EvaluationZakirah Mohammed

My magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread develops onto the layout of a real life magazine due to numerous reasons such as my use of using the left hand side on my front cover to include texts. This was portrayed in my research into examples of magazines. My magazine will develop onto magazines such as NME. My magazine agrees with NME since they both have similar target audiences (teenagers who enjoy soft rock music). Therefore, my magazine portrays aspects which have also been included in NME such as my central image of my front cover being an edgy looking music artist making eye contact with the camera. my contents page agrees with other forms of magazines since it follows the neat and sectioned look as portrayed by other contents pages. My double page spread challenges other double page spreads that I evaluated such as NME since they gave a full look by using boxes and several images.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

However, Kickers’ double page spread was based around one image, quotations and unboxed text. Even though this challenges other doublepage spread’s I believe this is also effective since it fits in with the style of the magazine I am aiming to achieve.

My magazine challenges aspects of magazines such as NME also since my colour scheme is not what would be expected from a rock magazine. My magazine includes colours such as different shades of pink throughout my magazine whereas NME includes colours such as red and yellow with a blank background. My magazine also challenges the genre of NME since it includes music artists such as Ed Sheeran which is more mainstream for an indie magazine. This widens my target audience which could mean a more successful magazine since it would have more readers if it includes interests of more people. I have also challenged magazines such as NME since NME is more masculine based, whereas, I have transformed mine into a more feminine version due to the fact it includes headlines on topics such as pregnancy of artists which would appeal to more women than men.

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My magazine would target young people ranging from the ages 15 to 21 since the content such as rock music events, posters and ‘the chance to win free headphones’ would be more appreciated by their age group. I believe my magazine would appeal more to a female audience rather than a male audience due to the stereotypical female colour scheme of pink and story headers about artist pregnancy. I’d like my magazine to portray artists for themselves and to gain insight into the artists rather than gossip like the majority of magazines do. My magazine will represent the artists as people rather than icons. I think this will also appeal to an audience who look at the featured artists as icons who aspire to have a similar life style since Kickers will give them insight.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The company IPC distribute NME magazine along with 59 other iconic media brands. They also distribute magazines such as Now, Chat and Woman. Since these are all signalled towards female based audiences, I believe they may be interested in distributing my magazine since my magazine Kickers is a mix of female based interests and music presented in NME. Therefore, I am confident IPC will be happy to invest in distributing my magazine.

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

I aim for the audience of Kickers to be in the age range of 15 to 25 years of age and presumably feminine since I believe they would appreciate the content of the articles more. The most likely audience for this magazine would be teenagers and young adults who appreciate alternative rock music such as Twin Atlantic and slightly mainstream artists such as Ed Sheeran. I believe having a wider range of music type would conclude in a wider range therefore larger audience. This would benefit a magazine since it would mean more sales would be made, creating a stronger profit margin. This makes my magazine contradict certain aspects of different genres such as Kickers being an alternative rock magazine with a pink colour scheme therefore being risky of sales since I’d have to balance out between genres in order for it to appeal to them all.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I will attract my audience visually with the vibrant and bold colours used throughout my magazine such as the various shades of pink, bold black writing and interesting backgrounds such as the brick wall featured in my magazine. I believe the font choices and interesting pictures will attract my audience since they feature unusual environments and pictures of popular artists. An example of these artists would be my picture of Ed Sheeran which I had taken in a gig I previously attended. On my double page spread, I decided to include large quoting from the interview which I had seen effectively used in published magazines. I believe this would be effective since the reader would become curious of the content and would want to read on. I aimed to balance out the imagery with the text amount to avoid the risk of overwhelming the reader with an over crowded page.

How did you attract/address your media product?

Before this task I had limited knowledge of the process of creating quality photos however I enhanced my ability by using Photoshop, digital cameras and Microsoft Office Publisher. I first attempted to include and improve images without the use of Photoshop since I knew it would take valuable time to learn how to use it effectively. However, I found Photoshop may improve my magazine a great deal. I found that Photoshop allowed me to alter different variables to make the images more professional. Therefore I used it to edit background props out of images which I felt may distract the reader. I also used Photoshop to edit background colours in order to make the page more appealing as done in my double page spread. I also felt Microsoft Office Publisher contributed a great deal in the production of my magazine. Publisher allowed me to gain the layout planned and once I had updated my Publisher, it allowed me to use various effects such as the advertisement to ‘win Kickers headphones’.

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

Before Photoshop

After Photoshop

Looking back at my preliminary task, I found how use of technology such as Photoshop, Microsoft Office Publisher and a high quality digital camera could have such an impact on whether a magazine would be a success or not. Since I had limited use of technology with my preliminary task, I felt it wouldn’t appeal to an audience like my music magazine would. Therefore, I believe technology is a must-have in the production of a media product to appeal to an audience visually. I have also learnt that planning the time available to construct the media product is key. I believe my main product was much more successful since I allowed myself time to edit the images to fit the magazine, whereas, my preliminary product image was much more of a last minute image which played a major part in how it turned out.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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