A media product review.

Test Drive Unlimited- The greatest lifestyle racer of all time (so far).

Rags to riches; you start off as an ordinary immigrant to the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii and the first thing you see as you get to the forecourt of the airport is a Lamborghini Gallardo race past. This sets the tone for the rest of the game- to work your way up and obtain a luxury lifestyle with the fastest and most luxurious cars in the world, through challenges involving street races, timed laps of public roads and numerous “courier” missions where you have to deliver packages and transport people to different locations.

Its graphics and user friendliness are superb. Firstly, the graphics are great for this five year old game. The lines of the cars are straight and clear and the environments of Oahu are simply beautiful to observe whilst you drive around. The luscious scenery of forests and mountains really makes you feel like you are actually there and the graphical design of the cars is brilliant, letting you observe the insides of the cars and the outsides with great  detail which are a pleasure to the eye. The ability to have a “virtual life” is unmatched by any game and with your mansion and car collection, you can have the time, or should I say, drive of your life in Test Drive Unlimited.



Mood Board (Motoring Magazine):





















Analysis of the above mood board:

If you could collate my target audience’s, needs, likes and wants in a motoring magazine: it would look a lot like my mood board. For instance, the target audience’s age range is between 17 (new drivers) to 40, which is quite a large range. Images such as a learner driver and commuters on a motorway show this audience age difference.
The majority of readers will be from the classes of working class (C1, C2 and D groups) to middle class (Group B). The working class audience will buy the magazine to aspire to own certain cars and the middle classes will most probably be able to actually own them. For instance, on TV, the working class audience will watch Top Gear to dream about the cars featured, whilst the middle class will have a broader range of motoring shows to watch, including car documentaries, car restoration shows and most probably Top Gear as well. Whilst watching Top Gear, the middle classes might actually be able to own the cars featured, unlike the working class viewers. This is also represented with my magazine target audience.
If there is a section in the magazine for selling cars, there must be a good selection of both affordable cars and more expensive ones. This is in order to make sure that my target audience is broadened. The working class audience will look at and possibly buy older, more used cars with higher miles, whereas the professional working class readers will buy more expensive sport, executive and luxury cars to fit their lifestyles. There will be a very small audience of upper classes, who will look through the magazine to find rare cars, but these rare, expensive cars will be seen by working and middle classes and they will only dream about owning them.
On the basis of target sexes, this magazine is primarily for men. I estimate that about 80% of readers will be male and 20% will be female. This difference in my audience’s gender is shown in the mood board; where general pictures such as engines, car dealerships and two men in a motoring environment really highlight the male orientation of the magazine.
In regards to lifestyle subset audiences, the majority will be Dinks with double income and possibly without kids at the age range of 25-35 and Yuppies in-between 20-30 years of age who have an urban lifestyle and high disposable income.
Most middle class families will be targeted and they will buy the magazine for car information, including technology, economy and pet accommodation etc. (as shown in the mood board).

College Magazine Essentials:

In the creation of making a college magazine, the target audiences wants must be considered. The wants of the audience are shown in a questionnaire and here is the results:




Do you want a college magazine? 80% said yes and 10% said no. A further 10% were not sure. A massive percentage obviously want a magazine, showing a clear market for us.
Would you pay for a college magazine? 60% said yes and 40% said no. This shows that over half of the people asked would pay for a magazine and this will make sure that we make money from a college magazine.
From the questionnaire, many asked students thought that it would be a good idea for the college magazine to be published every two weeks. A few asked for it to be published every month, but the majority verdict won.

The price range of the magazine varied from 50p to £2.00. A massive 90% voted for 50p, which is understandable considering it will not be sold in shops and only in the college.


Areas in the college magazine that were wanted included a gossip page, college information, course information, event guides, job sections and a problem page. These were voted as being essential to the magazine layout. Areas that were not voted for included a sports page, a horoscope and competitions.


It is also clear from many people asked that more could be done to encourage more people to read the magazine. This includes a personal feel to the magazine, i.e partying students and general recordings of good times, as well as awards and hard workers, etc...


Subscriptions are not wanted as these magazines are just handed out every two weeks to a small audience in a college.


With the front cover design of the magazine, the asked audience thought that pictures of actual students should star at the front either at a college party or just having a good time at the college. This will require personal touches and students will have to enroll to get on the front page.


As you can clearly see, it is obvious that a college magazine would be highly welcomed as students want more personal news about courses and dates.

College Magazines!

To make a successful college magazine, it is important for me to research and look at existing magazines in the real world.

Here are some examples:






The two above college magazines are very different. To start with, the  magazine on the left is clearly aimed at a more lower class audience, whereas the magazine on the right looks like a magazine for a more middle class student at a slightly more respectable college.
Furthermore, the magazine on the left looks badly designed and is clearly trying to appeal to the social life of college, whereas the magazine on the right focuses more on studying and revision.