Final Product: Front Cover (main task)

Final Product: Beauty Page (main task)

Final Product: Fashion Double Page Spread (main task)

Final Product: Billboard (ancillary)

Final Product: Website (ancillary)

http://evelop809.wix.com/dollupmag

Achieved Today

In todays lesson I completed all of my evaluation questions and had them assessed by my teacher who gave me a few areas to alter which I did do. I am going to continue going through my work with her over the next few lessons to ensure that it is as good as it can be an to make sure that I can get the highest grade I possibly can. 

Evaluation: Question 1

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

In this Prezi I have attempted to tackle the first evaluation question on my A2 Media coursework. In addition to this I have also previously compared my work to existing products which I feel allows for easier comparison between my product and the existing products to see how I may have kept with, developed or subverted typical forms and conventions of each product. There is one for each page of my regional fashion magazine (cover, beauty page and double page spread), billboard and website.  

Evaluation: Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts?

For this question I have used flickr to annotate my work to help show some areas of each product I feel specifically target this question. 

Throughout my work having a consistent theme and keeping the overall look of my products similar was something I was very careful. Not only would this create more professional looking products but will also make them work better as a whole in attracting audience members. The theme that is noticeably present in all of my media products is the country clothing trend and I have kept this by having the model wear the same clothes in virtually all of the pictures. This combines my products in being identifiable as one product and although this is not necessarily typical of the genre it may appeal to the audience. 

Some smaller things I tried to keep consistent throughout my work include things such as using the same font whenever the name of the magazine was used (excluding in chunks of text) and also keeping the same colour scheme throughout the entirety of my work - however, I did change colour scheme slightly on my website as this is not seasonal but will be used throughout the year and black and white were still featured in my work. 

By keeping the colour scheme and fonts the same this combines my products, meaning that the audience can easily see that they're from the same company even if they are not familiar with any of the products. In addition to using the same font and colours I also used similar images through the entirety of my products to tie them together, I also featured my magazine on my website and the website URL on the magazine cover and the billboard. 

I think the overall combination of my main products and ancillary tasks are very effective. I have made sure to feature elements of each product in the others to make them identifiable as from the same company. I also feel that I have consistently kept the genre and this will increase appeal from the audience. There is also a number of other ways in which I have attempted to increase the appeal to the audience including through the types of products I used on my beauty page and the clothes that the model is wearing. 

Evaluation: Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

This is a short video on the types of girls that will be in my target audience and a brief description of the types of things they're interested in. I also did a target audience interview earlier in the year that gave me my initial ideas. 

  And some of the reasons they may be interested in my products. 
And here is some feedback I have gotten from my peers and friends on their opinions of my work which would tell me whether they would purchase the product in question or if there was anything they would prefer to be present. 

By gathering audience feedback I have learnt exactly what to put in so as to best appeal to my target audience by conducting a survey on what they looked for in a magazine and an interview to find out what they were interested in in general. I learnt that I needed to add in elements of both beauty and makeup as my target audience was most interested in products that covered both areas, but did not entirely dedicate themselves to those two areas, i.e. they liked articles on hobbies, relationships and general goings on as well. I also received feedback on my finished product to tell me how accurately I had perceived their likes and dislikes. 

Throughout the design process of my products I also received regular feedback from my tutor which led to me making alterations to my second page and double page spread at several points. I also made alterations to my billboard on suggestion from my tutor. 
(Specific changes on recommendation from my tutor were made 9th January to my second page, 15th January to my fourth page and billboard)
I also received suggestions for alterations from another tutor after standardisation to make changes to my cover, double page spread and second page.  

By receiving this feedback I have been able to improve the overall standard of my work to the best that I think it can be. 

Evaluation: Question 4

What have you learnt about technologies from constructing this product?

Today's Lesson Aims

Today I plan on getting my evaluation questions complied and to have them looked at by my tutor as I am unsure that I have done them entirely correct.

Achieved Today

Today I continued on with my evaluation questions and I have almost completed question 4 and have to add a few more bits onto question 3 but I think that I am nearing completing them. I did not get feedback from my tutor on them but I spoke to her and I will get feedback on the completed set of evaluation questions next lesson. 

Today's Lesson

Today I am going to continue working on my evaluation questions, I am also hoping to get feedback on the first two as I am a bit unsure if I have done them in the way that the exam board is looking for. 

Peer Feedback On My Completed Products.

This peer feedback has given me further insight into my work and there are a few things that I have learned from gathering it. Due to this feedback being taken in after I had started my evaluation process I did not make any of the changed suggested to me, but none of these suggestions were major things that I think could put an audience member off buying my product. 

One thing that was touched upon by a few people was the lack of colour variation in my website, which I agree could be more colorful, however, such weskits as Elle and  Vogue use mainly black and white as it is very classic and so that is why I kept to black and white after experimenting with some different colours throughout. 

Another area touched on a couple of times was how a few of my images looked unprofessional (the loungewear ones) and were scruffily laid out. I do agree that the loungewear ones looked slightly casual and this was an intended effect as t makes it look more relaxed in my opinion, however, I can see how this may put some people off and so in retrospect if I were to do it again I would probably make these images appear more professional like the other images I took. The presentation of my images was also questioned by a couple of people but after playing around with my double page spread images for some time I settled on the way they are as having them regimented makes the page look too boxy and existing products actually adopt the same format that I have used. 

Time Management Update

Over the last couple of weeks I have been very happy with the progress that I have made. My evaluation questions are essentially complete, with only a few more touches needing to be made which should be able to be done over the next week and so I will be done with a week or so to spare before the final deadline of the end of March. Although this is a lot later than my initial personal deadline of the end of January this was probably unrealistic as we only had one lesson a week in college where we were able to focus on coursework which did of course slow things down. I think had I pressured myself too much to stick to this shorter deadline my work would have been of a lesser quality and as it is now I am very happy with the quality and outcome and so the extra time spent on it was definitely worth it. 

Today's Lesson

Today I continued working on my evaluation questions, I finished my Prezi for the first question and have done annotations on flickr images of my products to help answer my second. Alongside the flickr annotations I have written out a small essay answer the question more directly than what is on my annotations. 

Time Management Update

I have not been the most productive this month as I have completed my products and I am now taking my time completing my evaluation questions in the best way I can think possible. This month I have also compared my products to existing products which is something I had completely forgotten was necessary to my work and my first evaluation question. Although I am now slightly behind where I would like to be I do not think it will take long to complete my evaluation questions from where I am now. 

Front Cover Alterations

Having recently received feedback on my main product during standardisation and some of the things that were highlighted I could improve were:

• that the masthead could be stronger
• try out a 3rd colour to make it 'pop' 
• it was difficult to identify the main sell line (main article)
• unclear what the audience was with combinations of 'omg', doll up' and a sophisticated looking model
• that it is the 'party issue' but doesn't look very partyesque

It was also suggested I link back more to it being a regional magazine

I have taken all of these messages on board but there are some areas I chose not to change, some areas I tried out but did not change and others I changed accordingly.

With my cover I attempted to regionalise it a bit more by adding in the 'Northampton Edition' under the title which can sometimes be seen on newspapers, although uncommon on magazines. I don't think the edition of this disrupts the look too much and I do agree that it could have been more regional originally.

I also tried out a third colour (here you can see that I experimented with blue as it's quite a wintery colour but I also tried several others from my colour scheme plan. However, I didn't feel that any of these colours worked particularly well and so I decided that I would stick with the two font colour for my cover, but I have altered some of the 'internal' pages slightly. 

As for the masthead and sell line, my inspirational texts such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan have fairly flat mastheads and I think by adding a 'deeper' look it makes it look tacky and so I did not incorporate it. As for the comment on not being able to determine the sell line, most magazines do not highlight it in particular but instead just make it in a larger font as I have done with my 'Winter Trends' article. Another thing that was touched upon was the fact my model is hiding part of the masthead and so people may find t hard to read and so not know what it is, however, I am creating this product in the view that it is an already established product (I have labelled it issue 132) and so people will already know about it and know what it is. 

My target audience, as I have previously established, is females aged between 15-25, however, I can see why some may not think this as the model does look quite sophisticated and serious. With this said I am keeping in mind my target audience as members from my target region (the East Midlands) often dress this way themselves around this age and so despite looking as if it is aimed at older women it will actually be hitting my target audience quite well.  

'The Party Issue' article has been removed as I think it is too late to take more pictures to make it look more like a party, instead I have changed it to an article about relationships which I think connects more to my target audience anyway and I think will make it more obvious I am aiming at a younger generation. 

Double Page Spread Alterations

I also received feedback on my double page spread:

• try a 3rd colour
• 'where the items are from' could be more conventional 
• sell line/strap line could maybe have more significance
• there seems to be conflict between what is the main sell (winter trends or cozy country winter)

I agree that the 'where the items are from' label was a bit formal so I made it more colloquial by changing it to 'where's it from?!'. I also added in a third colour to help differentiate between what is the main sell (the trends) and 'cozy country winter' which is what I called the trend. 

The strap/sell line, however, I feel already has significance. In the second image I have screenshotted what the page looks like without it and I think it is quite bare without it. Also, many of my inspirational texts highlight fashion and beauty pages in this way and so can be seen to be a commonly used convention.

Second Page Alterations

One of the suggestions I got to make on my second page was perhaps remove the '.' from the numbers. Here I have tried this to see how it would look (leaving a few with the '.' to compare) and I don't think it is a change that I will be keeping, I think that the '.' makes it look a little more polished and so I will keep it that way.

Another thing that was suggested was to add in reasons the products are on there (i.e. to sell them more). In my original layout of my beauty page this was my intention but the way I had presented it made it look boxy and untidy and so I removed it, with the current layout I don't have room for this description. However, I have linked a few back to the makeup the model is wearing which may sell the products slightly which also gives the image some anchorage. 

Other than that I have just made small changes, having changed the colour of the 'deal alert' font to pink to make it stand out and changing 'where to get' to 'where to buy'.