Evaluation questions 1 and 3

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Whilst I was conducting my research for general ideas for my very own magazines. I decided to compare both the similar and the differences between the two. This ranged from the layout and how it was presented to its target audience. What I found different between the regional magazine from the fashion magazines was that it was dull boring and lifeless seeing as the colour scheme was very basic and that didn’t stand out against the master heading or the main cover image presented in the middle of the magazine. As well as the advertisement of the regional magazine lack creativity as they only included specific information on functions and events that the public can do for the following month; the main focus for the regional magazines target audience is the working class families.

However in contrast to the regional magazines I found that the fashion magazine was overly done and too colourful as the font cover was packed and filled with latest trends to diet tips. All in all I decided to merge both the fashion and regional concept together since my magazine is a fashion regional magazine I challenged the form of conventions for my editorial side to included interviews, conversations and questions that represent the community based in ‘London’. This ranged from reviews, interviews, education, activities and trips, Articles for local events in the area, articles that link to political ideas and local business and community link.                

                                                                                                                                         

For urban London I decided to display the title magazine across the whole of the top page. I feel that have chosen of font that I have chosen was interesting to see what style font would fit the regional magazine. Before the final outlook of the magazine cover I played around with a range of colours and formal layouts that would help make the magazine unique as well as stand out. By doing these test covers I found that by using the ‘Untied Kingdom’ colours

 Whilst I was researching regional and fashion magazines such as 'Local Ealing' and 'Vogue' was the ones that stood out the most. I analysed several regional magazine that have influence of the local areas around Ealing. I used red, blue and white and columns on my page. These colours were used on local Ealing magazines as I decided to challenge the forms and conventions of the typical regional magazines. Another example looked at was  time out magazine  the use of bold and edgy fonts helps to great a good effect which strongly stands out from other magazines on the shelves. My magazine is has similar font styling as the ‘Time out magazine’ seeing as it is strong and I feel as though it will help to represent the British cultural around London.

Secondly I then looked at the front cover of other regional magazine such as time out London and local Ealing magazines. the similarities from both my regional magazine and the local Ealing is that  boy the contents pages are bare and simple example white. This is because I wanted to follow the same conventions of a regional magazine that was simple and lay back but however I could change the background colour so that it would be intriguing and interesting for my target audience of young teenagers and young adults. this is because that they like bright and colourful products and my me not following this concept of bright background colours allows me to reflect on the information that is in the regional magazine which is far more appealing and interesting to read. on the other hand I think that the plain background works well with my magazines as the main focus of the interview page is white; to help me with this chose in colour I looked at fashion magazine 'ELLE UK' for inspiration, in my research I found that they malt had an A4 sized image of their primary focus which in this case was 'Rosie' who is a British model, the other A4 page consisted of a full article about the model and her goals for in the future this was highlighted with a clear background and the titles and subheadings being only three consists colours in the fashion editorial example red, white, black. This is the same with my own media product as I decided to use a different font for my interview layout page rather than having the same master heading font as the front cover, the reason for this was because I didn’t want the magazine to come across as competitive.

 

 

 I felt that the primary task was successful and I didn't want to alter it too much as I didn't want to ruin the outlook of my final product all together.

 I looked at a range of readings magazine but two stuck out the most which where time out London and around Ealing this is because they both targeting a specific area this to me naked it clear that I didn't want a massive dived in age or gender so I made sure My magazine consists of both male and females. All in all I decided to targeted London instead of one local area seeing as I wanted to have a broad audience rather then a niche one like around Ealing magazine. At the start of A2 coursework I was stuck on the idea of how to express London fashion through regional magazines so by looking at examples gave me ideas that helped me to see the difference between a niche and broad target audience.

 

I decided challenged the genre of a  I decided to challenge the conventions of a regional magazine by having a main and sub genre consisting of fashion and things to do in London as well as keeping to the stylish theme of making it relatable to my target audience of young adults and teenagers. Furthermore I continued to develop my media products by reflecting my regional magazine therefore I looked at billboards and radio advertisement examples for inspiration so that I would utilise the same codes and conventions. for my magazine I made sure that my main image was the main focus of the billboard as well as the title appearing bold and big across the page so that it would automatically engage my target audience. For my main cover I created headlines in relation to my London theme magazine this is seen around the magazine as well as promotions and competitions at the bottom of the page to attract my target audience. Also for my billboard u decided it was best if I added a slogan that is typical of fashion advertisement, usually there are short and simple therefore I made one that was easy and catchy for the audience to remember this was 'Bringing the urban to London' followed by an image of my male model 'Brandon' that would represent the urban clothing in London. Furthermore, when I searched radio adverts online they are normally 30 seconds long , my radio advert is 30 seconds long which follows the simple conventions of An advert this was then done with a voiceover advertising the products as well as an upbeat song playing in the background that helps represent the genre of London urban fashion. I decided to look at billboard advertisement for clothing companies that could help me express the same outlook as theirs, the one that stuck out the most was Calvin Klein due to the simplicity of a white back ground and big size fonts. This helped give me some inspiration for my own billboard as it made me thing of my target audience and how to go about expressing my London theme magazine.

 

Q3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

 I decided to make a questionnaire for my project as I wanted to make sure that I fulfilled the needs of my target audience so that I would be able to make a successful magazine. what I have gathered from the questionnaire was that 83% of my target audience are between the ages of 16-18 which is easier for me to relate to. however the age range was niche and didn't allow for a wider range of views this bothered me so I generally thought It would be much better if I raised the age limit to 25 which would then make my targeted audience group 16-25. Also after looked back at the feedback results  I found that a lot of people did not read or purchase regional magazine, in there local areas this  made it much harder for me to know what I could put into the regional magazine. therefore I had to make sure that whatever I out into the regional magazine that it was interesting and caters to my audience so that they will read it.

furthermore, another key question that I decided to ask was there own opinion on if they were to read a regional magazine what content . This made me realise that in order for my magazine to succeed I had to find a way for the regional magazine to reflect the needs and the lifestyle according to the audiences response. during this I have found that  42% said they prefer to read a magazine which includes fashion and 50% entertainment   by looking at this I decided to combined both of these topics as it was the general favourites of the audience feedback. Moreover my audience prefer to shop in high street fashion stores rather than reto styled shops or designer clothes and most hold incomes earned £25000+, this meant that although regional magazine are normally free making my magazine my magazine £1.20 is still affordable and cheap for my target audience. all in all I decided to use the model  Brandon as he gave a cool,funky and masculine look that I thought would attract my audience seeing as it eye catching and captivating.