Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Audience Research
I have found audience profiles and brand descriptions of two magazines that appeal to the same target audience as the magazine I am creating. These two magazines are Mojo and Q which are both owned by Bauer Media.
Mojo Magazine
Mojo Magazine
Q Magazine
I have also constructed an audience profile for the magazine I am creating.
Influences
Whilst designing my magazine did research on other magazines of similar genres, such as Q and Mojo. My designs were influenced by these in many ways. Some of the influencing factors were; the logo from Q magazine that was the letter Q in the top left hand corner of the cover page, which I have adapted on mine in the form of a vinyl record that when combined with the rest of my masthead make the title of my magazine "Off Topic". I have also taken inspiration from Q's layouts on the double paged spreads where they positioned the article on the left hand page and had the image filling the right hand page. The contents page from Mojo magazine uses images as visual element in the contents which I also took inspiration form in my contents page.
Prelim Evaluation
1. in What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In my magazine, named "College Mag!" I have used a regular college student as a relate able figure for the audience and taken the photo in a place that people from the college I study at will also be familiar with. The magazine with which I am comparing mine is an issue of "Kerrang" displaying a low angle shot of popular band Muse's lead guitarist which could be used to emphasise the power of such a popular and idolised figure. In both magazines minimal text is used so as not to overload the audience at first glance. My magazine used a bold and easy to read font for the masthead and the font used on the album "yellow submarine" by the Beatles for almost everything else. Kerrang uses a grungy worn looking font to appeal to the target audience which would be a grungier style music fan Both mine and the magazine I'm doing a comparison with display a sell line specifically thought up to appeal to the audience. The sell line I have Incorporated is "top ten downloads" which appeals to a vast majority of students, I can support this statement with the fact that everyone I know has downloaded a form of media at some point in their lives. The one used by the Kerrang magazine is "100 greatest gigs ever" and also a few thumbnail pictures of some Incorporated bands to grab the attention of anyone who might be a fan of one of the displayed bands. Both use a colour scheme, mine being red, white and blue which co sides nicely with how the student i have photographed for my magazine is dressed. Kerrang magazine follows a colour scheme of yellow, white and black. On both magazine covers a vast majority of the information is based on the left hand side of the page, this is because in western cultures people read and write starting from the top left hand side and work down towards the bottom right which is where the less important pieces of information concerning the audience is positioned e.g. the bar code.
(Blogger logo)
In my magazine, named "College Mag!" I have used a regular college student as a relate able figure for the audience and taken the photo in a place that people from the college I study at will also be familiar with. The magazine with which I am comparing mine is an issue of "Kerrang" displaying a low angle shot of popular band Muse's lead guitarist which could be used to emphasise the power of such a popular and idolised figure. In both magazines minimal text is used so as not to overload the audience at first glance. My magazine used a bold and easy to read font for the masthead and the font used on the album "yellow submarine" by the Beatles for almost everything else. Kerrang uses a grungy worn looking font to appeal to the target audience which would be a grungier style music fan Both mine and the magazine I'm doing a comparison with display a sell line specifically thought up to appeal to the audience. The sell line I have Incorporated is "top ten downloads" which appeals to a vast majority of students, I can support this statement with the fact that everyone I know has downloaded a form of media at some point in their lives. The one used by the Kerrang magazine is "100 greatest gigs ever" and also a few thumbnail pictures of some Incorporated bands to grab the attention of anyone who might be a fan of one of the displayed bands. Both use a colour scheme, mine being red, white and blue which co sides nicely with how the student i have photographed for my magazine is dressed. Kerrang magazine follows a colour scheme of yellow, white and black. On both magazine covers a vast majority of the information is based on the left hand side of the page, this is because in western cultures people read and write starting from the top left hand side and work down towards the bottom right which is where the less important pieces of information concerning the audience is positioned e.g. the bar code.
2. How does your media product represent particular social Groups?
For my magazine I have generally focused on a Mod style with a Quadrophenia like masthead and content style but its also aimed at college students. This is because of my personal taste in music which mainly concerns The Who. The photographic subject does not necessarily fit into this Mod social group but as a regular college student which is the other of the two target audiences, shown by the "1st year? lost?" sell line at the bottom of the magazine cover. The use of a reference to first years at the and offering them "helpful tips for college survival" is a chance to gain interest from all social groups combined as a whole group of people. The use of a student dress like any normal person is to make a relateable figure to represent the general public rather than a specific social group.
For my magazine I have generally focused on a Mod style with a Quadrophenia like masthead and content style but its also aimed at college students. This is because of my personal taste in music which mainly concerns The Who. The photographic subject does not necessarily fit into this Mod social group but as a regular college student which is the other of the two target audiences, shown by the "1st year? lost?" sell line at the bottom of the magazine cover. The use of a reference to first years at the and offering them "helpful tips for college survival" is a chance to gain interest from all social groups combined as a whole group of people. The use of a student dress like any normal person is to make a relateable figure to represent the general public rather than a specific social group.
3. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience of my product would generally be students but also involving the social groups with an older taste in music, for instance bands such as The Who and directly relating to that would be the section involving film reviews where I have mentioned Quadrophenia, which was a film about Mods and Rockers but the soundtrack for the film was completely composed of songs by The Who.
The audience of my product would generally be students but also involving the social groups with an older taste in music, for instance bands such as The Who and directly relating to that would be the section involving film reviews where I have mentioned Quadrophenia, which was a film about Mods and Rockers but the soundtrack for the film was completely composed of songs by The Who.
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| Phot of college students from Google |
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| Screenshot of Mods from the Film Quadrophenia |
4.How did you attract/ address your audience?
Knowing my exact target audience has made it much easier to attract the audiences of my magazine and use sell lines that will directly interest those people, for example the "top ten downloads" sell line applies to almost all social tribes since music is a subject that will interest basically everyone no matter what tribe. after that sell line has been used the audience is roped into a more mod themed attitude in the magazine as the contents page displays details for music reviews regarding bands such as the who and movie reviews such as Quadrophenia. Another sell line i have used to attract the college student target audience is "1st Years? Lost? helpful tips for college survival" which I believe I would have seen as a great thing to be offered as a person that is new to the college and doesn't apply to any perticular tribe.
5. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The apple mac's are easy to use and fast opperating computers that make the general task of edditing and manipulating photos easy enough so that most people can opperate it with barely any time spent learning how to actually operate the software.
(picture of an Apple Mac)
Photoshop is a great piece of software to use becaise after a small amount of time spent learning how to opperate it the user feels comfortable enough to experiment with the software.
InDesign i feel is a decent piece of software that is just as easy to use as Photoshop but you cant do anywhere near as much as you can with photoshop.
(InDesign logo)
We used a scanner to import the flat plan designs onto the computers and posted them onto the blogs.
(picture of a Scanner)
We use the website blogger to keep our work on and and post our work so that the teachers can can access it form anywhere and they can post comments reguarding the improvement of the work but the fact that you can make your profile private to the public isa good one because people could be tempted to post things on your blog that could be seen as unneccecary towards the accademic profile that is our blogs.
Knowing my exact target audience has made it much easier to attract the audiences of my magazine and use sell lines that will directly interest those people, for example the "top ten downloads" sell line applies to almost all social tribes since music is a subject that will interest basically everyone no matter what tribe. after that sell line has been used the audience is roped into a more mod themed attitude in the magazine as the contents page displays details for music reviews regarding bands such as the who and movie reviews such as Quadrophenia. Another sell line i have used to attract the college student target audience is "1st Years? Lost? helpful tips for college survival" which I believe I would have seen as a great thing to be offered as a person that is new to the college and doesn't apply to any perticular tribe.
The apple mac's are easy to use and fast opperating computers that make the general task of edditing and manipulating photos easy enough so that most people can opperate it with barely any time spent learning how to actually operate the software.
Photoshop is a great piece of software to use becaise after a small amount of time spent learning how to opperate it the user feels comfortable enough to experiment with the software.
(Photoshop logo)
InDesign i feel is a decent piece of software that is just as easy to use as Photoshop but you cant do anywhere near as much as you can with photoshop.
We used a scanner to import the flat plan designs onto the computers and posted them onto the blogs.
We use the website blogger to keep our work on and and post our work so that the teachers can can access it form anywhere and they can post comments reguarding the improvement of the work but the fact that you can make your profile private to the public isa good one because people could be tempted to post things on your blog that could be seen as unneccecary towards the accademic profile that is our blogs.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Prelim Flat Plans
The magazine is have designed is simply called "College Mag". I have decided to follow a quadrophenia/Mod baced colour scheme of blue, white and red which was adapted from the royal air force badge. The colours in the magazine could all be seen to represent different meanings; red being excitement and its eye catching because of its vibrance, blue because is a calming colour and white for the same reason. The sell line i have used is "Top Ten Downloads" because it appeals to a wide range of audiences because everyone downloads music and other downloadable content. I have used a font of chunky capitals in a large font with red shading. Font size is generally large to take up space and and text is reduced to a neccecary minimum so as not to overload the viewer. This has also been used in the contents page. I have used an image of a student on the front cover because as it is a college magazine it would be easily relatable for the audience as they are also students.
In the contents page i have continued on the "Top Ten Downloads" sell line advertisement by saying that its a top ten downloads for music, which appeals to all and also a top ten downloads for iPod applications which is also a point of interest as a vast majority of youths own iPods and a lot of those are iPod touches upon which you can download apps. I have also included on the contents page a section for movie and music reviews, including The Who as on of the artists to follow the Mod theme. This also is used in the movie part as Quadrophenia is a film from The Who. Also on the contents page I have used a large image of an ipod touch to bring more attention to the competition regarding the iPod.
On the front cover and contents page i have advertised an iPod touch raffle which im planning on changing to iPod touch competition. This is because you would still need to buy a raffle ticket so its unnecessary to have in a magazine as content whereas a competition can be directly linked to the magazines content.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Print Prelim
Prelim: Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a student in some medium close-up plus some appropriately laid out text and a mast heard. additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.
Main Task: The front task, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style). Maximum four members to a group.
Main Task: The front task, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style). Maximum four members to a group.
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