Evaluation Question Seven

The Question

Looking Back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the process?

I think that I have learnt so much in the time between completing my preliminary front cover and my final front cover. One of these reasons is because I became more comfortable using photoshop and the different tools on the programme. Looking back at my preliminary front cover which was supposed to be for a school, there are many different things that I would change for example adding more cover lines on the front cover is a must, as most magazines have 3-5 on the front. Another thing that I would change is the colour scheme I used. However I will now be talking about different things I learnt in between these two products and from these two products.

Research and Planning

After completing my preliminary task I realised that if I had planned it out slightly before going straight in to designing the front cover I would of completed a more successful piece. From this I decided to make sure each piece of my music magazine had a plan and research behind it to back up choices I made and to ensure that I knew what I was doing when I started my production. This made my life a lot easier during production as I wasn't constantly worried about "what's going to fill that space", or "I don't have enough room for everything" as I had everything planned out in there positions before I even had all the different pieces for each page. However along with this came some problems because if I changed my mind on a certain piece I had to make sure my new idea fit in to the plan I had done previously. Doing this planning and research taught me how important it is to go in to a project or piece prepared and already having knowledge of what is needed.

Drafting

When I was creating my final front cover I had two original plans, this was both a positive and negative to me. At the beginning I found it very hard to use both plans as they differed however at one point when I believed that I had finished my cover, I realised that it did not look like a Pop magazine front cover at all and instead had the look of an Indie magazine.This was where my second plan came in handy as I was able to move things around add different colours and backgrounds( as well as completely changing the picture I was supposed to use on my front cover). The first front cover is uploaded to my blog under the title of first front cover draft- as I think it is important to learn from mistakes and show how I improved upon this cover to ensure the genre my music magazine was targeting came across. From doing this draft I think one of the best things I learnt was making a mistake isn't a bad thing but something to learn from and build upon.

Attention to Detail and Editing

My skills it making sure each detail on the front cover is correct improve massively from the two products above. I think one reason of this is because I became more comfortable using photoshop and also became more confident in my abilities to create a good product. Another thing that I learnt whilst doing this is that there is always something to improve upon even if it is the smallest detail. I also learnt new skills on how to edit a photo which is another reason I think my second product cam out better than my preliminary task as I was just reacquainting my self with photoshop then. 

Looking as a whole and refining 

Working on these two products, challenged me to take a step back from my work and try to look at it objectively and find the weaknesses that needed to be fixed(more so on my final music magazine than my preliminary task). This is an important skill that I will need later on in life as well as it will allow me to achieve the best results possible in future products.

Constructive criticism 

Creating these two products has allowed me to gain constructive criticism from my peers and teachers. Making sure that this has occurred is important because it ensures my work is the best it can be. The whole process that I have undergone during this course if based on improving through mistakes made or by using research made.  

Evaluation Question Six

The Question

What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing these products?

Evaluation Question Five

The Question

How did I attract and address my target audience?

Evaluation Question Four

The Question
Who would the audience be for my media product (my magazine)?
I decided to reflect upon the three different categories that I took in to consideration when deciding my target audience earlier in the course, and I looked to see whether what I created would appeal to that target audience.

Evaluation Question Three

The Question

What kind of media institution might distribute your product?

Evaluation Question Two

The Question

How do my media products represent social groups?

Evaluation Question One

The Question

In what way does my media product challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My Front Cover

When designing and creating my front cover I made sure to include many conventions that are already present in and on media music magazines for example I included

• A barcode at the bottom of the front cover
  
• A masthead (title) of the magazine at the top of the front cover
  
• A website address
  
   
• Cover lines and articles on the side of the page
  
• A main image of the featured artist
  
• Issue number of the magazine
• The date of the issue
  
• I used words such as 'exclusive' or 'new' and these words are used to attract audiences as it makes them feel that they are reading something special
  

However whilst I kept to many existing codes and conventions of a magazine front cover something that differs from these on my front cover is that all of my cover stories are on one side leaving the other blank. This is different from other magazines as most spread them out over the cover. Something that I found particularly difficult in the production of my front cover was trying to create something different that stands out whilst sticking to codes and conventions of magazine front covers.I think that my front cover has managed to form to look like a front cover of a magazine that could be sold in the shops as conventions of magazines and the styles I used follow what is already out there but also includes different features- for example having the main image look away from the camera which could suggest shyness, embarrassment and nervousness a quality that could draw more members of my target audience in as they may identify with these feelings.

My Contents Page

Whilst designing my contents page I kept to a traditional layout of the articles down one side of the page, a title at the top, page numbers at the bottom as well as an image of the main feature to emphasise the importance and to attract more audiences to the article. I included a different font on this page to add detail to the article lines, and this font was then used throughout on my double page spread.I also ensured that the magazine articles were of interest to my target audience as they are the ones who will be reading the magazine.

I chose to keep the colours on the contents page the same as the colours used on front cover to ensure that they could be identified as part of the same product something that I did not manage to do in my preliminary task. The brush styled writing was something I choose as it links to the title/ masthead on the front cover and then again creates a bond between the pages.

The featured articles were place all to one side one after another and this stuck with conventions used in many music magazines 

I decided to do a separate box for the main featured article to ensure that every reader would be able to know straight away where to find the article that was featured on the front.

I included these on the contents page to ensure that the magazine is relatable to the readers every day lives as technology is such a big part of many peoples life I thought it was important to include it on the contents page 

I placed the date of the issue and the magazine website at the bottom of the page along with the page number as this was a key convention that featured in many other pop (and in general music) magazines. 

Double Page Spread

I placed some screenshots of my double page spread above, these images show some of the conventions that I followed whilst creating this article. The first image of the headline uses the same font as the masthead on the front cover and contents page this links all of the separate products together to create one final product. The colour used however varies from the blues used on the first two pages as it is now linking with the image on the double page spread and the way that the article will come across- calm, collected and new. The next image is of the date, website and page number on one side of the double page spread. These pieces were included as it is a key convention and feature of a magazine and the colour I used (blue) links the article again back to the other products. Next is the box placed at the end of the article to indicate that it continues on the next page, this was something that I noticed appeared in other music magazines when the articles continued to other pages and was something I was key to replicate if the opportunity arose. Lastly is an image of my article, something that I did which I had not seen in other magazine was to use the instrument to overlap the text box and wrap the text around the image. I think that this brought something different to the article.

Final Double Page Spread

The Task
I completed my double page, spread featuring a musician. This task included writing an article about his musician and this could be done in what ever format I wanted. I host do an interview as when looking at existing magazines, I found that most magazine do interviews with newer artists on the music scene, and I thought that this should be a convention I applied to my music magazine. Another reason I chose to do the article in an interview format is because some of my target audience said that they preferred when they could learn more about the artist, and read information that wasn't anywhere else.

The Product
I like the end result however looking back I don't think that it completely represents the Pop genre, as the colour scheme and the layout isn't how most pop magazines are set out now. I changed the font from the original as I looked back over it and realised it was all in capitals something that magazines don't do and I needed to make sure that I follow the codes and conventions used.

Final Contents Page

The Task

My final contents page, follows the colour scheme set out on the front cover. This is good as it ensure that the magazine has consistency, and all the separate pages can be recognised as one product. However I do think that this contents page can be seen as quite plain and this does not fit in with the conventions generally used in a pop music magazine. I will be evaluating all of my choices in my evaluations and will also mention what I could improve if I did this again. I also added a shadow behind the image to give depth to it and to make sure it looked like she wasn't just placed there randomly. 

Final Front Cover

The Task

Through the research I have done previously looking in to different names, colours schemes as well as existing magazines. My task was to create a Front Cover, Contents page and double page spread of a magazine using my chosen genre of pop. I will show my front cover below and also explain the reasons behind some of the choices that I made.

The Product
I chose to put her on a Gold background compared to the earlier draft of her against a white wall, as I feel that it fit more in to the Pop genre and made the magazine easier to identify as Pop. The placing of the feature lines all on one side was different to what I had originally done but what something that I had mentions in my first plan of the front cover. I ended up doing it this way as it fit with the way the image looks and as the main cover line is bigger and on the other side I believes it balances out the text. I also like how the colour is all the same except for a few words and I think this was something I tried to do after looking at existing covers and analysing them. There are some points and parts that I could improve on and I will be exploring these in my evaluations of my products later.

First Look at my Magazine

The Front Cover

I have inserted an image of my front cover, how it looks so far. Whilst looking at the work I have produced I can see that I followed one of the plans I originally made whilst planning out my work. However this magazine front cover does not look like a pop magazine and it would be very hard to identify it as a magazine in the pop genre. Because of these reasons I am going to try and change some other features on the front up and hopefully ensure it will start to look more like a pop magazine. To do this I will change the colour scheme I used- for example I used my second idea of colour scheme for this front cover and to make to more identifiable as pop I will use my first idea for the colour scheme. I will also change the background as most pop magazines back the image on a colour and this is a convention I think that I should follow to ensure it is seen as a pop magazine. I will also look in to changing the text font I used on the front as again it does not look like the fonts usually used on a pop magazine front cover.

The Contents Page

Along with changing the colour scheme and font on the front cover, I will also be changing the colours and fonts used on the Contents page. I will not however be changing the layout and I will be keeping the image I used on this contents page for the next stage of creating my contents page, as I believe it is very effective in what I am aiming for.

The Double Page Spread

I will be changing the font I used on this page as looking back over existing magazine double page spreads, none use capital letters for the whole articles and this is something I believe needs changing in order to create a successful double page. Along with the other two pages I will ensure themes of my colour scheme is present in the article. 

The Conclusion

As a result of these parts that I have identified needing a change, I will now be going and ensuring these changes are made before the deadline, and are done to the best of my ability

Photo Shoot

The Task
The model I used for my photos was my sister, I chose her as I felt she represented the age of my target audience as well as a person who could fit in to the pop genre. When planning for my photo shoot I had a few ideas of what images I would like to capture. Some of these are that I wanted shots of her holding an instrument of a kind- I also wanted her in two different outfits as I found that lots of pop magazines have the featured artist in different clothes on the front cover and double page spread. This was important as I wanted to ensure I was following some conventions of a pop magazine. When shooting for my front cover picture I had initially intended to get a shot of her looking straight on to the camera. However when taking the pictures I did not manage to get a photo that I felt would connect with the audience. I originally planned to do the shoot at night however I did not take in to consideration any plans that she may have and in the end had to settle for photographing her in the evening. Something that is portrayed in some of the pictures is her reluctance to be photographed this is something that I tried to fix later on however I believe that this may still come across. Another issue I had was the lighting within my house as how it translated on the camera- using the camera is not one of my strong points and unfortunately this may be seen in the images however I believe that I may later on be able to fix this through the use of photoshop. 

The Research