Question 1- Evaluation

1. Thomas Wakelin 5310 Nicholas Chamberlaine Technology College 31030 In what ways does your media product use, develop or change forms and conventions of real media products? Question 1- Evaluation Magazine Cover Please use the buttons to the left to read the two page answer to the question above for the corresponding design. You will be linked back here after you have finished reading. Thank you. Contents Page Double Page Spread

2. Whilst I used my research into existing products to assist me in the design work for my entire magazine, there were some elements which I wanted to challenge as I did not think they were very effective. Both of the existing products which I evaluated had their logo stretched across the top of their magazine vertically and this either sometimes covered the cover image or went behind it. I didn’t think this was very effective at all; especially the BBC Music magazine where the actual logo is covered; this is because you are not appealing to customers who may not be regular readers of your magazine. I wanted my magazine to appeal to everyone within my target market and due to my magazine being a new publication I needed my logo to stand out and be very easy to see and read when the magazine is on top of a store shelf. Whilst BBC Music magazine didn’t feature any elements within their logo to try and emphasise the name of the magazine; Classic FM magazine had the “F” part of “FM” coloured red; which is their chosen colour scheme. The “F” part is obviously a reference to the magazine being made in association with the radio programme. My magazine is a stand-alone publication and I made the “C” part of “Class” to ensure that it emphasised the name of the magazine. I wanted to ensure that the logo was emphasised and that the audience would immediately be informed of the “Red” colour scheme which would follow through the entire magazine. I believe this colour also appeals to the target audience as well as the upper-left positioning of my logo. What ever the cover image is of my magazine will not matter as readers both new and old will be able to identify where on the shelf Class Magazine is just by browsing through the shelves. As illustrated here, my logo can be read easily and stands out from the background. All font (except for the “C” logo) is visible and of the same colour which looks very professional. A similarity it shares with the products I looked at in my research is that the same “formal font style” is used for the logo. Unlike my magazine, the two products which I looked at either have the logo actually ‘hidden’ behind an image or their logo change colour. I believe this is unprofessional and could impact on a new readers decision as to if they buy the magazine or not. As you can see from my magazine, the “C” is clearly emphasised. This helps people to identify my magazine on a shelf which is very important. This design-choice was influenced by the “f” in “Classic fm” magazine where their designers have chosen a similar style, though I used a “Drop Shadow” effect to further emphasise my single letter. This is very different to BBC Music Magazine which seems to rely more on the purple “BBC” logo at the upper left. This may cause confusion however as there may be more magazines which the BBC publishes which relies on this logo for identity. Cover 1/3

3. Another convention which I challenged was the colouring/font style of the main headline. Whilst I stuck to the conventions of placing it to the left of the centre of the cover I wanted to ensure that the keyword; “Star” was emphasised to promote my feature story (double page spread). It is clear to me from asking people who are in my target audience that the change in font style and colour clearly draws the attention of the reader after they have identified my logo at the top of my magazine. I believe this is a convention which all of the front covers which I evaluated followed; the main headlines is indeed the second thing which draws your attention after looking at the cover image and/or logo of the magazine. My barcode was positioned differently compared to how it was positioned on the magazines which I had researched. The traditional convention appears to be that the barcode is added to the magazine cover in a horizontal position; I didn’t feel that this was appropriate on my magazine cover as it covered some of my cover image and I wanted as little as possible to distract from the image of my actor playing; Julio. I came to the conclusion that a vertical barcode would work a lot better as it didn’t distract the consumer from the main magazine whilst the black box and red typography I used inside of it still clearly illustrated the price to the consumer. The only people who will want to easily find the barcode are employees in retail or in warehouses. I’m not trying to create a magazine for them to enjoy; I’m creating one for my target audience to enjoy so it was not needed to think of their needs. Both of the magazines (and many music magazine’s in my selected genre) advertised “Free CD’s” on their covers also; I did not. I didn’t feel that a free CD should be advertised on the cover of a magazine as it takes up valuable space where a cover image could be put or a headline could be added; it also looks quite tacky having a corner emphasised with text saying “FREE CD”. There is space for a CD to be included on the cover of my magazine (See the white section at the lower left) but I didn’t feel the need to advertise it on the cover as it could distract from other elements such as my logo or cover image. Taking into consideration two existing magazines, I believe their “change in colour” approach does not emphasise keywords. My design choice of adding effects such as “Drop Shadows” and “Emboss/Bevel” clearly makes my keywords stand out and encourage people to look at my magazine. As you can see from where the barcode is positioned on my front cover, it does not distract you from the main headlines or cover up any images. It simply does what it has to do; tell the customer the issue number, date and price whilst being clear for a shop assistant (for example) to scan. The other magazines I researched made their barcode cover/be in other images; this looked unprofessional and inappropriate. It also took your attention away from the main images and headlines. Cover 2/3

4. It became apparent that the standard conventions of a magazine similar to mine had to require lots of text regarding numerous stories or have other images over lapping the main cover image, I challenged this in my design as I felt that it was not appropriate to try and cram as much on the cover of a magazine as possible. The main feature of my magazine (“Julio”) takes up the majority of the space on the front cover of my magazine; which is following the conventions of both “Classic FM” magazine and “BBC Music” magazine, however I didn’t want to include images such as “Classic FM” magazine did over my main actor as I believe it takes the focus away from my main feature. As you can see from the image to the right, at first you are drawn to the image of the main cover star, but it could be that before you actually read the headline for that article, your eyes are drawn to the image which is on the cover stars shoulder. This shouldn’t happen as you have had your interest taken away from the main story almost immediately; you haven’t even opened the magazine yet! BBC Music however had a lot of text which was “Centred” in alignment and this makes the cover look very full; obviously a good thing for a cover to have. But I wanted my magazine to draw people in. I didn’t want them to feel confused or have their attention taken away from them as soon as they look at the main image, as well as feeling that they are going to have to read lots of jargon regarding the Classic music industry. My magazine is quite plain; illustrating to the consumer just how important “Julio” is and just how important it is to read the feature and find out some “Exclusive” information about him. “Classic FM” is a great example of the conventions a magazine usually follows when trying to illustrate a colour scheme. There are some important headlines which have been written in red typography which obviously emphasises them. Though through the usage of my red colour scheme, I essentially highlighted key words which would excite consumers such as “Exclusive” to try and increase the attention which the magazine would receive. The issue number, price and date of the magazine are also in this colour –not only to stay within my colour scheme- but to make obvious this important information. The “Class” part of “The Classic Music Magazine” follows similar conventions used by BBC Music and Classic FM though also follows my colour scheme identifying that my magazine has not only got “Class” in terms of the genre of music which will be reported on, but also the standard of design and written quality. “Class” as a name and slogan illustrates what my magazine is all about; appealing to an older target market/audience and ensuring that all of their needs are fulfilled. This should be a convention which all magazines follow and (to my knowledge) I am surprised that no other magazine have tried to convey information such as this in such an obvious way. Please click here to be linked to the question page. Thank you. Cover 3/3

5. I followed many conventions when I was designing my contents page. It was clear that many contents pages –not matter who they are designed by or for what genre of magazine it is included into- follows the same basic principles as consumers/readers expect to find news stories easily; without getting lost and/or irritated. The first convention which I followed into my own contents page design was the labelling of the actual page. As you can see from the BBC Music magazine to the right, they have clearly labelled the contents page so the reader knows where they are. This is because there has been no indication previous to this page which has identified what any page is or what page number anything is on. I developed this however as I believe that the labelling bar which BBC Music magazine used took up a lot of space on the page. Using the same heading as the cover page used I changed the upper-right information to label the contents page. Due to the colouring I used; red and white, I believe this still stands out and clearly identifies what page the consumer is reading. Usually a consumer will not need to be identified but as the contents page is pretty obvious when you start reading through it, but I wanted to follow the conventions which previous magazines have followed before my design as this is an industry-norm. Another convention which I followed was the usage of images throughout the contents page. I felt like this was essential because it allows for the ‘main stories’ to be promoted in a way and are a much nicer way to illustrate some important stories than simply putting a lot of text on the contents page and risking ‘over-loading’ it. I did not want to follow the example set by Classic FM magazine however as I believe that they used too many pages which ruined their contents page and made it look very unprofessional. I followed the ‘rule of three’ which BBC Music magazine used as I felt like this was a good approach as it did not use too many images to distract the reader from any of the listed stories. As you can see; I used very little room in making my audience aware that they are on the “Contents Page” (Something which many people realise anyway once they see page numbers). BBC Magazine took up a lot of space on the page making readers aware of this whilst Classic FM magazine reiterated the same issue though used a different message. I think this is a waste of space as doesn’t identify things which the reader already knows. All of the magazines which I researched did this technique as it was obviously effective. However, I felt that my page numbers in the red boxes and “Cover Story” Banner guide the reader a lot better than both BBC Music and Classic FM Magazine do as the page numbers are easy to read and the cover story is also easy to identify due to the banner which I have used. Like Classic FM Magazines, these boxes follow my colour scheme also. Contents 1/3

6. A convention which I challenged however when creating my contents page was the inclusion of the cover of the magazine inside of the contents page. I believe this looks very professional and allows the reader to use it as a quick reference if a particular heading grabbed their attention when they were looking at the cover, instead of having to keep flicking from cover to contents. This worked well with the “Subscribe box” which I also added to my contents page to try and promote subscriptions to my magazine. Whilst this is a design choice to fill blank space, it does emphasise that this magazine (if real) would be expected to make money for the company publishing it. Most professional magazines use subscriptions as a way to secure a reader base also. I also followed the convention of labelling which page my images related to. This allows the reader to quickly turn to the news story which a particular image is taken from. Some people would much rather just look at images instead of reading and I wanted to cater to both of these types of people to not isolate any potential readers; hence why both text and images were used on my contents page. The exception to the convention however is the red bar at the lower-left of the top image as I wanted to emphasise that this image was in reference to my cover story. The last thing a reader would want when buying a magazine would be to purchase it because of the cover story and then struggle to find out where this particular story was in the magazine. I wanted to be sure that that would not happen and so this bar was included at the bottom of the image. My magazine featured a clear, professional illustration of the cover of the magazine for reference with the stories on it so readers could find what page the story is on in the magazine. Like Classic FM magazine I included a “Subscribe” illustration which tried to encourage readers to subscribe to my magazine. In industry this would create revenue which could further encourage development to occur in my magazine; possibly leading to better, bigger features in future issues. Contents 2/3

7. Listing stories under headings is another convention which all contents pages (of the majority of magazines which I have researched) follow. I wanted to follow this as it gives further support to readers of my magazine in making their decision about what page to read next as not all readers simply read a magazine from left to right, cover to back. If my magazine was real then the “Regular” section would not be referred to by regular readers as they would know what to expect and where about in the magazine the regular news story would be printed, however, whether the reader is new or old they will always want to know what the new features are and what pages they have been printed onto. This is why I wanted to include the feature list at the top of the contents page to be easily identified by the reader as their eye-line would most likely be here after turning over the cover (unless there was an advertisement covering the first two pages or a welcome page for example). Page numbers (as previously mentioned) are obviously important and were included so that the reader could easily find the page which the news story they wanted to read without much hassle or irritation. It seems that many magazines seem to follow a convention of having a white background. Whilst this is understandable (as colour would cost capital which could affect the amount of profit which a magazine publisher makes on a magazine) I believe it looks very unprofessional and when I was creating my contents page I believed it made it look like there was a lot of empty space on my contents page. I didn’t want this feeling of “empty space” to cloud over my contents page as it could influence the reader to believe that my magazine is very light on content and could lead to them not purchasing future issues of my magazine. Instead I went for a dark colour scheme to emphasise my images and red/white text. This worked very well and made all of my headings and text stand out a lot more. As the sizes of my images take up a lot of space and the text is all aligned, I believe that it gives the effect of a full issue also. This is obviously much better than giving the effect of an empty issue. After researching two existing products, I realised that the headings for the contents pages were quite small. I didn’t agree with this and whilst I did follow the convention of headings I made my headings large and emphasised them by underlining them. This helps readers both new and old identify with the different sections of my magazine immediately whilst also following the colour scheme of my entire magazine. Please click here to be linked to the question page. Thank you. Contents 3/3

8. The double page spread was a very important part of my magazine as it was the main feature; it could also be the only reason why a new reader had picked up and purchased the magazine so it is very important to follow/challenge conventions to make the best double page spread possible. The other double page spreads which I evaluated seemed to follow a convention of having no more than two “main images”. I did not understand why this was done as the images which they were using took up a lot of space which was very unnecessary. Their double page spreads were extremely light on content also and I believe first-time readers would be disappointed with their purchases; obviously I didn’t want this to happen with my magazine. I took appropriate images which not only looked good and drew in the attention of the reader, but were also emphasised by the chosen black background (following almost from the colour scheme on the cover, but more similar to the contents page) . But most importantly were that my images were relevant to my story. All of them were. I believe that this helped my double page spread come alive, it was no longer just a publication, but a feature which could be imagined by the reader with the help of the images. I wanted to readers to feel engaged with my double page spread and make them want to know what Julio has to say about his upcoming tour, I believe my images helped portray this. As well as these images, I also decided that I would feature a lot of text on the left side of the double page spread. The magazines which I evaluated seemed to follow a convention that little/no text on the left page was better than having a lot but I disagree. As I explained previously, it made their double page spreads seem very lacking in actual content and I didn’t want this feeling made towards my double page spread so I expanded my article to cover two pages instead of being a single page next to a page which is actually a photograph; in my opinion this shouldn’t count as a double page spread at all. Compared to existing products, my double page spread used more Than double the amount of ‘article-related images’ than BBC Music and Classic Fm Magazine used. This helped to make my double page spread ‘come more alive’ to the reader and make them feel a lot more involved whilst they read my double page spread due to the images which I have used. It also just generally makes the double page spread look a lot nicer than it would if it was just a double page spread of text. As you can see from the left-page of my double page spread it contains a lot more content than both Classic Fm magazine and BBC music magazine. I believe this gives the readers a lot more value for money and that they would appreciate that Class Magazine has a lot more exclusive information compared to other magazines which also report on the same genre of music. I feel that it is a waste of space to just have a single image and readers could feel “ripped off” if this was done in Class Magazine. Double Page Spread 1/3

9. I continued with the inclusion of my colour scheme in my double page spread so I used more red/white text on top of a black background. This was a convention which all of the double page spreads seemed to follow as it made them look like they belong in just one magazine; obviously warranting a purchase from the reader. Instead of just making my questions bold to emphasise them however, I made them red. Not just to stand out more on the black background but to continue the colour scheme which my entire magazine would follow. I believe this made my magazine look very professional and made Julio look a lot more involved with the magazine; especially through the font style of his name under “interview” which appears to be written in the main colour of “Class” Magazine; Red. Another convention followed was the inclusion of common linguistic features such as a “break-out quote”. This is supposed to be read before the reader get’s to where it is written in the main body of text as it is an exciting revelation from Julio which is excites the reader and makes them want to read the double page spread. Again, the colour scheme of the entire magazine continued with the break out quote being in red to further emphasise the quote. The only part it could get mixed up with however it the questions which are also written in red to emphasise them, though I believe I positioned the break out quote a good distance away from the questions to avoid this confusion which the reader may have. Some conventions have to be followed and challenging them could make your publication look very unprofessional. One of the conventions I didn’t challenge was the inclusion of the magazine’s website and page number in the footer of both pages of the double page spread. This ensured that the reader could reference the page and even visit the website of the magazine. Continuing the colour scheme of red and white was extremely important to me as it kept my magazine looking professional. It also made key areas stand out such as the break out quote, questions asked to Julio and that the double page spread was a special “Feature”. As well as this; Julio’s name was clearly visible at the top of the page and acted as a reference point for readers of my magazine to identify what page they are on. It could also catch the eye of people “flicking through” my magazine and encourage them to buy it. Double Page Spread 2/3

10. I didn’t want to have my text appear black on a white background and I challenged this convention to ensure that my colour scheme could be continued throughout my double page spread. If my magazine was real I would have to consider to pricing-implications of printing the majority of my magazine on black paper though I do believe that it helps to maintain a professional approach and prevents pages appearing “empty” compared to Classic FM’s double page spread for example. Another convention I followed was to do the double page spread over the course of two pages (though some “features” could go over more than two). Whilst this is partly because the exam board only ask for two pages, I believe that as I made such efficient usage of space over the course of two pages that I would not need another page. It is understandable that a feature such as the one in BBC Music magazine would need more than two pages as the image has used an entire page, there is very little text. I didn’t do this and instead made efficient use of the two pages in my own magazine which would be beneficial not only to the user but also to the company publishing my magazine as they are not paying for wasted pages. As you can see, you can easily see the text as much in my magazine designs as you can in BBC music or Classic FM, however, due to me following my colour scheme, keywords are emphasised and can be easily seen which makes my double page spread seem more appealing to the reader. It also helps them to remember these key points to tell friends at a later date; promoting my magazine through word of mouth. Please click here to be linked to the question page. Thank you. Double Page Spread 3/3