Evaluation: Question 7: Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

I think that the main piece of progression as far as this project is concerned is the wide variety of programs I can now use, and use to a high standard, for example below you can see both of my front covers, the preliminary task was completed on Scribus, an open source platform and the main project - the music magazine, was executed on InDesign by Adobe, this meant I could build up my knowledge on the open source platform because at the time it was free and shared many things with InDesign in what I felt was an easier format, but then moving onto the main task in the project meant I could use those skills and improve my knowledge and skill on InDesign. I thought this was a bold move as the rest of my class wouldn't entertain the idea, but I thought it's the best way I felt to progress and get the work done, you can see from both of the covers below that the music magazine (CRDNL - right) looks a lot more professional in design terms than the preliminary college magazine task (Courtyard - left). I also think that my thought process was a little more aiming towards a visually appealing magazine than one that is practical in a college with the college magazine, it shares very few key techniques a magazine needs with the music magazine and no matter how much I look at it I always feel there is something missing from the college magazine, but I feel that as I progressed through the unit and came to design my music magazine front cover all of these problems were addressed.





















Moving onto the contents pages to the left and the right you can see that although the college magazine contents I feel looks better, it again like the front cover looks like there is something missing, there are gaps and it looks unprofessional, whereas I feel my music magazine could pass off to be a real music magazine contents page that is sold in a shop. I feel that the only problem with it is the use of colour for the background, I think it's too bright, and may have needed to be dimmed down a little in photoshop, but again I feel I have progressed a considerable amount from one contents page to the next, using more techniques, codes and conventions in my music magazine contents page than in the preliminary task.

Lastly I feel that I have also progressed in using the internet, with the ability to now use sites like Blogger, Slideshare and Prezi I feel that I can now use the internet for something slightly more useful than taking photos of my dinner on instagram and moaning about my life on twitter. I can now say I would feel completely comfortable setting up my own blog on a subject of my choice, and could use it for work related tasks as well (for example I set up another blog for my AS Law class as part of a group task). I can also see now that all of these methods, particularly Blogger would be a good way in the future to connect with customers if I was to create a business. Overall I would say this whole project was a great success, and I could now say I was a lot more comfortable with technology and may consider website and magazine design in the future as a career.

Evaluation: Question 6: What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? from benmaccers

Evaluation: Question 5: How Did You Attract/Address Your Target Audience

For my magazine to attract and address my target audience of teenagers and young adults I have used several methods. The first is the use of people that are the target audience's age, this means that they can relate to them, it's a lot easier to support an artist and read about artists that are around your age, know what you go through and grow up with you rather than reading about rock stars who had fame years ago telling stories about what life was like when they were around.

It's about modern artists and modern music tastes which helps increase the appeal of the magazine to young people and teenagers. I'm aiming the magazine purely at teenagers and young people for this reason, there is a gap in the market for this genre of music and this type of music, and there are a lot of people this age that would be interested to read about this kind of music. With modern day phenomena like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter being the most popular websites for young people on the internet and Indie and Alternative genre music being increasingly popular on these formats, modern day bands that have utilised these formats would include the Arctic Monkeys and Bombay Bicycle Club as well as many other less well known bands, who use Facebook and similar sites to advertise their upcoming gigs and news, I feel that my magazine reflects and fits into this scene quite well with both the style of the magazine and the content, all of which address and attract the teenage and young person market.

To also attract and address the audience I made sure I included the key codes and conventions of any magazine to make sure that the magazine looked professional and the best it could possibly be. This included things like a clear Masthead and Coverlines that would appeal to the target audience - teenagers and young people, this meant including artists that covered the genre, such as Little Comets, a real band with a small fan base who's album (made up in this case) was featured on the cover, I also included my made up Indie artist -Tom Kane, who both sounds like an indie artist and dresses like one too. The image on the front cover, contents page and double page spread are very important to suit the genre, Tom, a good friend of mine and also a media student would describe his dress sense as fairly individual and independent, the key characteristics of an artist in the indie genre. Althogether this created a convincing magazine, one of which where all of the individual parts of the magazine came together and suited the genre perfectly.

Evaluation: Question 4: Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?

The link for my 'Prezi' document is below:

http://prezi.com/-vljbz7ipdq8/who-would-be-the-audience-for-your-media-product/

Evaluation: Question 3: What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Media Product And Why?

There are two methods of distribution and publishing that my magazine could undergo, one would be digital publishing and distribution. This portion of the market is quite hazy and unclear as no one and no single company have made a considerable amount of money through a method of receiving a digital magazine like you would print, just obviously in a digital format, this is because this method faces the problems that 'How do you charge for something that people can get elsewhere but in a slightly different, more efficient and cheaper method?' and 'What am I giving to the audience/customer that they couldn't normally get with a webpage?'. Both of these issues are what is stopping someone getting a high circulation and high sales from the online magazine method. Instead many businesses like The Times newspaper and The New York Times have a pay-wall for their online website content, this has proven effective as both newspapers are still the most popular news websites in the world, and continue to make a large amount of profit from something that isn't advertising or print newspapers.

Bauer Media Group Factfile

• Operates in 15 countries worldwide
• Headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany
• Employ 6,400 people worldwide
• Serve the USA, Russia, Europe and Asia
• A worldwide circulation that amounts to 38 million people a week
• Had a pre-tax profit of £228 million in 2012, a fall from 2011 (£246 million)
• Turnover of around €2 Billion
• Produces over 570 newspapers, 300 digital products and 50 radio and TV stations worldwide
• Produces 3 music magazines here in the UK: Kerrang!, Q magazines and MOJO magazine, all three are hugely popular and achieve a circulation of over 45,000 an issue, with MOJO and Q achieving over 80,000 copies an issue in circulation.

For print media, which is the most likely and most traditional method of publishing and distribution for my magazine I would choose Bauer Media Group. At the moment they publish Kerrang!, Q magazine and MOJO, which are their three music magazines. All three have different genres of music that they try to reach for an audience, and are all very successful magazines, more so than NME magazine, which is what makes Bauer more appealing from my point of view. 

Another thing that makes Bauer one of the best options for distribution of my magazine is that they already distribute 3 magazines successfully, one of them is genre specific, which is Kerrang!, and two that are on popular music, one aimed at an older population, MOJO but cheap(-er) and has stories more on Paul McCartney than Justin Bieber, and then Q, which is a high quality magazine, which is fairly up-market and expensive is also aimed at the slightly older population and mature audiences, it's a magazine that IS NOT aimed at teenagers and young adults, so anywhere from the ages of 30+. This shows that they have a gap in the market for the Indie genre, a perfect example of a big Indie band would be Arctic Monkeys, who have featured very rarely on any of the magazines because of the target audience and the genre of the magazine. It also means that Bauer are lacking in targetting the teenage audience, with the Indie genre becoming one of the most popular genres amongst teenagers it would make sense for Bauer to move into that sector, and I feel that my magazine would be perfect for this gap in the market.

Although Bauer would be a great choice it could also be a bad one. Where Bauer is one of the biggest publishers in the media industry for magazines and other forms of media there is the high chance that the magazine could lose it's personal image and become a lot more corporate and a profit maker rather than a passionate magazine, doing what it set out to do from the start. This is a minor issue and is something that can't be said about just Bauer, in every industry in the world it is a possibility for the small company to be swallowed up by the big giant, it's something that either happens or not depending on who the parent company is and how they are run, Bauer seem to keep all of their individual subsidiaries fairly tight both financially and from a production point of view, creating good, solid products.

Evaluation: Question 2: How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups? from benmaccers

Evaluation: Question 1: In What Ways Does Your Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products

In both my magazine and the NME magazine featured above there are several forms and conventions which I think my product has used, developed from and challenged.

The first few examples of forms and conventions that I have used in my magazine are the obvious things such as the Masthead, the use of coverlines, barcode, a 'plus' bar along the bottom, all of which make my magazine seem more legitimate and make it seem like a real magazine that is on sale. On the other hand there are several things that are missing from my magazine that NME has, the first main thing is the 'WIN!' bubble, my magazine doesn't feature anything you can win, and the other thing I think my magazine could do with is a bright banner, showing off and grabbing the attention of the reader as to what is currently in the magazine, especially as in NME the cover is mainly black, white and red, so the yellow text at the top in large lettering certainly helps to improve the ability of the magazine to grab the potential audiences attention when they are looking at the shelf. Another thing that both my magazine and the NME product shown have in common is the use of a black and white image. I feel that this was essential to get the required look for my magazine, which was aiming to get an old school look whilst getting the indie feel, I feel that my magazine did this successfully while also using forms and conventions of a real media product.

I think that as far as development is concerned my magazine doesn't build on many points that the current NME product does, but nevertheless there are still a few. The first main point being that I feel NME's logo and design is fairly outdated, having the same masthead and logo since 1978 (albeit with slight variations to get to today's masthead/logo). I feel that my masthead/logo is something new and fresh, and the versatility and simplicity of the logo/masthead means that I can use it almost anywhere.

In my opinion my magazine challenges the NME product on several different levels, and this time it is more focused on the contents page. The NME contents page is very bland, using only black and white, with a little bit of red, this makes the information cluttered and isn't particularly easy to read, yes the titles with the black highlight and the white text is very effective, and do make it a little easier to find information, but I still feel it is very cluttered. The slight use of red makes it a little easier, but even then I think there is too much information on the page split into too many different categories, I feel that mine is simple, ordering the information by their page number, having the beginning of the magazine at the top, and the back of the magazine at the bottom. I also feel that using a large image and using the front cover to describe and show what the main feature of the magazine is links both the cover and the contents a lot better, whilst at the same time making it easier to find the main feature of the magazine - in the magazine. The idea of using the front cover as a small image in the contents page came from an issue of FHM, which had a description with the cover next to it, I felt that this added more of an impact to the page, and visually improving it, having less in the way of words and more in the way of images.

 As far as the double page spread goes I feel that mine is a vast improvement and challenges the NME double page spread to the left. I think the first point are the colours used, although Oasis are seen as an old school grungy and outgoing band, that don't really do modern talk, I don't see a reason why the colours need to be so bland, the browns and blacks in the photography make the whole double page very bland and unappealing to a teenage audience, this is where I feel my double page spread for my magazine - Cardinal, is a lot better, because I was also going for the old school look, with the 'no modern talking' attitude, and I think I achieved it with a few visual attachments, that weren't originally meant to be there, the first example are the little Ramones inspired logos, it was a spur of the moment thing when I was working on the page, I saw the opportunity and put a British twist to it, using the three lions and Tom's made up stage name, whereas on the NME page there isn't much like it, they have the '2013 long range forecast' badge, but it doesn't bare much relevance to Beady Eye and Liam Gallagher. I feel that the direction of both my magazine and NME is also reflected in both of these covers and other small hints as well. For some reason NME feel the need to report everything from 'Beady Eye', 'Noel Gallagher', 'Liam Gallagher' and any possible opportunity for an Oasis comeback, whereas my magazine is reporting on something different every week, it is very versatile, which is the main challenge that my double page spread is making against NME, it's new, different, and isn't repeating itself.