Magazine Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The front cover and content incorporates the conventions of real media text through the images, colour and text displayed in the magazine. Firstly, the masthead is written in a light purple/lilac which connotes luxury, power and creativity, it also is a light colour as from my research most pop magazines use light bright colour (usually pink, purple, yellow). The font is a serif font and placed vertically as in many magazine I have seen the masthead positioned that way to seem unique and different from the typical positioning. My mast head is called 'Hierarchy' which links with the subheading of the musician being a 'Queen'. Moreover the image is of the artist with the angle of gaze being directly at the audience to catch their attention and make it seem that the magazine was directly and personally created for them to read. From deconstructing previous magazine I learnt to make the image large and in the centre of the magazine where it can be seen clearly and attract consumers well. My contents page incorporate similar colours so that it link to the front cover however there are different shades to show a bit of a difference at the same time. Furthermore, I place my image on the right of the content as following examples of most magazine contents pages. For the contents I used recent events and information that consumers would be interested as when asking my focus group, they agreed in wanting to hear about current artists life and music and in contents pages of other pop magazines, I had seen that information as well. Therefore this presents the way I have tried to integrate conventions of real media products to my magazine.

How effective is the main product and ancillary text?

The front cover effectively presents the main product and ancillary text as a combination as the text states 'The Queen has declared War' which links and reflects the main image as the model directly looks at the camera and leans on her hand as if she has no worries but also has a lot of power and the quote shows what her facial expression is trying to say. Also the colour of the text is purple which connotes luxury and power which relates to the image and masthead as the image shows the model being serious and powerful but also the masthead is 'Hierarchy' which links to power, royalty and luxury. Although the masthead does not relate to music, I believe it is effectively used to link with the image and text and is successfully displayed on the front cover as it is bold, clear and visible. I believe that the ancillary text on my contents page is effective to an extent as it uses similar colours to the front cover to show that it relates to it and I have used the features from the front cover to attract the consumer to the text shown on the contents page so that the reader can identify where it is placed. However to improve the effectiveness of the main product and ancillary text, I could have used the same model for both pages or made a reference to the masthead on the contents page as well. Moreover, I could have put more information on the model on the cover page to show the relation of the two products.

What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

From audience feedback I gain a lot of ways to improve my magazine and also was told about what parts of the magazine were successfully assembled.

Success of the magazine:

• The masthead on the front cover 'looks great and is bold and eye catching' also 'I like the way it is placed horizontally instead of the typical, basic way'.
• The link between the masthead, image, colour and text of royalty,luxury and power is 'cleverly used'.
• The interview feature 'is a good way of engaging the audience and attracts consumers in wanting to know more gossip'.
• The features allows readers to be interested 'because it relates to current affairs and involves artist personal life which is what most consumers want to know about'.
• 'The image is clear and big so you can see it properly' and the angle of gaze is directly at the consumer to catch their eye.

What to improve on:

• Add more colour 'instead of just purple and grey, add a third colour or have a box underneath the features to have a little bit more colour and make the features pop out'.
• 'Add lines in between the features' which is commonly used in magazines to separate the different features.
• For the contents page I should 'add more details to the contents and add language to engage the readers'
• 'Have the same model on the contents page as the cover page' this would show a link between the two pages and I could also display the masthead to show a link between the two as well.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?