Evaluation of Front Cover

Question 1, In what ways does your media product use, develop pr challenge forms and conventions of real media products?In some forms, my media product is somewhat similar to the real media products, giving the layout and the different colour schemes, it may be hard to justify the music niche market which this music magazine mainly belongs to.; Indie music and similar, new music. The colour scheme of the name of the magazine ‘Playback’ and the headphones logo, is a bright blue colour. This colour, I personally associate with indie music, a bright boastful colour, which similarly reminds me of the music and artists who belong to the music scene. The use of the red font colour for the additional information, is also a bold cover, showing again the links between the conventions of my magazine and the niche indie music scene. The idea behind my final product, challenges real media product, as a music magazine purely based on new music, breaking artists who have just been signed. Yes other music magazines feature new music, (NME’s Radar section) however, is not fully based on new artists. The dominant image features a rebellious artist. This convention challenges real media product’s as most magazines feature commonly known artists, using this as their major appeal on the front cover. I have used this convention in a similar way, however also using the front cover as an advertisement, advertising new music and new artists. This again challenges the opinion and appeal of other music lovers, the front cover, features 4 individual's whom are all girls. This may be interpreted as a magazine aimed at girls, however this is not the case. This music magazine is aimed at indie and new music loving fans.

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Question 2, How does your media product represent particular social groups? The front cover of my final product, can gain the trust of my target audience. The dominant image on the front cover, shows a young girl, age around 17, holding a can of fosters, the background of this image can easily be said to be at a house, so immediately the audience can guess that the theme of this image is that the young girl is at ‘a house party’ . This immediately links with my target audience, showing them that this person is just like them, a young person who is enjoying life enabling her to live the normal interactions that teenagers socialise in every day situations. I believe that the can of fosters, is a major key of representation, as the audience will somewhat relax, and be curious to find out of what this girl is doing on the front over of a music magazine. Steph, young girl, could even been seen as an role model for the target audience or a symbol of achievement. The bright colours and the somewhat ‘fun’ images, represent the fun elements of a teenagers life. In particular I believe that the main audience for this magazine would be in fact college/ Uni students and indie music scene. Most college students are interested in going to musicfestivals and gigs. This magazine would show students new music and cheap gigs they can go to.

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Question 3, What kind of media institutionmight distribute your media product and why?Because my magazine is a full on Niche market magazine, this means that my magazine is a smaller organisation to other major music magazines out their. This means that my magazine would be owned by a large company, however the magazine would be an ‘experimental’ magazine, to see how the audience responds to the magazine, whetherthe magazine would be successful and therefore should be kept on, or should be scraped as an unsuccessful magazine. My magazine would not only be published, but would also be online to, 24hour music newsfeed, new artists to listen to, reviews of different gigs throughout the country etc. These are some of the reasons why Dennis Publishing would be a good publisher to publish my magazine. Because Dennis Publisher have not published any main music magazines, I would take it as opportunity to be the first music magazineto be published, even if the magazine would be an ‘project’ for thepublishing company. With this publishing company, they could also help to set my music magazine on to the web and create a 21st century readership profile.

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Question 4, Who would be the audience for your media product? I believe my final product would have two target audiences, a Niche market audience, an a general audience. The Niche music audience would be indie and alternative music. This would be due to the main images placed on my front cover. The dominant image of the young teenage girl instinctively shows the casual relaxing pose of a indie artist. The artists, advertised on the front cover, The Drums, Florence and the Machine, are commonly known for being in the niche indie music scene. The general audience for my magazine would be students with the ages 16-19. This would be because of the new music mainly advertised in my magazine. It may seem discriminating to those older or younger who, may enjoy the reasons listed, however my claims are justiable. Students are more likely to listen and are more easy to advertise for new music. They have a more relaxing life style making it easier to travel and go to gigs, have more time to read and listen to new artists. Also the new music featuring in my magazine would appeal more to the target audience. All the images on the front cover, are showing girls. This could be a problem for advertising the magazine to both genders. However, this magazine does not have a target audience of just a female audience.

Finished product

Question 5, How did you attract/ address your audience?Basically, on my front cover, I decided to use quotes from the ‘interview’s’ of the other artists, using these quotes as buzz words creating a hype around the that certain artist. The use of the amateur images used for the dominant image on the front cover, attractsthe target audience, with the target audience relating to that figure. Steph’s feature and characteristics in this photo are similar to those amidst in the target audience, which means that the target audience would look to Steph as a role model. The use of the red font and italics on the front cover are used for the additional information: ‘ ...’ The use of the red colour is so that the information can stand out from the images.

Question 6, What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?The conventions I have learnt from using certain technologies are fairly complicated however, after having past experience from my years in secondary school, I find certain technology software easy to use . I believe that the technologies I used to produce my magazine, are easy to use once having a quick tutorial making it easier for anyone to produce certain products, i.e. a music magazine. Different technologies have developed through time enabling easier access to edit images to give certain effects. This then lets us produce the true product we want, as how I manipulated the dominant image for the front cover. Then even if editing needs to be done to my final pieces then it will let us do that as well. The types of software I used for my music magazine was mainly Photoshop... I found this software easy to use, after already having experience in using similar software. However, for manipulating some of these images, I used Microsoft 2007 to reset the lighting in my images.

Question 7, Looking back at your preliminary task ( the college magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product? I have found the editing and layout to be challenging in my main product. I found It hard to place certain images and text to create the certain effect I would have liked to achieved. By producing my preliminary task before my music magazine, it taught me some of the methods I later used on my music magazine, for example, manipulating some of the images so comparing my Preliminary task to my main media product it showed me that the Preliminary task wasn’t so complex. The layout of my front cover in my Preliminary task and my music magazine front cover are somewhat similar. The additional information are placed in a column like style, a main image is used as an dominant image, creating the mood and scene of my magazine. My front cover for my main media product, was a simple design, however having the same appeal I would have expected. My knowledge developed by learning throughout lessons, looking at examples of real media products and researching information from the internets, for example layouts of different genres of magazines, use of images, how which images appeal to certain targeted niche markets, colour schemes and niche markets of certain media products. My technical skills developed by making my preliminary task giving me a taster of what I would be doing and use the preliminary task as an experiment to spot what errors I would not do on my final product . Example: Adding more colour onto my final product, adding more images on to the front cover to make the cover more appealing. Also the other way I learnt my technical skills was by making the product and using trial and error, then re-doing mistakes on my mistakes on my full product, to get it to the best overall quality.