Evaluation - Surrey Living (Regional Magazine)

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Front Cover:

When I look at Regional Magazines styles, I am quickly able to recognize that the magazine I have made fits in well with the genre; and this means that I have followed the typical codes and conventions closely.

A front cover is often bright and colorful; this is to catch a reader’s eye and to draw in customers. But sometimes it can be more beneficial on Regional Magazines to use soft and pastel like colours as they are warm and realistic for people to look at, especially if the front cover image features a real situation or image.

Code and convention rules for a magazine front cover:

·      Masthead

·      Cover Stories

·      Barcode

·      Advertisement

·      Promotions

·      Large Image: (Big filling majority or the entire page. A regional magazine will often have a picture of animal relating to the season or an image relating to a story or article which will feature on the inside of the magazine).

I believe that I have followed these codes and convention rules for my front cover and have included all of the main features on and in my magazine (SURREY LIVING).

I have used a main image to cover the whole of the front page. My image is of Farnham Castle, which is located at the top of Castle Street in Farnham Town Centre. The main image on my front cover is just off central to the camera, so the image isn’t square on. I did this to show more of a background and the surroundings in the photograph. I feel the image is strong with a lot included within it; this makes it suitable to the audience to catch their eye.

Along the bottom of the page, I have included another popular code and convention of a typical magazine front cover which is advertisement. My advertisement is also a competition to win tickets to this year’s Chelsea Flower Shower, which is a suitable form of advertisement to the genre of the magazine.

My masthead is a block bold font and is also in capital letters so that it stands out; catching the audience’s eye and the audience therefore know exactly what the title of the magazine is.  I have located the title of the magazine central at the top of the cover where most titles are featured on magazines.  I have also included other typical codes and conventions of a front cover that includes the barcode and having cover stories listed down one side of my cover.

Contents Page:

The main aim of code and conventions for a magazine contents page is to give the reader a small insight of what is going to be included in the magazine. It will be catchy, showing interesting pictures of people and things that will be in the magazine. I have chosen very bright colors that will hopefully draw in the attention of readers, which will make them want to read articles within the magazine.

Double Page Spread:

Code and convention rules for a magazine double page spread normally include the magazines being written in columns, this is normally done to break up the reading so that your not just reading across a page but reading down in small blocks to create more of a variety compared to normal reading articles and books.

As you can see from the image I have split my magazine article up into two columns, most magazines will split their writing up into two or three columns. I chose to do two as I thought it fitted nicely around the pictures that I have included in the article.

Most double page spread will be advertising something or someone. Mine is talking about why people should visit Farnham in Surrey. A double page spread normally includes bright colours and catchy pictures to attract the readers. I have used a picture of castle street as my background, I have used the fade tool on this picture to make it really pale to allow me to put in pictures and writing over the top.

The conventions of a title are that it is normally big and bold, often located in the top left hand corner. The title is to let some know what something it is, sometimes giving them some sort of indication of what is going to be on the inside.

My language that I have used in my magazines follows the conventions of a typical Indie style music magazine. The language is simple and easy too read.

Photos can be taken in:

·      Mid shot

·      Close up

·      Long shot

·      Point of view

·      Establishing shot

·      Extreme close up

My photos were taken in a range of different shot angles; this was to give me variety to enable me to choose the most suitable pictures for my magazine.

Billboard: My billboard has followed the main codes and conventions for a billboard. I have a main image that covers the whole of the billboard surface area. My image is simple and easy to understand when passing within in a couple of seconds.

People will quickly be able to identify it due to having a picture of the magazine in the bottom right hand corner. It has a catchy slogan that will stick in people’s head. If you look deeper at the picture you can see a castle in the background.

Radio: My radio advert has followed the codes and conventions of a typical radio advert. An enthusiastic advert that is catchy and sticks in peoples minds. If you are able to create an image in your audiences mind of what they expect the product to be like then you have captured the audience.  

There will often be music in the background, which I have included, following the codes and conventions. My radio advert also follows the codes and conventions in its length it being between 25-40 seconds in length. There is a voice over clip, with the product name mentioned more than once.

There is questions which are answered within the radio advert which gives the audience the short snappy bits of information that they will need. 

How does your main production use or challenge the conventions of real media texts?

I think that for my coursework I have mainly managed to keep to and follow the codes and conventions of a regional magazine.

People will be able to easily identify my product due to its genre. If someone regularly reads regional magazines then they’ll be able to quickly identify mine as one also through me closely following the typical codes and conventions.

The way in which I have written my title, written the text and positioned images would also suggest to someone that my magazine is of the genre of regional magazine. My image on my front cover of SURREY LIVING also represents the style and genre of the magazine. If I were to be creating a pop magazine aimed at an age group of 9-14 year old girls I wouldn’t use a historic castle.

I have also applied mise-en-scene to my magazine; insuring I have used the correct costume, lighting, actors, make-up, props and setting. The magazine images have been taken in the correct setting of a historic town, ensuring the people (actors) within the pictures are of the correct genre that I am aiming my product at. The scenery (props) is also well suited for its purpose. I also had to carefully think about the time of day of which I was going to take my pictures (lighting), so I took my photographs on a late afternoon in early springtime. I thought this was a good time of day with a large amount of light that would create a beautiful scene for my pictures.

The content of the magazine is suitable for the audience of which it is aimed at.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

My main product and ancillary texts are linked as they both have the same unique selling point. My front cover features on my ancillary task; this shows a strong link and similarity between the two.

Both products have a similar colour scheme that they follow; this is another similarity that shows continuity.

In my main product and ancillary texts I have a few differences, the first very easily identifiable difference is that I haven’t used the same font all the way through. I used different fonts because I felt the different fonts suited the different pages. I also didn’t follow a main code and convention on my double page spread, my background doesn’t feature a vibrant colour that catches a readers eye but instead I have used a picture as my background that covers the entire surface of the 2 pages.

The main product and ancillary texts both feature shared elements. The first shared element is the title; the same title is on the front cover and the contents page. All the images have also all been taken in the same town of Farnham, Surrey. All of my coursework has the same target audience, which is a niche market of people who are interested in buying regional magazines and knowing about their local county.

My ancillary product helps people understand the main product (SURREY LIVING) as in the bottom right hand corner is a small copy of the magazine so it can be easily identified in shops. All of my coursework can communicate similar themes and messages through following codes and conventions that can be easily identified by the public.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From my carrying out my questionnaire and then analyzing the results I have established whom my target audience for my magazine SURREY LIVING will be. I have also established exactly what I need to do to gain there attention, and what price to sell my product at. 

Who is my target audience? 

My target audience is going to be people of the age 41 and over, more targeted at people in the over 55 category as this is the age of when people are beginning to retire, who have more spare time and are able to go out and enjoy what Surrey will have to offer to them. 

How will I attempt to target this group of people?

From my questionnaire I was able to gain some information on what people like to see and read in a Regional Magazine.

I found out that both men and women like to read Regional Magazines, an equal amount of each sex.

The majority of people who answered my questionnaire said that they like to know what is going on in a number of areas throughout Surrey. People are interested to know about:

·      Local Landmarks

·      Tour Dates

·      Exhibitions

·      Open Days

·      Festival Tickets

·      Recent Events

·      Out & About Activities

·      Food & Drink (Restaurant Reviews)

I aim to include all of these areas in my magazine so that it will be appealing to as many people as possible but within the price of £2.00 - £3.50 per magazine.

My audience questionnaire told me that people like to see bright colours to catch their eye, but I believe that it was more beneficial for my Regional Magazine to use soft and pastel colours as they are warm and realistic for people to look at, especially as the front cover image features a real image.

I believe that the strongest element of my coursework is the double page spread that I have created for my regional magazine. To be able to write the article I had to carry out a large amount of research which involved going into Farnham; looking around the castle and visiting their small museum to find out facts and figures to write about. I also walked around the town taking nearly 300 photos of possible images to feature on the double page spread; this including visiting the bush hotel grounds, walking through downing street at the high street with all the shops and up Castle Street to look at all the cobbled streets and small lanes.

When I found the suitable photos and information to plan my article and design my double page spread I was ready to create my regional magazine double page spread, ‘Why you should come to Farnham’.

I created my double page spread on InDesign, a software that I could use a range of tools on to create my work to a high standard.

Stroke: You can apply ‘strokes’, or line settings, to paths, shapes, text frames, and text outlines. The Stroke panel provides control over the weight and appearance of the stroke, including how segments join, start and end shapes, and options for corners. You can also select stroke settings in the Control panel when a path or frame is selected.

Taken from:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/InDesign/6.0/WSa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-6bfba.html

Blend: The Blend tool and Make Blend command let you create blends, which are a series of intermediate objects and colors between two or more selected objects.

Taken from:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Illustrator/14.0/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-6442a.html

Painting: A few of the painting tools in Photoshop are the brush, pencil, gradient and paint bucket tools. These can be used to retouch images by altering and adding colored pixels.

Drawing: Photoshop includes a few versions of the pen tool. The pen tool creates precise paths that can be manipulated using anchor points

Cropping and Slicing: The crop tool can be used to select a particular area of an image and discard the portions outside of the chosen section. This tool assists in creating a focus point on an image and excluding unnecessary or excess space.

Taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop

I feel the weakest element of my project is the layout of my front cover design. If I were to redo this part of my coursework I would put more thought into the spacing and the shapes that I use. I would maybe use a range of different fonts and change the sizing depending on the importance and what I want people to see first when they look at it.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To create my coursework I needed to use a range of both hardware and software. With this range of technology I was able to create my final product to the standard that I am really pleased with. When I started my coursework I had a limited amount of skills on a number of the software programs. Through creating my coursework these skills have developed and will hopefully be able to help me in the future when I create further projects on these particular programs.

Hardware -

Camera: I was given a Canon SLR Photography Camera to take my photographs with; I used this type of camera to enable me to take high quality pictures for my coursework. This camera allowed me to zoom in and out, focusing on particular areas within the shot.

Software -

Photoshop: This is a graphics editing program that was originally developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated. I have used this software to create my front cover, contents page and billboard poster.

InDesign: I used InDesign to create my double page spread. InDesign is most often used to create posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books; therefore using it to create my magazine double page spread seemed most suitable.

Facebook: For part of my coursework I used Facebook, a social network. On Facebook I was able to upload and share my work with nearly 1000 friends. Through doing this I was able to gain a small amount of feedback from friends. Below is a screenshot of my double page spread that I have posted on Facebook.

As you can see from the above picture, this is some feedback I gained. A few people have commented that they like the layout design I have used. Which is also something I also like about my work; I thought about it very carefully and played around until I got it to exactly how I wanted it.

Georgie Ford has commented on how she likes the clear heading. As you can see from looking at the double page spread I have broken the article up into small sections with clear paragraphs and subheadings. Georgie also commented on the background opacity. I did this to allow me to add photographs on to the top of the background without them merging into one and making it hard to look at.

Blogger: I have uploaded my work on to a blogging site – ‘BLOGGER’. I used blogger for my AS coursework when I created a music magazine. Whilst using blogger to upload my A2 coursework for my regional magazine there has been a program update. This program update was developed to try and make blogger simpler to use. I struggled with getting used to it at first but am now able to use it and there is also now more tools to use on blogger. I can change the font size, style and colour. Which wasn’t a previous tool on blogger it was all one simple font.

Blogger have made it easier and faster to import pictures and videos. This has been very beneficial for myself, as I have needed to import a number of screen shots, images, videos and voice recording for my coursework.

Radio Recording – SoundCloud: I came across a hindrance as I wasn’t able to directly upload my radio advert recording on to blogger, as the file wasn’t being recognised. This caused a bit of a problem but after carefully thinking about it; I decided to make a SoundCloud account and try and upload it from there. I was successfully able to upload my file that can now be seen on blogger for everyone to listen too.