as media: foundation portfolio

For Question 5, I analysed ways in which my magazine ‘CAUTION’ uses forms and conventions, and how my magazine is attractive/appealing to the target audience older teens and young adults with perhaps a more niche older audience, To get this feedback, I used the concept of a focus group, asking older teenagers (part of my target audience) a range of questions i had formulated and cleverly constructed relating to different aspects of my magazine and why this had attracted them, The questions i asked were:

 

• Is the Language choice appropriate to the rock magazine and which parts entice you and are appealing? Is the Language also appropriate for the selected target audience, older teens and young adults and middle age?

 

• Do the images i have used attract you? Which ones especially? and why? do you see any strengths and weaknesses? does the editing add in anyway to the whole look of the magazine?

 

• Does the text such as the title attract you to my magazine? and why?

 

• Do you have any comments on the colour scheme in the magazine? Especially on the double page spread?

 

• Does the components of the layout work well? and do they compliment each other well? if they were separated would you be able to piece the images together?

 

• Do the parts of my magazine that noticeably challenge/develop the forms and conventions of a rock magazine, add attraction to my magazine?

 

Responding to the first question i asked the focus groups, i asked along the lines of Is the Language choice appropriate to the rock magazine and which parts entice you and are appealing? Is the Language also appropriate for the selected target audience, older teens and young adults and middle age?, The group fedback that they thought my magazine caution would appeal to my target audience is a number of ways and proceeded to highlight the best features. being firstly that words such as “killer” “mega” and “massacre” are all “quite harsh words that fit in well with the genre” and are “rock related” and that it would “draw in audiences as people think its something big”. this shows my strategic choice of words was a successful choice that worked well with audiences to show the rock genre within my language And that my magazine presents a “Traditional” “Typical” rock magazine look and that would draw in the target audience and that texts and their style (fonts) “relate back to the genre” Again relating to the target audience, feedback was its “not too much writing” which is good because the “age range would look more towards the images then the cover lines” and the fact my magazine uses swear words would “definitely appeal to a older [older side of a young audience] audicne” even being from people of the age “15 and above” and the way again “mega win” is used “about a festival pass” would “Definitely appeal to older [again older side on teens] audiences as [really] young people don’t go to festivals”. One member of the focus groups noticed that “sex tears sausage rolls” is a take on the “classic saying  sex drugs rock and roll” which they liked and would “appeal to an older audience who would know that classic saying” without me even hinting at this which shows my magazine in its strong light of relating back to the rock music genre and culture. 

 

The next question Do the images i have used attract you? Which ones especially? and why? do you see any strengths and weaknesses? The eye make up of my models were complimented especially the “darkness around the eyes” as it makes you “look into the eyes” another member saying as far as “all images attract” her “especially the front cover” again as the model “is looking directly straight out” finding this “quite enticing” along with her body language being “different and interesting” therefore that would attract her. the way “theres different genders on the contents page” is a good quality. you can tell that “important tiny details” have been taken into consideration such as “posters” on the front and contents page along with the “editorial image” which “makes it more personal”. The continuity throughout was commented on in a postive light being described as good as it has the same model “on the front page all the way through to the contents and double page spread”. To hear this positive feedback from my target audience helped me reifirm my belief that my magazine is appropriate tot he target audience. The weaknesses talked about by the focus group had mixed judgements for example the fact i used similar looks on models was described as a weakness and a strength as being liked as “its going with the theme of your magazine but i don’t really see that as a weakness cause its like continuing it throughout your magazine”  simirlaly for all weaknesses so put these down to a taste/opinion factor.

 

After this half of the question related to images, i asked does the editing add in anyway to the whole look of the magazine? It was answered with the images are “edited really well” with all images being “sharp” and “saturated” making the images “standout”, all being photoshop so well that they fit within the magazine. I find the fact my focus group (target audince) couldn’t find much bad about the editing, shows the editing was used in the correct manor and choices i made to do with the editing were well thought through, almost  with professional appearance.

 

The next question, Do you have any comments on the colour scheme in the magazine? Especially on the double page spread? addresses the colour scheme aspect of my work, which consisted of a red white and yellow colour scheme used throughout caution the colour scheme was described as “good” and the fact “a lot of different colours” especially “yellow and red” broadens the target audience for  “both genders” Another comment which i very much picked up was the way i carried the colour scheme throughout front page to double page spread, using white, red and yellow BUT changing the primary colour to keep things more fresh looking so therefore using predominantly white on the front cover, yellow on the contents page and red on the double page spread. Comments about the double page spread a colour scheme desicion i was less sure of was generally good feedback, all the questions in the q and a being red was described as “more easy to read and appealing”. Using black background with white writing was described are well “structured” and writing as being “consistent” with “not too much writing or too little works well”. These comments showed that my target audience of both genders, appreciate the colour scheme and find the overall addition to my magazine astchcailyl appealing. 

 

Before moving onto the layout of my magazine, I asked my focus group,Does the text such as the title attract you to my magazine? and why? responding to this question the group replied with an initial collective yes followed with reasoning of the masthead “caution” being “quite interesting” and “linked to rock with [good use of the] cracks [that] goes with the theme [rock]” overall being a “strong” look “that would attract” the  individual and others with its “stand out” appearance which “adds to the whole look all together”. this shows strong likablity of the target audience to my magazine almost as far to say it would attract others, Another text aspect that was commented on is the like of the “special edition” text, which was a “different font” but worked “well in contrast to other ones”, this was the look i was going for and hoped this would work well with the other fonts.

 

Now discussing the construction of Caution in regards to layout component, I asked the target audience Does the components of the layout work well? and do they compliment each other well? if they were separated would you be able to piece the images together? again the layout was described as consistent throughout, through colour scheme, font and images. With using a different colour again for the questions being an important well executed layout feature, with all writing standing out well and looking “more strutted” against black backgrounds. Also my magazine having a more realistic professional look dislike to a students work with “text overlapping images” and “easy readable” “consistent writing” with everyone in agreedment that if you were to see these images in a “pick out” you would piece them together through good construction and consistency throuhgout.

 

for the final component of this part of the evaluation, forms and conventions, i asked a group of questions, being Do the parts of my magazine that noticeably challenge/develop the forms and conventions of a rock magazine, add attraction to my magazine?, it was brought up that my magazine is good in the way that the writing is not too much which is a popular feature amongst younger adults as they do not like the hassle of reading, and that the specific part that one invidivual thought positively challenged/developed the forms and conventions of the rock genre was the way i used details such as a subscription box and posters also using the idea of interview branding, a convention used in a lot of magazines of today, to make interviews more exclusive, the individual described this as hinting to the reader that “its cautions own exclusive interview” on the double page spread. this hints that special features as such would attract my target audience and they thought this USP was a good idea.

 

After collecting and Analysisng this infomation from my focus groups i have decided and concluded that the decision and choices i made in the process of making “caution” have been on reflection good, wise positive choices that have lead to the success of attracting my target audience seen through my focus group, this has given an indication to the success of my magazine if it was to be a full publication.

 

 

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WILL ADD INTERVIEW SOUND CLIP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, After the analysis of the focus group feedback, i furthered my work by additionally continuing this question with a interview with the focus “individual” who fits into the target audience, Madaline. 

 

I did this interview for a more in depth justification and reasoning about some of the discussed about topics as to why the target audience find CAUTION appealing. I asked the questions:

 

• What particular aspects appealed to you on my front cover? Why?

 

• does my contents page show hold a realistic appearance? Why?

 

• Looking at my attitude towards the construction aspect of my double page spread, What do you think?

 

• By looking at my magazine “caution” as a whole, do you have any improvement feedback?

 

Madaline’s feedback to my first question What particular aspects appealed to you on my front cover? Why?, Was that the particular aspects that appealed to her of my front cover are the 

 

(main image and mast head, finding these to be the most attractive features, finding main image stands out well and contrasts with the background and  the overlapping masthead is very distinctive)

 

(I believe the fact i edited out the background of my image added more of a focal point on the main image giving it this standout effect.)

 

Another aspect madaline commented on that was specifically well constructed to appeal to my target audience was the colour used on the banners, that i used, she said this was “good in combination with the other colours on the page and is a good mix to capture peoples eyes for example on a news stand”.

 

After talking about the front cover, we then discussed the contents page, and how realistic it was and why. madalines first crucial comment was the high realism and professional look of my magazine commenting on the subscription, posters, editors note and all the smallest details. which she then went on further to say it added sophistication to my magazine text giving it a realistic appearance. another comment madaline made was on the “strong” images used on this magazines contents page, and the way they are presented in a collage looking manner, contrasting well with the background which gives a sense of realism and/or likeness to a real magazine, with my artists all being very well related rock genre choices (such as their make up and clothing) and easy to identify with. 

 

the final question in regard to the double page spread and my interviewees opinion of said spread, madaline went on to talk about the dominance of the main image which worked in an appealing way attracting herself and surely there within the target audience. also this combined with an interesting well picked colour scheme and font side variety works well alongside previously talked about aspects. by keeping with only one image it helped to focus my magazine spread rather than using one main image and other smaller images and stand by thinking it was a good choice.

 

to conclude some feed back i was given with improvements have helped me to identify some weaknesses in my magazine that perhaps the target audience would not like so much, such as i havent creatively combined the text and the image on the double page spread which can make it seem more dull. apart from this i can see clearly with back up and feed back from members of my actual target audience that my over all publication of caution magazine has fulfilled all goals i hoped it would achieve in appealing to my target audience believing part of this success was achieved by looking at and doing research on other rock magazines similarities, differences, forms and conventions, looking at other magazines such as kerrang and Q. using this work has informed and influenced my publication which i have analysed and blogged numerous occasions through the project. caution and Q’s target audiences are in my opinion the most similar using more discreet attraction methods such as exclusive interviews. although there are some similarities in target audience attraction between caution and kerrang using more graphics to appeal to target audiences.