Evaluation

For my evaluation, I am creating a Powerpoint Presentation, I am using the same layout as the original presentation to keep to a business like structure, as the media industry are likely to maintain the same for format for one product. I will rehearse my presentation before presenting it to increase the professional nature of it because I will be more confident because I’ll have a deeper knowledge of what I want to say and how I will say and present my ideas.I have used various questions to help aid my evaluation.

These are the questions I have used:
1) Who do you think the magazine is created for?
2) What kind of music is being promoted?
3) What does the front cover tell you about the content of the magazine?
4) How attractive is the front cover?
5) Is there a wide enough range of items in the contents listing?
6) Is the feature article interesting?
7) Do the images and the text in the feature article fit?
8) How attractive is the magazine as a whole?
9) Would you pick up the magazine and read it if you found it on the train?
10) Would you buy the magazine?

My feedback
I asked the above questions to people within my target age group, I asked my peers in the class and also friends who had never seen my magazine. From the feedback, I can see the likely success for my magazine. All of the five people that I asked for the feedback recognised the genre of music being promoted and the opinion for who the magazine was created was very positive with the target audience being widely recognised as young music fans, dancers and people who enjoy clubbing and party atmospheres.

It is evident from my research that the design of my magazine is appealing to my target audience because all of the people that I asked the feedback questions to, said they would pick the magazine up and read it if they found it on a train. Also, when asking if the target audience would buy the product the overall response was "yes, they would buy the magazine", one of the five people said they woudn't with the justification of not being interested in the particular genre.

All of the interviewees believed there was a wide enough range of items in the content listing and there were no suggestions given for anything which they would expect to find in a music magazine. The article and the photographs used fit their purpose and were interesting to the target audience, thus having met the conventions of a typical music magazine.

Overall, the magazine was very appealing to my target audience and they believed it is an attractive magazine which is bright, colourful and is eye-catching with the graphics in the title standing out. A few of the interviewees said the attractiveness of the magazine as a whole was "good" or "quite good" which suggests a neutral opinion of the magazine as a whole. This is important in making an different decisions if I was to create a similar magazine or do a similar task in the future.

I believe my magazine includes the conventions of a typical music magazine and with these conventions I have attracted my target audience. By asking five people, I have a range of opinions so by having a larger number the results are more likely to be accurate. To improve my feedback I could ask more people the feedback questions; I could use more people within the target age group and people slightly out of the target range because it may appeal to more than just the intended audience. By asking a wider range of people, my magazine is more likely to attract more interest.

Deconstructing my magazine
In the evaluation, I have used a number of bullet points to make my presentation more precise and audience friendly. I have compared it to a music magazine of a similar genre to the magazine I have created. To help achieve my comparison, I have deconstructed my magazine to relate it back to my research and see well I have created my magazine.

Masthead
My masthead is successful and an original design. I have used my research to help me think of the design; in the dance music magazines I have researched the masthead has been bright and bold so I have created a similar feel with a twist. The title of the magazine is quite unusual and is very original, I done research to source any related names and products of which I found none named Shindig Whirl.

Tagline
The tagline was difficult to think of however my research had shown that the taglines were generally related to the music genre. When thinking of the tagline I thought I would include the USP because it is to be a main feature in the magazine. I decided my tagline was going to be: “The best on the block… we will put a groove in your moves” This combined makes a tagline which is similar to the magazines on the market, with an added twist of the mention of the USP.

Images
Research has helped me a lot in choosing the images I was going to shoot, many of the photos used in the researched magazines where photographs taken at live events such as at a gig or concert, many of the images are of music artists and the audiences dancing and enjoying themselves. The images I have taken were very successful and I had a large range to choose from because of the number of photographs I had taken. By having numerous photos to choose from, I have been able to have a wider choice of what I can do with the photographs and amount I can use in my magazine. It was important to take lots of photos because if some of the photographs were not good enough to use in my magazine, my magzine would likely to be unaffected. My camera and photography skills have improved since the preliminary assignment so I have been able to think more about what I wanted photograhed and how the I would get the best effect.

Distribution
I have done some research for my magazine evaluation to see where I would be able to distribute my magazine. To research this I have walked around various shops and looked on the internet, I have found the most likely places to distribute “Shindig Whirl” would be in large newsagents such as “WHSmiths” or large supermarkets such as “Tesco” as they have a large selection of magazines and are likely to sell lots which is more likely to get my magazine recognised. Also, the Chelmsford’s local market has a large magazine stool which is also are likely distributor for my magazine if it was to be published. Also, from my research I have found a nnumber of magazines, have subscriptions so this could be a likely form of distributing my music magazine.

Technologies
In my evaluation presentation I will talk about the technologies I have used to create my magazine and how they have helped the creation of “Shindig Whirl”. I have used two Adobe products: Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, these helped me to edit my photos and create my magazine. I have also used Microsoft Paint to aid my learning with assignment as I have copied the print screens into the program to enable to me quickly and easily as a JPG files which I have then uploaded to my Blogger account. Also, in my presentation I will talk about my preliminary assignment and how the technologies I have used have helped my main assignment.

Assessment Feedback Sheet
I have used the assessment feedback sheet to help me improve my magazine, I have changed the size of the font on my interview in the feature article and moved the texts into columns, this has created more space so I need to create some more text to fit into the empty space to make the best use of it.

On the front page, a suggestion was to make the “FIRST EDITION” section smaller because it takes up a bit too much space. I have moved it slightly upwards in my magazine, to make it a bit smaller however, I feel that it is a good size because I aim to have the magazine marketed as the first edition so I think this is important to the consumer to show that it is new to the market. Also, with the “FIRST EDITION” being large at the top, it will be more visible to the customer, especially if the magazine is in a magazine rack, if the customer is scanning the rack and can see a bright “FIRST EDITION” banner, it is more eye catching therefore they are more likely to pick it up.

A comment on the sheet was the use of the font “Times New Roman” which is the set default, when looking through my magazine, I have discovered that I had used a mixture of two fonts: Georgia and Times New Roman, so I have changed it so all of the font is now Georgia.

Social groups represented
My magazine represents my target audience: young party goers of box sex inbetween the age of 16 and 25, however my USP would expand my target audience to dance instructors and also DJs because of the link to popular DJs who will have regular blogs in my magazine.

No specific race or ethnicity is represented by my magazine, this is because the race or ethnicity doesnt fully determine the genre of music people are interested in, generally, teenagers have a broad spectrum of music interests and dance music could be one of these.

Attracting my target audience
To attract my target audience I have used similar conventions to magazines that I had used for my research. Both magazines; Shindig Whirl and Mixmag attract a young audience with the use of bright bold colours and both have a celebrity on the front cover. Also, similarities between the two magazines are the straplines, tagline and the barcode which are standard conventions of a magazine. Also both magazines have a marketing idea in mind; Shindig Whirl is promoting the first edition whereas Mixmag is promoting the end of year issue.

Creation of my magazine
The creation of my magazine went well and I am happy with the final product. The preliminary assignment has particularly helped with the knowledge of using the software and the SLR cameras. My time management has been improved from the preliminary assignment, this is because I understand the components involved in creating my magazine and the time that each task is likely to take, especially the blog.

The creativity in the main assignment has improved because I have the prior knowledge of Adobe InDesign and Photoshop because of the preliminary assignment. Adobe Photoshop was very useful to me for editing my photos, the main feature I used was layer masks and layers. Overall, the edited photographs were successful and the problems I had encountered were easily ovecome.

The draft versions of the magazine have helped me when creating the final version because I could assess my original ideas for how I can improve and make my magazine better for my target audience.

In the evaluation for the preliminary assignment, I have said I would spend more time on the masthead and logo because the one created for the preliminary assignement was too basic and in the media industry, it wouldn't be suitable for long periods of time. To achieve this, I have thought of potential ideas of how the design could be and then I have chosen the one I think will work best. I then created the logo using Adobe Photoshop and then placed into InDesign, unlike the preliminary assignment masthead which was created using a textbox in InDesign. My aim for the preliminary assignment logo was to stand out from the typical conventions of a magazine so I poistioned the masthead vertically on the right hand side of the page. I had a similar thought for the masthead in the main assignment, so I have used the design rather than the positioning to make it stand out. The original design and the bright, bold colours have helped to achieve the desired effect.

After, ammending my magazine to make the improvements, I have added some more listings to my contents page which has altered the page number of the competitions page, I had a reference to the competitions in my feature article in which I havent changed the page number to match. In future, after making ammendments, I shall double check what is affected by the changes and then I will change them accordingly.

Overall, I believe I have made my magazine to a high, professional standard by using the typical conventions of a typical magazine. I have attracted my target audience well and my research has been benefical to the creation of the magazine.