Evaluation Q.7

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

I learned and experienced many things in the preliminary task which I was able to develop in order to achieve a success regarding my main task.

Planning and Preparation
I found this first section the most important in relation to being able to attempt a detailed, professional looking magazine cover/contents page/double page spread.

The start of my planning involved research into other magazines. I researched into one magazine that was not of my chosen genre of rock (being R&B) and two that did match my genre (being Kerrang and NME). From the analysis of these magazines, I found that:

• All music magazines have a certain colour scheme which is consistent throughout the magazine.
• The language is informal in all these magazines.
• The photos are often of young men (particularly in from my chosen genre).
• These young men are dressed down (in sneakers, baggy low-waist genes etc).
  
• There is almost always a subscription section on the bottom of all the contents pages.
  

I also researched into independent and mainstream methods of distribution. I concluded that I was to of multiplatform consumption, because my genre is quite mainstream.

In planning, I had to look mainly at the audience's needs and find/work out every little detail about them. As I planned to make a rock magazine, I needed to find details about my audience in regardance to their lifestyle, psychographic/demographic and where they would be on the jicnars scale. I found this out from the research which I carried out on magazines.

Also, I made a collage for my young audience and posted it on Facebook with a set of questions underneath asking what interested them about the pictures/items on there etc, and tagged members of my targeted audience for them to comment on it. The results were a success and it proved that the things which I thought suitable for a young generation, in actual fact, was.

The preparation involved creating a detailed audience profile which I worked out from all my previous research. This shows how essential my research/preparation actually was.

I then drafted out my magazine's cover/contents/double page spread. By drawing it all out before I actually started making the magazine enabled me to make my magazine quicker to make, more efficiently without hardly any faults.

I have learnt how valuable it is to plan, research and prepare, as it kept me on track and made my magazine become a success, by having all of my plans prepared beforehand.

Organisation of Time
In order to produce a magazine that was successfully produced and up to a good standard:

• I knew I needed to keep my deadline firmly in my head.
  
• To keep diciplined and commited to my schedual that I made.
• I realised that making a detailed time plan was a valuble thing, because it kept me organised and on top of my work.
• I do not think that I would have achieved a magazine that matched most of the drafts, without a detailed time plan being made before.

Photography
The Location:
The setting for my photos were in my opinion, the most essential to making my images work. The genre to my magazine was rock, and so therefore I had to make sure that I could connote and express this through location. I used brick walls and fences, as to where my main settings were in the end, because I decided that these places set up the foundations basis for my photoshoot.

The Lighting:
The lighting was one of the key concepts to making the photos effective and catchy. I realised that I liked to play with contrast consisting of the various amount of light which I included in the pictures. When editing, I found that contrast was only proved to be valuble depending on the conditions of the light.

The costume:
I made sure that my models dressed 'down,' and followed the stereotypical concepts of 'rock music followers.' As from my previous research, I realised that this consisted of piercings, low-waisted baggy jeans, sweat band,s beanies etc... Therefore I made my models wear these things, and from my targeted audience reactions, it attracted the right attention from my chosen audience - because they could identify with it.
Also, I involved the use of props, regarding guitars/microphones etc... to help portray the genre which I aimed to get across. For example, electric guitars are symbolic to rock, and denote as that.

The Conventions:
I used conventions of magazine front covers/contents pages/double page spreads to make my resulting media product successful. I decided to follow the convetions that I found in every magazine I researched before I made my own magazine.
These consisted of:

• Tables/columns/grids.
• Bar codes/pricing/mastheads/skylines etc.
• Informal or formal language - and only to stick to one.
• A variety of photos.
  
• An editor's note.
  
• A freebie.

Post-Production Skills:
Photoshop, Quark Express and Lightroom were all needed to accomplish a professional looking magazine - in an attempt. I needed to learn the skills in order to make the best use of these programmes, but seeing as they were rather similar and simple to one another/to use - it did not take too long to produce. The use of these professional programmes showed that even amateurs can use the programmes and create a product with some professional aspects in it.

Awareness of Consideration for the Audience:
The more involved that I became in producing my magazine, made me consequently realise the extent as to which the audience manipulated the decisions which I made when:

• Researching - regarding what specific thing.
  
• Drafting - I gathered what I researched, and found that the most common conventions were because it was what the audience liked.
  
• Planning - I planned my magazine based on the conventions which my target audience liked.
  
• Producing - all the photos/topics/styles were for my target audience.

However, I came to the conclusion that the reason I was making the magazine in the first place was not just because of the genre it consisted of, but because of what the audience liked about that genre. I realised that it was morealess only a younger generation which liked rock, so therefore I tried to design everything around the concept of that. This is because if your targeted audience like your magazine, they will go out and buy it - which is how your magazine becomes successful.

What I Learnt from this Project:
The biggest thing which I learnt from this project is how important it is to plan a project before you actually start producing it. During my drafting and planning stages, I did not think that I actually would look back at it so much when producing my final magazine; however, I was wrong. I constantly looked back at my previous plans to make sure that I was structuring my pages in the right way, and that my pages followed the points which I made during the research stage of what attracts the target audience of mine. I believe that the drafting and planning stage helped me achieve my resulting magazine so efficiently.

Evaluation Q.6

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

The use of modern, digital technologies - such as Photoshop, Lightroom and Quark Express have made the post-production process of making my magazine so much faster and easier to accomplish.

• I used Photoshop to edit some of the images and also to create my front cover.
  
• Lightroom was used to finish off editing some of my images.
• I used Quark Express to create my contents page and double page spread.

Photoshop, Lightroom and Quark Express are all creative programmes which professionals use to create magazines, well edited photographs etc...
I believe though, that with the convenience and simple way in which Quark Express, Lightroom and Photoshop can be used, it means that even amateures can create something which has some professional appearance, due to the technicalities and powerful tools which these programmes involve.

The Technologies In The Process Of Constructing

Other than the technicalities of the professional programmes which helped edit and construct my magazine pages, I also found that the technicality of this online blogger was extremely useful to keep track of what I had learnt during the process of making my magazine and with presenting all my research and planning in a clear, structured way. The online blogger gave more freedom to creativity and was suitable for recording the progress of my magazine production.

Also, the use of my SLR was highly important regarding the quality of my images which I took to use in my blog. During the process of creating my magazine, I learnt many things about using an SLR which I had not originally known. Learning more ways to use my SLR than just the basic conventions to it, made the photoshooting process much more efficent and I was completely prepared.

In conclusion, the technologies made all parts of my magazine producing process much more effient, rather making a magazine hand made, due to all the reasons I have written of above.

Evaluation Q.5

How did you attract/address your audience?

This is a video clip of my interviews that I did with a variety of young people who fit into my target audience. However, I included both boys and girls in my interviews, despite the fact that I came to the conclusion that guys should be my only gender for target audience. I interviewed a girl so that I could gain a fair take from people's opinions.

Overall, I found that majority of my target audience said:

• My magazine would be more for boys than girls. Therefore, just a male audience.
• The writing is too small on the article and there is too much of it. I should have separated it out with bigger words.
• The images stood out the most, and so did the yellow titling.
• The topics that I featured my magazine were interesting.
• I used a variety of bands - featured bands that everyone knows of and unsigned bands.
• The colours of the letters etc, were most striking.

Overall, I found that majority of the un-targeted group said:

• The magazine is definitly for the younger generation.
  
• There is too much writing on the double page spread - there should be a line under every new topic and more paragraphs.
  
• Both the text and pictures stand out the most.
  
• The topics were more suitable for a younger audience.
  
• The models used were suitable for the genre.
  

In conclusion I have found that my target audience like the concepts of my magazine, but the older generation don't. However, this is important, because it shows that my magazine has been designed successfully to fit the right target audience; showing that my previous planning developments to reach the final stages of my resulting magazine went as planned. This means that it would be distributed successfully.

• My magazine was achievably a prefered reading to the younger generation (which is good, but this is my target audience). I think that this was due to my mode of address being very informal - which is what my targeted younger generation want. They responded to the text in the way which I wanted them to and instantly picked up on the genre that my magazine was.
  
• Yet for the older generation, it is of a aberrant reading. This is most likely because the informal mode of address is not something which attracts the attention of an older audience.
  

- A prefered reading is where the audience respond to text in the way that you want them too.
- An aberrant reading is where the audience do not understand the messages/values in the text.

Evaluation Q.4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Demographic Profile:

As taken from my research...

• Part of the younger generation, Know facts about music, Radicalist, Student of some level, Live life to the full, Post-modernist, Enjoy the outside, Fun seeker, Not afraid to take risks, Like to express individuality, Do not care what people think of them, Free spirited, Having a family in the future is not a priority, Personality is not completely mature, Musical appreciation
• Dress Sense: Low waist skinny/baggy jeans, converses/DC's/Vans, leather jackets, studded belts/wristbands, T-shirts, hoodies
  Appearance: Piercings (particularly eyebrows and ears), stretchers, wristbands, beanies/backward baseball caps, side fringes, hair gel

• Music Preferences: Fall out boy, Blink 182, Sum 41, System of a Down, Green Day, Dead Poetic, Nickelback, Kid Rock, Evanesence, Guns 'N' Roses, 3 Doors Down, Coldplay, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, The Fray, The Calling, Skillet, Avril Lavigne, Angels and Airwaves, P!nk, Queen, BonJovi
• TV Programme Prefrences: Skins, Scrubs, My Name is Earl, The Big Bang Theory, Friends, MTV, VH1, E4, BBC, Film4
  Radio Preferences: Kerrang, BRMB, Total Rock, Rock FM, Wyvern
  Website Preferences: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Myspace, Ultimate Guitar, Photobucket
  

My Target Audience

I am happy with the lifestyle which I chose my target audience to live by, which I created during the planning process of this project. When I made my collage to go with the concepts which I made in this lifestyle profile, my target audience said that they liked the majority of the ideas on this list. Therefore, when drafting out my magazine pages, I decided to base it around people who are into the sorts of things which are above.

Also, after I had made the real versions of my final magazine pages, I decided that the preferences in the different types of TV shows, radio stations and websites which my target audience had, would be where I'd advertise my magazine when distributed.

The dress sense which I concluded my target audience to have were what I made my models wear when doing my photo shoots for my magazine pages. This particularly consisted of low waist - baggy jeans, converses, beanies etc...

The music preferences which I made in my lifestyle profile here, were what I included in my magazine's content.

Demographic Profile:

As taken from my research...

• Age Range: Teens to young adults = 15 - 25 years
• Sex: Mainly men

I am happy with the targeted audience which I created during the planning process of this project, it worked well because I based nearly everything around this age range and sex. I feel as though this was one of the keys to my magazine becoming morealess exactly how I saw it in my head.

Jicnars Scale Status:

As taken from my research...

• Job: Most likely a full or part time student, but also, as referred on theJicnars scale: my audience would be at D, C2, C1 and B
  D = Semi and unskilled manual workers - eg, bank clerk
  C2 = Skilled manual workers - eg, plumber
  C1 = Supervisory, clerical, junior administrative or professional - eg, labourer
  B = Intermediate managerial or professional - eg, middle manager
  Therefore, the target audience would be for:
  Middle class
  Skilled working class
  Working class
  Lower middle class

HOWEVER, after making this list from my research:

I have concluded that this magazine would be for the students more than for any workers on this Jicnars scale. This is because my target audience is mainly for young men, who love rock - therefore I would not particularly associate this with a middle class man.

Psychographic Status:

As taken from my research...

• Social Values: Post-modernists, which is 'to have, to be, to play'

HOWEVER, after making this list from my research:

I am going to also put my target audience as 'radicals' from the Psychographic scale. Radicals are people who think of themselves as an individual. I came this conclusion because many of these young men (from my target audience) are into rock and lyrics. This means that they like creativity, and individualism is one of the keys to creativity.

In conclusion to my audience profile, I have kept to the same concepts which I made in my earlier planning and preparation stages. I felt that this way was best, because I made it after I had done my audience research so that I had a pretty sure idea that these profiles were correctly associated with my target audience. This made it easier to draft out and plan the pages of my magazine, because I based it around these profile conventions - and it was a logical method to stick to these profiles; because if I had kept on changing the profile concepts, then the conventions on my final magazine would not have been clear as to what target audience/genre it was meant for.

Evaluation Q.3

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

The mainstream institution might distribute my media product because my magazine mostly consists of dominant ideas. Therefore it would be distributed on a multi-platform consumption to be able to get sold out to a mass crowd.

My magazine turned out a success regarding the fact that I achieved most of the ideas I had initially planned.

I can compare this because of looking back at what I concluded in my research:

My audience profile:

You are part of the younger generation, know your facts about music, like to think of yourself as a radicalist, most likely a student of some aspect and you enjoy living life to the full, most likely being a post-modernist.

• I shall use a major distributing company for my magazine, because it is of one of the mainstream genres and shall be most successful if it is distributed through a major company.
• Therefore I shall use leading stores to sell my magazines, such as Asda, Morrisons, Tescos, WHSmiths etc.
• I shall also use online platforms, (making use of media 2.0). Therefore I shall use facebook, mypace and twitter to connect to my audience, because these social networking sites are very useful for viral marketing, as that saves ink and printing costs. It also speeds up the promoting process.
  
• I also want to distribute my magazine on the TV and radio to ensure a broad basis in order to reach as wider audience as possible.

In conclusion to this research which I did before I made the magazine...

REGARDING DISTRIBUTION:

• I shall use multi-platform media consumption to distribute my magazines - meaning I need a huge company to distribute them.
• I shall sell my magazines in leading stores.
• Another addition to what I found in my research is that I want to make it possible to buy the magazines through subscription, as I found that many leading magazines do this.

REGARDING ADVERTISING:

• Television - This method of advertisement is quite expensive but gets across to a mass amount of people.
  
• Radio - This method of advertisement is cheaper than the television method, but yet again gets across to a mass amount of people. I plan to advertise my magazine on radios targetted at my young audience, mainly on Kerrang, BRMB and Wyvern etc.
  
• Media 2.0, Internet, Social networking sites - This is the cheapest method because it is free, as the audience spread the word about the magazine themselves, which is called viral marketing.
  

My Distribution Methods

In conclusion, I have decided to use all forms of advertisement, because I would be able to afford it with the multi-platform consumption of distribution. Using all methods of advertisement and distribution should insure my magazine to have a success.

Evaluation Q.2

How does your media product represent different groups?

• Looking back at my work, I have realised that I have made men look more dominant to women regarding the concept of having a general interest of rock, because I have not really used many pictures of girls in my photosThe way that the boys in my magazine are styled is in a 'rebellious' fashion (denoting from the low worn jeans, converses and guitars), show the concept of dominant representation that all teenage boys are rebellious.
• The front cover consists of a teenage boy with a guitar held high in his hand. In my article I have also included more shots of teenage boys on drums and guitars. This gives a conventional idea that all young men are rock stars.
• These all give stereotypical ideas, though I do not believe that the dominant and conventional ideas I have managed to conclude from my magazine are a construction of reality.
• However, the written article in my media product makes it look as though teenagers are aspiring young people. This is because I made one of the main article features (which I wrote) have content about young people in unsigned bands wanting to get signed, and showed insight on how to try and go for the goal and become successful. This is the one of the only concepts which I have that challenges the dominant idea of teenage boys being rebellious; this is because you cannot be rebellious and aspirational, as you need discipline to want to try and succeed.
• However, my written article of becoming a signed band and achieving in life, keeps to the dominant idea that every teenage boy wants to be a rock star.

The messages and values which I wanted to communicate through my media product were:

• The type of clothing which my models were wearing were in relation to the concept of emergent ideology (of what's occurring), because the fashion that they are wearing is up-to-date.
• The locations (such as the broken down walls in the room on the front cover) help give the messages and values of rock and roll with the connotation of rebellion - therefore once again referring back to the concept of dominant ideology.
• The font styles on the front cover are big, bold and daring. This is to grasp the attention of my young target audience. Inside my magazine, the the fonts of titles and subtitles stay bold and daring to keep achieving the genre style of rock and keeping the attention of the audience. The colour scheme that I picked out regarding the writing on the front cover, was consistent mainly of bold colours which scream at you (such as yellow, red and orange) In Photoshop I edited the fonts on the front cover to options such as 'invert,' 'glow' and 'brighten.' I found that once I applied these effects, the fonts were much more noticeable and made more of a statement. I carried the effects of this on further into the rest of my magazine.
• I kept to a colour scheme of black, red and yellow throughout my magazine, because these colours represent the genre and style of rock most suitably - as I found this out through my research.

Evaluation Q.1

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

My media product is like other media products in the way that:

• ...It follows the main concepts of the dominant layout structure for magazine genres like mine. For example, from my further research, I found that many Indie/Rock genres such as mine consisted of a huge, catchy masthead on top of a filled in border. Also, there always seemed to be a huge subscription sign on the bottom of the contents pages, with black and white writing, and a print screen of one of the issue's covers next to it.
• I also picked a genre which is rather independent regarding looks and style, but the genre itself is mainstream, because so many people are part of it. Rock is a leading genre which so many people listen to, respect and live by. I wanted to express this is my front cover, by having an image of someone holding a guitar in a state of importance, as though the guitar was a statue of something extremely significant.
• I also made my magazine's textual language relate to what other music magazines of the same rock genre would write in the style of. I wanted to write of the same themes and topics too and also use informal language, just as other magazines and media products of the rock and indie genres do, because this helps get across to the young target audience of this genre type.
• I also kept to the same basic conventions of what is expected on the front cover, regarding mastheads, screamers, skylines, bar codes, subheads, puff, strapline etc.
• In the magazine itself, I kept to the expected conventions of using titles, subtitles, headings, columns, grids, images etc.
• I also made the font be SANS-SERIF, because this is what is for youths, as it is more reader friendly and appears less formal.
  
• Another aspect which I kept to following the forms and conventions was the use of colour. For the rock genre in particular, I used specific colours of red, black, white and orange to help connote my specific colour of rock. However, it is almost an unwritten rule that I was to use all of the colours which are in a printer, consisting of cyan, magenta, yellow and black - C, M, Y, K.

Photoshop Colour Coding:
Red = RGS Spec: 25500 | Hex Spec: #FFoooo
Black = RGS Spec: ooo | Hex Spec: #oooooo
White = RGS Spec: 255255255 | Hex Spec: #FFFFFF
Orange = RGS Spec: 2551650 | Hex Spec: #FFA500

Cyan = RGS Spec: 0255255 | Hex Spec: #ooFFFF
Magenta = RGS Spec: 2550255 | Hex Spec: #FFooFF
Yellow = RGS Spec: 2552550 | Hex Spec: #FFFFoo
Black = RGS Spec: ooo | Hex Spec: #oooooo

My media product is not like other media products in the way that:

• It challenges dominant ideology in order to keep to the "indie" lifestyle that rock-followers lead. For example, I featured the 'bad attitude' that rock stars can have, as said on the front - "Hell yeah, I'm a rock star."
• I also decided to change the dominative way in which many music magazines just focus on only one artist for each particular issue, featuring in a huge article. I decided to make it clear that in my contents page, I had enough room to speak about many artists; as I decided that the audience would find this more interesting - because it gives a wider range of option and taste regarding the variety of rock artists that are out there.
• I have also made my media product represent teenagers are aspiring young people, due to the fact that one of my features is about unsigned bands becoming signed. My article that I wrote was to show the life of a typical band which is trying to get signed, with methods and insight in how to do so.

Here, I have challenged the conventions of a typical magazine, to make it more original to my target audience. The way my audience dress and live, is all based around the element of freedom; therefore I planned to make all of my models in them magazine dress down and give off the "I don't care" vibe. I feel like I achieved this successfully.

My Final Magazine Pages

Here are my final magazine pages, finished...

Designing the Double Page Spread

The double page spread was the hardest of pages to design, in my opinion, because of the mass of plain paper there was to cover. Also, I felt that it was hard to try and make this part still keep to the layout/colouring/style of the other two pages I had produced, and it was hard not to make it look like a newspaper article. However, either way, I knew that I needed an article, because although this audience is young, they are not kids - they are mature enough to read a lot.

The following screen shots shows the way in which I came to my final design, and the change process I went through, regarding ideas:

The decisions that I made here to come to my final design was not that drastic.