Evaluation - Plan

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


I did a lot of research before designing my music magazine, to see what styles work best for my target audience and what codes and conventions are used within music magazines. I chose to include basic codes and conventions that you would find in all music magazines, for example including important things such as a barcode and the price of the magazine on the front cover. I also noticed from looking at other music magazines that it is common for them to include a pug on the front cover so I chose to advertise free downloads in a bubble on my front cover, as this draws the audience’s attention in.

As my music magazine is aimed for young adults, I chose to develop the forms and conventions of a music magazine that targets a similar audience. I found a successful magazine called MOJO which is similar to the magazine I was trying to create, so I then studied this magazine and learnt what worked well within it and what did not work so well. This helped me to plan my music magazine as I was learning the forms and conventions of the magazine and developing them further into my own work. I think the general house style of MOJO magazine challenges the usual codes and conventions of a music magazine, as the overall style is quite minimalistic. This gives the music magazine an edge to it, which the audience may find intriguing as it is unusual and makes the magazine stand out from others. I thought this was a clever technique and tried to develop this style in my own music magazine.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product would reflect a younger generation; the house style of the magazine represents the social group of young adults as it uses colours that are young and fashionable, without being too childish. I made sure that I did not use neon colours, as this would attract younger teenagers instead of young adults. As well as this, the images that I took and included in my magazine also represented my target audience, as I featured both male and female artists. The artists that featured in my magazine generally represent an indie and drum and base genre, therefore generally speaking most of my audience will also fall into this genre. In my magazine I have featured night life, this ties in with the drum and base genre of my magazine, as most people buying the magazine will enjoy going out and want to know about new events.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I found out where people prefer to buy their music magazines from my questionnaire. The most popular choice for young adults to read magazines was online, so if I was in charge of distributing my magazine I would make sure that it featured a website where subscribers could read it. Another popular choice was subscription, so I would also make sure that my magazines could be posted door to door, as this would ensure that my magazine made a certain amount of money each month. As people tend to forget to buy magazines each month, by subscribing it would ensure that they never miss an issue. The most popular choice for people to buy the magazine each month was in a Supermarket, as stores such as this are more convenient for the audience, compared to shops they are less likely to visit on a regular basis such as HMV or Water stones. It’s therefore important that I consider this when distributing my magazine, as Supermarkets are a popular choice for my audience. In Supermarkets such as this, my magazines main competition on the shelves would be indie/rock music magazines, such as NME, Q, and MOJO. I think these three magazines would be my strongest competition, as their readers tend to be a little bit older than magazines such as KERRANG!

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Young adults that are music lovers, the genre of my music magazine is mostly indie but also features drum and base. So my target audience would be young people that enjoy these types of music, and that also enjoy big nights out such as drum and base events. Something like this is fits in well with my target audience, as young adults are going to be more interested in events such as this. If I was targeting a younger audience I wouldn’t mention nights out, as many of them wouldn’t be old enough to go. I have tried to make my magazine look quite professional and give it a grunge feel so that the house style suits the genre of the music in my magazine, so my target audience could possibly match this type of style.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I looked at other music magazines and worked out what worked best when it came to attracting a younger audience. I tried to make my music magazine look edgy and up to date with the time, so that young adults would be interested in buying it, as younger audiences want something new and exciting. As well as this, I also made sure I took notice of my questionnaire, as it helped me to get a better understanding of what young adults want to see in a music magazine. It was important that I featured up and coming artists and new music in my magazine, as I found this was the most popular feature in a music magazine as well as the most popular thing to see on a front cover from my questionnaire. In my questionnaire I asked my target audience what captures there eye most on a front cover, my results showed that the image is the main thing that draws the audience in. As well as this, a quote taken from an interview with a new artist also interests my target audience so I chose to include a quote from a new artist on my front cover as a way of drawing my readers in. Another feature that proved popular in my questionnaire was featuring free downloads in my magazine, so I added a pug advertising this on my front cover.



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

I learnt how to use Serif Page Plus, which I used to construct my music magazine. Although I had never used the programme before it was very useful for this piece of coursework and I learnt a lot of new skills from it. I’m glad that I used Serif for my music magazine as it has more options and made my magazine look much more professional, compared to a magazine that has been created on a common programme such as PowerPoint. I played around with the different fonts on Serif, the option of making thing 3rd, and putting text in different shapes such as circles or L shapes for a double page spread, allowing me to make the most effective music magazine possible.

As well as this, I also edited the images I took that featured in my magazine on Photoshop. This allowed me to edit my images to follow the style of my music magazine and suit the genre of music I was including in my magazine. As my music magazine follows an Indie/drum and bass Genre it was important that I edited my images so that they suited the grunge genre. I therefore made all my images that featured in my magazine black and white as it made them look darker and more edgy, which suited the style of the magazine. I then played around with the contrast for the images of the main artist. It could be argued that this is an unusual thing to do to an image that is going to feature on a front cover, as I learnt from researching other music magazines that artists are usually airbrushed and made to look as perfect as possible as a way of promoting them. However, I wanted to challenge this when it came to my front cover, so by highlighting his bad skin instead of trying to airbrush it, it made the image seem more realistic which fitted in well with his “unfortunate background” which featured in the interview.

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

Looking at my Preliminary task now that I have completed my final pages for my music magazine, I think the Prelim looks very amateur. This could be for a number of reasons; one being that my choice of background colour on my Preliminary task is quite childish. For my final front cover I chose to make the image take up the entire page, which made my front cover look more professional. The image on my final front cover was also taken at a better angle, as the image was closer up, this showed more detail on the artist and I think the photo was more effective compared to the image I used in my Prelim which was a medium close up and seemed too distant.