Evaluation

For our media product design coursework we had to design and produce a front cover, contents page and a double page spread like a real magazine would. The media product that I have created uses, develops and challenges the forms and conventions of the magazine I have been following when creating the final product. My magazine ‘Beat’ uses forms and conventions that all other magazines use not only on the front cover but all the way through the magazine. The new designed magazine has a newly made up masthead that’s called ‘Beat’, I chose the word beat as it’s what’s in every song whatever the genre. The Masthead invites the reader by suggesting that there’s a beat in all types of music so it will cover a lot of music genres, not just one type being in a particular niche market but in many a it has such a wide target audience. The magazine covers music genres such as pop, r’n’b, dance rock and grime, although its main focus is on pop. It follows the typical conventions of this type of magazine through many features such as the layout, typography, colours and images used throughout the magazine. As the magazine is for children and young teenagers, they are mostly attracted by the colours and the images before even reading the copy, so it’s very important to use colours and images that will stand out and will appeal to them. This is electric which makes it stand out. The front cover and the contents page in the magazine have a typical house style to genre of pop, although I wanted the double page spread to look slightly different as the magazine is meant to be for other genres to. I wanted to give the two pages more of a punk feel so it shows that other genres are present in the magazine. It develops a media product by being different to what types of magazines you could buy in a local store as you don’t normally get magazines with different types of music genres in them.
The music magazine that I have followed is ‘Top of the Pops’ which is based around the pop music genre. My media product represents what people would call a young normal teenager of today’s life that is not based around one type of music genre but many. It does not represent a particular social group such a Goth or an Emo, these types of social groups will be represented by magazines such as ‘NME’. I have tried to use all different types of colours, to not put the magazine in a category type. If you use more dark and dull colours then it can be classed as a Gothic magazine or if you use more pinks and purples it can be classed more of a girly magazine. This is not what I wanted to portray through the magazine, I wanted it to be for both girls and boys of a young age who are interested in all types of music. So I decided to use more colours that are more towards boys and girls of all ages. Colours that are not too bright but not too dull, such as on the front cover I used colours such as green and yellows so that it was not pushed towards being for one gender.
A rather large media institution would have to publish the magazine as I can imagine there will be a lot of copies needed as it has a wide audience. My magazine was based on a children’s ‘top of the pops’ magazine, it has a big publisher company which is the BBC and as my magazine is in the same category it may need a big publisher like itself. It will be sold in places such as newsagents, supermarkets or bookshops. My magazine front cover is more edgy compared to the ‘Top of the Pops’ style. I wanted mine to be completely different to magazine I was following so I was not exactly copying every part of it including the colours, text and images. Whereas with my double page spread it follows more of the ‘top of the pops’ house style so I used the same type of colours and layout that they would use on their double page spread.

Throughout my magazine it has an ideal audience for soon to be teenagers and young teenagers. This is showed through the style of the magazine through the layout as it is extremely lively and has a flow from page to page, unless it’s for a rock or punk double page spread where the page layout and the colour changes to suit them. The magazine would have a wide target audience, as there are many different types of genres of music and artists. The wider the target audience the more successful the magazine will be. As the magazine will have such a wide target audience it will make the magazine mainstream. You can tell ‘Top of the Pops’ is a mainstream magazine as it’s designed and produced by the BBC. There is not a specific type of music in this magazine as I have tried to cover what an average teenager would like to listen to or read about, this includes the artists that are out at the moment. The target age audience of the magazine will generally be eleven to fifteen year olds, so just before being a teenager to early teens.

I attracted the audience by using bright colours on the front cover as that’s what a young teenager would normally go for, as it looks young and lively. But it does not stop on the front page, there are bright and lively colours throughout the magazine. The contents page has a mix of two colours as the background and a funky type of text that I designed on the Internet so it fits with the magazine. The writing needed to fit around the young teenagers personalities, so it needed to be very bright and lively. As the text is bubble writing and has curved edges it captured their personality as fun and bubbly. The double page spread also carries out the lively colours that the magazine is portraying, although it tries to change the house style of the magazine by making it look more punk. The type of language used in the magazine is mainly Standard English but quite basic. It’s made to be basic as it’s for young readers; I want it to be enjoyable for them to read so they will buy the magazine again. There may also be slang used in the magazine but mainly in interview if that’s the way they talk. Even though they use slang there is no colloquial language used, as it’s for young teenagers it would not be very appropriate.

When producing the media product you have to use two different types of software throughout the task. In my case I used Photoshop and Microsoft publisher to create my magazine. When using these two software applications it takes a great deal of learning all the different techniques that can be used to make a magazine look more realistic. Photoshop in my opinion was the hardest piece of software to use as there are so many tools with different names and if you are unfamiliar with all the tools you have just to use them and try them, to see how they work. I have learnt that when using Photoshop it’s best to experiment with tools as I am not fully aware of how they work.

When creating the preliminary task it was not as stressful as creating the full product including the front cover, contents page and the double page spread. I have learnt that you need to give yourself enough time to make the final product as you may get some technical issues that slow you down. You also need to put in a lot more detail and make sure you use as many connotations and conventions as possible that a magazine would have.
I showed the magazine to a younger member of my family who is eleven years of age. She described my magazine as very fun and young looking by all the colours and images that are used throughout the magazine. She also said that she liked the way that there are many different types of music genres in the magazine, you would normally have to buy different magazines to look at different types of music. She implied that she would defiantly buy the magazine from her local shop.

Final Double page spread

This is the final copy of my double page spread. It challenges the magazine as it uses a different house style. It does not focus on the pop music genre but more on a punk feel. The layout all fits in together and has a flow across the two pages. The 'exclusive' and the main title are situated on the left hand side of the page which dominates the whole side. The main image is mainly on the left hand side of the page but slightly going on to the other page, which shows that it's their story. the main colours used are pink and grey, but there are also white and black used for the writing.

This is the finished version of my contents page. You can tell its for a children's magazine as the main image is of a girl that is quite young. She is doing a very excited but friendly pose that welcomes you into the magazine. In the imgae her eyes are also looking forward to the contents information as if she is actually looking at the text. There is a date date at the top of the page that is above the title. The title is in a purple colour and is a kind of bubble writing, this suggests it is again for a younger audience as it looks more fun and inviting. The colours used are pastel colours but made brighter to make them look more exciting and fun to appeal to the young teens. The text is very easy to read as they use a clear visible font in basic English language.

Front cover

This is my final front cover of my magazine 'Beat'. It's different from the normal house style of the 'Top of the Pops' its more edgy and doesn't stick to the same colours as on their front page, i have used green and yellow. It has the BBC logo in the top left hand corner which indicates who publishes the magazine. it has a pug in the top right hand corner which shows that there is a special offer on the mgazine. The main image is in the middle of the page which indicates that its the main story in the magazine that week. the storytlines are then placed around the main storyline. At the bottom of the page is the barcode and the issue date. And another part which shows you the top 100 songs over a period of time.

Mock up of double page spread

This is a mock up of my double page spread. It's different from the 'Top of the Pops' house style as i didn't want it to be based around the music pop genre. It follows the same colours but has more of a punk feel. On the left hand side of the double page spread, it has the work 'Exclusive' suggesting that this storyline is only in their magazine and not no other. Underneath that it has the title of the story, it's in a pale pink colour as its for love. Underneath the main title there is a love heart, with both of their names in which indicates that they are together. In the middle of the two pages is the main image of the couple, the image dominates the two pages. On the right hand side of the page will be in interview questions that the reporter will ask the couple. The colours will be Grey's and pink which some black and white.

Mock up of front cover

This is a mock up of my front cover it show the same house style as the 'Top of Pops' magazine. It has a skyline right at the top of the page, which tells the reader whats in the magazine. It also has a main image which is situated in the middle of the page so the reader can tell that's the main storyline. It has many layers on the front cover, over the top of the main image there is a sub heading telling the reader what the main topic is, there is also exclusive to show that it's the main story in the magazine that week. There are straplines all around the main image to tell the reader what else is in the magazine that week. The colours on the front cover aren't going to be towards a girl but towards both boys and girls, as i didn't want it to follow the 'Top of the Pops' magazine.

Mock up of contents

This is my first mock up of my contents page, it's very basic and just shows where the main shapes and parts of the contents page would go. it shows the main image which will cover half of the single page, i want the image to be a close up of a half a face. The mock up also shows, the title 'Contents page' which is situated at the top of the page. It has the main text on the right hand side of the page, which will tell the reader what is in the magazine. In the bottom right hand corner there will be a subscription meaning that you can order the magazine to your house and get money off. The colours of the contents page will need to be very bright and lively to attract the reader.