Evaluation

By Shaareed Ramjaun

INTRODUCTION

For my foundation portfolio I needed to create the following; A music magazine front cover, contents page and double page.

I completed research by carrying out questionnaires and interview. I completed the planning which included analysis photos, layouts and various fonts which lead to my final piece .

Throughout this presentation I will looking through my final pieces and evaluating how I applied my planning, research audience and preliminary to them by analysing specific features.

GENERIC CONVENTIONSIn my research of existing products, I became familiar

with the following generic conventions:

Titles for the magazine name, magazine issue and pages inside such as contents

Images throughout

Layout

Colours

Language

Details such as price, barcodes, dates, website and page numbers.

The title of the magazine, ‘Kerrang’ is in white writing, which is a superior contrast against the white writing. It is slightly covered by the images of the people which shows their significance. The writing is broken which gives it edginess, this makes the text go with the rock theme.

Magazine is a Christmas special; assets such as the cracker and party blower show this, as well as the stars that are scattered randomly on the cover.

Ripped edging on the section looks rough.

Bold, in your face fonts are used that stand out and are easy to read, which suggest the magazine is aimed at a wide age group, from teens to adults.

GENERIC CONVENTIONS

GENERIC CONVENTIONSMy product has used a number of generic conventions including...

I have used different colour schemes throughout my magazine which has came out well. I thought that I should do this when I researched and found it is used on many other already existing magazines

The layout I have used is generic layout as many other products have done the same where the title of the magazine is at the to with the image of the artist taking up most of the room and in the middle.

All the other small generic details such the bar code, issue number and date have all been used on my front cover.

REPRESENTATION

There are several social groups that I can chose to focus on, such as:

The male gender and teenagers/Young adults

Following Burton’s theory, for socially grouped audiences, my music magazine audience will be divided depending on gender, age, ethnicity and education. I have created an urban (Grime, Rap, DnB) magazine so the stereotypical audience would be adolescent (13-20) black males from a lower background and education but other people from different ethnicity, age, gender and class may listen to this music and therefore read this magazine.

APPEALING TO MY TARGET AUDIENCE

There were several ways that I made my magazine appeal to my target audience, such as:

Genre: All urban genres such as grime, rap, dupstep, drum and bass, funky house and reggae/. This is shown from my questionnaire results that the genre of music in the magazine is what makes the audience it, with this in mind I put on my front cover what genres were inside.

Image: For my front cover I wanted to use a close up shot to show emotion and expression, this was also backed up by the results I got from the questionnaire.

Colour: From the questionnaire results it showed that the black and grey scheme was in favour so kept to this but adding red and white for a good contrast.

APPEALING TO MY TARGET AUDIENCE

I have used several articles to link with Dyer’s Theory such as the people who read the magazine may be poor or have a low income so I could offer a competition page so that the audience can win big prizes. My target audience may not have anyone to talk to so I could also offer a solution page to clarify things if there is confusion in the audience.

By using Hartley’s developed idea of how an audience is divided I am planning to follow the following concepts:

Self: The aspirations of my audience include being a ‘music-lover’ and interested in upcoming music events and new artists.

Gender: My audience will be male.

Age group: I want to appeal to adolescences therefore my magazine should include features which attract this audience.

To attract my audience I will use posters around urban places where my target audience are mainly based at. I will also run adverts of magazine station on TV and radio which play the music genres that are also in the magazine.

I have appealed to my target audience by using the correct colours, images and fonts such as using red and black which link to grime music and using to right images to portray different things.

From the results below it shows that I took questionnaires into consideration.

Audience

Questionnaire results

MEDIA INSTITUTIONS

The kind of media institution that might distribute my magazine would be Harris Publications

This is company is relative small so it isn't profit-driven exercise but there is an ideological purpose which they would like to distribute good urban magazines

I would use conventional distribution where it would be printed and sold in shops. I could use digital distribution where I could put in the magazines website or it accessible to download for phones or iPods via an app.

This is the company behind XXL, Scratch Magazine, SLAM Magazine and other rap and hip hop magazines.

Their priorities are distributing magazines to customers around the world.

Target audience: people with an interest in urban culture.

TECHNOLGICAL SIDE

I used several programmes to edit and finish my final pieces such as Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop.

I used Photoshop to edit all my pictures including the front cover pictureI used Paint Shop Pro for my layout and putting all the pieces together such as

where I put the title underneath the main image and sorting out where the smaller text goes such the date and price

There are several techniques I used such as:

Spot healer- air brushing the image/ removes imperfections/ signify variety by which it portrays personality/ emotions.

Contrasting image- Brightening the image-appealing to audience.

Lightening/darkening shadows- Adding intensity or vibrant.

Creating dashed lines and shapes- separates information/easy to read.

Using text written in columns- suggesting formality/ easy to read.

TECHNOLGICAL SIDE

Finished Edited Photo

The final picture had all edits finished such as the vibrancy, exposure and contrasts.

The background has changed and shows a better depth.

Original Photo with use of Spot Healing Tool

As shown nearly or almost the spots have gone, the only negative part about it is that it has left several white or pale patches on the face but I believe this better then the original. It still has not been edited with the other manipulations yet .

Original Photo

With the plain background and non-edited, this is shown by the lack of vibrancy in the background or the person.

Several spots on the persons face so that may edited out as well the shine around the persons face.

Added brightness and contrastBrightness - -42Contrast - 100

Finished with added use of the Spot Healing Brush tool

TECHNOLGICAL SIDE

Original Picture

FROM PRELIMINARY TO MAIN PRODUCT

There was several was I improved my front cover from the initial plan such as I improved the fonts I used were on my final piece I strayed from the already planned house fonts with as I used wanted to change throughout my other pages also. I also made the text smaller whereas seen in the middle image the text took up too much of the room so that when I added the image of the artist it would not be seen as much and wouldn’t be centre of attention as it should be, as it will be the first thing the audience will read

Both products use a colour scheme through out the page (I use purple, white and black where as XXL use white, red and black).

They both use the same image shot of being close up but use contrasting expressions from the artists and this has be done to show how the artist wants to be portrayed in the publics eye.

Both magazines have the same details such as bar code, date and issue number which is needed on my product to replicate already existing products. Also both use the same layout of having a main image surrounded by copy which includes magazine name, magazine title, cover artists name and other articles inside for example.

MY MAGAZINE CONFORMING AND CONTRASTING

FROM PRELIMINARY TO MAIN PRODUCT

I think doing the preliminary helped with several parts of the main product such as the layout, this is shown with the contents page especially. As seen here the difference from the preliminary to the main product is major throughout all parts such as images, colours used and fonts used. This change happened when I looked at already existing magazines to be influenced by then such as which size images are and what images they use.

There are some negatives though such I may of put the text to close to the edges and in a magazine and may to be too close in the bind on a proper magazine

I have a contrasting contents page compared to this already existing product as they use a big image compared and small text around it where I have decided to keep more text and evenly spread with different images. Both are affective in different ways such as mine helps the audience find specific articles

Another contrast is that the already existing product has a small strap line underneath every title for the different pages to help the audience decide which pages they want to read where as on mine I have not put this in but have added a lot more different page for the audience to see.

Both products use a plain background to attract the reader to the images on the page.

Also both have the smaller items which are needed as putting the magazines name on the page somewhere and positing page numbers so that they are easily found.

MY MAGAZINE CONFORMING AND CONTRASTING

FROM PRELIMINARY TO MAIN PRODUCT

As you can see I improved my layout from my initial ideas but I also changed the house style on the double page so that now can relate back to the other two pages (front cover and contents page) which was important as that was key feature of my magazine and already existing magazines.

Looking at my already existing product research, the images take up half or even more room of the double spread, firstly I couldn't find a single image to do this so I used several which I though it took up too much and through the research it showed only one big image was used instead of several smaller ones so I changed this as well which can be seen with the finished piece

MY MAGAZINE CONFORMING AND CONTRASTING

The magazines use different colours for the background, depending how the artist wants to be represented, but in either page the images and text stand out.

Both magazines use a big image which takes up some of the page so it attracts the audience to the image then to the article, it also tells the audience who the article is on. Also equally both magazines use a colour scheme through out the two pages as mine uses white and navy where as the black eyed peas’ used white and gold.

Both use the same layout with one main image being length of the magazine page and also using headlines and pull quotes usual found in all magazines when an interview article is used.