Media Evaluation
My media product was a magazine and I used and developed ideas for my magazine from current conventions in magazines and I expanded on their ideas. Some of the convention in which helped me was the layouts of some magazines so I could grasp my idea and develop a layout from there. Other ideas were also developed from current magazines in ways like: being able to position central images, how to present my title block to give me basic examples to build upon. I used current layouts to make a start upon my magazine and after challenge it by trial and error of positioning and challenging the layouts to find a layout that fitted my genre of music. For my contents page I looked up Kerrang! Contents pages to look at basically layouts and how they used their central images and adapted there layout and produced my own from that. I also looked up all basic conventions of a double page spread and invented my own and completely challenged the layouts by choosing my own and developing it to a standard in which I thought suited and went well with the contents layout I had adapted.
My magazine was chosen on a very risky social group as it is still developing within teenage society. This is because the breed of music that I chose is still growing and developing its different so I thought it would appeal and attract to the new teenage society coming through along with this genre of music. my sub-culture that my magazine represents is a different from many as it is not a fully formed society yet but it is slowly growing from all different subcultures a lot of teens grow they are sensing that their sub-cultures are quite aging and this new sub-culture is attracting everyone. As I mentioned before my age group is mainly teenagers between the ages of 15-19 as they are the current age of all the sub-cultures in which are slowly becoming dated. Many people are slowly joining this sub-culture because they all have this sense of belonging from Dubstep type music and although people may not like the full on Dubstep there is also lighter Dubstep which is closer to drum & bass which is also in this sub-culture and it’s the reason that the culture is growing so fast in this young society. Things That are useful about this new breed of music is that it is appealing to all listeners from rock to even hip-hop and is bringing people closer together and introducing rival society's into one society where they share a common similarity in their opinion Dubstep.
The types of magazine in which I believe would publish my magazine are development hell. This is because my magazine is very knish and it is very independent they do not publish magazines that follow the normal stream of music they are out there to get new types of magazine, this would fit with their other magazines such as: Mixmag, The Word and DontStayIn.com which are all aimed at dancers and clubbers teenagers in their late teens early twenties. This is where my magazine is more unique its aimed at the clubbers and dancers of tomorrow because there is no doubt when my generation is old enough that we will advance and be the new ravers of tomorrows world, and there music that will change the raving world of today. The reason I think this is because I would be supplying Development Hell with the next magazine a new target audience and probably the faster upcoming sound/genre I have heard in a long time.
My audience would be between the ages of 15-19 the upcoming generation of ravers, dancers and clubbers. It will be a magazine that appeals to boys and girls and they will all share the common interests of going out and raving it up to some of their favourite songs or 'tunes' and having a good time. It would be the type of magazine that is on sale inside of a club or on the door for around £1.50 and will give them listings to all the new and old bands and all the new rave and clubbing hot spots for them to pick their destination the next weekend. At this time I cannot think of another magazine that is being sold like mine would and especially for the age group that I am aiming my magazine at so I would say it is a gap in the market and I think I have hit upon a good possible target audience when I combine it with the target audience I am also aiming it at.
To attract the attention of my audience I started by making the title a bright blue and used an image where the main influence was in blue so it would stand out quite boldly on a shelf. I did not use a direct mode of address but I made it seem like the artist on the page is looking at the title for you to notice the title and notice the magazine. My title block however was all used to match the artists clothes on the cover and was all very bright so would be a main factor of attracting your eye to the title block, also where the artist is looking at the title your eyes look to where he is looking and notice the colourful title block. The font that I used was consistent throughout the magazine as it suits the genre of music very well and is a bold font in bright colours which also attracts the reader’s eye. I didn't include any special offers in my magazine as it is only £1.50 and if I had given away freebies the magazine would have made a loss in the long run of producing the magazine although I could have offered a free download from the main artist’s sound cloud page.
I have learnt many things in the progress of making my magazine about both blogging and a lot more techniques on Photoshop. One of the things I have learnt about blogging is that it doesn't have to be just about work it can be made personal and can be part of your personality it’s not just for working. Another thing I have learnt is my blog has to appeal to other people and not just to what I like otherwise it defeats the objective of blogging. When it comes to Photoshop I have learnt multiple skills such as: Bordering, playing with light settings, black and white settings, how to change hair and eye colour and many more things. This magazine has also taught one thing very important that I didn't really think about before and its time keeping and thinking outside of the box, and what I mean by that is looking at things from other peoples prospective to see what can be improved and surveying their opinions to see if it’s worth trying to do, to improve and build on my skills that I have developed in the making of this magazine.
In terms of my skills improving I feel I have learnt a lot more technically and gained a lot of skills to help me produce my magazine. It has also taught me mentally that I have to be more inventive and more aware of other people’s opinions other than mine. My construction of images come out better than I ever thought they could because I had excellent people teaching and helping thought taking the photos, I was advised to learn how to edit my photos online and make them look as good as they have turned out. The positioning of my photos and laying out my magazine come from learning from other current magazines and also a lot of my layout decision comes from me using trial and error to find the right balance between picture size, writing size and finding the right balance between them and I think eventually my experiments finally paid off. Understanding my layout conventions took a little while to comprehend but once I had the understanding of things it was rather easy to think of possible layouts for my magazine. Finally attracting the attention of the audience I would say was the easy part because I had an idea of what colours I could use, of course they were different from what I eventually used, but I still had a very good understanding of what colours I could use within my magazine.
