Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Preliminary Task

Looking at my Preliminary Task I created at the start of the college year, I can use it to help evaluate my final product and see for far I've come in terms of codes, conventions and skills I have picked up. As seen below, my knowledge of magazines has improved dramatically and I feel this is down to my research and planning of the final product. From my preliminary task I learnt the importance of a strong main image to use for my front cover and how important a colour scheme is too attract attention to my magazine on a shelf. My feedback from my teacher and my peers reflected this and they also suggested I try to make the fonts more varied and I believe I have done this on my front cover. I developed most of my other ideas from my research into a range of other magazines 

New Media Technologies

New Media Technologies

Technology played a huge part in researching, planning, evaluating and creating my media product. Below is a list of media technologies I have used through the whole process of completing my work. 

Adobe Photoshop was the programme I spent most of my time on and put the majority of my effort into as I had never used it before. Photoshop's features allowed me to edit photographs and improve the quality of them. This is a skill I can use in day-to-day life and would definitely help me if I continue my education in media.  I did struggle at first but after my Preliminary task I felt much more confident in using the Photoshop software. 

 

Blogger was the best option for displaying my final evaluation of the whole product as it's the simplest blogging website around and considering I have never blogged before this topic, I found it very easy and enjoyable to use. I may even start my own blog on it now. It has introduced me into a new style of social networking. 

Facebook is a social networking website I have been using for three years now, so I was very familiar with the tools and features. I used Facebook as a secondary source for gaining feedback from my peers and I also arranged the photo shoot that took place in November through Facebook's chat feature. 

Attracting an audience

I attracted my audience by using bright colours, bold fonts and a strong main image for my front cover. I framed my tag lines and enigma codes, on the front cover, around my main image to draw the audience attention towards the artist, her face especially. The eye-line the photograph portrays, makes the audience feel involved in my product and gives off message of confidence from the artist. 
I was very careful of how I addressed and attracted my audience. I made sure the colours weren't gender specific, however as this issue has a female on the cover, I believe it would be primarily females buying it. I created a questionnaire which was filled in by 20 students, to try and help me gain knowledge of my target audience and what they liked and disliked about magazine as well as what hobbies and interests they had.

I used the results of this to base the price, tone, genre and how often a month my magazine would be published. I felt this really engaged my audience and made me aware of their wants and needs. 

I also asked some other media students to give short feedback on my work and how to improve. I contacted them via the social networking site Facebook and these were the responses to my overall magazine;

 "I find the magazine really nice to look at and can tell straight away that the genre is Indie Rock. The colour green used for the Masthead is really striking and catches my attention straight away. I think it would stand out on a supermarket shelf." - Amy Cockton, 17.

"The contents page isn't packed full of information and is simple and easy to understand. I could confidently find the pages I wanted from the contents page. All of the images are really good." -Bethany Cogdon, 17.

"The layout of the double page spread is simple and effective. I like the three black and white photographs on the right page. The tattoo font gives off a real 'rock' image which fits well with the lifestyle the artist leads." - Rachel Ryan, 17.

Target Audience

Profile; 

This is Holly. She is seventeen and lives in Newcastle. Holly is a typical student and spends her free time listening to her iPod and working part time to save up for festival tickets. Holly spends all of her money on clothes, gig tickets and is now looking to subscribe to a trendy Indie Rock magazine. Her favourite bands are The Vaccines, Noah and the Whale, Vampire Weekend and Friendly Fires. She enjoys reading interviews and collecting posters to cover her bedroom walls with. Her favourite TV programme is the IT crowd and her favourite film in the Titanic.

Holly is a typical example of a reader of my magazine. I believe people like Holly would be Varsity's target audience because she's a young, working class girl, who lives in the North East of England. I think Holly would buy my magazine because bands similar to her favourites would heavily feature in each issue. Each issue has at least one poster for her to collect and is full of exclusive articles for her to read. Unlike NME, Varsity is exclusively for the North East of England and will be able to tell Holly what's on in her area.