Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?




























When I first started this course, I wasn't really familiar with the magazine structure or making
process. Overtime I have learnt that there are certain feautures into putting together a magazine e.g. the masthead takes up 1/4 of the page and the image takes up most of the page or the whole page. When I first made my school magazine for the preliminary task I made the masthead quite small whilst having the picture small and in the corner. I simply had one headline on my front cover, I have now learnt that one headline is not enough to draw in a reader therefore placing many different headlines on my music magazine cover. My school magazine cover is very disorganised and has no structure as at the time I did not give that any importance. I have learnt how to use digital enhancements on the overall magazine image. As for the text, I know think that the shorter and snapier the headlines are the better unlike my school magazine which consists of a long sentance which may not stick into peoples head as much as the texts on my music magazine.

Evaluation Question 6

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

Camera used: Fuji FinePix S2980 Bridge 14MP


Software used:

Serif PhotoPlus

www.taaz.com

www.befunky.com

Editing the photos

This shows the before and after shots of my cover image. As you can see I had to change the background to make it look solid and bold and to give it that professional look. As many magazines airbrush their models to give them that 'perfect' and 'desirable' look, I too slimmed down my model in the arm area and defined her body shape by giving her a tummy tuck to make her bust look bigger. I cleaned up her hair by removing the wispy bits around the edges and defining her colour.

I did the same for this photo as I cleaned the wispy bits around her hair. I defined her makeup on Taaz.com by putting some colour in her cheeks and giving her bright red lips, I think this worked well because of the contrast against the 'dull' grey jacket. I added the pinky peach background to almost associate with the red lips as they are from the same colour palette. Overall I gave the photo a blooming bright look that makes it look more glamorous.

This image represented the more dark side to my magazine therefore she is wearing a mostly black dress yet the floral colours remind you of the glamorous side. I took this outside against the bricks as a way to show the edgy 'rough' look and I got the black door in to show mystery and darkness. Again I re-touched up the makeup to define her face and consider it equal to her floral dress by using pink lipstick. I cropped the image as the door was taking up too much space and I wanted the photo to focus on her. I edited it to look more brighter and intense but to keep the edge I gave the corners a black misty effect.

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I had slight difficulties with lighting but I used befunky to overcome this and give it that lit effect. It was hard to find the perfect white background even when I used sheets therefore I used Serif PhotoPlus to eliminate the background altogether and replacing it with a colour of my choice. I  found that the camera did not pick up to greatly on the facial makeup so I used Taaz.com to define this or even change it. I also used Serif PhotoPlus to airbrush things such as spots, blemishes and dark circles.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

This survey that I did as part of my research and planning shows that the age group I chose for my magazine is the age group that was most popular. This is because the people that took place in the survey were people of my age group that I know of, therefore the results can not be generalised.

This shows the two most popular colours chosen were red and blue. These also happen to be the colour theme in my magazine. I happen to choose these colours at my own will, not realising they were the most popular in my survey. These colours appeal well to my audience. One problem would be that my survey was done by boys and girls whilst my magazine is aimed at just girls, so I wouldn't know whether the blue was chosen by any girls or not.



This shows that the audience expects a variety of things from a music magazine since many have selected more than one option. I believe my magazine meets with these expectations since I have included all of these concepts in my magazine.

Photography Analysis

 
I kept my cover simple and not too cluttered with headlines therefore it didn't look like an intimidating read but rather a nice and easy read since my audience is a younger crowd who may not be interested in a lot of writing.

The cover model is a well groomed girl. I used a girl because the magazine revolves around girls and is aimed at girls. Seeing an attractive model on the cover will push them to buy the magazine as they may aspire to look like that.

I used the electric blue font for the mast head and headline  to contrast to the more subtle yellow background. This creates an immediate effect on the reader as it will catch their eye.

 

Have used various shapes and sizes images to create more realistic effect. Used various image styles, image on the right is for the cover story therefore it is the largest most focused image. 

Used a black and white image to show the 'darker' side to my magazine. 

I kept the font of 'contents' similar to masthead on cover to keep that professional look. I kept the page numbers in blocks and columns making it easier for readers to find pages.

I used a red colour scheme as opposed to the blue on my cover, to create a theme using the 2 most popular colours. 

I have used this 'dark effect' image to match to the 'dark topic' article which it goes with. This allows the reader to easily relate the image to the article therefore giving them a better understanding of it.

The font has remained basic and not to different from the fonts used earlier. The blue font is part of the continuous theme relating back to the cover page.

The timeline photo I have used it as way to gain sympathy from readers as it looks back at better times for this artist.

Language Analysis

This shows that I have followed the conventions of text. This article shows the artist soft selling her album and almost selling herself and her emotions to the reader for money and publicity. 'Valentina' is the biggest word on there because that is the name of the artist and the article is about her. You can see the artist talking about her breakdown, drinking and party life. Although the majority of the article is about her talking about her breakdown, she is really trying to promote her album and this is shown by the size of the word 'album' on the wordle compared to others such as 'breakdown'. This is done by her talking about her breakdown for a certain period and then cramming her album promotion into a few sentences. The lexical choice includes the words, 'home', 'house', 'glass' and 'ornament'. This makes it more personal. My audience are females and they tend to like being emotionally interacted with, therefore the artist speaks to the reader/journalist as if they are talking to a friend to make them feel wanted.