Evaluation Question 7: Showing Progress Through Comparrison

Comparing my two media products I think that it is clear my skills in creating media texts has improved, regarding layout choices, ability using the resources and general knowledge on what makes a text visually pleasing with appropriate content.

 The music magazine looks more like a legitimate magazine product, with consistent fonts relevant to the genre and easily legible, and a busy general image that isn't overwhelming. The college magazine has a lot of negative space, and the fonts and colours are very basic. These choices had no sufficiency either, research and planning enabled me to justify decision made with my music magazine product, so the design elements were chosen with my goal/audience in mind. Furthermore, the college magazine's colour scheme is not explored thoroughly, in my second text I have used the same colours for big and small pieces to keep the same visuals consistent, and not uneven.  It's clear that I have produced the music magazine with edited contrast and brightness, to achieve this a level of diversity in the graphology. Also there is a barcode, date and price on CLASH where as there is just a date on EDUCATE's cover, this again brings more authenticity into the second text than the first, as it looks more like a legitimate product.

Here are my contents pages and again, in comparison I feel that it is evident that I have progressed from the preliminary task. Again, on the left a lot of negative space is expressed and overall it looks extremely amateur. On the right the contents page is filled up more with text and again a colour scheme is consistent. The images also demonstrate better quality and generally shows more professionalism. During the production and presentation of the college magazine I was more dis-organised in blogging and creating media, the example shown here is the same one I posted as my 'final contents' but I had failed to notice the text curser over some of my text, which could be a careless mistake but none the less demonstrates how I wasn't as thorough when evaluating my final pieces. Furthermore, with my music contents page I have experimented with capitalization, and font choice; the college contents font differs greatly in style from that of the cover, which shows I had little knowledge or consideration for cohesion between texts.

Evaluation Question 6/7: What Have You Learnt About Technology And How Do You Feel You Have Progressed From The Preliminary Task?

Evaluation Question 5: How Does Your Magazine Appeal To Your Target Audience?

    To attract my audience I incorporated the ‘essence’ of my target social group into things such as graphology, phonology and choice of cover lines and features. I have mentioned before that fans of Rock and Metal are known stereo typically to be disruptive and are often featured in the news relating to violent stories, such as the seaside riots in Brighton or general deaths related to the music genre (for participation in activities such as moshing). I kept this quality in mind when creating my magazine ‘CLASH’.

  For my font choices I used many different varieties that represented destruction, the font used for my masthead was one that I found on a website called DaFont.com and it looks like it has been eroded away, this represented my theme well. Some other fonts used also reminded me of scribbling or graffiti which also represents rebellion and anarchy, like the fonts used on my contents page and for the title/pull out quotes on my double page spread. Along with looking like they have been distorted in some way I also made sure these fonts were engaging and loud, representing members of my target audience further with their stereotypical loud personalities and daring appearances. There is a lot of current taboo language that is used sometimes to describe my target audience, such as ‘Greeb’ and ‘Emo’ because of their physical appearance and choice of clothing. These terms can sometimes be offensive but they are useful to take into account how my social group is perceived by others, Rock fans are often judged for not caring what they look like and being scruffy. This helped me in choosing fonts as they could look messy and distorted and this linked to the target audience well.

  When choosing a name for my magazine I kept these ideologies relating to my target audience in mind and eventually decided on ‘CLASH’. This was to play further on the idea of destruction and anarchy with my magazine and it is also an example of onomatopoeia making it appealing to the ear. Furthermore, some may interpreted this masthead choice as relating to the Rock band ‘The Clash.’

  For colours I made sure to use bright and loud tones with a contrast of white and black. Black is often associated with the Rock genre as a lot of Rock music is dark and ‘scary’ with the added connotations of dark clothing, make-up and hair styles. Also, I tried to stick to a main colour scheme of roughly 4 colours to keep the whole of the magazine looking consistent. The other colours I chose were yellow and red, these colours stood out against the white and black and are very eye catching and loud. This again attracts my audience as this relates to their outgoing personalities, and also red holds connotations of rudeness, rebellion and violence. The colour scheme differed slightly when it came to my double page spread, and instead of the loud cherry red I had been using throughout the texts I decided to use a more subtle plum colour. This was to go with my photography and also the music genre (hard rock) of my fictional band 'DEADRUNNERS.' This appealed to my target audience, as it communicated the diversity of the genre and liberal aspects to the collectivity of different bands with different genres and styles that make up the contents of my magazine. This idea also relates to the audience themselves, as my research has shown that fans of the diverse genre also widely differ in age, gender and characteristics. Furthermore, the colour is slightly more pink, and can be interpreted as reflecting the femininity of the model. Despite having a blurred representation of gender (I have explained how certain elements have given her a little more masculinity), the pinker colour highlights her gender well and I think added a nice touch.

    I also researched into other magazines that attract a similar audience to mine; they used many cover lines with news from the Rock industry such as new albums, tour dates, interviews and general news stories. Furthermore I noticed that one of the most successful ways of attracting this audience was to promote free giveaways, gifts and competitions with merchandise and instruments linked to this genre. This is because my core target audience of younger fans of the genre have been known to be interested in pull out posters for room decoration, possession of merchandise and other items that express what type of music and hobbies they are interested in. Therefore, this was a crucial element to include in my texts that would thoroughly engage the audience. Specific examples of this technique used was my advertisement for the issue being a ‘poster special’ for the Rock/Heavy Metal festival DOWNLOAD. As I have mentioned before DOWNLOAD is exclusively a Rock festival and my audience would be very interested in it, it may even have been an event they attended, which enhances the chance of them wanting to purchase the magazine in hope that they are included in one of the images. Also, on the contents page I promoted a competition to win a Drum Kit signed by Travis Barker, a successful Drummer in the Pop/Rock band Blink 182. These were the only competition/giveaway cover lines I used because even though they may be the most appealing factor to the audience, I knew that news about bands was the most important elements to the magazine.

      Also, I made sure the model I used for the front cover and double page spread of my magazine looked like she could fit into my social group as both a fan and a star. This is because musicians of Rock music also love the genre themselves and often come from similar back grounds as my audience. What I mean by this is that bands are normally self-created and sometimes self-taught as opposed to be being trained or manufactured through an agency, this fact comes from the DIY movement and Punk eras that occured over the timeline and development of the rock genre. I also thought this was a crucial factor to make my model relatable from the reader’s perspective; I kept this in mind when creating her interview also.  To enable that this idea was established, I researched how models similar to my own were represented and portrayed in similar products to mine before my photoshoot. This helped me decide what kind of look to give my model, and how to photograph her. She wears dark colours that my genre is associated with, loud edgy jewellery that feature spikes and metal (conveying toughness) and a strong, tough facial expression and pose. 

    In conclusion, I feel that my magazine both represents and appeals to the chosen target audience well. I have used factors that represent my social group both in appearance and personality traits, and used this is engage my readers and show that CLASH magazine is clearly written for fans of Rock music. I have also looked at how the audience will be attracted to the magazine with free gifts, news and graphological features.

Evaluation Question 4: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

                            -Traits, characteristics, interests and hobbies of my target audience-

This is a video I made using Windows Live Movie Maker

Evaluation Question 3: What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Product And Why?

Evaluation Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent A Particular Social Group?

Media Evaluation Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent A Particular Social Group? from Beth Sumecki

Evaluation Question 1: In What Ways Does Your Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

 Another way I challenged the typical form of real Rock media products was deciding to use a female artist in my double page spread and front cover. There are many famous female artists in this genre around today but they are certainly a minority. This isn't a form of prejudice it is just matter of fact, so using a female artist may be seen as challenging the stereotype because of it's infrequency. Furthermore, I liked the fact that having a female look confident and independent challenged gender stereotypes. My magazine is for both genders, and having a female on the cover of a Rock music magazine when females are seen mostly in fashion genres stands for gender equality in media.

     In addition, there is a total of 4 COLOURS used on my cover page, and 6 FONTS. It is a general convention of any magazine to keep these features to a minimum, here are some examples to illustrate:

                                          

 

One element of my double page spread that could be argued to be a development of classic conventions is the highlighted text, this was to signal the questions asked to the interview-ee. Having this feature of this text allows the reader to skim-read/skip to sections which interest them most. The slight development that I have made is adding in the extra space around this text to ensure that this separation element is translated, I also thought it looks more effective to have a tad extra white amongst the page. To show that this is not a challenge of a form/convention, here are examples of existing media that also use this feature: