AS Media Studies by Natalie Lax: March 2013

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Evaluation - Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

5) To answer this question I asked members of my target audience a series of questions based on what they thought about my magazine:

Target audience member 1, Lauren, aged 19

- What is your opinion of the 'Domination' front cover?

'I love it because of how bright and eye catching it is. It has really bold colours, I like the way there is the bright pink against the black and white. The photo stands out really well and it's a very striking image, really eye catching, I also like a lot of the singers and bands that appear on the cover. I like the way there is the use of the different text boxes which surround the text, it keeps within the same theme but with an edge which is really fresh and creative. It is a really creative front cover which catches my attention.'

- What is your opinion of the 'Domination' contents page?

'I like how it ties in with the front cover with its overall look and colour scheme. The contents has made the pages look really interesting, it gives out lots of information about what’s inside but it's really easy to read and makes me want to read these articles. Like the front cover, it is very creative, I like the way the masthead is kept on from the cover and the way it has the 'In this month's' almost stamped onto it. The picture is again really striking, the way the model is doing a portrait pose and it looks like she's looking at the contents, it looks really professional and she really makes it stand out. The tile 'Fresh of the cover' is really fresh and unique as well and the way the cover stories are separated and made slightly bolder makes it make easier and enjoyable to read.'

-What is your opinion of the 'Domination' double page spread?

'I love the way the model is posing it's very eye catching and would draw me in as I flick through the pages, it’s the first thing that stands out to me and it's a very strong image. It's very clever how the album cover has merged in with her face; it really promotes the album cover to me. I like the way the tiger print has been used and I love how the reel of black and white photos look really vintage against the eye-popping tiger print, very unique, it contrasts well. I can also see a theme of tiger print as her album is obviously called 'Wild', she has a tiger print top on, she's growling and there is the use of the tiger print on the first page. I love how the second page is very simple, it gives it a professional edge.'

Target audience member 2, Freya, aged 17

-What is your opinion of the ‘Domination’ front cover?

'It is very eye-catching; it will definitely stand out above the rest. The model looks really professional and it's the first thing that I see when I look at the cover, her pose is edgy but she looks girly, it's really good and captures my attention straight away. There are loads of different types of fonts but it works really well, it all has the same pink and black colour scheme going on which really appeals to me as it's really trendy and girly. There are different styles of fonts, writing, boxes, there's so much to look at, it's really interesting to look at. The layout is really good as well, it's clear and easy to read, it's structured very well, the obvious main selling point which is the 'TESS' part of the cover is big and creativity made with its different features. I also really the name of the magazine 'Domination' is really cool and modern and it makes a statement, I like the way it continues the theme with the pink and white and it's really unique with the use of two colours.'

-What is your opinion of the 'Domination' contents page?

'It follows on from the front cover nicely, there is lots of information but it doesn't look like it would be boring to read at all. The layout is really clever, it's set out neatly into the two columns, the titles of the columns are really cool and different from other magazines. The page has everything that is needed for a contents page, the page numbers are really clear and the more interesting cover stories stand out above the rest. The picture of the model used on the front cover is really good aswell, the way she isn't look directly into the camera and giving a profile look is simple, but really effective. The colour scheme works really well, I like the raspberry red, it fits in nicely with the other colours and it's a very trendy colour. I also like how the image has been kept in the corner, it makes the writing clear to read without anything behind it. The 'Letter from the editor piece is really cool, I love how it's on a piece of paper it makes it stand out, the idea of it gives the page a nice overall look.'

-What is your opinion of the 'Domination' double page spread?

'The image on the second page is really cool, her pose is really eye-catching, I love the way she's growling, looks really edgy, I love it. I love the tiger print, it doesn't make it look too tacky, it looks really good against the black and white pictures. The text is really creative and catchy as well, the writing style. The layout is really good, it doesn't look too overloaded with writing, which would otherwise put me off reading the article, and it’s structured really well. I love the wild animal theme that I've just noticed, and how her album cover fits onto her face that's so cool, I've never seen anything like that before in a magazine, very creative. I also love on the front cover how the black and white pictures of her look old-fashioned, it's a weird combination mixed with the orange and the tiger print, but it's trendy and I really like that.'

Evaluation - Question 3: Who would be the audience for your media product?

3) I believe that the audience for my media product, music magazine would be females aged 16-24; this is because I have set the colour scheme to be feminine with the main use of pink on the front cover as well as using more feminine fonts that will attract the eye of a stereotypical young woman.

The magazine reflects chart music; this is shown through the different artists featured on the cover and contents page, all of which are reasonably well known and feature in the charts. I chose the model to feature as the magazine’s front cover image and main attraction, fictional singer ‘TESS’ as she represents the typical young, trendy audience that is likely to be reading the magazine, as well being similar to the popular artists that are currently around. I feel that the front cover represents the target audience of a female, aged 16-24 as it is bright, bold and appealing to the average female teenager/young adult.

To help answer this question I have decided to create a consumer profile based on the type of person who will be buying my magazine.

- Name: Emily

- Age: 18

- Occupation: Student with a weekend job waitressing

- Location: Essex

- Hobbies: Shopping, Dancing, festivals and concerts

- Where does she shop? New Look, River Island, Dorothy Perkins, H&M and Topshop

- The way she dresses: With the latest trends, fashionably. In the summer she wears lighter clothes - which look more summery, bright and girly and in the winter she prefers to wear darker shades with more of an edge.

- Music Taste: Mainly what is popular at the time and it can vary but main examples of her music taste includes 'R'n'B', 'Alternative', 'Indie' 'Pop' and 'Rock'. Her favourite artists are Rihanna, Lana Del Rey, Kings of Leon, and Beyoncé. She listens to 'Radio 1' which plays a range of different music styles.

- Film Taste: Chick Flicks, Romance and Comedy are her favourite genres of films. Her favourite films are The Lucky One, Dear John and The Hangover, this shows that she is stereotypically girly when it comes to films.

- TV Taste: She mainly watches ITV1, MTV, ITV2, E4 and BBC Three and her favourite shows are The Only Way is Essex, Geordie Shore and Hollyoaks.

I believe that my magazine would appeal to a memebr of my target market such as Emily as it is very female orientated which fits in with her girly taste and lifestyle, it would also be very affordable for her as she has a weekend job but still relies on her parents to pay bills and for all of her necessities, meaning that she would have quite a large disposable income. The magazine also fits in with her music taste as all of her favourite artists feature on magazine cover as well as the magazine featuring popular music which is what she mainly listens to and loves to keep up to date with.

Evaluation - Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1) Before starting work on my music magazine I looked at different styles and conventions of music magazines before deconstructing one magazine for a front cover, a contents page and a double page spread.

Front Cover

Through researching the front covers of different styles of music magazines I found out that a strong, powerful, eye-catching image of well-known artists was needed to make a prominent statement within the front cover. With the Cheryl Cole issue of ‘Q’ magazine, it displayed the popular choice of a close-up. However, I did find a few other magazines including the Fergie issue of ‘BLENDER’ magazine and the Lana Del Rey Issue of ‘NME’ magazine where there was a use of a mid-shot of the famous artists featuring on the cover. I decided to use this mid-shot for my front cover as I believe that a powerful facial expression, if assisted with a striking pose can create a very effective and eye-catching front cover to attract the target audience of young women who idolise the atttactive artists featured on the front cover of magazine. The facial expression of the model used on my front cover is very similar to that of Rihanna’s issue of 'Billboard' magazine and Florence Welch’s issue of ‘Q’ magazine as it subtly extenuates shock and power which creates an overall dramatic look. The idea of having the model posed in such a way came from that element of surprise and power featured in her facial expression, the way in which she looks as if she is pushing against a wall with her head turned towards the camera does help towards creating the power in which big music artists have, it does extenuate the look of female strength in the front cover image that many other existing music magazines portray themselves.

The masthead of the front cover is very conventional and does follow the way a lot of other existing music magazines set out their own mastheads; centralised, taking up the width of the page and being positioned along the top of the front cover, yet still making the front cover image the focal point. The colour scheme I chose is very simple and fits in with the main colour theme of the front cover which I found nearlly all magazines make sure they carry out. My choice of the name ‘Domination’ was chosen as I felt that it represented ‘dominating the charts and the music industry’; it also represented influence and power. I found that many music magazines used a very simple name or an abbreviation such as ‘NME’ and ‘Q’ magazine; I felt that this was effective but I wanted to challenge those conventions of a music magazine with a name like 'Domination'.

The conventional layout of a music magazine generally shows the majority of the plug information being shown on the left-side third of the cover. I decided I wanted to challenge this convention by placing most of my magazine’s plug information on the unconventional right-side third of the magazine to make it stand out from other magazines. I did however, place the plug information regarding the Kings of Leon competition on the left-side third as it would be a major selling point to my target audience and I therefore felt that it should be separated from the other plug information listed on the cover. A lot of the music magazines I looked at had large and central cover lines, for example, Rihanna’s issue of ‘Billboard’magazine and Cheryl’s issue of ‘Q’ magazine and I felt that I should stick to this convention as it really makes the selling point of the magazine stand out the target audience, it is also positioned in a way that shows that the main image is related to it.

I used a variety of fonts as I thought that it would add to the uniqueness of the magazine as well as making it more interesting to look at, aesthetically. The majority of the music magazines I looked at appeared to have only used one or two styles of fonts on their front covers such as ‘Billboard’ and ‘Q’ magazine. Although their front covers were effective I felt that on my magazine I would add different fonts for each piece of plug information as it would appeal to my reasonably young target audience of 16-24 year old females, but it did mean that I unconventionally used a wide range of font styles and sizes. Throughout my front cover I did choose to stick with the pink and monotone colour scheme, I did research front cover colour schemes as a convention of a magazine, I found out that all the music magazines were using a small range of colours that clearly worked together, including ‘BLENDER’ magazine with the gold and light blue, and this did make the front covers appear tidier and look more professional.

Contents Page

I researched a selection of contents pages from different music magazines, by doing so I discovered the convention of using a simple background behind one main image of the artist or artists from the cover, featured alongside a list of contents. I decided to use this convention for my contents page as it worked effectively and the use of the same ‘singer’, followed on nicely from the cover, keeping the same theme with a slight twist which was helped with the same pink and monochrome colour scheme that was previously used on the front cover. The way in which the model is posing creates a strong heroine-type image, much like the Emeli Sandé album cover which I gained inspiration from for my contents page; it gives out the impression of power and womanly ‘domination’. Most of the music magazines I looked at appeared to have centred their contents page around the main image, which I followed through with as the only gap from writing on the page framed the ‘Singer’s’ face, making the main selling point centre of attention. The majority of the existing music magazines I looked at kept their contents page simple with a plain background making sure that the page isn’t too busy and easy to read, especially as the page is normally heavy in terms of writing, I went along with this effective convention and took inspiration of the Ciara issue of ‘Vibe’ magazine where the background goes from dark to light.I separated my list of contents into two sections and labelling them ‘Featuring inside’ and‘Fresh off the cover’ which I thought would be fresh and innovate and be a feature challenges the forms and conventions of a music magazine, as in the music magazines I researched they were labelling similar sections with the conventional tiles of ‘Features’ and ‘Cover Story’. On the contents’ page I also added ‘A letter from the editor’ which I have previously seen in a few magazines, but I failed to see in any music magazines, I therefore decided to challenge the forms and conventions of a music magazine by adding one alongside the list on contents, which I feel adds a personal touch to the magazine.

I made sure to chronologically list the pages and their page numbers vertically down the length of the page, a very conventional but equally effective way of listing the contents which I found in all of the contents pages I looked at; it makes it easy for the readers to read through, navigate around the page as well as making the page look neat and appropriately ordered.

I kept the ‘domination’ masthead from the front cover in the same font, position and size, the only existing magazine which displayed a similar idea was ‘Q’magazine where they incorporate their logo into the contents page header. This establishes their brand a lot more into the magazine and makes the page recognisable to the ‘Q’ Brand, this is why I decided to keep the ‘Domination’and in a way use it as their logo and make it easily associated to the ‘Domination’ brand, that is the magazine.

My magazine’s contents page is reasonably similar to that of ‘Q’ magazine in the way that the writing is laid out and structured; it is unconventional to the majority of other music magazines as the majority choose not to use as much information and maintain a very minimal look, including the Florence Welch issue of ‘MOJO’ magazine, the Ciara issue of ‘Vibe’ and the Katy Perry issue of ‘BLENDER’.