Contents Page

• Key Features of a Magazine Cover
• Magazine Cover Deconstructions
• Inspirational Texts / Mood Board
• Preliminary Task Flat Plans
• Preliminary Task - Front Cover and Contents 
• Photoshop Skills Development
• Contents Page: Deconstruction
• Coursework Stage 1 Planning
• Institution Research
• Coursework Stage 2 Planning
• Analysing Previous Student Work
• Main Task Flat Plans and Written Rationale
• Double Page Spread Deconstructions
• Audience Research
• Photoshoot Planning
• Photoshoot Location
• Conventions, Producer and Target Audience
• Photoshoot 1
• Airbrushing Photos - 31/01/2014
• Fonts - 04/02/14
• Front Cover Update: 06/02/14
• Front Cover Update - 11/02/14
• Colour Palette
• Front Cover Update: 13/02/14
• Front Cover: 18/02/14
• Photos: 19/02/14
• Editing Photos: 25/02/14
• Photo Choices
• Front Cover and Double Page Spread: 27/02/14
• Front Cover Draft: 27/02/2014
• Contents Page: 04/03/14
• Photo Editing: 04/03/14
• Improving my Front Cover
• Contents Page: 06/03/14
• Contents Page: 11/03/14
• Article Draft
• Double Page Spread Image
• Double Page Spread: 20/03/14
• Final Front Cover
• Contents Page Final
• Final Double Page Spread
• Evaluation Question 1
• Evaluation Question 2
• Evaluation Question 3
• Evaluation Question 4
• Evaluation Question 5
• Evaluation Question 6
• Evaluation Question 7

Evaluation Question 7

What do you feel you have learnt in the progression from creating the school magazine to creating your music magazine?
Here is my final front cover and my preliminary task front cover.

 

The image on the left is my Preliminary Task - a college magazine. I found that there was several things wrong this front cover which I have made sure to address when creating my actual magazine. One feature that overall decreases the aesthetics of the front cover is the image itself. The image, due to it having two potential subjects, does not clearly show what it wants the audience to focus on - the model or the sculpture. This factor makes the overall front cover look empty. In addition, I chose colours that didn't compliment eachother - showing no clear signs of a "house style" for the magazine - which most magazines have. The overall layout of the font is both unprofessional and random; the use of the exclamation points make the cover look almost childish. Also, there is no clear structure to the coverlines and the overall wording of them is uninteresting and boring.

 I have learnt several things whilst creating my final cover, one of which being the importance of a good quality image as the main cover image. In my preliminary task, the subject of the image - the model - is not entirely in view, creating an empty look to the cover. In addition, the photo itself wasn't of great quality and therefore using photoshop in order to edit anything that may be wrong with an image - e.g lighting - can completely change the way an image looks - potentially making it look more professional.
Another thing that I learnt was using shapes in order to give text a background colour helps them stand out more- therefore grabbing the attention of the audience if in a shop with other magazines. In my preliminary task, I used colours that didn't compliment each other which made them seen out of place. With my final front cover, I made sure that I used a set colour scheme of colours that complimented each other, doing so gives my magazine a "house style" that is easy recognizable.
Apart from the main image on the front cover, one of the main features that you notice first of a magazine is the masthead. Therefore, when looking at the mastheads of magazines that already exist - e.g Kerrang! - I could instantly tell what the genre of music magazine it was. Learning this allowed me to find a font that was suitable for the genre of my magazine - old and modern rock music.

 

My overall contents page for my Preliminary task seemed lacking in detail and overall uninteresting. Although the issue number, date and magazine title are all on the page, the overall page is unprofessional. In terms of the photographs, neither one relates to any of articles and none have a caption to tell the readers what the image is of. In terms of my page numbers, for a magazine, having only 20 pages is too little and in those pages, there won't be enough articles to gather an audience. In addition, the page is mostly empty space, adding to the fact it looks unprofessional.
When making my contents page, I learnt the importance of the layout of the main body of the contents page - the articles and page numbers - by having a column slightly out of line created an unprofessional, rushed look to the overall page. I also learnt that the images need to have some form of caption in order to allow readers to know who the artist is and what article/feature they appear in. Like with my Preliminary task, I included my masthead at the top of the page - relating back to my front cover. In terms of colour scheme, I followed the same colour scheme for what I used on my front cover - furthering the point of creating a house style that the magazines audiences would be able to recognize.

Overall, my final magazine, I believe, was much more successful than my Preliminary task due to the knowledge gained in between creating my Preliminary task and my final music magazine. By using Photoshop to create the magazine, I developed and learnt different techniques that help make my magazine look more professional. When researching actual magazines, I was able to gather an insight of knowledge on how a magazine should be laid out and conventions commonly used in a music magazine.

Evaluation Question 6

During the process of planning and making my magazine, I used several different technologies. 

The technologies I used were: BigHugeLabs, Photoshop, Animoto, Prezi, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, Nikon D3100 camera, Blogger, Slideshare, Surveymonkey, Scribd and Flickr. 

I have chosen a few of these technologies and discussed what I have learned whilst using them on the notes section on Flickr. 

Link 1

Link 2

Evaluation Question 5



Evaluation Question 5

These are my results:




Here is the Blog post.

 
During the making of my magazine, I tried to address the features that the audiences had said they felt were important in a music magazine: I included posters on my contents page, along with giveaways in the form of competitions and a range of articles from different bands/artists.
One feature I focussed specifically on was the main image on my front cover as audiences had shown interest in that particular aspect. I made sure that the image was of good quality, along with engaging and suitable for the article/magazine.

Evaluation Question 4

I used Animoto in order to answer this evaluation question. Images that I used for this question were took from Google Images.

Who would be the audience for your music magazine?



Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation 4

Evaluation Question 3

I used SlideShare and PowerPoint to create this. 

Evaluation Question 2

For my second evaluation question, I used Prezi in order to make a presentation. 

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation 1

Final Double Page Spread

This is my final Double Page Spread.

Contents Page Final

This is my final Content

Final Front Cover

This is my final front cover.

 



Double Page Spread: 20/03/14

I added in my article to the double page spread. I decided to use 3 columns to fill the space. I used both black and the same pink colour that I previously used to indicate what is a question and an answer. 

I added in a drop-cap to indicate where the main article starts. 

I included another pull quote to fill the space. 

Double Page Spread: 20/03/14

I added in a custom shape and the words "Exclusive" inside in my house colours to left of the top of the page. 

I added a similar custom shape to the right of the page in order to fill space and continue with the style

I added the page numbers to the bottom of my page

I used a pull quote for my header. I added a stroke to the text to get the pink outline. 

To give the pull quote more depth, I added in shapes behind it - in the same pink colour. I erased selected areas to get this effect. 

Double Page Spread Image

This is my image for my double page spread. I separated it from my background and airbrushed it to add makeup effects. I then created a gradient background and added my image to it. I added a drop shadow to the right side of the image to add effect.

Article

This is my article:

DANNIKA WEBBER may be new to the magazine,

but she isn’t new to the music industry. But even in

this day, she informs us that being a woman in the

rock industry can be tough at times...

EVAROSE are only one of many

 all-girl rock bands, formed in the

past few years. We caught up with

vocalist DANNIKA to find out whether

being a woman in the rock industry

is still as tough as it has always been...

When did you decide that you wanted

to be in the music industry?

“It was never just a sudden decision

to become a rockstar, I’ve wanted to

be one for as long as I can remember.”

Did your parents have any influence

on your decision?

“My parents would play me a lot of

classic rock music as a child. My

childhood was hearing my parents

play Queen and other older bands.

If it wasn’t for my parents, I wouldn’t

have discovered the bands

influence me now.”

Were your parents supportive

of your decision to become

a rockstar.?

“I was lucky that my parents

were very supportive of my decision.

My parents are my biggest fans.”

Who are your curent influences?

“My influences are what everyone

 is listening to right now.I listen

to a lot of modern rock.

Bands such as The Used, My

Chemical Romance, Taking Back

Sunday, etc are my current

favourites.”

Have you found that your gender

has affected the way people look

at your band?

“Being in an all-girl rock band is

tough. But we’ve been incredibly

lucky that our fans have stuck

with us no matter what. We’ve

only ever encountered sexist

hate over the internet. But let’s

be honest - sending hate over the

internet is childish. You can only

laugh.”

Was there a particular moment

in your career when you knew

that, as a band, you had made it?

“Hearing our fans sing the lyrics

back to us was a special moment.

Although, nothing beats the feeling of the first night of our first ever

headline tour. At that moment, we

all looked at eachother and were

all thinking the same thing.

Knowing that we’ve built up a

big enough fanbase to have

our own headline tour is

such an amazing feeling.”

What are the plans for the future

of Evarose?

“We’re currently writing and

recording our first full-length

album which is exciting. It’s hard

to tell what is in the future for

Evarose, but we love what we do

and can only hope that our first

album is not our last.

We’re really excited to be

looking into touring beyond the

U.K and meeting as many of our

fans as possible. We love our

fans!”

The EPs “Creation Divide” and

“Elements” can be found on

ITunes.

www.facebook.com/evaroseband

www.youtube.com/user/Evaroseband

Contents Page: 11/03/14

I changed the Contents bubble to an arrow to link in with the other arrows on the page. 

I also moved everything further up the page to create less blank spaces. I made sure that the top of each columns were in line and straight. I added in black lines to separate each section from the previous. 

Contents Page: 06/03/14

I continued to create the main body of my contents page.
I found that I had to change my page numbers so I could count

my front cover as page 1. 

I changed the image from my contents page so that there was no text, but two separate photos relating to articles/features in the magazine. I added in two arrows - in the house-style colour - and added information about the images into them. 

Improving my Front Cover

I made a few changes to my front cover

I changed the date to a weekly date

I capitalised Green Day like the rest of the bands mentioned on the coverlines.

I increased the size of the background for the masthead to made it equal on both sides.

I changed the price to a more-weekly price for a magazine. 

I edited the skyline to try and even out the spaces between the artists and the stars.

 

Photo editing: 04/03/14

I used photoshop to separate my image for my contents page from the background. I then airbrushed it to correct the lighting, in addition to adding makeup to match the front cover image. I used the Dodge tool to brighten up the hair of my model. 

Contents Page: 04/03/14

I started my Contents Page with a white background. 

I created a skyline.

I created a bubble using the custom tools and added in the word "Contents" to it. 

I edited an image of my model from my Double-page spread from the background and airbrushed it to add makeup. I then put it on a grey gradient background and added it to my contents page. 

I started creating the main body of my contents page - I put the title in the house style red colour with a house style grey as a block background so that it stands out. 

I added text to my image. 

Front Cover Draft: 27/02/2014

This is my final Front Cover.

These are my layers:

Front Cover and Double Page Spread: 27/02/14

I added my image to my double page spread, creating a gradient background to give the page more depth - as opposed to having a block colour. I also added in a drop shadow to the right side of the image.

After I had edited my image, I copied it into my front cover document and positioned it so that the album cover was still on show and that my model's face wasn't hidden behind any text. 

I created some coverlines by adding text to background shapes. 

I created a bottom bar to fill the space at the bottom of the front cover. 

I combined the layers for the shapes and text for each coverline.