Audience feedback

I asked and recorded a fellow media student's honest opinions on my work so far and what he thought I could improve and I took his advice to heart and made a couple of changes.

Who would be the Audience for your music magazine?

My key demographic would be a young generation who perhaps go to university although there may be many people who were interested in the magazine despite the target audience being specific to 16 - 34 year olds. I have chosen this particular age group as it encompasses people right from the beginning where young people will start to earn their own money and get a job; therefore they will be able to afford my magazine. Also, they’re at the age where teenagers will begin to have a passion for music and have a strong idea about their specific interests and dislikes. Anybody younger than my target audience will not yet have a clear idea or a strong passion for a particular music genre because they’ll still be learning about the different types of music there is. Also, they may not have the money to afford magazines.

My magazine appeals to both males and females as it is not based on a particular gender however, stereotypically it is males that are into Hardcore Metal Music. They would generally be ‘metal-heads’ who constantly listen to music while travelling to work or gigs on public transport or in their cheap cars which serve no purpose other than transport.
The target audience will particularly enjoy Heavy Metal that is not over the top with screaming but with good quality Metal and singing as well as impressive guitar and drum solos.

My music magazine will be mainly aimed at the ‘ABC1’ social category as these will be the people most likely to spend money on my magazine.
They would have either a full-time or part-time job but all their disposable income would be spent on going to see their favourite bands live and would be the kind of ‘die hard’ fans who push their way to the front to be closer to their idols and in the centre of the action. Although they are successful and have enough money to afford my magazine, my target audience might also be joiners, this is displayed in the way they would buy my music magazine, to read about people of a higher status and class than them, with the hope that they might also be able to achieve this. They would already be subscribed to various other music magazines as any free time they have, if there’s no gig on, would be spent either reading the magazines or relaxing at home or at a mates with Metal playing in the background. When my target audience read the articles about these music artists, they will realise they have something in common with them and that they can personally relate to them. This will make the article more enjoyable as they will understand the content and artists being promoted. My target audience may also read my magazine in order to discuss music news with friends and family. My ideal target audience have a strong passion for music; therefore music artists, gigs, events; festivals and so on will be a huge topic of conversation in their lives. Consequentially, by reading my music magazine they will have the information and gossip to share with everybody with similar interests.

Their perfect night out would be meeting up with their mates, having a few drinks, heading to a Bullet For My Valentine gig, getting right to the front and singing along with the songs, word for word. They would also be willing to spend some extra cash to get backstage if they could to meet the band afterwards and generally have a good time.

Thanks to the results of my poll (posted on my blog) I have found that my target audience would prefer a simplistic and appealing layout, suggesting that they themselves would be simplistic people who aren’t fussy. This is further supported by the next question where the majority answered saying they’d rather have a minimalist and simple front cover.
They would prefer Interviews and General Music News, accompanied by many pictures to keep the magazine interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

More people have said that they would prefer a monthly magazine and that they would prefer that on paper form.
Of the 17 people that answered whether they were subscribed to a music magazine, 5 said yes and 12 said no but only 1 out of those 12 said they wouldn’t subscribe to one in the future, therefore I will be aiming to sell my magazine in a shop as generally people don’t subscribe but buy on impulse, again displaying the type of personality my readers have.

They also said that Black and Red are the most relatable colours to the heavy metal culture and that the body positioning and/or poses that the Band members make are the most important when taking photos whereas the second most important is their appearance, mostly clothing.

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

When I created my preliminary task, I had little knowledge on how to use a camera, how to edit images on Adobe Photoshop CS3 and generally I didn’t know a lot about magazines. 

When looking back at my front cover of “Your New-School News” magazine that I created, you can instantly see a lack of knowledge about magazine conventions and appalling ICT skills. My masthead doesn’t stand out at all, as it is about the same size as my main sell line. It is in different coloured fonts, therefore does not look correct but awkward. The actual name of my magazine also shows that I had not considered what might stand out and sound interesting to my target audience of school children and/or teachers. My page has an awkward coloured gradient which clashes with the picture and looks terrible; this will instantly make my magazine unappealing as the audiences eye will not be drawn to my magazine above other competition. Also there were barely any sell lines meaning audience would not pay for something which didn’t offer good value for money.

There is also no consistency of font, by looking at all the sell lines, all of them are different sizes, some are bold and wide, whereas some others are thin and small. Rather than displaying different skills in text editing, which was my intention, it made my magazine appear to be amateur and unplanned. As for the image, it suggests I was not aware of how to cut a photo out professionally using a colour range meaning I got a thing white line around some awkward places such as the hair. This makes my magazine appear amateurish as the cover model on a magazine would usually dominate the page and the sell lines would fit in around it. However in this case, my one sell line is placed underneath the image, which looks very unprofessional. For example: “How to avoid the wrath of teachers” is placed on top of my main image and is written in yellow, making it difficult to read. 

When looking at my contents page, it is clear I hadn’t considered a colour scheme. On the front cover, there are uses of blue, yellow, pink, black and white. Whereas, on the contents page, there is a use of black, three shades of green, pink, red, brown and white. Therefore, if audiences were given both pages separately, they would not be able to determine whether they were from the same magazine or not. Again, on my contents, it is filled with clashing colours; the fonts do not complement each other or stand out very well either, which makes the page appear unprofessional and unplanned. Also there is only one image, this would be disappoint or anger the target audience. This shows that the magazine is not worth its value as there is not enough content for the price, meaning my magazine would be severely unsuccessful in a professional market. 

Now, if we look at my finished music magazine, I have none of these issues. The texts on all pages, particularly my front cover, complement each other and fit together properly as I have tried to consistently use sharp, tight, bold fonts. This is because when studying my similar product research, I concluded that music magazines use bold fonts to conotate power and dominance and straight lettered text. It will also help to make my magazine stand out to its target audience, against other music magazines on the shelf. As for white spaces on my front cover, it is filled with sells lines, indicating to my target audience that it is good value for money. I have made my cover model a lot larger in this page, in order to dominate the space more, and to imply that this person is the most important feature in this issue. My main sell line is very different from the straight cut, jagged effect masthead I used, as I created it on Photoshop, making the red letters bold and easy to read.

My contents page is also looks much more professional, as I have split it up into different sections, with headings for each part, as well as smaller explanations to give more information. My target audience will look at this and possibly feel spoilt for choice as there is also a band index, displaying the different artists featured in my magazine. I added a Facebook and Twitter sign and a subscription option; appealing more to the younger audience, this shows I have really considered my target audience more when creating this magazine, and have thought about how to create more appeal about my magazine for them. Also, it is now clear that I am aware of how to use a colour range to professionally cut out images, to make my magazine seem more aesthetically pleasing and for the my main image to stand out more.

Contents Page Build Up

I recorded myself revealing layer by layer to the eventual completion of my final Contents Page so it's easier to see the amount of items on there and the work I put in.

Double Page Spread Build Up

I also recorded myself revealing layer by layer to the eventual completion of my final Double Page Spread so it's easier to see the amount of items on there and the work I put in.

Final Magazine Production

Diary Entry Week 22

Today we had the final deadline so we had to make sure all our work was the best it could be. I think I succeeded in doing as much as I could; tweaking tiny things on my magazine with photoshop, adding more variation to my blog with different mediums. All in all a fairly succesfull day.

Audience Feedback

I got some audience feedback to reassure myself that my magazine was delivering the message that I intended it to.

Final Magazine

 

Magazine Draft 2

These are re-drafts of my magazine fixing a crucial few mistakes such as spelling or grammatical errors made in the article.

Magazine Draft

Diary Entry Week 21

This week I have been going back over my magazine to make sure there are no errors I have missed to ensure that there is no way of me being able to drop marks. I found that the best way to do this would be able to get a fresh set of eyes to look at my magazine. I had them highlight any spelling, grammatical and any other errors that they could see. Once they had done this I realised there were some key issues with my magazine that I had not notice before hand. Fortunately they were all reasonably simple to correct. Once I had done this I printed out my work again and showed my final piece to a focus group of my target audience. I received all positives from the group which was a key indicator that my magazine was finally done and would be ready to be published.

Diary Entry Week 20

Today in my media lesson I managed to complete the evaluation video for my front cover very easily. I also intended to record the sound for my contents and double page spreads. I did this however the voice recorder I used distorted my voice and also the background noise over powered the actual speaking. Due to this I am going to do it at home to avoid complications. 

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

Throughout the creation of my product I used a range of different hardware and software technologies in order to produce a professional looking, well-constructed magazine.

Firstly, I conducted a Photoshoot, using a Canon 55OD DSLR as I felt it was a very decent camera that gives high resolution photos, also I am most familiar with this camera as it was supplied by the school, therefore I was able to comfortably use and experiment with it. The fact this camera is digital is another helpful factor as I was able to take hundreds of photos and also check back over them, deleting those that seemed inappropriate to convey my magazines genre. I could then transfer the photos from the camera to my computer instantly, saving a lot of time. I used this camera when taking photos of my models against a white back drop, lit by interfit portrait photography lighting, in order to create the right amount of light for my photographs to appear professional and to ease the ability to cut them out on Photoshop. Another feature of this lighting was that it had trigger lighting, this means it was in sync with my camera, and therefore every time I took a photo, the lighting would flash also. This ensured my photos looked as clear and professional as possible. For this particular shoot I used an 18-55mm 4.6 aperture lens, ensuring I could capture each image in a variety of angles and sizes.
Once the photos were taken, I uploaded them to my computer. After deciding which photo’s I wanted to use on my magazine, I began to edit them. For this I used the programme Adobe Photoshop CS3. This piece of software allows users to edit, cut, change and even create images and graphics. I am quite advance with the use of this piece of software. One key feature of Photoshop is the feature of cutting out images from their background; without these it would have made my magazine appear less successful. There are a few ways you can do this, one way being the Magic Wand Tool, allowing you to attach a line to the outline of your image and then cut it out. However, I found this ineffective as my photos came out rough and bumpy, therefore decided to use Colour Range, which allows you to click on parts of the image you wish to erase and then reselect needed parts perfectly using the Mask tool. 
Another feature of Adobe Photoshop I used often was the Adjustment Layer option for photos, which I used to edit my photos further. In order to display my skills on Photoshop I also made the photos stand out from the page more by adjusting the contrast slightly. I also used it for saturation, highlighting, shadowing, hue, exposure and many other effects for photos. This was again, to ensure my photos were of the highest quality and also to highlight parts of the photo, such as my models dark clothing which made the pictures seem dull and clourless, therefore I had to tweak them to make my magazine more aesthetically pleasing, drawing in the readers attention. 
Popular sites such as Google, YouTube, Yahoo and Bing have all contributed to my knowledge of music magazines also, as I have: researched for information on particular companies; looked for inspiration on different angles and poses my models should experiment with during the photo shoot which helped me to conclude with a particular style for my magazine, I’ve found information on what the register of my article should be and so on. Lastly, Blogger has been the one of the biggest parts in the creation of my magazine, allowing me to show every stage of the production process, documenting the different stages and features I considered during the creation of my magazine.

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

In Text:
There are four main companies that form the oligopoly. These are Bauer Media, IPC Media, The National Magazine Company and Conde Naste.

Bauer Media is a large German publishing company based in Hamburg, which operates in 15 countries worldwide, publishing over 282 magazines. This company is responsible for the publishing of many magazines, including Take a Break, Empire and Kerrang. Kerrang was my main inspiration when creating my magazine; therefore I have given my magazine a number of similar features to Kerrang. Meaning Bauer Media would not gain anything by publishing my magazine, as it is too similar to Kerrang. 

IPC is one of the largest publishing companies, publishing a huge variety of magazines from men’s interest, fashion, TV guides, music and so on. They also publish NME; therefore I will not be using IPC to publish my magazine, for similar reasons to why I won’t use Bauer Media. Therefore, I will not be using IPC to publish my magazine, as they are already publishing NME magazine, which is aimed at a similar target audience to mine, meaning my magazine would have more competition. 

The National Magazine Company also contributes to making up the oligopoly. This company publishes magazines such as Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Good House Keeping and so on. They appeal to over 14.9 million adults every year, as they publish over 20 magazines in the UK alone. However I would prefer not to use them as their pre-existing target audience doesn’t fit with my magazines’.

The last company that makes up the oligopoly is Conde Naste. They are a worldwide publishing company, responsible for publishing some of the most successful lifestyle magazines. They are also well known for their contribution to the fashion magazine industry, publishing magazines such as Vogue.

Therefore, I have decided I am going to use Conde Naste to help distribute my magazine. This is because I feel they will benefit from having a magazine of my sort within their company, as they do not currently publish any other metal magazines like mine, but they do appeal to a wide variety of people, therefore I will be making the variety of magazines they publish larger. It also means I will not have any strong competition within their company as my magazine will be the only main metal genre magazine in the market.

Front Cover feedback

Personally I was very happy with the outcome of my magazine front cover. However I asked some peers for feedback shown in these labels above. I have taken into account what they have said and will consider improvements due to this.

Diary Entry Week 19

Recently I have been working on my magazine evaluation. So far I have completed all of the actual evaluation. However I am going to create it into a voice over video. I have been restricted in doing so as I can only record the voice over at home however I only have Adobe Premiere at school so therefor I need to have all my voice over done at home before I can start work here. For this reason I have now started the second question in my analysis and am currently working on that until I can get home and record the rest of my work.

Evaluation Interview Questions

1.      What was your overall reaction when you first saw the magazine?

2.      Did the articles seem relevant?

3.      Does the layout of my magazine seem attractive?

4.      What was the most striking element of my magazine?

5.      Looking at my magazine, can you tell; who my target audience is?

6.      Do you think my magazine truly captures the themes and conventions of metal magazines?

7.      Do you think my front cover represents a front cover of a stereotypical metal magazine?

8.      Would you buy my magazine? And why?

9.      What do you think of the images? And the construction of the star persona?

    10. Do you think there is anything more I can improve

Diary Entry Week 18

Over the last month I completed audience feedback for my media product. I filmed several people, including my target audience, teachers and my magazine model. I carried this out in order to create an audience profile, which will help me develop my ideas and work on areas in which I need to improve.

I encountered technological problems, where I was unable to import the video footage into my video software. I overcame this problem by converting the format from an .avi file to a .mov file which is easier to use (according to Mr. Robson)

Diary Entry Week 17

This week I filmed audience feedback being provided for my products. The person giving feedback was my model. I asked my model to give his feedback as I felt that it was important for his opinion on whether he and the magazine have successfully represented the target audience. I will continue to film other people in order to create a portfolio of audience feedback videos. I will use this to state whether or not I have effectively represented my specified target audience.

Several weeks ago, I encountered the problem of backwards compatibility, where I was not able to open Photoshop CS5 files in CS3. Last week I overcame this problem, by altering the "File Handling" options in preferences.

Diary Entry Week 16

This week I received audience feedback on my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I am using this feedback to continuously improve my work. I opened up my work in Photoshop, and my peers then analysed my work and wrote down comments using the notes tool. I am also currently working on the Mise-en-scene for my magazine.

I encountered problems with my front cover. I worked on it at home using Photoshop CS5, however CS3 is used at school, therefore I am unable to work on my front cover at school as it is incompatible.

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

Diary Entry Week 15

This week I completed the Photo shoot. It went relatively well in my opinion, as I was able to get several good shots. However, another student double booked over my photoshoot slot, so I had to take my photos in various different areas around the school. If I feel that I need more photos, I will book another slot for my photoshoot to give me a broader range of images available to me. I also begun the first draft of my front cover.

How does my media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine ‘RAW’ is aimed primarily at heavy metal music fans. After closely studying my similar product research magazines, such as ‘Kerrang!’. I drew the conclusion that my target audience would be interested in artists with rebellious traits and characteristics. For example, I found that my target audience enjoyed reading about people such as Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold and Slipknot. This is because of their rebellious take on life and the consequential attitude shown in their music. These characters would be shown in magazines such as ‘Kerrang!’ with guns and covered in blood – signifying their rebellious and defiant personalities.

I wanted to make my magazine appeal to the same audience as ‘Kerrang!’ and those like it; because of this I chose to use a group of three people on my cover with one man who hides his face behind dark sunglasses, symbolising his ‘shady’ personality. They all have dark hair connoting their ‘dark-sides’. This will effortlessly appeal to my target audience as the dark colours used for their clothing (e.g. their popular metal-band t-shirts) and their facial expressions will reflect their characteristics, signifying they are dark, and interesting to read about.

I have tried to make my magazine appeal to an audience who listen to rock or heavy-metal music. I did this by using colours such as red, black and white as a general house style as I found it was quite a popular colour scheme; used in other rock magazines such as ‘Kerrang!’. The bold, striking fonts will also appeal to the metal community as it reflects the boldness and rebelliousness of the music genre and how indifferent the genre is in general.

I began my article with the sentence: “Anyone who hasn’t had the privilege of having listened to this next band’s talents, are really missing out!” This is because it will have an instant impact on my target audience if they are wondering whether or not it is worth it to read on. This type of language will stand out to them as they will have a sudden interest in who I am talking about. The general tone of my article is friendly and honest. This causes my target audience feel that the information they are reading is exclusive and makes them feel special as if they’re the first to read it. This tone also relates to my target audience as they will enjoy learning about the people behind the music and their true ways. This may also inspire my target audience to try and be more like them.

My cover models facial expressions are generally happy, however, Dan (the man in the photo) has a significantly less chirpy face as I intended for him to be the bands ‘bad boy’ which stereotypically attracts a lot of fans and causes them to want to read on. This also creates a mysterious appearance for my feature artists, helping to sell the article further as the target audience will feel curious about her and want to read on. My target audience will relate to my feature bands front cover picture as their stances show their attitudes towards each other; close and friendly. However on my double page spread they are more relaxed; showing the reader what the band are like ‘under the surface’, allowing the reader to understand who they truly are.

I wanted to portray my feature artists as bold and rebellious but also approachable. I wanted to achieve this in order to make my target audience feel admiration towards the new band but to also feel intrigued by their appearance. This means that my magazine aims to inspire young musicians or singers, making them want to read about a new band that have just made it big, as they will be able to look up to and idolise them.

Audience Feedback

I got some audience feedback on my magazine to reassure me that my magazine was absolutely finished.

People believed that this was my strongest page, "All the titles are big and eye catching and the colour scheme works really well."

 People believed that this page had improved the most over the course of this production task.

People believed that this page was most impressive due to Photoshop skills, "The way the text wraps around each of them is incredible."

Diary Entry Week 14

This week I completed all of the planning documents for my magazine, apart from the Photo shoot. I believe that the planning stage of my magazine will help me improve and develop my initial ideas, after receiving feedback on the documents. Last week I decided to change the model that will be taking part in my magazine photo shoot. The reasons behind this are because I felt that my new model would suit the genre of my magazine more, and I believe that he is more reliable and would be able available when required (for future shoots).

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

My magazine “RAW” is a heavy metal based music magazine. My magazine closely follows conventions of other similar magazines in its category; however it does differ slightly from the most popular of music magazines.

My music magazine is similar to Kerrang! In the sense that they are primarily both about heavy metal, but on the other hand the layouts are similar as well, due to the fact that I loosely based my magazine on Kerrang! They both have big, bold, striking Mastheads to draw in the readers’ eye. The Sell lines are positioned mostly towards the bottom half of the front cover and a powerful picture of the main focal band of the week. As is compulsory on any products; my magazine includes a barcode and price. It also includes a website URL and a tag-line underneath the masthead itself. The information included on my front page was made up by me but I tried to keep it interesting as official music magazines have professionals coming up with sell lines that capture the reader and make them want to read the story. This is accomplished through the use of puns and or excessive use of punctuation to seem aesthetically appealing to readers “System of a Down – Still down under”. My contents page has 4 subheadings; which is typical of most music magazines as it breaks the contents down further into more easy-to-read topics, allowing the reader to quickly find what they’re looking for or simply to see what features in this week’s particular issue. The double page spreads are also alike to most other music magazine equivalents; an interview, surrounding a picture or two of the person/band in question. With clear signs of text wrapping used to boast the professionalism of my magazine to the actual reader.

I attempted to avoid challenging the typical forms and conventions used in the creation of magazines in media, specifically because they are used and referred to as ‘typical conventions’ because they do exactly what they are intended to do; attract the audience’s attention and convey information in an entertaining and enjoyable way.

Diary Entry Week 13

Earlier in the week, I decided to improve my masthead as I wasn't happy with the finished product. I spent the last two days trying to produce a better version.

The final version of my second masthead uses colours more suited to my colour scheme than my old masthead. The actual masthead itself is also of higher quality.

Overall I believe that this is a significantly better masthead, as it appears to stand out, whilst remaining sophisticated at the same time.

Recently, I have also uploaded my Model Release Form, which gives me permission to use photos and that I have taken of my model in my magazine. I also begun drafting ideas for the article that will appear in my double page spread.

Diary Entry Week 12

Over the last 3 days I produced a Sell Lines/Contents Page ideas document. It contains examples of sell lines on leading music magazines, and their contents pages.

These examples helped provide me with ideas for my own Sell Line - text ideas, design (font style, size, etc.). I then went on to find ideas for my own contents page. After looking at other examples, I produced a list of different possible categories to put inside my own contents page.

I also decided that I was not entirely satisfied with the first masthead I created. I felt that it wouldn't stand out as much as I would like it to, so I have begun to work on a second version, which I will post on my blog, with screenshots of different stages of it being created.