Evaluation Question 7

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

When I began my preliminary task I had relatively little experience using digital image editing software. Due to this, the cover that I produced contained main armature errors. The first of these errors was that I over edited the model. This caused the whole image to lose its sense of realism. Not only did it lack realism but it made the featured person look inhuman, therefore making it completely unsuitable for a school magazine. Another fatal flaw of mine was to include far too little text. The lack of text completely defies the conventions of magazines and gives a feeling that it is an unprofessional piece of work. In addition to this, my main feature ('New Uniform!') has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the magazines image. The text implies that there is a new school uniform but the featured student is wearing an anorak, this will without a doubt cause massive confusion to any readers of the magazine. Finally, the covers sticker is far too large and provides very little to entice any potential customers ('win a £10 book voucher').

(my preliminary task front cover)

Due to the failings of my preliminary front cover I decided to teach myself how to use editing software properly and what various music magazines did to look so professional. Learning the basics of the software I was going to be using (Cinema 4D, Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw Graphics Suite) was a long a difficult process. However I believe that overall it was definitely worth it, to teach myself how, I watched many video tutorials on Youtube (an extremely popular video sharing website) and read a verity of guides on the internet. I believe that my final front cover is vastly more professional that my preliminary task one and that it follows a greater amount of conventions. One of the key improvements was the larger verity of fonts. In my preliminary task I only used two different fonts (one for the masthead and another for everything else) where I used a total of four in my final cover (double the amount used in my preliminary task). My editing had greatly improved as well. In the final cover I was able to utilize three dimensional items, special effects, overlays and cutting to make my product unique and looking nice. I also learnt about a  range of magazine front cover devices such as mastheads, plugs, straplines, coverlines, puffs and barcodes, many of which I used in my final product.

(my final front cover)

My preliminary contents page was of a extremely poor level of design. It lacked in almost every aspect and was far too basic for its intended purpose. The only aspect which I consider myself to have done well in was to number the pages and keep the font similar to that of the preliminary front cover. I believe that I have learnt a great deal about magazine construction since I made this. Improvements which I have included in my final design include section titles, a greater amount of listed pages, a higher quality design of title, more pictures and various quotes.

(my preliminary contents page)

(my final contents page)

Overall, I  think that I have dramatically improved in magazine creation. I believe that my final products are of a high quality and would not look out of place on a stores shelf. This was acknowledged in the positive feedback which I received.

Evaluation Question 6

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

Cameras:

I have become significantly better at using cameras since the start of this project. To begin with, I was taking poor quality  blurred and badly lit pictures. However after gaining experience from my various photoshoot attempts I was able to improve my talent. Now I am able to capture high quality clear shots which are well lit and look professional.

Adobe Photoshop:

To create the graphics for my magazine I used Adobe Photoshop. When I started the project my skills were very limited because I had previously only had a little experience with the software. Unhappy with what I was producing, I watched a verity of tutorial videos to improve my knowledge and skill. I am now able to create visually impressive pictures and was able to make a lovely looking set of final pieces.

Blogger:

Before this project I had never used blogger. To begin with I found it hard to use and therefore ended up with a poor layout. Adding to this, Google deleted my account for seemingly no reason whatsoever and I therefore had to start from scratch again. Fortunately though, this event only occurred within the first few weeks of the course. I as used Blogger more, I became increasingly better and was able to eventually create what I consider to be a professional looking blog.


CorelDraw:
Prior to the course I had never used CorelDraw Graphics Suite. I found the software to be extremely problematic on occasions as it would often freeze and become unresponsive when I tried to save any of my work. This resulted in the loss of many documents of mine. Luckily I was able to fix the problem. Once the problem had been fixed I used CorelDraw primarily to arrange the layout of many of my products. The software comes with editing tools but for the majority of my work I edited images using Adobe Photoshop.


Cinema 4D:
Cinema 4D is a three dimensional image making piece of software. I used it to create the various different three dimensional shapes and title that appeared in my work. At the beginning of the course, I was only able to create text based images. However, I taught myself via a range of video tutorials how to create abstract shapes and other objects. Examples of my three dimensional items can be seen in all of my final products.


Here is a video showing me creating a range of images and items, thus displaying my progression in skill using Adobe Photoshop and Cinema 4D throughout the course:

Here are all the different computer technologies that I used:

Created with Padlet

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Front Cover-
On my front cover I attracted my audience via a veriety of techniques. One of these techniques
 was to Use visually impressive three dimensional graphics. These graphics are similar to that of many electronic music album artworks and are therefore recognisable to the audience. They are also lively, interesting and were made to be targeted at the teenage audience. Another way I attracted my audience was to have a fictional quote by the massively famous dubstep producer named Skrillex. Skrillex is so popular that the mere mention of his name would attract a mass of his fans.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?


Age:
The intended audience was people between 13 to 25. My initial reason for selecting this age group was because I myself was between those age boundaries. This made the task of creating my magazine significantly easier as I already had a fair amount of knowledge about the magazine styles and genres being aimed at people of my age. In addition to this, the music genre which I chose to focus my magazine on (electronic music) has a very large young audience. I was able to observe this first-hand when I attended various electronic music festivals and concerts.

Gender: 
Female 40% and Male 60%, as I decided to refrain largely from focusing on a single gender. My initial intention was appeal 50/50 to both genders. However I believe that it would attract a slightly larger male audience as it contains a fairly excessive amount of energetic and masculine graphics. Also music magazines in general tend to have a greater focus on their male audiences. This can be seen in various magazines via females being over-sexualised so as to attract the male gaze.


Economic Group: 
My magazine was set to cost £1.99 so as to make it affordable to the lower and middle groups of wealth. These groups are significantly larger than the higher wealth groups and therefore are larger consumers of the electronic music genre magazines.


Musical Preference:
The musical preference of the audience of my magazine would be electronic music. In particular, my magazine is focused on the EDM side of the genre and would therefore attract an audience which enjoy that type of music

(picture of a DJ playing music to an audience)

Evaluation Question 3

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

I believe that Wenner Media may distribute my media product. I say this because Wenner Media is responsible for publishing the Rolling Stone magazine. My magazine takes many of its elements from their magazine and they would therefore appeal to a similar audience therefore it would make sense to distribute them via the same company. Having my product distributed by such a large organisation would greatly benefit its circulation and fanbase.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product is aimed heavily at teenagers with a passion for electronic music. Due to this I had to make my magazine visually impressive, interesting and suitable for my genre (electronic music) so as to appeal to the niche market it is aimed at. Because the music is heavily associated with the club scene, I decided to make my magazine as lively as possible. I was able to achieve via using a variety of abstract three dimensional shapes and special effects (smoke, sparks, etc). These visually symbolise the passion and uniqueness of the music. Adding to this, similar graphics and effects are used by a variety of popular electronic music producers such as Skrillex, Deadmau5, Knife Party and Nero. As it is used by these massively influential people, the style will be very relatable to my targeted audience and therefore increase its saleability.

The product I have produced shall also appeal to mainstream media consumers as my model is wearing currently fashionable clothing items. Using fashionable clothing allows people to feel more personally involved with the magazine, as it gives them something to relate themselves to. Adding to this, a medium close up was used. The medium close up is very conventional of music magazines and thus adds an element of professionalism to the piece, thus reassuring the readers that the magazine is of a high standard. The shot being taken at eye level is also important, as it gives the impression that the musician is merely human. If the shot was taken from a low angle it would repel people as it would imply that the person in the picture thinks of themselves as being better and of a higher class than everybody else.

Evaluation Question 1

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


My final project pieces (the magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread) all use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products. One of the most evident displays of this is in my front cover’s title. The name itself is fairly standard and sticks to the conventions as it is short and consists of a single, interesting word ‘Ephemera’. Many magazines use either two words or fewer, or an abbreviation for their magazine titles; some examples of this include: Rolling Stones, NME, Q, Kerrang and Vibe. Many of these titles hold very little meaning to anyone and are often there simply to give a brand identity as well as providing a simple hook (a short title such as ‘Vibe’ is far more likely to catch the short attention span of humans than something long in length e.g. ‘New South London Jazz and Blues Music Magazine’) and being memorable.

Defying traditional magazine conventions, I created a three dimensional title (using a program named ‘Cinema 4D’). I am currently unaware of any other magazine which done this, therefore making my magazine completely unique in the sense that it contains an aspect which none others have. The reason for making it this way was to intentionally defy conventions, therefore potentially boosting my magazines appeal to shoppers as they become curious as to why my magazines masthead is different to all the others, thus increasing the probability of them selecting and reading my product. However, I was able to make my masthead more subtle and appealing via using the common magazine trend of placing the featured model partially in front of the title. This is clearly shown here in my magazine and an old ‘NME’ extract:

('NME' masthead)

(my masthead)

The barcode I create is very typical of music magazines. It consists of a custom made barcode (created using: http://www.terryburton.co.uk/barcodewriter/generator/) with a two digit extension. In addition to this, I have included the price, date, issue number and website all of which are commonly found in high profile music magazines. However to make mine different to the majority of content and to link it to modern technologies, I added a QR code. QR codes (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) are codes which are scannable by many modern smartphones, when scanned they either redirect the user to a website or provide them with a small text based message. The potential for QR code use in magazines huge as they could be used for a variety of reasons such as: linking customers to their webpages, supplying them with exclusive deal codes and promotions, unlocking special website content and much more. To create the one on my front cover I used: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/. Here is my barcode and one from a 2008 ‘NME’ magazine:

('NME' barcode to the left, my barcode to the right)

Another use of conventions of real media products was placing my model in front of the front covers masthead. I had seen these technique used in a variety of different magazine including Q, NME and Kerrang. This method seems to bring a new depth to the magazine as it makes it appear as though the featured person is coming out of the magazine itself. In addition it allows a larger portion of the person to be displayed, thus increasing the likelihood that fans of the musician that is featured will notice and therefore buy the magazine. In my front cover I have tried to keep as much of the masthead visible as possible because my title ‘Ephemera’ is a very rarely used word. Below are examples of mastheads being partially covered by models:

(my front cover)

(Q magazine front cover)

(NME magazine front cover)

(NME magazine front cover)

In my contents page I decided to challenge the standard conventions and make the layout seem more like a promotional festival poster. The intention I had in mind when I chose to do this was to make the magazine appeal more so to festival goers by presenting them with a format which they are largely familiar with. However, I believe that I was still able to achieve the purpose of a contents page via including a variety of titles, page numbers and quotes. As well as this I have kept its colour scheme similar to the front cover and double page spread thus reinforcing the brand identity.

(my contents page)

(Download festival poster)

(Wireless festival poster)

(Global Gathering festival poster)

The models clothing is representative of the role models of my intended target audience. The clothes are currently highly fashionable and appeal greatly to the fashion conscious teenage audience. Similar clothing can be found on a verity of modern musicians, it sets the feeling that the wearer is professional but also largely casual. The jacket in particular is an extremely common fashion items in the industry, by many it could be seen as a statement of masculinity. Some musicians and bands that have been known to ware jackets include Knife Party, Muse, The Arctic Monkeys, Skrillex and Nero.

(my front cover with the model)

(Nero)

(The Arctic Monkeys)

(Knife Party)

(Skrillex)

(Muse)