Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I have done research in to different magazines, looked at how they are put together, who for and why they use certain things on and in their products. I have used different ideas from existing college magazines to give me inspiration when designing and making the front cover and the contents page. The front cover has the usual features of a magazine such as a masthead, running head, call outs and a CVI. I have developed my magazine by making it more sophisticated than many existing magazines catering for the same audience, as I thought that this would widen its appeal slightly. I have also used a drop shadow on the masthead which is less noticeable, I have also used a sans serif front with all of the writing, which gives it consistency. 


Who would be the target audience for your media product?
As it is a college magazine, the obvious choice of target audience would be students aged 16 - 19. My typical target audience on the jicnar scale would probably be graded around an E, this is because college would in most circumstances restrict students chances of having a well paying or full time job. The target audience would generally be aimed at aspirers, this is because college is generally full of people wanting to go on to higher education by choice. 


How did you attract/address your audience?
I have used several features in order to attract and address my audience. For example, the name of the magazine 'Varsity' can be defined as a sports team representing a school or college. I think the name is effective because it can be easily related to a wide range of males playing sport and a small group of females. Also the CVI is of a young, good looking male leaning against a tree whith his arm resting on his head looking away from the camera. This attracts the female target audience for obvious reasons, and also males as it connotes intelligence, high fashion and popularity. The colour scheme of the front cover is black, white and grey. This allows the magazine to have a higher market appeal, but including the cover lines and tag lines such as 'Halloween Scares', 'How to pass your driving test' and 'Chrimbo Clubbing Destinations' it makes the magazine way more accessible for a younger audience. The colour scheme also makes it easy to read above the CVI, but also makes sure that there are no tacky colours involved. 


What've you learnt about other technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When creating this media product I used two programmes, Indesign and Photoshop, and I also learnt how to use a digital SLR camera. When using the camera I learnt how to take close up and mid close up shots, how to turn the flash on and off, how to zoom and how to make the photo of a higher quality. For the magazine specification, I had to use a mid close up photo for my front cover photo, once I had taken the photo it was uploaded to Photoshop in which I learnt how to make the photo 'flawless'. I used a tool in which I could take away blemishes and certain imperfections, this improved the look of the magazine drastically. I found Photoshop fairly easy to use as I have had some past experience with it, and I thought that the finished product wouldn't have been half as good without its use. 

For the contents page, we changed programme. Indesign allowed me to introduce columns in to my contents, I could also layer text against coloured backgrounds. An example of this is the word 'Contents' on the right hand side of my contents page. It has been placed in the far right column and it is aligned with the actual contents below it.  I learnt how to use swatches and change the gradient of colour. An example of this is the background colour on my contents, it is grey and black but fades in to eachother, this has been done through the use of gradient. I found Indesign alot  harder to use than Photoshop and thought that the steps involved to create the piece of work were long winded and complicated.