Will Gardner AS Media

Monday, 20 February 2012

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

For my magazine I have chosen to distribute independently as that would be the best way to get 'Quirk' out to the desired audience. I would use a very similar distribution strategy to 'Vice'. My magazine would be placed in the obvious places like newsagents... but then also in bars, cafe's and in some shops like: Topman and Urban Outfitters.

I would definitely have a multi-platform strategy to distribute my magazine. By creating an application for IOS and Android, this would be a very good way to reach my target audience. With the latest news and even a mobile edition of the magazine, this is a perfect way to keep the audience interested and also attract the audience in bringing new customers. My magazine is aimed at 'indie' musicians and music lovers and i feel that the majority of these people would have some sort of device that uses apps, whether it be a phone, ipod or tablet. This is the market that we should be aiming at. Also I would have a digital copy of the magazine online available to download because not all the time will the customer be available to go out to buy the magazine, they can buy it from their own living room. Creating more and more different ways for the audience to get their hands on 'Quirk' will simply increase the profit dramatically.

Evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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Evaluation 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My magazine front cover uses many of the same forms and conventions that I discovered in my original research. The masthead stretches the width of the magazine and is in a large eye-catching font. The name 'Quirk' thought out in a way that the reader can have their own perception of the meaning. With the masthead I also challenged my research, because in the majority of the magazines that I researched I found the masthead was in capital letters, most probably to reduce distraction, minimising the ascenders and descenders, but for 'Quirk' I felt that the masthead was more appealing in lower-case and made it much easier to read and understand. The main photograph takes up the whole of the A4 cover just like all the examples I found in my research. Also the picture was thought through to great detail.

The main focal point in the photo being the models eyes, this photograph could connote a gaze of thought, with things on the mind. Very much like the 'Clash' magazine I used in my research.

Also the minimalistic style and the use of a single cover line was also styled off 'Clash'.

I think this worked well in catching the audience's attention and also suited the style of my target audience.

Also something else i discovered in my research is that the magazine's advertisement doesn't stop once you have bought the magazine. I used this in 'Quirk' as well advertising both a twitter page and a 'quirk music' website.

For the twitter page I was unsure whether I would need more explanation that '@quirkmusic' was referring to the twitter page. But after asking some people, who would fit my target audience, whether they would understand it, the majority said that it was easily understandable that it was referring to twitter.

In my contents page research I analysed 'NME' and 'Clash'. Both were very different. With my contents page i tried to combine the two, giving a good balance of text and images. My contents page was the toughest to complete. I tried various things to make it work, I challenged my research by having a single image covering the whole page. This was something that definitely worked for my magazine.

Adding the image brought everything together and made it look much more professional even though it was not something I discovered in my research. I still used many of the same forms and conventions like keeping everything aligned perfectly. Also the minimalistic technique used throughout the whole of 'Clash' was something I thought was just right for my target audience.

For my double page spread I wanted to use many of the conventions seen in 'Clash' (seen here on the right). The black an white style very much appeals to my target audience, with quite a retro feel. Even though both 'NME' and 'Clash are quite image based, i still wanted to get a good balance between images and text. 'NME' used more text along with the images, but for my magazine i decided to decrease the amount of images to text. So went with the black and white, single image approach, then added one more picture on the second page to even things out (seen below).