MEDIA EVALUATION

Question 1

Eleanor Birtles

Question 1In what ways does your

media product use, develop or challenge forms

and conventions of real media products?

For my front cover of my magazine I wanted a logo that was a similar size to the Q magazine logo, I wanted a logo a bit like this because it is a clear representation of the magazines name and it provides a

recognisable logo that is easy for the readers to identify. My first initial idea for the logo was the jukebox logo shown below, I liked this logo

To start of with as I believed that it reflected the genre and the name of the magazine very well, however I later went on to change my mind in the fact that this logo wasn’t the one I wanted to put on my magazine. I then developed my ideas further and came up with the logo that I have used for my final magazine design. I like my final logo a great deal more

As I think it looks more professional and it could be similar to a logo that would be featured on a real music magazine. By developing my masthead ideas throughout the process of making my media product I have consistently been able

To develop my ideas in order to come out with a successful outcome. My inspiration for the logo was a neon sign that were often seen in diner’s where jukebox’s were so I thought that the name supports the reasoning behind the looks of the logo.

I knew that I wanted my two band members from Epileptic Daydream on the front because I had originally discovered the NME magazine cover of Alex Turner and Miles Kane (featured on the right) .bearing this in mind theimage that I originally had on my front cover was a mid shot of my

models (featured top left) which is similar to the NME cover, however I didn’t like the way that the image looked, as a result ofthat I decided that I wanted to change it to a different image, the image below is what I came

up with the second time round, although this image was a lot more awkward to cut around, I felt that it was worth I as think that the vibes that you get from this image fits my Rock and Roll genre a great deal more than the first image, however the second image that I chose to use for the final edition of my contents page isn’t that similar to the NME front cover I have still got my two band members from Epileptic Daydream on the front cover and I have also shown clearly that it is a music magazine through the use of props. Again I have shown how I have developed my ideas again because I have not used my original image but I have used my practical skills and developed my first ideas into something I believe has more potential and reflects my genre better, in the same way I did with the logo designs.

The cover line for my magazine contains a small piece of information about one of the featured stories that is in my magazine. The colour of the strapline fits in well with all of my other conventions on the front cover and the overall magazine covers colour scheme.

The plug for my magazine is important because it informs the audience of another key bit of information that is important to the reader and it is also designed in a way that adds more detail to the front cover with out it looking to crowded or messy. I wanted a different colour for the plug as I thought that it would draw more attention to the additional information (Top image)

I also have a promotional voucher that I have made in

Photoshop, the voucher could be classed as a plug or as a

sticker. But this also contains extra information about

things you can win in the magazine it is good to have

one of these on the front cover as it attracts and

persuades the reader to but the magazine because there is

a good freebi that you could win. (Bottom image)

The barcode is something that is always featured on magazine publications. Usually the issue number, release date and price is featured in a space above or below the barcode. The barcode to the left is from the music magazine ‘KERRANG’

The price is also a key piece of information that my magazine must contain as it is highly important that the audience must clearly know the price of the magazine or they might be put off from buying my media product

The date that the magazine was published on is a component of great importance as this is something that all magazine MUST have, so I had to make sure that this was something that was easily recognised and featured on my magazine.

From conducting my focus group I found, what my audience thought the colour scheme should be for the magazine. The colour scheme that the focus group voted that would fit best and reflect my genre the most for the magazine, was silvers, greys and pinky-purpley colours. So throughout the magazine I have made sure that these colours have been the most dominant and appeared the most all the way through the magazine.

The unique selling point for a magazine is something that you think makes your magazine unique. Such as the Price, an offer or an artist type?

The unique selling point of my magazine is the give-aways because the majority of Rock and Roll magazines don’t normally give out promotional gifts, or competitions, however I incorporated these into my magazine because, when I conducted my focus group, the audience all said that they would prefer and be more attracted to my magazine if there was a promotional gift, or competition that they could compete in. They said that this would persuade them to buy my magazine over the usually Rock and Roll magazines that didnt have goodies to give away.

The main inspiration I used for my contents page was from the following two contents pages, they are both from music magazines

that are not completely focused on Rock and Roll but often both features this genre in their magazine.

The NME contents page is where I based my ideas for the columnsfor the magazine. I chose this contents page because I liked the waythat each genre was neatly set out and specified under a sub-title.

My magazine contents page also has the subscription box in a similar place (bottom right).

My contents page is also fairly similar to this contents page too. However I believe that there aren’t as many similarities as the other

contents page above. Although both pages only have one main image which is one of their featured stories, I chose not to

just have one main image, instead I wanted to have my main feature story (Epileptic Daydream) as the largest image on the contents page and

then some other smaller that were from the other sub-sections on the page, so I had one from the ‘WHAT’S HOT’ section one from the ‘POSTERS’ section and two from the ‘FEATURES’ sub-section. A

component that isn’t on either of the magazines is the follow us text boxI wanted to put this on my magazine cover as it is something that is on

all of the high achieving exemplar material from last year.

The colour scheme has again stayed the same on my contents page, because I want the wholemagazine to flow, and look like it fits together well which I believe it has because the colours are all very similar, if not the same. This is good because you would be able to tell that all of

my pages actually came from my magazine, this is something that a real magazine must considerin order to look attractive, it also makes it more appealing to the reader because then everything

just slots into place. So by having the same colours as the front cover, the contents page looks attractive because they go well together.

The editors letter is something that is of key importance on a magazine contents page as all of the magazine I looked into for my research, all had a editors letter on their contents pages

so I knew that this was something that HAD to be included on my contents page. The editors letter/note contains, a bit of information where the editor can interact through the magazine

to the readers. The editors note for the majority of magazines has a small image of the editor, so again this was something I wanted on my magazine. Another component that I

wanted to add to my editor’s note was a ‘quote of the month’ this is something that isn’t normallyon a magazine contents page, but I liked the idea of having a small quote, so I incorporated

this into my magazine as well.

When I did my research on double paged spreads I knew immediately after that I didn’t want the mage on one page and the text on the other, like I had seen for the majority of all other doublepaged spreads, I wanted an image that the text could slot in around the main image, I then had

to work on getting a good image that would look good blown up, to fit the whole two pages.I think that my image managed to do this, because I believe that it looks good, I also think that

by having the text slotting in around the image, it provides the spread with a unique look which Is what I was going for as I didn’t want my image to be very samey and extremely similar to other

double paged spreads. I wanted it to stand out. Through the use of the image I used I think that I have accomplished this. The research for the double paged spreads helped me a great

deal because if I hadn’t of completed the research then I wouldn’t of developed my own opinions about how I wanted my double paged spread to look.

I have used various fonts on my double paged spread as I noticed that this was something that all double paged spreads had, I have used one font for the actual article, one for the title of the

band, one for the introduction and one for the pull quote, I think that by having a varied font choice it makes the page a lot more interesting for the reader. It also draws more attention to

important parts of the article.

By having the drop cap, I have ensured that my double paged spread is similar to other examplesof music magazines spreads, I have also ensured this by using a pull quote, another way in which

I have developed my ideas to make my magazine similar to other media products, is the typeof article. Question and Answer articles are very common amongst double paged spread so I knew

that this was something that I wanted for my article for my own double paged spread.