Evaluation Introduction

Now that I have completed the final cut for my magazine I have been given the task to create an evaluation for the project. The evaluation consists of 7 questions about how I went about the project, here are the 7 questions:

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product?
4. Who are the main audience for your media product?
5. How do you attract/Address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel like you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?

I will have to work out how I am going to answer each question in an interesting yet detailed way. My idea is to present it in the form of a Power Point Presentation, this allows me to use multimedia files, colouring and effects to make my answers interesting to view. I will get back to you with my completed presentation when finished. 

Double Page Spread Final Cut

This is the final cut of my double page spread. I have made many changes from my rough cut as I was given many negatives and a very short amount of positives. I have changed the whole left side of the page, using one of the photos from my third photo shoot. The photo is set in a mausoleum which reinforces the style I am going for, 'devil of darkness'. It is also a mysterious out of the ordinary place so it will be eye catching to the audience, who will want to find out more about what the artists are doing they're and their bizarre personality. I then added text to go on top of the image to give an insight into the article and the whats going on in the photo. For the article I changed the header so it wasn't separate from the text. I think this helps it to read more fluently and link in better with the story. I added a quote from the article into the middle of the page, separating the text. This automatically catches the eye of the reader as it stands out in the green font from my house style, it then draws the reader into the whole article as the quote is alarming and left hanging. I have continued the colour scheme throughout the article to keep it personalized to the artist, showing them off which is conventional of hip hop.

Contents Page Final Cut

This is the contents page from my final cut. Again I have kept features from my contents page rough cut and made improvements that were suggested in my feedback and that of my own ideas. I have kept the same header to the contents page as this was mentioned a few times in my positive feedback. I also kept the left panel in which I had positioned the page numbers and descriptions for all the articles in the magazine. Another feature I kept was the reviews section at the bottom of the left panel. I think this adds variation from the standard page numbering above and helps it to stand out. For the editorial section under road crew I have minimised it so only the important names are showing. I agreed with my feedback that it took up too much space and wasn't very interesting to read. I have left most of the page blank to allow an image dominated style, which is conventional of rap magazines. I have used the photo that was originally on my front cover, keeping the same effect of the artists head over the header. I have also made it appear that he is slightly stood behind the left panel which creates an interesting 3D effect. I kept the background white to allow the colour scheme of the image to be the same of the contents page colour scheme. This keeps the house style consistent and looks appealing to the reader. Finally I have changed the fonts and language to fit that of the hip hop genre. This keeps the magazine conventional and directly targets my audience. 

Front Cover Final Cut

This is the final cut of my front cover for my magazine. As you can see I have kept some features the same as my first draft, but many features have changed due to audience, peer and teacher feedback. I have kept the top banner and bottom banner the same due to the positive comments I received about them, they are also conventional of a music magazine. Another feature I have kept the same is the information about the main article inside. Again I kept this because of the good feedback I received about it, I also kept it because I like the fact it gives away the style of the artist through colouring and the font type. I have kept the same photo that I decided to use in my rap front cover rough cut as it looked conventional of the genre due to the mise en scene of the models. I liked the setting because it gives mystery to the artists and article because of the dark cave background behind them. I then added in some of the features that I created for my rap rough cut. This makes the overall design look like a hip hop magazine, especially with the new font 'Coluna'. Finally I changed the language used in the text. This helps to attract the target audience as they will instantly recognise it as a hip hop magazine. Furthermore, using this distinct slang targets the audience through synthetic personalisation by using shared deictic knowledge they can use for diversion and personal identity. 

Improving My Article...

I have finished extending my double page spread article to fit the conventions of a professional music magazine. After looking at examples of already established designs and reading back through my research, I decided I could extend it by adding more to my interview. As I had already covered more serious topics such as the music and the description of the artists, I thought I would talk about more fun topics. I went into talk about the lives of the artists, their interests and what they get up to. This is interesting for the audience to read and offers them a chance to relate to the artist.

Hip Hop Front Cover Design

I have now finished designing this hip hop front cover. I have used one of my photos from my first photo shoot for the main image. I then used the Coluna font that I downloaded for the text as it gives the big and bold font effect that is commonly found in hip hop magazines. I have also used the same layout of text which I found used on a Vibe front cover with the same use of colouring. I have kept some conventions that I was given good feedback on and worked well in my actual design. I will now look to transfer features from this design into my original design to make it more conventional of a hip hop magazine.

Downloading New Font...

After looking into my hip hop magazine research and further established designs I have noticed they have a very distinct font type. I think this will be a key feature in making my magazine more of a distinct hip hop genre. I have used the website 'DaFont' to find and download a font similar to that used in these magazines. I will now look to use it to replace all fonts that are conventional of rock. First I have an idea of creating a mainstream hip hop rough cut front cover to learn how to use different features to create a conventional hip hop magazine. I will show you my design once I have finished. 

Approaching Deadline Day...

I am now approaching the final deadline day for my music magazine. I am applying all the final changes to my final design using my feedback. I am also looking back at my initial research for ideas on how I can improve certain features that no longer work with my genre and those that were pointed out by my feedback. I won't be blogging as much as I am putting most of my attention on completing my final cut. However, I will keep you updated with big ideas and changes that I will be making to my design.

Photo Shoot 3

I have gone out to take more photos, this time I have focused more on the mise en scene features clothing and setting. I found an old mausoleum in Seaton Delaval which has an eerie feel about it. This fits the conventions of my genre and is appealing to the viewer as it is out the ordinary. I took a range of photos here to give me options on which ones would look best on which pages of my magazine. Again I will edit these photos to give more of a professional appearance by increasing the saturation and playing with the brightness. I will also work on clearing up bad focus and helping them look more clear.

Photo Shoot 2

Today I went out and took photos for my magazine. I went down to Cullercoats beach where I found a range of caves, I decided to take some photos there. The dark background adds mystery to the artists and, especially in the double page spread, hint that there is more to them that meets the eye. The bottom photo is in front of the gates to a power plant. It looks like a rough area with the steel fence and worn down sign, which reflects the past of the artists lives in my article story. I will have to edit my photos to adjust the lighting and quality of colouring etc. so they look more professional and appealing to the viewer.

Target Audience Feedback

I have asked a member of my target audience to give me detailed feedback on my Rough Cut Front Cover, including what they like and what can be improved.

Teacher Feedback: Double Page Spread

Positive
- Strong layout.
- Good mix of font and colour.

Negative
- Not enough overall text.
- Opening paragraph too chunky.
- Photo doesn't really achieve much - look for examples.
- Not sure on colour scheme (green).
- Needs 3 columns in the article.
- Perhaps change the central colour green.
- The page is uneven, it needs to be half and half.

This time I have received a huge amount of negatives for my double page spread and not so many positives. The positives were the same as usual, a strong layout and good mix of font and colour. The good thing about getting a lot of negatives is I now know a lot of ways on how to improve. I need to work on my article, making sure it covers 3 columns of a consistent size. I will look back at my research to find out what a rap magazine talks about in their article so I can work on extending mine. Again I need to find a photo that looks more conventional and ambitious, however I will use it to also help my fonts. I have put a lot of work into the green font choice so I will look to create a photo with similar coloring in order to help it fit my design.

Teacher Feedback: Contents Page

Positive
-Great Layout.
-Good use of colour and font.
-Appropriate Features
-The overall look is good
- I really like the left hand side of the page.

Negatives
- Need new photos for the page.
- Still not totally genre-specific.
- Obviously need new photos.
- Needs to be more of a specific genre.

The positives were the same as the ones I got from my peers, the layout, colour scheme and fonts are good. I was also told that it had the appropriate features and the overall design is good, especially the left hand side. I will look to keep the design roughly the same when I change it to be more of a hip hop style. Again I have been told that I need more photos, I am going to put this top of my agenda to make sure it happens. The other improvement was also the same as the last, to make the genre more specific. These are clearly the two main improvements that I need to make so I will put all my focus into making them happen. 

Teacher Feedback: Front Cover

Positive

-Having a reference to style of double page spread.

-Good layout and use of fonts.
-The overall layout is good.
-It looks conventional.

Negative

-Photoshop a bit messy.

-Plain white background not really working.

-No clear genre, find a style model.

-Find a more definite genre.

-Need a stronger photo with more ambitious mise en scene.

I am happy with the positives I received for my front cover design. Again I've been told my layout and fonts are good and work well to stay conventional. However I have been given some quite difficult feedback which I must act on. Again I have been told my photos aren't good enough so I must act on these straight away, I will spend a few days developing photos. I have then been told my magazine must stick to just one genre which is going to be awkward as I have used conventions from two genres. Because my article is about two rappers I will replace all the rock conventions with that of rap. This is probably the easiest way around it as it is the genre I am strongest with and already have quite a lot of features I have taken from rap. However, I will still keep to a bit of the rock style in order to give the effect of my distinct rap type.

Rough Cut Feedback: Double Page Spread

Positive                                                                              Negative 

-Like the layout.                                                                 -Different headings from front cover.
-Article fills the space well.                                                 -A different setting for one of the photos.
-The layout is good.                                                            -Need page number.
-The colour scheme is good.                                                -Page number.

-Really good overall.                                                            -The photos are out of focus.
-Colours work well.                                                             -Pictures are a bit blurry.
-Name of the artists works well.                                          -Photo on the right looks unconventional.

-Nice banner at the top.                                                      -Please change the photos.

-Like the use of two photos.                                                -Photo is bad quality.

The layout and colour scheme seems to be a consistent favourite throughout my design so I will be keeping the same colour scheme and a similar layout. They also like the name of the artists and the article, this is good as it means I can focus more on the design when making improvements. I haven't been given that many pointers on how to improve, however I have had a lot of criticism for one feature. A lot of people don't like the photos as they are bad quality and maybe unconventional. I will look back at my research to help understand what a conventional hip hop photo looks like. Because I have had the same said about the front cover and contents page I will spend a lot of time taking new photos over the next few days and editing them on Photoshop. They also mentioned that I don't have page numbers, I will have to look back at my list of codes and conventions for a double page spread and make sure I include them all.

Rough Cut Feedback: Contents Page

Positive                                                        Negative 

-Lots of different boxes of information.          -Need a few more photos.
-Full of content and no white spaces.              -Some text is hard to read.
-Love layout and stories.                               -Can't read the black boxes to well.
-Like the use of colours and fonts.                  -Change white text in bottom right corner.

-Nice layout.                                                 -Images of different artists.
-Really nice range of colours and fonts.            -Text should be slightly larger.
-Good use of different colours.                       -Instead of the editors have artists.

-Good layout.                                                -Need more photos.

Again I have been given plenty positives of my design and plenty negatives that I can use to make improvements with for my final cut. I was told that my layout is yet again good and the colours and fonts work well. This is good as it is a consistent feature that is vitally important to be appealing to my audience. To improve I was told that the most important feature were the photos, which I was already concentrating on changing anyway, the good tip was how I should change them. I was told that I should include more photos of artists, however I want to stay consistent to the hip hop genre so I may only include one photo of the main artist. Another feature was that the text is hard to read, some blamed it on the colour scheme but one said that the text just needs to be a larger font. I think this will solve the problem so I will look to rearrange the layout in order to include the one photo and larger fonts.