Evaluation Question 7 Progression

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product?

Preliminary Task (School Magazine Right) and Indie Rock Music Magazine (Left)

I think overall I have made a large improvement within creating a magazine. Throughout my coursework I have expanded my use of other programmes and gained more knowledge on how to edit images and access different ways of presenting my work. During the research period of the project I started to improve my understanding of how the audience and magazine coincide and the relationship between audience and the magazine itself.
The preliminary task does represent its purpose of being a school magazine, shown by the main image and cover lines. However the font for the masthead is too simple and doesn't really stand out. Compared to the final draft of our music magazine, the masthead has improved as it now eye-catching and the reader is drawn in by the bold typography and colours. I think we have successful embodied our genre and audience by choosing this image as the main image as well as the house style of font and the masthead. I think overall the main image for our Indie Rock magazine is better than our preliminary task as it is more eye-catching and will intrigue readers more. I think we have successfully fulfilled the audience and preferences of the social-group. I think we have definitely appealed to our audience by using a young model on the front cover, as majority of our audience was younger. I am happy with the results and how we have improved our magazine cover form the preliminary task. I think elements of our preliminary task have been included in our final product, for example the cover lines layout we have continued to use throughout the process. The final product has a more professional element to it as we have also included a barcode to the bottom left as well as the price and issue number. This overall has added a professional and authentic look to the front cover.
When starting the project with the preliminary tasks, overall I hadn't really worked on programmes such as InDesign, Adobe Bridge and Pages before. Therefore when creating our Preliminary front cover I found it a long and confusing process as I wasn't familiar with the programmes and the tools which we were meant to use in them. Our preliminary task was created on pages, and this was a new programme for us. We learned how to work this programme and then towards the end of the process of our Music Magazine, we were able to create our final front cover easily. As well as other mock ups, we used Pages and InDesign. InDesign was also a new programme to us and we learned how to this programme with ease towards the end of the process.
There were some difficulties we had come across when uploading certain posts to our blogs. For example, at the start of the preliminary task I worked on Microsoft word and Powerpoint. When uploading my work to my blog I found that I wasn't able to upload the work in this format. Therefore I would either upload the post as a full written piece, or I would screenshot the document and upload the work as a picture. This is evident in my older posts. Throughout the process I have be able to vary my work and upload it in different formats. This has also let me show how my skills have developed and I have experimented and learned throughout the process. We also developed by using programmes such as InDesign for our double-page spread and our contents page. We were able to use the tools and programme with greater knowledge.

During the process, we carried out two Photoshoots. This was because after our first Photoshoot, we decided that the images we had taken didn't fit the image we wanted to portray on our front cover. We included images from the first Photoshoot in our magazine, however we decided to carry out another shoot in order to produce better images. The shots from our second shoot then formed the final front cover. This shows we were still learning during our process and learnt how to improve our work and understand how to create an better look for our magazine overall. 

Our research of music magazines helped us create a stylish and eye-catching magazine. During our preliminary task we didn't really research much into school magazines. This came at a disadvantage as we weren't sure what the general conventions of a school magazine. However we did slight research towards the end of the preliminary task and then we were able to apply our research to the final product. Therefore we aimed to improve this during the Music Magazine task. We spent a long time during the research process and we wanted to create a magazine which would appeal to our audience. We made sure to scope out our audience and what were their interests, we would use this information to apply it to our magazine. Also being fans of the indie rock genre, we were able to apply our likes and dislikes to the magazine as we were apart of our target audience. However we were aware that our likes and dislikes were not universal and made sure we didn't make our magazine biased towards us. We also spend time researching other companies such as Bauer and IPC, as they produce lots of well known magazines. We took inspiration from other magazines which fit our genre. This meant we fit general conventions as much as we could and this shows we have improved our research process as well as analysing what would best appeal to our target audience.
My analysis overall on my posts and pieces of work have developed a lot during my progress. It is evident in my past work in the preliminary task I have developed my analytical skills. For example looking at my Survey Analysis of the preliminary task compared to my Survey Analysis regarding my music magazine, there is a major difference between my analysis. I have developed and shown how we will have used the information in order to make our magazine better. Whereas in the preliminary task I only posted the results from the website in which I created the survey on. I also posted some of my results in different formats such as pie charts. This shows a versatility in my work and how I have developed. 

Evaluation Question 6 Technologies

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

Throughout out the process of creating our magazine, I have been able to expend my knowledge about technology and experiment on new platforms of presenting my work. Before AS media I had never worked on blogger before, however now I am able to upload a range of material as well being able to embed my work in different formats.

I have also used a range of software including Photoshop, Adobe Bridge and InDesign. I have used photoshop when editing my photos, I was able to adjust them to fit the image of my magazine as well as creating a professional looking images. We edited most of our images which ended up in our magazine, which was useful to make our magazine look more professional. For example, for our front cover when editing it on photoshop I adjusted the contrast and brightness of the colours.
I think this created a nice effect as it brightened the blues on the image which helped it stand out more and complimented the typography of the masthead and coverlines.
InDesign was useful when creating our mock ups as it enabled us to use templates of magazine layouts. We were able to layout our contents page,front cover and double page spread and try out different layouts and formats when deciding our final products.
Adobe Bridge was also useful when we wanted to produce contact sheets from our photos-shoots, this software allowed us to preview all our images into a contact sheet and we were able to adjust that into which images we wanted by selecting them. The programme also allowed us to export the contact sheets as PDFs.

When uploading my work to my blog, during the start of my blog I didn't know how to upload in different formats. Throughout the progress of my work I have been able to progress and expand my knowledge when uploading posts. I have shown a range of formats to upload my work including Powerpoint online. This allowed me to make presentations to showcase my work, I then would embed the presentation into the HTML section on my upload. This creates an interactive powerpoint straight onto my blog.
Another platform I have used is SlideShare, this site helps you make presentations uploading straight from your computer. I have found it very useful when uploading posts. I think this shows my understanding of technology and how I have improved with my understanding overtime throughout this project. When I have made my online presentation I then embed the link into the HTML section and upload it straight to my blog.
Prezi is an intereactive presentation constructor, which I think is a really effective way to illustrate my work and ideas. Prezi allows you to create a fun and interactive presentation, you can change the theme of the post adjust the colour scheme and add images. Again when I have created the Prezi, I copy the embedded link into the HTML section and upload it to my blog.

Throughout my project, I also had to used hardware products and technologies such as computers and  cameras. Computers were needed for majority of our work as we used them to edit out blogs, our images, create our posts, write up our work and upload to our blog. The computers we were used were iMacs, they worked relatively well and held a lot of useful programmes such as Photoshop and InDeisgn. The internet was also an important part of our work, for example all of the platforms including Prezi and Slideshare had to be accessed on the internet. However there were some internet troubles throughout our coursework as some sites were blocked. Computers and the internet were very important and useful parts whilst creating my product. Fortunately I had a Nikon D2500 camera , from my GCSE photography,  which we were able to use when carrying out our Photoshoots. As a group we were all experienced with a camera and knew how to work it, therefore our Photoshoots were easy to carry out and we were able to use a professional camera. By using a professional camera we able to produce quality photos and fulfil a professional looking Photoshoot.
Due to having experience with Photoshop and Cameras during Photography, this gave us an idea of how to edit photos and how what goes into creating a good photograph. However despite having these skills, we still found it hard to adapt when editing photos for a magazine. As we were used to editing photos and make decisions for ourselves. Whereas when editing photos and drafts for our magazines we have to adjust and make sure our magazine and images would fit the general conventions of other major magazines. We were soon able to overcome this issue and adjust our photography skills in order to create a music magazine.

An issue we had come across when editing our mock ups/final drafts on pages was that we wanted to use a downloaded font on our magazine. At first we were unable to transfer the downloaded font (Indie Summer) into Pages to access and use. We tried a variety of ways in order to solve this problem but didn't have that much success. After asking various classmates, we then referred to the internet and searched for an answer. We found a video of Youtube which was a step by step tutorial of how to solve our problem. I will link this video down at the bottom of the post as I found it very helpful. We were then able to use our downloaded font Indie Summer, and therefore it became a very popular font within our house style and music magazine. This also meant we were more familiar with working on the Macs, and it widened our skills when editing our magazine drafts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEl9SCEDlBs 

Evaluation Question 5 Attracting Audience

How did you attract your audience?
Below is a slideshare showing my analysis on how each page of our magazine will attract our target audience.

Attracting an audience from elliescobell

Evaluation Question 4 Audience

Who would be the audience of your magazine?
From the very start of our process we had decided to go with Indie Rock for our genre of music magazine. This is because we liked that genre of music and therefore we were able to understand what an audience of indie rock would like. From our research and survey results we found that our target audience was mainly the younger generation and we had to attract both male and females. Our age range was about mid teens - 30s. However we mainly focused on attracting the younger section of our audience.


When creating our mood boards and readership profile we included lots of bands and artists which we would take inspiration from. Bands we highlighted were Wolf Alice, Haim, Catfish and the bottlemen and the 1975. These bands are popular and are all categorised as rock or indie rock, therefore we included them on our mood boards. We also researched other music including bands like Oasis and Blur as this would attract the older section of our audience.


Since we as a group are interested in indie rock we looked at our own interests and what bands we liked which fit into the genre. This helped when researching what our audience would like as we are interested in indie rock.
We also researched clothing and brands which are associated with indie rock, the images of Wolf Alice and Catfish and the bottlemen showcase some of the clothing choices which are associated with indie rock. The genre indie rock is associated with laid back, trendy, and cool clothing. Vintage and grungey clothing is also very popular within the genre as well as brands like Topshop/Topman and sports brands like Adidas and Nike. We have seen this type of fashion when going to festivals which associated with indie rock as well as online on websites like Tumblr. Indie rock has been very popular on this type as it a trendy and quirky platform for teenagers to express themselves. Indie rock is definitely associated with fashion and style. Therefore we have researched into the clothing and style of which artists of indie rock and the audience.

When taking photos for our magazine we were conscious to incorporate the right style of our audience and we wanted to reflect our audience's image throughout out magazine. When styling our models for the photo-shoots we chose clothing which was loose and casual but also included a celebrity element to it. For example, in our first shoot we had our models were clothing which would be expected to be seen within our audience. We choose a plaid shirt for one of our models, and a acid-washed shirt for the other model. We paired the shirts up with ripped jeans or just skinny jeans. The outfits we chose would definitely be worn by our audience, therefore our models would be seen as trendy as well as trendsetters. By adding sunglasses this would add a cool and rock-star element to the models, making them more authentic band members. This type of fashion would be seen throughout the indie rock audience as well as at music festivals. The body language throughout our photos is quite relaxed and laid back, this is because we wanted the models to have a cool attitude as many indie rock artists photoshoots show them to be quite chilled out.

We then decided to add a guitar as a prop, this reflects our image and genre as many indie rock bands include guitars. The models look interested and soulful with their instrument. This creates an authentic image of a band as they are including their instruments. Throughout our research we have noticed that guitars and associated with rock and indie rock, therefore by including it we are following many conventions of other rock/indie rock magazines. This would mean hopefully our audience would be attracted to our magazine as we have followed conventions of other music magazines as well as challenging conventions by including more artist photos. We took inspiration from INDIE style magazine as we wanted to include style and a quirkiness to our magazine.

We experimented with taking more artistic and quirky photos like the INDIE style magazine, usually having a photo like this as a front cover is uncommon for music magazines. This means we have challenged general conventions of magazines. However hopefully this will mean our magazine will stand out as we have created a cool and quirky magazine which will attract our audience. As well as this we have included images (above) which follow general conventions and would be relatable to our audience. We have decided to keep the price of our magazine relatively cheap which means our audience/social group will be able to afford it. Meaning more people will buy it. Also a positive of it being cheaper than other leading magazines may mean more of our audience will chose to pick up our magazine. When we had finished creating our magazine, we were happy with the results. As indie rock fans ourselves we feel that the magazine fulfils the needs of an indie rock audience. We have created a stylish and professional looking magazine as well including quirky and different feature to other music magazines.

Evaluation - Question 3 Distributor

Media distributors from elliescobell

Evaluation - Question 2 Social Groups

Evaluation - Question 1 General Conventions

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real music magazines?

Throughout our magazine, we have taken into consideration the conventions used in official music magazines today. We have taken inspiration from other music magazines and assessed what makes a magazine attract the specific audience.
Our front cover was created to be eye-catching and stylish as this was an important part of our genre and audience. Style is a very bit part of the indie rock genre, which was shown through out readership profile and previous mood boards. When first starting out with front cover, I decided to try out the house style of red, blues and black colours. However after widening our understanding of other magazine conventions we developed our photo shoots and house style.  We looked at a music/style magazine called INDIE and really liked the style and image used on the front cover. We took inspiration from those conventions and applied to our magazine. The chosen image for our front cover was a single shot of one of the chosen models; we liked this, as it was stylish and artistic. After that we applied this photo to choose an appropriate house style and colour scheme. We used blue, white and black when applying text to our front cover. For the coverlines we used Indie Summer for the typography, this became a font we used throughout our magazine and became a theme.
For the masthead we looked at the conventions of the music magazine NME, this is another music magazine, which we took inspiration from. We really liked the bold and bright masthead they used, which we then applied this to our magazine by creating our own masthead/logo. We used Arial Black as our font and created a bold masthead, when creating out front cover we took into consideration the colours of the photo and applied to the colour of the masthead. For the front cover, we used blue; black and white for the house style, the masthead ‘I.N’ was blue with black behind to give it a shadow. Overall this works well for our front cover as it eye-catching and colorful, it also fits the conventions of other music magazine like NME.  When creating a composition for the front cover we chose to arrange the coverlines around the main image of the model. This created a balance on the page having coverlines of either side of the model as well as keeping the masthead the main focal point of the page as well as the main image.  We engaged with the audience by adding inclusive coverlines, which draws in the readers. For example we encouraged the readers to ‘keep up with the latest charts and trends’. This gives the audience a sense of solidarity and inclusivity meaning more readers will want to engage with the magazine.

For our contents page we were inspired by conventions displayed in magazines such as Q, which is another music magazine. We liked how page was set out and we decided to create a good

composition for our magazine. We decided to apply the colour scheme of our photo shoot, which was red, blue, white and black, to the house style of the page. This created a balanced composition and the colours of the page complimented the images from the photo shoot. We diverted away from the colour scheme of the front cover, which is generally challenging the conventions of many music magazines as many magazines create a set house style throughout.  However I think this works well for our magazine as it shows we are covering a range of styles and colour schemes, this also helps us to appeal to a wider audience as we can cover a wider range of preferred styles. The typography used for our title for this page we used to show our professionalism and create a sophisticated contents page.  We decided to differentiate the INDIE NOW from the CONTENTS as this

created a more stylish and individual font by making the INDIE NOW the red colour we used throughout the contents page.  This theme was carried on throughout the page, we applied this colour the bold and highlighted words within the text as well as the page references. This follows the conventions of most magazines as the page references are usually highlighted as well as important words. Our general layout fits the contemporary conventions of majority of magazines. We chose to use a few images distributed around the page including images from our main article about our band and other artists
highlighted on our contents page. By using other artists this creates a good range and shows a variety of people/models used in our magazine rather than just one artist. This would fit the general conventions in most
magazines. To improve the contents page I would think about using another image for the main image.

For our double page spread we followed the general conventions of music magazines when regarding the layout and composition of our double-page spread. We adjusted out image to cover the two pages, as we wanted to create an interesting and fun article. The band we created for our main article we decided to aim at the younger section of our audience, therefore we wanted to make our article trendy and colourful. This might challenge the conventions of many music magazines as many of the articles shown are sophisticated. However the house style we chose for our double-page spread fit the genre and style of our music magazine more as it would appeal to our music magazine more. When writing our article we came across the issue of having the text stand out above the main image, we decided to improve it by added a purple tinted text box around the article. I think this created a nice house style and complimented the colours of the main image. When arranging the page, we chose to put the article of the right side of the second page; we avoided the text covering the models faces in the image. This follows conventions of many magazines, as the main image is usually the focal point of the page.  To then balance out the page we added Polaroid’s of other images from our photo shoot, this complimented the style and genre of our magazine. The Polaroid’s were placed on the left of the first page and this balanced out the composition.  To also compliment the house style, we again used the font Indie Summer for our main title of the page. This creates a flow through the magazine as well as using Arial which was a popular font shown in our survey results. By using this font for our main article is a simple and easy to read which benefits the reader, this would fit the conventions of other music magazines.  However we could have challenged the conventions of other magazines as we again have used a different colour scheme from our front cover and contents page.  However I think this works well for our magazine as we are showcasing different styles throughout our magazine, but by using the Indie Summer font we are still creating a fluent house style.

Overall I think the final products we have created work well for our genre and fit the image of our audience. Our front cover is stylish and eye-catching, our contents has a sophisticated and professional element to it, and finally out contents page has a trendy and fun feel to it which all appeals to our audience.