Final Magazine

Final Draft

The use of drafts has allowed me too look at how I have improved my magazine along the way. I'm able to look at my other drafts and see what I have done to make my magazine look better and note what changes I can make on my recent draft to make my Final Magazine look as professional as possible.

Magazine Evaluation

Using Photoshop

This week I looked at different ways to make the photos I took much better to look at. The images I took seemed to look darker than what they were supposed to look like, I knew I’d have to change this if I wanted to make my magazine look more professional. To make the images better I went on Photoshop and used the brightness/contrast to make the image lighter. Using the level also allowed me to adjust the brightness and how much of the shadow I wanted to add. For the main image I took away part of the background as it didn’t go well with the white background theme I was intending on having for my magazine.

social media

This week I looked at what social media websites I could include in my magazine. I looked at what would interest my target audience. Because my magazine is as music magazine I looked at what websites are music based. I thought of using: spotify, soundcloud and youtube. I looked at what social media my target audience would be interested in and I thought of having my magazine have a facebook page and twitter page. This would be a faster way for my target audience to get information about the magazine and what’s going to be on the next month’s issue. This would be an effective way to update the readers on the magazine as they tend to be on the internet often and looking up what’s relevant on their social media websites.

Photoshop

This is footage showing how I was able to enhance my images using Photoshop before I added them to my magazine on Indesign. Taking a video of how I was able to make my images better shows how my skills have developed since I started Foundation Portfolio.

Sketches

Having these sketches enabled me to visualise how I wanted my magazine to look and how I wanted the layout to look. By doing sketches it meant that I had planned ahead, which in turn meant that my magazine would look more professional as I had thought things through when considering what my target audience would like.

Outdoor Photoshoot

I took my model to London in order for me to get a wider variety of photos. Looking at last year’s media students I noticed that the majority of them used pictures outside the studio. To make my magazine more effective and attractive I decided to do the same. I took my model to a skate park in London which wasn’t too far from the London eye. The skatepark linked to my target audience as they are the type of audience that like to skateboard and are hipsters, meaning they would find the images interesting to look at. The images turned out well as I got my model to dress how my target audience would. The surroundings were interesting as there was graffiti on the walls on the background which made the images more interesting. The images I took are the majority of images that are on my magazine. All the pictures on my contents page are from the outdoor shoot; this makes the contents page more colourful and interesting to look at.

Behind The Scenes

 

Images from behind the scenes proves that I was the images that went into my magazine were taken by me. This in addition reminds me of the layout of the studio in case I had to shoot more photos or needed to re-shoot. With behind the scenes I am able to look at the process I went through in order to carry out my photo-shoot.

Contact Sheet

A contact sheet puts all the photos I took in my indoor photo-shoot into one document. This allowed me to choose the images I was thinking about using in my magazine easily as I was able to look at more than one image at the same time. Due to the fact that I took more than 100 photos this made it easier for me to eliminate photos I didn’t want to use and made my work process more efficient.

Question Seven

Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progress from it to the full product?

Starting Foundation Portfolio we had to create a magazine for our school. The magazine had to consist of a front page and a contents page. There is a vast difference between the school magazine and the magazine I created as part of my foundation portfolio.

We were able to go round the school and take pictures. Unlike my actual magazine, I didn’t plan what photos I was planning to shoot and did it all in the space of a single lesson. My model was dressed in her own clothes due to the lack of planning and therefore didn’t attract or appeal to a specific audience. Not many images were used and all the images taken were taken by phone making the magazine not look professional due to the lack of technological advanced cameras. This was different to the shoot I did for my magazine. The shoot was planned in terms of the fact that I had researched various aspects I wanted to incorporate into the pictures such as outfits, poses, props for mise en scene and locations. I had also booked a studio in advance of the shoot. I took careful consideration of my audience whilst deciding the location, outfits, makeup and location. I took about 400 images for both my indoor and outdoor photoshoots. This allowed me to have a wide variety of images to choose from when deciding what images would go best on what page. With planning my photoshoots in advance I was able to think about what locations to use. I chose to go to a skatepark to best suit my target audience which I was unable to do in my preliminary task.

I created the school magazine on Photoshop, whereas I created the music magazine on Indesign. Regardless of Indesign being a new software for me to use, I found it fairly simple to get how it worked. With the help on Indesign I was able to create realistic/professional magazine. I was able to do this by using the tools available on Indesign such as the guideline tool and placeholders for when I knew where I wanted an image to go but I hadn't chosen picked one yet. I was also able to create double pages and found that it was easier to text wrap and add images. Even though Photoshop can be used to create magazines, I found that it was easier to use Indesign as it was more professional and had the tools I needed to create an effective realistic magazine. Through the use of this software I in turn broadened my knowledge and skills when I came to media software. In addition, I saw it easier to use Photoshop for editing images that I wanted to place in Indesign as Indesign wasn’t the right software for editing images.

Although I had knowledge of Photoshop I hadn’t experimented with Photoshop in terms of making a magazine, hence why the preliminary magazine looked simple. I attempted to follow the same house style Haydon school carries out which is; blue, yellow and white. In comparison to my actual magazine a vast difference can be noticed. I was careful when choosing a house style as it had to be colours my target audience would find visually attractive.  I used a font website to look for an interesting font for my masthead.

 I've improved my skills whilst making the magazine. I've been able to experiment with styles in order to make my product appealing to its target audience which I would say it did.

Question Six

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

When doing my photo shoot I used the Canon EOS 550D camera to take the pictures of my model Xandria; this is the camera I used in the magazine i made for my GCSE and my preliminary task so i had experience with using the camera, meaning id make a few mistakes when taking the pictures. Using this camera allowed me to take images of good quality that looked professional. i was able to take many images which allowed to choose from a vast variety of images in order for me to find the right images to place in my final magazine. I used a white backdrop during the shoot; this allowed me to easily crop my model and edit her out of the background. There was professional lighting used in the studio which produced outstanding pictures. Trigger lighting was used, this means that whenever in image was taken, the lighting would flash meaning the images came out clear.

I’ve learnt to use different types of technologies that all together made my magazine look more professional. Using the Canon EOS 550D allowed me to take pictures that looked professional, together with the lighting it made for a more proficient look as whenever I took a picture the lighting would flash at the same time; ensuring the image would be as clear as possible.

I uploaded all the images onto my home drive which allowed me to sort through my images and choose the images I would use for my magazine. When I chose the specific images I wanted to use I started to edit them in Photoshop CS5. The software allowed me to airbrush images, edit the lighting, cut the images and modify the images. I used Photoshop to edit my images to make the images look more professional, the mail reason was to crop the model out of the background from the images that were taken in a studio.

I used Adobe InDesign to create the magazine itself. The software allowed me to use different types of techniques used by professional such as: text wrapping, swatches; allows me to save colours I’ve already used in my magazine, it allows you to drag text when there’s too much text for the page to attain, it also allows you to view double pages side to side so you could view how the magazine would look like when it was finished.

Question Five

How did you attract/address you audience?

My magazine includes the type of language that is expected to be used from my target audience (provocative and use of swear words). My magazine provides provocative images where the artist does unconventional poses to interest the readers and give them a different point of view. Different types of social media such as; twitter facebook, soundcloud, blogger, a TV channel, radio, spotify, instagram, keek, vine etc. My magazine website will be able to be accessed on cell phones, tablets, laptops and computers; this means that the readers can access the website anywhere they are e.g. trains, in the car in order to keep up to date with the latest news on the magazine. 

The Uses and Gratifications theory allows me to get an idea of what my magazine needs to satisfy my audience’s needs and helps with mass comminication, as it provides an approach that is audience-centered. My magazine will allow the audience to write to the magazine so they feel as though they are part of something, using blogs and social media will help do so too. The colour scheme is inviting to the audience as it’s not too vibrant or too dull, using colours such as red, black, white, grey and burgundy brings an alternative look to the magazine.