indie' magazines caught my eye and I thought looked great. This is the style I was hoping to achieve for my magazine. Once I decided on the 'Indie' look, I decided to look closer at magazines such as 'Q' and 'NME'.


I loved this magazine cover as it was very unique. It contains a very striking image. The band/artist image will always be in front of the text this is a common convention of magazines, the readers will already be aware of the magazine so the title can be partially obscured. In some magazines the main story obscures the main image, this is allowed as the story can often glamorise or bring extra attention to the celebrities status.

AS MEDIA COURSEWORK - PRINT.

I used Photoshop to create my college magazine prelim. I chose this programme as many effects can be used easily. My initial front cover idea was an image of a student attempting to get on Facebook, as the college had banned it. I took some photo's but the message the image was portraying was not clear. So I then changed my idea to the snowy weather. Once I had uploaded the image onto Photoshop I went onto the website 'www.dafont.com' and chose the font 'Green Piloww'. The font was cartoon like which I believe represented college students. Most magazine titles are placed on the left hand side, however my image had a snowball on the left which would interrupt my font. To solve this problem I placed my title to the right hand side, which is unconventional but I believe it worked for my magazine as it was for college students. The font was originally white, but due to the light background I had to make it Grey so that it was easier to read which still obeys the '3 colour recommendation'. I then uploaded an image of a bar code from google, which made my magazine look more professional. I then uploaded the Facebook logo and drew a red cross through it to emphasise on the college Facebook ban, as I knew this would attract students as Facebook is very popular amongst teenagers. For my stories I stuck to the font 'Tahoma' as the magazine would look too 'busy' if I used a different font for every story.

I used Microsoft Word to create my contents page prelim as it was easier to use to create my desired look. I wanted my contents page to be set out so that it was easy for the reader to initiate the difference between stories and images. However at the same time I wanted it to look modern, so I made my images quite slanted so that they would stand out. For my title I continued to use 'Green Piloww' so that the contents and front cover had continuity. I wanted it to be easy to differentiate between the stories so I added a deep red colour to number the stories. I believe that this made the stories stand out and catch the readers eye. In most magazines the editor leaves a message so I thought that I would use the same idea to look professional.

AS Group 17

AS Group 17