Matt Fearn

Media Product

Evaluation

My media product using conventions of

real media products My finished front cover.

The title of the main story is bigger than the

other leads.

The masthead is very stereotypical of this genre

of music. The target audience will like this.

The main lead is also bigger than the rest of the

leads, showing that that is the main lead and it

is linked to the image.

I have also used a barcode, so that it can also

be sold in shops.

The strap line of the magazine is “Tomorrow's

music today” as shown below the masthead.

This is done in a lot of magazines not just music

magazine.

My media product using conventions of

real media products My final contents page.

The contents are in a list down the left hand

side like many other contents pages in the

media.

Also, the text is in two different colours so it is

easy to differentiate between the different

stories.

The title is very easy to read which is key in

any magazine.

There is a very large variation in the different

pictures; there are no pictures of the same

type. They are all doing different things.

My media product using conventions of real

media products

My final double page

spread.

Again it uses two different

colours so you can tell the

difference between the

headings and the main text.

Also, the articles are not

full of pictures, there is only

a few because the main

focus is the article.

The description of the

article is in a different

colour to show that it is not

an actual part of the

article.

My media product developing

conventions of real media products My front cover.

It develops conventions of front covers

because my masthead uses paint to give it

an extra effect making it stand off of the

background and giving the front cover an

extra layer.

Most music magazine front covers that only

have one person on them normally have the

person looking at the camera (they know

that it is there) whereas my front cover uses

one person, but he is actually unaware that

the camera is there.

My media product developing

conventions of real media products My contents page.

Some music magazines will only have the

issue number on the front cover; whereas i

also have it on the contents page.

I have also used a different font for the title

“contents” to give the magazine a bit of

variation.

This is the same with the list of contents. I

have used a different font to the rest of the

magazine because it makes the magazine

feel as if all the things inside are different

compared to all of the other magazines like

this one.

My media product developing

conventions of real media products

My finished double page

spread.

Like on my contents page,

I have used the same fonts.

This clearly shows the

difference between the

titles, and the articles.

My media product challenging

conventions of real media products My front cover.

It challenges the conventions of typical media

products because most main leads are a

different colour and stand out against the

other leads. In my front cover, it is just

bigger. This makes it more pleasing to the

eye and keeps the number of colours low so it

keeps the front cover basic.

My media product challenging

conventions of real media products My contents page.

Normal magazines say that you must use

the same font throughout the whole

magazine – in my magazine this is not the

case.

I have used two different fonts in my

contents page as well.

It gives the magazine variance as the list

of contents are in a completely different

font.

My media product challenging

conventions of real media products

My double page spread.

Again, the double page

spread uses two different

fonts so you can clearly

distinguish between the

headings and the body of

the text.

How does your media product represent social

groups?

My media product is aimed at people that like

the R&B, Hip-Hop, drum & bass type genres. The

people that like this type of genre are likely to

be happy with the magazine because of many

features.

For example, the masthead of my magazine uses

a spray-paint-type of font that would appeal to

the target audience.

Another font that I have used is for my headings

on the double page spread would also appeal to

the audience because it is the type of font that

would appeal to him.

What kind of media institution might distribute

your media product and why?

I believe that the suitable media institution to distribute and sell my media

product would be IPC Media. This is because they are a massive magazine

publishing company, and they have a gap in their range of magazines for a

music magazine of this genre. On their website (www.ipcmedia.com) is a

list of all of their magazines.

This company would be good to use because it publishes other music

magazines such as NME.

It has a lot of experience with publishing more than 60 iconic brands using

them.

It also publishes other bug name brands such as NME, Nuts and Look.

Its services also include websites.

Overall, IPC Media reaches nearly 26 million UK adults, just by using print.

With their websites they also reach a further 14 million UK adults.

The audience

My media product will mainly be aimed at young people aged from

16-26.

They will have little income from a job if they have one, or no income

personally at all and just getting money from their parents/guardians

if they are only teenagers.

They will be interested in a rebellious-style of R&B, Drum &

Bass, Hip-Hop genre magazine.

I have designed the magazine with this in mind and I think that they

will like a lot of the small features I have used such as the masthead.

Attracting my audience

My main way of attracting my desired target audience was handing out

questionnaires at schools, colleges and in popular shops that I knew the target

audience would be using such as Republic on the weekend.

The questionnaire used mostly closed questions so I got the answers I wanted

every time.

Although I did use some open questions to get the opinions of the people I was

surveying.

I put up posters of the front cover around the school and put along the bottom

whether or not they would consider buying it.

I also produced a potential advertising poster and put that up around the school

to see if it got any intersest.

What I have learnt about various

technologies I used basic applications such as Microsoft Office Publisher and Paint

whilst I made this media product, which I knew a lot about before

from previous assignments.

However, I learnt how to add pages into a publisher document and I

used different file types on paint.

On the other hand, this project also allowed me to discover new

applications and even new hardware.

I used a smartphone to take my pictures for the magazine; this

allowed me to get to grips with a lot of the functions that I had not

previously used before such as the various effects, brightness and

contrast.

I also used a completely new (to me) application called Adobe photo

shop. It took some time getting used to, but in the end I got used to it.

Unfortunately I did not get to use any of these edited images I had

created in the final product.

A look back…

Preliminary Main

I fell I have learnt that keeping it simple is best – a plain

background is better because you can easily read one

colour of text, and the text stands out a lot more.

Also, using small amounts of text - like in the bottom

picture – is good because it makes the magazine look tidier

– not as busy as in the first one.

Also, white is not as good as a colour because it is boring

and goes too well when it is a secondary colour on black.

Different is good (in small doses) – if you can stand out on

shelves you are almost always going to do well (unless it is

different in a bad way)

You must appeal to your whole target market – not just

some of it – if you are aiming a magazine like the second

one for a specific age, it must appeal to all of them; for

instance, not just males, females as well if they are in your

target market.

What I have learnt from this project:

Thank you for your time.