Evaluation of Media Coursework

My Media product uses forms and conventions of real media products as it shares the same layout as many different music magazines that I looked at during my research. I also received many of my ideas from music magazines I found in my research and this helped me to design my front cover, contents page and my double page spread. From looking at a variety of music magazines I could choose the particular theme that I wanted to include in my research; however I was able to receive many ideas from my questionnaire and my target audience. On my front page I knew what to advertise for the magazine and this guided me into what to feature onto the contents page. This then led me to using an interview on my double page spread for my chosen model.

My media product represents particular social groups as the whole design is about the chosen instrument of a piano. This could have a bigger influence on musicians and people that are interested in playing the piano. My music magazine may also represent young teenagers as the model is a young teenager.

The media institution that would be most suitable for my product would be anything to do with music; however the type of music would have to be for a particular instrument such as the piano. This is because my magazine is evolved around the main subject of a piano.

The audience for my product would be teenagers due to the young model and anyone who is interested in piano’s and instruments. I attracted my audience by first of all creating a questionnaire to make sure that what I was planning on doing was going to attract my target audience. I also make sure that I used a young teenager as my model to aim my music magazine at a younger audience. I made the magazine colourful, however I still stuck to one main theme which consisted of red, white and black and my model matched these colours as well which was extremely successful.

By making and planning this product I learnt about different programmes I could use to make my music magazine designs. I found different programmes to edit my photos that I had taken for my designs and I used the internet to research and the website ‘blogger’ to present all my work on.

During the process of creating my product I learnt the different types of programmes I could use, the different angles of camera shots I could use to make my designs look more effective that the basic shots that could have been used. I learnt how to edit my product and how to improve throughout the making of my magazine designs. 

Designing and Editing my Front Page:

This was the original design for my front page, however my photos were not added/present. I tried to deisgn my front page with teh colour scheme of pink, black, grey and white but I did not think the colour 'pink' was working. I then decided to change this to red. I also recieved feedback that the new colour scheme was improved and overall a much better decision during my editing.

I then decided that my music magazine front page did not look as attractive when the colour scheme included pink. So I decided to change the main colour to red, I thought that this made it look more like a music magazine, to make my decision I also asked members of my target audience who agreed with me, this is how I made my final decision and changed the main colour to red.

I have been constantly changing the layout around to see which layout would work best with the music magazine front page. However I can guarantee that I will continue to edit the layout as I start to add my photographs onto my music magazine.

 However, when I added my picture to my front page I knew it needed a few changes so I deleted a few items and move the bar code to the top of the page to make the page look more attractive. I wanted the piano at the bottom to stand out so I made sure that there was no text towards the bottom of the page and started to write my text at the top, each side of the model.


My finished front page:

I was pleased with my final design for my front page. After lots of editing I finally pleased with the outcome and adding the picture made me change many of my ideas due to the particular layout and organisation of my front page. I was happy with the colour scheme as my model matched this due to the clothing, hair colour and lipstick she wore for the pictures.

Designing and Editing my Contents page:

This was the basic layout which I chose for my contents page, I wanted to make sure I covered the whole of the page with either text or pictures, this is why I chose to also add backgrounds to make sure that I had as much colour as possible present on the page.

I made my main colours to match my front page, red, white, black and grey. I felt these colours went together and due to my questionnaire I needed to keep the same colour scheme throughout my music magazine.

After knowing what my basic layout was going to contain, I then started to add more onto my contents page. I added the 'Special Features' so it made the music magazine more unique aswell as important, only showing the main parts of the music magazine in which my target audience would want to see.

I made the page number bigger than the text, this made it look more attractive. Analysing this and also recieving other peoples views who are members of my target audience, I will edit this contents even more and I might change the colour of the bigger numbers, I think that this will work as it would make the text next to the numbers even more eye catching and overall the magazine more colourful. If this does not work I will keep them black.

My next step was to add more eye catching information onto my contents page, I knew that I had to add these certain aspects onto my contents page as this is the page that my target audience would recieve their information from and want to view to see what is inside the magazine. I added a star shape which contained information to illustrate to my target audience that there is a competition inside the music magazine. The star matched my colour scheme and I chose to use white writing on top of the star to stand out.

The background behind the star, I chose to fill in red. I was going to keep this background white, however I thought that it looked too basic so I decided to make it match my colour scheme and this way it looked more attractive.

This was my final design before I added my picture. For this I made some changes for this specific design. I moved the writing on the star over to the left of the page to make sure the white writing was more eye catching as the writing indicated and was showing a competition inside the magazine. I added some more text and gave more information on some of the pages which will be included in my magazine.

My final contents page: 

The outcome of my contents page was successful as I included all the information that was needed and the main source of the magazine which was on page 49. When I added my picture I thought my contents page looked complete and I also added some text on the photo to show what it was trying to show. 

Designing and Editing my Double Page Spread: 

This was the basic layout that I chose for my double page spread, from working on my front page and contents page I gained many ideas to use for my double page spread and I knew that I was going to include an interview on my double page spread so I could begin to think of questions to ask  and answers to use.

I was pleased with the final design of my double page spread. I was happy with the colour scheme as throughout my designs including front page and contents page, the theme followed throughout. The red, black and white worked well together and I felt like these were colours that extremely would be present in a modern day music magazine. The colours also worked well together with the particular outfit I chose my model to wear. I chose to add four pictures onto my double page spread to highlight the different camera shots I used and to show all my pictures present. My questionnaire also required me adding more pictures than text and I wanted to make sure my target audience got what they wanted to see. I included an interview as I personally thought this would highlight why I chose to use a piano in my pictures and the reason behind the model used. The name 'Jasmin Cook' also reminded me of a type of music due to 'Jazz music' so I thought this models name was completely relevant.