Evaluation Questions 5-7

                                                 Media Coursework: Evaluation Questions                                  

Q5: How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract my target audience I maintained the same colour scheme throughout all my pages, this means the audience will find the consistency appealing. As well as this the colours I have used for text compliment the others meaning all text is easy to read for the audience. I chose this colour scheme as the red, black and white combination is closely associated with the already well-established music magazine, NME. Also NME is a rock music magazine and so is well in-fitting with my target genre. Another step I took to attract my target audience was the maintain the same artists and same costume on both the front cover and the double-page spread – this ensure the audience is draw in upon glance of the initial cover and then is happy to find a detailed interview of the artists inside.

Magazines need to grab the audience’s attention and interest them, another appeal I included in my magazine was subheadings – or rather cover lines – as well as a side bar on the double-page spread. This ensures there is always several things to interest the reader on each page, for example my front cover features several well-known rock groups as well as the featured artists causing added appeal to the target genre audience. Although I didn’t use any slang I did keep language informal to reflect a casual attitude, but still a serious ‘exclusive interview’ nonetheless I made sure to use correct terminology in terms of both music and media.

My layouts differed, perhaps not something most professional magazine would so as they seek to maintain identity. However I decided I wanted each page to new individual from the others, and to have its own uniqueness. Despite this I maintained colours as mentioned before to give my pages that ‘stamp’ as a uniform of sorts. Also though each layer was different and had different feature all were kept clear and tidy, the front cover was simple enough as I had a focal image with text down the side, less easy was the double-page spread were I had to change things around several times for it to all fit however I think I found a neat way of laying out all the features of the page.
  

Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through making my product I came into contact with many new technologies and had to learn how to use them in order to complete my task as fully as I can. One technology I had to become accustomed to was the use of programs – the main one being photoshop, the device that essentially allowed me to alter images and combine elements of magazine together for the final piece. Photoshop also allows easy editing which becomes almost natural once you grasp it and also makes your magazine look more professional. Though elements of it may be confusing photoshop is definitely the right tool for this task. Also involved in the task was the use of cameras to take the actual photos, by using camera’s my knowledge of high-key and low-key lighting has improved and the purpose of using different camera angles when taking photos, thus I now take everything into consideration when taking each photo. Blogger was the final piece of technology I had to get used to operating, this is one I’d had no prior knowledge or experience with but I soon became able to easily upload a variety of things, not just copying and pasting words. Blogger is important as it’s an effective and easy way of tracking your progress and storing your work.

Q7:  Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

It has been a very long process to create my media product- a music magazine. As well as all the research and planning there was a preliminary task, during the preliminary task I learnt that I needed to analyse an actual school magazine, then focus on what props were used and costumes. From there I decided on the props and costume to use in my task so that I could give an impression similar to those of the school magazines I looked at in preparation. The preliminary task allowed me to realise the importance of costume, props and general presentation (layout etc) and that I needed to focus on the needs of the audience my product was aimed at and take those into account when designing. Also the preliminary task gave me a good first go at grasping the use of technology, such as the compact cameras for taking photos and photoshop to actually design my pages, I’m glad I got this first ‘preview’ as it gave me an insight.

When I started my actual task time management became an issue as it always has been for me, doing the task made me actually want to finish what I started and so I forcibly improved my time management. As for photos the task made me really think about what it is my audience is looking for and I focused a lot of designing my artist how I felt appropriate to fit with the genre, indeed having this freedom is quite something and the task taught me to both challenge the stereotypes and use them to my advantage. Naturally while I was taking the photos to be used in my music magazine I made sure I planned the poses of the models depending on the purpose of the picture e.g. what page it is for and I tried to match them up with those I had seen on previous music magazines.

In conclusion the task of creating a music magazine as a media product has allowed me not only a good grasp of planning and the different elements in making a magazine, such as costume, props, colours and general design but also of technology I used in the making on both computers and cameras.