7. What have you learnt?..

https://prezi.com/xgflyqz2t5hf/7-what-have-you-learnt/#


I am sorry for not putting this as a proper prezi or link, for some reason there is an error and it doesn't let me do that.
You just have to copy the link and paste it on the new opened tab. Thank You

2. How does your media product represent different social groups?

My media product (music magazine) represents directly my target audience.
It represents young people between the age of 18 and 25, mostly having either part or full time jobs and studying at the same time.

My media product does not represent particular gender, however as I mentioned before, magazine is targeted more at females than males (in ratio 60%:40%)

The actual magazine obviously shows the main hobbies of the social group I am representing - loud electronic dance music, festivals, gigs, partying and etc, however because my T.A has at least part-time job and is over 18 shows that I am trying to represent young adults which already know what they are doing with their lives, not raving teenagers buying tickets to festivals from their parents pockets. This is the biggest difference between my magazine and other existent magazine which are this particular type.

The social group that is being represented through my product are knowledgeable people with goals in their lives and with very big union hobby - the same music. This brings us to the name of my magazine (EDM united) which also represents this social group.

My main goal is to show that people who listen to this type of music are united by it, there are all different types of people, different personalities and maybe couple of different hobbies but mainly the same background and goals.

I am not representing particular ethnicity, magazine targeted to every ethnicity which allows the product to be sold in different countries, different cultures and in general - wider population.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through the whole course of constructing magazines I have used Blogger, Photoshop, inDesign, PowerPoint, YouTube, SlideShare, Prezi and etc.

Blogger I have used it before so it was easier for me, I found it easy to use, learnt more things about layout by finding it myself. It is an easy way to express yourself because it is easy to use, to publish almost any format of your chosen work as it works well with other programs or technologies.

Photoshop CS6. I have never used it before and found it very hard to start using, was not trained enough to understand what I am doing, and that's why was so behind with all my work. Also thought it was not fair because have to be bought necessarily as asked to work a lot of time after college whereas cannot do it. Time consuming because hard to find how to do easy thing, so in the end to edit small bits I have used picmonkey.com rather than Photoshop. In PS working with big files which means bigger possibility of the whole system to crash and you lose your work very easily.

InDesign CS6. I think it's really similar to Microsoft Word so found it easy to use, easy to find everything and to express yourself. Did not have major big problems with this program.

Other small websites used to publish my work virtually wasn't hard to use either.

I would rather do all this work myself, not on computer as I find it easier to make different, to make something unique and unknown but it is just my opinion. The main thing when the system crashes you lose everything and have to start from the beginning whereas doing it by hand means you are responsible yourself for what you did and how you will develop your work.

5. How did you attract your audience?

Question 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Every single media product has it's own specific targeted audience which reads the product through certain conventions or stereotypes of media product.
My music magazine is based on electronic dance music which originally is strongly related (moreover stereotyped) with loud music, partying, alcohol, night  clubs, bars and young people (but over 18 years old). I did not try to challenge these conventions, I tried to follow them so my media product would be easier recognized by specific target audience and would be popular.

My magazine called 'EDM United' shows these specific conventions through the front cover's background colour being black to begin with. Main character wearing dark shirt which nearly blends in the background letting the main focus be on the actual artist's face and pose. My magazine is about the artist itself, not about the background, location or others which is one of my unique selling points. Darkness connotes about young adults, partying, festivals and etc which means it meets the goals to represent my target audience very well.
I have chosen the model with strong masculine facial features that females admire (sticking out cheek bones, lips line, dark deep eyes) which means females would want to be WITH him, while males would like to BE him. Attracting both gender just in range 60% to 40% (females to males). The actual pose of model lets T.A see more of the athletic body which means T.A is more likely to stop and have a closer look - bigger possibility of selling it. The serious face and direct gaze also connotes about the genre and give bigger possibility to attract the audience. The front cover model always serious, mysterious, has sexy appeal and might not even have anything in the picture related with music (Mixmag 'Tiga' article - September/October 2014 issue) but I did not wanted to risk to put the model without any related props, as it is a new magazine, not established and T.A do not trust the brand yet, so I put the headphones on the shoulders of my model, as this is the strongest possible connotation of electronic dance music.
My magazine has less cover lines than most of the magazine, this is the place where I wanted to challenge conventions by showing that the artist is the main focus and he sells it.

All my choices are based on my previous research in already existent electronic dance music magazines.

Focus Group Analysis

In order to find out more about my Target Audience, to find out what are their opinions about my media product I did a focus group.
I used three girls quite the same age rage, making sure they could be a part of my target audience. (in other words I made sure they are representative sample taken out of the whole Target Audience Population.

The first question I asked all of them was 'What do you like doing in your free time?'

Just to make sure they all enjoy quite the same things and also to make sure they have what to talk about to start with. (This gave me the opportunity to make the impression of 'friend to friend' chat) The answers I got was going to gigs or festivals, hanging out with friends, listening to music, having 'active' lifestyle. Which proved that my sample is representative as it matches my T.A profile hobbies. 

Then I showed them my front cover image : 

 

And asked them to identify genre of the magazine and to tell me what makes them believe it.

All three my respondents identified genre correctly, they said they can see it through the colours used also the masthead, writing and the main character (headphones, attractiveness, etc)

Focus group was very happy about the grey font colour instead of white. They said 'White became boring, on every single magazine front cover whereas grey looks more playful, more dragging attention. The same with the use of dark blue colour font. Very rarely you see the magazine which uses the dark blue font. But it is well-played as it matches the main character's shirt.'

Also focus group participants said that most of the topics on the front cover works well for electronic dance music magazine. Unique masthead which is behind main character's head, which means all the attention is allocated at the main character.

Afterwards I showed my focus group a picture of my contents page (still a draft version)

The biggest concern from focus group when it comes to my contents page was about using words and number ON the pictures, instead of next to it, but I was recommended earlier to move it on images as it is hard to understand which image goes with which text bit.

Focus group liked the use of colours as they said it matches the front cover.
I asked 'Can you tell me if this is the same magazine and why?'

Mostly mentioned answers were use of colour, use of font, the same character, the same name of the magazine (at the bottom)

The third bit I showed was my double page spread :

(left side)

(right side)

I am worried about the light blue quote in the middle of the text, as the text does not wrap around (if it does - it just looks not right, the whole text stretched out through lines. So I asked my focus group opinions about it.

'This version of the quote in the middle doesn't look bad, it just looks a bit untidy. I would prefer to see more black from the right side of the quote' said one of the focus group members.

That was the most important question for me. The other questions was about questions and how well does that stand out of the whole text, is it not the 'anti-modern' way to drag attention to the text using underline tool. 

Girls were positive about using this tool they said it worked very well knowing the whole genre of the magazine. 

All the students used were non-media students which made sure they are not looking for 'conventions' or anything that media students would pay attention at first. Also all the work was shown digitally which made sure my participants do not have to look at two separate pages stretched out like now on this blog, they've seen the actual way it looks. Also I had couple of drafts on paper, but that was old drafts just for comparison between my old 'dps' and the current one to see my participants opinions about it. 

Overall I got the idea that I am doing the right thing as anything that my participants had to compare seemed that the they liked the new work much more than the old one.

Finished Music Magazine Contents page

This is my finished electronic dance music magazine contents page. I added one more story (page 38) and I put folios on corner of pictures as it makes more sense and in this case it relates with the story easier than trying to figure out which story with with image.

Finished double page spread

left page

right page

I have changed nearly everything on this page from the very first idea. I have chosen light blue as the dark one is really hard to real when it is printed out. Questions stands out because they are outlined but it does not mix up with the qoute because it is still white. I also have gaps between the text and questions which drags T.A attention to questions as well.

Images are very modern but still has connotations about music. Seems very futuristic. Main character looks like very brave, modern, not a 'classical' person, with lots of views of life and lots of goals, trying to achieve everything.

Modernism works well with my type of music as it connotes about electronic dance music.

The only thing I don't like about this double page spread is that every question was supposed to stand out and have gaps before and after the question. However because of lack of time I missed one gap before the second question, which already makes the whole double page spread look not neat.

Finished Music Magazine Front Cover

My music magazine's genre is electronic dance music, which is why my magazine is named 'EDM United'.

'United' connotes about people who love the same type of music uniting into one big group. As music makes strangers into friends especially at such events like festivals where lots of strangers enjoy the same type of music. 

'United' also connotes about lots of different people where is no discrimination, all different people are friends because music unites all of them into one big group of friends.

I have chosen certain colours of background (the colour of background is original, image is not cropped out, as it looks more real in this way). Dark background reminds about clubs, nights at festivals as young people always say 'best things happen at night'. My model had headphones on his shoulders which is the best connotation that my magazine is about music and most likely he is a DJ. All the colours go well together.

It is hard to find a magazine that would use dark blue on the front cover or in the magazine, which means it is one of my USP's as well. It catches attention and connotes about maturity. (As I mentioned lots of times, my T.A. is around the age of 18 and 25, average is 21.5 years old)

Because the whole magazine is quite dark, the main thing that I tried to outline is my model which shows masculinity, attractiveness especially that small cheeky smile on his face. Direct gaze means that every single female (applicable more for females than males) will stop for a second and look at him as if he is looking JUST at her (or him). This will make my T.A. more attracted to my magazine, they will feel as if they are 'closer' to my main character. (like knowing him personally).

I have used cover lines that mostly just people who are interested into electronic dance music would understand and this would drag their attention to it (based on T.A research).

Magazine style looks more informal, 'friendly' type. My T.A would not feel the massive  gap between the T.A and the magazine model.

Changes after hot desking

Before                                                                                                        After

I have got some nice feedback on my contents page, the only one thing my audience did not like was folios being on different sides. So what I changed was mostly just organised all the folios on one side. They still do not look very even on the side, but it is in working process.

Before                                                                                                        After 

I also got some nice feedback on my front cover, but audience did not like the gap on the left side next to his head, which I have fixed moving topics a bit up and changing places so text would not blend into his arm.

The next thing was the box, but just minority said that they do not like it. I made it slightly darker and more see-through also moved it a bit down. I changed the colour of the elipse as well to a bit darker, not that attention seeking grey colour. 

Question 4. Who would be the audience for my media product?