Evaluation

My products use a lot of creative techniques that real media products use to make them a success. Example.

 

• I made the masthead of my magazine cover large and stretched so it fills the top of the cover. I did this because I felt that the name ‘REBEL’ should be the most noticeable thing as it stands for attention and mischief and it lets the audience know that its a REBEL magazine. The title is also red because it stands out nicely to the background and it matches the coloured pattern on the electric guitar, which creates a connection to the music genre when the audience look at it from a distance.

• My central image  is a picture of my cousin leaning on a wall of his house, i chose this background because his house is really old so the brick is corroded which represents my music genre, rock. I chose my cousin as my rock star has his hair style is what you would expect from a musician. The dark zipped hoodie matches the colour of the guitar and represents the mood of rock music and the electric guitar he is holding best fits the genre as its what rockstars play.

• For my subheadings and details I found that yellow and white looked the best together on this background. The subheading is white and uses italics to separate its appearance with the detail of the heading below it and its more pleasant to look at. The title for the main story of the central image is bigger than the other subheadings and uses a playful font so the audience won't get confused with which heading matches the Central image. The skyline of my magazine cover is the same font and colour of the subheadings but to make it stand out more I used it on top of a black background so the yellow looks more solid to the eye.

• Arms of Sorrow is a made up band i came up with and the names as it is about my magazine article. I used the name Arms of Sorrow as it best describes rock music as some songs are about depression and the name sounds good that rolls off the tongue.

• The Title on my magazine contents page is the first thing the audience will notice as i have made it big and used black on a white background to make it clear to see. This way the audience will see what page of the magazine it is in a blink of an eye. I've kept 'REBEL' as the colour red because red is it's main colour that the audience will get familiar with.

• The image of the main story is of my sister with the sky as the background. I chose this as I wanted to include a female in my magazine and a something about a singer. To give the image an even balance for the male and female audience, I used a sky background which is something light and natural for the women and a dark leather jacket for the men, while it all represents a female rockstar.

• All the subheadings and stories are in a chronological order running down the left and side of the page. This makes it simple for the average person to follow the contents page as its natural for us to read left to right and top to bottom, instead of stories dotted all over which will take the audience longer to find where their interested story is. The subheadings are the same as the title to keep the white on black theme the page has going. The subheadings includes 'NEWS' which is for information on people and bands to find out what they get up to, 'NEW RELEASES' is a form of advertising for bands and musicians which lets people know of their new products and songs, 'R! FEATURES' which is the prop that sells the magazine as people look for posters and toys to get their hands on, 'LIVE REVIEWS' is for people who miss concerts and festivals and want to find out what everyone thinks of their favourite band, 'COMPETITIONS' encourages fans to buy the magazine as they could win free merchandise featuring their favourite bands. I made the page numbers red to make them stand out but at the same time ties in with the magazine name as it is to red.

• To make the main story stand out it is on the right hand side of the page with different fonts and its own image which automatically draws the audience's eye. Finally the special offer which encourages people to stick with the magazine's make is at the bottom of the page with a black background and white text so it is very hard to miss as this is the key to getting a company it's profit.       

• Again the title and catch line are very big so its the first thing to catch your eye and tell people who the article is about. The title is red keeping to the magazines theme and also in the text important names are also red which is different to the white text to make them stand out. The title uses the font 'Charlemagne Std' which reminds me of old fashioned Gothic text which fits the rock genre.

• On the article I have a band image which is creative in the fact that the surrounding is in an abandoned building which is a mess with broken furniture. I found this was the perfect surrounding for a band and best represents the rock genre. The clothing of my musicians was casual wear as it shows the band could have been exploring while giving them a smart dress code which represents rebellion, what you would expect with a stereotypical rock stars. I thought I should include their stage name underneath as when the audience reads the article they are gonna know who is who.

• The other 2 images beneath the band image are what I took at a concert I went to. To give the audience a visual of what it would be like to be in the crowd of people watching the concert, I used these photos because it shows the whole stage and a glimpse of the crowds of people. The 3 photos on my article are presented as old fashioned photographs pinned on a wooden wall giving me the idea to find this texture background, which works as a bulletin board and dark background for my text. Overall it does a great job of representing the rock genre.

Target Audience

The audience I have been targeting are teenagers and young adults, so 16 years to 25 years of age. This is because my research stated that men and women during this stage of their life listen to rock music and enjoy going to music festivals. To satisfy my targeted audience I included a poster as people at this age tend to put them on their wall to express their feelings of bands they like. I included a competition because teenagers like to own customised products from their favourite bands which they have a chance to win. Finally to attract my target audience I included live reviews of concerts because teenagers can relate to them as it will be likely that they attended the show.

Attracting my Target audience

To attract my target audience (teenagers) I used people who are similar ages for my images as it tells the person that this magazine is for your age group. From my survey I used the artists and story types that were the most popular as alot of other people would have picked the same too. The background on my magazine cover and article are old, dark murky colours representing the rock genre which teenagers can see a mile away. The fonts like the magazine's mast head and the title on the article are like a font you would find in a Victorian newspaper which was an old Gothic font.

Technologies

During the production of my magazine I learnt alot about technologies I used and techniques.

• The camera I used for my images was on my mobile phone. My mobile phone is a SONY XPERIA S which has a HD 12 mega pixel camera. I decided to use my mobile because I could send all pictures I took to my school email address instead using a USB cable.

• The computer itself I found was a big help because i could save all my work and drafts on to the server without having folders of paper that could get lost. The computer I used is an DELL OPTIPLEX 390 which ran smoothly with it's Intel icore 3 processor.

• Photoshop was a huge help in the production of my magazine. Photoshop allows the user to place content on a different layer, which was a great advantage for me as I learnt that once you were happy with some content you can lock that layer, which means anything that is done after will not affect the work in that layer. When creating my contents page positioning text is so limitless and easy, unlike publisher and word where text doesn't sometimes go where you need to it to go.

Skill Improvement

Since the preliminary task I have improved my skills on a massive scale. My understanding of backgrounds on a image is a big deal to photographers as they have to think about the colour when it comes to lighting and applying text to make it visible and eye catching. Also I learnt about how the background texture is also important of representation of types of music and target audience e.g. old eroded wall = rock music. Font is a important factor as it can tell a thousand words about the genre of music, who its aimed at etc. I learnt about the parts of the front cover and how important they are to attracting an audience etc the selling line which tells the audience how successful the magazine is. When it came to starting my final design on my magazine cover i learnt to limit my palette and font type as the more simple it looks the better it looks.