The Evaluation

The Evaluation

The music magazine which I created; front cover, contents page and double-page spread you can find several codes and conventions which feature in existing pop magazines such as; 'Top of the Pops.' For example when I did my research for existing magazines 'Top of the Pops' I was able to see conventions they follow each issue. Most pop magazines follow the same codes and conventions as the magazine always has a successful male or female artist or band and the mast head is usually big and bold therefore it attracts readers. Another convention which pop magazine follow are the sell lines which our on either side of the main image or under little images which have stories which the target audience would be interested in, therefore they would buy the magazine. In addition, date line, barcode, price are the conventions of all magazines. I have included most of these codes and conventions when planning and creating my front cover to make it look like a magazine front cover. However, one of the codes and conventions which I did not follow was a tagline I did not include this on my front cover. The main image which is featured on my front cover is a picture of a model looking directly at the camera smiling. Pop magazines often have the model looking directly at the camera and smiling to show that the reader could look at the model as a friend. The conventions of content page is images of what articles will be featuring in the magazine and often a picture of the model which is at the front of the magazine. Also, an editor's letter is often featured in women or girls magazines as it gives the magazine a personal touch, which attracts women as they are represented in the media. The main convention of magazines is to list the articles which are going to be featured in the magazine and the number of the page next to each article. This helps the readership to go to the contents page and it takes them directly to the page they want to read about instead of looking through the pages to find the article they want to read about. I have featured all of the following codes and conventions on my music contents page so that the target audience will be able to notice the contents page.My double page spread follows the main codes and conventions of any magazines double page spread. This is because my image is taking a quarter of my double page spread on the right-hand side and my text on the left hand side of the double page spread. Normally, most magazines image on the double-page spread takes up over a quarter of the page or half the page or less. However, I decided to make my picture not take up much space and have bolder, bigger text, as the target audience of the magazine is young and would want to read an interview that is short and snappy and not too long to read. Another convention that I followed when planning my double page spread was a pull quote which is a quote from the article, but it is enlarged and more visible from the other piece of text. This quote is usually a sentence which is interesting, important which the target audience would get lured in. The quote which I featured; 'Winning the Pop-Factor was the best x-mas present ever!' as I thought this quote sums up the whole article. 


Here are some Pop music magazine which have inspired me:

Here are the three pieces I created: 

The three media pieces that I created represent the female gender. As everything which is in the magazine is feminine and girly. As the topics which feature in my magazine include boys, crushes on boy celebrities, gossip, fashion and make-up these topics are what girls are interested in.  


Post-Production 

Here is my Post-Production research. I gathered all my feedback's by putting my three pieces on the internet social network Facebook as my target audience often goes onto this website. From this research I found that I have to be careful of the colours which i pick on all three pieces.
Front Cover Feedback

Contents Page Feedback

Double-page spread Feedback

I feel that after completing the preliminary task, my skills have changed and that I have improved on using photoshop very well. For the preliminary task as I had to aim my magazine at a specific group which was a school magazine aimed at year 12 and year 13's I did not have a variety to write for my magazine front cover whereas, for my three music magazine I could make it girly and sophisticated. This is because of my planning as I could look into what the target audience is interest in, what celebrities they like and dislike, what they do in their spare time, what genre of music they listen to and what they would want to see in a music magazine. To gather this information I handed out questionnaire to my target audience and collected the results to see what they want to see in a music magazine. To improve on how to use Photoshop I downloaded the software at home so I could play around with my three pieces to see what I could do to make it better, this is one of the reasons in why I improved from my preliminary task. I have improved in taking photos, by using different shots of the model. For my final pictures I used a photography camera, however on my preliminary task I used my phone to take a picture of my model for my school magazine. I have also improved on different internet skills, on how to set up a blog and add all the information, how to add pictures and video clips from YouTube. However, I struggled with adding my photoshop pieces as I did not know that I had to convert my file to add onto my blog.