Anita's Evaluation

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product uses general conventions such as a bar code, master head, issue number and price. We used a font called free 3 of 9 to create an individual bar code for our magazine and placed it on the bottom left corner of the page we also had our master head right at the top and aligned to the left side as most magazines do. The issue number is under the master head along with the price which is £1.50 and is affordable for students. The main photo is a big one and is centralised. The background is plain behind the model which makes the text and photos stand out. The main conventions of the magazine are similar to existing ones as our magazine looks professional because of the photos and placement of the text and photos at the side.

However, our magazine looks individual and original as we decided to develop the photo conventions by using Polaroid type photos on the right side so it looks creative and an aspect of photography is recognised. On the contents page, we used a photo right at the top of the page to make it look different. We also divided our topics into different subjects which develops and changes the normal look of the page of existing magazines.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product is a student magazine, and we made sure that this is recognised and clear by putting it under the master head in bold white writing. The front cover is of a teenage boy who is representing all of the types of creative arts. This would attract more teenagers as our magazine is aimed at students aged 14-19 and they would be interested in the magazine cover. The different elements represent the creative arts and attract students who do those particular subjects as the name does. The colours are mellow and calm and the text colour goes well with the background.

The things such as the camera, painting and canvas, drama mask and the mike on the front cover are easily recognised and are immediately linked to the subjects they are about. The Polaroid’s would be recognised by photography students. All of these things represent the creative type of students rather than the more academic ones (maths, sciences).

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

MarcoMatt Media LLP might distribute our product as they already publish an existing student magazine called The Drama Student Magazine which I found out from my research. This institution would be appropriate to distribute my product as they are involved in creative magazines and my product involves more subjects than drama such as photography art and music.

I could also make my product available at school canteens, common rooms or libraries within schools as these are places that students spend most of their time in outside lessons. It could also be available in retail shops such as WH Smiths or on a website made for the magazine on which the students could subscribe to it.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main target audience are creative arts students. This includes photography students, art students, and music students. They would be aged 14-19 as the magazine is aimed to GCSE and A-level students. Me and my group tried to include their interests and information that they would find helpful in our contents page.

• How did you attract/address your audience?

The magazine cover photo attracts the audience by containing objects that would get their attention such as a camera, mask, the painting and mike. The photos at the side would grab the attention of photography students because of the use Polaroid’s and the actual photos. The photo-manipulation photo looks different and interesting and will also get the attention of photographers because the use of Photoshop is obvious and there is also a creative meaning behind it. The second photo on the right side of the front cover shows a gallery and attracts art students because of the many paintings which are made evident by the colour. The third photo contains a guitar so music students would be interested in it. The contents page also has a photo right at the top of the page and then other smaller photos. The large photo would attract creative students as they would be interested in it and get the impression that the magazine is for them.

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt that throughout the process of creating this magazine, there is a lot of technology that has to be used to achieve a professional looking magazine. The first thing that I learnt was how to use blogger and how useful it is to document things. I have found blogging a very useful and efficient way to show my work and see other student’s work. Desktop Publisher was an important piece of software that I used to create my magazine and contents page on as well as using it to show things such as font testing and colour testing by saving it as a JPEG file later to make it easy to post on the blog. Adobe Photoshop was a big part of creating my magazine as we used this software to edit and enhance photos to make them look professional. Technology is used a lot to make finished media products in real life and different effects can give different impressions and ideas to the viewers.

I tried to use different types of media and technology within this task to explore their usefulness and experiment with them. These included presenting things in text form, video form, picture form or animations such as www.gickr.com.

• What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from starting the course to finishing your preliminary task?

I have learnt a lot during this task about technology and what makes a good media product that appeals to its target audience. I have enjoyed working with my group to create the finished product and this has taught me how to work well in a group and co-operate with decisions and listen to everyone’s ideas as in a real life situation, a lot of people would contribute ideas and work together to make a finished magazine or any other media product. The many small tasks that we had to do build up to a good finished product and I have learnt that it is important to plan to make sure that the magazine goes according to plan. I have also learnt that research is very important to get background information and get familiar with the specific product that we were making, such as I researched existing student magazines.