EVALUATION 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

One thing that I did not put into my video about my audience was about the penumbra effect, the penumbra effect is when your magazine appeals to someone who is not your in your target audience. When I made my magazine I did have in mind that I wanted it to appeal to a wider audience this is one of the reasons in which I put meet the stars of 2013, this could be indie stars as well as other artists in different genres. Also some of the artists on my front cover have collaborated with people that are not indie, for example Florence and the machine collaborated with calvin harris who is a dj so some of my audience could be interested in this genre of music but decided to buy my magazine as it has one of the artists that he collaborated with. 

EVALUATION 3- What kind of media institution might distrbute your media product and why?

During the coursework I recently posted about the media institutions, I chose which one would fit best for my magazine, by what else it publishes and also the amount of people that read that particular magazine.

IPC media are a rather successful company who publish over 60 iconic media brands, it is a privately owned business however I decided that IPC MEDIA would be the best media institution for me as it already publishes NME which is the closest magazine to mine, also it is well known so people would recognise that my magazine is published by IPC. However recent research on IPC has made me change my  mind there is a problem with having IPC as my publisher would then make me have a competition between the sales of my magazine and NME as they have similar artists inside them.

If I didn't want the competition between my magazine and NME then I could have Bauer as my magazine publisher. Bauer is a very successful company, they are the largest european publisher so I know that if they published my magazine then I will have a mass audience. They sell one of the best selling magazines with over 700,000 copies a month and also produce may magazines worldwide to attract a wider audience. Although the magazines that they are currently selling are not my genre they have many different magazines genres so they do not just cater to one style of music. As we know Kerrang! is a rock magazine and Q is mainly based on chart music, they are two very different styles of music so I think that Bauer would benefit from having an Indie style music magazine.

After looking in more depth at the two media institutions I have now changed my mind. Beforehand I was going to have IPC but now I am going to have Bauer as there is a space for my magazine genre. I did look at two other media institutions which where oyster house media which was an independent publisher which was not as well established as I would hope. I also looked at BBC magazines but these did not publish music magazines so I thought that it would not be a good idea to go with this company.

So onto where my magazine will be sold. There are a lot of places that sell magazines from supermarkets to small corner shops. I would like my magazines to be sold in a well established store as then I will know that my target audience are more likely to buy from that place. Whsmith is a very well established store that sell a lot of magazines, people go into Whsmith to actually buy a magazine rather to look around. In comparison supermarkets have a wide variety of magazines however my target audience normally go to supermarkets for groceries rather than magazines. If my magazine was to sell well then businesses would happily stock my magazine, I believe that if you have your magazine in Whsmith then it is very popular. Either of these businesses would be ideal for my magazine as my target audience will shop at both of these stores. I do believe that the lower age of my target audience will buy from tesco and my higher age will go to Whsmith this is good as I will know that all ages of my target audience will have the opportunity to buy my magazine. 

EVALUATION 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Social groups from rhiannashley


Deconstruction of magazine

On this front cover the girls are shown in a provocative manner. This could be shown as a convention as many magazines show very sexual images on their front cover, I have not done this as my social group are young students who I do not believe should be seeing this image. I didn't want any of my pages to have any bad or negative connotations and therefore I wanted to stray away from taking any inappropriate images. I also think that these girls are very thin and I do not want my social groups to look at the image and look up to my model so much that they would be ill to want to look like them. This is why I have taken an image of a healthy average girl in normal clothes and therefore my social groups if they want to be like her will not have to put themselves through pain. Also the gold on the front cover could connote money and wealth I think this colour is not good to use as not everybody has good a good amount of money and think could make them feel as though they are not good enough to read the magazine. Some of my social groups will have jobs but this will only be a certain amount of my target audience. I will also only have the image of my model rather than have anyone else on it to attract other people, in my case if I had naked men on the front then girls will probably want to buy it but my social group will want to read it because of the music rather than the images. 

EVALUATION 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Comparison of first draft to final piece of double page spread

Here is my first draft  and my final piece of my double page spread. I have changed a lot about the image and article but still sticking to the same theme and feel about the overall page. I will say in this post what I have changed and why and also the things that I have kept the same.

Firstly my main image that I have on my double page spread has not changed, I decided to take it from the first draft of my contents page and use that. This was mainly because I felt that it had a personal touch and would work well with the article. The only thing about the image was that it is angled a certain way so it would have been weird if i put it to the left of the page as she would not be looking at the article. I also cropped the image so that you couldn't see the fencing in the background, when I looked at inspirational photos they looked rather professional without any fencing in the background. Also in my first draft I didn't have enough room for my article which was another reason for me to crop the image. I believe that making the image smaller makes it look more like a magazine, if I kept it the same size I thought that I would have to put a pull quote on the image to follow the conventions however the image had a difficult colouring to put something on which would then be easy to read. If I had the big image then it would be rather boring as nothing would be on it so it would take up space that could be used as writing space for the article. Once I had cropped it I enlarged it so then you see more of the model rather than the tree. When it came to edit the image I placed it on the white background before editing it so therefore it would edit all of the image rather than that one. I didn't want anything to extreme like my front cover so I went for a subtle look on pixlr. This made the final piece look old but not like my first draft which had think black smudges so was difficult to read.

Secondly I changed the mast head font and size, I didn't want it to be as thick so I changed it to 'aargh' which was the same font that I used for my contents page. I really wasn't sure about the title for the double page spread as I thought it could be cheesy however when I asked my target audience what they thought about it they really liked how I played on words and they said for me to keep it. When I write the title of the magazine I will always use a ( bracket as this is the logo for the magazine that is the reason for the bracket in the word encore. 
In addition I added a pug as I had the space to write one and I wanted my magazine to look as professional as it can be, as the image was cropped it allowed me to have more space for the writing hence why the pug. I just wanted to outline who the article is with, also the exclusive makes the reader feel as though they want to read on which is what I want them to do.  

Now on to the article's fonts, colours and actual text. I did write the article beforehand so I couldn't change it unless I wanted to add or subtract anything, that is why I subtracted some of the article as it was to bulky to fit in the columns. Instead of having three columns I have four which makes it easier to adjust and fit to size which makes it look professional and also easier to read. When looking at my first draft I thought that it looked rather messy and the columns were all over place which made the writing overlap I am glad that I have sorted this out as it does look like a double page spread that someone would want to read. 
I changed the colouring of the text as I said before that I was having a dark purple and a blue as the colours I thought that using green for the main text of the article was irrelevant, therefore I have changed this to blue as it goes with the colours I have used recently in my production of the front cover. I knew that I wanted two different colours for the interview as it would be easier to understand what was being asked and the artists response. This made me think about the colour green that I used in my first draft as it did go well with the image that I used as green goes with the nature of the picture and also what she is wearing. I didn't want to use the colour purple in this piece and that was done on my front cover and my contents page so if I used it again it could look very similar and also the colour purple was a risk to take anyway as it is a feminine colour and my male audience might not like that. I think that the colours that I have used do attract both male and female so the purple that I have used before does not matter in this case. 
By using the same font as the sell lines on the front cover shows the consistency of the magazine and also the house style as the font is very curved and not bold so it goes with the genre. I also used the same font for the pull quote, this font was used for the masthead on both my front cover and contents page which made it ideal for this purpose. As I have put it before the article it helps divide the interview up and not let it get jumbled like my first draft. I didn't really think about the pull quote on the first draft as I just plonked it in the middle of the page before writing the article, this was a very big mistake as the article then had to fit around the pull quote which when you look at it you can see it didn't work.
The only thing that I decided not to use was the + sign as it was irrelevant to this article and also I would have to find more space on the page to put it in. One of my target audience said that I could put facts about her as she saw this in NME however I didn't want it to be exactly the same and if I did put it on all of my three pages then people would think I would be putting it on all of them which was not what I was going to do .

Comparison of first draft to final piece of contents page

Here is my first draft and final draft of my contents page. I have really changed this as I was not so keen on my first draft. I would say that there are things that I have kept the same however when looking at this there is not really anything that I have kept the same. 

The main thing that I have changed is the main image, I decided that I could use the image from my first draft as the image on my double page spread this was because I found that this was not engaging and didn't direct anything to the reader. On my first draft I did edit the image and made it darker than the original photo this worked with the colour scheme however it looked rather dark and this didn't go with my soft indie look. I decided to use a head shot as it was more personal and also as I knew that I didn't want to carry on with the feel of my other contents page and that I wanted to add more images, it was easy to use as it could be place anywhere on the page and also any size. As I used the NME contents page as an inspiration I wanted to use more images, the only thing was that I didn't have access to other artists or band to take the photographs of to use for the contents page. This is the only reason why I had to use the google images of bands I did choose them to go with my main images, I didn't use hip hop bands or rappers as that would not go with the genre of my music. Each of the images that I have used go with each of the articles about them. The purple box with the subscription inside was also an image on google, I thought that the faded purple would be better and look more professional rather than me making my own by using the l and tilting it on its side. 

I did use the same font for the mast head as it was the same as the mast head on the front cover, I did overlap on the first draft as the masthead on the front cover but people said that it looked like snow which I did see. Therefore I did not use this effect again and just kept to one colour which was the sane as the final front cover of the purple, I thought that the blue I could use on my double page spread thats what I have used the purple on this. 
The font for the writing is 'aargh' which is a very thin font so it is clear to read and is affective for the small bits of information about each article. The other font I used is exactly the same as my front cover this makes the magazine consistent throughout as I haven't got different fonts and different sizes on each page. 

I decided to put the numbers on the images as it is eye catching and also they are easy to see so you can quickly go to the page. I know when I read a magazine I just flick to the article I want to read first so when the numbers are on the picture it is easy to do this. You don't have to read what the article is about as long as the image is there for you to see who it is about. With the things that are always going to be in every issue of the magazine I have put the numbers below this makes it look more appealing.

In addition I decided to scrap the whole idea of the top 10 indie tracks as it took up room and didn't really need to be on the contents page, Instead it can be on a whole page by its self. Although it does fill up some of the page it made less room for the other articles that you would find in the magazine. 

I kept the + sign as my target audience said that it could be a recurring thing throughout the magazine this allowed me to use it for the pages that are going to be in every issue. It does add more detail to the page and also makes it easier to see what else is going to be in that issue.

I changed the titles of new, features and reviews as I thought that not all of the articles would have a place to be put, for example the exclusive interview couldn't go underneath anything which is silly as that is the most important article that the readers have brought the magazine to specifically read about this. 
Each of the information which tells you about the article have been created to engage the reader to want to read more of the article. I didn't want to have things that are really formal that is why I have called florence flo and used dishes out rather than gives out information. 
With the extra information about how to subscribe to the magazine and the website it makes it look professional. Also I have added this to the final piece as it is conventional to music magazines, as I have used NME as inspiration they have this so I thought it would be good to do so as well.

Comparison of first draft and final front cover

Here is my first draft and my final front cover,  I am going to compare them to say what I have changed and why and how it has improved. Also the things that I have kept the same for specific reasons.

Firstly I have used the same image this is because when I asked my target audience which front cover image they like the best they chose this one. The only problem was I had already added the masthead which made it very difficult to start over again. Firstly I had to find the same effect for the edit and also the tools that I used to make it, for example airbrush. I did make the image bigger as I thought it makes the expression easier to see and also looks more effective, it engages the reader more as it is closer to them. The image has been edited differently from the first draft to my final piece and instead of a more of a sepia effect it was a black and white with a tad of colour to it. I thought that if I used a different colour then it would look more vintage which is the theme, also I didn't really like the orange colouring to the front cover therefore another reason for me to change the edit. When making the image larger I decided to use more of the pixlr tools as it was easier to see where abouts on the image I needed to improve. I then focused on editing the sharp edges of the image and also the skin which didn't really need improving. 

Secondly I changed the size of the masthead as when I asked my target audience what I needed to improve they said the size of the masthead. I did keep the colouring and the font the same as this is was I wanted. To make the mast head I wrote En(ore twice but in different colours then overlapped them to make it have a bit more definition and add some detail to the front cover.
In addition I changed the position of the date and price to the bottom right hand corner as my target audience agreed that it was the best place to put it, also I changed the font that it was written in as I wanted it to look a bit art deco this font made the £ look very quirky and I liked that it goes with the genre as well as my theme. On both of them however I did not add a barcode as I thought it could look cheap and I would prefer it to go on the back of my magazine. 

The next thing I changed was the sticker with the free download inside, it has gone from being an oval shape to a circular shape which is easier to place on the front cover. Also it allowed me to make the font inside bigger as there was more space to write inside, another point that my target audience stated was to make 'The xx' Larger or in bold so it would stand out. I therefore had to write it in a completely different font as there was not a bold option on pixlr, the only problem was that I had to find a bigger font that would still go with my theme. I did find one and to add more detail I decided to put a line underneath so it is even easier to read and see on a shelf. 

In addition I changed the box with the extra bits of detail that would be inside the magazine. I made it longer so that the text to be bigger, also it allowed me to add more text inside so therefore it would attract my audience as there is a wide variety of stars inside the magazine. Secondly, I made it less detailed as this could be put in my contents page instead of my front cover, this is why there is less writing about the stars and why they are inside the magazine. I didn't want to give too much information about the magazine on the front cover as it is revealing what is inside, it is like a blurb of a book. I decided to take the -'s out as it looked rather like a list which I didn't think celebrity names should be in. Also it makes it look more professional as all of the text is inline with each other. With the + on my first draft I thought that it looked rather like a doctors sign and I would prefer it to be thinner so I changed the font that it was in, I am now happy with it. 

I decided to make the exclusive easier to see and read therefore I placed a white background behind it, if my target audience went into a shop to buy it it gives more detail and also stands out. This allowed me to move my sell lines up the page as before I had to make sure it was readable however because of the dark trees it was impossible to read. 

Lastly I changed the font, colour and size to make it more like a conventional magazine. As I had not created my article before I had made my first draft I thought of a sell line, however when I wrote my article I thought that this would not really go and didn't engage the reader. Therefore I have changed it to a more engaging sell line which goes with my article. The only thing was when changing it I could not use the word collaboration as it was too long to write and would go across my models face which is defiantly not professional so I had to shorten it down. I kept two of the same sell lines as my first draft as I thought that they were the best ones to use, when showing my family however they spotted a rather big mistake that was a tad embarrassing. Instead of putting 'scam' I put 'scan' which I really needed to change. 
When creating my final piece I had more experience with using pixlr this allowed me to make the sell lines go to the side of the page without me tapping the space bar to make it level. This font is easier to do that rather than the first draft as it was wonky and also thicker. As I made the sell lines larger I had to make the writing fit around the image this is why I have changed whereabouts the text is. 
To add definition and to go with the other 'xx' download I decided to add the lines underneath again but in a different colour which was purple. When looking at the image though the two lines look different colours however they are not it is just the lightness of the background. I did use the colours of the blue as before as my target audience really liked this.