Evaluation Questions

AS Media Studies: Foundation Portfolio

Evaluation Questions

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

The magazine designs that we have been working on for our coursework have been inspired by the designs of real Student magazines and we have also used influences from more popular magazines such as Empire, Hello, Cosmopolitan, etc., In the case of my design however, I have broken a normal convention by moving the masthead from the top of the page to a more vertical position on the left hand side of the front cover.  Another notable thing to comment about is the color of the text. Usually in other magazines the text on the front cover would generally keep the same color scheme unless there happens to be a logo being promoted on the front cover.  My front cover on the other hand uses a wide variety of different text colors such as yellow, red, blue, etc. which gives the reading audience a nice thing to notice.

2.   How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Since my media product is a student magazine, it’s definitely no surprise that this magazine is designed to appeal to young people in the 16-19-age range. This is reflected in many of the articles in my magazine such as the opinion articles and my choice of photograph of the front cover.

3.   What kind of media insititution might distribute your media product and why?

This product, since it has been specially designed for Ludlow College, you would expect it to be circulated for either College website, you would get it either for free or a printed version for 50p which may be handed to local shops if they were interested.

4.   Who would be the audience for your media product?

As mentioned before, this is a student magazine, so of course  the target audience is going to be the students and young people who work and study in colleges or people who are looking at places in Ludlow College and want to study there.

5.   How did you attract/address your audience?

I suggested in my market research the colour scheme that was eventually used in the final design of the front cover and I went around the college taking pictures of  current students and landmarks around the high street of Ludlow while looking for ideas for my front cover.

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

I have learnt about the processes of designing a magazine, the basics of layout, how to grab my target audience’s attention and how to use a program called Adobe Indesign which I will have to learn to use in order to complete the rest of my coursework.