Evaluation Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

The prezi explains in detail how I've attracted and addressed my audience.  Attracting and addressing the audience is important as it makes them want to buy the magazine.  It also means that a community is created through the magazine because the it doesn't just appeal to anyone; it appeals to other people with similar tastes and perhaps lifestyles.  All of this helps to not only create a sense of identity within the magazine but also with the readers within themselves and also with the magazine.

Evaluation Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the making of this product?

The presentation above shows how I've become more confident with using technology, in particular PhotoShop, throughout making the product.

I've not only learnt about technology through making the product itself though.  I've learnt about using different media formats during the research and planning parts of the project.  For example, before this project, I didn't know about different media formats such as Prezi, SlideShare, GoAnimate.  Now, I'm not only able to use these technologies, but I feel confident in using them, in particular Prezi.
Even the process of constructing this blog itself has been a learning process.  I've learned how to manage posts, embed codes into the HTML's of posts, change publishing schedule dates and edit my blog's theme.
I feel as though, despite the things I've learnt regarding technologies have been fairly specific, I've picked up some transferable skills in the duration of this project.  For instance, I may have learnt how to construct a blog on blogger.com, but this knowledge to some degree will be transferable to creating websites and other internet accounts and blogs. (E.g. embedding codes, post management etc.)

I've also put into practise safe data sharing.  For example, using a memory stick.  To ensure that none of the information becomes corrupt or lost, I always make a conscious effort to 'eject' the memory stick before physically removing it from the USB port.  This way, none of the data stored on the memory stick gets 'lost in translation' so to speak.

Evaluation Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

As I've learned more about PhotoShop and DTP, I started to think of ways to make the text stand out more.  On my music magazine, you can see that I've used an opaque box to make the main sell line 'pop' out from the rest of the page.  It provides a more plain background for the text to prevent it from blending into the background.  It also helps to establish a colour scheme which in turn aids the following of a convention.  This example demonstrates how I've applied the skills I've learned about DTP and applied my new learned PhotoShop skills.

You can see that I started to look at the conventions of contents page layout during the preliminary task.  However, my draft contents page was very simple and bland, and I also didn't follow the invisible 'margins' around the page when placing different text boxes on the page.
  To create a more engaging layout, I identified different features of several magazines, focusing on two in particular.  This gave the page more elements and therefore made it more interesting to look at.  However, I made sure that the page didn't look too busy and unorganised by using margins to make things easier to follow.  In the creation of my contents page, I learned how to create a neatly structured layout, and how this balances the application of many elements onto the page.

Double Page Spread - Draft 3

Here is the 2nd draft of my double page spread which I was quite happy with, although there were a few problems which needed fixing.  

The text was too blocky before, which might be off-putting because it would look like a lot of text to read in one go.  So, to make it look more manageable, I put in a pull quote which makes it look like the text is more broken up.  A pull quote also has the advantage of 'pulling' the reader in and making them want to read the whole article.

Furthermore, the picture in the top left of the right page looked a bit out of place, so I moved it downwards in line with the box in the bottom right corner, and replaced it with the social networking details of the band.  This makes the magazine more appealing to modern audience because many bands have an internet fanbase which crosses over with the whole fanbase.

Minor changes to the front cover

A few last adjustments...

I've aligned all the sell lines to the end of the page and with each other to make the layout more professional.

I've moved the plug and spread out one of the sell lines

I've also gotten rid of the 'Want to design album covers..?' sell line because I felt it looked out of place and clumsy, thus giving a less professional look.

Minor Changes to Contents Page

I've added the social networking details at the bottom left hand side of the page which makes my magazine more appealing to my readership.
To quote my reader profile;

"The average readers uses he internet for around 2 hours per day, particularly on sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook."

The addition of these details makes the magazine more compatible with the lifestyle of the reader, as they will be able to receive updates from the magazine, such as behind the scenes pictures, videos etc from interviews; more offers; bonus articles; links to new music videos by artists that the magazine supports etc. by following the accounts.  There could also be tasters of what's coming up in the next issue which may entice readers into buying it.  

Furthermore, the magazine's web administrators can find out more about the readers via the use of Web 2.0, as readers will be able to make comments on the magazine's posts.  The magazine could also post questions and polls on it's account for its followers to answer, and the replies could be featured in future issues of the magazine.  The administrators could also survey the (public) information that's on the followers' profiles to find out what else they like and which other accounts they follow.  In this way, the readers are having an influence on the product that they are consuming, which creates a sense of community within the readership and a more close relationship between the magazine and the readership.  

  Another advantage of social networking is that the magazine's accounts could also attract new potential readers.  On Twitter, for example,  each account has a list of other similar accounts at the bottom of the page.  Our magazine's account may feature at the bottom of other magazines' pages, thus gaining more attention from potential followers who could, in turn, become potential readers. 

DRAFT 3 front page

This is my third draft front cover.  The only changed I've made are adding more sell lines, as in retrospect, I felt as though the splash looked a bit empty compared to other magazine front covers.

I've made a conscious effort to use different but similar font styles to make the splash dynamic but co-ordinated.