Tuesday 16 December 2008

Evaluation of my magazine pages

I am very pleased with the final outcome of my magazine pages. I really enjoyed this task and have learnt so much from doing it.



TARGET AUDIENCE

My magazine is aimed at girls between the ages 9-14 who enjoy Pop music and celebrity gossip. I chose to aim it at females because of the high number of females (compared to males) that buy Top Of The Pops magazine. So pop music and celebrity culture obviously appeals more to females. My chosen age range represents children who are in there last two years of primary school and the first 3 years of secondary school. This is an age where children are likely to have pocket money and are able to but the magazine themselves.



FRONT COVER



I entitled my magazine 'POP Flava'. The word 'POP' shows relevance to the music genre and is also short for word 'popular'. The word 'Flava' is a slang interpretation on the word 'flavour' and is an example of text language used by my target audience. This makes the title 'cool' as it relates to their generation. I needed to find a suitable font for my title, so the brand can always be recognised. I looked at many fonts on 'www.dafonts.com'.




These were my final three favourites, as I thought they would be most suitable for my logo. They are all curved which gives a sense of femininity. Also, they are informal and would be used on a teen magazine rather than a broadsheet newspaper. The first font has hearts and is in a grafitti like style, the second font has a shaddow beneath the text which creates a 3D effect and the third font is in bubble writing similar to the Top Of The Pops brand logo.









But I chose the first one because it's more feminine looking than the other two and the most legible, which is very important.


Strap lines are usually near the brand logo and are repeated with each issue. For example; The strap line of Shout magazine is 'Award winning teen mag!' Although not all magazines have a strap line, I wanted to include it as it supports the personality of my magazine.


Underneath 'POP Flavour' I have added a strap line.. 'Britain's Best Guide 4 Girly Goss!' I purposley used alliteration to enhance it's appeal of fun. Again, I also used text language to appeal to my target audience. The number 4 instead of four and 'Goss' shortened from Gossip.


The main image on the front cover is of my creation 'Lula Rose' who has just won 'The Pop Accademy'. Lula Rose is young, pretty, talented and trendy and my target audience would aspire to her. The fact that I've decided for her to win a very popular tv singing competition increases her popularity amongst readers.







I chose this image of Lula Rose for the front cover becasue she has eye contact with the audience and she is smiling. She is face on to the audience, her shoulders are back and she is showing relaxed and positive body language which is important. She is wearing a plain white top with simple glitter detail, it's a fashionable look and can contrast nicely with many background and surrounding colours.






This is another photo I took but decided to choose the other one because in this photo Lula's head is slightly tilted and facing sideways. Also, although she has eye contact with the audience her facial expression is not as friendly and happy as it is in the other photo. It is a pose which is suited for older readers such as 'Look' magazine.



The main cells surround the main image giving a busy looking effect which makes the magazine look packed full of information. The main cells are about; a boyband talking romance, the truth about a member leaving a girl band, behind the scences of a girl bands new music video, a poster special of a 'hot' male singer and an advertisement for the free lip gloss set the reader gets when buying the magazine. The context of these appeal to my target audience because I've included boys that girls think are attractive, girl bands and gossip that girls love to talk about and an advertisement which enhances the sale of the magazine.



I have used lots of bright clashing colours to attract attention add interest eg; bright pinks and yellow. These were the colours that were used the most on the cover of Smash Hits and Top Of The Pops.



I only used different fonts on the front cover of my magazine, but I made them look unique by changing the colours and size. This makes it legible and slowly rememerable to the reader. All of the fonts are sans serif in bright colours against clashing colours, this makes the text immediatley eye catching.



Other information presented on the cover includes; bar code, date, price and issue number. It is always seen on a magazine cover, often placed differently on covers of different genres. For example; 'Shout' magazine the price is on the bottom left hand corner of the brand logo. However, on the covers of Top Of The Pops magazine all the required information is secreted to the bottom left hand corner, I decided have mine in the same place because although it is relevant and required it doesn't push the sale.





DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

I have chosen to do an interview for my double page spread. The interview is with 'Lula Rose' who features on my front cover.

The title of the article is called 'Halla-Lula' which is a play on words of 'Hallelujah', magazines and newspapers often do this, paticularly incorprating the subjects name as it adds a sense of humour and fun. In childrens/teenager magazines 'play on words' phrases are used frequently.



I have kept the colours for texts and background simple, as I've noticed most teenager magazines do this in interviews. The background is a basic cream like colour, so bright text colours and images are legible. I chose the colours blue, black and white because blue is a colour thats really attention grabbing, partuclarly against white and also the three colours are the colours that appear on the logo for 'Pop Accademy' so they reflect the theme.



I have seperated the double page spread in to collumns, this is a popular layout text used in double page spread, particularly layouts.

The three images of Lula are full body shot poses and are seperated by being place in every other collumn. I've tried to make her look natural and having fun by taking shots of her laughing and posing. This gives the readers a sense of her personality aswell as making her look relaxed and friendly as if the reader is going to talk to her.



I read alot of interviews in teenage mags such as Top Of The Pops for inspiration aswell as researching the type of language used by the interviewer. The questions asked are related to the show, her love life, her style and other. There is usually an event which is talked about the most in an interview eg; a release of a new album, a bands come back etc. In this case, Lula has just won a reality tv singing competiton. The interview asks questions aswell as making comments, eg; 'We can see that! So What are the judges really like?' This shows that the interviewer is interested aswell as making a comment that a reader is probably thinking of too. Also, Lula's answers lead to the next question being related to what she has just said. This makes the interview flow like a casual conversation.



The collumn on the far end is Lula giving her Top 5 beauty tips. Often, in double page spreads, aswell as the main article they include a little bit of extra information. For example; In the Top Of The Pops double page spread, there was a collumn to the left of the article with the songs from the film.



I have included the brand logo of the television show in the top left corner, as that is how she is associated.





CONTENTS PAGE

I really liked the layout of the 'Shout' magazine contents page, however, I thought it was limited in bright colours. The page numbers are in bright pink, spaced away from the text and are against a white background. Which makes them very legible and immediatley noticable as they are they key function of a contents page. It is the most eye catching colour on the page and it is only used for this purpose, there for the number stna dout instantly. Yellow and green are the colours of the subheadings, these are also very attention attrcating colours, particularly against the white background. The main text is in black, as it needs to be very clear to read.



I used language to appeal to my target audience by using puns, alliteration and short snappy phrases for the page titles. eg; Fun Free Frenzy!



I used subheadings to catergorise my pages, this allows the reader to find their desired page choice quickly aswell as looking neat and appealing.



Two of the images chosen are different photos of Lula and Nick who appear on my front cover, both show facial expressions that link to their personality. The other image is of a celebrity who is linked to an exclusive feature. By each image I have place the page number in a large font aswell as a fun caption.





PUBLISHERS AND STOCK

My magazine would be sold in WHSmiths as it has a wide veriety of media stock, including a section of magazines aimed at my tagret audience. Eg; Top Of The Pops, Shout, Mizz, Sugar etc. Most newsagents or supermarkets (particularly small ones) do not contain a wide variety of magazines, but only the most popular selling ones. I hope that newsagents would sell my magazine as there is a big market for pop music magazines, as Top of The Pops is the only one. Eventhough Smash Hits was axed and there have been unsucessful pop magazine attempts sinse, there have been no attempts recently and with the right publicity I think there is a chance it could be sucessful. I think the publishers would be Dc Thompson the publisher of Shout magazine because the produce many magazines for females.



PERSONALITY OF MEDIA PRODUCT

My magazine 'POPFlava' has many similarities to other magazines in terms of colours, layout, font styles etc. However, my magazine is unique because it includes features never seen before in magazines. For example; celebrity gossip aswell as focusing on the music scene.





ADOBE INDESIGN
At first I found it hard to use Adobe indesign as I'd never used it before. But I slowly got used to the tools and ejoyed experimenting with it.





PROGRESSION FROM PRELIMINARY TASK
In terms of software, I have learnt how to do alot more things with Adobe sinse the preliminary task. Eg; different colour outline on the text, creating rectangles and how to edit images using photoshop. With these skills, if I were to do the preliminary task again it could be alot better visually.

FEEDBACK

I asked for feedback during the project, which helped me to improve my magazine pages.

E.g 'Include page numbers and add page number too images on contents page.'