Evaluation 7

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

Doing a preliminary task before the production of my final product gave me greater awareness of how consideration of the target audience determines the outcome of decisions made during the production process. For example the preliminary project was good for me as both the prelimanary and my final product were aimed at the same demographic, my prelimanary was aimed at college students and my main project was aimed at college and older so I was able to use a lot of the features I found out for the preliminary in my main project. Without the preliminary project I wouldn't have learned the skills that I used a lot during my main project for example Blogger, Prezi and Slideshare. During the preliminary I was just getting used to using blogger and uploading but when it came to my final product I was confident using it which allowed me to use it quicker and it was a lot easier. 

I was able to use it for my planning and preparation which was vital as I was able to create a well thought out plan of how I wanted to make my magazine which was a lot easier to do then when I made the plan for my preliminary project. The main skills that I found useful before beginning the final product was the practice in the use of programmes such as, InDesign. After completing the preliminary task I felt that I had the skills needed to create and magazine front cover and other sections of the product. This shows to me how important the preliminary task is to making students feel comfortable with the technology before beginning that final task. 

There are other programmes that I didn't need the practice with Such as, Photoshop. This is a programme that I feel incredibly confident with because I have this programme at home and I have used it whilst doing GCSE media. The experience with Photoshop helped me manipulate photos in ways that I wouldn't have been normally able to do. Not everyone has these opportunities and I felt the need for the preliminary task, showing how necessary the preliminary task is and showing how much students learn from it and how they adapt this knowledge to the final task.    

Evaluation 6

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

I have created a Prezi account to illustarte how technology has aided the process of the Production of each aspect of my magazine.

http://prezi.com/zs5zi_5yfhuh/what-i-have-learnt-about-technology-in-the-process-of-the-production-of-my-magazine/

Evaluation 5

_{How I addressed my audience when designing}

Firstly, when deciding on the design for the masthead I went through many different fonts. Getting the right masthead font is the key to the attraction of the magazine. The masthead will become known and create synergy with my magazine style. I chose this font because this font is based on the design of stencils. By using stencils it shows connotation of graffiti. This appeals to my audience because graffiti is known for being a young art form. 

Everything on the front cover is to attract my demographic and one of the most important features of the cover to appeal to the audience is the photo. The image of the male model is vital. I chose to take my photo close up to capture he features. The model has long her and generally his style reflects the audience so the demographic can relate themselves to the person of the cover. Once I had taken the photo I used gradient map to create this orange effect which makes it more unique.   With the main tag line to my magazine cover I chose this font because mainly it is incredibly clear. What I loved about this is that the letters are not even and are crooked. The clarity was to make the font stand out but the bizarre crooked style makes it looks like careless style. This careless and sloppy style reflects the audience making it seem like it was designed by the people that will read it. This is a theme that I tried to carry out throughout the entire magazine.   

The smaller and insignificant, less important fonts on this magazine cover have been designed with a font called mistral. Mistral is a great font that looks like a very stylish and artistic font. It looks realistic due to it looking like hand writing. By using a font that looks like hand writing it again appeals to my target audience because it makes it seem like anyone could have designed it, including them. The entire magazine has a theme of a realistic style especially in the fonts.

Evaluation 4

Evaluation 1

Forms and conventions of real media products

This is a link to the website slideshare. This website has helped me create my first evaluation point. This is a very useful site. However, there was problems with uploading so the font sizes have changed unexpectedly. Please forgive this error and enjoy the powerpoint.

http://www.slideshare.net/Eldamar/presentation1-7475199  

Evaluation 3

Media institutions that might distribute my magazine

http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/

There are many different types of media institutes across the world. The publisher I would use to publish my magazine would be Bauer media. The reason for this is that Bauer is one of the biggest media institutions in the world. This makes the company more reliable and stable, Bauer also are the publishers for the magazine Kerrang! and this means they have experience with a magazine with a similar ethos and demographic. Bauer is a well known publisher and millions of people read the magazines published by Bauer, giving me the best opportunities to make money and create a large readership. Through their company they will help get y magazine going through advertising and many other contemporary methods of marketing such as, viral marketing.

Distribution

The kind of distribution methods I would use would start at putting copies of my magazine in retail shops such as, WH Smiths and Newsagents. This is a good place to start because it is the most common way and most trusted way and reliable way of getting copies of my magazine sold. This is still the most popular way of selling magazines and that is purely the reason. I would expand this to supermarkets like Tesco and Asda as well due to the large amount of people that shop there it makes the magazine a lot more likely to sell simply due to the amount of shoppers.

However, the internet is increasing becoming a more popular way of selling and reading magazines and much more such as EGM issues. This is something I wouldn't do straight away because it's not that popular and reliable yet. I would move on to this as it carries on to get more popular. I would sell a code that allows you to read it on the internet but also expanding it to audio on Ipods and readable copies for the Ipad. If times change so much that it all transfers to internet I will also release a print out version because there will always be an audience that will still want to read something off paper. Evolving with the technology as it changes over the generation is vital to keep up to date with the youth (demographic). Because if I don't keep up that when losses will occur. 

Evaluation 2

Social Groups that fit into my demographic and readership/target audience

Some magazine demographics tend to have stereotypical social groups tag and linked to them. People make judgements on peoples social groups and music taste this is represented through the thought process of of 'Indies' like MNE and 'Emos' and 'moshers' like Kerrang! Although this maybe untrue in some cases it has been shown that generally this judgement is correct. My magazine is similar in target audience to Kerrang and this is shown through the representation of the young people in the photos in my magazine. In my magazine all males in the magazine have long hair and dress in causal clothing, this is clearly shown in my front cover where it is a close up shot of a male who looks relaxed with long hair and this my stereotypically fits into the drug culture image found in festivals. Generally most people with this image like and have an interest in rock music and this help capture my perfect audience through social groups.  The magazine appeals to a specific niche audience because it concerns topics and themes that are relevant to people who listen to and are interested by rock music and its background. 
Kerrang! identifies its audience as ‘individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty’. Kerrang distinguish their identity as a world ‘where Jackass meets Playstation and Skate culture meets ipod’ In the period 01-Jul-2008 to 31-Dec-2008 Kerrang!‘s circulation sales in the UK and the Republic of Ireland were at a high of 50,128 insuring it remained the market-leading music weekly. These figures display that Kerrang! is a successful magazine despite its audience being one demographic entity. This is the closest magazine target audience to me represents the social group that may by my magazine.

Double page spread

This is very close to the final design of my double page spread. However, I think A few details should be tweaked. I feel the quote on the left page doesn't stand out enough and the right side seems to empty. I will change these faults by changing the font style and colour for the left side so it is more clear and vivid. With the right side I will push the text closer to the headline and fit in a tour banner promotion which will link to the text.





















This is the design for my double page spread for my music magazine coursework. I went for the the design of an image on the left page and the text on the other page. Choosing the right image for my double page spread was hard, harder than choosing any other image for the other parts of the magazine. I chose this image as the final one because the person's position faces towards the right page. This draws the readers eyes across the double page spread towards the text. I have also made the adjustments I felt necessary that I wrote about earlier. I even looked closer and focused on the smaller parts, I changed the arrow showing to turn the page into an image of a play button for fit into the theme of music.

Kerrang! Front cover deconstruction

This front cover has a clear focus to the band, Metallica. This clearly shown through the size of the headline 'Metallica' being bigger than the font size of the Kerrang! masthead. This draws extreme focus to main purpose of the magazine. Also this is accentuated by James Hetfield position being in front of the masthead. Kerrang! are only able to do this because there brand has become so well known that they can cover up their masthead and people know what magazine it is, the magazine has become so popular they could leave the masthead out and it would still be recognizable through it's image and style. All band members of Metallica are all wearing black, this all black image fits to their genre of music and the genre of the magazine appealing to the audience through this similar interest.

The formation of the band members is important as well, James has the front position to represent he lead in the band and to show the hierarchy of members. I like this cover over other Kerrang! covers due to the simplistic layout. I feel like some of the Kerrang! covers are too hectic and messy. Due to the main focus on Metallica they have calmed this style down and just put tag lines and images at the bottom instead all over the cover. An example of this disorderly cover is below the text. I understand that this messy look to the magazine is to fit to the style of the demographic and the ethos and attitude of the magazine but in my opinion this may encourage the opposite affect and put the audience off. The cover below illustrates this, I feel they have tried to fit in too much and therefore pushed out the photo of Bullet for my Valentine. I believe letting the main photo take up the focus of the cover would create a more appealing and attractive cover. 

Music mag flat plans

Front cover flat plan

Contents page flat plan

Double page spread flat plan

my music mag contents page

I am pleased with my first design of my contents page. however, I will go back over this page and finish it off and tweak the weak parts before starting the double page spread. I think I will change the font of the title (contents) so it is a bit more unique and stand out a bit more. Also I will change the sub-heading and finish off the bottom left hand corner.

After looking back over the first design I cam to the conclusion I wasn't pleased with the style and whole layout. This meant I didn't finish it off and started a different contents page to create a more professional feel and look to my magazine. I think I have achieved a more professional look with the second design and I'm pleased with the outcome and now I will start to design my double page spread.

I have started to design my final front cover ideas and this is what i have achieved at the moment. I am pleased with the outcome and will move move to start to design other parts. However i may come back to this an improve it if I think necessary. However, I have decided this is my least favourite front cover design out of the three.

This is the final front cover design that incorporates inspiration gathered from other parts of the coursework and the other front cover. I feel this the best design for my magazine and is therefore my favourite design. My reasons for this is the colours used, the black and white blends well with the bizarre and stylish photo. 

This is a similar style to the front cover above. However, for this one I kept a black and white theme. Although I really like this style I feel its too artistic and may alienate some sections of my target audience. If I felt this would was more generic and would attract and appeal more to my target audience i would use this. This is the reason for me choosing the other front cover design. 

Below i have put together some of the shots i have taken to be potentially used in my magazine. Then above shows the photos i liked the most and done photoshop work on. I used many effects and styles to make the photos stand out and be unique. I have chosen the top left photo for my magazine cover because it is the photo i feel shows more charisma and individuality.
The other i photos i will use either in my contents page or my double page spread.

With this photo above i have spent some time changing it and playing with different styles and in the end i cropped it, then made it black and white and then used posterise which has created this image. I'm pleased with this photo because it looks like what i was trying to achieve. Which was a stylish, modern and black and white photo. I will use this photo in my magazine however, not on my front cover.  

This is one of my most adventurous photo ideas. I have taken one other photo i have used before and put in the background a photo of another student, in which i changed the style to threshold and gave her a white outer-glow which does look good but this is more of an experiment than anything. Although it looks strange i will not use this image but i may change it again and once changed i may use it.     

Design ideas

I have taken two photos here to use to experiment with ideas for my magazine and what photoshop styles i could use. For the photo of the guitar neck i rotated it 90 degrees clockwise and then inverted the colour tone to create a bizarre and creative style to the photo. For the second photo i used an effect called posterise and gave it a strange red tint. Both of the photos that i have edited have been done to experiment with styles and ideas.

I have found by doing these photos that i like the ideas however, i don't think they will suit my magazine cover but i may use them in my double page spread. From my other photos i have edited i have come to the conclusion i would like to use a close up black and white photo to use for my magazine cover. I like the idea of using black and white because it makes it different to most magazine and by making it black and white it will strange out from all
the other typical magazines.

MY college magazine work

The proposal

I will be aiming my magazine at future students of South Downs College. These students will be aged 15-19 years of age, year ten and above. My magazine will be about all the many possibilities students will be able to achieve at South Downs College and the future they will be able to embrace. Not only that my magazine will show off the amazing subjects and opportunities the college has to offer.

I have many ideas for my front cover but I really like the idea of using high tech equipment that will appeal to a lot of people because information technology is such a huge and important part of student’s lives, which will make it more likely to sell. I have a few Ideas for my title but at this present moment I would use a title called ‘SDC Optimistic’ because it clearly shows the meaning of the magazine. I will also need a student on my cover showing a positive attitude towards college and I will show this through positive paralinguistic’s in the student.

Fonts are a big part of magazine covers, catching the eye of they audience. I would use the font ‘Bank Gothic’ because it is incredibly clear and stands out. This is important to me because I know that with a very appealing and catchy cover I will have a much better chance of more sales. I will use silver or gray font colour to represent a future focused college and I will not make the font size too big and over powering because that may put the audience off my magazine. There will be a tag line on my cover however I will not make the cover look tacky and messy, its key to keep the cover looking impressive and well formatted. In my tag line I will not give too much away, making the audience want to open it up and read on.

I would publish my magazine at the start of the academic year. This is so that students starting year 10 will get it right at the beginning of the year. By publishing at the start of the year it gets students already thinking about college, about there future. If we are the first college they see a magazine for it will always be the college they think of first. I would change the magazine for seasonal events such as Christmas. By having special editions it shows a very positive and appealing college. No other college will do this, which will make my magazine stand out even more.

Subject choice is the main idea of my magazine so I will use images that fit that style. Although my magazine is subject orientated I would also use positive images of students hanging around college, enjoying life, enjoying education. I will publish my magazine every two months. I would not publish my magazine every month because it’s not a magazine that will have different monthly news. By publishing my magazine every two months it keeps the future students of South Downs College up to date on all up to date events and news.

The dimensions are very important to a magazine because you can be very creative with the sizing of the magazine. I shall be using a traditional sized cover with the dimensions of 8.3” x 11”. I will be making my magazine at this size because I find that small magazines have small text, which doesn’t appeal to my magazine design. Also I would like big images, which stand and are not small and insignificant.

In my contents page I will have an eye-catching title for each section of the magazine and I will use slightly different fonts for each sections, so the font represents the section in the best way. I will only use one colour for the text but I will use an appealing colour for the background of the contents page.