My overall Magazine evaluation

http://www.slideshare.net/RossiniBoyzzz8/my-whole-magazine-evaluation-12776404

Photoshop

http://www.slideshare.net/RossiniBoyzzz8/photoshop-12271217

My final Double Page Spread and evaluation

My evaluation: http://www.slideshare.net/RossiniBoyzzz8/my-magazines-double-page-spread

My Final contents and evaluation

My evaluation: http://www.slideshare.net/RossiniBoyzzz8/my-magazine-front-cover-12776503

My Final front cover and evaluation

My evaluation: http://www.slideshare.net/RossiniBoyzzz8/my-magazine-front-cover-12886142

Professional advise

Today, we had two professionals come into our school for a day to analyse our work and point out the positives and negatives of our coursework. One of the professionals helped out with the movie coursework and the other helped us with our magazines.

We went through my work and he commented on the things he liked and disliked on my front page, contents and double page spread. Some of the positives he said about my work was:
Front page:                                            Contents:                                                    Double page spread:
-The colour scheme                              -The picture                                             -The 'Plane Crash'
-Font
-The wall background                          - The black and white background           - The spotlight picture
-The title name and font                       - The setting on the photoshoot                - The snap shots
-The picture

He wasn't keen on some of the decisions I had made in my magazine. These were:
-The empty space next to the the title (front page)
-Too much blue on all the pages
-Not enough pages advertised on the contents
-The paragraph about The Strike (Contents)
-Big blue banner (Double page spread)
- The size of the font (Double page spread)
-Yellow background (Double page spread)

After he told me the things that didn't look very good, we started to come up with solutions to solve them. These were:
-Add either an arrow or a magazine symbol in the empty space
-Change the colours of the blue banners to red
-Add another column of pages into the contents
-Make the fonts smaller and write more
-Change the background colour to black and white like the contents

Fonts

I've chosen certain fonts as they are relevant to the genre of my magazine. On the front page I used a big bold double lined font as it immediately grabs attention and gives the name of the magazine importance. It also gives the magazine a stylish and slick look which my target audience would love! I used the font 'market felt' for the subtitles on the front page as it looks similar to graffiti which gives it an urban feel.

On my contents, I used two different fonts as I wanted it to have more of a welcoming feel to it but still make it urban. To do this, I used a font called 'Silom' which makes the writing fun and attractive to read without taking away the urban feel to it. The other font I used in my contents is callled 'Plane Crash'. I downloaded this one from a website called 'da font' http://www.dafont.com/. I did this as it has a fantastic look to it which immediately attracts the audience into reading it and it gives off a huge urban look to the whole page. On the double page spread, I stuck to the same fonts as I used on the contents due to the fact that too many fonts can confuse or put the audience off reading the rest of the magazine.

The double page spread problems

I was talking to my other teacher Mr.Jones today. He wanted to go through my double page spread with me and discuss and solve some issues with the two pages. The problems he raised were similar to Mr.Gallop's. The problems were:

• The blue banner is too big
• The picture of the band dancing looks like a snap shot
• Dead space
• The way the band mixes in with the background in the main picture

After we had discussed the problems, I started to solve some of them with some of his advise. These are the changes I made:

• I made the big blue banner smaller
• Edited the small picture and slanted it. I also put another one in with the same effects on it so it turned into a style and not a snapshot
• Added an extra column into the dead space
• I found another pciture exactly the same as the main picture above, apart from the surroundings aren't as bold. I am currently editing this

I will post the updated version of my double page spread as soon as I finish editing the main picture.

Feedback from my teacher

I showed my teacher (Mr.Gallop) my music magazine today. I showed him all the research and planning I had put into the magazine. He suggested moving the picture on the font cover up into the middle of the page. I tried this out and showed friends and family to see if they preferred the picture at the bottom of the page or the middle of the page. Most of them chose the picture to be at the bottom of the page so I decided to go with my audience's opinion. I did take Mr.Gallop's advise onboard though, instead of filling in some empty space with the picture, I used colourful subtitles instead. We both agreed that this looked a lot better than it did.

Some advise he gave me on my double page spread was the space next to the picture made both pages look a bit odd. I knew what he meant as I could see the dead space as well. We came up with a few ideas on how to fill in the space. They were to take a new picture, add some text into it or to make the picture bigger. I wanted to change the picture as I believe this was the best solution. I liked the effect of the band walking away from the camera so I didn't want to change that. Instead, I went through the pictures I took that day and found one where the picture has the same effect but makes the picture stand out more.
                                                            
This is the picture I am thinking of changing the picture to. It looks   similar but I believe the band doesn't blend into the background as much as the other one did.                      

Future and marketing for my Music magazine

If I decided to place my magazine in the music magazine market, I would definitely keep my target audience the same, as the teenage age group are the most interested in keeping up to date with the latest songs so they can discuss it with their friends. As teenagers talk about music a lot and where they got their songs from, my magazine will receive free advertising which is word of mouth. I would try to save as much money as possible to start with and only use this technique. When my magazine starts to get more popular I will then start to use other marketing techniques like adverts on television.

If my magazine had a team working on it, I believe the future would be bright. This way, I don't have to do all the work myself and have different ideas and opinions to pick from to improve my magazine. If I carried on making this and my marketing technique worked, my magazine would be quite successful as there is not a lot of competition. Music magazine readers will usually pick up a magazine which looks good, so if I make the front cover look urban and eye catching then hopefully this would make the future bigger for it.

My draft double page spread

For my double page spread, I wanted to make it relevant to the earlier pages in my magazine, so I decided to talk about the band who feature on the contents. I think this is a lot better than putting a random double page in my magazine as it makes it look more like a magazine and less like a couple of pages thrown together. I was looking at double page spreads used in magazines and I think the most effective ones were the ones that had one article spread over both the pages. I wanted this in my magazine as this would prevent the magazine from being too wordy, make it more spacious, more attractive to the eye and give more space for pictures. If I was to use this technique, I would have to make sure I respect the crease seperating the pages in the middle. If I didn't, I would have either text or a picture ruined due to the fact a huge fold will be going through it. To respect the fold, I will leave a little bit of space either side of it. I will do this so the fold doesn't ruin the page and so it makes the double page look neat and tidy.

I wanted a slightly brighter background than I've used in the contents and the front page because these pages have to sustain a reader's attention instead of just capturing it for a couple of seconds. I believe the background will attract the audience to the page so they don't immediately turn the page over and then the pictures and the text will then become the attraction. I obviously didn't want it too bright as this would have made the text and the pictures look less effective and make the double page spread look a lot less attractive.

To make the double page spread even more related to the contents, I used the same colour scheme and the same fonts. When comparing the pages together, it makes the contents and the double page spread seem related and I believe this helps make my magazine look a lot more professional. I also wanted a banner adverstising the band's songs and where to find them. I decided to make it the same colour as the text, which I believe didn't take too much attention away from the contents on the double page spread which is exaclty what I wanted. Obviously I wanted it to attract some attention or it would have been pointless to have it, so making the size of the banner bigger did the job well.

I got some family members, staff from school and some pupils to analyse my double page spread. The improvements I could have made to make it better were:

• Less white space
• More effects on the pictures
• Mix up of text styles

My draft front page

This is my front page for my music magazine. As this is the first page people look at and are attracted to, I wanted the picture to be large and to give away the theme and genre of my magazine which is urban/pop. I believe the boy band gives the impression that this magazine is pop and urban based. The problem with this picture is the boy band is at the bottom of the page. This would normally be fine, but apart from when my magazine is in magazine rack, you will only be able to see the top half of the page. To help make the top half of the page more attractive to attract more of an audience I decided to add an interesting colour scheme.

Usually, magazines have a certain colour scheme and stick to it especially on the front cover. Instead of using the normal colour scheme, I wanted to have a bit of change. I tried out lots of different colours but none of them really worked as all the attention was drawn to the bright colours of the hoodies the boy band are wearing. I tried out some of the effects photoshop had to offer, and I found the perfect tool for my problem. This tool allowed me to copy the colour from the hoodies and place it into the font. I am really happy with the colour scheme now, as the picture immediately attracts the eye and then you are drawn to the subtitles as they share the same colour to show they relate with each other.

I chose to have a lot of brick wall in the background of my picture because I believe it has a really good urban feel to it. This will make the audience become interested in not only the writing and picture on the page, but also the background which I think is important as it can capture the whole interest of the reader instead of just the important bits.

I wanted to keep the title short and snappy so it's easy to remember and catchy to say. I also had to make the title relevant to the rest of the magazine or else there is no point in having a title at all. I went for the title "M&F" as it's short, snappy and easy to remember. This stands for music and flow so it tells the audience what the magazine is about and what type of music it is for. I then picked some teenagers to come and evaluate my front cover and the most common piece of feedback was the misunderstanding of "M&F". Nobody knew what it meant and they thought it was irrelevant to the rest of the magazine. To prevent this, I put the meaning of the title in a smaller font underneath it so everyone can see what it stands for. I then got a different group of teenagers to evaluate it and nobody mentioned anything about the title.

My draft contents page

After editing the picture to my liking I wanted to test out all the fonts and colours to see which ones would look the best. In the end I chose the font "plane crash" to be my title as I think it stands out a lot more than all the rest of the text on the page, I wanted this and the picture to be the first thing anyone looks at. I downloaded this font from a website called 'DaFont'.

For the page references, I wanted to go with a smaller and different font so it wouldn't attract immediate eye contact as I want my picture and title to do that. I went with the font "Silom" for this as I believe it has an indie/urban look to it which would suit my magazine. I also chose this as it was the most popular font with the teens I asked. To do this, I put lots of different fonts onto a page and asked a sample of teenagers from school to rate which one was the best. I did this as my magazine's main target audience is teenagers so I thought it would be best to let them decide which one they would rather see on a magazine based for them.

I wanted the band name at the bottom of the page so everyone reads it last, and so everyone knows who they are. This had to be put somewhere on the page or else people would start to question who they are and why they were there. I didn't want a whole paragraph explaining who they were so I thought their band name would tell everyone that they are a band and that's how they're related to music.

I tried to keep my contents as simple as possible due to the fact that teenagers only like to read the bits that interest them. So having lots of words on a page which is only suppose to show them where the interesting bits in the magazine are would probably just put them off reading the magazine. I chose the colour scheme for the font to be black and blue as I think it suits the whole urban style to the magazine and stands out well on the black and white background. I chose two colours as one colour can get repetitive and boring to look at, so I thought I'd mix it up with two colours that stand out.

My contents idea

I decided to have a photoshoot today and decided this is going to be the picture for my contents page. I wanted a band for my contents page as I believe it will look the most effective. One of the reasons I chose to put these two in the band is because they had the right clothing on to match my indie/pop magazine. I think this is very important as the wrong style could make my magazine look like it doesn't have a specific genre and could turn people off. I also chose these two for my contents page as I didn't want my magazine to be male dominanted. My front cover is all boys and I want my magazine to appeal to both genders, so I believe putting a girl in it will make the magazine more appealing to girls as well.

I wanted them to sit down with their arms resting on either side of the i-Pod speaker as I believe it made it look like music is the key part of the band, and the reason why they're together. Another reason I wanted them to sit down is because it gives the background more white space. I wanted white space in the background so I could put the writing on it without it clashing with the colours of the subtitles or taking away any attention from the picture. I wanted to shoot my picture here as I think it has a fantastic urban look to it which is excatly what my magazine stands for.

The picture above was edited in photoshop as I wanted to add some certain effects. I was worried that the picture of the band wasn't clear enough, so enhanced the picture a little bt so the colours were more visble and made the background around them black and white. I think this will look best as colours on a plain boring background will jump into eye contact a lot more easily. This will also help the text I will soon be adding onto it, as it will help the font and the colours seem bigger and bolder which will make the page a lot more attractive to look at.

Picture for front page

I decided to attempt a photo shoot for the front cover of our music magazine. I took a few people out of class and decided to try and go for a boy band look as I believe it can relate to a younger audience. I chose these two and myself over some of the others who wanted to be in it as I believe we look like we belong in a boy band. This is only an idea for a front cover, I might decide to take another different kind of picture but this time maybe with a different background and new sort of casting.

I chose to take the picture on a street wall as I believe it has an urban look to it, which is hopefully what my magazine will have.

Women in Media

The media industry is dominated by men. 78% of news articles are written by men and 84% of morning radio presenters are also male. Men also dominate shows such as countdown with 72% of the guests on the show being male.

These figures could be because:

• Women quit their jobs when they have a baby
• Older women are kicked off the show, as when they reach a certain age, the media business believe they are passed their best unlike men when they are respected when they reach an older age

I will make sure I add a woman in my magazine to make sure I don't discriminate the women in my audience.

Researching Fonts for my Music Magazine

There are lots of fonts I like the look of and feel it would suit my magazine really well such as  and  .
I like these as they stand out well and they are clear and easy to read. The only problem is, if my magazine was stacked on a magzine rack, I don't believe it will catch people's eyes. It doesn't pop out the page which is what I want it to do so people could look at a magazine rack and immediatly spot mine even if it's at the back on the pile. I am currently looking for more of a font which has a funky but cool look to it to attract a bigger audience and for it to be eye catching. I have downloaded 'DaFont' onto my smart phone, so if I see a font I really like, I can scan it in and it will tell me what style it is.

Preliminary Task

Here is my preliminary task.  I couldn't decide which picture would be best for a school magazine, so I did a bit of research and liked the idea of having a main picture with others coming off it. I chose the picture of the boy playing the guitar as I believe Marlwood's main priority is the pupils. I also decided to include the other pictures as I want to show that our school has a brilliant outdoors as well as indoors. I believe having a number of different pictures will help people see all the different sides of Marlwood and will interest people into reading my magazine. It will also make the front page less wordy and more attractive to look at which is good for a front cover.

I chose the title of my magazine to be 'bizzle' as it's a slang word for 'see you later'; so it sounds like they reader is going to walk off into the magazine and get lost in it. I chose a red colour and a blue outline to make the title stand out and to make it a lot more eye catching. By adding this I was hoping it will stand out more than other magazines. I also decieded to put the school motto and what school it belonged to in small writing underneath it. I did this so people will see it when looking at the title but as it's small it wont be concentrated on. I thought it was important to inlcude the motto though as it's Marlwood's key phrase and it will remind people what Marlwood stands for. Back to the title, I wanted it to be jumping off the page as if it was in a magazine rack and was at the back, the only thing you would see is the title. I thought the nice bright red colour and the clashing blue colour shadow made it a lot more fun to look at than the other magzines that didn't have this. I tried the magazine rack out by placing a piece of paper over my screen so it only shows the title and I believe it looks quite effective so I think it was quite successful.

I put the subheadings in line going down the left hand side as I think it makes the magazine look neater and more attractive. I chose to keep the same font as the title as it's easy to read and also it shows that the subtitles relate to the main heading so when people read the title they will also be attracted to the other titles as well. I spent a long time a picking the colours for my magazine front cover. I wanted to have a red colour scheme but I felt that some of the subtitles blended in with the background so I had to change it. I had one yellow, one aqua and one blue. Whilst looking back at my magazine I was unhappy that the subtitles didn't match the heading so I decided to have one of the subtitles red and the others a bright colour so it would stand out instead of blending in with the background. I wanted to have a subtitle matching the title's colour as I feel it makes the magazine look a bit more organised. I still wasn't really happy with the colour scheme as I still felt the subtitles weren't bouncing off the paper like the ones I researched. So I decided to have a look at some of the effects on the writing. I found a shadow which I thought was brilliant as a bright colour on a dark background looks really effective and becomes a lot more eye catching than it would on a bright background.

Some improvements I could have made is:

• Adding more subtitles, so my audience would know a bit more about the magazine and make it clearer what it is about.
•  I also think there was room for extra editing to make the magazine look more professional. Such as, I could have got rid of the sunlight in the picture as it can be a distraction whilst looking at the page. It might have been good to completely cut the whole background of the boy playing the guitar and add a simple colour so the titles and the pictures stick out more.

Front cover ideas

I like this front page because of the fonts and colour scheme although it's not a music magazine.
The font varies in size which is quite fun to look at as subtitles are always in your face. This is good as this is what you want your audience to see. I like the way they made the more important titles in a bigger font to make them stand out more to attract more readers.

I like the colour scheme as they've stuck to pink, white and black. I think 3 is a good number of colours or the colours will make the magazine look busy and it people will lose interest. I will use this in my front cover.

Another plan of a double page for my music magazine

In this double page I like the way the picture and the writing bond together. They do this by using the same colour scheme for each (blue), this shows they are linked together so this is where you read about the picure. I prefer the way it's laid out to other magazine's as instead of having the picture in the back ground it's on the page instead. I prefer this as I believe that it gives the page a bit of range, instead of just all writing. I also think that if the picture is in the background, it doesn't look as important as the writing which might turn people off reading the magazine as it looks too wordy. I will use a picture on the page instead of in the background for this reason.

Research for peliminary task

I am planning on having my setup for my school magazine like this. I want to have a big picture of the boy playing the guitar (picture below) and have the side headings around it. My magazine will look more colourful than this one and hopefully look more eye catching so I can attract a bigger audience.

Plan of action for Premilary task

I am chosing to use this as my background for my school magazine as:

• It represents the school well
• He looks happy working
• Colourful
• Will attract an audience

What i will use for my Music magazine:

Front cover:

• Bright colour scheme on a plain background
• Big picture
• Different styles of subtitles

Contents:

• Simple
• Spaced out
• Nice colours on a dull background

Double page:

• Big picture
• Eye catching font for the title
• Nice use of colours
• Not too wordy

Ideas for contents

This is a contents page that I quite like the look of. The things I like about it is it's uniqueness and how simple but effective it is. I believe a contents page is a vital page in a magazine as it tells its audience what it's about. I think that keeping it simple is vital, as people just want to see what the magazine is about and not rubbish advertisments which will turn them off reading the rest of the magazine. This tells them exactly wha'ts in the magazine and what page it's on. I will try and keep my contents page simple to sustain an audience's attention.
It's uniqueness is very effective as well. It looks totally different to every other contents I have looked at as the contents page looks like a scrap piece of paper on a desk. The ones I have seen are really busy with pictures and advertisments. I liked the fact it was different and it made me want to read the magazine even more. I will try to use this in my magazine but it will be hard trying to create a whole new idea up to everyone else's magazine.

More front cover ideas

 This is a hip hop magazine which is slightly differently layed out to the other ones I've reviewed so far. The page is mainly covered by 50 Cent who is an icon in the hip hop world which will instantly interest 50 Cent fans as they want to read all about him. So having a big picture does the same job as a catchy subtitle apart from it's  alot more fun to look at and a lot more eye catching. I also like the way the picture is layered. His head is in front of the title but behind all the other subtitles. This makes the subtitles and the picture almost look like it's jumping off the page at you to grab your attention.

I dislike the colour scheme in this front cover as I feel it's too basic. The red background looks quite plain which can be good if the subtitles are all different colours and attractive, but it's not. When I do my front cover, I want lots of different colours clashing with the background and different fonts for each to attract more people.

2nd idea for a music front cover

When looking for ideas for my music magazine front cover, I was instantly drawn to this one due to the fonts, colour scheme and also the picture.

The colour scheme is really affective. The black subtitles stand out due to the yellow outlining. So instead of clashing with the background, it clashes with itself! This is used with most of the other subtitles as well. I think having a different range of colours clashing with itself looks very effective and eye catching. I will definitely use this in my magazine to draw an audience straight away.

The fonts used are simple but effective. They stand out due to the colours, but the font makes it easy and simple to read. This is a good method as it looks easy to read and it can be read from far away. So it will also bring in an audience of people who aren't looking for that magazine. The word "SWAGGER" is used with a transparent effect so it doesn't get in the way of the picture and to give the style of the subtitles a range of effects so the front page doesn't look all the same. I will use both these methods in my magazine as it gives the magazine a cool style about it before you've even opened it.

I also like the picture of Usher. His picture is placed in the middle with things dotting around him to give a feeling that he's the centre of attention and he is the most important thing to the magazine. Usher fans will like this and automatically buy this purely because he's in it.

Music magazine pages research

This is a different way of styling the magazine to the one below. It has the picture in the background instead of on one page so they can squeeze more information onto the pages. I will not use this style as it encourages the writing to look more like an essay than an article. I want to keep my audience interested in my writing and I believe that the way to do that is by keeping it spaced out and colourful instead of black and white and have the writing crammed together.

The positive of this though is the font of the title. It looks fun and creative and I know it will appeal to their audience as it grabs your attention immediately. The font isn't the only thing that is good about the style of writing though, the colour is also eye catching. It clashes with the black and dull background to make it stand out even more. I will think about using a font like this in my magazine to draw people to the page. I really like the clashing colours as well, I feel it makes the page look interesting and it keeps your attention to the colourful writing and not the dull background. So I will have to think about placing this in my magazine as well.

Magazine pages research

This is a double page of a music magazine called Vibe. I like the way the picture suits the style of writing and the way it's set out on the page. I will use the way the picture is set out in my magazine as it catches the reader's eye and interests them into reading the information on the page. A negative of this double page is the writing. I think that it looks too wordy and boring. When adding text onto my magazine, I will try to use as little as possible but still include the main points needed. I could do this by adding bullet points, different font sizes or different colours. This will make the writing look more exciting and more enjoyable to read.

I also like the way the the title is styled. I will try and use a font similar to this to make the magazine to draw the audience to read the page as it looks fun. I also like the key interesting point underneath the title, this will give a short summary of what the page is about, which will make the readers mind up to see if they want to read it or not.

Ideas for my music magazine

This is a magazine contents which I like the look of. I like this contents as it is very simple to read due to the layout of the page. My magazine will have have 1 picture and labels as I feel it makes the magazine look more spacious and relaxed. I'm not to sure on the colour scheme in this as doesn't look like a music magazine. I will use more bold colours on a black background to make it stand out more than others.

Ideas for Preliminary task

When I was looking for ideas for my front page of a school magazine, I noticed that a lot of them had a nice picture of the school. I wanted to try this to as every one I saw was eye catching through the colours and the scenery. I chose to take a picture of the tree and the 6th form block as I feel it represents Marlwood as a fun, relaxed but also hardworking place to be.                                     

I chose to take a picture of the outside of Marlwood as I feel it gives a relaxing feel to the school. Most students of Marlwood won't see the positive outdoors that the schools shows, so I believe it will attract more of an audience as it shows a different side of the school.

I wanted a change from the all the nice scenery the school brings and thought it would be nice to show a student of Marlwood having fun, practising for a lesson. I think the picture gives off a good, happy vibe that learning can be fun. I think students will like this as a front cover due to the fact that the magazine looks like it's more from a kids point of view instead of an adults or teachers.

Ideas for front cover

                      
This has a black background because it makes the yellow and white subtitles stand out a lot more than they usually would. This is a good idea and I will probably use this on my magazine to catch the audience's eye.

There is a big picture of Drake who is a recognisable face to the audience. If people like Drake, they will be drawn to the magazine. I will use a picture the same size as the one above apart from use school kids instead, to make the magazine appeal to the students.

I like the bright colour headings as the second that I look at the magazine, I am drawn to them. After looking at them, I realise that the sub-headings are to make you interested and read through the magazine. I will use short phrases in mine to capture and sustain the audience's attention.