Evaluation

In what ways does your media

product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?
 Cover

• To begin the project I firstly textually analysed 3 choice magazines (NME, Q, Kerrang!).

• After doing this I decided I would use NME as a template for my front cover of my magazine.

• As I used NME as a template for my magazine it doesn’t challenge conventions.

• The main reason why I chose NME as my template, was because I liked the masthead of the
magazine as it was simple but drew the readers attention.

• The colour scheme of the cover didn’t follow NME, so this challenged convention. I used red,
yellow and grey. Connotations of the colour red is that it is an exciting colour, yellow
connotes freedom and passion and grey connotes seriousness, which was fitting for my
magazine.

• My font was a simple sans serif font, which doesn’t challenge convention as many magazines
use this style of font.
This is the cover of my
magazine, in my opinion looks
unprofessional.
 Contents page
• For my contents page I looked at the same magazines again (NME, Q, Kerrang!).

• I decided to use Kerrang! as my template for my contents page, because I liked the
layout of it as it was more interesting to look at than the contents pages in NME
and Q.

• My contents page doesn’t challenge convention as I used a real magazine contents

page as a template.

• The colour scheme of my contents page challenges conventions of Kerrang!

because I used yellow, red and grey, whereas Kerrang!’s colour scheme is red,
yellow and black.

• The picture I used didn’t challenge convention as it was positioned in the same
place as in Kerrang!
 Double page spread
• For my double page spread I again looked through NME, Q and Kerrang!

• After looking through I then chose to use the layout of a double page spread in
NME.

• The reason I chose this double page spread as a template was because, it looked
good with the large image.

• I liked the size of the article also, this was because the article was smaller than in
other magazines I had seen.

• The main reason I favoured a small article size was because, it would take less time
to write up.

• Another reason why I preferred a smaller article was because, it didn’t ramble so
therefore making it less likely for the reader to become uninteresting in reading it.
How does your media product
represent particular social
groups?
• My media product represents certain social groups as
it focuses on indie/rock genre of music, so it appeals
to social groups who enjoy indie/rock music.
What kind of media institution
might distribute your media
product and why?
• I think that if my magazine were to go on sale in the UK, I would want it to be
produced on a national scale, this is because I would want it to reach a mass
audience.
• If I wanted my magazine to be published nationally, then I would have to
have a multinationational conglomerate.
• The main advantage to a multinational conglomerate is, that they would be
able to get the magazine a greater profit margin.
• Another advantage that comes with a multinational conglomerate include,
they would already have an infrastructure in place to, produce, market and
distribute the magazine.
• If my magazine where to be published by an independent company, the main
advantage to this would be that I would be able to keep the creative control
where as with a multinational conglomerate the creative control would be left
with them.
Who would be the audience for
your media product?
• Firstly the obvious aim of my magazine is to appeal to people
who enjoy the genres of music indie/rock.

• The audience demographic for my magazine is 60% female

and 40% male, so in gender terms it is basically a mainly
unisex orientated magazine.

• The age range for my magazine would stretch from early teens
to early 20’s, so generally to reach a young audience.
How did you attract/address your
audience?
• Mainly the methods I used to attract my intended audience was to use a colour
scheme which could appeal to a wider unisex audience.

• font which used was a sans serif font which is a simple font and because it is used in
other magazines I thought that it was the best style of font to use.

• I tried to use a mix of formal and informal language when writing my article, as to
appeal to my young audience.

• Through the prizes I put in, one was tickets to a festival, this helps to appeal to a
wider audience as generally people who like the genre of music my magazine
concentrates on tend to go to festivals, would be my assumption.

• To have the people on my cover dressed in a casual way, which made it seem a more
casual and relaxed as a magazine, which would appeal to a younger magazine.
 What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of
constructing this product?
 Photoshop
• Through the production of this product as a music magazine I believe that
I am now able to use Photoshop better then I used to be able to, in terms of
editing photos as before I hadn’t edited photos on Photoshop so it was new
to me, I found Photoshop easier to use as I used it more and I enjoyed the
many features that are included in the software, to enable a better quality
of picture.

• In terms of making my actual front cover layout I found it simple to use,

although from my final product I don’t feel that I used Photoshop to its full
abilities as my front cover in the end, in my personal opinion my cover
didn’t turn out looking professional, as I left gaps in the page and it made
the magazine seem empty and therefore making it look unprofessional.
 QuarkXpress
• Software which I used in order to produce a contents page and a double
page spread, I felt that the features on this software were pretty limited and
I found that I had to import the contents header etc, from Photoshop to
make it seem more stylistic. As if I had to use QuarkXpress alone I think
that my contents page would have look very unprofessional, so in terms of
using just this software I believe that it isn’t very suitable and would’ve
preferred to use Photoshop to develop my contents page and double page
spread.

• A positive about quark is that when making the contents page the columns
did come in useful as guides of where to input text boxes, and did help me
distinguish easier to make it neater.
 Googlemail & Posterous

• I also used Googlemail in this process of the production of my project

which I quickly learnt how to use then was blocked from it for unknown
reasons, then I used outlook express which I already knew how to use, the
reason why I needed to use outlook express and Googlemail to start off
with was to post my work to my posterous. Posterous is a sight which is for
bloggers, to start off with my task, I had to firstly create an account on
posterous, I had never used posterous before and I found it an easy site to
navigate around, when I first made my account I played around with the
theme colours on the page to personalise my blog, I found that sending
posts to posterous was easy, and deleting unwanted posts was easy, so I
learnt how to use posterous.
 Digital SLR

• What else I learnt how to use in the process of producing in a magazine is

a canon digital SLR camera, which I had never used before but I quickly
learnt how to use it but only in a simple way, as is probably visible from
the way my photos look, as I am not skilled in photography. Something else
which I learnt when doing this task is the importance of backing up work,
as computers can be unreliable.
 Looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have learnt
in the progression from it to the full
product?
• In my preliminary task my first initial mistake was that the quality of my
picture on my cover, this was because I didn’t book a dslr camera so I
didn’t have access to a good quality camera, causing my main cover image
to be poor quality, possibly then bringing down my marks, this made me
realise that for my main task I would have to use a digital slr camera in
order to make the photos on my main task to look more professional.
Whilst doing my pre-lim task I did try to have a play around with
Photoshop, so I would then have more confidence to use it in my main task,
as I would be used to some of the features of the software, which then in
terms of time management made me able to edit the layout of my magazine
much faster, also it enabled me to quickly edit the photo which I used on
the cover of my magazine.
• What else that I learnt from doing my preliminary task was that the colours
scheme and fonts that I used which fits into the category of housestyle,
weren’t fitting for a college magazine, although in the process of doing my
preliminary task I did study some college magazines, the colour scheme
which I used I would deem appropriate for this certain college as in the
college logo there is yellow blue and red, so that is why I chose the colours
although they do look unprofessional in the way in which I presented them.
The layout for my college magazine of the cover stories was imitated from
another magazine, and from this I learnt that I should study a variety of
magazines to help me build up my own ideal image of a magazine, was my
initial thought, but in the end I went with imitation of a professional
magazine.
• From doing a template layout of my college magazine contents page of my
preliminary task I feel that I have learnt that from doing this, it helped me
when tackling the main task as it got me familiarised with using elements
of QuarkXPress, which then enabled me to do my main task faster and
better in comparison to my preliminary task, although it would have helped
if there was some practice of a double page spread, as doing that for the
first time was a little difficult in terms of layouts, also in not having
practice on the main task it took me quite a while to complete the double
page spread.

• I feel that in the end from seeing my final product I should have done more
planning towards my final product, as I feel that I didn’t do a good job of
my final product, this is because I rushed my magazines and I was
unorganised whilst doing my product and from this I have learnt that for
future experiences of making a product I will be more organised, this has
also made me reconsider a career in journalism, as I found it difficult to do
the product and I feel that I didn’t do a good job on the article.