my media AS evaaluation for my j-pop magazine Murasaki

1. Evaluation AS Foundation Portfolio

2. Q1) In What ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products Masthead – the word is unusual as it is in Japanese. This is in order to keep authenticity with the genre of Japanese pop. Main Image – The main image is a mid-shot which brings the artist closer to the audience. Her focus is straight ahead which shows emotion to the audience. Buzz Words – These words catch the readers attention and entice them. Left third – The Left Thirdis the section that is usually on view on a magazine stall and so is heavily populated with coverlines, Buzz words and images. Colour scheme – The Colour Scheme uses two main colours: Pink and blue. Which are feminine colours and are commonly used in J-pop. These colours are used throughout the magazine to create a House Style. Dateline and bar code - These are two things that are on every magazine. Main coverline- This is short and snappy . It’s tagline creates suspense by stating the interview is ‘long awaited. Coverlines – These are enticing and short and are designed to be memorable to the reader.

3. Q1) In What ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products Headings – The headings are simple and break the magazine into two clear sections. They follow the house style of pink and white. Emphasis: Near certain images there are heart shapes to indicate important information in the J-Pop world in a clear concise way. Images – Following the results of the audience research , we made sure the contents page contained a variety of images, instead of just one big image. The images are bright and colourful, which creates the right tone for a happy ‘pop ‘ style. All images were taken and then edited in photoshop. The heart shapes (which indicate inportant information) were drawn around Type face – The type face is clear and simple to read, which makes it accessible for all audiences. Colour Scheme – The colour scheme is kept to the house style of White, Pink and Blue to give the magazine a professional look.

4. Q1) In What ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products Introduction - This gives a brief intro into who Aya is and some of her accomplishments. This also is used as an opportunity to publicise the release of her new album. Headline – The headline is simple and memorable. It is also bright and cheerful which is commonly associated with j-pop. Typeface - The type face is a simple font however, the questions are outlined in colours to make them stand out clearer . However Aya’s name is made to stand out by having it in a much fancier font. Main Image - The main image is simple and easy on the eyes, making the artist likeable to the reader. Eye contact is used to create a sense of friendship. Paragraphs - As requested by the market research, the information is broken into short paragraphs , in a Q&A style. This is in order to keep the readers attention. Images – Apart from the main image, the background has been created to look as though there is an explosion of pain going on. This gives connotations of happiness and rainbows and candy (like the title of Aya’s new album). This also creates an interesting eye-catching background, which contrasts with the more relaxed image of the artist. Colour scheme – The colour scheme uses the house style of blue and pink, however it adds splashes of colour in the background to create a bright exciting atmosphere.

5. - Audience feedback After completing the magazine, I asked an independent person, not associated with the project or marking scheme to check over the project in order to give me a clear idea of how professional the overall look of the project was. The feedback was extremely positive and allowed me to notice a few small errors I had not previously noticed. He stated ‘I found the article highly interesting and enjoyable to read and the bright colourful layout was eye-catching and interesting’ Once I had done this I applied the small changes he suggested before making my finished product. ‘Different ages wrote down’ ‘J-Pop is inconsistently spelt.’

6. Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups? The magazine overall is directed at English fans of J-Pop (Japanese Pop Music) and aims to allow teens easy access to information on this niche genre of music. The colour scheme (Pink, Baby-blue and White) was chosen using the audience research taken at the beginning of the project and reflects the feminine innocence portrayed by most J-Pop. When planning the style of the artists its important to notice that J-Pop Stars use simple styles with gentle feminine colours. Keeping this mind, I made sure to make the main front cover image and the main image on the double page spread fit the conventions of J-pop music stars. I bent the convention slightly by using bolder outfits for some of the images of the J-Pop celebrities in order to create an interesting visual experience for the audience. The product uses a Japanese name (Murasaki: Which means Violet) for the Masthead. This was chosen in order to target it’s niche audience. The name was chosen specifically using the results from the target audience. The idea was thought up as the colour violet is made up of Blue and pink, which are the house style colour scheme.

7. After doing extensive research I have come to the conclusion that the Media Institution I would most like to distribute my Magazine is Uncooked Media. This company was picked because, due to the Niche market, there are no well-known J-Pop music magazine released in the UK that are made in the UK. However Uncooked Media has experience in Japanese products as they produce a highly popular Japanese (anime) magazine known as Neo . This means that consequently they have experience in Japanese style magazine that are directed to the general UK public. Because there are no companies in the UK that make J-Pop magazines, in my research I focused on a few popular mainstream music magazine covers in order to get the general conventions that run across all music magazines. I later looked at the format of an actual J-Pop magazine in order to see the similarities. Q3) What kind of Media Institution might distribute your Media Product and why?

10. This Font

11. The colour scheme to be White, Pink & Baby Blue.

12. Short Paragraphs with a Mixture of Images

13. Bright images

15. Q6) What have you learnt about technologies from the Process of constructing the Product? I learnt how to crop images so that crucial facial features landed on one of the lines (as shown). This creates an aesthetically pleasing picture. I learnt how to set up a Blog and manage it in order to make it look neat and well presented. The colour fits in with the house style of the magazine created. It also helped me to focus on time management as certain deadlines needed to be met in order to keep all the work in chronological order. Example: The girl’s eye-line lands along the top horizontal line. Guttenberg: Buzz words in the top left corner. This is wear the audience’s eye is first drawn to. I learnt how to draw the attention of the audience by using the Guttenberg Principal, as well as how to maximise the use of the left third. This is a common convention in most magazines.

16. Q7) Looking back at your Ancillary project, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the finished project? From making my ancillary to my finished project, I have learnt to make a professional looking magazine by taking a variety of intriguing eye-catching images that portrayed the positive, ‘happy go lucky’ atmosphere . By repeatedly practising with Photoshop, I have learnt how to create extra elements, such as drop-shadows in order to create something that looks as thought it could be sold in shops. The ancillary project was a practise run for making magazines and so it clearly needed more definition and shading, as well as a more interesting and striking main image. Because for the ancillary project no audience research was done beforehand, it was difficult to determine specific elements that would be needed in order to draw the specific target audience’s attention. If I was to redo this project again I would take more photos in more locations in order to give myself even more variety to choose from.