Evaluation of Magazine

By Matthew Waites

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

• My magazine is both similar and different to real products. First of all it has a strap line, straplines are used in most magazines, they give extra information about what is in the magazine. Also I used a masthead which is the title to the magazine, my masthead is large with black text and a red background, similar to the title in NME. I think the colour combination works well together to stand out. Furthermore I used puffs to give additional information. My media product has one large central image like lots of magazines such as NME. I think overall my media product is very similar to real magazines.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• I think that my media product represents young people very well. I think it represents them through many things such as

• The music the magazine is based on• The music that the magazine is based on represents younger people because that is

what young people like according to the results of the questionaire I carried out.

• The clothes that the people wear in the pictures• The clothes that the people wear in the pictures on my magazine is typical of what

young people wear today. This represents the social group of young people that I wanted to read my magazine. The pictures in the magazine will draw my target audience in as they will be able to see themselves in them.

• The topics in the magazine• The topics in the magazine represent young people because the magazine is talking

about artists they like. According to my questionaire results people want to read about their favourite artist's. So on my double page spread I did an interview with a made up rapper asking questions that they might want to ask him themselves involving them in the magazine.

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

• There are many types of institutions that could distribute my media product e.g. newsagents, websites, supermarkets or corner shops. Shops that could distribute my product are Tesco’s, WHSmiths, Ones top, Spar and many more. These kind of shops would distribute my media product because it would be another range of magazine that they could add to their vast selection of magazines. My magazine may bring in new customers that could buy other things in their shops as well, making the shop more profit which would be beneficial to them.

Who would be the audience for your media project?

• In my opinion my magazine audience is young people I think it links in with the audience of young people because the genre of music that my magazine is focused on (Hip-Hop, RnB and Rap) is particularly liked by younger people. Also the people in the pictures on the cover and other pages of my magazine are young people so I think it corresponds with the social group I was aiming for. My questionnaire shows that young people would be more interested in music magazines and particularly to the genre which my magazine is based.

How did you attract/address your audience?

• I tried to address my audience catching their attention with things that will interest them. So with my audience of young people I tried to keep things relevant to them so I looked at the results of my questionnaire and saw that they wanted a magazine based on RnB and Hip Hop. With the questionairre results I then based my magazine on their results.

• On my front cover I put pictures that I thought would be of interest to my target audience such as technology, made up celeb gossip and a made up picture of a rapper. I think that all these things will appeal to my target audience and will make my product more saleable.

• I also used large bright fonts and used contrast to make titles and other text stand out more.

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

• I have learnt a great deal about using Microsoft publisher during the making of my magazine. I have found out lots of different things about how it works. I have learned how to insert and edit things using publisher. I have also learnt how to insert pages so you can make a double page spread easily. I have learned how to move print margins so all the page prints and more.

furthermore I have learnt about cameras. I have learnt about how to do different things on the camera such as changing the colour scheme ect. I have also learned about the camera angles and lighting and how to get the effect I wanted in each picture.

I also used a blog to help with the planning and making of my magazine, I learned how to blog and to use the blogging website. This was useful because it helped me to make decisions about what I might use in my magazine.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you

have learnt in the progression from it to the full product

• I have learnt that making a magazine is much harder than it looks, trying to aim it at a target audience and trying to make my magazine look better than the rest. Also I have learnt how a magazine really looks. My finished magazine compared to my prelim is very different. My prelim is very basic and armature looking, my finished magazine looks professional in contrast. Before making my finished magazine I did lots of planning and research, I think it is crucial to do this to get a professional outcome. I have learned about how things look on the page and were to position things. In my prelim task it looks very armature and just thrown together, in my opinion my finished magazine looks similar to real magazines. I have also learned about colour from my prelim task, looking back at my prelim it doesn’t look like any real magazines so for my finished magazine I did research in to what colours went well together and came up with a combination that looked good.