Evaluation

 

A)     It has always been a convention of British music magazines to place the masthead on the left. Take a few older British magazines such as NME or Q (listed below).

   

  These magazines have the masthead on the left to make them easy to spot in a magazine rack. However I did not feel this was necessary as by simply looking at half the masthead, people should be able to recognise. What makes my masthead stand 

 out is the “X” which has blood pouring from it. Lucky for me, the X is on the left meaning it will stand out even in a magazine rack. The colour red is synonymous with magazines, hence the reason I have decided to make red one of the primary colours of my front cover. Red is known as a colour that grabs attention and appeals to the “Rock audience”. I have stuck to the conventions of a rock magazine logo by making it look very rough, similarly to the Kerrang logo.   

B)     My main image displays a mid shot of Lukis Stankavichus, a post hardcore “screamo” artist. The mid shot is just enough for you to see his torso, and his hang gesture which embodies then genre of music my magazine would fall under. I decided to go with the convention as it quite simply looked the best. I feel the mid shot was just close enough to draw attention to his face. When people see the face he is pulling, in particular the audience I am targeting I believe they would be more persuaded to buy the magazine. If the shot were further away, people may have trouble seeing what artist is on the front cover. Many magazines use this convention for the same reason; audiences need to easily see who is on the front cover. 

C)     The convention of having cover lines on front covers of magazines will never change. Cover lines, along with the main article, are what convinces people to buy the magazine. However magazines tend to list several unrelated cover lines whilst I essentially listed a big feature in my magazine. It’s common to list artists who are playing a festival in a magazine as a main article, but rarely ever as a side cover line this challenging the convention. I decided to not make it my main cover line as I feel it’s better to only to reveal a few artists as a cover line, as many readers may be too young for the festivals or just not interested. However, Sonisphere in particular is perhaps the biggest date in the rock calendar; it would be foolish to completely ignore it. Having attractive cover lines is key as they are normally the second thing that is read (Masthead being the first). The cover lines are what will make the audience decided whether or not they would like to spend money on the magazine. 

 

D)     A number of magazines place several images around the front cover. This is done in order to reel in a larger audience, as they show several bands/artists thus appealing to more people. I have challenged this convention by putting two images of the same person on the front cover. The second image is an album cover, which would cause a vast amount of controversy. I felt it suitable to relate a side image to the main image, letting the audience know that there will be a large amount of information on Lukis. Anyone who is a fan would undoubtedly pick up this magazine, hence the reason I decided to develop the convention of placing side pictures on the front cover. 

Question 2:

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

              My magazine is aimed at both males and females, primarily from the ages of 16- 20 and normally Caucasian. My audience tend to have an alternative music taste, and do not like mainstream. Their different music taste is reflected in every aspect, from the clothes they wear to their attitude. The front cover shows a typical reader of the magazine, the long, black and styles hair is a clear indication that they listen to our genre of music. I expect a large number of my audience to have “unconventional” piercings, such as the lip ring on the front cover. Many bands and listeners wear lots of black, as are the people featured in my magazine creating the unity which brings rock listeners together. In many ways, the people featured in my magazine are stereotypical readers, with long dyed black hair, lip rings and black clothing. This fashion trend continues with a large number of bands.

 

The expression of Lukis on the front cover is somewhat similar to the expression pulled by a member of From First to Last; furthermore the singer has “snakebites” something that has grown very popular within the rock culture. The facial expression along with either snakebites or just one lip piercing gives off the whole attitude, the “I don’t care” way of life. This very easily can be reflected on the readers, as many of them are teens who are looking for a platform to rebel. The look gives them an identity, which the magazine embodies through the artists. The entire font layout of the magazine is common with many rock magazines. The traditional rock magazine look is a very hard, grungy font with certain sophistication. The hardness to the font accompanies the rage many of the angry, teenage listeners may be feeling, without it looking childish.

Question 3: 

What kind of media institution might distribute your media work and why?

I would like IPC to distribute my magazine mainly because I feel they would have more than enough to distribute my magazine as they are owned by Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world who. Having IPC would make the best distributers not only because of their multinational success, but because my main rivals “Kerrang” are published by Bauer. It doesn’t make sense two very similar magazines to be published by the same institution, moreover Bauer mainly publish magazines aimed a slightly younger audience. IPC have experience with music magazines as they publish NME, one of the UK’s biggest music magazines. Although NME may be seen as competition for Experience, the style of music is very different. Furthermore, the connections I could make through IPC would help bring in a larger audience. For example, IPC own Mousebreaker - a gaming site. Research indicated that my audience are heavily into computer games, and i could gain extra revenue through advertising Mousebreaker.

Offering a subscription service would be a great idea as many people prefer to be subscribed to magazine and have it delivered straight to their door. There is a lot less hassle involved in a subscription, as opposed to going out and buying the magazine every so often. People rarely ever feel like they are actually paying when subscribed to a magazine as only a small fee gets removed from their back account every week/month. Many magazines offer prizes with subscriptions, this draws people in to subscribing through the enticement of a prize and is exactly what I intend to do.

Experience will sell at a mere £2.99, making it available to just about anyone, especially teenagers. 

Question 4:

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Experience is targeted at an international audience, whilst leaning towards British and American societies as the vast majority of the bands featured in my magazine are either British or American. The main ages I targeted are between the ages of 16-20 seeing as the newest generation of rock seems to appeal to these ages. However, I haven’t forgotten about the older generations. I targeted an older audience through the inclusion of bands such as Metallica and Slayer. These bands may not attract a large number of my primary audience, but it would certainly attract an older audience. The magazine in theory appeals to all ethnicities, but in reality Caucasian people tend to be more into this kind of music hence the reason why the people featured in my magazine are Caucasian. A typical Experience reader will have black hair, wear tight; possibly black clothing and have vans or converse. A high percentage of my audience will have iPods or some form of mp3 player as they will have a genuine love for music, otherwise they wouldn’t spend their money on a music magazine. Due to their love for music, I expect many of them to play an instrument and even be in bands themselves. Other than music, their interests include computer games and new pieces of hardware. The teenagers who I’m targeting most likely own a gaming console. Their love for gaming and music could easily collide through games such as “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band” where they essentially get to play guitar, only in a video game. Finally, as most of my audience are teenagers, they are probably into tv shows such as South Park and Family Guy. These shows aren’t seen as family friendly, giving them quite a bad reputation. These teenagers who seek rebellion will enjoy the themes displayed in these shows. My audience clearly enjoy joking to gigs due to the style of music. My audience embrace the whole rock lifestyle, and one of the biggest parts of this lifestyle is the gigs. They tend to prefer smaller, less mainstream venues such as Camden Underworld, or Brixton. 

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience through several methods. First of all, I felt it would be essential to feature people in my magazine who look similar to my audience. Lukis and Bogdan (two people featured in Experience) look very similar to the average Experience reader, in both hair style and fashion sense. Lukis has a lip piercing which many females find attractive, especially “alternative” females. Moreover the long “emo” hair seems to be growing more and more popular. The fact that they have “emo” hair and clothing will make them very relatable to my audience as they may have been given a hard time about their style in the past.
I also attracted my audience through the enticement of posters. My readers enjoy
receiving posters as gifts in magazines as they like to be individuals and make
their rooms unique. I addressed my audience on the front cover through the puff.
Any reader knows that Sonisphere is one of the biggest events in the calendar;
they’d kill to get tickets. The fact that I have a fair number of bands listed on my
front cover will attract my audience as it’s appealing to a wider music taste.

The colour scheme on the front cover is somewhat bright, yet has the subtle
rugged edge that all rock magazines require.  The reason I have it a slightly colourful theme is so that Experience is easy to see in shops. A dull and dreary looking magazine cover will not get people’s attention. Red is huge in the world of rock and is seen to be a representative colour. The blood pouring from the X in my masthead would grab attention immediately as it isn’t something you see on every magazine. My masthead is also quite attention grabbing seeing as it doesn’t look like your typical masthead. It may have the typical rough and broken look that the Kerrang logo has, but there is something harder about a masthead that bleeds. This would grab attention before they even look at the magazine. As for my cover lines, I needed a font that connoted sophistication hence the reason I used a range of sans serif font. I also needed a sophisticated font for my main cover line, to show this is a mature magazine. However the font needed to stand out, so I put borders around the main cover line so it stands out. By playing to my audience’s rebellious nature, I placed a very controversial album cover which would intrigue them and make them want to read on. Once something is claimed to be exclusive, it becomes much more tempting hence the reason I wrote “Exclusive” on the front cover and made it bold and noticeable. I decided to keep my double page spread simple, as many readers aren’t interested in all the pictures and pointless space wasting. Using the blur tool and by slightly moving one half of the word “Sibling” I made the word look distorted. I would expect a large number of my audience to drink or smoke, so they’d be no strangers to distorted vision. I also blurred the edges to add to the effect. 

 

Question 6: What have you learned about techniques from the process of constructing this product?

 I used several pieces of technology; some took getting used to while others I picked up in a second. This was essentially my first encounter with Adobe Photoshop, and I didn’t find it very easy to use. I found the layout clunky and found myself with no idea what to do. It’s not that I didn’t know what to do; I just didn’t know how to do it. However after watching a few tutorials and reading up on Photoshop, I begun getting the hang of it. I eventually was able to download and use brushes to quite good effect. I learned to play around with the hue/saturation in order to make colours look their most vibrant. I even had to change the saturation on their hair because some parts were a lighter shade of black than other parts, due to the flash. Another useful tool was the spot removing tool, which I didn’t use too much because I opted for a more rough and natural look to the people in my magazine. The custom shapes tool and magnetic lasso were probably the things I used the most in photoshop. Learning how to use the magnetic lasso was by far the most valuable technique as I could literally crop out any image with the slightest of ease. However learning how to download and install fonts through Dafont really helped me out, as choosing the right fonts is crucial to any magazine.  To upload my coursework, I had to use Blogger. Blogger is pretty simple and easy to use; however there are a few limitations that seriously hindered my progress. For example, uploading images was pretty difficult as I had to upload them three or four times. Furthermore, I had to convert all my pictures into JPEGS before placing them on Blogger, which isn’t too much hassle.

I took all my pictures with a Cannon EOS 400D. Up until the day we took pictures, I had literally no experience with photography and found the cameras a little confusing to use. Initially, I found it difficult to aligning my shots correctly and keeping everything in focus. I had to re-take my pictures before my first batch were just so awful, although I had learned a lot by the second time around. The most important thing I learned is to know what you’re going to use the pictures for. The first time around, my pictures were completely sporadic and there was little thought involved when taking them. This involves everything from prospective, to focus. Once I learned how to keep pictures in focus, I also learned how to make some sections out of focus. Seeing as my pictures needed to be the highest quality possible, I used a low ISO. However if my models weren’t still, I would’ve had to make the ISO much higher. A soft box was used to make the models look generally much nicer and remove any imperfections they may have, and the blue screen made things very easy to crop out and work with, editing the images became much easier. 

 

Question 7: Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to a full product. 

 

 

My preliminary task was to create a front cover and contents page for a College magazine. I had literally no idea how to work the EOS 400D, and as a result my pictures were just terrible, especially the lighting and focus. Virtually all my pictures were out of focus, making the task difficult from the start. I had even more trouble working photoshop, and thus could only use a small range of tools. I made the most of the spot healing tool, and could use fonts somewhat well. I hadn’t learned to download them yet, only edit, which may be why I overused the stroke on words. Although, using the experience I gained in this preliminary task I feel I managed to make my final coursework pieces look semi-professional.

In terms of aspects such as time management and productivity during lessons, I done quite poor. I had to re-take many pictures, which took me a fair while to organise. I managed time far better during the preliminary task as opposed to the coursework because I didn’t care whether it looked unprofessional, however during the main task I was constantly picking up something new about photoshop and wanted to try it out.