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

Explosion Magazine Contents Page Final Edit

Explosion Magazine Front Cover Final Edit

Explosion Magazine Double Page Spread Edit Two

Planning: With my second edit of the Explosion Magazine. I have decided to keep a black and white theme to match the rest of the magazine so it still creates mystery within the content of the magazine. My final edit I would need to think about where the page divide line is and how it does not interrupt the text on the page.

Explosion Magazine Contents Page Second Edit

Planning: When thinking about the layout of the contents page, I thought about adding more information then adding pictures otherwise it would complete exploded with colours which are not part of the colour scheme that I have worked with at the moment. In my final edit, I'll think about adding a bit more colour to not make the magazine seem dull and boring. Also, to choose or helping present the information better as it is hard to read in my second edit.

Explosion Magazine Front Cover Edit Two

Planning: with my second edit of the magazine cover, I decided to add some colour to the background to make it look approachable instead of a black and white colour scheme. I decide to keep the brick wall background but add in a prop to make the front cover look more active than the model looking away from the distance. These changed still keep the theme of the magazine [Pop-soul] as keeping the theme simple would not be eye-catching to the target audience of pop-soul music fans. The full body shot of the model looking down suggests mystery within the magazine as his face is hidden making the target audience wanting to find out more about the upcoming artist and why the magazine have mentioned him implying that he must be very important.

Explosive Magazine Double Page Spread Edit One

Planning: When designing my first edit of the double page spread, I thought about how the layout will be on a physical magazine instead of a online magazine. When this layout is printed on to a physical magazine, some of my text will be lost within the staples of the magazine. In my next edit, I will make sure to properly think about how the layout of the text so it does not ruin any of the layout and it would be able to print out perfectly.

Explosion Magazine Contents Page Edit One

Planning: When I was designing the first edit of my music magazine, I originally thought about how I would layer out the information and text. I decided to spread the information around the page and only point out the highlights. Next edit, I will structure the text more clearly and think about how much more I could add instead of using the space for pictures. Also, I added music artists like Beyonce and Gladys Knight to show how music of Pop-Soul has changed over the years. In the next edit I will try and achieve something similar to the first edit. Instead of using inspirational people, I will take similar photos of the models and use a different filter to show effect and contrast within the magazine contents page. 

Explosion First Cover Edit One

Planning: When thinking about how to design for Explosion magazine, I thought about how I could make the design so simple that it creates an effect with the magazine theme. I thought about adding a brick wall for adding effect to the simplicity of the theme chosen. Choosing a brick wall the feature on the background of the front cover of the magazine makes the front cover seem more edgy. Especially, as the picture has a dark filter and the model is looking away. It makes the front cover seem more mysterious. Also, how there is limited information, make the audience want to look inside to see what type of magazine this is. I originally thought that the white font over the grey background was not going to work together but I found out that they contrast really well so this is something that I would bring into my second edit. Lastly, I would bring in the way I have presented the subtitles and headlines into my second edit. Instead of having large text and pictures that overpowers the background image, I have used small simple text to create that limited effect and how it does not distract the audience from the main purpose of this magazine.

Photo shoot: Front Cover

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Shot	Content /Action	Shot type & Duration	Costume/ hair/ make up	Props	Personnel	Equipment
1	Model leaning on the edge of the brick wall,perched on the wall,  holding an acoustic guitar, looking away from the camera with a neutral expression.	Mid shot model head and torso which includes guitar.	Artist Costume: Red t-shirt with blue buttoned t-shirt and blue jeans. Hair: Scruffy.	Acoustic guitar.	Model, Camera person, Director	Digital Nikon camera.
2	Model leaning on brick wall, perched on the wall, holding an acoustic guitar, looking down at the guitar with a neutral expression.	Full body long shot of model which includes guitar.	Artist Costume: Red t-shirt with blue buttoned t-shirt, blue jeans and black and white trainers. Hair: Scruffy.	Acoustic guitar.	Model, Camera person, Director	Digital Nikon camera.
3	Model sitting down, kissing the acoustic guitar, looking away from the camera.	Mid shot model's head and torso including guitar.	Artist Costume: Red t-shirt with blue buttoned t-shirt and blue jeans. Hair: Scruffy.	Acoustic guitar.	Model, Camera person, Director	Digital Nikon camera.
4	Model perched on the wall looking into the distance which is above the camera.	Slight low angle of model's body holding the guitar.	Artist Costume: Red t-shirt with blue buttoned t-shirt, blue jeans and black and white trainers. Hair: Scruffy.	Acoustic guitar.	Model, Camera person, Director	Digital Nikon camera.
5	Model siting, at eye level of the camera looking directly into the camera.	Eye level shot of model's head and torso holding guitar	Artist Costume: Red t-shirt with blue buttoned t-shirt and blue jeans. Hair: Scruffy.	Acoustic guitar.	Model, Camera person, Director	Digital Nikon camera

Mood Board

Preliminary Task 6: School Contents Page

Preliminary Task 5: School Front Cover

Preliminsry Task 4: Photo Shoot

I have chosen to feature these picture on the front cover of my school magazine because I thought that these pictures represent the responsible, mature and intelligent student that attend the school. this show how the school shows the school life of students and how the magazine is edited and made my students. 

Preliminary Task 3:Questionnaire Answers

Question 1: How often do you purchase/read school magazine?

From conducting this survey I have found out that 4/5 people that I have asked do not purchase or read a school magazine. 1/5 read a school magazine once per week.