Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

This is my front cover. I have chosen to put a large masthead at the top right hand corner with a red stroke which draws the audience's attention to it and makes it easier for the audience to remember it. The coverlines at the top; 'music, stars and pop' go well with the genre of my magazine which is around pop stars and music. I have used the word 'exclusive' to make the coverline stronger and stand out more than the other coverlines. Because the band 'Once' is the feature story for this issue and they are popular, their fans would buy my magazine just for them. The coverline below is a pull quote from the main article and I have highlighted 'new album' in red which connotes urgency and something special. The additional coverline below it says more about this feature story with highlighted 'birthday party photos' in yellow because yellow is also an attractive colour and it is associated with happiness. For the cover image I took a picture of my friend who pretended to be a famous singer. I added a bubble introducing the story of her being on the cover. I chose this image to be my cover picture because I think that she establishes Japanese culture very well which comes from her hair style, wearing colour contact lenses, mainly her expression and posture. At the bottom of my cover, there is a girl band and I only added a small coverline for them because they are not the main feature of this issue. There is also an unique selling point which comes from the free poster of 'Once'. I have decided to give offers to the audiences because 'Once' is my feature artists for this issue and this unique selling point is attractive for their fans and it may attract a wider audience to buy my magazine. There is the barcode, dateline and issue number at the bottom right a corner, all features which are conventional for a magazine cover.

To the left is my contents page. I put a big, bold masthead at the top left hand corner which reminds the audiences what magazine it is and helps them feel more familiar with my magazine. I put the word 'contents' next to it which shows the audiences this is a contents page and they could find the page numbers on this page. There is the dateline and the website at the top right hand corner which is a conventional feature and it will take the audiences going online to the website which makes my magazine become a synergy production. There are Japanese characters below which symbolises that my magazine is linked to both cultures, Japanese and British. I have put five different images on this page which suggests that my magazine contains more pictures than texts and it appeals to my target audiences who prefer more images. There is another conventional design to have two parts - the 'features' section and the 'regular' section. I have decided to put all the big stars in the features section and I have made up some coverlines which are popular for the regular section, such as 'crossword' and 'language assistance'. the 'language assistance' may not be popular for other style magazine, however it goes well with my Japanese style magazine and it may help some of the audiences to know more about the culture and language. Other than that, I have added a 'review' section at the end where it introduces new gadgets and products to the audiences and it makes my magazine become a synergy production whereas audiences buy product via my magazine.

This is my double page spread which is an article of an interview that I had with the band 'Once' after they have been in a gig in England. I found a suitable font on a website 'dafont.com' and placed it at the top left with an angle and added a yellow stroke for it. I then placed a subtitle below it which briefly says what the article is about. There is a kicker below the subtitle with a drop cap because drop cap quite often draws attention and hopefully the audience would continue reading the rest of the article. There is another kicker at the top on the right page to start the article and briefly introducing what they have been doing and why they are the featuring story of this issue. I then formed my article into question and answer form to make it easier for the reader and I used fairly simple language for the article which appeals to my target audiences. I added seven extra images as well as the main picture on the left, as I said that my audiences prefer more images so I have put a lot of photos on my double page spread. I also added captions for those pictures, drop shadow and strokes are used for those photographs too. I mainly used red and blue for my double page spread because they are the colours that associated with the England flag. However, the white space and red associated with the Japan flag.

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The image to the right is of Evelyn and Christina (from left to right), both are members of the band 'Girls generation' which I made up and used for my music magazine. The picture on the left is from a Japanese music magazine 'Junon' and they are from a boy band 'Kat-tun'.

Kat-tun's postures are more towards the left hand side, Evelyn and Christina's posture are more towards the middle. Kat-tun's picture shows that they are fun and interesting whereas they take picture with an angle. Although Evelyn and Christina's photo shows reality because they are 'real people' and it also shows some furniture behind them. I think this makes my photographs look more natural.

The angles of these two images are not quite the same as Kat-tun's picture was taken with a medium long shot, however my image was taken with a medium close up. I think Kat-tum's image looks more active which comes from the pose of their legs and my picture looks more real and it is a good distance of shot which makes the audiences feel more familiar and easier to communicate with.

The background of both of the images are in the similar light colour which gives a pale background and makes the audiences focus looking at the photograph. It is also a trend to take pictures with light background in Japanese style magazine which gives the audiences the impressions of fresh and new.

In Kat-tun's picture, both of them are wearing dark clothes which gives the picture a contrast with the light background and they stand out more in the image. However, in my photograph, Christina isn't wearing dark clothes because I wanted to make her contrast with Evelyn. It was because they both look similar and I think that she wears different colour clothes would make it easier for the audiences to identify between them.

The expressions shown that all of these people look cute and having fun. I think that these expressions work well for the genre of my magazine because Japan always gives impressions of cute. The smiley faces make the audiences feel the happy and enjoyable mood when they look at these pictures.All these people in both of the pictures looks tidy with make up and their hair has been done up and modern clothes on which symbolises that Japanese culture is modern and they look tidy and trendy. This gives the audiences a general idea about Japanese by looking at the pictures.

I think these representations of females and the Asian race challenge the traditional stereotype of females. Nowadays, females are getting stronger and they start to be more independent without their partners. Other than that, considered that the genre of my magazine is Japanese style, this may encourage the audiences to buy my product because the curiosity of other cultures and lifestyles, which may increase the size of my target audience.

Evaluation Question 7

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

Here is my cover from the preliminary task. The photography was taken by a compact camera which gives this image a blurry look. The masthead was designed badly and the colours didn't go with each other. The masthead isn't strong enough to draw attention because of the pink and the font isn't hard enough. The fonts and coverlines don't suit my college magazine style either. Overall, this is not a very good front cover.

This front cover is much better because it contains more information to make this cover looks more interesting and it appeals to the target audiences more which comes from the images and use of different warm colours on the front page. Two extra images are added to the cover which give the audience an idea of the magazine contains more pictures than texts and this may appeal to my target audience who prefer more images in the magazine. I decided to use a lot of shapes and the main image looks cute which bring my magazine to the cartoon-animation Japanese style. The smaller image at the bottom shows my magazine isn't boring which comes from the expressions of the people and both my the images were taken with subjective gaze which is conventional because it makes the audiences feel more familiar and easier to identify with. Also, this cover is better because I learnt more skills using Photoshop and gained more experience using it.

Here is the image at the bottom on my music magazine front cover which was cut around the people on Photoshop. I gained the skills the use the cutting tool which is called 'polygonal lasso tool' to cut the people out from the oringal photograph. I then added a white stroke around the people as well as a drop shadow. I adjusted the size, spread and distance of the drop shadow and enlarged the size of the stroke to make it look stronger on the page.

Here is my contents page from the preliminary task for my college magazine. The masthead is a bit boring and it doesn't look strong enough and there is a lot of white space on the page. The coverlines are all in the same font and size which look messy. However, there is a lot of different images on the page which gives the page an interesting imagery. The background colour is a bad choice because it may give the audience an impression of old and boring.

This is my contents page for my music magazine which is much better because there are a lot more information as well as images and coverlines to introduce what is included the magazine. The masthead on the top left corner makes the audiences feel familiar with the magazine and the subtitle on the top right gives the audiences a big hint what is this page about. And the small caption next to the subtitle gives the audiences an imagery of Japanese writing characters. The use of colours are a clever decision which is associated with the England flag and Japan flag. The background colour is link to the photograph at the middle which gives the impression of dreamy and sweet. The use of two different fonts doesn't mess the page up but more interesting than just use the same font all the time.

During editing this page, I learnt to use a tool to create shapes which I drew a pink box around it and shown above. I drew different random shapes and placed them on top of the page which wrapped around the page. Also, I used this tool to draw the flower shape and the love heart shape.

Evaluation Question 4

Here is some images of my target audience who has the similar hair style, fashion style, similar age and they are female audiences.

This is the audience profile moodboard for my music magazine. My magazine will be targeting the audiences who are a big fan of Japanese artists and interested in Asian culture. As well as Asian people who live in Britain. My magazine will be the first English version of ''Bounce''. The target audiences are between 18-25 female and city urban who is interested in Asian music and culture. They are mostly aspirers and very girlish females. My magazine could be read by male as well because my magazine will contain information such as latest technology and films, etc. I think these features will increase the number of audiences and enlarge the market for my magazine.

My demographic likes listening to pop and the hottest chart music such as Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Usher and some Asian music including Jay, S.H.E., Superjunior and Mr. They are big CD and album buyers and download music from iTunes. Also, they are most likely to pre-order new albums at HMV stores. They are willing to spend a lot on clothes and luxury products such as mobile phones, cameras and other new gadgets.

Latest Japanese fashion clothes, dresses and handbags are their favourites but they also like Dr. Martens, Converse trainers and Levi's jeans. They are always up to date with their trendy fashion and technology and therefore, they are willing to buy these products through our main advertisers - online Japanese clothing stores.

My target audience will be new in the market and there is a big amount of foreigners living in the UK. They are willing to spend money to buy my magazine every month just to follow the latest news about music and fashion.

Evaluation Question 6

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

This is a screenshot of my coverpage on Photoshop and it is just to display the tools and features surrounding the main canvas. This includes the most useful tools at the left hand side, the layer panel and the colour panel at the right hand side. Before this project, i had only used photoshop a few times and I did not know half of its functions. Now, I have learnt to use all the features and tools to access an editing project and I have found each of the tools are helpful in different ways.

Being able to use modern technology to produce a media product instead of traditional way is an advantage of saving time because modern technology allows you to do and edit things immediately and if you want to add something, you only have to copy and paste it onto your work. Here is another screenshot of my contents page in Photoshop. It was taken of the finished product and there are still some ruler lines on top of my contents page to help me judge the correct columns and gutters. I found this useful because it helps me to line up my coverlines a lot easier and quicker. And this is an example of convenient and an advantage of using modern technology. If it was a paper copy it would be much more difficult to line up my coverlines, I would have to draw ruler lines by hand.

Here is also a screenshot of my double page spread being edited on Photoshop. The masthead is editing by using the blending option tool where you can add strokes, shadows and etc. to texts. I learnt to add strokes by using this tool where you just have to tick one box then Photoshop will do it to you. If I had made this in a traditional way then I would have to draw the stroke by hand and I couldn't edit it immediately. Also, to do this work by drawing would be a disadvantage for me because I can't draw at all and it would become a lot more difficult.

This is a logo of dafont.com where inspirations of my fonts come from. I have chosen quite a lot of fonts from this website and I have this helpful because there isn't many different fonts on Photoshop and I managed to copy and paste some fonts onto Photoshop. This is the most helpful website for doing this project because without technology, I wouldn't be able to use different fonts for my magazine.
This is a logo of flickr where I upload some pictures of my progress for this project. I haven't been using flickr before this project and I had the chance to use this website for this project which an advantage to gain multi-tasking techniques. I found this useful because you can add captions, tags and notes onto your uploaded images and share those photos immediately onto your blog, facebook and other media platforms.

Here is another logo of Blogger which I used a lot for this project where I posted all my planning tasks and final works onto this site. I had some experiences with blogs before, however, I still found Blogger is harder to use whereas the layout is hard to adjust, specially uploading pictures. I found it makes the project a lot easier than doing it in traditional way because I don't have to write or draw things by hand and it is an advantage of using modern technology.

Throughout this project, I gained a lot of new techniques for editing photographs by using photoshop, adding notes on images by using flickr, sharing information by using Blogger. I prefer doing projects via technology than traditional way because technology makes the progress a lot quicker and easier.

Evaluation question 3

The distributor of my music magazine has to be a big company who has the financial resources and opportunities to advertise my magazine to my magazine's demographic. Because of this, I would be more likely to use a leading distributor/publisher, such as IPC media company. IPC produces over 60 iconic media brands and almost 26 million UK adults read their prints, and their websites collectively reach over 14 million users every month. I found this is an appropriate publisher for my music magazine and I could use its distributor, MarketForce.

I think this decision would be a right choice because there isn't any similar product that IPC carries and my magazine would be fresh and new for them as well as the distributor. Although IPC carries a music magazine called NME, it is a typical male's music magazine. However, my magazine brings out different cultures and it is an interesting feature. NME has become a multi-platform media proposition. across prints, internet, television, radio and etc. It reaches over one million fans every week world wide, including Japan. My magazine and NME could advertise each other because NME could attract foreign readers, then my magazine could also attract British audiences through advertisement in NME.

My magazine would be quite similar to NME institutionally and my magazine could be advertised on TV, radio and other IPC products to increase its exposure to young audiences. It could be marketed using simple techniques such as a free CD and music downloads vouchers. It could then be sold in places such as WH Smith, supermarkets and newsagents, even in HMV and a download version on iTunes, even it could be an app which is sold on iTunes.

My magazine is targeting young audiences who like pop music and foreign culture, specially Japanese culture. This specific target audience has not been targeted before. My product will be a completely fresh product in the market.

Evaluation Question 1

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

At the top of my magazine cover is a coverline with a big masthead next to it. I have chosen to name it JB because the J stands for Japanese and B stands for British. However, I decided to put ‘Japanese’ before ‘British’ because it is Japanese based magazine. The masthead gives the audiences an idea what magazine it is and hints of what it is about. Also, it makes the audiences a feeling of familiarity and easier to memorise the name of my music magazine. The masthead is in a san - serif font, large and bold which is expected to be on the magazine cover, and there is a red stroke around it which catches the audience's attention because red is a sharp and warm colour that appeals to the audiences the most. Also, the used of red and white for the masthead is associated with the flag of Japan and the England flag which suggests that my music magazine is a British-Japanese magazine. I have decided to use the ‘Cheri’ font (which was found on dafont.com) for my masthead because it looks like cartoons characters and Japanese is famous of cartoons productions. The used of an animation font gives audiences the idea of my magazine is cute.

I have taken an image of an Asian girl with subjective gaze which is conventional and related to my Japanese magazine that contains Asian people in it. She is wearing a bow on her hair and I took this picture with a high angle to shoot a 'big-head' shot of her to be on the front cover. I have used a lot of blue on my cover which is linked to the bow and her eyes. Such as the coverline next to the masthead which is in red, blue and white and these colours represent the Japanese flag and the England flag. I have also chosen to use yellow for some of my coverlines which is another warm colour that draws audiences’ eyes. Moreover, I have used stroke for all the coverlines which makes the coverlines look a lot clearer on the front cover and I have used a lot of different shapes such as the love - heart shape at the bottom, which appears a lot in Japanese magazines and it symbolises cute and animation. There are two borders of blue at the top and bottom of my cover page because I think that those borders separate the page and keep the main image and coverlines in the middle.

The costumes and props of my music magazine are around popular things in Asia such as big glasses and popular hair style such as full fringe. Costumes and props are usually the easiest way to communicate to the audience who these people are and what they are doing, so the audiences then get the information that goes with the photograph. Also, my images help the British audience to understand Asian culture which comes from the representation of the code of dress and expressions. For example, the expressions of the main subjects in my images always look differ to the pictures which the audiences would find in a Western music magazine. The costumes that I used were various because it shows the various fashion styles in Asia.

For my double page spread, I chose to use two main colours which are on the cover page, red and blue which give the impression of the British flag and it links to the t-shirt which the girl is wearing (on the left page), the sub-title also links to the red and blue effect because it says that this band is ruling Britain. I put a large masthead on the top left with yellow stroke and it may draw attention towards the content of the article. I have used a large drop cap to start off the kicker and used a lot of red borders to separate the main article and kickers. I have decided to use a big drop cap for the kicker because the drop cap always draw the most attention and hopefully the audience will continue reading the article after the kicker. There are lots of images on my double page spread and they laid out in different angles and sizes which suggest that this band isn't boring but fun and interesting. Also, the way of the images lying out is not conventional which represents that this band is informal and new in Britain. I have also decided to put a lot of coloured borders which are used to separate texts from the surrounding features and draw audience’s attention towards the article. The coloured borders idea was influenced by the ‘X-Factor’ magazine whereas the borders were lying at different angles and creating a messy layout around the pages. I have separated my article into columns which it would be easier for the audience to read and follow the texts. There are borders behind the texts which are also helping the audience to follow the article. I think it looks more organised and easier to read. The language that I used to write the article is fairly simple because it is a relaxing and informal music magazine which is targeting young audiences, and nowadays young audiences normally prefer to read simple articles during leisure time to relax.

For my contents page, I have used the coloured borders wrapping around the page at the top and a big masthead at the top right corner. I decided to put five images on my contents page because it suggests that my magazine contains more pictures than texts which would appeal to my target audience. I have used the four main colours on my contents to make the audience feel familiar with my magazine as well as the same fonts that I have used for my cover page. I decided to put the coverlines into blocks of texts and keep the coverlines simple will benefit the audience and makes it easier to read.