AS Magazine coursework

By Chays Parker

EVALUATION

• Conventions that my magazine goes against and challenges are conventions such as the colour scheme, which is a predominately pink themed magazine which is traditionally a feminine colour but we wanted to go against the stereotype and open the colour up to become a staple of the magazine and to be taken much more as a multi-sex colour.

• It follows the traditional layout of most rock music magazines in the way you have the main featured artist to the right of the product and the articles situated to the left and the masthead along the top.

• It also does what other popular magazines do which is to place the artist featured in front of part of the masthead to increase chances of the artist being noticed and not overshadowing the masthead to much so that people who aren't familiar to the magazine will at least have a chance to recognize the logo.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES MY MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR

CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

EXAMPLES OF OTHER MAGAZINES

•My magazine was aimed towards the 16-20 age group of students and fans of rock music. The scheme of the magazine and layout shouldn’t be too bias towards one sex as with the title being ‘HARD’ which is a very masculine phrase, its complimented with the pink color scheme which is very feminine and vibrant color so I believe both sex’s would find the magazine attractive.•The main artist featured in my magazine is a 20 year old male musician and in the interview we have quotes which are exactly as the artist said it. The responses the artist made were of a very honest and literal and represents his age group and gender as a very mature and interesting group of people so I think the audience would find that there age group and gender is represented very positively in this magazine and may also be inspiring to our audience as a positive role model.

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL

GROUPS?

•Magazines that are of similar style and content as mine would be that of Q magazine or NME magazine which are both rock oriented music magazine and are very much targeted to a younger generation of readers.•The publishing house that puts out NME’s magazines are called ‘IPC Media’• IPC would be the obvious choice company I would most focus on publishing my magazine as they have experience with magazines of the same style as mine and have made NME a very successful magazine so I would assume they help my magazine reach the same stature.•All there magazines are printed to very high quality so is also key for my magazine to be successful.•I would also look to advertising the magazine on websites that are heavily music based such as ‘ultimate-guitar’ and perhaps even give free articles of the magazine online as well, perhaps distribute the entire magazine on our own website for a discounted price as it save money for us of producing a paperback.

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA

PRODUCT AND WHY?

•I look at hard magazine as a younger audiences magazine perhaps between 16-30 as it’s a very new music featured magazine and is mainly themed around hard rock music which is more associated with this age group than others.•I also look at it as a multi-sex magazine where women and men can find the magazine appealing for differing reasons such as women may like the style and format of the magazine whereas man like the features and the title which may be appealing.•And obviously the magazine would attract fans of rock music, be it indie style people or metal fans they can all find something appealing in Hard magazine as it’s a rock themed magazine which is what all these sub-genres spawned from.

WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT?

•I think what is most notably attractive to the audience and is more appealing to younger and perhaps more feminine of an audience is the bright vibrant pink color scheme.•Another way in which the magazine is attractive to the male audience is the masthead and strap line which is more of an aggressive macho-esque sounding magazine then most which is appealing to men.•Another way in which it may attract a female and gay audiences is that on the front cover and throughout the magazine the main image shows is of a male artist which may be appealing.•The language used throughout is of a very modern youthful dialect yet still carries class and sophistication making it appealing and understandable to all types of readers of this generation.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE?

In order to gage whether my product was successful, I did some audience feedback from members of my target demographic. This was generally very positive. People thought that the following elements were positive:

• Strong colour scheme• Eye catching, sophisticated images

• Appeals well to young target audience, especially through the language used

Some thought that there were elements of my magazine I could improve, such as the fact that I have only used images of one artist throughout the

pages. I also think the contents page could be improved, and this is criticism is particularly applicable here as audiences would expect the contents page to be full of other artists to show that there is lots going

on inside. This is something I would definitely look to improve on.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

•The main software I used to create my product consisted mainly of Microsoft paint, fireworks and publisher.•I’ve learnt that using paint for creating such things as mastheads and icons is ideal and convenient yet doesn’t have as much of a robust amount of features that fireworks has when it comes to manipulating images in strange and creative ways.•Which is why fireworks was such a great tool as it allowed me to merge and perfect images to a higher standard and in future I will use the program more often.•And publisher was convenient and easy to use for creating the magazine its-self, very straight forward when it came to layouts and setting up where I wanted everything on the pages.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

•The preliminary task helped me a great deal through my planning and research and designing.•It taught me to take inspiration from other magazines which gave me clear ideas of what my target audience are usually accustomed too.•It was good for helping me get used to the software programs id need to develop my final product to its fullest potential.•The main factor it helped me with is the ‘planning’ of the magazine is key, the layout, the mise-en-scene, the font choice. It made me realize these are the main elements that make a magazine and that the original design and planning needs to be perfect before beginning the final product itself which I took to the final product and focused greatly on the planning of my final design.

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO

YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO

THE FULL PRODUCT?