Evaluation

In my Case Study I have done research in the research, planning and production of music magazines such as NME or Q. I looked into USP (Unique Selling Point) of different magazines to see what made them stand out and the public to buy them. With this research it has enabled me to produce a high standard of work for my (Front Cover, Contents and Double Page Spread) and a greater knowledge and understanding of technology, media terminology and media as a whole.
Throughout my Case Study I have always targeted a certain segmentation of the population which is the 15-35 year olds, I knew this was a large segmentation however I still feel it to be a good choice and hopefully it will increase sales. I chose this age variety by finding Primary and Secondary research to discover some of the reasons why this age group would by my magazine. The Primary research I took part in was my questionnaire which I gave to around 70 people with varying ages and gender. I then looked into a company called acorn which can look into public spending and see what target age would best suit my magazine.
The research I found and made told me that teenagers like large pictures that stand out from the rest and articles on the artists themselves. They also prefer a magazine which has a limited amount of writing which meant I had to make short snappy Mastheads to get their attention.Throughout my Case Study I found that I have increased my knowledge and understanding of media terminology and concepts. would have helped to upgrade my coursework to the level it would need to be in order to get the grade I want. I also feel that I needed to be more organised in how I conduct my research and development to save time which has been very important to have.
The reactions from the target audience showed positive signs that the research I gathered was correct and that people like the layout and theme which makes the magazine stick out from the competition. I know this by looking at the questionnaires I gave to people and their reactions and answers they gave me. I also gathered some comments about the ‘Creativity of the layout of the magazine’ but also gathered to negative points such as people want free sample CD’s and posters which I didn’t include any. Despite the negative comments I got a fair number of positives manly which came from my expected target audience. I am not however going to change anything on my course work as I believe it to be good.
Not long after receiving my coursework brief explaining that I had to do a music magazine. I photographed a variety of different things to experiment with various different variables like time of day, position/angel shooting from, type of stage, stage lighting etc. which helped me considerably to get the correct shot for my magazine.
I found a number of advantages with the new technologies and how they can help increase the quality of the work. I deliberately took a lot more shots than I needed because, thanks to new digital technologies, I could hold over hundreds of photos on my digital camera which had a 5 megapixel lens allowing me to experiment and try different types of shot. I kept all the shots I took and filtered them down after I got home and uploaded them onto my computer where I could easily display which photos came out well and which didn’t. However I deleted lots of the bad shots. There are a number of computer programs such as ‘Microsoft Digital Imaging Suite’ I used to manipulate images to help the picture stand out or blend in. This enabled me to change the images to how I want them and ‘Microsoft Publisher’ enabled me to change and update the layout of the pages.
I believe that my magazine would easily manage to sell on high street shop shelves. Such as WHSmiths and some supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Waitrose and many other small stores. Having the magazine in a various number of different shops can help towards targeting different social groups which can help increase the demand of the magazine.Overall I feel that my Coursework has been completed to a high standard and that my detail is relevant and up to date. I also think that I used my USP to my advantage because of the way I used it to get close to my target audience. But I did find that there were a few areas I would change if I did this again. The other major problem was that I needed to save my work more regularly because I found that when the computer found a problem I lost a lot of my work. This put more pressure and stress on me which meant I couldn’t work at my full potential.