Evaluation

For my media coursework, I created a front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine of my choice. The genre I chose was Bhangra because I found that the conventions of a Bhangra magazine are easy to follow and since there are less bhangra magazines on the shelves this would make a single bhangra magazine more appealing.
My magazine follows the conventions of an existing magazine by using simple colours for maximum attention, a maximum of 4 colours where used for my magazine white, black and red/maroon. I used these colours because if these colours are used effectively and properly they can make the magazine font stand out dramatically and attract more people, I put a red/maroon background in front of most of the text to make it stand out even more.
In order to make my magazine stand out I used less text and placed 1 image per page. The use of bold and underlined words in my magazine made the important parts stand out more than the other parts furthermore when i used text boxes I made the outline colour match the background colour in order to make it neater and blend in with the background.
The fonts are also very clear and appropriate to the genre. The images play a vital role in the magazine. I used a medium-shot for my front cover because the magazines i researched used medium shots and they worked every effectively, existing magazines such as spin use mediums -shots because it attracts the audience with the facial features and objects normally held by the model for example in the spin contents page Duffy is shown and in her hand is pink guitar furthermore in my research body- shots were used on the inside of the magazine such as True magazine where the model’s whole body was shown.
My media product represents asian teenagers and younger adults in the bhangra industry as well as the teenagers who tend to read bhangra magazines. My project was aimed at these teens and so I produced it so they would like it and want to buy it. So I tried to make it unique yet simple by not making it too much to look at.
The colours used are dark and dominating which relates to the target audience I was targeting. The media institution that I think would distribute my product would be one involved in catering for teens to young adults and informing them of the bhangra culture because that is what my project is aimed to do.
A well known music organization that can distribute my magazine could be “From Soho Road to the Punjab” magazine who are dedicated to promoting the best up and coming independent bhangra music and with their television channel my magazine could be easily advertised. However this company only is UK based which means my magazine won’t be advertised worldwide.
The target audience would mainly be Asian teenagers aged between 15-24 years as I think they would be the ones most interested in the bhangra industry.
Whilst I was producing my magazine I realised that making a magazine takes a lot of time and research, from the images to the content, in order to make a good magazine.
I also learnt that you can edit images and add many things such as boxes, shapes etc jus by using Photoshop software and publisher but the best choice is to make the magazine simple yet stand out to the audience.
I also learnt that you can edit images and add many things such as boxes, shapes etc jus by using Photoshop software and publisher but the best choice is to make the magazine simple yet stand out to the audience.
I also experimented with the effects which you can make on images but using the least amount of changes is the best option because the magazine will look more authentic and not just amateurish
Overall I understand that magazine front covers should ideally use a medium- shot image which I was unaware of from the beginning of the project. I now acknowledge that my preliminary task could have been improved by using less colour and more outstanding font because the font did not relate to the target audience. In addition, I don’t think I should have used so much information and images in my preliminary task because the cover looked too busy, but yet simplicity had an advantage over, lots of images and font jus splattered on to a page, with no real logical order.