Evaluation of the Finished magazine

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

I think the main area that my magazine stands out from other media conventions is the way in which I want the subjects in my pictures to come across as people their fans could admire and respect but in the same way I wanted them to seem like real people as well. I tried to do this by not editing or airbrushing the pictures other than lighting. This was because I didn't want the subjects to come across as plastic models but as genuine people who were just talented in their profession. As I think my target audience would admire people more if they appeared in a photo shoot looking normal as apposed to wearing lots of make-up.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

By using these techniques I wanted my media product to represent people who were genuinely interested in music and the latest news within this music industry. This includes quite a few genres of music from pop to indie to rock, and although I wanted to increase my female audience I didn't want to relate it too much to appearance and commercial mediums, but instead just for people who loved music.

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

Taking all this into account I would still choose to stock my magazine in chain outlets such as WH Smiths as well as smaller independent record shops and would use a company such as IPC Media to publish it as they a large well-known company and also publish magazines from a similar genre such as NME. A down-side to this would be that using IPC Media would be more expensive than using a smaller publishing company.

Who would be the audience for you media product?

Although I decided the target audience before creating my magazine I decided to add the phsychographic group of succeeders to the audience as I don't think my audience should have to want to be the artists featured to appreciate them.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I tried to attract my audience to my magazine with aspects such as the large picture of 'Lilly Jackson' which makes eye-contact with the consumer. I also used bands relating to the genre of magazine - so I used a new indie band as apposed to a new pop singer as these are the type of artists my target audience would want to read about. I tried to use moderately formal language (no text language/ abbreviations) so as to make sure I was aiming at the correct target audience age and not to patronise them. I chose to give my magazine the title 'FIX' because i wanted something that was short and simple and also slightly ambiguous because I wrote 'Get Yours' down the side of the 'F' suggesting that the magazine was like getting a fix of drugs that you needed, without making it obvious. I chose to design the name like this as it is similar to other magazine with a similar target audience, e.g 'NME' and 'Q' are both quite short names and 'Q' is quite mysterious as to what it means.
I had the subject on the front cover slightly smiling as i wanted her to be respected as an artist but still have her personality coming through as a person who doesn't feel the need to pout and pose in pictures. Q has also featured well-known artists smiling on their covers:

When making colour choices for my magazine I tried to stick with a red and purple theme so that it wasn't dull but not bright loud pinks so it was similar to a or cheesy pop magazine.

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

I picked up lots of different techniques and skills when using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop to create my magazine. Using photoshop helped me to create and experiment with lots of different effects on my pictures. The particular area of photoshop I used a lot was the lighting affects:

As well as changing the way the picture was lit (spotlight, omni etc) I could also change things such as how strong the lighting was and the colour of the lighting. when trying to cut out the background of my picture or change the colour of it, I used the lasso tool:

By using InDesign I was able to edit the size and shape of boxes and texts, I could also create a shadow effect for my contents page to help give the look of paper actually being pinned to a cork board:
When changing the colour and size of the different things on my magazine I could then arrange them to have them over-lapping, I also used this tool when creating the background.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel that I have dramatically improved my technically skills of editing and designing the magazine since doing the preliminary task. The preliminary task helped improve my creativity when deciding things such as the layout, colours and fonts. It also helped me to understand more how much every small detail can affect the magazine's appeal to the target audience. For example when experimenting with mt cover pictures I realised that It was better to have someone smiling on the cover of a college magazine and have a more thoughtful expression on the cover of my music magazine, rather than the other way round as they are both aiming at different markets and want to create a different mood with the reader. So the smiling college magazine would want to make the readers feel happy about college whereas the more thoughtful expression of the music magazine would want to interest the readers more in who the person is on the cover. The preliminary task also helped me to understand the importance of having eye-contact between the subject on the cover a dn the consumer to establish a connection.