Evaluation

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

I analysed 3 magazines to learn about the codes and conventions of school magazines. The magazines I looked at were CHiLL, Fusion and The Bishopbriggs Academy magazine. From these magazines I chose a range of codes and conventions to use in the production of my magazine. The first I chose was to choose a colour scheme, the 3 colours I chose to use were red, blue and white. These colours are used in the logo for Whitley Bay High School so I thought they would fit well into this magazine. I also carried on with the colour scheme and used it on the contents page, which the other magazines did, but I thought the colours CHiLL used didn’t look very good as they weren’t well used, there was too much of the red and black.

Also after looking at these magazines, none of them had a large image on the front cover, I thought that most magazines should have a large image as it is a code and convention in other magazines. So I used a large image on the front cover, which would be relevant to a article inside the magazine. The magazines had smaller images, for example in CHiLL they had numerous small images showing what was inside the magazine, but I went against this and didn’t add them, I left the front cover with 1 image, and named the articles to leave the reader with an imagination of what the article would be like. This also led into my contents page, by not adding any images. The Bishopbriggs Academy magazine left the contents page with no images and just the articles, although I like magazines with images on the contents as it gives the reader an insight to what the article is about, I thought I would try something different and thought my contents page looked quite effective without any images.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I learnt how to use 2 pieces of technology which I used to produce my school magazine, and I will use to produce my final music magazine. I learnt how to use Photoshop where I will construct the magazine, and how to use digital SLR cameras which I will use to take the pictures for my magazine.

I learnt how to use the different functions on the camera to take different sorts of pictures, like using the shutter speed, which if you have a light you can draw a shape and the shape will show on the image. I also learnt how to manually alter the lens on the camera in order to take a clear picture and zoom in and out of the model, which helped when I took my picture. The lighting in my image is artificial as I used the flash on the camera. However I altered the image on Photoshop by changing the hue and saturation. We learnt how to use Photoshop so we could construct the magazine in this programme. I also linked layers together once I was happy with them, so I didn’t have loads of layers building up.

When I produce my final music magazine, I will take more images and use them, and to improve I will use more of the effects in Photoshop to make my magazine look more professional.  I will also analyse more magazines so I can see if there are any more codes and conventions I could possibly follow.   

Contents Page Draft

My contents page draft

Front Cover Draft

My front cover draft which I did not fully follow but followed most of it.

Contents Page

Final contents page

Front Cover

Final Front Cover

Preliminary Task- Analysis Of School Magazines

We were asked to analyse the codes and conventions of some school magazines and then use them to produce our front cover and contents page for our school magazine.

The Bishopbriggs Academy magazine

Front Cover

• The colours they use in the colour scheme are involved in the logo and are used throughout the magazine. The title of the magazine is effective as they use 3 different fonts and colours to draw the reader’s attention towards the title. The grey colour for ‘The’ which changes into ‘Bishopbriggs Academy’ in blue and then again back into grey for ‘magazine’. But the ‘magazine’ is slanted and diagonally laying out, which is affective because it draws the reader’s attention to it. Although there is a lot of white on the background the colours help to catch the reader’s attention.
• The use of the logo on the front cover is effective because you can instantly recognise what the magazine is about.
• They use 2 small images which are giving you an insight to what is in the magazine, which is slightly unconventional as normally magazines have 1 large image on the front, and then maybe 2 or 3 smaller images near the bottom of the page. These images are of what is in the magazine.

Contents Page

• On the contents page the colour scheme is followed. The colour blue is used again. Although you might usually find images on the contents page, they are not used inside this magazine, but there is a lot of information on the contents page to tell the reader what there is to read.

Fusion magazine

Front Cover

• Again there is 3 colours used on the front cover of Fusion, but are not kept throughout the magazine. The use of white on the red and black background is very effective as it is clear to read and draws your attention to it.
• There is a large image on this front cover, but is unconventional as the image doesn’t really have anything to do with what is inside the magazine.
• The title Fusion has part of it sliced off, which makes you think the magazine is different to the others you may see, I think this is quite effective because it isn’t what you normally see.

Contents Page

• The contents page doesn’t follow the colours on the front page, but I find this effective as the colours they use make the page look cool and different. They again have not used images to show what is in the magazine, but have informed the reader of what each article is about in the magazine. The use of the image at the top of the page with colours falling from it is effective because it looks as if the colours are making up with page and the writing on the page.  

CHiLL magazine

Front Cover

·         Front cover has 4 small images showing what is inside the magazine which is again unconventional as you would expect a large image to take up the front cover. You usually find 2 or 3 smaller images showing what’s inside the magazine as well as a large image.

·         There is also a lot of writing on the front cover, which you don’t usually find on magazines.

·         The colour scheme is used throughout the magazine, but in my opinion the colours used aren’t very good because it just seems too much to me. Although it may appeal to the audience they have published the magazine for, which are the people that go to the school.

Contents Page

·         The contents page is more conventional in this magazine because they have images of what is in the magazine and the page numbers and what the articles are and about.

·         The colour scheme is followed from the front cover onto the contents page.

·         There is also 2 small paragraphs explaining to the reader how they make the magazine, which is found in some other magazines, or the paragraph is something little said from the editor of the magazine.