Evaluation

MY EVALUATION !

In what way does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When I started writing my magazine, I knew I wanted it to be a music magazine for acoustic, alternative and more rocky styles. Mainly because this is what my friends and I listen to so I know about it. I couldn’t think at first exactly how to target these sorts of readers. I went to grass roots music festival and these were the genres being played. I decided to identify the type of people there. Being a seaside festival at jersey’s top surf spot they were all surfer types. The age range there looked about 16 – 30. These were therefore the people I was targeting. So I decided to incorporate a surfing theme into the magazine as judging by the turn out of the festival and its popularity there is a call for this type of magazine. I feel that my magazine is a challenge to the conventional genres as it is a collaboration of different themes, being a music magazine for surfers. Also, I don’t think I have seen this done before so it is different. I looked at two magazines for help. ‘Q ‘ for interview ideas and music lingo and ‘carve’ for the same things but for surfing.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
The language I used in my articles is representative of the younger generation i.e. up to the age of 30. My choice of some grungy looking fonts shows that it is intended to be read by boys but the frequent use of pink means that it is not alienated to girls. The adverts throughout are of surf wear brands and for surf and music festivals making it of interest particularly to people interested in surfing.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
A company such as Bauer could distribute my magazine because they publish Mojo magazine, which is one of the music magazines that I researched for my preliminary task. It is a successful magazine and often the covers can look almost a bit punky and I think my magazine has this sort of style too. Bauer also deals with sport type magazines like golf world, which fits in with the sporty edge to my magazine with the surfy style.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
16- 30 year olds with an interest in all genre’s of music and new music and talent as well as any interest or knowledge of surfing.

How did you attract/ address your audience?
A very important way of attracting the right audience is with the magazine name. I came up with the name ‘Catch’ which evokes the thought of catchy music or a good catch (making you think of a good buy) and also brings to mind catching a wave. The cover image was another important route to attracting the intended audience. It shows a young, pretty face which would attract male attention and headlines like ‘new music special’ catching people interested in this’ attention. There are also cover stories about winning tickets to a popular festival for young people.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt from scratch, how to use Adobe In Design as I had never used it before. I also found that it was a lot quicker and easier to use for constructing a magazine than Photoshop, which I used for my preliminary task. I realized I was able to make the magazine a lot neater and more professional looking using this program. I also learnt a lot about using Adobe Photoshop, which I hadn’t used much of apart from in my preliminary task. I did have to use it occasionally like when cutting out a picture from my photo shoot. I found that using a combination of these two programs was really successful. I became much more proficient in using my camera during the process of the photo shoot and experimenting with which settings gave me the best results. I used a tripod for my camera, which I hadn’t used before, and I also figured out to use the studio lights to make my photos look more professional.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I have learnt that using In Design is much more effective because it is easier to align the text and pictures as a real magazine would because it gives you a sort of template with margins which I chose to keep the majority of my text within. I think in my final product this look more effective. I have also learnt that it is better, for the front cover, to put the image in before all the text so that the text can frame the image more, so that it doesn’t lose any importance on the page. Also, the cover doesn’t need too much writing, but more interesting fonts such as the ones on my final cover look better than the plain ones on my preliminary one. One other thing that makes my final cover more effective is the bolder image I used. The photo I took for the preliminary didn’t have enough planning behind it and didn’t look very interesting.