Evaluation Question 3.

For this question, I was asked to go over any improvements I could make to my product with a member of my target audience (16+). The target audience member is a 17-year-old college girl.

A few things my target audience member found appealing was the name of the magazine definitely sounded artistic in a musical sense. I was also consistent with my colour scheme and used colours that complimented each other. I was able to use the right image for my background as it looked as if the model was directly looking at the reader (angle of gaze). The layout of the front cover and contents page had been nicely developed and looked similar to most music magazine layouts. The features I had used were relevant to today as they are current affairs and they are all real which definitely made it appear to be more realistic in that sense. After editing the models face with the 'spot healing' tool, I made the model appear to have "barely any flaws".

From what I gathered from my target audience member, she would like me to photoshop the models features more to accentuate certain areas of the models face. I then adapted from this critique by airbrushing the models face slightly so some spots and pores weren't visible and used an enhancer tool to make the eyes light brown. I was also asked to perhaps sharpen the photo of the model more to outline the features of her face, I was able to do this by using a 'sharpen edges' tool on photoshop which created a better emphasis on the facial structure. Another renovation I was asked to make was to move one of the features of the front cover models face and place it in order of length which I have done for both my front cover and contents page which made the layout look more cleaner and professional. Lastly, the final critique I was asked to do was somehow try and use darker colours that could reflect a hip-hop genre, I found this quite difficult to accomplish since I had used light gels to photograph my model instead of using photoshop to create layers. Therefore I tried to darken certain areas around the model; hair and clothing.

Evaluation Question 2.

Evaluation Question 1.

Created using Visme. Free Online Presentation Software.

Preliminary Task: Flat Plan

I have started to design a flat plan for my magazine front cover and contents page, my initial theme was for an 'urban' and 'edgy' display and representation of Hip Hop, but whilst going over the answers I had gotten in my survey and focus group I came to a conclusion that the magazine should look professional and 'classic', but still incorporate some urban features. At first, I created some sketches as to what I pictured the final proposal to look like and then researched well-known music magazines in an urban/hip-hop genre to get inspiration for what I should incorporate. I picked up on a few techniques that most magazine companies use on their front cover and combined it with my ideas, for example, the layout of the texts and features, typefaces (fonts), colours and model shots.

The flat plan of my front cover was inspired by two different music magazines; Billboard and Vibe. I researched the different and similar techniques they used and incorporated some in my work. Some of the techniques I used was 'dividers' to separate features by using ' + ' and ' __ '. Another technique I included was design layouts; the masthead is usually on the top, the feature on the left side or whatever side the model was facing, the barcode and pricing placed on the bottom left. Apart from the techniques I incorporated from other magazines, I also researched photographs of hip-hop artists for inspiration and wanted to experiment with light gels (different coloured lighting), and lastly, to make it appears legit and realistic I added social media icons along with a "Find more about us on..." and a "Limited edition" sticker. Whilst keeping up with my aesthetic, I constantly checked whether the font types I initially picked out would suit my page layout on Photoshop whilst creating drafts and came to a conclusion to use only 3 font types on my front cover page which consisted of Onyx (masthead), Haettenschweiler (features) and Century Gothic (other texts).

The flat plan of my contents page I intend on including the use of light gels, but with a pink and blue filter instead of red and yellow which will be used on my front cover. Upon contemplating layout approaches, I had researched and analysed a range of magazine contents styles to create a brief idea of what I wanted my final draft to look like. Initially, I wanted my features to take up the majority of the bottom half of the contents page, but after choosing the final picture I would use the layout did not compliment the pose, therefore I had to slightly alter my layout. The font type I intend on using is 'Century Gothic' as the text because it looks very professional and some of the music magazines I have been using as inspiration (Vibe and Billboard) also have a similar choice typeface and 'Haettenschweiler' for the features subheading because it was very bold and eye-catching.

Preliminary Task: Feedback on design

After gathering feedback from a few of my peers who were the exact age of my intended target audience, I decided to write down their critiques and opinions on a table and try to act on them with my present draft.

Advertisement & Marketing Lucozade

I was asked to find two Lucozade posters one from before the 1980s and one which is contemporary (last 5 years) and deconstruct them. There is a clear distinction between the two which establishes how much technological convergence has evolved from the 1980s to modern times now. The modern day one uses celebrity endorsement (Gareth Bale - footballer for the Spanish club Real Madrid and the Wales national team) to promote more people to buy it as well as directing their target audience head-on; using an athlete to get the product across to other sports people. Whereas the 1980 one was initially created for medical usage on children and had an entirely different marketing strategy; drawn/cartoon picture of a mother feeding her child the medicine, label/logo, target audience and ingredients inside the drink.