Preliminary Project Evaluation

Preliminary Project Evaluation

1. In my media product I have used a number of things that I analysed on other magazines beforehand such as a dominant masthead and reversed out cover-lines. To make my magazine seem more professional I used a running head, this can include an array of different information but I chose to write about what will be appearing in my magazine because I saw this in a number of magazines when I did my research.
   I also chose to use a serif font as my masthead design as it portrays sophistication to the audience rather than bold boring text, I saw a lot of magazines aimed at young people using a serif font when doing my research so this also influenced my decision. On my front cover I used a WOB to attract the attention of the reader as this contrasts with the design of the other mastheads, also in the mastheads I made some of the words in bold to further attract the readers attention, for example ‘The most over-rated bands EVER’. When I chose the colour theme for my front cover I put into consideration which colours go well together to make sure it didn’t overcomplicate the cover, This was a feature I saw in other magazines such as TeenVogue and NME.
   
2. The audience for my media product would be 16-19 year old sixth form students which fit into the psychographic group of radicals and succeeders whilst still touching on a mainstream audience, I did this to make my magazine accessible to a wider audience. Evidence of this is the content of my magazine. I used cover-lines like ‘The most over-rated bands EVER’ to appeal to a more radical audience whilst still using a cover-lines such as ‘the key to passing your driving test’ to appeal to a mainstream/succeeder audience.
   My audience profile would be
   - You are constantly waiting for the weekend
   - You take pride in your appearance
   - You spend your working life saving up for festivals
   - You would rather stay at home and go out with your friends than go on a family
      holiday
   I believe that my front cover shows this.
   
3. In my media product I used a number of different ways of attracting different audiences. I used bold colours in the text on the front to draw the readers attention, the black and red text connotes masculinity which would draw in a male audience. The masthead of the magazine denotes a black bold serif font situated above the CVI. The style of this masthead connotes a feeling of entertainment because of the strange unorthodox font. Also the font connotes a gothic feeling which is usually associated with anarchy. Anarchy is a dominant ideology of teenagers as they usually don't like rules, this is why I chose the font style.
   The name of the magazine is interesting because it isn't a common phrase among teenagers and does not really relate to any part of the magazine, this connotes a sense of irregularity and this relates to my audience of Radicals.
   The CVI of my magazine denotes a 16 year old girl wearing tortoiseshell clear lens glasses with a short haircut, this will relate to the female readers as it is considered fashionable at this time.
   I put the reversed out headline in a bold font surrounded by a circle to draw the reader in, I deliberately put the word ‘Win’ in bold because this will also draw the reader in because you can get something out of the magazine.
   
4. The technology used made the designing of the magazine so much easier, programs such as InDesign and Photoshop simplify the process. The SLR cameras enabled us to produce crisp images which were easily enlarged without pixelation. Before the digital age the production of  magazine would have been a lot harder, without the use of photoshop and InDesign the process from ideas to final design and finally to distribution would be strenuous. The use of image manipulation software made it easy to get the final design I wanted because of the use of layers, you could easily arrange objects around the page to get the desired effect. InDesign made it easier to lay out areas of text and situate objects around it (clipping path). Blogger made keeping track of my work easier as it was all in one place and it was a good way of displaying what I did and made it easier to show other people how your product was looking