Evaluation.

My magazine both follows some of the conventions of the genre and also defies them. Most of the magazine from my chosen genre usually have one main image. My magazine does this so that the audience will see it , wonder what the story is about and then want to read on therefore have to buy the magazine. This convention follows the conventions of similar magazines that have the same genre. It also has one large headline in the middle of the page. This is used to show off the main story and is also there to catch the eye of the customers and attract new audience. This is different from magazines from the same genre.

I’ve challenged many conventions with my magazine. One of them being the title. If you look at the magazines above this text, all of their mastheads only take up a small bit of the front cover. Mine is different because it takes up all of the front cover. I have done this for 3 reasons: - It makes the magazine more eye catching and will attract more attention if the masthead

is big and bright- Another reason is because it makes my magazine different from other magazines. I think

this is important because it will give variation between your magazine and other one’s from the same genre which could attract more audiences because of the difference.

- Also I think it makes the magazine look professional, I tried to make my designs look professional because all of the other similar magazines look scruffy and seem to not have a layout. This also makes my magazine different from others which could attract more attention.

• Firstly the genre I have chosen is indie. This is because as I have used a professional looking design, my magazine is aimed at the higher social class’s A,B,C. I have made it look more professional by giving the magazine a clean and tidy style. This means that the text is all the same size and the general set up of the magazine is well set out and not cluttered. I made it like this because I wanted it to be different from other magazines with the same genre to give it a more unique feeling. This is more appealing for the higher social classes because they would expect a good quality/professional/clean looking magazine.

• I have aimed my magazine at 14 – 25 year olds. This mainly down to the genre of music I have chosen. The target audience I have chosen is similar to other magazines of the same genre. I have chosen this because I feel that this genre is the most widely spread popularity wise and I also feel that it appeals to most people. I also feel that between these ages the genre is the most popular.

• Another reason that I have chosen this age is because the people that are in the magazine. Artists of this genre are never really well known compared to some of the pop artists. But with the artists of this genre, they are well known between this age range.

How does your product represent particular social groups?

• The first and obvious institution that could potentially distribute my media product could be a music magazine publisher, there could be opportunities for them to publish their own original content as its what they do and I also think that my target audience would be attracted to my magazine due to it difference in the current market. This would give me an edge over different magazines and may sway it in my favour for my magazine to get published.

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

The screen shot shows one of the publishers that I have found. This image shows a selection of some of the magazines that they publish, and shows that they have a lot of different genre magazines. This is good because I feel that my style of magazine is different and would fit in with their chosen variety.

There is also many other possibilities for the magazine. I could then find one that sticks to a genre and I then show that my magazine is different to other genre’s and show that it has variety.

• From the research that I did I was able to look at other, similar magazine and find out that you could look at them and spot the conventions that they have used to target the different audiences. These are things suck as the language used, colour schemes and general layout.

• This research has shown me how I can use different colours, layouts and languages to make it show what my target audience is. By using the title ‘THE AMP’ I think that this portrays my genre very well. This is because most if not all Alternative rock/ indie songs have a guitar in them, which then an amplifier links with a guitar. This will give the audiences and Idea of what genre of magazine it is.

• By using colours such as red, white, blue, black etc, I have used these because a lot of similar genre magazines use similar colours. But on the other hand, my layout is very clean and tidy which then shows that my magazine is different from similar one’s. Looking at all of this, I believe that I have aimed my magazine at a niche market. By using all of these colours, layouts etc, I have narrowed it down to medium – high class teens who are in no the genre of music.

Target Audience

• After looking at my masthead and similar style magazines, I have found that they are both very similar. This is because they are basically just some text on the normal background of the magazine. This makes them both stand out a lot and will then go no to catch peoples eye and make them look at the front cover, and then possibly on to buying the magazine because they wanted to read on.

Attracting the Audience

• Also by comparing images to ‘NME’ magazine. They are similar as they are made up of one image and a large headline. Both of these work together well to make the magazine a lot more eye catching. They will see the image, then the headline and if they are interested, they will want to read on, and to do this they will have to buy the magazine.

• Firstly, I have found out that one of the main differences is the software used and the effect it has. For the prelim task I used fireworks which is just a basic piece of software. For the main task I then moved over to Photoshop which is a lot more advanced. Photoshop allowed me to do a lot more with my work than fireworks, and in my own opinion, I feel that it is of a higher standard than the prelim task. Also more research made the final product more successful because I looked into a lot more magazines and was able to gather more related images and story’s, which I couldn’t in the prelim task. Another big advantage was the quality of photo’s I was able to take. On the final task I used a much better quality camera and was able to take more professional looking photo’s that I was able to with just a normal digital camera.

Progression from Prelim task