My questionnaire I used to evaluate my final media product

1. What do you associate with the name of the magazine?

- Royalty
- Guitars
- Class
- Indie
- Middle ages
- Music

Generally i'm pleased with what people associated with the magazine. It was quite interesting however to see that one person though of the middle ages when looking at the name of the magazine.

2. What does the main image on the front cover make you think of?

- Uncertainty
- Lonelyness
- Awkwardness
- Quirky
- Lonelyness
- Mad

I'm pleased with the feedback I got for my magazine becuase lonelyness was what I was mainly going for and two people voted for it, which was nice.

3. Which of the cover stories do you think is most interesting?

- Biffy Clyro hitting the mainstream - 4
- Tom Wolf life story - 1
- Squire awards - 1

I think my the Biffy Clyro story got the most votes becuase they are a recognised band and this article I thought would really interest people.

4. Is the front cover appealing? Explain why or why not

- Yes - 6
- No - 0

- Well layed out
- Looks professional
- Good colour scheme
- Well layed out
- Funny Picture
- Appealing

My results show that people found my front cover appealing. I was particularly happy with the fact that someone thought that my cover looked professional.

5.  Which age group do you think the magazine appeals to?

- 11-14 - 0
- 15-18 - 3
- 19-22 - 2
- 23-26 - 1
- 26-34 - 0
- 35+ - 0

The older teenager was the target audience I was trying to attract so i'm pleased with these results. It shows that my magazine looked mature.

6. Which gender do you think it’s aimed at?

Male - 4
Female - 2

I was trying to attract both genders in my magazine so it was nice to see that both genders got votes, it would be nicer if they were a little more evenly spread however.

7. What genre do you associate with the cover?

- Indie
- Rock
- Indie
- Indie
- Alternative
- Rock

Again these results were good becuase my targeted genre for my magazine was Indie/Rock.

8. Is the layout of the contents page clear and easy to use?

Yes - 6
No - 0

I aimed to keep my magazine as clear as possible so these results show that I succeeded at that.

9. Is the contents page attractive to look at?

Yes - 5
No - 1

Generally positive results but the person who voted no said that the colour of my contents page was a bit difficult to look at as the colours were quite bright, like the yellow writing.

10. Does the contents page resemble a page from a music magazine?

Yes - 6
No - 0

I tried to replicate NME's contents page so i'm glad that people thought it resembled well.

11. Is the content of the article of interest to you?

Yes - 6
No - 0

I tried to attract a wide variety of people, I know it is hard to see if i succeeded at that by only interviewing six people but from this the feedback is positive.

12. Does the headline make you want to read the article?

Yes - 6
No- 0

I made the title as bold as possible and took up two pages to make it stand out more.

13. Does the main picture represent the content of the article successfully?

Yes - 6
No - 0

I chose the pictures very carefully when creating the magazine becuase I took a lot of photos and I thought the ones I chose worked well together.

14. Would you buy the magazine for the cover price?

Yes - 4
No - 2

I just made up a random price for my magazine so if I wanted to really release it i would have to do some real research into the price's of magazines.

15. How would you rate the quality of the overall magazine? 1 bad 5 good

- 4
- 5
- 5
- 5
- 4
- 4

Overall i'm very happy with the results of for my magazine and these ratings are all positive so i'm very pleased.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task I feel that I have learnt many various valuable techniques and methods that have helped me improve on my preliminary task greatly.

I've learnt about the importance of images in a magazine production and most importantly the main image on the cover, because ultimately that's what the reader is going to see first. The main image on my final production looks a lot more professional than my preliminary task and seems to suit the page well. My final production of my music magazine also contains a subsidury image, which is something I didn't have on my school magazine. I think the subsidury image makes the page look a lot more like a finished product, as the preliminary task looks a little bare and unfinished.
                                       
I feel my ability to use the relative technology (eg adobe indesign) has improved a lot as well. I have got used to working with the programs and I feel confident with them, which I'm very happy with. Also I feel after creating my media product I have come on a lot with using a camera, I have learnt how to use certain effects and I feel I can now take better shots.

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

Technologies I used...
  The actual production of my magazine was mainly completed on Adobe In -     Design. This programme made it possible to create the magazine front cover, contents page and the double page. It allows you to add pictures, create text boxes, change layouts, add colours, insert images and many other features. It's very easy to use and the features on it make it possible for you to do exactly want you want, and makes everything very personal. It also made me appreciate however the time and effort it must take to actually produce a professional magazine, as everything takes a long time to get just right. So it gave me a really good incite on what professional production is like.


Paint shop Pro was used to edit and manipulate images for my magazine. I didn't really need to change much to my images so I didn't use this program much. It did help me learn how much you can do to actually change images and the ease of which you can do so.







The Internet was where I got the majority of my ideas for my magazine. I looked at professional magazines websites, and looked at images of real covers, double page spreads etc. So looking through the internet really helped me learn about the whole magazine industry in general.








The camera was the most important piece of equipment that I used for this task. Every image I used in my final production I took with a camera. Using the camera helped me learn about effects that you can use, and various ways to take a photo.
                



             

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

In order to try and attract my target audience I first and most importantly had to make the layout seem appealing. I tried to make it look non-cluttered, so that it's easier to read and looks more accessible for my audience. I tried to appeal to both genders with regard to the colour scheme and the bands I promoted on the cover. With the colour scheme I wanted it to be as vibrant as possible in order to attract peoples attention but at the same time I didn't want to use colours like bright pink or black because these colours you may associate with certain genders and with certain groups of people. I wanted my magazine to seem as open and accessible as I possibly could. I carefully picked out bands that I thought would appeal to both males and females without straying out of the boundaries of the 'Indie Rock' genre.

On my front cover I included many pull quotes to try and attract readers to buy my magazine such as having appealing things like a quiz. I tried to address readers personally also by saying things like 'see if you know your stuff', addressing the reader as 'you' establishes a certain amount of trust between the magazine and the reader. I promoted a free CD with the magazine so hopefully that would appeal to certain readers. I feel it is important in a magazine that if you are to promote artists, then it is good to include a CD with songs from these artists so that the reader can feel involved and listen to them while they read.

I also included on my front cover a promotion of the 'Squire awards'. I did this to make the magazine look prestigious by having its own awards ceremony. This hopefully would attract certain people.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience for my magazine would hopefully be the mature older teenager. The readers would have extensive musical knowledge, will have real passion for music, and will want to be kept up to date with the latest musical related news. I would hope to attract both males and females to the magazine and will try to concentrate on bands that will appeal to both genres. The genres that my magazine will cover will hopefully help attract a wide range of people, from Alternative to Indie all the way to Modern Rock.



My target audience will be avid attenders of gigs and so I will try and include as much news as possible on information about up and coming gigs and also reviews and interviews.

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

The chosen media institution I would have to distribute my media product would be the company Frontline. Frontline has joined up with other publishers like Haymarket publishing and BBC enterprises which then became BBC worldwide, to become a one of the leading distributors in the world and the most successful in the UK. 



Frontline distributes 160+ magazines from different companies and distributes magazines that are sold 8 million times a week in 55,000 shops around the UK. They use state of the art technology to work out which magazines go to which stores, so this technology would be extremely useful for a new magazine as they could target specific places that they think will be a good place to sell.



In addition to the fact that Frontline is a successful distributing company they also work with Bauer. Which is a multi-national global company that owns 282 magazines and is the largest consumer magazine publishing company in the UK. And so working for Bauer would really benefit any magazine.






Publisher > Distributor > Wholesaler > Retailer
(Bauer)        (Frontline)     (Storage)       (Shops)

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

Male: 80%

Female: 20%

Average age: 18

Still studying: 94%

Very active music purchasers, like to buy the odd CD but it's generally downloads and internet based music consumption.

I have tried to target a specific age range for my media product. I felt that to target a younger age range would be the most sensible because I myself being of that age will know what my audience would want. 

In order to represent my audience, I felt that colour was quite important. So I tried to incorporate quite vibrant colours in the layout of my magazine, and tried not to make it seem too dark, as the darker colour scheme tends to be on more heavy rock and metal magazines; and I wanted mine too seem very open and accessible for all readers of all music taste.

The audience I hope to target will be attending music concerts and will be avid consumers of music, so I tried to display and promote as many artists and events I could in my magazine. The genres I specifically concentrate on however would be more modern British rock and Indie, so those genres are primarily the styles of the music promoted in  my product and also the genre of the bands that are included in it.