7 Point Evaluation

By Beth Herries

Introduction

• My media product is targeting the age range of between 16 and 19 year olds. This magazine is giving this group of young people another option of magazine to be interested in that is not extremely popular within the music magazine institution, this style of music is Indie.

• I chose to produce an indie magazine because this is the type of music that my target audience is most likely to be subjected to, and therefore most likely to pick up this magazine.

• My aim for this media product was to produce something that will attract the younger generations. I wanted to create something that I felt there was a gap in the market for this type of music magazine. This magazine it giving my target audience a magazine that will give them all they need to know about the indie music of now. I don’t think that there is a music magazine that provides purely the indie genre.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products? My media product uses conventions of real media products that other music magazines use.

The layout of my magazine follows the conventions of the popular music magazine Q. I tried to convey some of the structure of there front cover and contents page.

Title

Buzz line

Tag lines

Main image

Main artist

Colour • The colours I used for my media product were red, black and white. I chose these

colours because I thought that red on a background of an image with a white background would stand out, therefore attracting my readers to pick up my magazine over others. I have kept these colours throughout all my media product.

Red, white and black colour scheme.

Writing style• To help me decide what style of writing would be best for my double page spread

interview, I looked at an existing article in More magazine. I looked at the style in which this interview was set out and formatted. The interview was informative however fun and light also. This is something that I wanted to do for my own interview, therefore I took this style and added it to my own media product.

Like any true Indie star icon Agnes Dean is famous for her quirky style and mad guitar skills. Watch out Indie charts this girl isn’t stopping till she reaches the top. Already supporting DB’s fav band, Scouting for girls, and achieving number 1 in the album charts for 2 weeks with her brand new album The Kinks and Quirks of Agnes Dean.

This first part of the text is the introduction to the interview, giving you some facts about the artist.

 Sounds great. So any of the scouting boys catch your eye?

Ha! They are lovely but there like the brothers I never had, were all just very good friends.

Oh we see. But you have been recently linked to comical rapper Example (Elliot Reeves) anything going on there?

Hmm (laughs) He is lovely and we have exchanged numbers at a recent party so who knows. I wouldn’t say no ha! We’ll see what happens.

In this part of the interview they are touching on personal parts of the artists life. However approaching them in a light and fun way so as to not make the artist feel uncomfortable.

Developing conventions• I developed my media products in the way that I modified and changed them to improve

on what I had originally done.

This is the front cover I started with. As you can see the image is not creating eye contact and is suggesting something different to the genre I chose for my music magazine. The background is plain and some of the writing is covering the face of the image. Overall this does not show a professional piece of work. The second image is my final piece, I have chosen an image relevant to my genre and also it provided eye contact with the audience. The layout is simple and provides more information, and therefore looks more professional.

Challenging conventions• My media product does not completely challenge conventions of original existing media

products. I have focused on keeping my media text on just one particular media style. This style is the indie, I chose this genre because I feel that there is a gap in the market for this genre of music magazine, therefore this is how I am challenging different media conventions.

Indie acts new into the charts at the moment.

Indie acts in the charts and well recognised

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• My media product represents the youths of this generation. The reasons for this is because the indie genre of music has affected the younger generations. A lot of festivals hold a lot of artists and bands that produce music of the indie genre, therefore giving this style a lot of expose and a good media platform provides youths with what they want to hear, weather this is because of own personal enjoyment, or to create talking points in social situations. A small majority of indie music is not within the charts so therefore this magazine will give coverage to those bands/artists who are not as recognised in the music business.

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

• My media product is hitting a large majority of the youth generation. Therefore I feel that an appropriate media platform is necessary. This would mean that it would need to be a media institution that reaches a wide audience. This is why I feel that a good distributor of my media product would be Richard Desmond. He is the publisher of OK! Magazine, nuts, zoo etc and has recently taken over channel 5. I therefore think that there is room in the market for my media product among his other successful media products.

Who would be the audience for your media product? • The audience for my media product would be for young people of the age 16-25. I think

that this a good age to attract as, they are the ones who have grown up with this generations music and everything in the charts is things that they know and love.

• So by getting this group of young people interested has cracked a lot of the most popular audience, who has the most interest in today’s chart music.

The image on the cover and the artists who will be featured will attract the indie youth audience.

How did you attract/address your audience? • I attracted my audience mostly by the front cover. Making it clear that this would

involve the newest chart music, putting the names of well known artists and bands onto the cover. This will then draw my target audience to the cover and want to the buy it.

• I have also added a picture of the featured artist on the front of the magazine, I have added a photo of a young artist so my audience can relate to them. And also it is a fun picture which gives out a good vibe to attract my audience.

The way I attracted my audience is focusing on the clothes and style of my artist and the artists and bands featured within the magazine. These are the things that will attract my target audience and address them directly.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product? • Throughout this process, I have learnt how to work a Mac, and some of the features of a

Mac.

• Photoshop is one of the important things to know about when you are working to edit pictures for your front cover. I have learnt how to use Photoshop successfully and how to cut around photo’s by using the magic wand. Also on photo shop I learnt how to edit title’s to make them look professional enough to put into my media product.

• Also I have learnt how to use indesign, by learning how to add photo’s and titles, everything a good magazine needs, to create an effective magazine page.

1-2 2-3

Image one is the original image I took, I then decided to edit around the image using photoshop, however I did not like the affect this image had,I made it look plain and bland. So I then to image 2 and edited it changing the textures and the gradients to create my final effect. This image however was not used in my final piece.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have

learnt in the progression from it to the full product? • I feel that I have learnt that it is important to make sure you know who you are directing

your magazine too, if you are not clear on this your magazine will not be clear and will not attract the right audience, this will make you media product unsuccessful.

• It is important that you make sure you main image is both relevant to your target audience and the style of the magazine. This makes it look more attractive to the audience and will gain more attention as the target audience will be able to relate to the image.

• I have also learnt how to use, photoshop, manipulating images and editing them to create a different mood or texture. Another media software I have increasingly used is indesign, this is where the main media product is put together to create the final product.

• Another important this I feel I have learnt is that when you are creating a music magazine, a lot of planning is involved and you have to know what you are going to be doing throughout the project and how. Otherwise your magazine will end up untidy and unprofessional. I made sure that I did audience research to make sure I provided the best magazine for my youth audience.

• Overall I am please with my final media product, I think that it looks professional and I conveying the right image for the genre that I chose for this magazine. From my preliminary task I feel that I have come along way to achieving the final product that I wanted. From the preliminary task to the final product you can see the improvement in use of software and ICT.