Research and planning: Double page spread analysis

This double page spread is in the dance music/ drum and bass genre and is reflected by the two DJ's up on stage performing in the large image on the left. They have mixing desks in front of them and headphones either on their head or around their necks. There is also people dancing in the background which symbolises my genre of music. There is a two shot that takes up the whole of the page on the left and really stands out when you first set eyes on it. Also, the title of the story is extremely large and bold and very hard to miss, it makes sure as soon as you turn the page you know what this story is about and you instantly want to read it. The font is much smaller underneath the large title and it fits perfectly onto the page. The two main guys in the picture are dressed in cool, trendy and hip clothing and look happy and jolly. This is all because the magazine are trying to represent the genre of music as modern and fresh and also sort of a feel good type of music. The audience of this magazine and this double page spread would be around 16-25 years old, similar to the audience of my magazine. This is because it will attract the main visitors to festivals and concerts of this genre and also the people that listen to this type of music and buy these music genre of magazines. 

Research and Planning: Music magazine contents page analysis

 

There is a common theme running through these two contents pages; they both include pictures of concerts and festivals. The first contents page at the top includes a picture of a girl on a mans shoulders at a festival. It is of a dance/drum and bass music festival and represents the genre very well as it has bright colours in the image such as yellow. The genre of the second magazine is also dance/drum and bass as it is two separate contents pages from different editions of the same magazine. The layout of both magazines is similar too, with a large image to the side of pages being numbered and the content of the pages being described in brief below. The only difference is that on the second one has a few more images at the bottom. Most of the images are from festivals and gigs and show happy people dancing and enjoying themselves. On the first contents page the girl is happy and smiley which represents the music genre as happy and feel good music, which I believe it is. The second contents page has its larger image of DJ fresh, a famous world renown DJ, which represents the magazine as a high quality magazine full of reliable news and knowledge. The audience of these magazines contents pages would be around 16 to 25 years old. This is reflected by the younger people shown in most of the pictures and the brighter, bolder colours used.

Research and planning: Music magazine audience presentation

Research and planning: Music magazine double page spread draft

Research and planning: Music magazine contents page draft

Research and planning: Music magazine cover page draft

Research and planning: Mastheads

Research and planning: music magazine cover analysis 2

This magazine cover from a drum and bass magazine has only two colours mainly, a yellow background and a kind of green/camouflage colour. There are two people on the cover, drum and bass artists named hype & hazard, reflected by the main title of the magazine being their name. Once again the magazine goes on to list a number of drum and bass artists that are included in the magazine, some of which might interest the buyer and make them more likely to buy the magazine. The cover is quite clear, simple and crisp. There isn't much text and the picture is very clear on the yellow background. 

Research and planning: music magazine cover analysis 1

On this magazine cover it follows the three colour rule as it includes three main colours that are green, yellow and red. These three bright colours make the cover easy on the eye and also make it stand out. The main photo is a normal looking man with a colourful Adidas tracksuit on. This kind of symbolises a 'trendy' look and implies that drum and bass is a trendy genre of music, which makes it more attractive to the buyer. The audience would be people interested in drum and bass music as it is a drum and bass magazine. We know the magazine is associated with music in some way as there is the outline of the shape of a CD to the left of the cover, in red. On the right of the cover it lists drum and bass artists which confirms the genre of the magazine. The masthead of the magazine has lines coming down underneath it which resemble when drum and bass artists are making new tracks, which tops off the drum and bass theme nicely. 

Research and planning: Music magazine collage

These are a collection of images associated with the Drum and bass genre of music. They include pictures of various drum and bass artists including Rudimental, Chase and status and DJ fresh. The photos give me an idea of what my model should look like when it comes to finally presenting my magazine. The collage shows that the artists wear a range of different types of clothing. Some of the artists are older and wear more green, brown and black clothing. Some of the younger artists wear slightly more 'out there' clothing and express themselves a little more. It is hard to pin down a certain style of clothing that represents drum and bass music as there is such a wide range of styles across the artists of this particular genre. This symbolises how it is possible for literally anybody, any age, to produce drum and bass music. It was noted that all of the photos I came across included males, which suggests that the drum and bass sector is taken up mainly by males. The pieces of text I found linked to drum and bass music were rather large and caught my attention straight away. They were also bright and some used a range of colours such as yellow, red and green.

Research and planning: Shot type research

Research and planning: Costumes and props

Costume My model was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans

Props
My model shall be either holding a book or studying to show it is a college magazine. This would be appropriate because College Students tend to study.

These are some pictures that were not good enough to use for my magazine because the facial expressions weren't quite right or for example the pose or lighting wasn't to my satisfaction.

Research and planning: Evaluation of college magazine

Font sizes:

All my font sizes are correct because they fit their purposes. For example the masthead has to be larger so it stands out and therefore attracts an audience. Also, the text for the stories has to be visible and stand out so that people can read the stories on the front and decide whether they are interested in them. 

Colour Rule

No, my cover doesn't follow the three colour rule, it has 4 colours on it. I have used the colours purple, yellow, red and blue.

Contents&cover- same magazine?

Yes you can tell the magazine cover and the contents page are the same because follow similar colour patterns. Also, they use pictures of a college student and the college respectively, this makes sure the two pages follow a similar theme. 

Photographs

My two photographs used are of high quality and fit the theme of the magazine. The first photo is of a student stood just outside of the college holding a book looking happy. The photo on the contents page is of the college and obviously fits in with the theme of the magazine.

Stories

There are plenty of the stories on the cover of my magazine, 5 to be exact, and they include study techniques and CV tips. I have also used some of these stories on the contents page, and then placed a page number next to them to indicate which page you can find that particular story on.

Successes

The successes of my college magazine cover were..(update soon)

Research and planning: InDesign

To make my contents page, I used Adobe InDesign. I  screenshot this page as proof. I used InDesign because it has lots of different options when using text and arranging the layout easily. It is also very simple to import images, by pressing file, place then importing an image of your choice.  I needed to use that to my advantage as I imported a background image. In the future I could use InDesign again or Photoshop however in Photoshop it limits my options somewhat.

Research and planning: College magazine contents

Research and planning: College Magazine cover

Research and planning: Draft magazine contents page

Research and planning: Draft magazine cover

Research and planning: Fonts

These are different types of mastheads for different genres of magazines. The first magazine called Death Metal is obviously associated with Death Metal music and that is why I feel this gothic themed font is appropriate. I chose the pop world font because I thought it looked bright and 'out there' which is what pop culture is all about. I chose the 3rd font, for popcorn, because it is yellow which is kind of the colour of popcorn and it has a sort of film feel about it which fits in with the genre. I understand that the choice of font is important when making a magazine cover and it has to represent the genre appropriately.

Research and Planning: Interview

I asked 3 people a range of questions to give me a number of ideas for my college magazine. Each person was asked 5 questions that will help me in the process of making my magazine. The key results from the interviews we did were that most wanted a model that was a student holding books or studying. The interviewees also wanted to see the colours of Hyde Clarendon college used on the cover. Another point collected from the interview was that they wanted the name to be associated with either 'Hyde' or 'College'.

Research and planning: Medium close up images

I understand that I will have to use medium close up images on my magazine cover. Here is a range of randomly selected medium close up images I gathered from the internet. Medium close up images are images from sort of the chest upwards.

Research and Planning: College magazine cover analysis 2

This magazine's target audience seems to be female students. This is shown by the female model on the front and also a number of the stories being primarily aimed at the female population of the college. These stories include tag lines like 'Campus to catwalk' and 'Interviews with Gossip girl and 90210.' Once again you can see the College theme pushed forcefully with words like 'Campus' and 'college' being used repetitively. Some other college related stories described on the front cover are about surprise careers being inside the magazine and also about the dangers of dating violence on the campus. As mentioned in a similar previous post, the stories will be of interest and of benefit for the students.

The design of the magazine cover is to use bright colours such as blue and yellow. The colour theme goes 'yellow, white, blue, yellow white blue..' and so on and so forth. This gives the cover a consistency so you know that one colour tells you the headline of the article and another colour describes the article a little. It makes it more pleasing to the eye and easier to read and understand.

Research and Planning: College magazine cover analysis

The target audience for this magazine is obviously college students, made clear by the large bold title shown at the top of the cover. Also, you can tell it is aimed at students because of the model who is holding books and the repetition of the word college throughout the cover. The types of stories included in this edition of the college magazine include ways to make money on campus, why people love Blackberry and a piece called 'Thank god it's Friday', amongst many others. All of these stories relate to college life and would interest the students as they are able to get involved with these stories.

The design of the cover is quite dark in its background but that pushes the bright yellows and pinks to the forefront. The white also stands out massively on the black background. Furthermore, part of the title, or name of the magazine, is covered by the models photo which you would think would hinder the attractiveness of the cover, but this is not the case. The college theme is pushed so much on the cover that you know its related to college, even if you can't see the full title/name.

Research and Planning: Film Review

In this tutorial we copied and pasted a film review from the Internet onto a word document. Then we opened up inDesign and made 3 columns. Next we placed the text into those 3 columns and and made it fit. We placed a title at the top and pushed down the text so it spread across the 3 columns. Then we placed a relevant picture underneath. To finish, we made a colour background by making a solid rectangle background and placing it behind the text and picture.

Research and planning: Photoshop Challenge

First of all in this Photoshop challenge we had to open up an A4 document so we could start working on it. I did this by opening up a new project and changing the size to 'International paper'. We then had to write 'AS MEDIA STUDIES' in size 24 red century Gothic font, I did this by clicking the text tool and clicking the centre of the page and typing.  We also had to change the background colour to blue so I created a new layer and placed a solid blue colour rectangle behind the text. Next, we had to give the text a drop shadow so I highlighted it and pressed on blending options and gave the text a drop shadow. After that we had to place a picture of a person underneath the text. I did this by saving a picture from the Internet and resizing it and placing it under the text. Then we had to change the colour of their hair, I did this by using the paintbrush and lowering the opacity. Finally, we had to draw a border around the picture so I drew a solid rectangle behind the image.

Research and planning: Skin tutorial

With the skills I have acquired in this lesson, I have removed blemishes from the skin using the spot healing tool. Also I have used the brush tool and 'Smart blur' to apply make-up to the woman's face and change the colour of her hair. I will be able to use these skills on my magazine in the future.

Research and Planning: CD Cover

In the process of making this CD cover I used tools such as the magic wand to separate the CD and the Horn from its original image. I also distorted the background using the wave filter and added coloured text to finish off the CD cover.