Evaluation

Q: Who would be the audience for your media product?

In regards to an audience, I feel that my ideal magazine readers would be between the ages of 11 and 18. These are the ages of students who attend the school. Students, I feel, are a much better audience to target my magazine at instead of parents. This is because the pupils of the school are much more affected by the "goings on" around the school, thus making the articles inside my magazine much more relevant to them. I also feel that the design of my magazine helps appeal to my target audience. For example, the front cover uses bold,vibrant colours such as strong shades of blue and yellow. These colours have connotations of fun and excitement, something that a target audience of 11-18 years would relate to. I have also tried to keep text to a minimum on my front cover in hopes of, yet again, appealing to my chosen audience. From verbal research I found that 11-18 year olds do not like excessive amounts of text. This then prompted me to ensure minimal text was evident on my cover.

For my contents page I decided to strive towards simplistic visualisation. This was again due to the various comments I received on how a simple design is much easier on the eyes which also helps the reader to navigate through the page. This was ideal for a target audience of 11-18 years as peopele of this age group prefer to read less text.


Q: What have you learnt about technologies form the process of constructing this product?

During the process of constructing my magazine I have learnt a variety of new skills that, I feel, have allowed me to excel in the technological aspects of this task. During the early stages of the process I was unfamiliar with various editing software such as Adobes Fireworks. However, in time, I came to terms with how the software operates and have thus acquired a variety of new skills. These skills include removing parts of images, creating drop shadows, editing a variety of Mastheads and learning how to professionally edit photos. All these different aspects of technologies has taught me how many different features there are to editing, and has broadened my field of expertise in the subject.


Q: In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of school magazines?

My product has aspects of both conforming to and subverting various conventions typically found in a school magazine. For example, my Masthead is big, bold and takes up most of the space in the top half of my magazine. This is true not only for school magazines, but magazines in general. My main image is of a school student engaging in an everyday school situation. This can be seen in most school magazines and is a common convention they all follow. My strap lines are all placed to the left hand side of my magazine and follow the same house style, yet another common convention my magazine uses. During my research I found that most school magazines were colourful and vibrant. I then tried to follow this convention via my Masthead and house style by incorporating a variety of different colours such as Red, Yellow and Blue. The challenging of conventions however can be seen in my contents page. Within my contents page are two cropped images. These images are cropped at unusual angles, something that was not present in my research of school magazines. Although minor, I feel that by editing the images in this way has given them an extra flair and is a feature that is unique to my magazine.