Ryan Bircham evaluation

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

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

The dateline on my product is also easily seen. The dateline tells the audience/viewer how recent or old the magazine is.

The cover lines also had to be noticeable and big so the audience could easily read them. The cover line tells the audience what is inside of the magazine. I used different fonts and different text sizes and gave them different colours to create my cover lines.

All products have barcodes on this stores information of the product and how much the product is. Next to the barcode is the price of my magazine I decided to charge ÂŁ2.00 for my magazine because that was how much people were willing to pay for.

The mast head of my magazine is big and easily seen. I needed to create a mast head that was easily recognisable to the audience. All mast heads of other magazines are well spotted and people know what magazine it is from as soon as they see it.

This is the main image of my product during my research I knew that it had to be quite large and had to fill most of the cover. The model is looking directly at the audience which draws them.

This is the main cover line of my product. The text needed to be easily readable and well seen. I made the text slightly larger than the other cover lines. The cover line tends to be the main article in magazines.

Images on the contents page makes the Ryan viewer interested Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation and makes the page looks more fill. These pictures were taken when I went to winter wonderland in London.

I have used a wide range of different graphics on my contents page I think it makes the page looks more interesting and it provides colour to the page.

This part of the contents page is a small paragraph from the editor which is addressed to the reader. Again a lot of magazines have this in the magazine.

All contents pages of magazines include a contents page. On the contents page it tells the reader what is in the magazine including features. This tells the reader what is in this issue of the magazine. I have included page numbers to tell the reader what page the feature is on.

The regulars section of a contents page tells and shows the reader what is included in the magazine regularly. This includes letters from fans, photographs from other festivals and reviews of festivals.

This is the subscription section of the contents page it tells the reader how to subscribe to the magazine. This is included in a lot of magazines. In this section I added a small photograph of the cover of my product.

The kicker of a double page spread tells the Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation viewer what the article is basically about. It is similar to a blurb of a book telling the reader what the book is about. In many magazines the kicker can be found under the articles title.

The drop cap of the article shows the reader where to start reading. The drop cap is the first letter of the first word of the article is bigger than the other text and sometimes a different colour with a different coloured box surrounding it.

This is the pull quote of the double page spread is a piece of text taken from the article and it is enlarged to draw people into reading the whole article. All pages of articles in magazines have a pull quote.

The gutters of a double page spread are used to break up the columns of the text.

It makes the page looks neat and tidy. A gutter stops the text from overlapping and making it unreadable to the reader.

These pink squares brings colour to the double page spread. I first thought that it looked too much however I preferred them to be there rather them not be there.

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

Evaluation Question 2- how does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents the social groups that tend to go to festivals a lot of the time.

I represent my target audience as being fun, outgoing, confident and unique; they tend to be laid back and don’t really worry about anything. My media product is aimed to target both males and females, and I would say the age group for my product would be between 16 year olds to around late 30s. My audience research that the target audience of festival goers are interested in the camping experience, and going to as many festivals as they can, and listening to their favourite music they like to listen too. I decided to use this target audience because i felt that there is a gap in the market for this type of magazine and the target audience would be interested in buying my product.

The typical festival goer has a certain look about them. Most of the girls that go to festivals tend to wear glasses, hats, wellies, and colourful clothes. So for the front cover of my product I placed a pair of sunglasses onto my model and in Photoshop I added a festival style pattern onto the lenses. All of the festival goers are hedonistic which means they are always out to have fun. The house style of my product represents the target audience because the colours. The colours I have used include pinks and yellows which signify psychedelic and festival culture. I have chosen to use are bright and playful which festival goers tend to relate too. On the left shows my magazine cover and on the right shows a picture of what typical female festival goers look like when they are at a music festival.

My chose of model on the front cover is an attempt to represent a large percentage of my target audience; she is young, white and female. On other covers of my product I would change the model to represent other members of my target audience to ensure diversity so i would perhaps use a male model. The magazine would also represent the target audience through the chose of advertising other festivals, music, and shops the typical reader is interested in.

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

Evaluation question 3 – what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

My magazine is a music festival magazine aimed for festival goers, this i9s a growing audience as festivals are becoming increasingly popular. Bauer Media Company has a wide range of brands which could help with the distributors of my product. Some of the brands include 4 Music, Kiss, Empire, Q and many more. The target audience for these brands varies because they have brands which are targeted to people who like cars, fashion, photography, fishing and gardening. By Bauer having a lot of different themed brands I think this would be a good company to sell the festival magazine idea too. I feel that there is a gap in their portfolio which Fest could fill.

IPC media is a possibility to sell the media product too. However I think IPC media has more brands that I would call daytime/ women’s products. There brands include chat, now, soaplife, woman and more. Although these are completely different genres of products to mine these brands are well known, which could be good for my magazine because then it would be well known to people who are interested in the magazine and even people who aren’t so interested as others.

If I used a major publisher for my media product I think that would be better because there would be a greater awareness of my magazine to the public.

I think that if I self-published my magazine this would not be as successful as using a major publishing company because there wouldn’t be much awareness to my product. I think that my product would be distributed by big UK distributors like WHSmith because there is there is room in the market for my Festival themed product. Synergy is needed to improve sales and alertness of the product. This could be done by publishing my product on line or asd a app so it is accessible to anybody on the go.

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

Evaluation question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product is both males and females at the age of 15 to 50. I would say the main audience would be teenagers. As they are the people who tend to do to music festivals and this is why I have chosen to include features such as advice for first-time goers.

In terms of demographics my audience is either male or female with a wide range of ages that is from anything to the teens and over. They tend to be either working class or middle class. A lot of the festival goers tend to be British, white, middle or working class.

In terms of psychographics the typical festival goer listens to a wide range of music from indie a pop to rock. They include mainstreamer’s aspirers and individuals.

Festival goers fashion usually consists of colourful clothing which is usually summer wear including shorts and tshirts, wellies, and other unique items such as head wear. The target audience for my product are most likely to be interested in shops including, Topshop, Topman, Primark, Urban Outfitters and Superdry, and Apple. They find interest in social networks including facebook, twitter and instagram. Programmes which they may watch include reality series such as the only way is essex, Made in Chelsea and Geordie shore. Food that my target audience may enjoy includes McDonalds, subway, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and Pringles. The stereotypical festival goer usually eats mostly takeaways.

I could use these interests to advertise in my product to draw the target audience into buying/reading my product.

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

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

The point of sale for my media product would be on a shelf in a good retailer such as WHSmith. I think my magazine would also sell well at music festivals. The elements of my magazine that are designed to grab the target audience includes the model using a direct address to the audience looking straight at them, although the models eyes are covered by the glasses the psychedelic pattern of them draws the audience in. the cover line “how to lose your Festival virginity in a weekend” uses a second person pronouns to address the audience and to get their attention. The colour scheme I have chosen to use attracts the audience too. I have chosen to use bright colours like pink and the psychedelic pattern of the glasses.

The content and the language that is used in my media product is appropriate to the target audience because I haven’t made too text heavy. I have relied on the elements of text and images to complement each other. My article that I wrote “how to lose your festival virginity in a weekend” the word virginity gives a playful element to the magazine which relates to the audience. The graphics I have used including the circles on the front cover and the graphics which I have used throughout the contents page and double page spread include a floral like pattern and pink squares at various sizes. I think these elements attract the audience because they add interest to the product. I made the mast head of my product simple but I wanted it to be well recognised by the audience, so I changed the letter f to pink and kept the other three letters of the title Fest yellow. I kept the font simple but I chose one that had a festival look about it. I kept with this colour scheme throughout my work.

I think the unique selling point of my product is the cover image. I think that it is the thing that stands out the most to the audience and it will draw in buyers. During the process of creating my product I was constantly referring back to my audience and asking them for feedback. This helped with addressing the audience

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

Evaluation Question 6 – what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

From the process of constructing my product I have learnt a variety of new techniques which has helped me to create my final product. For my original photo shoot I went into the studio at college where I used the lights for my shoot. To create my product I used Photoshop which involved me using a lot of techniques and tools. Some of these techniques include me making adjustments to my photographs by changing the brightness and contrast, levels and curves and changing my front cover photograph into black and white. In Photoshop I used the magic wand tool and the rubber to get rid of the background in the original image. Once the image was cropped the way that I wanted it I then used the rubber tool to make the psychedelic pattern fit over the original glasses lens. The photograph on the left shows the cover of my product and the edited version of the photograph. The photograph below shows the original photograph which I took. The sun glasses is a fashion accessory which most festival goers wear, which makes my cover relate to the audience. Other techniques and tools I used during the process of creating my product include me using the rectangular marquee tool to create the pink squares that I placed on my double page spread. I then used the paint brush tool to apply the colour that I wanted them to be. Also on my double page spread I added a picture of a pair of wellies which is also something most festival goers tend to wear. I then changed the colour balance of the wellies to a yellow colour because they were originally a grey sort of colour which I thought made the made the double page look dull and boring. I changed the colour balance by selecting the wellies using the magic wand tool and then going to image, adjustments and then down to colour balance. The image on the right shows my double page spread and how the wellies looked before and after I had edited them.

Throughout the process of my media product I have used varoius websiteslike blogger and flickr to create and post my plans, ideas and final pieces of work. Flikr is a website which I use dto upload n image and it aloud me to annotate parts of the uloaded image. Once the annotated photograph

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

was annotated I then uploaded it to my blog. I used flikr to annotate current music magazines and write about the elements that made up that cover such as the masthead, the main image, and th cover lines. Blogger has allowed to upload all of my media work so it is situated in one place and it is easyily accesable to anybody who wishes to leve me comments on my work. On blogger I used different labels to post my work under which means it made well organised. I have alo used survey monkey to creat a survey to see what music magazines people were intrested in. I sent my survey out to people who is in the same class as me and too my friends. I then used the feedback to create my product. All of theese websites which I used where freee to subscribe too which was a great advantage.

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

Evaluation question 7 – looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Since doing the preliminary which involved me creating a college magazine I have learnt a lot in the progression of creating my music magazine. I have learnt a lot about using Photoshop and the different techniques on how to edit my photographs, and text. Looking back at my college magazine the layout and design of it seems simpler then what my music magazine does. On my college magazine I kept the main photograph in colour and I didn’t do any editing to it at all, however for my music magazine I done a lot of editing from removing the background of the photograph to changing the photograph to black and white. I also changed the brightness and contrast of the photograph on my music magazine. To create the yellow circles on my music magazine cover I used the shape tool to draw a variety of different sized circles, once I had done this I then duplicated the layers four times to create more of the different circles. When I started the preliminary task I had no idea how to work Photoshop at all so during the process of creating my music magazine I felt more confident and knew more techniques and tools which I didn’t know when I first started the course.

The main difference between the two magazines which I created is the target audience. The college magazine is aimed at students so for the cover image I used a student who was carrying a folder in her arm standing against a set of lockers. This was a good element to show that the magazine is for students because of the stereotypical photograph I took. My Festival music magazine however has a picture of a girl which I transferred black and white with the psychedelic colours over the glasses lens relates to festival goers and has a festival look to it which draws the audience in.

Even though I didn’t add anything to the college magazine contents page you can still see where I planned on putting the text and images. Although my music magazine contents page has been completed with the text and photographs I think that the layout and the elements which I have used works well. I the graphics which I have used on my music magazine contents page I don’t think I would have used on the college magazine contents page. I have used a more variety of text then I planned on using on the college magazine and a wider range of colour.

During the process of creating my college magazine

Ryan Bircham – AS Media - Foundation Production – Evaluation

contents page I didn’t really think about the layout or the choice in colours where as for the music magazine contents page I had a longer time to think about it and if I didn’t like anything about it I had the chance to change it. For my music magazine contents page the techniques and tools I used included text alignment to make sure all my text was in line with each other to make the contents page look neat and tidy. For the smaller photograph of my music magazine in the bottom right corner advertising a subscription to Fest I used the tool stroke and drop shadow to make the photograph stand out, it also gave it a 3D effect to it.