Evaluation Activity 5 FINAL

Evaluation Activity 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my target audience in many ways; I was firstly able to do a lot of research into what they would enjoy reading and what they would aesthetically find good to look at. I think that the most important factors into creating a good vibe for the magazine would have to be deciding on the colour scheme, photos and layout. They all contributed, and by taking suggestions throughout, helped to make my magazine pages look better to the eye and it helps me adapt on my skills on attracting the right audience towards what I am trying to sell.

The colour scheme I picked for the magazine was black, white and pastel peach which was continuous throughout the pages. I think that these light colours match the colours in the model’s hair and links so that the picture won’t blend in with the background, only in contrast with one another. I think that the dark font stands out from the rest and would attract the reader quite clearly. The colours link with the chosen cover photo and give the model a lot of superiority and attention due to the fact that she is the starring image. 

I had to accurately use a grid on Photoshop to align all of my photos so that I had a correct sized border around the frames of every page I created. This ensured that not only did it keep to the theme/layout style; it made the pages look a lot neater. I wanted to overlap the images with a block colour background to make the photos stand out more and I think that this decision worked. The photos were taken in a studio with three main source lights used. Before shooting, I took a lot of test shots and moved the lights around so that I got the best possible shots for my designated pages.

The clothing choices made for the two shoots that I scheduled for my model, I made sure that she looked neat and as sophisticated as possible, so I made her wear a lot of black dresses, to which I used only those photos with her in them on the final product. It doesn't look at all inappropriate due to the fact that her personality is very ‘risk-taker’ like and wanted to ‘break out of her shell’, but I decided to stay in her comfort zone in regards to her style, and only express personality in the double page spread.

I took over 100 photos for each session so I was able to collect a lot of them and go through and have a look to see what works and what doesn’t. I was able to put the image in the place on the layout and use them as templates so that I could see directly how they would look on the page before deciding on a final image. I wanted the images to look as professionally as possible due to the fact that the magazine needed to be looking as realistic as possible and the shots needed to be at a high standard and well thought out. 

I decided to only use mid-shots and close-up shots when taking these photos due to the fact that I wanted to get a lot of her clothes on show and to show off her make-up style because it isn't just a music magazine, her style influences the way the readers can take advice from what they have read and take a liking to the new artist that they have discovered. I think that I followed most of the requirements when trying to attract the right audience and keeping in mind what people like myself would want to read/discover.

This image was one of many mid-shots I used (the actual photo for the double-page spread) taken using a Nikon D3000. Before actually taking some professional shots, I tested out the settings and was unable to fully zoom in and remove the Black background from the image. I think that I decided to use this shot a lot, although the full image isn’t particularly that decent, due to the fact that I tried mostly to focus on what she was wearing from the waist up and that what shoes she was wearing weren't exactly my main focus. Most of the magazines that I had looked

at for inspiration only had these type of shots E.G. Wonderland. I also think that I tried my hardest to focus on the make-up that she was wearing and got a various amount of close-up shots the second round. For instance: I think these shots are appropriate for my Contents page instead of my front cover due to the fact that I wanted to show va
riety and explore from one shot to another, and because it is also a Fashion magazine, a close-up on what clothes she is presented in because I had put a lot of research into what sort of thing relate to the audience I am trying to persuade. I like the close-up shots that I used for my final magazine mainly because I wanted to focus in on attention to detail and mainly considering that my model has ‘dip-dyed’ hair and that it creates a lot of emphasis and brings out the colour while wearing the dark dresses.