Evaluation Question K: Technologies

http://www.flipsnack.com/NathanPunter/evaluation-question-k-technologies.html

J. Evaluation: addressing an audience

Evaluation J: Addressing an audience

The point of sale for my magazine will start in major retailers such as Tesco or WHS Smith; these are the places where I believe my magazine will be noticed by a larger amount of people easily allowing it to gain popularity quickly, especially with my target audience. With the increased popularity I will begin having opportunities to sell my magazines in places such as large gigs where the attendees will majorly be my target audience, HMV retail plenty of products that are appealing to my audience, or clothing and skate shops that have a frequent amount of my target audience going in, this will increase the sales of my magazine steadily as these will be places focused on my target audience already.

The colour scheme on the front cover comes across as dark, though still very attractive from the bright yellow, an instant correlation on the magazine between punk music due to its ark culture though it has features that have been made to stand out more than others using bright colours, drawing attention, the colour scheme represents the music genre as a whole. My masthead is a unique selling point on magazine as I have named it after an effect commonly used in music to get a different noise, distorted, the title itself represents the magazine as a whole anyway; another way of outputting to an audience. Thomas Griffin, the person modelling my main cover photo, is showing direct mode of address, this is to make the audience feel as if he’s looking straight out at them, a more personal relationship between the main articles figure and the audience. All cover lines are placed down the right side of the magazine, a way of laying out my magazine cover in order to clearly present what is in my magazine as not to come across as messy, though I have made it a little messy and informal to appeal to the audience. The cover lines themselves all use large bold fonts, to show a sense of urgency more than anything, the yellow font draws the attention to who the story is about then the red is the descriptive of the story in order to see if the audience will want to read on. In order to make sure I had got the layout and design spot on, I constantly asked for criticism from my target audience and even had a questionnaire that went out to my audience in order to know what they want in the magazine.

When deciding on questions to ask Thomas Griffin I found that the majority of the people I had asked about what should be featured suggested that they would like to know a lot about his music other than just personal life, this is something they believe other magazines do poorly and feel that the articles are not what they are looking for, so I asked a few about his personal life but focused on his musical career. I also chose the question and answer format for the reason that he is new to the scene and people want to know about him before an article is written on him, this will get them interested in this person and increase his popularity. The language used clearly shows that this magazine is targeted to those between 16 and over, where the use of curse words are used for example as this is just how those that follow this culture are tailored to talk generally, but the interview as a whole is very friendly in the sense that it is very mellow and something that people will enjoy reading. There is also a few uses of slang though this won’t be noticed as much by my target audience as this is common etiquette of talking to each other.

Evaluation : Target audience

http://www.flipsnack.com/NathanPunter/evaluation-e-target-audience.html

Draft Work

Original Ideas Statement

Construction Schedule

Week 1 (5^th-9^th October) -Complete the three product drafts and other planning work

Week 2 and 3 (12^th-16^th October) -Photo shoot for magazine images, at least four images for the whole magazine

Week 4 (19^th-23rd October) -Create front cover template, collect text from websites such as dafont ready to place, edit front cover image in order to be used

Week 5 (26^th-30^th October) - Place all text on front colour and also the main image, then adjust these where necessary adding colour to text finding out what’s most suitable, now add shapes and banners to front cover.

Week 6 (2^nd - 6^th November) -Create contents page template, collect text from font websites ready to place, edit all of the images that I am planning to use in order to be used.

Week 7 (9^th-13^th November) - Place all text on contents page, add the images, then adjust these where necessary adding colour to text finding out what’s most suitable, fill in the shapes that I had placed on the blank template.

Week 8(16^th-20^th   November) - Create feature article template, collect title  ready to place, edit the double page spread image in order to be used as this will require quite a bit of editing, finally write out the article ready to copy over into Photoshop..

Week 9(23^rd -27^th November) -Place the image on to the page and add the article text over it then change the colour for it to correspond, next add the title in order to find out what colour to make it in order for it to stand out, now add conventions such as drop caps for it to follow traditional form and conventions.

Week 10(30^th November- 4^th December) - Add all finishing touches and tweaks to final products.

Location, props, costumes

Location/props/costumes

A range of components have to be considered when taking these images, but mainly how to make them relate to the target audience and stay relevant to the magazine. The aspects I have had to plan out are the props I will need the person to be holding or in the background, costumes that they will all be wearing as this is a key point in trying to relate to an audience, then lastly the location as to where the pictures will be taken to create the correct ambience, having a mise-en-scene that appeals to an audience is a dire need as these are strong selling points.

The main image on the front cover will be an image of Tom, Tom is the one who has volunteered to partake, though it can’t just be an image of him on a dormant space. He will need to be accompanied by details that will make the image appealing to my target audience, the electric guitar strapped around his neck will be a key point, and then large amps scattered in order to show that the magazine is loud with no drawback on quality. Contents page will have images of the items related to what the pages article is, bands, competition wins etc… The main article will have another image of Thomas as the front cover links to the feature article, to follow the conventions of popular magazines.

Costumes will need to be chosen accordingly to follow the stereotypical ‘punk look’, so the appropriate apparel will be generally skinny jeans or ripped jeans, skating style trainers, a shirt accompanied with an under shirt, denim vests and their own band shirts used for self-marketing their merchandise. Same with hairstyles, a non-formal, ‘against society’ look is what is commonly found, e.g. mohawks, so I will be using messy/spiky hair that will give this impression across. All of these are what make up the punk community as a stereotype and this will give the direct relations between the target audience and Thomas, who is the main selling point of the magazine, so he will need to be connected to the reader in one way or another.

Where I take the images will be an feature that needs to be accounted for, I will not use the studio the college has to offer for the reason that I believe it will be more appropriate to do it in a place that’s similar to the likes of an abandoned warehouse or a graffiti covered run down area of town in the evening, a studio would not appeal to my target audience. However, I will use the studio to get an upper body shot on Thomas and for a group photo that will represent a band, these are to show off these people formally and in a way that will come across as giving the audience a direct mode of address in order to become more personal with the reader. The other images will be taken in a gig location as to show off a band and how they connect to the genre, plenty of amps and instruments, then my feature article will be taken in a night time setting out in a ‘rundown’ section of a neighbourhood to show that he’s anarchistic and does what he wants.

To conclude my images will need to be having similar codes and conventions that a general punk fan follows the location and style. Skinny jeans that look worn out, even slightly torn in areas, shoes that look like they would typically come from a cheap skate shop included with used laces scuffed at the sides nearer the ends similar to a normal skaters shoes. A shirt that could be formal but has been made to look informal to show off that they don’t take pride in what they look like, how they go against orthodox intentionally. The hairstyle will be messy similar to popular punk bands that as sum 41 for instance, having similarities between popular bands in the scene will give clear indicators of how say Tom will portray himself as. My original images will be taken in a warehouse that’s currently being made up, this has the abandoned feel to it along with the gear everywhere and slightly ruined, but also to show we go anywhere we want, going against society as this is what my target audience will relate to.

Font style and colour mood boards

The font styles I have included in my mood boards all follow the same theme, a tattered, unorthodox theme. I have chosen this style as they all represent my magazine for what it is a punk rock magazine, and due to the target audience being seen as anarchistic I want to be able to produce something they will actually want to read. Times New Roman is not a font that my target audience will want to be reading, probably discouraging them from reading again due to its lack of relativity and just comes across as overall boring.

The designs come in a number of different styles, though all will still be suitable, just some take upon a different format. The ‘ALL RIGHTS RESERVED’ in the bottom right corner is a lot more stand out than say the ‘Dirty Headline’ font style but both will still work, just the ‘ALL RIGHTS RESERVED’ will most likely be used as a title in the feature article for example and the dirty headline would be used for something similar to a coverline on the cover. ‘QUARTZO’ found in centre page, is a font that seems very formal and could be used as a masthead, however the masthead could also be undertaken by a font like ‘THE UNKNOWN’ or the ‘CUT THE CRAP’ due to its crisp neat characters that also give a depth of unique personality.

The colours I have gone for are all the highest rated in the questionnaire I have given out, and also chosen due to their contrasts with other colours, e.g. the red contrasts will with blue, similar to yellow and green. All these colours are very bold and stand out to a reader, which is what I am going for, and this is also what the target audience wants as this questionnaire was issued to this group of people.

The colours that I intend on using will be white, black, red and probably yellow. The black and white are usually found everywhere due to black making an easy to read font colour within articles, and the white creates good contrast to this making it easier for the reader to read. The colours also make good detailing colours and background colour, the black and white, especially for the red and yellow, makes everything clear on it that goes over the top that’s why they will be used to outline fonts, pictures and create backgrounds etc…

The red and yellow will be a good choice as both of these are prime, if I use a lot of these on the front cover it will be extremely appealing for public. They will stand out further if I use them in combination with the black or white, and this is what I’m going for, if it’s mainly black and white it will look unattractive and extremely boring so it won’t reach out to the target audience. The red and yellow will be used generally for titles, banners, coverlines etc… as these are the key parts to a magazine that needs to stand out most.

Contact Sheets

The majority of the pictures that I had taken are of Thomas, this is due to him being the main selling point of the magazine and I needed his shot to contain every convention that will lead to him appealing to the audience more. The image that I had selected ‘IMG_8094.JPG’, fulfils each aspect I wanted to hit, it follows direct mode of address in order to make it personal, the camera angle is not low or high which can show superiority on either end it’s a three quarters shot which makes him come across with more personality, the facial expression is stern which is common in a magazine similar to this as it shows they are passionate about their music in a sense that they are completely serious. The image was taken in the studio in order for me to apply my own background or a fill colour for the front cover with applied effects, much like most popular music magazines.

The feature article will have one image spread across both pages and this is shot ‘DSCF0853.JPG’, for this I have had to utilize many aspects in order for him to look how I want him to appear. Firstly, because it’s on the feature article page I have taken into account the rule of thirds, due to how people read they will see Thomas and then move onto the article if I put him on the left side of the shot. I have had to use street lighting to my advantage where it appears from the corner of the image, however I have intended for this to look like stage lighting similar to him being at a concert, a way of coming across to the target audience as they will think he is a big performer and him giving the impression he is in a place like where the target audience often go to gives across more of a direct feel.

I used three on my contents; two are closely linked due to them being part of the same article. Image ‘12516198_449…’ and ‘12528159_449…’ these two use the same people as I wanted to create effect on the image by giving a description of the story only using images, showing the band has been departed and two have gone from the band. Both taken in the studio as I wanted the group photo to blend into the background, and I also wanted the double person shot to stand out from that photo whilst overlapping at the same time. To do this I had to consider lighting and camera width, the lighting had to create the effect on the image in order to give them a dramatic look and show they are the main part of the story, whereas the group photo was just a plain lighting to highlight the group as equals. The camera width had to be considered on the group photo as it had to show the entire band but keep a large image depth also in order to try putting them in the backseat of the story, though they are still related to it they are not the main part. Image ‘12231277_102…’ is an image I took of ‘Burn the Headlines’ whilst they set up for one of their gigs, though I had no control over lighting, I took this image due to the mise-en-scene. They have all their gear out on stage about to set up showing what it takes for them to get ready, what equipment they use etc… this is what makes them relatable to the target audience as the gear alone and the fact that it shows they are a band will be appealing for the audience as this is what they want to hear about in the magazine, and instantly recognizing this band could be something they will enjoy based on what is a part of the shot leading them to read on further.