Three things I need to do to improve my practical work

In performing my preliminary task there were some areas open to improvement in the future:

1) Familiarize myself more with the publishing programmes such as QuarkExpress or any programme previously unknown to me to achieve a higher standard in the completed product with the ability to be much more versatile during its creation due to a greater understanding of said programme's abilities.

2) Do a greater research into genre and audience to find more niche markets and audiences to target in my work, matched by a better understanding of said audience to create an overall better product.

3) Keep better time on each project by planning what will be done when to ensure that each piece is produced to the best of my abilities without a need to rush and miss crucial elements or overlook error.

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

In completing this project, I've had to use both photomanipulation and publishing programmes, in this case Adobe Photoshop and QuarkExpress for the front cover and contents page respectively.
I used Photoshop in creating my front cover. Using its painting and editing capabilities I was able to easily cut the model from the original background of the photo and edit it using the magic wand and paint tools, manipulate the different elements seperately using the "layers" function, create borders for my smaller images and insert shapes, before rotating them in the way I wanted. Being such a versatile programme, there was little to nothing which caused me a problem, and I was able to achieve everything I wanted to with it.
However, I found that it was very difficult to get the results I wanted on QuarkExpress. Although it offered the shapes and word processing that Photoshop did, I found it was not able to cope with detailed images and reduced their quality significantly, making both my font and pictures seem pixellated and fuzzy. As it didn't have a magic wand tool, its parallel capabilities of making areas transparent was much poorer, leaving a white outline behind which made layering the image on top of a coloured background look messy and unprofessional. Also, as it provided me with no seperate layers to work on, after a while of placing images and text in the work space I found that they were more and more difficult to select as they overlapped each other.

Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?

The targeted audience for StudentBeat would want to buy the magazine for both aesthetic and literary reasons.
The bold colours, accompanied by the unusual, stylized font would be striking to the eye and pleasing to look at. The brightness of the colour and scruffy font connotes to life and fun, as well as the teen image and embodies some of what the magazine is about. Furthermore, the model is of the same age as the targeted audience, and is smiling and looking straight at the camera and thus the reader, giving an air of familiarity which would make the magazine more approachable. The model is dressed informally and listening to an iPod, increasing the sense of familiarity and also referring to the musical slant of the magazine.
The name "StudentBeat" sums up the genre of the magazine and will immediately attract readers for this specific, "student" encompassing the student community, and "beat" connoting to music, and so the main topic of the magazine. Also, I've used the personal pronouns "you" and "your" to target the audience further, making them feel included and used colloquial language to reinforce the informal tone of the magazine.

Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?

StudentBeat is targeted, psychographically speaking, at student aspirers and achievers, as it contains articles on revision and exam aid, helping a student get the best possible out of their courses, and offers an insight into the careers of those in the industry, referring the student to the universities offering the best music course choices in the country. It would appeal to individualists for its promotion of less mainstream music, but only between the ages of about 16-19, the age of a college student. The magazine is not intended to target one gender, but rather encompass both, to allow wider opportunities for all students.

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

The magazine I have designed uses many of the conventions of a regular magazine. It has a unique logo, stylized and memorable, and is accompanied by a strapline to boost its importance. The articles are advertised in a column down the side of the main image and, as in most magazines, the model fills the page and is both relevant to the genre of the magazine, uses eye contact and smiles. There is a clear use of screamers both to advertise articles and other contents and there is a clear colour theme which is identifiable to the magazine. There is even the use of freebies. Inside, on the contents page, the colour theme is continual, and there are featured articles advertised with large images on one side, whilst the other is again dominated by text advertising the articles the magazine has to offer.
However, even through all of this, I feel there are subtle differences between this and a simple music magazine. In fact, StudentBeat is more like a teen life magazine with a musical slant, which promotes not just bands, but a student's own opportunities in life, aiding revision and exams, to finally getting auditions and jobs within the music industry. Thus, instead of being a simple recreational read, it is also a tool of learning reference and careers information.

Front Cover and Contents Page: Published

Contents Page

Researching further into magazines, I also looked into the design and layout of contents pages. Doing so, I noticed that all contents pages have certain shared traits. For instance, the pages are usually split in half, one side occupied with images and the other with aligned text advertising the articles the magazine supplies. The articles are usually in larger fonts than their subheadings below, and are explanations of the titles, and the photos themselves are generally dominated by one large picture, of the most importance, then smaller, lesser images. Each are made appealing by their generally simplistic use of colour and font size, as well as their varied image size. The house styles are clear to see, each page containing the same colour and font scheme as the front cover, as well as containing articles the same genre as advertised on the cover. Bearing this in mind, I feel I will be able to create a contents page inkeeping with these ideas.

Preliminary Task - Audience Research

The subject matter I have planned for my magazine idea will be on student life in general, and cover all aspects of a typical student from music and film, to university placements and revision. This means my magazine can encompass a wide range of readers, but particularly ones with musical interest but also dedication to their studies. The readers will be aged 16-19, the age of an average college student, and would rank from C1-A on the Jicnars scale. The magazine's content would psychographically appeal to achievers and also individualists.

The audience would be the sort of people who:
- listen to alternative music, rather than the mainstream hits
- revise with intention to do well
- be creative in their subject choices
- aspire for a university degree
- want a successful and well paid job
- would revise to music

So, to target my audience effectively, I need to:
- use a model at a similar age to my targeted audience (16-19)
- use bold colours
- colloquial language
- atricles that would appeal to the targeted audience's interests
- freebies and offers
- sociable
- individualist

Preliminary Task - Research

Looking further into the subject of magazine front covers, I searched the internet for three coveres which target a student audience to get inspiration for my own magazine front cover. Choosing three different magazines which covered different subtopics within student interest, it was still clear to see the similarities between the three magazines. All three shared similar subject matters, from choice of music, to the lives of young people in general. Each used bold, stylized fonts, with varying point size and colours relevant to the theme. On the subject of colour, all use bold colours, contrasting with blacks or whites, such as red, a theme prevalent in all three of the magazines I studied. Targeting the audience, the magazines all used models close to the ages of the students and also used articles relative to their interests, particularly music. They also included offers such as the opportunity to win a phone, ideal for the technological generation.

Preliminary Task

Moving on, I now have to complete a preliminary task: creating a student magazine front cover and contents page. I began by analysing some examples of the previous year's work to get an idea of what I would eventually have to do myself, in particular the cover of a magazine called "Squash". It stood out as a magazine front cover due to the stereotypical masthead and strapline, as well as advertising its range of articles and offers. The audience was for academic students aged 16-19 who took their studies seriously and planned to go to university. The audience is successfully targeted through many of the magazine's conventions. The masthead is colourful and bright, in an informal and stylized sans serif font, and the person photographed is of the same age as the targeted reader, and also is pulling a face, both this and the informality of the masthead removing some of the seriousness abotu the magazine's subject and making it more fun and approachable, thus appealing to a wider student audience. The articles are student related, for example "How 2 apply for student finances" and "Top Ten Revision Techniques", and also abbreviated text-messaging style language is used (e.g. "How 2 get...").

Initial Analysis

Having learnt the basics of magazine conventions, we then had to apply our knowledge in analysing our front covers, pointing out their features and their effects and their connotations by labelling each one on Photoshop.

Magazine Front Cover: Key Conventions

Starting off my course, our first task of the year was to understand the key conventions of magazines, from mastheads to the barcode. I began with finding a magazine front cover, Kerrang being the magazine of my choice, and labelled it up with the conventions we'd been taught to recognise.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Jess.
Now I've set up this blog for my AS Media Studies, I'm going to be regularly posting my research, planning and work towards it on here from now on.