My Media Evaluation

In what way does your media product develop or challenge forms and convections of real

media problems?

My main photo on the magazine takes up the whole page, from doing my research I have seen that this is extremely common with most if not all magazines. My picture also has more than one person in which is common for the genre of magazine I have chosen

My magazine masthead is also Bubble-Gum, this is a lot longer than most normal magazine mastheads, so this challenges convections of real media products as it is not keeping in with the usual theme. Although my title is different I think it is good as Bubble-Gum is the genre of my music, my target audience is also children and ‘Bubble-Gum’ the sweets can also be associated with children so I think it is quite a catchy title

Who is my target audience and how will I represent them…

My target audience is younger children from the age of 7 to 15. in order to attract this target audience I have used bright colours and colours that will stand out in the magazine. I have used these colours as they stand out and if a young child was looking for a magazine they would chose the one that stands out most. I have also used lots of images throughout as younger readers wont want to read masses of text as they will like to visualise things. I have also catered for the younger generation by getting pictures of people who look young and look like the sort of pop stars they would like. I also think that my magazine audience swings more towards younger girls as they are more likely to like young male pop stars which there is lots of in my magazineWhen making my magazine I also took inspiration from other magazines of the same genres such as ‘We love pop’, them too also use bright colours too and gave me lots of idea when creating mine

How did I attract my target audience?I attracted my target audience by using pictures of young males which will attract younger girls. I also used bright colours which is also more likely to attract younger people. I know these things attract younger as I have done research and looked into magazines with the same target audience. By doing this I could take points such as colour and layout to see how they attract their target audience so I could reflect it onto mine.

On the right is the sort of magazines I looked at when creating my magazine. Here you can see they use bright colours and a packed layout which I reflected on mine as this magazine also targets the same audience as my magazine.

PhotoShop toolsWhen creating my magazine I used photo shop to design it. Before doing my magazine I used Photoshop to do some tasks to learn some tools, these task included using some of the tools such as the ‘spot healing’ tool.On Photoshop before I done my magazine task I learnt tools such as how to delete something from the background without it being noticed. This helped me a lot as when sorting through my images for the magazine I could delete things from the images that I didn't’t want without it being noticeable. You can see this on the image on the right where I have deleted a bottle however you can not notice.

Photoshop skills continued…Here above you can see there is two pictures. First of all we had the picture on the top which was in colour. However using Photoshop we were able to edit the photo to make it black and white. This is something that we have learned to do using Photoshop. I have done this by going to ‘Image’, then ‘adjustments’ then ‘black and white’ by clicking this this changes the picture to black and white, this is something I learnt before starting my magazine task

Here I have used the brightness and contrast tools on Photoshop to make my photo look brighter. I have done this as before my photo looked dark so by changing the brightness and contrast I can either make my photo brighter or darker.

Colours used…When creating my magazine I used really bright colours, I used these because when doing my research I seen that magazines of similar genres use very bright colours. I also think this is effective as it stands out and I think that colourful magazines will stand out to younger children.I used lots of pinks and blues when creating my magazine as I found the other magazines also used bright colours. You can also see the magazine on the right uses pinks and blues so I decided I would also do this as I think this looks effective.

Front Cover When doing my magazine the two magazines on the left where two of the front covers I looked at most to get ideas from. As you can see I have used similar colours with the blues and pinks, these are bright and stand out. I have also used the idea of the barcode and price in the bottom left. I have also used the idea of ‘free posters’ at the bottom with small pictures as this is a lure to buy the magazine which would attract my target audience. You can also see on the second magazine the use of pictures on the left of the magazine, I have also used this idea as it adds more to the front cover and fills it out more.

Contents Page When I created my contents page I also looked at the ‘We love pop’ contents page for ideas. I took some points from their contents page such as the pictures with page numbers on, also the title of ‘inside this’ above the contents. However I wasn't’t to fussed on the contents page of ‘We love pop’ as I don’t think it stands out as the contents page to much, so instead I decided to put my main page title as ‘inside this week’ so straight away the reader knows that hat page is the contents page

Double Page

Here you can see there is a double page spread this is from the ‘We love pop’ magazine, when looking to design mine I took some inspiration from this magazine as you can see by looking at mine they are of a similar layout. I have took lots of ideas from this such as the large picture on one side of the page, also a smaller picture in the middle of all the text, I think the other picture in the text is good as it gives the reader a break from reading all the text. I have also used a quote as the main title as makes the audience want to read it as they will want to find out what the quote is about

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

I think the type of institution that would sell my magazine is a company called Seymour. This company also distribute the ‘We love pop’ magazine which is a similar type and genre to my magazine. I think this company would also distribute my magazine as it has had big success with ‘We love pop’ so I think they could also have success with my magazine. I don’t think IPC which are the UK’s leading distributer would be appropriate to my magazine as they tend to distribute different genres such as NME and not Bubblegum pop.

How does your product represent a particular social group?

My magazine represents the social group of younger people who are in to pop music. Although my target audience is both boys and girls I think it edges towards girls a bit as they would be more interested in male pop stars which I have used frequently through out my magazine. So overall I think my magazine represents a social group of young female school girls aged 7-15 who would be interested in young male pop stars and bright colours. I also think my magazine would stand out more to that social group as it uses blues and pinks which are bright that will attract young children and again probably attract more girls than boys as boys will often not be attracted to the pink.

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

From creating this product I have learnt very much about Photoshop. I found the Photoshop software very good, it provided all the tools I needed such as tools to edit photos to make them brighter or darker or crop things out. I think this software was also excellent as it allowed me to do lots of things that Microsoft Publisher would not allow such as changing image contrast and brightness. Also tools such as the ‘spot healing tool’ that allows you to remove things from a picture such as spots or cuts on peoples faces or things in the background. Overall I found Photoshop cs5 a great program and from doing this task I would feel confident using this software again in the future.I also learnt a lot about cameras and realised that different cameras are better for taking pictures than others.If it wasn’t for Photoshop I don’t think that my magazine would look as effective as it allowed me to edit photos to levels that are unnoticeable although it did take lots of time doing it.

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

I have also used blogger when designing my music magazine, this has allowed me to post and share my work and also share ideas with fellow students. I have also enjoyed using Blogger as it is a more up to date, modern way of posting and doing work.

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

After looking back at my prelim task I think I have come a log way. I think my prelim task was vital to do as it really helped me pick up tools on photo shop that I could use when creating my real magazine. However after looking back at the prelim task I realise how much progress I have made, I also now feel confident making the music magazines where as at first I didn’t so I think my skills have really improved.I also think I have improved with the technology after doing my prelim task as I used publisher to create my prelim and used photo shop just for the photos however after doing my prelim I felt confident I could use Photoshop to create my music mag. I also think my skills have got better as on my prelim you may be able to notice where I have edited photos using Photoshop however now on my music magazine it is extremely difficult to know.

What I have learnt since my prelim?

Since doing my prelim task I think my skills have improved hugely, I think after doing research and looking at professional magazines I picked up skills and layout skills. I think my magazine front cover is better than the one in my prelim as it stands out more and has got more going on, where as the prelim task is quite plain and boring where as my magazine is bright and would attract the reader

Overall commentsOverall I enjoyed doing my music magazine task, I found the task interesting especially looking at

different codes and convention of real life media products. By doing this task I have discovered that it is a lot harder than I thought to

create a effective looking magazine. Overall I feel my

magazine is suitable and does meet its target audience I also think with the right research I

have worked well and designed a good realistic product