rearranging my front cover

After looking at my magazine again, i have decided that i want to rearrange the layout of the front page. When i previously designed my front cover, i decided that i was not going to stick to the normal conventions of a music magazine, arranged the text on the front cover across the bottom of the page, as opposed to down the left hand side. Having looked back, i can see that my magazine would look better, if i had stuck to the conventions, so i am going to rearrange the front cover. 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0EcFsgrbO1U/SyeNczD9aBI/AAAAAAAADKM/D4a2WBaPtbs/s320/photoshop+thing.png

I have also been looking at some more tutorials in Photoshop, to design the layout, background for my second double page spread. Here are some examples of ones that i have found, that i am interested in trying out:

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-manipulation/dazzling-dance-photo-manipulation.html

Another one that caught my eye was this one:

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-effects/urban-ink-photo-effect.html

I chose a photo of Poppy and tried out this tutorial on it. Below is the image from the example from the tutorial, and below that are screen grabs of me making my version and the final image.

I have written another article to go in my magazine. I have decided to do this article in a slightly different format to my interview, which is what my other article was. The article is called "10 things you didn't know about Poppy". After finding and article in the October 2009 edition of Q magazine named "200 things you didn't know about the Beatles". The article from Q is slightly different, as it is mainly things you didn't know about the whole band, as opposed to just one person. I have chosen my "things that you didn't know" to be things mainly about Poppy's childhood.

Below is a list of the things i am going to put on the page:

1. Grew up with 4 dogs, 7 chickens, 2 horses, and a cow on a farm in surrey.

2. Spent her entire childhood watching Grease at least 3 times a week.

3. Once thought it was fashionable to wear a bright yellow bomber jacket.

4. Still has a poster of Michael Jackson in her bedroom at home.

5. Still finds it difficult to tell the time on an analogue clock.

6. As a child, Her ambition was to work in a bakery.

7. Her initial contact with fame was being a model for local magazines, and gradually being spotted for bigger and more popular fashion magazines.

8. Most memorable moment before the age of 10 was meeting the spice girls, at the age of 8, at a christmas shopping event in london.

9. She met her current boyfriend, Jack Hughes, at school at the age of 15.

10. Her Favourite colour is blue, as it reminds of childhood holidays to Florida, and the colour of the sea there.

to do list

hi jaz ok so below is the criteria

There is proficient research into similar products and a potential target audience.

Print: In order to achieve this you need to analyse at least 15 music magazines bearing in mind we are creating just the front cover, contents and a double page spread so just focus on these when you analyse them. Focus on what you think looks good/ bad and why. Either scan in the magazine pages or find them online.Target audience is evident in the selection of the genre of music magazine you will be making, and a limited look at the origins of the magazines and then upload this to your blog.

• There is proficient organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props.

Print:In order to achieve this you need to look at the conventions associated with each section you need to design, for example the front cover is usually shot in a studio, so with this in mind you should use the studio and your main actor/actress pretending to be the lead singer of a group or band can be photographed, so shooting in the studio in front of the green screen is a must, intial shots of this type need to take place with maybe a contact sheet being generated and uploaded to your blog. I would like to see 6-7 location shots and uploaded with an analysis about why you have selected it. Add in the costumes and props as a list.

• There is proficient work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding

Print: in order to achieve this you need to complete 4-5 drafts of your music magazine pages for example, 4 versions of your front cover at various stages of completion use screen grabs and scanned in sketches, culminating in a final design which shows a process of development, this applies to the contents page and the double page spread. Grid references need to be completed and posts need to be created to support your planning film.

• Time management is good.In order to achieve this all deadlines have been met.

• There is proficient use of digital technology or ICT in the presentation. In order to achieve this level you have made a minimum of 60 posts the level of written work is good and you have checked your spelling and grama, however this is not important enough to lose marks, but it would still be advisable to read through your posts.

Evaluation

EVALUATION CRITERIA
Candidates will evaluate their work electronically. This MUST contain an element of audience feedback and may be either integrated with the presentation of the research and planning material or may be presented separately. Where candidates have worked in a group, the evaluation may be presented individually or collectively but the teacher must allocate a mark according the contribution/level of understanding demonstrated by the individual candidate.

The questions that must be addressed in the evaluation are:
1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2.How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3.What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4.Who would be the audience for your media product?
5.How did you attract/address your audience?
6.What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7.Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Level 4 16–20 marks
Excellent understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production.
Excellent ability to refer to the choices made and outcomes.
Excellent understanding of their development from preliminary to full task.
Excellent ability to communicate.
Excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the evaluation

After spending long time deciding on a name for my magazine, I have decided to call it VOLUME. I have been looking through fonts to see which one i think is most suitable to use as my masthead. Here are examples of fonts that i am considering.

I have spent the past few weeks, preparing for the construction of my music magazine. After focusing on TV dramas for a while, I held my Photoshoot on the 9th February, I have selected suitable photos that i can use in my magazine, and have started to edit them. I have also found lots of photoshop tutorials on the internet, which are quite fun to do, and look rally professional. I have had a go at trying to do some, and i think that i will use one or maybe more in my magazine. My favourite one so far:

I think i am going to use this as a background for my double page spread. I found the tutorial for this at: http://www.photoshopstar.com/graphics/making-funny-disco-style-background/

Here is an example of an unconventional magazine cover. I would rather use an unconventional cover for my ,magazine, as it is more likely to be unique, and perhaps it will draw more peoples attention. The only problem with this is that i will have to spend a lot of time making this look professional, as often unconventional magazine covers do not look professional. 

Here i have found a picture similar to the style of the one i want to use on my front cover, and designed a mock layout of a front cover. This is quite a conventional, basic, normal style of front cover, but i want to make my magazine look different. 

After being shown a good website with some nice tutorials in photoshop (http://www.tutorial9.net/photoshop/colorful-glowing-text-effect/)

i had a go at one of the tutorials, and this is what i made: 

Then i tried playing with some photoshop effects, here i used the smudge tool, which ws very effective, and made the reflection look like it was being reflected in rippling water. 
And here i added another gradient layer, which looks kind of like there is a big light coming from behind. 

Above are some contact sheets of the photos i took of Nicole Wall. 

Above are some contact sheets, of the photos i took of Poppy Larbalestier, at Havre Des Pas. I am hoping to use some of these photos in my final magazine. 

This is an example of the grid system i am going to use:

These are my layouts for my front page, my contents page, and my double page spread. i have put a couple of good examples, as well as the one's that i am going to use. I have also drawn out some examples of grid systems. All magazines use grid systems, and they use the same grid system throughout the magazine, apart from the contents page. I have drawn out 2 grid systems for my contents page and my double page spread. I do not have one for the front page, as a magazine front cover has so many of its own conventions to adhere to, that it is not necessary for one. 

I have now finished my preliminary task. I have spent a lot of time producing, what i think, is a professional front cover for a school magazine, and contents page for a school magazine. The first thing i did was take a photo of one of my classmates for my front cover. I then uploaded the photo in to photoshop. Then i spent time looking through different fonts and sizes, until i found one that i thought suitable. I thought of some text that i could display on the front cover, and again experimented with fonts and so on. Then i moved on to my contents page. I found an example of one in an ELLE magazine from 2004. I uploaded that page in to photoshop, and edited the whole thing. I put pictures of subjects from the school website, and on each of the pictures, i put the subject name, and the page it would appear on. I then listed each page and what was on it, with the mast head at the top. 

I have been spending some time editing a photo in photoshop. I have basically made a very basic front cover. For my first attempt i think it isn't bad, but obviously i will spend a lot more time on it. I think i have managed to grasp the basic aspects of photoshop, but with more practise i think my final piece has potential to look quite professional. When the photo was taken, i had a hairtye around my wrist, i wanted to get rid of this as it made the photo look quite tacky. I used the clone tool, to take the colour of other parts of my skin that were the same colour, and placed these bits of colour over the hairtye until you couldn't see it anymore. i thought the the picture would better in black and white, so i changed the colour format of the picture to grayscale. i added a little bit of text, just to get used to using the tool, and imported a barcode.

As i previously mentioned, i have been looking at some Classic Rock front covers. The first thing that i noticed about this front cover, is the mast head. I like the way it is symmetric, and spreads right across the top of the page. This magazine cover is very powerful, and is likely to encourage people to buy it. The image is very powerful, of an incredible artist, who likes to make a statement. I like the white background, and will probably use a white background for my magazine cover. 

In the past couple of lessons, i have spent a lot of time playing with photoshop, and trying to get the hang of using it. I used one of the photos that we took in  previous lesson, and spent time editing it, and trying to make it look like a magazine front cover. 

Below is a link to a website that i have found, which is showing some statistics for the sales of popular music magazines. Hopefully from this i will be able to choose a best selling magazine, to give me some good ideas about how i can make my magazine look professional. Here are the main figures. 

Classic Rock 66,632 (67,399)
Kerrang! 60,294 (76,937)
Metal Hammer 48,540 (45,809)
Mixmag 34,073 (35,817)
Mojo 106,367 (106,218 )
NME 56,284 (64,033)
Q 113,174 (131,330)
Rock Sound 22,527 (23,021)
Terrorizer no figures (14,952)
The Fly 105,212 (103,051)
Uncut 86,925 (91,028 )
Word 33,775 (33,217)

http://dezji.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/uk-music-magazine-circulation-figures-2/

From these figures i can see that Classic Rock is a magazine that sells very well. I am now going to look at some covers and hopefully contents pages for this magazine to see what sort of thing i should be aiming for. 

in yesterdays lesson, the people who are doing a magazine, went around the school and took lots of photos, trying to firstly get the hang of using the cameras, and also, trying to see which sort of photos we think would look good as our front covers. The people doing a film, made some small video clips. Both of the groups then were shown how they can edit their video's or photos, and begin to prepare them for their final pieces. 

When i found this magazine front cover, i just thought it was funny, but after looking at it, i realised that it had a very good basic layout. It has a plain simple masthead, that still looks good, with a big picture of a ferret, which is obviously what the magazine is about. 

I am going to spend this lesson looking at the things which make up a front cover, for example, the mast head, the barcode, the date and issue number, possibly a web link, a big bold main picture, and lots of information about what is inside. It is important that i look at these things, so i can try and find things that i like to include on my magazine front cover. 

As yo can see i have found on the internet, a page showing a variety of different mastheads. None of these particularly attract me, but they are all good examples. The new york times one, is an example of a very common style of masthead, in newspapers. 

I can't describe what it is that i like about this front cover. Perhaps it is how in your face it is, or the way that there is a lot going on. It could be the fact that the cover is showing one of the most famous people in the music industry. Madonna is quite an attractive woman, so it is pleasant to look at as well. 

Although i spent the lesson yesterday looking for adverts that was attracted too, i have realised that my magazine needs to attract boys my age, not just girls my age. Therefore today i have been looking for adverts that would hopefully appeal to boys.

I have been looking through some magazines, trying to select adverts, or pictures, that i think would be suitable to go in to my magazine. What i mean by 'suitable' for my magazine, is that they appeal to the right audience. For example my music magazine will hopefully attract a younger audience, so i wouldn't have adverts for thing that an older generation would buy. So far i have found one which i am going to scan on to the computer. I have decided that i like this advert as i love the colours, black, grey, white, and purple. The purple really looks good and attracts you to the advert. The advert is for paco rabanne, ultraviolet perfume, hence the purple colouring. 

In my first couple of lessons, i have been watching some good, and bad, introductions for thriller films, both from real produced films, and other final pieces from AS media students. I have also looked at some magazines, to look for ideas as to what i need to do if i want to do a magazine for my piece.