My evaluation

This is my evaluation for my As Media Portfolio, I decided to make an indie/alternative magazine after being inspired by magazines such as NME, Kerrang and Q magazine.

My research carried out on Survey monkey showed me that my target audience would be people in social grade D, aged between 15-25, of white British ethnic origin, and of a heterosexual sexual orientation. The gender of my target audience would be primarily male but would not limited to just males.

My magazines was inspired by NME, Kerrang and Q magazine, I used these magazines in order to research the common conventions of magazines, in particularly indie/alternative magazines as they fit this genre well. A large masthead that took up 1/6 of the page became a noticeable convention across all magazines I researched and so I decided to implement this idea into the production of my magazine. I also noticed that mastheads were often bold and gave an identity to the magazine itself and made it a recognized brand. My mast head follows conventions as it reads Conform which sticks to the convention of mastheads often being one word. I also decided to use a bold typography style in order to make the name of the magazine stick out so that it would be easily recognizable. I also used white, red and black as the color palette for my masthead, as well as my entire magazine. Using 3-4 colours consistantley throughout the design of the magazine also became apparent as a common convention after researching numerous magazines.

I then went onto look at the layout of music magazines and also create my own. I looked at layouts from the following magazines: NME, Kerrang and Q before starting. I noticed a common convention of layouts from the indie/alternative genre was that they were relatively simple, displayed information in places where the audience could find it easily and used text boxes to make sections stand out. This was used to represent and attract the target audience.

My layout follows conventions because it is simple, lets the text work well alongside the main image and it uses text boxes to contain parts of the text which need to stand out. I let my target audience choose the nature of my layout through SurveyMonkey. I asked them what they would like to see on a magazine and a good layout was high on their list of priorities.  

Also based on my research (primary and secondary) I chose a layout which followed many of the main stereotypes associated with the genre. This represents the target audience because it fits Dick Hedbridge’s theory because it represents youth as ‘fun’. I think my layout will attract my target audience because it is easy to navigate, coherently and stereotypically laid out and the barcode is positioned in the conventional position.

In short, it follows conventions because of the structure of the page but breaks them slightly because some of the spacing isn’t perhaps the same as that of conventional magazines.I then went onto look at the colour palate of music magazines and also create my own. I looked at colour palates from the following magazines: NME, Kerrang and Q before starting. I noticed a common convention of colour palates from the indie/alternative genre was that they were relatively simple, most of them displayed 3 to 4 main colours which worked well together.

This was used to represent and attract the target audience. My colour palate follows conventions because it is simple, uses the colours black, white and red and each colour is used in a different way to make text stand out. I let my target audience choose the colours of my colours palate. I asked them what they would like to see on a magazine and these colours were ones which came up the most. Also, based on my research (primary and secondary) I chose colours which followed many of the main stereotypes associated with the genre. This represents the target audience because it fits Stanley Hall’s theory because it represents youth as ‘rebellious’.

I think my colour palate will attract my target audience because of the colours used and their connotation and also the way that different colours are used to portray different needs. In short, it follows conventions because of the colours used, but breaks them slightly because perhaps it doesn’t stand out from the crowd as some of my competitors do.

The main image for me had to be attractive and convey the genre of the magazine to the audience. My model was a female who was in the age category of my target audience, hopefully making it easier for them to connect to magazine itself. Her dyed hair and risqué look only emphasizes connoted rebellion which the audience of my magazine would potentially be themselves. The typography of my magazine needed to represent my audience as well, the common conventions of typography styles in magazines were often bold and the words used were often short. I also added a bar code on my magazine as room for the barcode would need to be incorporated into my magazine if it were too be published and sold as a commercial piece of media.

I think that my typography styles and colour worked well and represented the audience. They did this through bold lettering and colours which fit together to represent the common convetions of the genre.I also think that I could perhaps improve my image on the cover as it doesn’t perhaps look as professional as I would have liked.

In terms of my contents page I noticed through researching NME Kerrang and Q that there was oftena  feature story, I decided to incorporate this idea into my own work and highlighted the story on the cover, the contents page and worked it into my double page spread by writing my article on the feature story. I stuck to conventions in terms of loyout however broke conventions by portraying images with shot types that are not conventionally shown on a music magazine cover. Moreover, I maybe used a typography style which didn’t stick 100 percent to conventions. I do however think that the breaking of conventions would help in attracting my target audience as it is slightly different to most commercial magazines and my target audience may be wanting to see something different to what they are used to.

My feature page was also influence through researching popular magazines in the indie/alternative genre I noticed that they all had a large header in a large font in a bold typography style, had 1 main image, however could contain more, showed the page numbers in the bottom left/bottom right hand corners, bold font size/style and showed stories that were representative to my audience and their interest in music. I followed these conventions through adding a large header at the top of the page which told my aueience what the article was about, showed a large image, taking up a whole page, used bold font styles and I also used interesting colours that followed my main magazine colour scheme.

I portrayed a typography style for my main article which didn’t follow the conventions of music magazines. I think that this was because I tried to stick to my main magazine font, whereas I should have tried to portray the genre better.

I think my feature article represents/attracts my target audience because it fits Hedbrige’s theory of “youth as fun”. It does this through the large, interesting image and the colour scheme. I think the colours on my feature article look professional but I would change the typography as it does not look as good as it could have due to it being out of convention. In terms of my feature article, I decided to use an interview, I chose this type of article as it gave the reader a more personal connection to the star model and potentially is the more interesting choice of article, compared to a review which is simply someone’s opinion which may lack interest from the reader’s perspective.

Institution describes the organization or conglomerate of people that are responsible for the publication of a particular piece of media. Magazines are created by businesses seeking to generate a profit by selling their magazine to a particular genre of people. Once the audience is interested in the magazine the institution attempts to expand. It can do this in three ways, conglomeration, expansion and diversification. The media institution is huge. There are currently 2471 consumer magazines in the UK across a wide range of genres. Readers spend on average £1.46 billion a year on consumer magazines making it a viable and successful market.

Conglomeration describes the coming together of different groups working together in order to be more productive and potentially create a higher quality magazine. It is usually seen as a cost effective move for an institution as a conglomeration shares the same production methods, distributing methods and also the same building. Expansion describes the buyout of a particular successful magazine that will easily and successfully fit into a collection of genres that the institution owns. The original owner of the magazine usually benefits well as the buyout is usually high, obviously depending on the success of the magazine already. The owner can make a decision to still work on the magazine as their own, however it simply makes it easier in terms of production and distribution as it now become part of the institution, where the only real difference in magazine production is the content. Any addition to the current institution adds to the value of that institution. Diversification describes the changes made to the product line, decommissioning and introduction of new magazines and the institution's attempt to produce magazine production into genres it currently has no influence over. It does this in order to gain a more diverse and overall larger target audience.

IPC Media are the leading consumer magazine and digital publishers in the UK. They publish magazines from a wide range of genres, from indie music magazines such as NME to woman's lifestyle magazines such as Now weekly. They are also responsible for publishing newspapers such as The People and The Sun. The company is divided into 3 main sub headings in which similar genre magazines fit into. Connect is responsible for the publication of mass woman weekly magazines. Southbank is responsible for the publication for upmarket woman weekly magazines. Inspire is responsible for the publication of men's weekly magazines such as The Field and Rugby Weekly.

Bauer Media Group is a large German publishing company, headquartered in hamburg. Primarily they publish woman's weekly magazines and also television listing magazines. Popular brands that are owned by Bauer Media Group include Bella, Take a break and other popular television listing magazines. Popular Bauer media brands include Q magazine and Kerrang! It also has influence and involvement in the radio and television industry.

I think that my music magazine would be successful as part of Bauer Media Group, this is because they also own Q magazine and Kerrang magazine, and could benefit from another magazine of similar genre but with a slightly different target audience. In other words, my magazine is similar to Q  and Kerrang but also different enough to attract the attention of Bauer because it is pitched a a young group than Q but a slightly older group than Kerrang. I would like them to publish my magazine because it would also ensure my publication got links in TV and radio.

A key thing I learnt about was how to create a SurveyMonkey Survey and share it on Facebook and Twitter. This was an excellent way to conduct research as I could reach more people in my primary target audience quickly and the technology generated graphs for me.

Another new piece of technology that I used was called Prezi which allowed me to make professional looking presentations easily and effectively, one of the tasks I did was to do a presentation in class on feature articles using Prezi.

Throughout this course I have also had to learn how to use professional software and equipment in order to make my work look commercially viable and artistically effective. I had to learn how to use Photoshop having never had any experience using it prior to starting this course, I also had to get use to using the Apple Mac computers as well as the professional Canon 5D SLR. I still think that I have to research more into shot types and camera angles in order to become a more proficient and successful photographer.

I also learned how to use Photoshop effectively to fit my needs. I learned how to -

•                Create documents that were the correct size.

•                Create text which looks good and appeals to my audience

•                Cut out images from a complex background

•                Change lighting and saturation to make the images look professional

•                Enlarge images whilst still maintaining the quality

•                Magic wand tool for cutting out objects along with the magic eraser tool, I found these tools made my job a lot quicker.

•                Change contrast and lighting using numerous overlays in order to make the image look more professional.

•                Create and make a layout which represents many themes which I need to show.

The images that I used in my preliminary task very basic because it was my first attempt at making a commercially viable piece of media and therefore I had not had any experience in photography and lighting which is easy to see by looking at the quality of the images on my prelim work.

In order to avoid the same problem in my main task I researched in depth what exactly influenced the quality of the image, this included the lighting, aperture, location and mis-en-scene.

I think that the pieces of work that I have produced for my main task easily shows how far I have improved since beginning this course back in September. The layout on my work produced for the prelim task was poor as I had not developed the skills on Photoshop required to create a layout which would be artistically effective and commercially viable.

For my main task I researched the conventions more closely and also took note of my research gathered on survey monkey, on my main product the colour pallet was well thought and represented the needs of my target audience well.

Overall it is clear to see that by researching magazines and through experimentation on professional software I have created a piece of media that is artistically effective and potentially commercially viable.