Finished Music Magazine!

Evaluation: Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

On my music magazine you can see just a general improvement over the college magazine.  I have used lots of better editing, I believe that I have made this music magazine look a lot more professional, the colours, the images and the little touches like the stars to separate the names of the bands just make the magazine look a lot better.
The effects on the pictures are a lot better than the College magazine, I have made all the images on the front cover black and white because I think that the style of the magazine didn't look right with a colour picture.  Making it black and white suits the style more than colour.  I have done this on Photoshop, I used photoshop for everything because I can use Photoshop a lot better than In-design, I just understand how to use it more than In-design.    




The contents page for my music magazine looks more like a contents page should for a magazine.  It is filled with information, page numbers, photos and other information.  On my college magazine it has two pictures, a small amount of text and a massive amount of open space. I didn't have enough information to fill the space and like the cover, my contents page looked bare. 

When you look at this cover and then look at my music magazine, I think you can see the progress I have made with me working on the Mac's.  This cover is far to plain when I first made this I wasn't the best on working on Photoshop.  When I look at my Music magazine I am happy with the progress that I have made.













The contents page is the worst thing that I have ever made on InDesign, I should have made it on Photoshop but I was seeing which I felt more comfortable on. 

Evaluation: Question 6- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Making this music magazine, I have used:


Blogger: To upload my work so it can be view and you can see the stages that I have took to get to the final version of my magazine. 

Prezi: To show a different way of presenting my work and my progress instead of just a post on my blogger.

Photoshop: I have used this to do almost all of my work, editing of my magazine.  This has being the most important thing in helping me create my magazine. I has allowed me to change my magazine to the way that I wanted it to look like.

In-Design: This was used at the start of the unit to create my contents page for my college magazine. 

iPhoto: This was used to import all of the pictures that I took with the SLR camera to use in my magazine.







 

Evaluation: Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation: Question 5- How did you attract/address your audience? on Prezi

Evaluation: Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product? Why?

The reason that I have picked a the male to look the way that he is, is because he has a stereotypical look to him of what a young person who enjoys rock looks like.  Simple clothing and not really caring about he looks in the eyes of everyone else.  The reason I think this magazine would be good for his is because he likes going to gigs and my magazine does a lot of gig reviews so this magazine is good for him to see what the gigs were like in his area.  The magazine is targeted to a younger audience and him only being of a young age, it is good for him.

Evaluation: Question 3 - What kind of media instiution might distribute your product and why?

Evaluation: Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The reason that I picked this picture to compare to the one that I took of Luke is because I think it just has a general resemblance of it.
The way that they are stood and the posture of the shot are just a simple standing still shot, not doing anything special just a simple chilled shot, which is what you see all of the time with the rock style of images. 
Luke and Dave Grohl are not doing anything with their body just stood still.  The reason for this is you don't really see males in rock magazines stood doing poses so I just went for a medium close up on him stood still.
I have picked a medium close up just so you are able to see the face and chest and that about it.  There is no need to have anything else in the shot.  Also I have picked a medium close so you can see the emotion of the models face.  The reason I picked a close from a eye level front angle is so you can see the model clearly.
I have used natural lighting for my image.  I think that the non set up area for a photo looks better than someone behind a blank space behind him.  I think when you are outside it better to see everything that is behind the model than see nothing.  I took the picture during the day with no flash so that the model would be lit up clearly but no have the glare of the light shining on him.  This is the same for the other picture I am comparing my image to. 
My model has got a classical rock look to him.  He is just wearing a t-shirt with some small on in the chest area.  This makes the effect of a rocker that has just got out of bed and just put any clothes on that he could find and he doesn't feel the need to dress up on smart clothing.  This is the same for the image of Dave, just a plain white t-shirt with nothing on it. 
Luke has a angry look to him.  Most rock magazines you don't see people on the front with big smiles on there faces, so I wanted to keep up with that with him having an angry expression.  The picture of the other person has an almost identical facial expression looking straight at the camera and concentrating on something. 
The hair that Luke has suits the style of a rock magazine, most rockers have longer hair than most people and it is stereotyped that it is a bit messy and untidy, Luke's hair was done perfectly because it look like a rockers hair.  It is the same as the other picture, there has being no styling to it or anything like that, just being taken as he was.

The background is different but the same at the same time. I have some wall behind Luke so he doesn't look like he is standing in the middle of nowhere. Dave has a wall and it looks like a window behind him, the only difference is that he looks like he is a quite a distance away from the wall, where as Luke is stood right in front of it.     

Evaluation: Question 1 - In what way does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Use
The only thing that I really think I have used on my magazine that I have took from another magazine is the first letter of the first paragraph is bigger than the rest of the text.  It makes is clear to the readers where to start reading from, because it stands out from the rest of the text. Also I think it just looks a good way to start of the text.
Develop
Behind the title of the story on the page I have added a brush effect to make the title and text stand out from the rest.  The backing on the Kerrang double page spread has more of a paint can spill to it, with the ends spilling and dripping off the main bit of it.  I have gone for more of a brush effect.  I tried it with the same effect as the one on Kerrang but I think that it didn't look right for my double page spread. 
I have changed the quote out of the text for the story. I thought that it was a cool thing to have on the page, but I didn't like the positioning and the style of the text that it was done in. So I changed to the placing to somewhere that I need to fill some empty space.  I completely changed the style of the font to something that stands out more than the way Kerrang style. 
I have also took the layout of the Kerrang magazine.  I have one side set up with the main image and then the other with the main story.  This works well because there is a decent sized story and also something to look at. 
Challenge I have took the idea of having something in the top corner to say what is on this page.  I have got in on a different page with a completely different style and text in it.
The image is also completely different to what is on the Kerrang page. They have a group shot all doing different things, where as on my magazine it is just one person on his own.  

Evaluation: Question 1 - In what way does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Use
The first thing that I have used on my contents page is the ability to subscribe to the magazine.  I think it is a very good feature and it is something interesting to have on the contents page, letting the readers know what they can do to have this magazine to there door every week. 
The next thing is the text 'This Week'. The reason I have used this is just to simply highlight to the people who are looking at this contents page what is going to be featured on this weeks issue. 
Develop
I have developed the top piece of text that says contents.  The Kerrang one has the Issue number date and some more information. I didn't feel the need to have this where it said contents on mine because of I had all of that information on my front cover under the bar code.  So I just went for a simple black box with the word 'Contents' in white so it stands out at the top of the page to people reading it. 
I have also developed the way that I have shown what number that my stories are on. I didn't want a big arrow coming out of the side of my picture due to how small it is, so just adding the number on its own in the bottom corner makes is show what page that story will be on.
ChallengeThe first thing that I have changed about my contents page is I have something completely different called a 'Quote of the week' meaning I get the best thing someone has said and put it there for everyone to see.  I was just an idea I got and thought I would be a good way to fill some empty space and also a few people have said it was a very good idea to have on there. 
I have challenged the style of the way I present my page numbers.  I didn't like the style of the layout of the page numbers and the stories.  I thought it looked to cramped together and you couldn't really just have a quick look and find out what stories you might want to read.  So I changed them just to columns of numbers and story titles so that when looking quickly you will be able to see what you might want to read.  Also I have added a border around the sections of the contents so you are able to see when a new section starts and I have also added a column that makes the numbers of what page they are on stand out even more than they did before.  Making it easier for people to see what pages all the stories are on.
On the Kerrang contents their is an editors note which has a picture and a small section of text which just says some information that they want to tell us.  I have gone for something completely different and added a 'Fan zone'.  Which is some one who has wrote in telling us something about himself and we wanted to add him to the contents page.  This is just a little something to make it feel like we like the people who read the magazine and want to give them something in return, like in this case 'a free years subscription to the magazine'.

Evaluation: Question 1 - In what way does your magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I will be talking about the ways that I have used, developed and challenged from another music magazine that is targeted at the same audience.  

Use
The first thing that I have used is the background, on the main picture the picture has being took outside and has the background as a plain brick wall.  I wanted to get a brick wall as the background for the main image.  The reason I wanted this was to give it a casual look to the picture, I wanted this was because I wanted a rock look to it and the 'rock' look isn't all polished and perfect so the background suits that style that the magazine is.  Also the picture has had minimal editing done to it just to make it look a little bit better.  This goes with the style of a regular picture rock picture because he is just in simple clothing and isn't doing any fancy poses or anything like that. 
The two banners at the top and the bottom of the page I have also used from the same magazine.  The reason for this is that style of magazine always has banners to say who is in this magazine at a quick glance so people can look at the banners and see some of the bands or some important information at the top of the cover.  At the bottom of the page I have used the same style of banner just a plain line with some writing on it, but I have challenged the information that I have in it.  I have put some of the bands posters that will be in it, where as the other media source has different information completely.  I think the banner at the bottom is useful because it gives people information but also fills some what would be empty space and it also give a good matching look to the banner at the top of the page.  I have challenged the colour of the bottom one just because I think it suits my magazine better in the colour that I have done it in.
The strip in the middle of the page has also being created from looking at the Kerrang magazine.  I tried it out without the strip and there was just a big empty space. But also it just looked too plain with just a text box and nothing around it and anything else I tried didn't suit the style of the magazine that I was creating.  I think that the strip fills some space and also looks good in the place that it is, It fills a big empty space on the cover and also fits in with the style of my magazine. 
The mast head I have used for my own cover as well.  The reason for that is I wanted my title to stand out and when there wasn't anything behind the text you couldn't really see it because the bricks behind it were making it not stand out as much as it possibly could.   So adding the box makes it stand out and it also looks good on the magazine. 
I have challenged the text that I have used for my magazine as well.  I couldn't find the text that the Kerrang used so I went for something completely different but also looked similar enough so that people could tell that it was from the same style of magazine. 
The main thing that I have used on my cover is the colour style, I have changed everything to black, white, blue and yellow to give it a consistent house style.  
Develop
The first thing that I have developed on my magazine is the top border on my magazine.  I have kept the same colour and text style but I have added some extra touches of details with the stars in between each name.  The reason I have done this is because on some of the other Kerrang magazines they have something to split up all the text when they have separate names not just one big sentence at the top.  I have got them as a different colour so they can go with the colour style and also so it is clear they are different pieces of text.   
I have developed the title for my magazine as well.  The style of text is completely different to the Kerrang style but at the same time still suits the style of a rock magazine.  At a glance you can tell it is a rock magazine.  Also on the main image covers a little bit if the title but on mine I wanted to make sure that everyone would be able to see what it says. 
The side stories that I have I have used completely different style if presenting them. I have just used some drop shadow on them so you can see them clearer without having a black box behind it.  I have used the same positioning as the original magazine. 
I liked the text box on the magazine that was talking about the  posters that are included with the magazine, so I used the same text and sort of the same style but positioned it on a different part of the magazine. 
Challenge
I have challenged the pictures that are at the bottom of the page, there is only one picture at the bottom of the page but I have two and they are in black and white and with a border, where as on the original it was in colour.  
Also the little text box that I have on the right hand corner containing a little side story, this is challenged because it is in a completely different style to the Kerrang one.

Music Magazine Finished.

Research and Planning: More photos

I have used this picture to give a feeling of a band member playing.  There are a lot of images in Kerrang of people playing instruments because they love showing artists when they are working. 

I could have used any of these photos but I picked one of them just cause it was better quality than the rest.  I just took a lot of test photos to make sure I had a decent picture to use. 

I wanted a simple picture of someone sat down just to fill the space.  I think this is a good small picture to use in a side story.

Research and Planning:Music Magazine Progress

As you can see here I have made some changes that were needed.  I think that the changes I have made make the whole cover and contents look a lot better.  The text is a lot clearer to read on both so you are able to read what it says.  My magazine is nearly finished now, its just adding the little finishing touches to it to make my final product.

Research and Planning: Double page and contents Improvements

I was asked to make some changes to my magazine contents and double page spread.  I need something in the top left corner but I am just experimenting with different styles to see how I can make it look better. Also on the double page spread I need to change the styles of the larger text, I think they look out of place on a rock magazine so I will need to change them at some point.

Research and Planning: More photos

This is the main picture for my front cover that will be on my magazine.  I picked this over the rest of the pictures that I took. This was the best quality out of all the ones that I took an also this was the best expression out of all of the pictures, he had the angry look to him on this picture so I picked this over the rest of them.

The reason for me picking this picture is because I needed a picture of a instrument to fill the space for a competition, so I got a picture of a guitar that was in my house.  

Research and Planning: Model Release Forms

Research and Planning: Cover, Contents and Double Page Spread Final

Research and Planning: Cover, Contents and Double Page Spread

Research and Planning: General Magazine Progress

I was able to make a small amount of changes to my magazine in this session.  I am unsure if I want to add some more colours into the house style to create something more interesting to look at.  On the main image on the double page spread I need to add some text or something to fill some of the space around it, at the moment it looks to simple and too plain to look at.  

Research and Planning:Music Magazine Progress

The main time used today was making the changes to my magazine cover. As soon as I have that finished, I can move on and finish off the rest. The text box in the centre is something I will have to change because it looks to simple and the text under the title is too small and you can hardly read it.