Evaluation for Preliminary Task

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Before making my media product, I had already done some research into existing products to see what layouts/fonts/styles were used, and to see what was popular. By doing this, I was able to compare real life magazines together, and was able to see how many different types of these fonts and styles were used. I took note of the most common colour schemes and fonts within my genre, and used developed these to ensure that my magazine would be popular if it were to really be sold. I also looked at the different conventions of the magazines; such as the masthead, straplines, puff, coverlines, main sell and genres, and added these to my magazine to ensure the reality was believable. I used a Medium Close-Up of a female student as my background of the magazine, as it is the type of target audience that I was hoping to reach out to, therefore; they will be able to connect with the image, and pick up the magazine to read. As this is popularly done in many magazines aimed at the same target audience as I, I believed that this also uses the conventions of real media products.


Who Would Be the Audience For Your Media Product And How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

The audience of my magazine would be students; both male and female, and would be between the ages of 16 and 19. Their psychographic scale would be either aspirers (because they would be at college to get educated to become wiser than they already are) or achievers (because they would be at college to push and challenge themselves, in order to become something later in life). Their social values would be hedonists, as college is about enjoying life and working now, but could also be post-materialists, as they would be at college to get educated, in order to achieve later in life and fulfill their dreams. On the Jicnar scale, the audience would be at college, but their parents would be between A and C2.
My audience would also need to be interested in music, as it is a music magazine, and be remotely interested in fashion, also. I attracted by audience by having a Medium Close-Up of a college student as my background, as the audience will be able to connect with the model, as they are also students. The model is posing in a fun way, (by making a 'Roar' pose) which can be reflected in the fact that the audience are still at college, and are hedonists. The title of my magazine is 'Induce' which is a denotation of the word 'fun', which again, emphasises the type of audience which should be attratced to my magazine. I also addressed my target audience by using the color scheme of Black, White, Red and Green, which are all popular in real magaiznes also adressing the same audience as me. The colour Red denotes fun, but also stands out and is eye catching to the audience. It is also an unisex colour, and appeals to both sexes, making the possible audience wider. The colour Black is a basic colour which contrats with the Red. Although this colour appears to be attractive to only the male audience, real magazines such as Kerrang! also use Black for headlines, and attracts both male and female audiences. I only used the Black for headlines, as I believed that too much of this colour would actually weaken the potential audience, and only focus on the male audience. White is also a plain colour, which is why I only chose to use this on the Contents page pf my magazine, as it doesn't take the eye off the contents of the magazine. I also used Green as I believe that the contrast between the colour and Red, made the magazine colourful but simple enough to read. The colour Green also connotes youth, which is the target audience for the magazine. It also connotes learning, nature and well being, which I believe are all reflected within the magazine. (Learning is reflected in the mfact the target audience are still at school and the nature is relfected in the background of the magazine, which the photo is shot outside.)


What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

Whilst constructing this product, I have been using new technologies such as Photoshop, Quark Express and DSLR cameras, to help me with my final product. Photoshop was used in making my front cover. Although I had never used this programme before, I found it reasonably easy to use and would definately use it again as I believe that it has helped me get the look which I was hoping to achieve on my front cover. I used Photoshop to edit my image; such as removing any inperfections of the skin of my model, and adding text to the magazine. In order to do this, I had to grasp the use of different layers, which I found a little hard to do at first, but after a little practise, soon understood.
I used Quark Express to create my Contents page of the magazine. I found this programme slightly intimidating at first, as it is more professional than Photoshop. After using it for a while however, I was able to understand the basic concept of the programme, and it became easier and easier to use. I would use this programme again, but I believe that I would need a little more time understand the rest of the programme beforehand, not only the basic steps of the programme.
I also used a DSLR Camera to take the main pictures for my product. Again, I had not used a camera as professional as this before, and took a little time to get used to the variety of settings before taking my photos. In the end, I used the portrait setting to put the main image into focus, and the background slightly blurred. I used this look because it was the model which I wanted in focus, but did not want her alone as she would have looked odd. Instead, I used the background as the scenery was beautiful, and it represented nature, which is a denotation of the colour Green, which was one of my main colours for the product. I would definately use one of these cameras again in the future, as the different setting and features make the camera easy and simple to use, but successful in the finishing product.
I also used Blogger to publish all of my work on, as it is easy to use, and it means that my teachers can view it anytime without me needing to add my username/password in.