Evaluation: Question Seven

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full magazine?

From what I see from my preliminary task and my final edit from the magazine, I feel like i have grown stronger in some aspects of my skills but there are still parts of some skills where I do need to developed them more and sharpen off my skill. However, this really shows how far I've come from knowing the basics of Microsoft Office, to learning editing on Photoshop. My preliminary task showed my limited amount of skill and creativity in discussing about school. However, as soon as I changed onto the Magazine task. I felt more confident expressing my ideas and learning new things on the computer to help express and forward my creativity even more than it was previously. I believe that I rushed my preliminary task due to the fact that I didn't like talking about school as I found that topic quite boring. When it came to the magazine, I took more time and effort into making should this magazine represents my creativity perfectly without no mistakes. This shows why I decided to call the magazine "Explosion" it was to show my explosion of ideas I had to bring to the magazine. Which helped a lot. I feel that I still achieved the goal of both tasks as I adjusted both tasks to their target audiences quite well. Overall, I believe that my preliminary task could have been better if I knew about all the software I could have used and had the confidence to try them out. I believe that with my magazine task it could have also been better due to the fact of myself being fairly new to all the software and myself experimenting and trying out new things. If there was a next time I would definitely be more confident using different software to help produce my magazine much better.

Evaluation: Question Six

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

While constructing this product, I used a number of different programmes which has helped me along the way of designing my final edit of the magazine. 

These tools helped me design my magazine. Dafont was used to help me decide which font would fit the best with my front cover title. With the help of photoshop I was able to save it and fit it on my front cover. Publisher was also used to help me layout and structure each and every post I brought up on this blog. Snipping tool helped me edit out unwanted images or help me upload the pictures up on to the blogs.

Evaluation: Question Four & Five

https://prezi.com/view/v4bSJeVRwJF66XSiNlR4/

Evaluation: Question Three

Evaluation: Question Two

How does your magazine represent a particular social group?

  I wanted my magazine to be able to work with pop-soul music which isn't as popular as R&B. I wanted it to be recognised more which can be also accessible to people of all ages. When I was researching about this genre, I decided to use their certain look and style while taking my own photos. It was quite easy to mimic due to the face on how simple pictures are and their colour scheme was very simple to mimic too. However, they all did have different styles which was hard to mimic. They all had a generally theme of simplicity that was easy to mimic.              

            

During the whole research, most of the artist gave a mysterious look which could have been considered as quite powerful. It shows the edgy look they are giving off especially as in the picture with James Bay, he looks off to the distance and away from the camera. I gave this style a chance as I liked the mysterious vibe it was giving off to the public. I also thought about how this shows about how men do not always have to look strong and muscular in every magazine you see. Therefore, I thought about how I wanted a relaxed look within the front cover of my magazine. Within the images I'd taken it shows how relaxed the artist is to represent him being in his natural environment with his guitar. I thought this would attract my audience because it is something different that you do not usually see in the media for example, seeing men with muscles and being called the "Ideal man" can also have an effect on men with their body confidence. By stopping stereotypes through my front cover, this can create a 'chilled' mood within the audience. 

Evaluation: Question One

In what ways does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real magazines?

The whole idea for the magazine I created was to base it on a pop-soul/pop rock type genre while having it feature new artists of any genre. I’ve looked through physical magazines as well as online articles to get an idea on how they usually design their magazines. The magazine I was trying to design my magazine off was a magazine called blues and soul. This magazine seemed very popular within the blues and soul fanbase/community. I like the simplicity of the layout and how it is not too bright and it how it focuses on the artist performing. Not many colours show how simple it is to read the information which I tried to achieve for.

I chose James Bay to be my original artist as he symbolises pop-soul artists as they are not really mentioned in the charts. James Bay is very popular artist which I have taken an image of from the internet. I knew that for future edits, I would have to take my own pictures so, with a help from a friend, I was able to take pictures similar to how I have the picture of the James Bay. My result of this was someone concentrating on their guitar while staring downwards with their hair covering their face. This shows the mystery in who this new artist is. I got this idea from James Bay's photoshoot, where he is staring into the camera. Using a full body long shot, I was still able to achieve his look with some adaptations. In this front cover, the model is looking down with his hair slightly in the way. This shows the mystery of who this person is. Also, the clothing he is wearing shows how fame does not get to him and does not wear any brands to let the public see his genuine side. I decided to use a black and white theme to show help represent the artist as they are. Also, it carries the mystery within the magazine to create a black and white theme. The double page spread shows the simplicity of the band and how their emotion and feelings throughout their music is real. To show the seriousness, I had the models look straight directly at the camera. The whole purpose of the magazine to be simple is because it is for anyone who is interested in this genre to understand and not find any trouble with the words, confusing colours or layout. 

At the end of my production, I realised that my double page spread did not look like a double page spread with no page line in the middle, which could have effected the layout of the whole article. So, I decided to recreate my final edit of my double page spread. This made it look neater and more understandable to read. I also had an interview article about the band but I changed this to a normal article due to the fact that this is a new upcoming band so no one would have known about them yet.

Explosion Magazine Double Page Spread Final Edit