Evaluation

I believe that my magazine uses several methods to convey its genre to its audience. By Including relevent stories to a young audience it will attract readers of that age group to the read content that the magazine contains. The stories included on the front cover would normally attract students in the age group of 16-21. It includes information that is helpful, as well as media based information for entertainment purposes.
The ways in which my product is similar to that of other real magazine mainly concern layout. My Masthead is large and eye catching to the reader to hook them into the magazine. Also it is short and simple, not over complicated. Most magazines in the media today have a simple one word masthead, just like we have tried to include in ours. We used a Sans serif font as we discovered when doing media reasearch, magazines that use serif font are often aimed at older or more sophisticated audiences. The main sell of our magazine takes up more space then any other story on the cover, this is done for a specific reason. The main sell is the most important and valuable story in the magazine that can be seen on the cover, therefore it needs to attract the most attention. An example of this would be Kerrang! magazine, this magazine was a large influence on our cover. Also, we used screamers as this is often a way of attracting audiences in real media products. A large MCU of one of us is also used on the cover of the magazine, we used photoshop to make the photo more appealing to the reader of the magazine, this is often done in the magazine industry to make celebrities more attractive to the reader.


Our contents page also tends to develop and use conventions of real media products rather then challenge them. However, we included an unusual layout to our contents page. The bottom half that contained info included 4 columns, where as the top half included to grid or column layout, this was done purposely to create an informal feel to the magazine and also make it easy for the reader to find certain stories easily. Below the pictures we included a main title, i.e. Snap, crackle etc, followed by Coverlines and their straplines. We made sure that each column of information followed the last in chronological order of the magazine because when conducting our research we found that pretty much every magazine listed their stories in page order. Also, at the same time as this, we listed the stories so that related stories were contained into the same columns, and close to each other in the magazine to keep the magazine organised. The use of bright Masthead's followed by the same colour being used for page numbers in that column was used to add consistancy to the magazine and is often used in media products, for example the Column titled "Crackle" has a blue masthead, as well as blue page references. A similar style of layout could be seen in Clash Magazine.

The audience my magazine would be aimed at would be in the age group of 16-25. It includes information on such things as, top places top places to go clubbing and new technology. These kind of stories would concern younger audience members. Also, the magazine is mainly male orientated and has information for men on women to convey this. By having an informal style to the magazine i am appealing to the social values of Hedonists, who our magazine is aimed at. The magazine is aimed to be fun and enjoyable to readers and include information that is relevant rather then strongly educational. Also, we hoped to include Post-modernists as well in our target audience. On the Jicnar Scale I feel that our audience would fall into the C2/D categories. Our magazine is not aimed at a sophisticated A/B audience, and the information included shows this. The magazine is aimed at Carers and Underachievers. Carers would be targeted because they are interested in the environement, and what is going on in the world, our magazine includes information on new technology and vehicles and would therefore be appealing to cares. Underachievers would be interested because the content contained contained is laid back and there isn't an overhwleming amount of information.

To attract the audience we used several different tools and devices. Our colour scheme for the front cover was one of the most important aspects to decide. We choose colours such as Red, White and Black for a specific reason. The magazine is designed to target male readers and these colours connote Stength and Masculinity. By making the colours more powerful, it will seem more appealing to mean rather then women. Also, the stories included all connote Fun and enjoyment. This is a very important part of the magazine. By connoting these meanings, we will be attracting the people with the right Social values and from the correct psychographic groups. The contents page includes brighter colours then he front page. We felt at this point the male readers will already be attracted, and now it was the correct point to attract audience members who are hedonists or post modernists. Bright colours also connote fun and happiness, making them the perfect choice to appeal to these social values. The puff on our front cover connotes youth, perfect for the target age group of 16-25. By mentioning it is a college magazine, readers can see that it is aimed at younger audience members, mainly students.

There have been three new types of technology that I have learnt a lot about since doing this project. The first is how to use an SLR camera properly. It allowed me to take an effective MCU for the front cover, that was in proper focus. Also, i learned how to use the photoshop software. It allowed me to create a front cover that is attractive an appealing to my target audience. By using photoshop, i was able to edit the MCU that was taken. I was able to edit out spots and blemishes on the person's face. As well as this, photoshop made it simple for me to add text and postion/edit it to my exact specifications. The final programme I learned about was Quarkexpress. This is the programme that I used to create my contents page. I learned how to create, move and edit both picture and text boxes, as well as how to add pictures and text to them. Also, I was able to create a proper layout for the page and was able to create shapes and designs to add to it.
Websites I have used include blogger, and several other sites. Blogger has allowed me to keep all of my work organised and up to date. Also, it has allowed me to access and edit my work that I have already submitted to the website with ease, making it very useful. Google was also used to search for pictures, and information constantly throughout the production of my cover and contents page. "www.dafont.com" was also used to download new and original fonts for my cover so that my design did not look standard and boring. Overall, I would say that the technology that i used was very useful. It helped me to access information I would not be able to reach without the use of the internet. Also, without the computer programmes Photoshop and Quark express my magazine would look no where near as effective as it does. The technology used to keep track of my work (blogger) has allowed me to keep organised and plan my work effectively.