Evaluation of "In The Know" magazine

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

My magazine follows the conventions of a real, professional product of the same medium. The front cover includes conventional aspects such as an edited photograph, a headline, a masthead, a sub-heading, a bar code and the price.

How does your Media product represent
particular social groups?

The social group that has been represented in my media product is young students. They have been represented through still photographs, all of which I took and edited myself. I wanted to portray the people in my photograph as relaxed, happy and enjoying their time at Wyke, as the primary aim of my magazine is to promote the college. I feel that I achieved this as the students are smiling and appear cheerful and comfortable.

My photographs show students both socializing and studying within the college. I decided to use a mixture of locations and situations because I wanted to show the audience that Wyke is an environment for both work and one in which you can meet up with and make new friends.

What kind of Media institution might distribute
your media product and why?

The institution that would distribute my product would be Wyke College, as the magazine is designed to inform students, parents and staff about things going on around the college.

Who would be the audience for your Media
product?

The audience for my magazine would be quite wide, including current students, their parents, prospective students and staff.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I used a variety of techniques to make my magazine appealing to my wide target audience. I wanted my magazine to look professional so I used a limited pallet of colours that complimented each other to keep the design simple, not over-complicated. I found that this made the magazine seem more mature and would therefore also be suitable for parents and staff. I used bold lettering to make the masthead and headline stand out, so that my audience would find it eye-catching. Another technique that I used to draw in the audience was to give short snippets of the articles inside the magazine on the front cover so that they would want to buy the magazine to find out more. I found that this technique was used on a lot of the other magazines I looked at as part of my research.

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

Producing the magazine has taught me a lot about the processes institutions must go through when producing this kind of media product. I used quite a wide variety of software to produce my magazine, and one of the most time consuming processes was editing the photographs, which a lot of thought and consideration went into. I feel this preliminary task has made me more aware of how important a high quality photograph is to the appearance of the front cover.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?

I have found this preliminary exercise very useful as I am now aware of the codes and conventions magazines must follow, therefore I have a foundation of ideas to inspire me when I go on to produce the larger section of this coursework. I have also learnt some new techniques to edit photographs using photoshop which I did not know about before. In addition to this I have broadened my understanding of technical terminology and have learnt some useful pointers to bear in mind when taking photographs, such as framing.