My Final Product.

Evaluation Question 7

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

After looking at both of my magazines I feel like I have developed loads in terms of my skills and my work. When I look at my work I can see areas where I really need to improve and how I developed from not having any experience at all with Photoshop to being about to create the three main elements of a magazine, a front cover, contents page and double page spread.

Evaluation Question 6

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

Before I started this course I had no previous experience with Photoshop at all, therefore I learnt everything from scratch at the start of my course, Most skills I have now were self taught as I played around with it loads to make sure that I knew what each tool was, how it worked and how I would incorporate it into my products that I would be making using this particular software. When using Photoshop to make my product I used many tools to create my front cover and contents page. Many tools were used when editing the images for my overall product for example the magic wand tool and the rubber were used to remove the background, and the burn tool was used to make my model look more tanned and to appeal more to the audience. Other tools such as the cropping tool, text tool and the rectangle shape tool proved to be extremely helpful when making my products. As well as Photoshop I  learnt how to use InDesign, which helped me make my double page spread, as it allowed me to add columns which is what is typically used in a double page spread.

Blogger, is the website I am using to make my blog, yet again this is another thing which I had no experience with, therefore I had to learn how to do it, furthermore this website has turned out to be extremely easy to use and allows me to present all my work to the viewer. To personalise the blog I made it more suited to me therefore I went onto change the size of the column, the colour of the background and text, the font and the way it was presented. I chose to represent my blog in plain black and white s that it would be simple and minimilstic and would clash with the images that would be posted on my blog. Another website which was used was Prezi, which allowed me to make an interactive presentation which was used to show the answer to one of my evaluation questions previously.

Finally some software which I had plenty of experience which was used during this process was;

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Youtube
• Digital Camera
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Word

Having already known how to work these programmes/websites I found it easy to work around the problems I had with presented the work how I wanted, for example if I couldn't get an image the size I wanted I would crop it down first in PowerPoint cause i felt confident then I would transfer it over to Photoshop, and I would do this until I felt confident in doing it within Photoshop itself. However after working with the programmes straight up I developed my skills beyond being confident in myself but I find myself helping other people.

Overall whilst in the process of making my product I have learnt a lot based on software and how I can use it effectively to create products such as magazines. I have also learnt to and not to use tools such as using the burn tool in Photoshop more than once could make it look too dark and overly edited.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

To attract my target audiences attention I added artist which are popular during 2013, these chosen artists are also very popular with the age group I selected. As the age group is the age where people start going to festivals and concerts on their own which is a milestone in someones life, I decided to use this as an advantage and to include it as a main aspect of my magazine. I done this by including various famous, popular dance artisits which is the main genre for my magazine, however I only named 3 acts which i think were the most popular and caused more of a commotion in 2013 due to the success each of these acts had.

I also enticed the audience by claiming to show 'EXCLUSIVE' images which are from the biggest and most popular concerts in the UK, which may appeal to some of the audience because they might of been to see the act or are a huge fan of them. By doing this I have used my ideal target audiences intrests to make the magazine more appealing to what I think they should like and will be interested in. By wording the sell line this way it makes it sound more exciting by using the superlative 'biggest' it makes it sound the best out of all the concerts in the UK, it also makes the magazine sound like it has access to these images so the magazine must have high authority in the media to recieve these images.

I also added in a bit of suspense to my front cover by claiming that the magazine is going to reveal headliners and supporting acts from a very popular festival in the UK, 'Leeds festival'. As I am part of the age group i have aimed my magazine at I added things on which I would want to read, therefore this is one of the biggest things that would make me want to buy a magazine, so I took that into consideration when thinking of interesting, enticing and important sell lines which appealed to my target audience but also that fitted into the genre of music I have based my music magazine about, which is dance. Leeds festival is very well known for the huge line up it has and the very famous acts which perform there, this years line up consists of over 30 DJ'S which play dance music to the huge crowds which travel there to see them, therefore I used this leeds festival hype as a way of drawing in the public to buy the magazine and read more about the line up which was being revealed.

Another way in which I attracted the audience was to add a small competition whih would appeal to the age group 16-24. By adding this in I feel like it would pay off loads considering that the chance to win free tickets to the 'BIGGEST DANCE FESTIVAL OF 2014' woudl appeal to people my age as tickets these days are very expensive therefore by addign this competition in you are almost bribing the audience.

As well as revealing the leeds festival line up I also decided to include more line ups to that if the reader wanted more information on what other dance festivals were out there they could use this magazine as an oppotunity to learn about the other line ups and to decide which festival they would want to go to. I also added in a 'FREE POSTER', although I havent identified which poster it is or who it is of, this would make the reader want to browse through the magazine to find out, and if they like the poster then they would buy the magazine, also IU feel like this is something which is very popular in your modern day teen mags, and as this is my target audience I decided to add it into mine.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

To answer this question I decided to present my answer in a "prezi" presentation, to see this presentation please follow the link below;

http://prezi.com/fcoqqfu60spi/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Evaluation Question 3

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

I think that the institution which is most likely to represent my magazine is BAUER media. this is because they produce magazines such as Kerrang and Q, these magazines anre bother very successful and feature similar styles of music to the king i wish to distribute. My magazine will be distrubuted in selected stores to allow the audience to purchase it in a numerous ammount of places, I also made a website where you can subscribe to the magazine and included an offer to entice the reader. An alternative could be IPC media as they represent very similar products, and they share common interests, for example the readers audience and the music genres. IPC media represent NME which is a very well known music magazine, this is what I tried to design my product around this.


Comparing;

Here I have placed my own contents page between two popular magazines, which are published by both by IPC media and BAUER.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

 

For this question I am going to present my front cover model with another model;

 

The position of both models are similar because both models are facing the camera and they both have there arms/hands near their face.I think that my model is more suited to my target audience because although she isnt fully smiling she is kind of smirking which add a young feel to the magazine, where as the other magazines model is more intense.Also the image on the 'SPIN' magazine is quite seductive as her mouth is slightly open, however my model isnt as this isnt what I wanted as she is representing dance music so this wouldnt of fitted in with the music genre I have chosen.The model in my magazine is part of the age group my magazine is aimed for, therefore this is why it looks young and less serious as the other model.

Evaluation Question 1

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

My product uses conventions of magazines because I designed it based around other magazines, I used my own knowledge to design the magazine and to create it. My front cover had many of the typical conventions which you would expect to find on a professional magazine, such as;

• Mast Head
• Price
• Barcode
• Date/Issue number
• Sell lines
• Main Image
• Main Sell Line
• Banners

My Magazine Elements;

This is 10 of the elements pulled form my magazine which you would typically find on a magazine, for exaqmple I have presented you with my banner which has information about what you can find inside the magazine. I have also added my main sell line which is just my models name, and I explained above it that there is an interview from her inside. I have also assed my mast head, sell lines, barcode, price, issue number and the date. When taking my images I had to take into consideration my target audience so I had to make my model appropriate  I done this by adding makeup costume and props, for example her necklace which is something that my target audience would be interested in. In the image the model is also wearing a strapless top so she looks more bare and less busy, I wanted this to happen because I think is represents the type of dance music I like, as it is all about the basics. The main image has been added below.