Images Taken For Front Cover

These are the images I took for my front cover. My initial idea was having two people on the front cover as a duo but decided the lighting was not very good on these as they had a pink tinge. I also decided that editing writing onto these for feature stories would be more difficult like it was in my prelimary task were my college magazine had two people on the front cover. With two people on the front both people must equally be shown and I felt the singular images with the brighter lighting was more effective and looked more professional.

Focus Group

This is my focus video. In which I asked questions based around my genre of magazine to gather feedback on ideas. The feedback I recieved on the possible name idea of 'Rapture' was positive so I then went on to finalize the name. The people in my focus group are from my target audience therefore the information they gave is relevant to my music magazine.

Digital Drafts

These are my digital drafts which I will use as a guideline when creating my real magazine. When creating the digital drafts I had to consider the conventions I would need to use. For the front cover it was compulsory to include:
-  Atleast 3 feature stories
- Mast head
- Main story
- A barcode location
- Price
In some of the drafts I also included the following:
- Skyline
- Footer
- Plug

In the first draft, I choose to have the feature stories at one side of the page and the main story separate at the other side to make the page more ordered. I also chose to include a plug to fill space at the top. Doing these drafts also allowed me to experiment with different fonts that I could possibly use. I used an italic style font in the first one so I could see what the effects were by using an italic masthead as opposed to bold or just regular. I chose the second draft to base my front cover on and I drew all focus to the 'Main story' and liked the idea of having this almost centered and the contrast  between the italic and non-italic words emphasied the story as important. I did not use a plug on this one and kept to just three feature stories, on reflection I think this draft could of had a plug or another story featured under the main story so when creating my magazine I will make sure to try and include some more text under this to fill the space. On the last draft I kept most of the text at the bottom of the splash and included the main story at the top to separate it from the feature stories. I made the masthead very bold and large, since the main story and feature stories were smaller. Unlike the second draft were the main story was large and the mast head was more subtle.

When creating the contents page drafts I looked at other magazine contents pages such as the Rolling Stone one I analysed the conventions of. This gave me inspiration for ideas for the layout I could use. I looked at how the different parts of the contents page was sectioned off and the placement of the image. I liked the idea of having the page number big which stands out on the page therefore used this in two of the drafts to see how it could work in different layouts. I tried a 'listing' layout were the stories are more in a traditional contents list. I also tried a more separated look were stories are separated into different sections.

For the double page spread I created three different ones choosing a different look for each one. In one i used the basic layout of having one page a main image then the page next to it with writing on the article and main title, similar to the Rolling Stone double page spread of Lana Del Rey. For the second one I chose to have the writing in the middle of the page and separate the images into the side of the page. I had two columns for the writing and a diagonal divide at the top to allow space for the main story quote/information. For the third one I took inspiration from the Vibe magazines double spread of Solange Knowles where black and white images of her are used as a divider. These images will be where 'Images from shoot' are. The biggest main image is in the oval although this may be changed depending on how 'fit' the image I am going to use is. I decided on this one the name of the artist will be the biggest piece of text and the next biggest will be a quote from the article to attract people to read.

Hand-drawn drafts

Front Covers

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

These are the drafts I have drawn which I have used as a guide for the digital ones. I used all the necessary conventions, in some I added conventions which are not compulsory and can be left out for example a plug. A plug does not always have to be used unlike a masthead. Therefore I tried to experiment with using different conventions to see what the effect was to help me decide what conventions I would use and which ones I would not.

Survey Responses

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-LHBS7MFV/

These are the responses I collected from my survey which assisted me with making final decisions on my target audience. The majority of the survey responders were from the 16-30 catergory which is my magazines target audience therefore the results were all valid to the magazine I was looking to create. Indie pop/rock was highlighted as peoples favourite genre, this is useful as it is the magazine genre I was looking to make. Although the preference of the frequency of the magazine was not what I had planned for my magazine (a bimonthly one) instead people preferred a weekly magazine but I felt that there was more of a market for a bimonthly magazine as NME a similar genre magazine is weekly and that would be more competition for my magazine.

My Survey For Market Research

Take the survey!

Behind the scenes of magazine shoots

I found Lana Del Rey's behind the scene shoot the most inspiration here are a few:

LDR: Vogue Magazine 2012
LDR: FADER Cover Shoot 2014

Lorde: Rolling Stones Shoot 2014
Lykke Li: Interview Photoshoot For Spin

Ideas

These are some initial ideas I gathered to inspire me for my models look. I included outfits, make-up, hair and accessories which would appeal to my target audience. For outfits I wanted darker colours like maroon, camo-greens, denims which are all associated with the indie genre. If I picked bright colours like magenta, yellows and bright purples this would be more of a pop look but since my genre is indie pop/rock the outfits take influences from rock and pop. For the makeup I wanted an bold eyeliner look which still kept some elegance. The picture in the top right of the last moodboard (Hannah Murray) inspired me to colour coordinate the models makeup to the outfit as they use the bright red lipstick, skirt and love heart on the top. I find this makes a bold statement therefore I would try and do this when creating my models look. I did like the idea of having floral headbands with flowers but later disregarded this as it did not fit with the pop/rock look my model had. 

Price

Reader Profile

Conventions & LIIAR Analysis

Indie Pop/Rock Artists and Music Videos

Lana Del Rey - Blue Jeans
Artic Monkeys - Why'd You Only Call Me When Your High
London Grammar - Nightcall
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Florence and the Machine - Lover to Lover

Genre

Genre Moodboard

Main Task

The front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All images and text used must be original, produce by you- minimum of four images.

My magazine completed

Evaluation

What have you learnt from completing this task?

From completing the preliminary task I have learnt different techniques. Prior to this task I had never used photo shop before, this was the most challenging task because of the complexity within photo shop. I found learning about the different features on photo shop interesting as it opens up a lot more options for editing images and compiling pieces of work.). From this task I have learnt organisation skills and now know how important it is to keep memory sticks and folders organised in order to be able to find work easily and have less chance of losing or misplacing work. It has also pressed me to keep on top of work, to do this I used my study periods effectively to complete tasks I did not finish in lesson so for the following lesson I was up to date and could move on. I also learnt about the conventions of a magazine, this helped me when researching different college magazines as I could see the common features in each image, it also helped me gather inspiration for my magazine. When planning my magazine I used the same layouts that all magazines use, for example the mast head is always at the top, I didn’t change the normal layout for my magazine because I wanted it to look realistic and like a magazine product, not like something ‘different’ and ‘individual’. I was also introduced to the mac computers, I have never used a mac computer before therefore found this quite difficult at first especially with photo shop.  We also used the cameras provided at college, which took some practice because they are not the same as the cameras I am used to. Doing this task has also taught me the importance of deadlines and what I need to do in order to meet these.

How have you used technology?

To edit my image I used photo shop, I used different methods in these to compile my image, I used layers to organise all the different features of the magazine, if I needed to edit one of the layers it was easy to do this because it would only edit that feature and not affect the rest of the image. I used the exposure elements to change the look of the photo (make the image brighter). Using the paint brush I brightened teeth and changed the opacity which blended and make the whitener look more natural. I used the internet to get a image of a barcode to use in my image. I also used the spot healer tool to amend blemishes and spots. To take the pictures I used the camera, I took medium close up shots. I first took image in landscape but after viewing them I realised that they would not fit as well in the magazine cover so therefore took other pictures in portrait. I used blogger to post my progress to, this was new to me but fairly easy to use. The blogger was also helpful to keep track of what work I have completed and what work I have not, once a piece of work was uploaded I knew that piece of work was completed. To present my work on I used powerpoint, I found this the simplest way to show my work before I put it on my blog. When I was making the digital drafts I also used powerpoint because I find it simple to manipulate shapes although I could of used publisher but this was not available on the macs.

What conventions have you used and why?

I used many conventions in my magazine.  The mast head on my magazine was at the top of the magazine, I used a mast head so that the name of the magazine was clear and easy to see at the top of the magazine.  Under this I had the date and issue number of the magazine, this is to show what number magazine it is and what date it was published on. At the other side is the website of the magazine this gives the reader an option to look up extra information about the magazine. I used feature stories as this tell the reader what will be included in the magazine, the feature stories appeal to students as they are about things which students may be interested in. The purpose of this is to draw the reader in because it makes them want to read more. I also used a pull quote which is similar to feature stories but it quotes what someone said from a story, in my magazine the quote related to one of the girls on the image (Eleanor). The main image is of two students from the college who are the same age as the target audience, this is ideal as from the image we understand it will be a youthful magazine. I used a plug in my magazine to draw people in as they have the chance to win something, this is in a circle so it stands out from the other feature stories which are not.  I used a footer in my magazine which gives more information in a small space. It also balances the magazine out as it is a black strip at the bottom. I did not use a skyline however as I felt with a skyline the magazine could of looked too crowded.

  What would you change if you were to do this task again?

If I did my magazine again I would change the main image used, one of the main struggles I had was making the text stand out against the people in the image and the background. I would change the image to only one person and have a simpler background, I did like the brick wall effect but it was difficult to make text stand out. To make the text stand out I used boxes, this made the text easier to read, ideally I would of preferred to of not used these because most magazines just have the text against the background therefore think my magazine would of looked more realistic without them, but it was necessary so that the text was readable.  If there was only one person on the image (like in the  photo shop practice) text would stand out more clearly as one side of the image would be clear or at either side, depending where the person was positioned. Only after reviewing the image now, if I did the magazine again I would try a skyline to see how it looked with one. Again if I did the magazine again I would try out different locations to take the images so that I had a wide variation instead of only a few locations.  Although I think I used my study periods well to complete work, if I did the magazine again I would try to put extra effort in to complete work faster after I got it instead of leaving it until the day before the lesson it should be completed for.

10 Possible Images for cover

This was the image I used for my final product

I didn't use this image because they wasn't looking at the camera and the girl on the rights face was covered fully

I didn't use the landscape images because I felt it was harder to fit them to my poster

I didn't use this image because it was using artifical light and I preferred the outdoor light used

Again I felt the lighting wasn't great on this image

The lighting of this picture is very dark so I didn't choose to use it.

Although the lighting is good on this image there was the obstruction of the leaf over 'Faris' head so felt it didn't look very professional.