Evaluation
Introduction
For my main task I had to continue with the print pathway which I chose at the beginning of the year. The brief for the main task was to create a front cover, contents and double page spread for a new music magazine. As with the preliminary task, we had to include at least four of our own original images. This brief is much less specific than it was with the preliminary task which I was happy about because this gives me a much better chance to be creative and come up with some interesting and individual ideas.
I followed the same framework for conducting my research as I did with the preliminary task. I began by collecting images from the internet of pre-existing music magazines. I tried to find pictures that represented a wide range of music genres as at this stage I had not decided what genre I wanted my magazine to be about. By collecting these images I could see the general features that all of the magazines included. After looking at these images I found a magazine that I really liked the style of. It was ‘Blender’ magazine and I liked it because it covered a wide range of music genres and appeared very trendy. It seemed as though it would have a large target audience because of the different music genres. I thought this was very interesting because most music magazines focus on one specific genre and stick very strictly to it.
Next I decided on my SMART targets and wrote these on my blog. These helped me plan out all the tasks I had to complete throughout the project and I set myself some deadline dates that were realistic and achievable. This was useful to look back on throughout the construction of my magazine so that I knew exactly where I should be in my project and how long I had left to complete each of my tasks.
After creating this plan for my project I started thinking of some ideas for creating my magazine pages. I wanted to create some varied ideas so that I had a chance to try out different things and see which I thought worked best and what I thought would be the most successful. My first idea was based on the Blender magazines that I had seen during my research. This magazine would cover a wide range of music genres but focusing on the popular contemporary ones. The target audience I decided on for this magazine was males and females between the ages of 15 and 20. The content of this magazine would focus on lots of interviews, photographs and reviews of songs, albums and gigs. My second idea was to create a popular music magazine for a younger audience; between the ages of 9 and 14. The content would have to correspond to this younger target audience. I would need to ensure I kept the readers interested in the magazine as they are more easily distracted. I could do this by including lots of activities and ways that they could get involved with the magazine as opposed to just reading it. My third initial idea was to create a magazine that is specific to one genre. I decided I would focus on indie music and aim to it at teenagers. The downside to this kind of magazine is that you are limiting your magazine to a very specific group of people. I would therefore need to make sure that it really appeals to every person that likes this genre of music which I would do by including lots of reviews and focusing on new, upcoming bands. After creating these ideas I presented them to my class and tutor. The feedback I received mainly said that they thought the first idea was the most interesting but I would need to ensure that it was obvious from the front cover of the magazine that it did actually contain features on a wide range of music genres. Based on this I chose to develop the first idea. This is because I felt it was more unique than the others and it appealed to a much wider target audience because of the different genres. A larger target audience means there are more people interested in my magazine that could potentially buy it therefore making it successful. I knew that the feedback I had received about this idea was very relevant and I came back to this when I began creating my mock up to ensure that many music genres were represented.
After deciding on the genre my magazine would cover, or in my case; genres, I went back to my research to look into some more pre-existing magazine covers. This time I focused on magazines that covered a wide range of music genres, such as Blender. I was particularly interested to see how they made it obvious on their front cover that their magazine covered a range of genres because I felt this would be my biggest challenge. I noticed that as well as showing headlines featuring a range of different bands from different genres, they also often specifically named the genre e.g by saying ‘rock’s secret millionaires’ and ‘rap’s greatest rides’. This gave me some ideas on how to make it obvious to the audience what genres I was trying to represent. I then also researched into the music genre I chose to write about to give me some more information to help with my production. By researching this I found out that there were many different sub-genres of pop music so this was already a wide genre to focus on before I began representing other genres.
The next stage of my research was to start analysing some magazine covers in detail. We had previously done this for the preliminary task but I wanted to ensure this was much more thorough so that I got as much information out of it as I could. I began by analysing a magazine cover that I felt was similar to the one I wanted to create which was Blender, as stated before. I picked out the main features of the magazine that are typical to all magazines and then explained why this had been used and how it helped to attract a wide audience. I then repeated this for five more magazine front covers. I tried to pick a range of covers to use to ensure that I got as much information as possible to give me lots of ideas for my own magazine front cover. This completed my research into magazine front covers. From this I learnt that using only one image on the cover draws the attention completely to that story. This therefore needs to be accompanied by a few different headlines around the page to attract in any other readers who were not interested by the main image. I also learnt about using different colours for the font to separate the different headlines. This colour used can also be linked to the masthead to keep the look consistent.
Next I began my research into magazine contents pages. I started this the same way I did my front cover research by collecting images from the internet that were similar to what I wanted my own contents page to look like which could give me some ideas. I then analysed six of these contents pages like I had previously done with the front covers. During this analysis I picked out the key features of each page and noted which ones were consistent throughout all of them. The majority of these contents pages used many images to go alongside the features that were contained in the magazine. This helps the reader to find a specific article about a band just by looking at the image and then the page number that corresponds with it.
Finally I researched into magazine double page spreads. In the preliminary task we did not have to create our own double page spread so this research was particularly important. I did this the same as my other research by collecting images from the internet and then analysing six of them in detail. At this point I noticed that there were many different ways to display a double page spread so I could allow myself to be quite creative when it came to making my own.
Once all of my research had been completed I began creating some mock ups of my pages using initial ideas from the research. At this stage I had not taken my own original images which must be included as stated in the brief so I used images that I found on the internet. My first mock front cover and contents page were very simple, just to give a feel for how I might want to layout everything on the pages. I tried to keep some consistency between the front cover and contents page by using the same colour scheme and font types. During the production of these mock ups I took screen shots of each stage which I added to my blog later on. After creating another mock front cover and contents page I began selecting my final images. As a photography student I had many images that I have taken in the studio of various models and I thought these would be perfect to use so I chose the ones that would be most appropriate. I then edited them on Photoshop to give them a more professional finish so that they would be of a high enough quality to use in my magazine pages.
To create my final magazine front cover I began with my favourite mock up page that I had created. I opened it up on Photoshop and turned off all of the layers. I then added my original image and positioned it where I wanted it on the page. I then began turning all of the other layers back on and positioning the rest of the text around the new image. To give the front cover a better finish I added effects to all of the text. This ensures it looks like a magazine cover as opposed to a flat poster.
Next I took one of my mock contents pages to use as a starting point to create my final contents page. I had already began experimenting with my original images and positioning them on the page. However at this stage I didn’t really like how the contents page looked so I decided to remove the image I had already placed and try using some different ones to create a more appealing page. I decided that using one image on it’s own made the page look very flat so I chose to use two instead. I then added the text around the images. At this point I thought the masthead was too large so I made it smaller and added another masthead above it, using the name of the magazine. To add consistency I ensured that the effects on the text was all the same so as not to confuse the reader. After adding all of my text I still had some space in the bottom right corner so I decided to add in a subscription offer after seeing many used in my research of pre-existing contents pages. I put this in it’s own box and added some images of my mock pages to draw the reader’s attention to it. There was also some space in the top right corner which I filled with another original image.
Once I was happy with my front cover and contents pages I began creating my double page spread. I started with a pink background to add consistency as I had used this colour throughout my other pages. I then took the image that didn’t fit well on my contents page and inserted it here. Again I used the same font styles as on the other pages I created. After adding some effects to the text and image I was happy with how my double page spread looked.
Evaluation of finished product
My finished product does differ a lot from the mock ups I created as I made many changes throughout my production. My main change was on the contents page. I really wasn’t happy with how this looked so I had to start again with it. I think the reason I didn’t like it was because it looked very flat and poster-like. I also thought that it wasn’t interesting enough for the audience as I had only used one image. It is very important that the reader is interested when looking at the contents page because it is the first page they see and they could easily stop reading at that point. The other changes I made were to improve the general aesthetics of the page and make it look more like a professional magazine. This included adding effects to the images and text and editing the photos to a high standard.
Evaluation of product with regards to Audiences and Institutions
My completed magazine pages would be quite unique in the UK music magazine market because there are not any pre-existing music magazines that cover a wide range of genres as mine does. The most popular music magazines that can be bought at the moment are all very specific to the one genre that they represent. I therefore think there is a gap in the market for my magazine.
To decide how well my magazine would be received by it’s audience, I conducted a survey of ten people in my target audience to get their feedback on what they thought of my magazine. When asked the question “Who do you think is the target audience of this magazine?” the majority of the answers were ‘teenagers’. However a few people answered with ‘teenage girl’ which made me realise that my magazine doesn’t really appeal to males due to the girly colour scheme and the content shown in the images. When asked about the genre of the magazine most people said that my magazine covered pop music. Although my magazine does cover many other genres, the audience may have only focused on the pop genre because this is the genre represented by the main cover image and the double page spread story. Most of the audience agreed that the price shown was just right and they would be willing to pay that amount for the magazine. The rest of the answers told me that the audience agreed that the images used were appropriate and the general look of the pages were interesting. The only issues that were raised during this questionnaire were about the genres of music and the magazine’s appeal to males. One member of my target audience said she wouldn’t buy the magazine as she didn’t like the genres of music that were represented. This shows that maybe I need to make it a bit more obvious that there are many music genres in the magazine. The other issue was that the magazine doesn’t really appeal to males. This was not something that I intended to do but throughout production I kept to a pink colour scheme and on reflection I haven’t used any male models in my original images.
Audience Feedback Questionnaire
This is the questionnaire that I created to get some feedback from members of my target audience.
audience feedback questionnaire
I wanted to find out certain things about the appearance of my magazine pages and how successful I had been at creating a magazine for my chosen genre.
The first question I asked was ‘What do you think is the target audience of this magazine?’ Most of the feedback from this was ‘teenagers’ but a couple of people answered ‘teenage girls’ which shows that my magazine must only appeal to females.
The second question I asked was “What genre of music do you think this magazine represents?” There were a few different answers to this question such as ‘pop’, ‘chart music’, ‘r n b’ and ‘many genres covered’. This shows that it may not be completely obvious to my target audience what genres of music are being represented but this could just be because the double page spread they saw focused only on pop music.
The third and fourth questions I asked related to the price. 8/10 people said they would be willing to pay the price shown on the cover but 2 people said they thought it was a bit high and would want to pay less for it.
The next few questions gave mainly positive feedback however a few people said they wouldn’t want to read the rest of the magazine based on the appearance of the front cover. Their reasons for this were because it didn’t appeal to males or it didn’t represent the genre of music that they liked.
Similar answers were given for the next question about whether they would read the interview on the double page spread. The people that said they wouldn’t gave the reason that it didn’t appeal to them.
The final two questions didn’t raise any new issues, with the majority stating they would not change anything about the pages and they would want to read the next issue.
After collecting my feedback from my questionnaire I can see that the two main issues with my magazine pages are that they don’t appeal to males and it is not obvious that the magazine covers a wide range of genres.
Production Log 22/3/10
Today I finished creating my double page spread. I had already created the general layout so I just had to add the main body of text and make sure everything was formatted so it looked good. That was the last thing I had to do so I was then finished creating my magazine pages. I spent some time tidying up the posts on my blog and making sure I had all of my screen shots inserted and annotated.
Next I created a survey and began asking people to fill it out to get some audience feedback which will help me evaluate my media productions.
Finally I began writing my evaluation.
Next lesson I will finish writing my evaluation and then my project will be complete!
Creating my final double page spread
I started the double page spread with a pink background to keep it consistent with the other pages.
I then added the image that I wanted to use. I had already chosen and edited this photo which is of the same model as the front cover. I put the picture on the right hand side of the page, stretching it so that it reached the top and bottom edges of the page.
Next I added a mast head to the rest of the page at the top. I used alliteration to try and keep it catchy. The font style is consistent with the rest of the magazine pages.
I added some effects to the edges of my image to make it look less flat and like a poster.
Next I added the same effects to the masthead that I have used throughout my magazine pages.
I then added a tagline to let the reader know what the text on the rest of the page is roughly about.
Next I added the main body of the text. This consisted of an interview with the questions being asked in black text to make them bold and the answers by the cover star in white text.
Finally I added a box across the bottom of the page to put the page number and name of the magazine in. This is the same as on the contents page and adds to the consistency.
Production Log 8/3/10
Today I made the final changes to my front cover and contents page. I began with the front cover which was almost finished. I added a line of text to the bottom of the page to fill up a big space. I am now very happy with this.
Next I made changes to my contents page. I really wasn’t happy with what I created last lesson so I started again and made a page that I am much happier about. I used three photographs instead of one which made a big difference because the page now looks much more interesting. I also filled up some extra space with a subscription offer which will help get the reader’s attention.
Next lesson I will need to create my double page spread and then I will be finished.
Creating my final contents page
After attempting to modify my contents page last lesson, I decided today that I wanted to change most of the appearance because I really wasn’t happy with it. I think this was due to the image that I used which didn’t seem to fit right on the page.
This is how my contents page started out as. I didn’t really like anything about it so I decided to try starting again to see if I could make some improvements.
The first thing I wanted to change was the image. The one I had before took up too much room and looked too much like it was ‘floating’ on the page. Instead I decided to use a few of my original images and make them smaller instead of having one large image.
Here is the next original image I used. I added some effects around each image to make the page look less like a poster and more like the images belonged on the page.
Next I wanted to add a small feature about subscribing to the magazine. I used an offer to attract the reader’s attention and make them want to subscribe to save money and get a free gift.
Next I added the features I had previously listed to see how it all looked together. I still wasn’t happy with it so I decided to go back and make some more changes until I was happy with it.
The first change I wanted to make was to the offer. It didn’t stand out enough so I decided to change the colour of the text to red and give it an outer glow to attract the reader’s attention.
At this stage I went back to my research and found some similar subscription offers on pre-existing contents pages. I noticed that all of them had images to go along with this feature so I added two images of my mock front cover pages so that they were different.
I then put the feature in a box to separate it from the rest of the page.
Next I started making changes to imrpove my contents page. I decided that the heading was too large so I made it smaller and moved it to the left hand side of the screen, above the text. In the space above it I repeated the masthead from the front cover to add consistency to my magazine.
I then added the same effects to the two new mastheads to make them look exactly like the one on the front cover.
In the space that was then in the top right hand corner, I added a picture of the model I used for my front cover image. This is used to instruct the reader on where they will find the article that corresponds with the cover story.
To make the new photo look like it belongs with the rest of the features on the page I added some outer glow effects around it. These are the same effects used on the other pictures so this adds to the consistency.
In the small space next to the ‘Influence’ masthead I added ‘July 2010’ and the website information. I have also used these on the front cover so again this adds to the consistency.
Finally I wrote the page number and name of the magazine in the bar at the bottom to help the audience navigate through the magazine easier.
Production Log 1/3/10
Today I began developing my mock ideas to create my final pages. I started with the front cover and chose to develop the first mock design I made. I inserted my original image into the design and built up the features around it. I was very pleased with how this looked as it looks much more like a front cover now as opposed to look like a flat front cover. However I do feel like there is too much space at the bottom of the page so I will need to think about how to move things around or add something to it to fill the space.
I then began making my final contents page. I took one of my mock designs to use but I ended up changing this completely. I wasn’t happy with this design so I started again and used my other mock design. I changed it quite a bit but I ended up much happier with this contents page. It does still need some work done to it though because I feel it is too simple.
Next lesson I will make some changes to my final front cover and contents to get these finished. I will then begin creating my double page spread.
Creating my final front cover
To create my final front cover, I started with the first mock design that I made and developed that idea.
This is the mock up that I began with. I chose to use this one because I felt it looked like more of a magazine cover than the other one I made as opposed to looking like a poster.
First I started with my original image and made this the background. This is so that all of the focus is on the image.
I then added the title from my mock up. I developed it by adding some drop and inner shadow effect to it. This makes it stand out more so it catches the reader’s eye.
Next I added the headlines around the cover. I changed the position of them from the mock up so that they fitted better with the new image. I also added some shadow effects to them to make them stand out from the background.
Finally I added the last details to the cover such as the barcode and price.
editing my original images
This is the image that I am going to use for my front cover. I have edited it using soft focus to create an airbrushed look to the photo. This image will be the only one on the front cover and will fill up the whole page.
This is the image I am using on my double page spread. It links in with the image used for the front cover because it is of the same person and the images are from the same photoshoot. I have also used soft focus to edit this image.
This is one of the images I am using on my contents page. I have chosen it to represent the cover story and the one I am showing in my double page spread. I have also used soft focus to edit this image.
This is another photo that I will use on my contents page to show other feaures that are in my magazine. I have used selective colour to edit this image.
This is the final original image I have selected and I am using it on my contents page. It will show another feature that is listed.
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