Creative Critical Reflection

CCR Draft 4

Throughout my whole project, technology was used in many different forms.

The pictures that are featured in the article were all taken off of my personal Iphone. I scheduled different times to meet with Taryn and Taylor to get the pictures I needed. The location I used was the Lady Sailor softball field where I took pictures of the entrance and softballs.

When creating my blogs and putting together my magazine I used a computer from school and also my personal computer at home. When creating the magazine, I used Microsoft publisher which in only available on my computer at school. At home, I am able to access Blogger and create or finish my blogs.

CCR Draft 2

My product engages with audiences who enjoys reading about sports. There is a little Q&A in the article so the audience gets to engage in the back and forth conversation between the interviewer and the interviewee. It also gives an audience a softer and more positive outlook for the lady sailors. In a sport like football, you may see more negative comments but Taryn and Taylor focused on being more positive this season.

I would contact a local distribution agency to help with distributing my magazine. I would want them to distribute my magazine to local places around town like shoppes or outside grocery stores. There . would be an electronic version of the magazine you could download and buy at sarasotainaction.com

CCR Draft 3

Coming into the project, I was not very familiar with Microsoft Publisher. My teacher helped with figuring out how to put pages together and adjusting the colors and fonts. My creative side helped when putting together the pages and design. I know I wanted something clean and not to chaotic so I kept it somewhat simple.

When producing my cover, I used other covers from different magazines to help me with ideas. In parts where there was grey space, I utilized the opportunity to add text boxes for short explanations about what the magazine will feature. I noticed that many magazines had a short catch phrase that went across the middle of the magazine that usually stood out or was bold. When producing my cover I took that into consideration and added that to my cover as well.

When producing my table of contents, my creative skills came out most for this page. I wanted to make a table of contents that i had not seen yet and that stood out. Because my article revolved around softball, I had an idea to put an article and page number in each ball for creative effect. When producing this, I had to be aware of spacing and using bold words so that the words would be easy to read.

When producing my article, I knew I wanted it layed out clean and organized. As soon as I had my article typed, I had a vision of where I wanted my pictures and everything began to come together nicely. When deciding the font, I just went through a couple different ones until I found one that looked like it fit.

CCR Draft 1

Conventions
My project is solely based of the genre sports. My article features the topic of softball at Sarasota high, but also includes other sports articles throughout the magazine. For my text on the front cover, I mostly kept it clean and basic. I made the title font orange to  match the school colors of Sarasota High which are orange and black. The words "Hard work and dedication" that go through the center of the page are bold. I did this to draw attention to a simple phrase of what athletes must have for success. The fonts on the side of my cover are too small, so I need to do some editing to make it bigger and more appealing to the reader. For my article font I used word art. I wanted for it to look like bubble letters so I have the outline of the orange around the "Sarasota In Action" with a softer orange filling in the middle. Also, on my article, I have two different T's. The first one is to draw attention to the girl I was interviewing and her name was Taylor. I decided to make the letter a bigger font size and outline the letter with orange. On the next page, the girl I interviewed was named Taryn and I didn't want to put the same T again so I filled the letter with orange and had the white on the outside.

Social groups or issues
The social group that the article is about is teenagers but the social group that article targets is teenagers and adults. An issue that the article talks about is the change in coaches over the years for the softball team. It challenges adjusting to the different coaching techniques and personalities of the coaches for the players.

3rd Quarter Submission

                       

Revision- Article

       

                                                

                             

The 2 pictures on the top are my original articles and the 2 pictures on the bottom are my revised articles. In my original I did not add page number so I inserted those on the bottom left and right corners. I also added a branding at the bottom of both pages. The Instagram I made for marketing was called @sarasotainaction so I decided to chose that to put at the bottom. 

Revision- Cover

              

To the left is my original cover and to the right is my revised cover. My biggest revision was making the font bigger because the main feedback I received was that my font was very hard to read. In order for there to be more grey space for the writing, I used the original photo instead of the cropped one. Throughout the cover, I changed all the fonts to make the letters thicker so they would be easier to read. I removed the outline around the text box because it makes the writing look more natural instead of sectioned off. I believe overall the cover is significantly better and more appealing to the eye of a reader because of the cleaner structure and larger font. 

Revision- Table of Contents

                      

To the left is my original table of contents and to the right is my revised table of contents. I decided to make the picture the whole background so that the softballs would be the main focus. I changed the font of the "Table of Contents" so the letters were more bold and stood out more. I also changed the font of the article descriptions because the old ones were the standard font and then I made the page numbers bold as well. By putting the different articles and page numbers in different spots of the softballs, I think it made the table of contents more unique than other designs. I also eliminated a lot of white space so it makes the page look less interesting. 

Marketing Plan

For my first form of marketing, I will use print ads in other magazines. I will target companies that have the same target audience of sports. Because people will be reading a sports magazine and may want to read something different, they will see my ad and become interested in my product. I also think it is an effective way because many people read sports magazines so the ad will be seen by a wide variety of people.

Another form of marketing I will use is sponsoring events. If there is a local event around town like a basketball tournament or a rowing tournament, I could get signs to put up at the event or have samples of my magazines at the event. People attending these events will be local people or somewhat around they area and may be interested in other sports events happening in the area. By having some samples of my magazine there will allow people to view it and read a little bit about my magazine if they are interested.


My last form of marketing is social media. I created an Instagram account for people all around the area to keep updated on the latest news but in a shortened version that would be published in the magazine. Pictures would be uploaded and short descriptions of what is happening to draw the viewer in to want to know more about the article. I chose this as my marketing form to create because it is easy to make and can be seen by a large audience. Screenshots can be sent out and people can send it to their friends so more people will know about it. This overall is very effective when trying to target a large group of people.

                               
         

Target Audience 3

The last magazine that has a similar target audience to mine is SLAM magazine. This magazine is a basketball magazine that attracts sports fans. Their marketing is through social media and famous basketball players. Sometimes the athlete may post on a social media account that they will be featured in the magazine and then their fans will become interested in buying that issue. They also tape videos of the players featured and post them on their website where underneath you can click a link to buy the magazine they are featured in. To promote SLAM, some athletes will post pictures wearing their merchandise to help promote the company. Promoting famous people is their main way of using a persuasive technique. Mostly digital media is what SLAM uses to promote their magazine and company so that many people of all ages have access to it.

Overall, I think using digital media to advertise for their company is very effective. Many people have access to buying their magazine and by using celebrity appeal it allows for a                                                                    wide range of sports fans to be interested.

Target audience 2

Another magazine that has a similar target audience is the ESPN Magazine. My magazine and ESPN both have a target audience of people who enjoy sports or want to stay updated on recent spots news. Our magazines also appeal to all ages so that helps with marketing when trying to attract a large group of buyers. Marketing is huge necessity when trying to sell a product and ESPN does a great job at marketing their magazine. The major platform they use for advertising is social media. ESPN has accounts on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. They use these social media accounts to post covers of upcoming covers or topics they will release in order to catch an audiences attention. They use top name athletes that many people know about because people will want to know more about the big name athletes than the smaller ones. Sometimes the athlete will post on their own social media account saying they will appear on the cover of the magazine in order to promote the magazine so more of the fans specific to the athlete will buy that issue. ESPN mainly uses the form of media to promote their magazine.

Overall, I believe using social media is a good and effective way to promote a magazine. It can be seen by millions of people in a short time and people of all ages have social media so you have a wide variety of people seeing your product.

Target Audience 1

My target audience was mainly people interested in sports. Ages 14+ to 60 would enjoy the magazine because it is formal and can be enjoyed The geographical audience I am targeting is Sarasota and nearby cities like Bradenton and Venice. The magazine could also have appeal to other states who wonder what it is like in sports for other states. The education level for the magazine is just a basic high school level. I do not use big or complicated words so many people can read it.





Sports Illustrated is a magazine that has a similar target audience to my magazine. The target audience is mostly towards sports fans because they publish many different magazine issues about all types of sports. Sports illustrated has also been named one of the most well-known magazines in sports. The magazine has an average of 23 million people who read it every week. Sports illustrated has a different approach to marketing then some other magazines. They offer a swimsuit edition annually in May to bring in more readers. They also promote their magazine on Facebook and Instagram in the form of mass media. This will result in many people checking out a preview of upcoming magazines and possibly subscribing. Sports Illustrated uses celebrity appeal as a persuasive technique to intrigue readers to buy their magazine. They feature celebrities on the cover like Dwayne Johnson, Jeremy Lin, Serena Williams, and many more. By putting big name celebrities on the cover, it draws in a larger audience instead of using smaller named celebrities because many people may not know about them. The form of media they use is print and social media because it can be sent out in large amounts.

Overall, I believe this is a very effective way to market a product. The use of mass media and switching up the magazine issue to a swimsuit issue draws the attention to a lot of more readers.

Use of conventions

My project is solely based of the genre sports. My article features the topic of softball at Sarasota high, but also includes other sports articles throughout the magazine. For my text on the front cover, I mostly kept it clean and basic. I made the title font orange to  match the school colors of Sarasota High which are orange and black. The words "Hard work and dedication" that go through the center of the page are bold. I did this to draw attention to a simple phrase of what athletes must have for success. The fonts on the side of my cover are too small, so I need to do some editing to make it bigger and more appealing to the reader. For my article font I used word art. I wanted for it to look like bubble letters so I have the outline of the orange around the "Sarasota In Action" with a softer orange filling in the middle. Also, on my article, I have two different T's. The first one is to draw attention to the girl I was interviewing and her name was Taylor. I decided to make the letter a bigger font size and outline the letter with orange. On the next page, the girl I interviewed was named Taryn and I didn't want to put the same T again so I filled the letter with orange and had the white on the outside.

Feedback/ Revisions

On the cover, most of the feedback I received was to enlarge the text because it was very hard to read. I had a couple small text boxes with an outline around them and a few people suggested I remove the outline so I have more space for the words. There was also mention that on the table of contents page I had a lot of white space. I should fill it with more pictures or even add more pages to the table of contents. In order to do so, I will most likely have to re organize the layout to something more broad within the page so I have more room to work with instead of sectioning off the pictures and words separately. Another thing I need to add is page numbers and a branding. I forgot to put them on my mid term submission so this will make my article look better. By making these changes, my magazine will look more appealing and professional.