Evaluation Part 8

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

I believe I have learnt a lot from the preliminary task to now, this is because of the research I conducted into existing magazines to learn about the conventions of typical music magazines. I've also learnt why sometimes it is best to go with the typical conventions and sometimes why it is also good to challenge them to get a unique advantage in the music magazine market. 

I've learnt a lot with working with photo-shop, how to manipulate a photo, to change the colouring, to get rid of spots ect. I've also learnt how to use photo-shop in general as I've never had experience in working with it before, it helped to understand it in general to make a realistic looking product. 

 

Since my preliminary task I've done a lot of research into existing magazines to analyse them, to understand why they've presented it this way, and what type of audience this represents, and what draws the readers in. Even simple things like what colours should be used to represent the genre of music the magazine is, what price my product should be placed at.

Peer feedback throughout the course has also helped me to develop my ideas and products to cater for peoples wants/needs. Feedback i've been given in the past have helped me go from:

Feedback i've been given in the past has been things like:

- Add a page number feature next to my collage of photos
- Making the title 'contents' thicker so it stands out more
- Draw boxes round given texts to make them separate.

- Text detailing the information in the article could be bigger.

- Make the main article larger to attract peoples attention

- More cover lines. 

These actions have helped me a great deal in trying to understand what everyone would like, what attracts people and what they like the look of. Also it has helped me to understand what features people go for in a magazine and makes them personally want to buy it. Including all of these things makes it easier to cater for a wider range of audience for my product to be distributed across the country.

But if I were to do this project again i'd take more varied photos so more were available to play around with in the first stages of creating the magazine. I'd also attempt to take some photos on shoot, and play around more with the costume to make it more different and unique for my genre of magazine. I'd maybe play around with the colours of the text to try and create a different vibe with the magazine. I'd stick with the fonts i've used as I feel they suit this genre and make a statement. I'd definately change the photo used on the double page spread and maybe even play around with adding more photos, maybe of them actually playing the instruments talked about in the article. I'd possible also change how many photos were featured in the contents page, adding photos around the main image to show photos of the other bands featuring in articles. The video of my second focus group has given me a lot of feedback to tell me which parts I've done correctly, which parts I should recreate if I were to ever do this again, and also which parts I should improve. Next time I should create more research as i'm making my products so I am steering in the right direction to make a product everyone is happy with. 

Evaluation Part 7

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

Before I started this course I did not know how to remove imperfections in peoples faces, remove moles, blemishes and spots without copying their face via the stamp or smudge tool. The product I created allowed me freewill to play around with the photo for a long time to see what could be done with it. Even to cut around them without body parts disappearing. This video is showing what I've done using photo-shop, and how from the preliminary task to now how I've learnt to manipulate photos to achieve the look I want.

Evaluation Part 6

How did you attract/address your audience?

Thanks to my focus group video it made me think about such things as:
Should there be a QR code on my magazine front cover so it is available online as well as a print copy, so it is available where ever the reader may be.

It also made me think about such things as competitions and posters. I conducted research about clothing lines that were popular within the pop-rock genre, and found 4 that were popular within the age range of 15-24, these were as follows: Drop Dead, Down But Not Out, Johnny Cupcake and Lazy oaf. Deciding that with every issue there would be a different prize, the first and most well known  and most wanted clothing label within this age range was Drop Dead. So I decided that it would be good if there was a competition to win drop dead clothing somewhere on the front cover as this would encourage people to buy my magazine.

Posters would be easy to include into a magazine, a long photo shoot with the band that was featuring as the main article on my magazine and I could include some of these photos within the magazine as posters for people to place on walls ect. It would also encourage bands to get in touch with the magazine for coverage and more publicity, gaining more and more fan bases.

Free things are always popular within people aged 15-24 due to the fact they don't have much money to splash out and go buy a new wardrobe full of a certain label, they can't go out and buy lots of posters of their favorite bands either due to a money issue. Also as the research I conducted about competition ideas was aimed and completed by people within this age range it allowed me to know I would be attracting the right kind of people/right age of people.

I then conducted another focus group video to see if I had been successful in creating a suitable magazine:



This video told me that people were happy with my magazine, small changes would be needed before it was published and the price may need to change according to how popular it was due to it being a monthly issue. If I were to do this again I would produce a survey on what price people would want to pay for a Monthly music magazine issue. 

Evaluation part 5

Evaluation part 4

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

      

Firstly, IPC distribute NME magazine, and they only distribute two music magazines, which is NME and Uncut. I believe as they only currently distribute these two magazines it would be very unlikely that they would want to take on another magazine that was of similar style. Also as NME would be one of my biggest rivals this would be another reason as to why they would not take my magazine on. This is also a smaller company so it would be hard to gain fans.

Next, Q magazine is distributed by Bauer Media Group, along with Kerrang! Bauer comprises 282 magazines all together, including magazines like Empire, Take a break and Bella. Bauer Media Group only has two full music magazines which are currently Kerrang! and Q. Bauer has such a broad fan base and such a large fan base as well as figures show they sell around 38 million magazines a week. If I were to choose Bauer magazine to distribute my magazine I believe I would have a fair shot at getting a loyal fan base who would buy my magazine. As Q and Kerrang! are different genres of music it gives me a fair advantage in the music magazine department. Q being mostly Indie music and Kerrang! specializing in Rock music. As my media product is aimed at the pop-rock genre, again it is a totally different genre so I believe i'd have a fair shot within Bauer industry. As Bauer have a lot of fans I believe that i'd get a large fan base fairly quickly, and it would be a nice start up for the magazine as well.

Evaluation part 3

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Part 2

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