Evaluation of preliminary project power
- 1. Evaluation of Preliminary Project • Magazine Cover • Magazine Contents
- 2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? • My magazine uses several conventions of real media products. Through conducting research on broad range of magazines whilst researching student magazines specifically, I was able to develop an understanding of various conventions used. I endorsed a lot of these conventions in both my cover and contents page. Through my research I leant that student magazines tend to use warm colours for their fonts and boarders; I used this generic convention in my artefact as warm colours can connote positivity. When constructing my front cover I generally followed the conventions with the student magazines that I researched that only used two colours for the textual information, whilst other magazines such as music magazines used three or more colours, this influenced me to only use two colours for my textual information. When constructing my contents page, I challenged the conventions more than when making my cover. When I was researching contents pages, I found that they tended to have columns and grids that they we’re strict in using/following. I followed the conventions of contents pages, as I utilised two columns and a baseline grid to create my contents page, which helped to keep my text and placement of images organised. However as it is a student magazine, I challenged the conventions by breaking the rules slightly as I overlapped some images and text out of the columns, I done this as I didn’t want my contents page to look too formal and through the structure of the contents page being too organised and structured, it would look formal, this made my contents page slightly subversive.
- 3. How does your media product represent particular social groups? • My media product represents my selected social groups in many different ways. It is aimed at urban teenagers. This is why I have chosen a lot of the cover lines to be about technological appliances. Whilst if I was aiming at teenagers that lived in rural areas, I would have chosen cover lines more appropriate to them and their surroundings. My student magazine is aimed at urban teenagers who are in the middle class or higher, this is influenced by a lot of the cover lines and features being about expensive products that less fortunate people may not be able to relate to. Through my magazine consisting of language such as ‘swag’ enhances the social group it is aimed at as urban teenagers tend to be quite fashion conscious, hence the phrase used in the cover line ‘is your swag in check’. I wanted to ensure that my magazine was quite informative, as a lot are profound users of the blackberry services, I made sure to make ‘blackberry busted services’ a feature in my magazine as it’s relevant to the majority of the urban teenagers,
- 4. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? • The type of media institution that would distribute my product would be SFX College. This is due to the magazine targeting students. My magazine specifically targets students of SFX this is due to my cover lines referencing features of the college such as the ‘Moodle’ cover line on my front page. Some of the cover lines on the contents page such as ‘Rampant Ravers’ connotes the fun times a teenager can experience in their social like. A lot of young people that attend raves an parties are students, hence why it should be distributed in a college such as SFX.
- 5. Who would be the audience for your media product? • The target audience of my product is college students at SFX, who live in urban areas. I have tried to address my target audience in several ways. I used the colour navy blue as the background colour as it eliminates the chances of the magazine looking subjective to one gender, i.e. through the use of pink. Through the use of the cover line ‘moodle goes major’ the target audience is easier to identity as only students who attend the college will have a shared understanding of what moodle is, this demonstrates the use of field specific lexis’. When conducting my research on student magazines I found that they only really used one image on the cover, which was evidently the main image. When making my cover I broke this conventional feature and placed one image and two images that co-sided with the relevant cover lines. Through using more than one image allowed the target audience to be easier to identify, as it isn’t just a picture of a student, I also used pictures of designer brands relevant to the youth. My chosen main cover line has the term ‘youth’ in it, this helps to identify the target audience as they are youths themselves.
- 6. How did you attract/address your adueicne? • I attracted my audience through the use of the main image being a student, I tried to ensure that the student’s facial expressions looked rather serious to indicate that he is a focused students. In addition I used a vibrant colour scheme as blue and yellow are warm colours; by doing this it allowed my front cover to employ a fun approach. When conducting the cover lines I tried to use colloquial language that was relevant to the youth, as urban students tend to be fashion orientated I used the colloquial term ‘swag’ in one of my cover lines. All of my cover lines were specifically relevant to the students for instance my main cover line ‘upsurge in youth employment’, this showed direct address to the target audience.
- 7. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? • Through utilising both InDesign and Photoshop to create my artefacts. InDesign gave me the ability to incorporate document grids when producing my contents page; this allowed me to align my text accordingly to how I wanted it. When conducting my research on contents page I noticed they tended to use two columns or three columns, using InDesign allowed me to follow this generic convention in which I divided my contents page into two columns. A key tool that I used in Photoshop was the magic wand tool that allowed me to crop out a main image from it’s background, efficiently. This allowed my pictures to look more professional. Photoshop allowed me to construct auto-shapes effectively to construct a cloud with my slogan inside of the cloud.
- 8. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? • During the preliminary task I enhanced my ability of using both InDesign and Photoshop, as I hadn’t used them previously. I got to grips with utilise tools like the marquee tool more effectively and accurately, this allowed my final artefacts to look more professional. In developing my skills of using Photoshop It was easier for me to transform an idea to an artefact, as I became aware of features such as how to operate the layers effectively. During the task I continuously reflected on my research to see what features made a good media product such as the use of a colour scheme that complemented each other, as a magazine I saw used red and yellow, in which these colours complement each other. This influenced my colour scheme as I used blue and yellow under the influence of both these colours being warm and vibrant as blue connotes purity and the sky whilst yellow connotes the sun, overall giving the colour scheme a vibrant approach.