Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Below is the response to my seventh evaluation question of the coursework task, I began by answering the question in essay for, i then decided to create an interactive presentation using the online presentation editing software: Prezi, this can be seen below.
Here is the text format of what is included in the Prezi:
Now looking back at my preliminary task for my coursework, I
feel that I have learnt so much about the production and distribution of
magazines. I feel that my knowledge of what audiences want within a magazine,
and what they want to read about has improved greatly.
I feel that the area I
have learnt most about though and the area in which I have made my biggest
improvement in is my Photoshop skills. This is because throughout the
production process and the whole coursework task I have watched videos and
tutorials on YouTube teaching me lots of different skills and techniques to use
on Photoshop, and now when you place my preliminary school magazine and my
final music magazine next to each other my preliminary task looks really amateur
in comparison.
Another thing which I feel that I have learnt in the
progression from my preliminary task to my final production is how to take and
effective professional looking image. The main factor in achieving this is the
type of camera that you use, initially in the images that I used in my
preliminary task I just used a simple point and shoot compact digital, where as
for my final photo shoot, I used the canon 550d professional DSLR camera which
helped me achieve highly professional looking images. Also another thing which
contributed to the professional feel of my final photo shoot was the professional
white back drop and high key studio lighting because in my preliminary task photo
shoot took place in a corridor with quite poor lightingwhereas
in my final photo shoot I was more involved in asking my model to pose in
different positions, it was easy to compare these things because I used the
same model in my preliminary task as I did for my actual task.
Thirdly a thing that I have learnt with magazines since
completing my preliminary task, in regards to the contents page, is that they
need some sort of structure in order for readers to navigate easily to stories
and articles of interest. I achieved this in my final coursework task, by
splitting the articles in my magazine in to three separate categories: News,
Reviews and features.
I think that being asked to complete the preliminary
task was a great help to me finishing and completing my final coursework
product to a high and professional standard because it allowed me to make
mistake and see what i should not do when constructing my real magazine.
here is my fifth evaluation question about how I addressed my target audience and the ways in which I used and adapted my product in order to attract my target audience and persuade them to purchase my magazine on a regular basis. I first drafted my response and typed it up in to a word document, and have now turned it in to an interactive presentation, using the online presentation editing program Prezi.
Below is the text based essay format of the fifth evaluation question.
My music magazine attracts its target audience in many different ways, the first beingthough the use of the gender mutual colour scheme of shades of redsblues greys and white. I decided to use colours such as red, black, grey and white as these can reflect the genre of music my magazine promotes as well as being appealing colours to both males and females.
As well as this the exciting colour connotations of red that signify danger and passion may attract readers who think that the magazine will be exciting. Also the connotations of black that signify power and confidence have been used to attract the audience who will feel powerful reading the magazine because they know up to date interesting information about the music industry that they can share with their friends.
I have also made sure that there is a lot of variety within the contents of my magazine. I have therefore included bands and both males and female solo artists from different periods within the magazine to make sure that there is something for every reader to enjoy, as well as this the inclusion of a variety of bands and music artists may introduce readers to a new style of music that they are not familiar with but that they like, this therefore attracts the audience and persuades them to continue purchasing the magazine on a regular basis so that they can discover new talent.
As the target audience for my magazine are reasonably young, I have ensured that my magazine is in keeping with the zeitgeist of social media. I have done this buy creating a number of different ways for readers to access the contents of the magazine such as on Facebook or Twitter and an ‘App’ that can be downloaded on to different smart phones and the apple iPhone. My magazine also has its own website www.musicboxmag.co.uk, where readers can access up to date news features and stories about different music artists and bands without having to wait for the next issue of ‘Music Box’ to come out. There is also the opportunity to become part of a mailing list that will email them about new features and news which therefore contributes to attracting the audience who will feel important and valued as readers when they are emailed by the magazine.
Another feature that i included to try an target and attract my audience was the inclusion of the offer of competitions and free gifts. On my front cover I included a sell line 'button' with the sell line: '+4 FREE POSTERS!' which would attract my target audience who would think that by purchasing the magazone they are getting something for free. when in fact the cost of the posters will be covered and included within the cover price. Secondly on the banner featured at the bottom of my front cover I have also included the sell line: 'WIN READING 2012 TICKETS!' this competition will help to attract my target audience because they will be interested in attending gigs. concerts and festivals such as Reading.
Here is my response to the third question: what is your target audience? initially I answered in essay format detailing the charachteristics of my target audience, what the were like as people, their hobbies, likes dislikes and fashions. I then decided to create what I would call an 'interactive moodboard' showing images and videos of what I think my target audience look like, and things that they would be interested in. To do this I used google images to find a variety of different images as well as youtube to search for videos of crowds enjoying festivals/concerts etc. To capture the videos off of youtube, I used the program 'cam studio' I decided not to include the sound from the short video clips, because I have included a voiceover of my self reading out the essay text.
Transcript for the voiceover in video.
I have decided that the target audience that I would like to aim my music magazine ‘Music Box’ at will be mainly teenagers and young adults aged 15-24 who are interested in popular and in. The social demographic class for my target audience would be for all classes, although more specifically classes B-D, although social class A can read it as well if they want to or have an interest in pop and indie music. I have chosen Classes B-D as my target, because my magazine won’t include high amounts of language, in it, so it is easier and more interesting for people to read and understand
My target audience will also have other interests such as attending concerts. Gigs and festivals, watching films and attending the cinema. They will also be interested in the singers and stars as people as well as for their musical talent, which will contribute to their want to buy the magazine because it will include articles and interviews about different musical stars.
My target audience will have some interest in fashion ad be most likely to wear brands such as converse and vans. They will also follow technology avidly registered to social networking websites such as faebook, Twitter and MySpace. And also owning gadgets such as blackberries, IPhones and iPads, on which they can also view the online version of the magazine.
What kind of institution might distribute your magazine and why?
Here is my response to the third coursework evaluation question I wrote an essay initially, and then transferred it on to Microsoft Powerpoint to make a presentation, I have then used the online document hoster 'Scribd' to host my powerpoint presentation, and therefore showcase my work on my blog.
At first I believed that the most suitable institution to publish and distribute my magazine was IPC media, this is because of their previous and current success at distributing the music magazine NME which has a similar genre and target audience to my music magazine ‘Music Box.’ However after thinking my initial idea through, I decided that using IPC media to publish my magazine may not be the best idea due to the fact that because they already have to market and sell NME I need to go to a different company that will use new and different marketing strategies in order to try and attract my target audience and compete for success with other music magazines like NME.
I think that a possible suitable institution to distribute my magazine would be National Magazines. This is because at the moment they don’t currently distribute any music magazines and therefore will not be faced with the competition with other well known music magazines such as ‘NME’, ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’ who are distributed by IPC Media and Bauer Media.
Another reason that I would like National Magazines to distribute my music magazine is that they are very experienced at distributing popular and successful magazines, and although they have not previously and do not currently distribute any music magazine, I think that this will work as an advantage to ‘Music Box,’ because National magazines would want the first music magazine that they distribute to be very successful, and would then therefore work very hard to try and achieve this.
The marketing and advertising of my magazine will pay a massive part in whether or not it is successful and whether or not people will by. It is for that reason that I would need to havean excellent marketing plan that will cover all areas of the spectrum. Being that today's current zeitgeist appears to be social media and social networking, digital marketing will play a huge part in the distribution of my magazine, I’d like to use advert banners on social networking websites such as facebook and MySpace, as well as creating a facebook fan page and a twitter feed for my magazine. Also because of the increasing popularity of smartphones such as iPhones and Blackberry’s I think that creating an app for the distribution of my magazine, that can be used to read new articles and find out up to date information about music artists, bands and singers. As and incentive to buy the first issue of the magazine, I would make it so that the app could be downloaded from the magazines website providing users had a pass code that could be found inside the first issue of the magazine.
I also thing that advertising on the street using billboards will be extremely important in the distribution of my magazine because they can be large and noticeable, and therefore have the chancel to be seen by a lot of potential readers of the magazine As well as this advertising o public transport, such as posters in tube stations on bus stops and on the side of double Decker buses will pay an important part in the distribution of my magazine. This is because my target audience are reasonably young and will often use public transport, and secondly especially with the tube, thousands of people use it every single day, so the posters will therefore be seen by a vast amount of people.
How does your magazine represent particular social groups?
Below is a video that i created to answer the question: 'How does your magazine represent particular social groups?' I started by answering the question in essay format, which I then turned in to an interactive presentation using the online presentation editing software 'Prezi.' I then used the desktop capture program 'Camstudio' to record the presentation and turn it in to AVI video format, as well as this I recored a voice over of the essay to go along with the presentation. I then used the video editing software adobe premier to put the two together and create the finished video as can be seen below.
Here is the prezi that has been featured in the video.
Here is a transcript of the voiceover featured in the video.
Whilst creating my magazine, it was my aim to try and appeal to an audience of both males and females aged 16-30 interested in popular and indie music. I believe that my magazine has successfully done this by attempting to represent certain social groups and attracting them to purchase and read the magazine.
I think that the social group within my target audience is well represented within my magazine from looking at the front cover of the magazine, you can tell that the magazine is targeted at both males and females, this is mainly through the reasonably neutral colour scheme that my magazine employs (Reds, Blues and white) the colour scheme also helps to represent the fact that it is a British music magazine representing British teenagers because of the use of the colours featured in the Union Jack flag.
The cover model on my magazine looks dominant, and successful and superior on the page. She takes over most of the space and a few sell lines surround the image. This suggests that she is well known to the readers of my magazine and is ultimately what is going to be the biggest selling factor of the magazine because she is an important and influential the musical artist.
I chose for my model to be wearing a black outfit during the shoot for the cover image, because i envisioned that as the connotations of black signify power and dominance to the audience suggesting that the magazine is all about her and she is the main selling point. And also as the only bit of black on the page, makes the image stand out to the audience/reader of the magazine.
Q1. In what way does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Earlier this month, I began answering a set of seven evaluation questions about my final coursework porduct, the work that went in to it, and the new skills that I have learnt during the production process. Below is my first question in video format, I transferred my ideas written down in text using different visual aides to higlight many different poits to what i was saying, and other aspects of the coursework. I used the video editing software Adobe Premier CS5 to create and edit my video.
Below is a copy of the transcript of the voice over featured in the video:
Whilst creating my magazine I tried to adhere to the typical forms and conventions of other popular music magazines that have proved them successful. I believe that my magazine successfully features many of the conventions already found in other magazines of the same indie music genre such as NME magazine.
The masthead conventionally appears at the top of my front cover, Its is bold and bright so that it stands out and it is clear what magazine it is therefore attracting current readers as well as new readers also. The font that I have used for the masthead is quite square and ‘boxy’ I chose this particular font because it helps to reflect and signify the name of the magazine: ‘Music Box.’ Similarly, NME’s Mastheadis large clear and bold, and a ‘boxy’ font so it is noticeable and eye-catching to the reader, my magazines masthead is a similar font and also at the top of the page, which is another typical convention of music magazines.
However, differently NME’s Masthead is slightly smaller that the masthead on my magazine ‘Music Box’ The reason that I decided that my masthead should be quite large, is because my magazine will be newly released in to a market filled with products of a very similar nature, I wanted the masthead to stand out from others, so that people would take notice, and be encouraged to buy it over some more established music magazines.
Both main cover images are bold and eye-catching although my image is more centred in the magazine to make sure that it is the focal point of the cover and the audiences attention, in both images the artists are staring directly at the camera so it feels as if they are making eye contact with the audience, thus attracting them to purchase the magazine.
Contrastingly, There are images on the cover of NME that contain more than one artist as well as images that relate to other articles, other than the main article of the issue. Unlike this, in Music Box, I decided to only include an image of the main star so that attention is not taken away from her story or her interview, and in order for her star power to help promote and sell the magazine.
The main sell lines promoting the cover star in both magazinesare very similar, they are both feature on the bottom left hand side of the cover and have a background in a contrasting colour to highlight the text and make it stand out and not get lost on the rest of the page. My magazine: Music BoxI have included a lot more sell lines on the cover, the reason for this being that I only used on image on the cover, but I still wanted to promote other articles featured inside the issue, however NME do not need to do this as they have other images promoting articles and already have a dedicated and established fan base who will buy the magazine when it comes out, no matter what articles/artists are included within it.
Another Similarity is that, On both magazines, a sell line has been featured in a circular ‘Button’ usingthese makes the page more interesting and certain sell lines to stand out, For example: on the cover of ‘Music Box’ I have included the sell line ‘+4 FREE POSTERS’ to attract the audience who will be interested in receiving free posters of their favourite stars/bands.
My contents page adopts many of the typical conventions used in similar magazine both through the layout I have chosen to use and the type of information that can be found on it, it is actually of a very similar layout to that which can be seen in the indie rock music magazine NME. I decided that I had to divide my contents page in to sections to make it easier for the readers to find what they are looking for, these were: News, Reviews, Features and a band list (list of the bands/artists featured in the article and what page to find them on.). I have also ensured that all of my articles have sub-headings underneath of them in order to give a brief description of what the readers will find in them and what exactly the article is about if they cannot grasp that from its title. An important thing that I have also done is to make sure that the page numbers are clear and easy to read so the articles are more accessible to the readers, and it makes it extremely easy to just flick to articles of interest, instead of having to flick through the whole magazine. I do not feel that I have necessarily managed to challenge the typical aspects forms and conventions of other current music magazine contents pages because the information that I have included is more necessary than optional, and contents pages really need to have an order to them so that the magazine is accessible, I felt that with too much experimentation with different designs for the contents page, I may have run the risk of putting some readers off because they would not find it easy to navigate to the articles that they wanted to read quickly.. I have also included subscription details for the magazine which are displayed clearly at the bottom of the page as well as different ways that readers can access the magazine’s contents from sites such as Facebook or Twitter, in keeping with the zeitgeist of social media.
Here is the image of the comparison of similarities and differences between the front cover of my music magazine, and the front cover of NME magazine>>
Attracting my target audience... Here is a Prezi about how I addressed my target audience and the ways in which I used and adapted my product in order to attract my target audience and persuade them to purchase my magazine on a regular basis.
Here is a video showing the growth of my second double page spread, I filmed it using the program cam-studio, then imported the video on to adobe premiere, to speed it up to show the process quicker. The reason I did this was to show the details of every stage of the production of my first double page spread from start to finish in order to display all of the work that went in to it.
Here is a video showing
the growth of my first double page spread, I filmed it using the program cam-studio, then
imported the video on to adobe premiere, to speed it up to show the process
quicker. The reason I did this was to show the details of every stage of the
production of my first double page spread from start to finish in order to display all of the
work that went in to it.
Here is a video showing the growth of my front cover, I filmed it using the program cam-studio, then imported the video on to adobe premiere, to speed it up to show the process quicker. The reason I did this was to show the details of every stage of the production of my front cover from start to finish in order to display all of the work that went in to it.
Here is a photo of one of my peers reading through my magazine coursework, checking for any possible errors in spelling grammar and punctuation, and making sure that my written work is up to the highest standard that it can be. I asked her to make notes on spellings and other items that need improvement, and I now intend to go through these and edit my magazine again before printing it out.
Other than some small spelling grammar and punctuation mistakes and errors that were pointed out, Katherine who can be seen in the picture also pointed out some other items that she thought needed changing and that needed to be improve on the page, the first of those being the text wrapping around the main image in the centre of the page was not very straight, so the columns did not look professional, and your eye was immediately drawn to the mistake because it is wonky.
Secondly, Katherine also pointed out that the page number at the bottom of my page was inconsistent with what page the article was listed as on my contents page. The article was listed as starting on page 27, but in the article I had put page 1, This is because during production I had forgotten what page number i had listed it as in the contents so I put it as page one with the view of changing it at a later date, but clearly forgot, which is why i think peer marking and assessment is so important, because Katherine spotted an error in my work that otherwise may have gone unnoticed by myself.
Lastly after making the initial corrections to my double page spread, Katherine and I discussed whether ir not it would be a wise idea to put the interview questions in to a different font colour in order for them to be read easier and make it easier for the reader to differentiate between the interviewers questions, and the artists responses. I agreed with what Katherine said and decided to change the colour of all the interview questions to red so that they would stand out better.
I really think that taking part in peer marking an assesment is an essential part of the production process in magazines, Katherine played the part of what would be called a sub-editor if this were a real magazine. As I said before, it helped me make improvements and spot mistake that i perhaps would not have noticed had I not had somebody else looking over my work. The sub editing process has helped me improve my work and contributed to the growth of my magazine to looking further like a professionally made product.
when I finished the draft copy of my magazine front cover, I decided to ask for some peer feedback. To do this I put the Photoshop file open on a computer screen, and asked some other members of my media class if they would look at it and type comments around it about the things that the liked, and about the things that they thought needed some improvement. From the feedback that I received, there were a few main things that cropped up that I needed to look at.
These were:
The Masthead font
The Colour scheme
the tag/strap line
After my initial feed back on my first front cover, I made some changes. I kept the main image the same as it received positive comments from the first peer feedback, however i changed the position of most of the sell lines and also changed the colour scheme to orange. I also changes the font of the masthead to a bold but much clearer font to read. As well as this I took away the tag line because it was very unclear to read. I then repeated the process of peer feedback and asked members of my media class to give comment on the changes that I made to my cover and let me know what i was doing well, and any further improvements that I needed to make. The comments were generally positive with the main things coming up being:
Good colour scheme
Good image
and good clear masthead
After receiving such positive feedback for my second front cover draft, I decided to keep the design and layout the same (with more sell lines added to the right hand side.) However, I decided to change the colour scheme of the cover so that I could keep consistency with the rest of the pages in my magazine whose main colour scheme was red, grey, black and white. I did try to transfer the other pages in to orange, but I decided that they worked better in red, so it made more sense to change my cover to accommodate this. I again asked some peers to give me feedback on my final design to find out if they liked the colour change and whether or not it would do a good job at attracting the target audience.
