Evaluation - question 5

How did I attract/address my audience?


To attract my audience, I used features that I feel would be appealing to my specific reader.


I chose the genre of inde-rock as my main music genre to feature in my magazine, also with music styles such as classic rock and britpop. I decided to feature these styles, to fully appeal to my audience. As the audience I chose to appeal to are those that are into music, and can appreciate different styles, I feel the music I have included appeals to them, and this is one thing I have done to attract my reader.


Attracting My Audience


When creating my magazine I used different ways to attract my target audience. In my magazine, I included other typical methods in other magazines: Masthead, photos, colours, layout, coverline, price and specific things featured in my magazine (articles, gig reviews). Each of these I manipulated in my own way to effectively appeal to my target audience. Here I will analyse my own magazine, showing how I appealed to my audience.


Colour scheme:

On the front cover and in the contents page I chose the colour scheme to be blue, gold, black and white. I chose my target audience to be on average equal between gender, and I chose this colour sheme because I feel that it is neutral, and does not specifically appeal to males or females, as the blue is quite bright, and the gold contrasts with it, making the blue seem less stereotypically male. The two colours are quite bold as well, and also contrast with the black and white. I did this so the magazine would stand out to my target audience, and when in a shop the audience would clearly be able to read the text.
The colour scheme for the double page spread is a bright peach colour, black and white. The black and white are the more dominating colours on the pages, but the bright peach is bolder, and stands out a lot more. I used this colour in minimal amounts on the two pages, and I used it in contrast to the black and the white to represent the music that is featured in this magazine. The music stands out from the rest, which is appealing to my audience as they are fans of music of this genre.






Photos:

Here are a few of the photos I used in my magazine.
The top right photo, I used on my cover. This photo I feel represents this music genre. The character has a cigarette in her hand, which shows rebellion, and also portrays being able to make your own decisions. The girl is wearing a leather jacket, and unique but contemporary, almost vintage clothes. The girl is also looking down, which helps portrays the some what modesty within this music - they're not in it to be cool, or for the fame; it's just the music that they love. As my audience will be able to relate to this, I feel this will attract them, and this also addresses them too. The photo in the top left is also portraying the music and the target audience, therefore addressing them; a lot of my audience will dress like this, or in their own own fashion similar to this. The girl is also stood with her head to the side, showing the carefree attitude she, and a lot of my audience have. The photo in the bottom right is a photo of a performer singing. I included this in my magazine, because it also shows an aspect of live performances, rather than just staged shots like a lot of the other photos. For the audience I have chosen live music is important to them, and they enjoy this, so I feel this picture would attract them. Portraying the characters/artists in my magazine to be similar to that of my target audience also addresses them - it gets them involved with the magazine, and also portrays their whole style.
The photo in the bottom left is a still shot of my character playing the guitar. Music, and creating music is a big part of my audience's life, and seeing this artist with an acoustic guitar (a common instrument used in this genre of music), will attract the audience in two ways - they will recognise the genre, and again they can relate to the magazine and the character.




Fonts:


Here are examples of the variety of fonts I have used within my magazine:

This font is used on the cover and on the contents page. I have repeated fonts to create a theme, and give recognition to my audience, which will attract them to my magazine; they expect to see this font. This font is quite vintage, and different to plain fonts, but not too fancy or hard to read. This attracts my audience because they are able to read it, but it is slightly edgy, compared to the conventional fonts you see in other magazines.

 This font has been used specifically for the masthead. It is a very simple font, but again it is slightly different to normal text you would find in an article. It is also memorable, so therefore will attract the audience when they next see this, and relate it to the magazine.

This font is very chic and different compared to the others. It is very plain and straight, but is distorted. This is almost like a logo for the artist, and will appeal to the audience, because it is different to the text on the rest of the page, and again will be repeated on the different pages the artist is featured.

This font here I used in my double page spread. It is very simple and straight, but still has a modern feel to it. I feel this appeals to my audience because they are all about this music, and this font is easy for them to read the information about the artist, rather than just look at a cool font.


Price
I chose to price my magazine at £3.50. I felt that this was an appropriate price, because in my research I found that most music magazines are quite expensive, up to £5.00. I could have charged more, but I chose this price, because a majority of my audience are students, and thus not have a lot of money. This price will attract them because my readers are huge music fans, and because they will want to read about music gigs, and artists, then this price will add to the attraction, because it is not very much compared to other magazines I have researched.




Once I had attracted my audience, I then addressed them with both written and visual language:
In my double page spread, I used quite informal language, which helped to address my audience. This informal language addressed my audience by making them feel it was easy to read, and wasn't too heavy with many long pointless words in. I used phrases such as "brand spanking new". This casual phrase addresses the audience by making them feel at ease, and therefore allow them to enjoy reading the article.

Evaluation - Question 4

The Audience of my magazine, are roughly aged 17 - 30, but there also may be older people who will read my magazine, as it will often feature older music, such as britpop and classic rock.


My audience are people into music; many of them will be students studying music, or other courses that involve music in someway, such as music technology, or events management. They will generally have an appreciation for lots of music, rather than just the charts. 


The audience that will read my magazine will also be into music festivals, and live gigs. They may also play in a band themselves, and if so play instruments that make up bands featured in the magazine, instruments including guitars, bass, singing, drums and keyboard.


For the older range of my audience, if they are not students, they may have a career to do with music, whether that be teaching an instrument or a class.


I found pictures of the type of audience I feel would read my magazine. I have used the artist on the front of my cover as an example, but I feel she is a good example of my audience:

 This is an example of my target audience; they play in a band; they're really into music. Notice again the make up of the band - a guitarist, bass player and a drummer.

 This girl is wearing a flower in her hair, a leather jacket, and has her own style. She is also young; this is what my target audience would look like, or this would be their style.

After creating the final product, I feel that my product is suitable for my planned target audience. For my final product, I feel the target audience may be slightly younger, late teens to mid twenties, because there are more contemporary bands, and music festival information, which is generally aimed at the younger generation nowadays.

I feel the class of my target audience is middle class/upper class. The majority of my readership will either be a student, or just into starting work. The fact that they are a student and have gone to university shows they are intelligent, and this makes the readership a higher class.

In the beginning I planned to aim my magazine at both genders, not wanting to be specific about which gender it was aimed at. I feel that I have successfully done this, by featuring a range of different artists and gigs.


I also made a reader's profile or media pack for my magazine, to make my target audience clearer:

This would be found on NBM's website.

Evaluation - Question 1

1. In what way does my media product, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


The conventions of a magazine are things that commonly appear in every type of magazine - each laid out differently but then conventions still the same. Examples of typical magazine conventions would be a masthead, page numbers, fonts, colour schemes, writing style, quotes etc. In my media product I have used many contentions of existing media products to make my product look authentic, but the way I have used these has defined the genre and target audience of my magazine.


The magazines that I analysed presented these conventions in many different ways; depending on the genre of music, audience and type of magazine. Looking at all three, they all have used these conventions in similar ways, all wanting to attract their target audience.


In my work, I followed the convention of putting a masthead. All three of the magazines I analysed used a masthead, and I too followed this convention:

NME; the masthead is in the top left hand corner.

This was my masthead, also situated in the top left hand corner.




The other two mastheads of the magazines I analysed were at the top, but aligned central. Either way, the typical convention of magazines is that the masthead is at the top.




Another convention I followed was using a colour scheme. When analysing products I found that a lot of products stuck to one main colour scheme. For example, Kerrang!'s colour scheme on the cover and the contents page is red, yellow, black and white:

 

Kerrang's contents page also follows the same colour scheme as the front cover:

Again, I have followed this convention - my contents page and front cover have the same colour scheme. However, for all three magazines I also analysed double page spreads, and for all three magazines, the colour scheme was different. I have also followed this convention; the colour scheme of my double page spread is different to that of the cover and contents page.

The same colour scheme; blue, gold, black and white. 

Another convention I have followed is the writing style on the front of the cover. On my cover, I have used short and simple writing style giving the information about the features in short sentences.

This is very simple and down to the point.










Very similar to NME's cover:

NME follows the typical conventions of writing style on the cover. 

Evaluation - question 6

What have I learned about technologies from the process of constructing this product?


The hardware and software I have used in each stage of production:
Research - hardware:
- Computer
Research - software:
- The internet; facebook, surveymonkey, magazine's websites, blogger
- Word
Planning - hardware:
- Computer
- Camera
Planning - software:
- Internet; blogger
- Paintshop Pro
- Publisher
- Word
Production - hardware:
- Computer
- Camera
- Phone camera
- Memory stick
Production - software:
- Paintshop Pro
- Publisher
- Internet; blogger
- Word


Things I have learned through using this technology:
Firstly, I hadn't used a blog before, so I learned how to use this. I created the blog, and then learned how to publish posts, add photos and links which is what I needed to do for this particular blog. As I did more research and planning, I continued to use the blog, adding things as I did more work, and therefore learning about the blog itself.


Another thing I didn't know how to use was Survey Monkey. This is a survey website which allows you to create your own survey, and publish it on different sites to collect responses. With this site, I learned how to create a blog, and then publish it on a website such as Facebook.


When I used the camera, I learned how to adjust the settings to that I got the picture I wanted. I learned how to adjust the brightness and darkness, and also the sharpness of the photo. I also learned how to use the colour setting, allowing the colour to change from black and white, to sepia and so on.


I could not have completed my blog without technology. This business relies on technology - taking and manipulating photos and creating media texts on computer software programs. If I had not used any technology, my media product would not have been realistic at all, and not have been suited to the type of media text it was categorized in.


There were not many pieces of technology I could have done without, but I could have created my product without the program Word, because I could have written my article straight onto my blog, and onto my media product. I could have also done without a phone, because I already had a camera. Otherwise, all the technology I used was necessary. 


The main bit of technology I couldn't have done without is Paintshop Pro. This is where I manipulated my images, and also created the layout and text of the whole magazine. Without this, my magazine would not have been able to have text or different layers of photos on.


The positives of using technology are most of them are easy to use, and the result after using them is far better than if you didn't use them.


The negatives are that technology can sometimes be temperamental, and if you haven't saved your work, or the program crashes, then you will have lost your work.

Evaluation - question 7

Looking back at my preliminary task, what have I learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Since my preliminary task, I have learnt a lot about addressing target audiences while creating a media product, the conventions of typical music magazines for various genres and audiences and also how to use different technologies to create my product.

When I began to create my preliminary task; the college magazine, I did not really address my audience, I just began to make the front cover and contents page without putting much thought into the way it looked, or the way the text was worded. However, after studying many products that relate to my final produce I learned that media texts should address a specific target audience,in the way they are presented; using fonts, colours, writing style to appeal to this audience.

I also learned through my research, and analysing 3 music magazines the general conventions of magazines in general, and also in particular music magazines that matched the music genre I had chosen for my product.


When I began the process of planning to make my full product, I had to go through 3 stages before it could be make, and finished; research, planning, and production.


In my research, I did various things to find out the conventions of magazines. I analysed three other magazines, I created a survey to help me with my audience research and I also looked at the typical audience for other music magazines. When creating my first task the college magazine, I did no research at all, and just began to make the magazine. I have learned that research helps a lot to understand not only the conventions, but being able to aim it at a specific audience and demographic based on these conventions.




When I planned my magazine I went through many processes to make sure that my magazine was thorough, and well though out. I created a pitch giving information on my target audience, flatplans to roughly draft out my magazine layout, a stylesheet to give me various options on fonts and colours, planning photos and writing my article. When creating the college magazine, I put a minimal amount of planning into my work. The result of this was not very good, compared to my final product. Through this planning stage I have learned planning too is very effective when creating work like this too.
I also learned to write articles for the style of music magazines, and the specific target audience. I learned through research and planning whether to use formal or informal language, and I learned how to address my audience through this text.


In the production stage, I feel I learned the most about creating a media text. I learned about image manipulation - changing an image on a computer program, text manipulation and layout design & manipulation.


Here are the things I have learned about manipulation, and using technology in my work:
Firstly, I learned how to cut out an image on paintshop. I used the lasso tool to cut out the person in the photo so she could be on a white background. Before this task I didn't know how to do this, but I learned to do this, and used it a few times with some of the photos I used. I did not use this in my college magazine, I just put the whole picture on the front, and because of this my college magazine does not look as good as my actual product.


Another thing I learned was how to layout my page so that it looked authentic, and would appeal to my target audience. I firstly learned about magazine layouts in my research, and then put this knowledge into my planning - my flatplans. Then when it came to producing the actual product I had an idea of what to do, to make it look properly like a magazine. I feel I progressed from my first task, because although the layout was similar to a magazine, I feel I didn't plan enough, and I hadn't researched fully how magazines were set out, and why.

Contents Page

My Contents Page:

Double Page Spread

My Double Page Spread:

My Magazine Front Cover

My Magazine front cover:

This is my cover for my magazine NBM