Ndidi Okoye: Media Blog

Evaluation -- What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Transcript:
During the planning and research stage of my project I created and distributed a questionnaire that yielded a large amount of audience feedback I found quite helpful.

One of my main concerns at this stage was that I wanted my regional magazine to be free as I’ve found that regional magazines and newspapers I personally read such as LIVE magazine and Lewisham LIFE are free of charge, however I understood that there may be stigma attached to magazines that are free as opposed to magazines created by larger publications that aren’t as restricted with regards to distribution and content.

I learnt from the responses I received, that the majority of people asked didn’t believe that there was any stigma attached to free magazines. However, a small minority believed there was with regards to the low-quality articles and features inside them and in some instances the low-quality structure of the magazine.

Similarly, I learnt that the two most important features of a front cover that determined whether someone read a magazine, was the main image and the cover lines. This raised a few concerns for me when planning the layout for my front cover, as I wanted an image of hands on the cover, instead of an image of a person like most magazines typically do. But I learnt from the responses, that people were fine with my decision, as long as it was related to the theme or issue of the magazine or the main article.

Upon the completion of my magazine, billboard and radio advert, I carried out a survey on a small-scale to gather some detailed feedback.

There was consensus across the majority of the responses I got, that the double-spread page(s) of my article came together nicely with regards to the layout and my use of columns and paragraphs that enabled easy reading. Some suggested that the layout and design elements should of remained the same for the third page where my article is continued, but that the use of a pull quote on the third page was effective.

Additionally, I learnt that aspects of my magazine such as, Sena Eze, Natalie Carter, the images of the hands and the fonts used, that I incorporated into my billboard and radio advert, all worked together to create a sense of familiarity between all three texts.

Evaluation -- How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

Evaluation -- How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

My brief required me to create the first four pages from an original regional magazine together with two of the following three options: a radio advertisement for the magazine, two hyperlinked pages from the magazine’s website or a billboard advertisement for the magazine. I chose to create a radio and billboard advertisement to accompany my regional magazine.

The combination of my billboard and front cover of the regional magazine is effective due to the similar design elements that they both incorporate. The colour schemes have been scaled back to black, white and grey with features of red (the accent colour) making the cover and billboard easier to read and look at and the scaled back colour scheme also lets the main images stand out. The main images of the hands used for both the front cover and billboard combined with the content of my article effectively because the main theme behind my main product and the ancillary texts is Black History Month and the image of the black hands connote/signify black people, Black Power and togetherness.

Secondly, the main product and the radio advertisement combined are very effective as they both feature the blogger Sena Eze. The magazines main article is based on an interview with Sena whilst the radio advertisement contains an audio clip of Sena promoting the magazine and its content including her article. The article is accompanied by images of Sena and her image is also used for the magazine’s contents page. The Black History Month theme is also evident in the radio advertisement where the magazine is promoted as “this month’s Black History Month special”.

Furthermore, the combination of the main product and both of the ancillary texts is effective as I’ve looked at real media products and I’ve used industry standard software and technology such as Final Cut Pro X, Digital SLR cameras and Adobe PhotoShop in order to replicate the quality of real media products. Similarly to real media products and campaigns, I’ve also kept elements of the design and the content the same across all texts so associations can be made between them. This results in all the texts working hand-in-hand to advertise and essentially sell the main product, which should be the purpose of the ancillary texts.

In conclusion, I found the process of creating the main product and the ancillary tasks challenging at first, as the process of making a billboard/radio advertisement and a magazine was new to me. However, research and analysis of real media products helped me create texts that are well informed and to a high standard.