Thursday 24 October 2013

My Music Magazine Pitch


The next task we were set was that we had to create our own music magazine. I have decided that I want my magazine to follow the modern and current common conventions of a magazine. So to do this, I have researched various music magazine covers, contents page and double page spreads which are used by all the different famous magazine companies over the duration of the course. I have found that the most commonly used ‘common conventions’ are things such as barcodes, columns of writing, sub titles and images as well as a main image. After researching this, I now feel more confident in being able to produce a music magazine which looks professional and worthy of my primary target audience.
My music magazine will consist of a front cover, a contents page which is easily understood and can easily navigate readers to pages they want, and then a double page spread article which is filled with interesting stories and images, using the common conventions on each of the pages of my music magazines. I have also decided that I want to create a magazine with a pop music genre, because I am very interested in pop music and I enjoy the common conventions of a pop music magazine such as bright colours and modern styles. I will be using Adobe Photoshop to edit photo and to overall create my music magazine, I have chosen this software programme because through the course of our media lessons we have been using this programme and I feel more comfortable about using this too. The Primary target audience I am aiming to reach both men and women aged 15 to 25 years. I have chosen to use this age group because through the research I have done, I have a larger understanding of how to create a more modern and appealing magazine cover, also I would fit into the target audience age group myself so it will be easier to practically make a magazine for myself. Based on my primary target audience, I have decided that my secondary target audience will be men and women aged 26 to possible 35 at the latest. This is because these are the ages surrounding my primary target audience therefore they are more likely to be interested in it because of the slight difference in ages.

Wednesday 23 October 2013

School Magazine: Contents Page Analysis

 
To start off on my contents page, i started on background. For the background i used a gradient tool to make the colour yellow gradually get darker from the white top left corner of the page. I decided to carry on using the same colour scheme of yellow and blue because i wanted to keep these colours as my house style and also these are the colours of the school logo, so it will help make the school badge/name more memrobal to help more people learn about the school. For the text, i kept the font the same and the text size. I haven't used a font size bigger than 12 on either the contents page or the magazine front cover except from on the titles on both pages where i used a bigger font so that it stands out more and people know what that certian part of the magazine is about. For the titles, i used the same blue colour as the rest of the text on the page, but i used a shadow behind the title so that it stands out more from the background and it gives the text more depth and look bolder. The writing on this page describes to the audience what each of the individual pages are about and what they will find on them, a contents page is useful because it stops the reader from having to flick through the pages to look for the certian page they're looking for. On my contents page, i used a range of 4 different pictures of people, and different parts around the school are next to page numbers to give the readers an idea on what is on the pages also, and it makes the contents page more visual for viewers I put a shadow effect on the pictures to also make them stand out more from the yellow background and it makes them look more interesting and dramitic because of the feeling like the photo is more 'in your face' than what it would originally be. For the writing, i kept the information about what was on each of the pages short so that they were straight to the point and it meant the they readers didn't have to read to much on the less important pages as too the actual collumn pages.
 
If i were to do my contents page again, i would fill more of the space on the page, instead of having so much yellow background showing. Also i try organising the images in a more creative way so that they are more enjoyable to look at, and finally i would add more information on different pages instead of talking about every 2 pages. I could try talking about a more diverse range of stories that is in the magazine to make it more desriable to read to the readers and target audience.
  

Tuesday 22 October 2013

School Magazine: Front Cover Analysis


When we were given the task to create the magazine cover and contents page, we had to go around the school in a small group of people and take any photographs which portrayed a day in the life at Heworth Grange School. When we went around, we managed to get photos of a few of us (in our group) posing to be able to create a realistic image as well as being a perfect shot of the types of images we were looking for and then images of real life situations of students learning and being casual around school.

When I started on my magazine, I decided that I would have a yellow background and blue writing to contrast with the school logo. After I used these colours, I decided to use them throughout and keep these as my colour scheme. Also another positive factor about using these two colours is that the blue stands out from the yellow meaning that, not only will they be bright and attractive, but they will stand out and make it easy for the readers to see what is written clearly. For the main image on the cover of my magazine, I used an image of four 6th form students outside of the school gates with the school sign and entrance in the background to show the readers the brand new design and building of the school, and also to show that the image hasn't been take anywhere random, but actually outside of the school. I thought by keeping the main image at a normal size so that it's eye catching but not taking up the entire page. Then I used a medium close up image of one of my friends in 6th form, to show the dress code for 6th form and also I had an idea of putting an image of her on the front cover and then to be able to write a section on the front cover of 'a day in the life of Laura Naylor'. On the magazine cover, I applied the common conventions of using a barcode on the bottom corner of the magazine, and also I used the date and the price of the magazine on the top of the magazine cover too. On my magazine I used a bubble (in a darker yellow than what my background colour is) to make the writing that I have inside of it stand out more because it makes the writing look darker than what is actually is, meaning it's more eye catching to the audience and also shows that the writing inside the bubble is important and has been made to stand out for a meaning.

If I were to do my magazine cover again, I would fill the space more usefully, because there is a lot of empty space on the magazine cover. Also on the image that I have used of the school canteen (to advertise the new school menu available) I didn't crop the image properly and there is a lot of wobbly lines on the outside of it which makes it look untidy. Finally I would try and use more skills on Photoshop when I'm adding text into it, as when I was writing I didn't realise that some of the words were badly spelled and some of the writing had disappeared, but since I have been using Photoshop more frequently, I have started to learn more skills and will be able to correct these mistakes the next time I come to create a magazine cover.

Monday 21 October 2013

School Magazine: Task


The first task for 'A-Level Media Studies' I have been given, was to create a magazine cover and a contents page for a school magazine. This is my school magazine cover page which I created using Photoshop.