Media Studies Coursework: Evaluation

After completing my finished music magazine, the final step was to evaluate the process of constructing my product from beginning to end. I presented this PowerPoint presentation to a group of my peers and my teacher on Friday 6th May, adding my own commentary and explaining in detail my answers to each question. Here is a copy of my PowerPoint presentation:

Finished evaluation

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Diary Entry - Week Eleven: 11th – 14th April 2011

The final deadline for our finished music magazine was Thursday this week, so I used every lesson this week as well as after school most days to add my finishing touches and make my final pages as professional as possible. By five o’clock on Thursday 14^th, everything was uploaded to the school hard drive and my blog, so that over the Easter holidays I can complete my evaluation.

Media Coursework: Week by Week Guide

This is a scanned in copy of the hand-drawn calendar I made myself to make sure I kept up to date with diary entries, and knew exactly what had been done in each lesson to ensure no time was wasted in the process of completing my coursework. 

Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread: Final Drafts

 These are the final drafts of my music magazine's cover, contents page and double page spread, with all improvements made.

Diary Entry - Week Ten: 4th – 8th April 2011

Following advice from multiple people who looked at my rough cuts, I used Monday this week to re-take the images for my double page spread, as my original one was slightly out of focus on the face. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were used to continue improving my rough cuts and to re-draft my double page spread using the new and improved image. On Friday, we were given an explanation of the different ways we could evaluate our product, which I will begin to do following the final deadline on Thursday next week.

Diary Entry – Week Nine: 28th March – 1st April 2011

The deadline to have the rough cut first drafts of my cover, contents page and double spread uploaded was five o’clock on Monday this week, and the following day I received feedback of these from both my teacher and the other students in my class (who are conveniently all part of my target market). After learning what they liked and thought could be improved about my magazine, I was able to type up these comments and upload them to my blog, and then in my remaining three lessons I began to work on my second drafts based on their advice.

Rough Cut Feedback

After completing a first draft of my front cover, contents page and double page spread, I was able to get some feedback from my teacher and other students - here are a selection of their comments:

Teacher:
Front cover - Really well made. Strong Photo, good font diversity.
                     Possibly too dark? The logo could be stroinger.

Contents Page - Well presented. Clear articles and descriptions. Good photography.
                          More diversity in photos (Long shots/ Close-ups?) Stronger logo again.

DPS - Really good! Great photo, good positioning of the eext and range in fonts.
           Photos posisbly a bit blurry? Maybe break up the text a bit.

Other students - What did they like?
Front cover - Good colour scheme, matches her clothes. Good makeup/ costume on model. Good layout,    variety of font styles. Uses conventions well. Clear house style.

Contents Page - Good main image. Good layout of text. Inkeeping with colour scheme. Good range of images. Clear house style. Well sectioned and easy to understand.

DPS - Lovey choice of colours, all inkeeping - even her nails and bracelet! Text fits around the image. Very strong layout. Good writing style. Bright, very girly.

What could have been improved?
Front cover - Date, issue and price should be the same size. Writing in box at the top should have more space at the sides.

Contents Page - Retake two smaller images - Don't fit in as well and look as professional. Add a page number at the bottom.

DPS - Image slightly out of focus? Make quote stand out a bit more. Possibly have standfirst in a different colour/ size to differentiate it from article. Make headline stand out more?

Music Magazine First Drafts:

Following are the rough cuts of the cover, contents page and double page spread of my music magazine:

 

Diary Entry - Week Eight: 21st – 25th March 2011

On the Monday of this week, I took my photographs of my model portraying Paloma Faith for my cover, double page spread and contents page. In Tuesday’s lesson, I again used the digital SLR to take the remaining two photographs for my contents page, and the rest of the week was devoted to using Photoshop to enhance my images and begin to insert them onto my pages.

Location Shots

These are the three locations I used for my photoshoots, all located around school.

Original Images

These are the original images I have taken using the digital SLR camera, which I then edited using Photoshop to be used on my cover, contents page and double page spread.

Cover:

Contents Page:

Double Page Spread:

Diary Entry - Week Seven: 14th – 18th March 2011

Coming back to school this week with all of my research done, I was able to use all of my findings to compile hand-drawn initial designs for the way my magazine’s cover, contents page and double page spread are going to look and uploaded these to my blog. Following this, I was able to use the remaining three lessons to map out the features of my magazine on Photoshop, as well as plan in detail the images which I plan to take early next week on my photo planning grid.          

Picture Planning Grid

Here is the table I have created to plan in detail the images which I will take on Monday and Tuesday next week.

How Will I Make my Magazine as Professional as Possible?

Initial Designs

Here are the initial designs I have drawn for my cover, contents page and double page spread, taking into consideration all of my research.

Cover:

Contents Page:

Double Page Spread:

Diary Entry - Week Six: 7th – 11th March 2011

Work experience week

Diary Entry - Week Five: 28th February – 4th March 2011

After gathering feedback from my demographic in my questionnaire and putting them into graph form, I was able to evaluate the results, and therefore begin to make decisions about what properties my final product will have. This took up two lessons, as did creating a spider diagram of my initial ideas to be expanded upon when creating my music magazine. The Friday of this week was the deadline for all of my research to be uploaded to my blog, including my preliminary task evaluation, analyses of existing products, audience research and initial ideas.

Initial Ideas - Spider Diagram

Following my extensive analysis of existing music magazines along with my audience research, I was able to create this "Initial Ideas" diagram which I can build upon to create my first sketches of my final design for my product.

Diary Entry - Week Four: 21st – 25th February 2011

Half Term

Diary Entry - Week Three: 14th – 18th February 2011

Two lessons this week were taken to finish the thorough analyses of the covers, contents pages and double page spreads as these are the three elements I will need to produce for my coursework. In the remaining three lessons, we turned our focus to audience research. For this, I created a questionnaire which covered every aspect of front covers, contents pages and double page spreads for the target audience to give their opinions and preferences on. My focus group consisted of older teenagers (16 and 17 years old) as this is the slightly more mature audience at which I am aiming my product. I chose to ask 20 questions as this corresponds to the number of questions and I feel this is a big enough number to get an accurate result with a wide variety of opinions. Once my questionnaires were returned to me, I used Microsoft Excel to create bar charts to present my findings in a professional and easy-to-interpret way.

Audience Research - Questionnaire Results and Evaluation

After twenty people who fit my demographic had filled out my questionnaire, I was able to put the results into graph form so they could be easily analysed. Following are the results for each question individually along with the conclusions I have drawn from them:

1.  What genre(s) of music do you generally listen to?

From this question, my focus group were given the option of writing more than one genre, and I have been able to discern that a wide variety of genres are popular among teenagers. Recurring answers were pop and alternative music, with indie also a popular choice. Therefore I have decided to create a magazine which covers a range of genres but specifically popular/ slightly alternative music, and could feature a run-down of the current singles chart in response to the popularity of this answer.  

2. How often do you think a new issue of a music magazine should come out?

By far the most popular answer in this multiple choice question was monthly, with weekly coming second and no-one voting that a music magazine should come out less frequently than once a month – therefore I have decided to create a monthly music magazine for my final product.

3. What do you think is a reasonable price for a music magazine?

From the results of this graph I have decided to charge £2.99 for my music magazine, given that most people were willing to pay £2-3 than any other value – this is affordable but would still ensure a profit if the magazine actually were to be produced and sold.






















4. Would you like the magazine to feature a run-down of the current singles chart?

Almost three quarter of people said that they would like the magazine to feature a chart update, which is unsurprising given the number of people who said they listened to current chart hits in Question One. In response to this I will definitely be including this feature in my magazine in some way, possibly on the contents page.

5. Would you like to read concert/gig reviews?

An overwhelming majority said that they would like it to feature concert and gig reviews, so I will be including this feature in my magazine as I feel it will be a very popular section and would help to sell the product to a wide audience.

6. Should it feature a list of upcoming gigs/ tours?

Again, the clear outcome of this question was that most customers would like to be presented with a list of upcoming gigs and tours as part of a music magazine, therefore I will include this in my product.

7. Do you prefer a music magazine to feature a wide variety of artists or similar ones?

In this case, the results were not unanimous, but it seems that a good 3/5 of the participants would rather it featured a wide variety of artists, and I will take this into consideration when choosing which artists to feature in my magazine.

8. What colours do you find stand out on a front cover?

Again, people were given the option of listing more than one colour for their answer, and the answers that cropped up again and again were black, white and red – these were also popular choices in my analysis of existing magazines, so I am considering using this as a colour scheme for my own product. Other popular colours included Purple, Blue and Gold, all of which are quite unusual for a magazine cover and would make it more individual and unique, so I will take this into careful consideration when choosing my final colour scheme.

9. Would you rather one large image or several smaller ones on a cover?

 The majority here said that they would prefer one large image on the cover, however there were some who said smaller images can be effective so I am considering using small images in addition to one main one on my cover.

10. Do you prefer a plain or fancy font for the cover, or a mixture of both?

The results were spread fairly evenly here, however the most popular choice was to have a mixture of fonts used – therefore I will feature a variety on my front cover and this will cater for all tastes.

11. Should the images on a front cover look natural or posed for?

Three quarters of my focus group stated here that they would prefer an image that looked like it was from a photo shoot as opposed to a natural photograph on the cover, therefore I will work on planning my photo shoot and poses and making the shot look as professional as possible.

12. Should the tile of a magazine be long or short and snappy?

Fourteen out of twenty people said they would prefer a short, memorable title such as Q and NME to a long and complicated one, and I will take this into consideration when deciding on the title of my final product.

13. What information would you like to find out from a contents page?

-Page numbers

-Article summaries

-Section headings

-Whereabouts I can find the articles and features on the cover

-The regular features of the magazine

-A letter from the editor

This information I found I could not put into graph form as I was faced with such a variety of results, but I have listed a selection of popular responses to this open question and I can ensure that all of this information is provided on my contents page of my finished magazine.

14. Do you prefer a blocky or scattered format for images/text on a contents page?

The results for this question were split almost equally, suggesting that these two choices are both very popular – I will therefore try to create a contents page with elements of both layouts, which will look unique and interesting while still easy to navigate and which clearly presents information.

15. Would you like the colour scheme to relate to that on the front cover?

Only one participant here stated that they would not like the colour scheme to relate to that on the front cover, therefore I will definitely use similar colours on my contents page and my cover to give it a professional and linked effect.

16. Would you rather one large image or several smaller ones on a contents page?

Again, the results here were not skewed in favour of one choice, so I will take this into consideration and use images in a wide variety of sizes on my contents page.

17. Do you prefer a written up interview or straight Q+A?

As a result of these opinions I have decided to combine a written up article and Q&A for my double page spread, in order to cater to all tastes and make the piece as interesting to read as possible, as the results were almost even.

18. Would you rather the article header be the artist’s name; song lyrics or a headline?

The two most popular choices here were for a creative headline or some song lyrics to introduce the piece as opposed to merely the artist’s name, therefore I have come to the decision to feature song lyrics on the double page spread, but come up with an original headline for my front cover  - this will keep the magazine varied and please all of my target audience.

19. What do you look to read about in articles in a music magazine?

Answers included:

-Interviews with featured act

-Whether they have any new albums or singles coming out

-Their personal life

-How they started out in music

-Who inspires them

Again, the responses given to this open question were very varied and could not be put into graph form; however I have included a selection of popular answers which I will carefully consider when choosing the contents of my article for the double page spread.

20. Would you prefer one large image or several smaller ones to accompany the article?

Aside from having both, the most popular choice here was to have one large image with seven votes compared to two – the solution to this I feel is to go with the majority and include both a large image and possibly some smaller ones to accompany it in the double page spread of my final product.

Audience Research - Questionnaires

Here is a sample of three of the twenty questionnaires which were completed by 16 and 17 year olds as part of my audeince research - from these I was able to compile graphs to represent my results for analysis.

Product Analysis: Q Magazine

                                                                Cover:

Undoubtedly what stands out most about the Q cover is the colour scheme: almost exclusively red, white and black, it is bold, eye catching and makes this one of the most recognisable music magazines on the market. The plain white background means that the images stand out, particularly as each of the artists is wearing black to ensure high contrast. The image itself is positioned slightly off centre, but features all three artists in a full body shot and looking directly into the camera so that the photograph has an almost menacing feeling to it and causing the reader to be in awe of these people. The text on the cover is written entirely in capital letters, almost as though the reader is being shouted at, and the very crowded page gives the impression that the magazine is full and therefore worth the customer’s money. Emphasising this is the box in the right hand corner which, like NME, features a “+” sign rather than the word “plus” for individuality and to appear modern. No information is given in this box apart from very high-profile artists’ names, having the effect of almost teasing the reader so they are forced to buy the magazine and look inside. Similarly, quotes from the three “headline” acts are given underneath their names, to intrigue the reader and catch their attention. Key facts that the creators want to get across to the reader are circled, for example “42 Pages of Reviews!” and “Exciting People” – this use of shape adds variety to the page, along with linking to the distinctive circular of the title of the magazine itself: Q.

Contents Page:

Unlike the other magazines I have analysed, the contents page in Q magazine is spread across two pages, allowing more room for both images and text to be in equal measures. For my final product I will produce just one page for the contents, however it is easy to see this magazine’s motivation for doubling up: It has the ability to be both image and text-dominated due to the extra space, with a blocky format ensuring a simple but effective layout. The images used in the bottom left are screenshots of the articles themselves, so that the reader knows what to look for, while the large-print page numbers also ensure it is easy to navigate and understand the order of the magazine. The dividers between sections of text also contribute to this. Although very organized, there is still a variation in size both in the images themselves and the page numbers, and this prevents the contents page from being dull and uninteresting to look at; there is a big variety. The colour scheme is once again red, white and black as it is on the cover, and this is a running theme throughout the magazine which links the different sections and adds professionalism. The text itself is laid out in columns as is the convention, and below the article headings there is a small taster of what each contains, but gives little enough away that the reader is still desperate to read on, for example: “Brandon Flowers – Pasta and beard chat with the freed Killer.” This indicates that there is an interview, but the small amount of content given is random and intriguing to ensure the customer’s maintained attention.

                                                                                    Double Page Spread:

One of the most common conventions of double page spreads, I have noticed, is one full page being taken up by an image and the other being text-dominated, and this is perfectly adhered to in this case. Once again, the red, white and black colour scheme applies, so that immediately the reader could identify this as a Q feature – the red is very eye-catching when against the white background which is the magazine’s in-house style. The first thing that catches the eye, in fact, is the large red capital “A” that spans an entire text, and draws attention to the article indicating that above all else, this is what we should be concerned with. The simple layout here is very effective, with the headline relatively small but positioned centrally and seeming to epitomise the down-to-earth character we are reading about. The text is laid out simply in columns; however it is still kept bright with the oversized drop-capital. The image in contrast, uses quite muted colours, but still manages to be effective in the cleverness of the shot. The figure of Brandon Flowers is positioned centrally, and is looking straight down the camera in a very relaxed pose as if to indicate that the interview is as frank and honest as he can be and that the reader will get an impression of the real him. The background is slightly out-of-focus and seems quite desolate and run-down, further adding to his vulnerability while indicating that he alone is what we should be focused on. The article itself describes Flowers’ hometown of Las Vegas and his experiences there, depicting it as a bleak and somewhat desolate place – and once the article has been read, the image seems to take on a whole new meaning, evoking sympathy within the reader and giving the artist a likeable, vulnerable edge.

Product Analysis: The Word Magazine

                                                                  Cover:

This magazine cover, similar to other such as Q, features a predominantly red, black and white colour scheme, along with a bright yellow – these are all very eye-catching colours and would make the magazine stand out from others. It seems to have a quirky edge, as can be seen in the slight angles at which some of the images are placed, and the informal language used such as “Decent free CD!” and its self promotion: “Music Magazine of the Year – Again! The use of exclamation marks here suggests enthusiasm. The demographic seems to be a slightly more mature audience, evident in the feature about Kate Bush, who is likely to be more familiar to an older generation of music fans. The central image is in black and white, accentuating the almost vintage style, and having the artist in a medium-shot and looking directly down the camera help the reader to feel a stronger connection – it is a seemingly very confident photograph. The old-fashioned feel is also represented through the stamp-like edge of the text box on the right hand side, which also gives the page a very organised feel. The text in this box is much smaller and packed closer together, which gives the impression that the magazine is full to the brim of articles and is worth the customer’s money. In addition to music artists, the cover also promotes the fact that the magazine features reviews of DVDs, with a promotion of a film review which again would be suitable for older audiences – this is evident through the choice of a film with a 15 rating and the use of the words “classic lineup back together”.

Contents Page:

This contents page seems predominantly text dominated, using just one quite large image and one smaller one. The photographs used, however, are in very strong contrast to each other and as a result are intriguing: the first, a seemingly unposed-for shot in a military situation and the second what appears to be a glamour shoot. This emphasises the wide variety of artists that are covered in the magazine and suggests it has a wide target audience. The colour scheme, once again, is black, white and red but this time with blue. Red and blue, being two of the simplest primary colours, seem to suggest that perhaps the magazine is about music going back to basics instead of being over-complicated. Being text-dominated could suggest that the magazine is aimed at quite intellectual people – emphasises by the inclusion of a letter from the editor which gives it a more personal touch. Significantly, the contents page is divided into sections, for example “On the Cover” and “Columns” – this makes it seem orderly and very easy for the reader to locate the features they want within the magazine.

                                                                                    
                                                                                    Double Page Spread:

In contrast to the cover and contents page, the colour scheme on this double page spread is almost entirely monochrome, with black text on a white background and even the artist wearing black and white clothes. This again gives off a very stripped, “back-to-basics” feel and the reader gets the impression that it is a very frank and honest interview. The artist’s name is boldly printed to catch the reader’s eye, and it is cleverly integrated into the headline, which uses the technique of posing questions that the reader can only find out the answer to if they read the article. The use of “Drugs?” at the very start suggests once again that it is definitely aimed at a mature audience, along with Lily Allen’s reputation and non-child-friendly song lyrics. It is heavily text-dominated , with one half-page image and one much smaller one, and this suggests again that its key demographic is more mature and possibly slightly older. The large image depicts Allen looking directly into the camera, but positioned slightly at an angle, as though she has been caught off-guard – she does not want it to appear posed for, although the quality of the image and clever use of light indicates it was definitely taken in a professional photo shoot. The smaller image, in contrast, is of a very young Lily Allen with her father and brother, and has a much more personal feel as we are getting an insight into her childhood – this is a technique to make the artist connect with and appeal to the reader.