EVALUATIONLeon-Jay Dominique

1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE,

DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

FRONT COVER COMPARISON

NME COVER CONVENTIONS

MASTHEADBehind subject

SUBJECTLooking ‘through’ the camera, connecting

with the reader. Studio image and lighting.

ISSUE & PRICESmall print, above

masthead

PROPSRelate to the main cover line. (Broken trumpets: “no more

trumpets”)

EYEBROWFeatures both text and

imagery.

COVER LINESRunning down the

left

COLOR SCHEMELimited: sticks to 3/4 colours: orange, pink,

black and white

BACKGROUNDPlain and simple with a slight upwards gradient

BARCODEBottom right corner

MAIN COVER LINEBold and domineering

LAYERS3 to create a depth and sense of realism

HIT COVER ANALYSIS

MASTHEADBehind subject

SUBJECTLooking ‘through’ the camera, connecting

with the reader. Studio image and lighting.

ISSUE & PRICESmall print, above

masthead

PROPSRelate to the main

cover line. (War face paint: “her battle to

become a pop star”)

EYEBROWFeatures both text and

imagery.

COVER LINESRunning down the

left

COLOR SCHEMELimited: sticks to 3/4

colours: hot pink, black and white

BACKGROUNDPlain and simple with a slight upwards gradient

BARCODEBottom right corner

MAIN COVER LINEBold and domineering

LAYERS3 to create a depth and sense of realism

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CONTENTS PAGE COMPARISON

NME CONTENTS CONVENTIONS

ISSUE DATEItalic font, below heading

RANGE OF IMAGES

Use of close up, mid and full length shots each relating to their article. Images are all

boxed

HEADINGBold, central and top

PAGE NUMBERSBold in a white box

placed in the corner of an image

BACKGROUNDPlain, white

LINESNicely separating each individual

section of the page

RANGE OF FONTS

5/6 various fonts. Use of italic, bold and light type

faces PULL QUOTEGives the reader

incentive to read the article

ARTICLE DESCRIPTION

Gives the reader brief, to the point info about the

article

HIGHLIGHTS LIST“Plus” box listing additional

features within the magazine

HIT CONTENTS ANALYSIS

ISSUE DATEItalic font, below heading

RANGE OF IMAGES

Use of close up, mid and full length shots each relating to their

article. Images RANGE from boxed to ‘cut out’

HEADINGBold, central and top

PAGE NUMBERSBold in a white box

placed in the corner of an image

BACKGROUNDPlain, white

LINESNicely separating each individual

section of the page

RANGE OF FONTS

5/6 various fonts. Use of italic, bold and light type

faces

PULL QUOTEGives the reader

incentive to read the article

ARTICLE DESCRIPTION

Gives the reader brief, to the point info about the

article

HIGHLIGHTS LIST“Plus” box listing additional

features within the magazine

CHART LIST‘The HIT chart’: a vibrant

list of the magazine’s top 10 songs this week

USE

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DEVELOP

CHALLENGE

HIT CONTENTS ANALYSIS: TOP 10 CHART

I decided to go against the conventional layout of an NME contents page by including a chart list. I thought that a top 10 hit list would be a great feature to have on my contents page as my magazine focuses on the pop genre and so naturally chart music and being up to date with the latest hit songs is hugely important.

Another pop music magazine is ‘BILLBOARD’ and I noticed that they include a full length official chart on their contents page. I did not like the style of the chart and thought it took up too much space of the page so I decided to base my chart around one I found within an ‘NME’ article which would match the look and feel of my magazine. This is another way that I have managed to incorporate pop genre content into a layout and style traditionally associated with rock genre magazines.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD COMPARISON

NME DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD CONVENTIONS

PHOTO CREDITSSmall print, below lead

FULL BLEED IMAGE

Right page uses the same background so it appears

the image continues. STAND FIRSTArticle Description,

italic

HEADINGBold, runs across the

entire spread

FOOTERIssue date and page

number

DROP CAPLarge, same colour and

font as the heading

BACKGROUNDPlain and simple

PULL QUOTETo grab readers attention, bold

GUTTER

MARGINCreates an even boarder

COPYSmall standard font

size of 9

PHOTO CREDITSSmall print, below lead

FULL BLEED IMAGE

Right page uses the same background so it appears

the image continues.

STAND FIRSTArticle Description,

italic

HEADINGBold, runs across only one side of the spread

FOOTERIssue date and page

number

DROP CAPLarge, same colour and

font as the heading

BACKGROUNDPlain and simple

PULL QUOTETo grab readers attention, bold

GUTTER MARGINCreates an even boarder

COPYSmall standard font

size of 9

HIT DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD ANALYSIS

RANGE OF PHOTOSI wanted to utilize free space

the best I could and so included a sequence of

additional photos.

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DEVELOP

DEVELOP

3. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT

DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

IPC Media are responsible for the production of over 60 influential media brands. With their print based media reaching 2/3s of UK women and their websites attracting 20 million users every month, IPC Media would be the perfect kind of media institution to distribute my magazine. Their ability to reach the majority of British females and their understanding of a forward thinking cyber aware audience would be useful as my magazine is targeted at women, also their website production would allow me to produce my magazine as a virtual product as well as in standard print form. My magazine is targeted towards a young, female audience and focuses on the genre of pop music, unlike many of IPC’s current magazines, and therefore would appeal to a ‘mainstream’ audience and could be sold in main cities such as London and Manchester in large chain stores such as WHSMITH. IPC Media already distributes ‘NME’, my case study magazine, which leads me to believe they would be interested in also distributing my magazine which follows the layout and style of ‘NME’ whilst catering to a different, more popular music genre, filling a gap in the UK market. It would also be possible to create a brand of ‘HIT’ magazine due to IPC’s cross media ownership which would allow me to set up a website and possibly radio station for ‘HIT’. It would also allow me to advertise my media product across a range of media such as print, tv and radio advertisement; effectively boosting sales and profits.

6. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF

CONSTRUCTING THIS MEDIA PRODUCT?

SOFTWARES

- Wordpress.com - used as a virtual portfolio (blog)

- Slideshare.com - used to publish evaluation powerpoint

- Youtube.com - used to publish a video online

- Surveymonkey.com - used to gain audience feed back

- Google.com - used as a search engine for info & images

- Photoshop - used for photo editing, cropping ect

- Indesign - used for layout and typography

- Pages - used to write the article

- Keynote - used to create the powerpoint presentation

- iMovie - used to make my evaluation video

HARDWARES

- Digital SLR - used for capturing my artist images

- Studio lighting - to ensure minimal shadows (3 point)

- Tri-pod - used to help capture a steady image

- iMac - used to access all the listed software

- iPhone 5 - used to make notes throughout the process

- USB flash drive - used to transport files between college and home

LIST OF TECHNOLOGIES USED

Although I was already familiar with photoshop before starting this process, I have developed my skills and feel I am no longer a beginner. Using photoshop to edit my images before placing them into my magazine pages has taught me the importance of imagery editing when creating a professional magazine and I don’t think my final piece would be to the same standard it is without photoshop.

Unlike photoshop, InDesign was completely new to me and I found it difficult to adjust at first. Once I stopped being reluctant and started to use InDesign to construct my media product it quickly became clear how easy it was to use and also how useful it was. InDesign was crucial in the typography and layout of my magazine, I learned how to create a unique masthead from scratch and with practice, managed to assemble my final product.

Although InDesign was hugely important in creating my media product, Wordpress.com has perhaps been even more essential as it has allowed me to bring all the stages of this project together. Wordpress has acted as a free virtual portfolio for my work and no paper has been required for the entire project. Blogging was a new concept to me as I had no past experience, but thanks to the simplicity of Wordpress I have learned to create posts and then categorize them accordingly through a menu system. I have enjoyed Wordpress so much that I have gone on to set-up my own hobby based blog.

Throughout the production process of my media product I organized three photo shoots using two different DSLR cameras: my own Panasonic Lumix G2 (£330) and my father’s Canon EOS 5D mark 3 (£2340). I learned that the quality of the camera has a huge impact on the quality of the image and I definitely preferred working with the cannon. I also learned that as well as studio lighting, natural light is a great source for photography as my images taken outside looked crisp and bright. It was also useful to take some location shots to ensure I had a vast range of images for my magazine.

7. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT?

PRELIMINARY VS. FINAL

I feel I have learnt a huge amount about not only the magazine and music industry but also about producing my own media product. When looking back to my preliminar y exercise it looks highly unprofessional in comparison to my final magazine which, in my opinion, matches the standards of official music magazines. This was mainly due to my lack of knowledge about elements of style and layout such as margins, studio imager y, positioning, typography and also as I was very unfamiliar with Adobe InDesign. Before starting this project I was fairly comfortable using photoshop but had no knowledge of using InDesign. What initially would have taken me hours to accomplish using the software would now take me 5 minutes and it is through learning how to use page construction software such as indesign that I have been able to achieve my final product.

THANK YOU