Lauren Fitzsimons

Media evaluation

Question 1 • My media products use a lot of the existing conventions because I thought if I wanted to create that of a successful profession finish I would have to use the

features of the real magazine industry. The conventions I used on my products included a wide range spanning from – (on the front cover) a large mid shot image however I challenged the convention of have it directly in the middle and decided to place it on the right hand side playing with the rule of thirds – which makes the image attract attention straight away. I also challenge the conventions of having the image in black and white with the colour bubble gum this is not usually seen within the magazine industry as they have an all colour image and black and white is rarely used. I thought my choice to abandon the convention picture on the front cover was a successful choice because this makes the cover lines more appealing and goes with the theme of the convict. I have followed the conventions of the cover lines but have challenged them by putting them in pastel colours as in traditional conventional magazines they would use bold colours my choice to choose this I think helps tie in the master head. Other conventions I have used on the front cover is the use of the date, price and barcode this is a commonly used feature and I thought this was very important and couldn’t make a professional looking magazine without it. The size of the master head is also very conventional although it looks like it consumes most of the page this is what a professional magazine would have. The conventional language used in magazines I researched this and found that they would use words such as ‘exclusive’ and ‘reveals all’ I have used these too to create plugs to people would be attracted to the magazine. My favourite used conventions in the existing media products is the bottom bar which normally includes plugs such as ‘interviews, posters, free tickets’ I liked this so I added it to my own magazine. Promotions which are normally a common feature used by media products ones such as ‘win a ticket to Spain’ I used on of these but made it more relevant to my music genre such as ‘win meet and greet’ and ‘win popsicles tickets’. Conventional features used within my contents page were columns I used two here the page numbers and the content is explained I separated the columns with stars this however is not conventional because I haven’t saw a magazine that does this but I thought I should because of the audience of my magazine is to the younger generation. I also tried to add the conventional trademark stamps next to the band names to make it look like they actually existed. The contact information usually at the bottom of the contents page is a conventional feature to my magazine I have added in it includes the Facebook logo and the information to email your stories. The images I used on my contents page aren’t conventional I have used a scanned in baby picture of the model on the front as I am doing a look back on the past theme for my double page spread – I think this non-conventional feature was a good choice because I think that the theme of the double page spread isn’t a commonly done thing to start off with. I have also added a non-conventional image of a urban environment I decided that I would added the urban genre in to appeal to more of a wider audience still girly urban music though. The conventional feature of carrying out the colour scheme from the front cover to the contents page I have used I carried the lime green and baby pink thought out the contents page which I think looks effective and like the pieces match together. My double page spread uses a variety of conventions it however also goes against quite a lot of them too foe example there isn’t a main image of the cover star instead I have used old pictures that link to the theme of going back to the begin to tell their background story. I have also used the language of a real media product for the title I used alliteration to help the title flow better ‘Cheyenne’s childhood chance’ I wanted it to look like a fairy-tale title so I used girly writing this is a commonly used feature in a magazine aimed at my target audience. I have used the conventional overused enlarged quote when doing a interview ‘ I’ve got a number one single I am so very aware of that’ . I have gone against most conventions for my double page spread however I kept some conventional features such as the boxes when the signer have realised there tour dates I have noticed that they do this a lot they include the dates and the numbers of the arenas they are playing in. I have also kept the overused feature of the enlarged letter at the beginning of the paragraph to introduce the piece.

Date of issue and date Quotes from interviews

Cover lines

Competitions advertised.

Barcode

Plug

Master head Conventions

Front cover

This is an editors letter

Front cover

Website advert

Page numbers to go to 80

Contact details

Conventions

Contents page

Conventions

Double page spread

Information Paragraph introducing the interview.

Column's

Boxes separated to make questions stand out

Title going over two pages

Question 2• I have represented my target audience of 16-20 teenage girls I choose this because I fit into this

category and would know what people my age would like – chosen by my research and planning i kept this in mind when I was creating my magazine and I developed the constant intention that I was making it for these people so I used a range of things to appeal and represent them. The things I added top represent them was the colour scheme I wanted it to be a girly colour so instead of just keeping to the one I added the fruity fresh colours of green and pink together I wanted this to tie in with the master head ‘juice’. The language that was used was also to represent the target audience I wanted to have a gossip/ style element to the magazine even though a music magazine this is what teenage girls are interested in things such as ‘get Cheyenne’s look’ which I have used in my cover lines. The use of props on the cover star I also had in mind my target audience I have used a flamingo and ice lolly’s which have bright girly colours on I thought these would appeal to the teenage market. When adding the price I thought the amount of money that the teenagers would be willing to spend on a magazine like mine so I settled on £2.90 as a reasonable price. I have also used a lot of language and things that would appeal to my target audience in the contents page for example ‘the dangers of earphones’ earphones are very popular among my age group and this would definitely apply to them as well as ‘young wild and free’. The colour scheme on my double page is linked to the police theme so it has the police banners which are blue and yellow with black this colour scheme is followed through from the front cover as she is placed in black and white.

Question 3

• I think places such as the web might distribute my magazine and I think this because of my audience they are teenagers and many of them spend their time on the internet so I think if it was to be sold the internet would be the best place or maybe a PDF digital copy would do quite well. I think maybe some shops I could see it being sold there I think the shops that specialise or sell fashion or a normal music shop with magazines of the same genre. Places such as WHSmith and Tesco’s would distribute they would sell it on the shelf on the newsstand with the similar magazines.

Question 4 • The audience for my magazine would be in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

would be the belonging category this is how I worked out the sort of audience I would be catering for it would also be the demographic of aspirers these are typically younger people who prefer the branding and how it looks rather than the content from that I noticed I would be needing to pay close attention to the small details to create an aesthetically pleasing magazine. I would like to think that the audience is a active audience that they would use my media products for their purposes. My audience didn’t change through the process because I think I had a good insight into what my target audience would want as they are the same age and gender as me. Because I could relate to the target audience this made it easier to aim towards creating a magazine and relate to them as I knew what I would like so I just transferred this when constructing my magazine. I decided to choose the target audience I the knowledge that I would get to design a magazine that I would buy and read so I would say my choice in designing it is very heavily influenced on personal experience.

Question 5• I attracted my audience by using a variety of different features these included the main image on the front

of the magazine which included of the cover star Cheyenne dressed in a convict fancy dress costume blowing bubble gum. This image was very young and fresh looking as well as girly. The theme of the convict would also appeal to the target audience because it’s different to any other themes existing magazines would do. The image being all black and white and the pink bubble would definitely appeal to them as its current and new and adds a sense of originality. The colour scheme of the magazine logo ‘juice’ I also think would appeal to the audience because the colours are very girly and they relate to the juice words of theme. The colour scheme also runs through to the contents page so theme isn’t lost. The price which is placed onto the front of the magazine cover would also appeal to the target audience I did price it in mind that teenage girls aren’t going to want to spend more than £3.00 on a magazine so I made the price an ecological £2.90 to be cost efficient. The features I have advertised on the front of the magazine would appeal to them as well because I added a ‘get Cheyenne’s look’ and 16-19 year old girls are really interested in fashion and the story behind the star like a gossip type features as well that’s why I think that my features do appeal to the audiences. My double page spread was the thing that I think would attract the audiences the most for example the article is about the cover stars background story from childhood but with a twist of having her on ‘lockdown’. This is the sort of background story that teenage girls would like to know about the language is also changed to suit them as its very colloquial and chatty like. The types of questions that the double page spread asks would also appeal as they are very glamorous and money orientated. The amount of acts featured would attract my target audience because they read to find out about them and their upcoming music. Also again because teenage girls don’t have a lot of money either the ‘money off juice’ feature would attract them to save themselves money.

This is my masthead I made this in in illustrator I chose this one to go on my front cover.

These were my two final choices in the end I chose the one at the top as I thought it would appeal more to my target audience.

This is my unedited photo which I chose to use on the front of my cover I chose this because I thought it would appeal to my target audience.

Because of my developed Photoshop skills I was able to transform a normal image above to this one which I used masks to create and coloured in her chewing gum to create this effect.

This is one of the photos I didn’t use but was a unsuccessful photos so I thought it was best not to put it on my front cover.

Question 6 • The technologies I used was photo shop to create my front page and my content’s page I used in design to create

my double page spread. When I first started this project I didn’t know how to use any of these programmes but now I know how to use variety of different ways to manipulate images and create things such as shapes, cropping, text, masking, how to adjust images like to change it to black and white and change colour balance levels. I also used illustrator to create my ‘juice’ logo this was very hard to use as I thought it was a little too complicated. The collaborative software such as Photoshop layers enabled me to design text and shapes on different layers so it made it easier to move and delete layers without destroying the whole thing. The masking I used on my main image and this wouldn’t have been possible without the collaborative software. It was necessary to manipulate the images because without changing my main image my front cover would have just looked normal with the manipulating you can design/make something unique. Editing or manipulating also helps better the quality of some images like the main image of my cover start I think looks better in black and white because of the theme rather than colour without editing I wouldn’t have been able to try this out and experiment. I also manipulated the board on the main image because I had drawn on with a pen it wasn’t very clear so I used the spray can and used black to go over it and make it look better to the camera. The only other thing I changed with the image is when the image was all together I wanted the girl to be cut out so I used the pen tool and inversed selected it so all I was left with was her and the background deleted. To document all my progress I used other technology such as word press I created my own blog and every time I changed something new I would upload it onto my account in order to make the presentation more presentable and suitable I used other technologies within this. Other technologies I used within the word press account was slide share on many occasions I made power points then uploaded them to slide share and the eventually uploaded them to word press. Other presentation like sides was Prezzie.com this is a interactive service which allows you to make a virtual tour of your work it’s a version of a fancy PowerPoint. To upload videos I made in my research and planning I used YouTube to upload my videos after I had documenting me making my interviews.

I found out what my target audience would like by making a questionnaire: these are some of the questions asked…

This was created on adobe in design programme.

Here I am making the police tape that has run as a theme throughout my project I have used Photoshop to make these – here these are my different versions of the tape at the end I chose to use the bottom two.

Here I have also used Photoshop to complete my front cover of the Juice magazine

Question 7 • Looking back when I first started to make my first task until now I noticed that I have

developed my technology skills in Photoshop because I had used it so much. When I cut out my images on my first task I had cut them out using the rubber this looked messy but when I had developed my skills so on my cores work I used my skills to cut it out using the pen tool and reversing the selection to delete everything but the person. The writing and text in the first task was also very simple and not thought of whereas in my cores work I used illustrator to design my own master head which was more complex. The images on my first task were also taken really unprofessionally they were blurry and not posed for whereas the image on my from page the costume was planned and I had taken it so it was clear and focused this made an overall difference on the outcome of the cores work. On the first task I also didn’t really take into consideration the small details but on the coursework I researched existing magazines in depth down to the language used to construct articles and the format and layout they used. The differences between the construction of the first task and the cores work task was that the text layers in the coursework construction had to be all varied and all different with different sizes the text and size of the first task is all the same this doesn’t look effective. I also had to design a logo which it would run throughout the development of my magazine.

This is my first task made using Photoshop at the beginning of the year

For my first task I made two versions this is the one I thought was better.

This is my first task and this is my contents page