FINAL VERSION OF CRANKED

Image Editing

Before

After

I unfocused the background, and drained all background colours. This put all the focus on the three main subjects and their instruments. I then sharpened the subjects as I realised they were slightly out of focus. The reason the guy on the right looks pink was to do with the stage lighting, and normally I would've changed it, but I wanted to portray the band more honestly, not airbrushed to perfection. I also managed to select the fire escape and alarm at the back, then use the clone tool to remove them.

After

Before

For this second image, I went against the last notion. On the front page, you want something relatively pleasant to look at. I airbrushed all the creases out of their faces, as it also removed any pixelation caused by the changing of the size of the image in the editing process. I then unfocused the background a lot, so that leg between Will and Dan doesn't get any of the limelight - that leg is unimportant. I also thought back to the interview at NME, who told us to try and avoid the colour Black, as it's not as visually engaging, so I brightened the background. Unfortunately, this created more pixelation, so I had to unfocus it more. By the end, it made the three subjects look like they are glowing, which is a positive thought, quite fitting with the way I wanted them to look - happy, unfazed by the Dramas they've experienced. So I kept it.

Flat Plans

NME FLAT PLAN

MY FLAT PLAN

Evaluation Question 7

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

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

Slideshare, Blurb?

Evaluation Question 6

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

This whole process has been brilliant in the way for me to learn about new ways of presenting my work and research using new technology.

http://my.brainshark.com/home.aspx
http://voicethread.com/


BLOGGER

This was so much easier to use than a book. I often find that if I have to catalogue my work in a book or folder, various pages tend to get lost or damaged, or due to extraneous factors like a faulty or unreliable printer, some would just be missing or seemingly unfinished. Just being able to display my work exactly as it was created also means that the quality is exactly as intended, meaning any marks lost won't be down to something being pixelated in the process of me fitting it onto an A4 sheet of paper.

Another bonus that I learned how to use was that I could completely reorganise my work by just re-typing the date, which is so much easier than tearing out pages and reordering them by hand, which requires not only reordering them, but looking through them and determining which bits are which. I could also put these works into subfolders, making them easier to find.

Not only all this, but I could go over my work, re-type here and there, tweaking fonts and formats how I wanted them, which would be a lot more time consuming by hand.


PHOTOSHOP

I already knew how to change colours etc. and use the magic brush tool on Photoshop after spending a week in a photography studio for work experience, however in that week, I hadn't learned how to airbrush, which I have done over the course of the project. This new skill came in very useful, as many of my images were unattractive to look at and were in need of a little bit of tidying up.

What I didn't know was that airbrushing is just making the images slightly out of focus, which was a lot simpler than I expected it to be. Not only did this help with removing creases and blemishes, but it allowed me to remove a lot of pixelation, which was one of my main problems during the editing process.


iMOVIE

This, again, was a lot simpler than I expected it to be. Although the effects it allows me to use wouldn't be quite as professional as they would be in Final Cut Express, this allows me to make short movies or slideshows with music or voiceovers in the background, which is definitely going to be useful in the future.

This also gives me a range of special effects and transitions to mess around with, which use a simple drag and drop design, which is incredibly easy to use and makes the videos more visually exciting than just plain videos or images.


THE OTHERS:

SURVEY MONKEY

This was an incredibly useful way of gathering information from people, as it gave a vast array of options that we could use to inquire about our target audience. It made surveying people a lot less time consuming, as it didn't need one of us to take down answers and keep an eye on how many questionnaires were distributed/collected, we just had to copy and paste a link on the internet and ask a few people to follow the link and answer the questions, and the answers given would be sent back to us, already counted and laid out for us, easy to read.

However, to have it all laid up in a presentable fashion (e.g. on a pie chart), or to have the non-option answers counted, we would've had to have bought the premium version. This would've been incredibly useful for displaying my results on the blog, however, it wasn't entirely necessary, so I did it the overall more time-consuming way of counting them myself.


PREZI (also SlideShare and HTML Embedding)
I was, at first, reluctant to use Prezi, as I felt it would be a lot easier to just make a slideshow on Powerpoint and upload that. This proved time-consuming, as it mean I had to make the slideshow, save it, upload it onto SlideShare (which is less straightforward than it sounds due to restrictions on the school computers) which takes a long time, and when that's done, embed it onto my blog. In fact, it's a lot easier to use Prezi, and in the end, it does look a lot more professional, and is easier to view/find specific areas.

In the process working with this, I learned how to use HTML to embed videos and suchlike onto my blog (usually on the 'share' menu, copy and paste to 'Edit HTML' on the blogs 'Edit Post' page), which is a lot more professional-looking than just posting a link.


XTRANORMAL
This was definitely my favourite medium for interviews and videos, as it meant I didn't need to go through the trouble of finding someone else to interview, as many of the people who I'd asked to help me in previous parts of the project had been camera-shy. It also meant there would be less room for hesitation and mistakes.

However due to the fact I need to buy a premium version to be able to record my own voice, i had to suffer the problems of automated voices - not only do they not quite have the same aural tone, like pitch changes in questions and pauses, but they have trouble reading out initials, like NME, FHM and IPC.

But besides those problems, it's quite entertaining, as I was able to mess around with camera angles, actions and what the characters sound and look like (but again, that was restricted because it wasn't the paid version), which made the video more interesting to watch and listen to.

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Even though my magazine was originally intended to be more like NME, it ended up being more heavily influenced by Kerrang!

KERRANG! Audience Profile
 Young, individually minded and passionate consumers, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty.
Radio - 15-35 male bias.

(http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Brands/Kerrang/)

Kerrang! brings in a total audience of approximately 356,000 people weekly. Of that figure, 193,000 of them will be in the A, B, and C1 economic groups (around about 54%). This ranges from high and middle ranking professionals to White-Collar workers. This leaves the other 163,000 as blue collar workers, unkskilled manual workers and the unemployed. 313,00 of these consumers are aged 15-44, the remaining 12% are 45+. 67% of Kerrang's readers are male. Unfortunately the age bands i've found are wide, but this tells me that the target audience is young men in the C1 economic group. http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html (click link 'general magazines',
then 'October '10 - September '11')

However, this group doesn't (in my opinion) fit the appearance of the magazine, and our target audience research found that Kerrang! readers were predominantly teenage girls - which seems more appropriate to me, as the magazine is mainly filled with quite small articles surrounded by large images of rugged young men in bands, and on a look at the fan mail page I didn't see a single post from a 35-year-old man in a suit! I presume these statistics are about the buyers of the magazine, not the readers...


NME Audience Profile

65% Male
50% 16-24
79% ABC1*

(http://www.nme.com/mediapack/)

NME is bought weekly by around 253,000 people. Just under two fifths of these people are blue-collar workers, unskilled manual labourers and the unemployed, already this tells us that the readers of NME are richer/have better jobs than readers of Kerrang! Magazine. In terms of age, 13% of NME magazine readers are over 45 years of age, a similar figure to Kerrang!. 167,000 of the 253,000 readers are male - 66%.

This seems more realistic to me, as NME tends to use slightly less vivid colours, more live (less photoshopped) images, so the subjects look more honest and less perfect. These subjects are also in more of a mix of genders. Kerrang! only seemed to feature one or two women in their magazine, and i'd hazard a guess of about a third of NME's articles being about female artists.

http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html (click link 'general magazines', then 'October '10 - September '11')


From this, I decided that my target audience should be in the C2 and D economic class, as they are more likely to be nearer the age group I'm aiming for, which would be young adults, so between the age of 17 and 25. This would mean that they're more likely to want something substantial and informative to read, it would also mean they have the money to go out to different gigs, and will be wanting to find the best ones to spend their time and money on! Most of the bands covered will be Rock/Metal, which are two male-dominated genres, so my target audience will be women.



Our audience research:

Evaluation Question 5

How would you attract/address your audience?

ESSAY & Annotate/denotate images of my magazine.

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

What media institution might distribute your media product?
by: SixFootSteve

An interview considering which Media institution would publish my magazine: "Cranked"

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups? on PhotoPeach



How does your media product represent particular social groups? on PhotoPeach

Evaluation Question 1

PREZI - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

NME/MY MAGAZINE COMPARISON on Prezi

First Draft of Music Magazine Layout (includes Evaluation)

 FRONT PAGE

A couple of problems have occurred with this design - the logo is incredibly basic (not in a good way) and my head and arm obscures the text in the byline. This meant I had to completely rethink the masthead. After consulting my audience, I found out that the slanted masthead wasn't popular, despite what I thought about it being more visually exciting. I also found that the logo looked more professional when I removed the stripe, which I replaced with a slight glow. By moving the angle, i was then able to left-align the words in the byline - however, this created a large gap next to the head of Joe (left), meaning i also had to rearrange where the smaller headlines went.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

 The original design left a lot of open space, to stop this, I extended the margins and increased the size of the image in the middle slightly. I also added the sidebar on the right, as this also gave the reader something more visually interesting to look at than a vast block of writing. Unfortunately, this left a large block of writing on the first page that needed breaking up. However, after consulting my audience, i was told that they liked it and didn't think it needed anything in the middle of it. I was also told that they didn't think the lower right image was needed - so that went.

Another unpopular feature was the sidebar, which they felt would be better as a box-out rather than a part of the page.

To get around these problems, I highlighted quotes, making them slightly larger and changing their colour. I shortened the sidebar and widened it.

CONTENTS PAGE

RECCE - Risk Assessment For Picture Taking

Typography

Typography

View more presentations from SixFootSteve.

Photography Planning

AUDIENCE RESEARCH - Prezi Presentation

My Advert Plan on Prezi

Follow this to see my prezi presentation - it's a quick brainstorm that I did to show a few of my ideas - I should be using this for reference while actually making my Magazine. There may be changes made to this every now and again, so keep watching.

Front Covers and Double Page Spread Annotations

The Zeppelin is an old fashioned mode of transport, Led Zeppelin is a band from the 60's. They've tied this information slyly to their image (left), by comparing them to the band being covered, then showing them with a plane in the background, as if to tell us that this band is the modern day Led Zep - and saying as much in the Title.

Looking back on all these annotations that we'd made showed me just how much we interpret from what we see. How people are shown in images tells us just as much as the text that goes with them does. Take the image from the 'BIRDS OF SLAY' double page spread (left) for example, they're lit up in Gold light, a colour associated with Champions, or winning! On the left, the bassist is bowing down, which is symbolic of reaching the end, reaching a climax or a pinnacle of an event. The drummer looks in awe. The singer/guitarist is striking a strong, leader-like pose, the audience at his feet, which shows his power!

Double Page Spread Article Second Draft

Walking into the studio, the first thing I notice is how mismatched the three other people in the studio are. One is around average height with a long fringe, various piercings and dark clothing, including a slipknot hoodie and Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt; the second is short, with a thick black quiff wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved checked shirt, unbuttoned, on top of a Guns’n’Roses shirt; the third is tall, sporting a Bieber-esque mop, black jeans and a torn t-shirt that’s slightly too small for him, emblazoned with the phrase: “YOU CAN’T ARREST ME, I’M A ROCKSTAR” across the front. On first sight, I thought I had the wrong room; surely these three weren’t in the same band? Yet within moments, they stop chatting and go over to the instruments and start playing. The sound that comes out is a jumbled mix of different genres: heavy metal drumming, slightly distorted rock and roll guitar riffs and a bouncy bass line that wouldn’t be out of place in a pop song. Yet somehow it works well together - and I find myself unable to stop myself from tapping my feet and nodding my head!

When they finally finish we go into the next room to sit down, each one with a huge grin on their face. The drummer, Joe, seems to be leading the chatter between them, poking fun at the performance of the bassist who is laughing along and pointing out Joe’s mistakes. Dan, the guitarist, is just smiling, not taking much notice, but giving Joe the odd look as if to tell him to be quiet. Eventually he pipes down and they begin telling us about how they work together with such different tastes. Joe instantly pipes up again blurting out almost instantly that they don't really know. What proceeds is an awkward silence as if no one really knows what else there is to say. Finally Dan says,

 “We don’t really have such different tastes, yes we all listen to different things – Joe’s into metal”, 

“Punk for me” says Steve, their bassist, “and I’m into more classic rock” Dan continues, “but we have enough shared tastes to get along without too much hassle”. What follows was the band pointing out different bands that they all like, three bands come out most strongly: Green Day, Muse and Foo Fighters. 

“We do a lot of covers, by all sorts of different bands we like” explains Steve, “Our best is probably a version of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, but most of them are Green Day, I think?” There are murmurs of agreement from the other two, and Steve carries on talking, “But it’s been a lot harder to cover things and adapt them in our own way since [second guitarist] Alex left a month or two back”. Joe's smile quickly fades and turns into a bitter pout. He turns his face away. I ask him what happened and Steve replies for him, “we don’t really know all of it, but Joe had one of his little moans and Alex thought he was being blamed for something, and took it out of proportion.” 

“Then he left” Dan adds. I ask why it hit Joe so much harder, to which Joe finally replies “because I didn’t do anything! Now he’s just removed all contact from me. Removed me on Facebook, completely blanks me when I try and talk to him - he won’t even look at me!” Steve notices how worked up Joe is getting and butts in to stop him from getting carried away, “which means the argument can’t be sorted out. It’s more Alex’s shyness than anything else – he’s going out of his way to avoid an argument or suchlike”. By the way Joe suddenly changed; I can already tell how true that statement probably was. 

Overall, the leaving of Alex has left the band in a muddled, confused state,

“but,” says Dan, “We’re not taking it to heart. We’re changing the songs we play to get around his absence and we’re not going to stop playing. The band has had breakups before and we’ll be damned if this one stops us,” nods of agreement all round. 

“To be honest, I think it’s a kick up the backside we needed.” says Steve, “and since it happened, we’ve begun to step up our game.” Dan nods his head in approval and a smile spreads on his face, and with that, they return to their instruments in the next room, grim faces replaced once again with huge, sincere grins. Joe gives a countdown by tapping his drumsticks and the music starts, and listening to the sounds coming from their studio, they prove that last statement totally and utterly correct. Their game has been upped and by God does it show! •

Double Page Spread Article First Draft

Walking into the Studio (1), the first thing I notice is how mismatched the three other people in the studio are. One is around average height with a long fringe, various piercings and dark clothing, including a slipknot Hoodie (2) and Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt; the second is short, with a thick black quiff wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved checker shirt (3), unbuttoned, on top of a Guns’n’Roses shirt; the third is tall, sporting a Bieber-esque mop, black jeans and a torn t-shirt that’s slightly too small for him, emblazoned with the phrase: “YOU CAN’T ARREST ME, I’M A ROCKSTAR” across the front. On first sight, I thought I had the wrong room; surely these three weren’t in the same band? Yet within moments, they stop chatting and go over to the instruments and start playing. The sound that comes out is a jumbled mix of different genres: heavy metal drumming, slightly distorted rock and roll guitar riffs and a bouncy bass line that wouldn’t be out of place in a pop song. Yet somehow it works well together - and I find myself unable to stop myself from tapping my feet and nodding my head!

When they finally finish we go into the next room to sit down, each one with a huge grin on their face. The drummer, Joe, seems to be leading the chatter between them, poking fun at the performance of the bassist, who (4) is laughing along and pointing out Joe’s mistakes. Dan, the guitarist, is just smiling, not taking much notice, but giving Joe the odd look as if to tell him to be quiet. Eventually he pipes down and they begin, telling (5) us about how they work together with such different tastes. Joe instantly pipes up again, blurting (6) out almost instantly that they “don’t really know”, what (7) proceeds is an awkward silence as if no one really knows what else there is to say, finally broken by Dan who differs, saying (8),

 “We don’t really have such different tastes, yes we all listen to different things – Joe’s into metal”, 

“Punk for me” says Steve, their bassist, “And (9) I’m into more classic rock” Dan continues, “but we have enough shared tastes to get along without too much hassle”. What follows was the band pointing out different bands that they all like, three bands come out most strongly: Green Day, Muse and Foo Fighters. 

“We do a lot of covers, by all sorts of different bands we like” explains Steve, “Our best is probably a version of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, but most of them are Green Day, I think?” there (10) are murmurs of agreement from the other two, and Steve carries on talking, “But it’s been a lot harder to cover things and adapt them in our own way since [second guitarist] Alex left a month or two back”. Joe's smile quickly fades and turns into a bitter pout. He turns his face away. I ask him what happened and Steve replies for him, “we don’t really know all of it, but Joe had one of his little moans and Alex thought he was being blamed for something, and took it out of proportion.” 

“Then he left” Dan adds. I ask why it hit Joe so much harder, to which Joe finally replies “because I didn’t do anything! Now he’s just removed all contact from me. Removed me on Facebook, completely blanks me when I try and talk to him - he won’t even look at me!” Steve notices how worked up Joe is getting and butts in to stop him from getting carried away, “which means the argument can’t be sorted out. It’s more Alex’s shyness than anything else – he’s going out of his way to avoid an argument or suchlike”. By the way Joe suddenly changed; I can already tell how true that statement probably was. 

Overall, the leaving of Alex has left the band in a muddled, confused state,

“but,” says Dan, “We’re not taking it to heart. We’re changing the songs we play to get around his absence and we’re not going to stop playing. The band has had breakups before and we’ll be damned if this one stops us,” nods of agreement all round. 

“To be honest, I think it’s a kick up the backside we needed.” Says (11) Steve, “and since it happened, we’ve begun to step up our game.” Dan nods his head in approval and a smile spreads on his face. And (12) with that, they return to their instruments in the next room, grim faces replaced once again with huge, sincere grins. Joe gives a countdown by tapping his drumsticks and the music starts. And (13) listening to the sounds coming from their studio, they prove that last statement totally and utterly correct. Their game has been upped and by God does it show! •


CORRECTIONS

1. studio
2. hoodie
3. checked shirt
4. bassist who
5. begin telling
6. again blurting
7. don't really know. What
8. is to say. Finally Dan says
9.  "and
10. There
11. says
12. face, and
13. starts, and

Analysis of a Music Magazine (Audio Track)

Costume and Set Ideas

I know the band I'm covering personally, as I'm in the band. So I know the kind of clothes they own and wear - meaning this part was easy. I want to show the band as a diverse group, explaining how different all their styles are, yet the colours they wear are quite dark and monotone, which links them together.

Setting, I have ideas, but i'll need to take the photos myself as I can't find images of where I want them to be online, however I have managed to find a few pictures online that help illustrate what I'm looking for.

The steps outside of the school block is what I want for the front cover as it shows them as well-educated people, it makes them look more official, yet it's not going to be a fancy school, just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill school. The effect of this would be that it shows them as normal human beings who play very honest music.

I'm unsure as of yet which image i should use for the double page spread. I want to have a kind of live image that shows the band performing, but I'm not sure if that means having them onstage or in a studio. The studio would link in well with the story, as it involves them rehearsing IN A STUDIO, however the intent of the article is to let everyone know that they aren't giving up, that they're still playing live despite their loss. Having an image of a 3-man live performance would illustrate that fantastically!

The image on the double page spread inside I'd like to be taken using a fish eye lens, as it takes photos with a visually interesting shape, and distorts the image in an exciting way. It would also allow us to take an image with a wider angle, meaning we could probably do a close up of a live performance and still fit all three of the band members in at once.

NME NOTES - Front and Double Page Spreads!

We managed to get an interview with a few people from NME Magazine and we asked them what advice they could give us in making a music magazine. Here a few brief things i'll be needing to remember...

Red = Front Page issues
Blue = Double Page Spread
Purple = Images etc that can be applied for both

Black and White – Can represent things as being old, vintage or from the archives – an ICONIC image. If it’s not any of the above, it’s probably best to just drain most of the colour out of an image so it’s NEAR Black and White.

Concepts Drawn à Photo Shoot arranged and followed through à around 300 pictures taken à Whittled down to around 10 à Ten photos set up as a front page in a rough copy à 10 front pages compared and 3 or 4 are picked as the best à 1 Front page picked the day before release.

Big Heads and Eye Contact are important for attracting the audience’s attention as it makes them feel like they’re being watched, it draws attention and makes the overall feel of the image more personal.

AUDIENCE IS KEY! If the image used doesn’t fit their requirements or tastes, then it’s not going to shift any copies!

Important issues for the front page! Average won’t attract attention! It has to be up to date information that people need to know!

Logos must be simple. Stick to simple, bold formats and primary colours.

Change is good, it keeps things fresh, but don’t use too many fonts on each page, it looks messy.

Everything must link! Text format and images must follow the same kind of colour scheme or shape.

Quotes are good to break up solid blocks of text, making it easier to read. Nobody likes humungous chunks of solid reading.

Little splashes of colour in text makes it more visually interesting and easier to read.

For images of the band, a concept needs to be thought of – look at the story you’re trying to tell or the way you want to represent them and take ideas from that. When pitching it to the artist, you need to pull in the artist with this concept as much as you would use it to draw in the audience

Stay away from mainly black front covers!

Things will change, so keep an open mind.

Continuity is key – keep things simple and it’ll be more attractive to look at and buy.

Music Magazines - Media Institutions (Video!!)

After a little searching, I found that most of the music magazines that I would choose to read or would be interested in we made by Bauer Media - so I decided to do a little research into the company and their three major music magazines...

Here's a brief video on my research on Bauer Media, who make 'Kerrang!' - one of my focus magazines, as well as 'Q' magazine and Mojo, two magazines I have briefly studied.

Text:

THESE MAGAZINES WERE MADE BY BAUER.

They include KERRANG!, Q and MOJO as well as non music magazines like FHM.

Bauer is a company which operates in 15 countries worldwide. The Worldwide circulation of Bauer Media Group's magazine titles amounts to 38 million magazines a week.

It was formerly called Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG, abbreviated to HBV and usually shortened to H. Bauer. Bauer Verlagsgruppe has been managed by four generations of the Bauer family and it all started off as just a small printing press in Bauer's House...

Analysis/Annotations of a Front Cover

Music Magazines (A history)

Music Magazines Started with Billboard - the first magazine devoted to the music industry, which began in 1894. However, it wasn't until 1936 that they featured the 'music hit parade'  which later developed into the Billboard charts and was responsible for the the foundation of programmes like the American Top 40 and various radio shows. The magazine was aimed at Professionals, but was open to the public.

Melody Maker arrived in 1926 and covered mainly Jazz. By the mid-50s NME had arrived and was in hot competition - a peak for Melody Maker during this competition was when Lennon and McCartney argued over the Beatles split, sending bitchy letters against each other to Melody Maker.

1967 heralded the introduction of Rolling Stone Magazine, which followed the hippy-youth movement. It did this with reflective articles on music and political/social changes and how the two interweave. During the 80s came a wave of new music filled with synth, pop beats and cheesy lyrics. With this new music came new magazines, like Smash Hits! Rolling Stone chose not to change with the times and continued to focus on Rock'n'Roll music, as opposed to this new-fangled pop.

Finished Products with Evaluation

Here are the finished products. I'm relatively happy with the outcome of them. I like the colour scheme as i don't think there are many newspapers that are predominantly black - neither are there many that are green - most of the ones I looked at stuck to colours like red and blue - so this one would hopefully contrast with them - making it more eye-catching!

In my initial design of the front page there was a lot of open space in the top half, surrounding the "WHAT NEXT?" and the "RESULT!" So I had to fill it up. Then I was hit with a brainwave - to make it look more like the band's onstage by drawing a row of coloured spotlights across the top using Photoshop. Not only did this fill up the page, but it brightened it - it's now a lot more visually interesting and attractive to look at. Unfortunately, the shape at the top was made using a square and a black triangle, meaning I had to change it after the background was in place, so I scrapped that idea and made it a bar across the top. I found the green quite difficult to read, but I solved that problem as well, by adding a shadow to it - this gave it a slight outline, stopping it from merging with any background colours. On review, there are still a few creases that need flattening out, like the white glow behind Alex (the blacked out guitarist) being cut off at the top and the fact he's hovering slightly higher than the others (just look between the 'W' and the 'H') and i'm slightly below (far right, with the bass - between "TO" and "GO"). The final mistake is that I say "note pad" at the top and "Note Book" at the bottom - we wouldn't want the readers thinking they're getting TWO free gifts, would we?!

Okay, first problem fist - I used the same photos with the front page and the contents page. This was to do with the fact that my memory stick broke so I couldn't get more photos from home on to the school Macs and of course, the missing editor. Again, broken memory stick - it's bad enough using the same picture on two different pages, but twice on the same page? That would just look stupid and boring. Not that my solution was much better. However, the odd shapes i've used in the page are eye-catching - the strange box at the top with the word "contents" in and the H-shape with the pictures of the cover story in add an absurdity to the page that I like. It makes the entire page a lot more exciting to look at.  The contrast between light and dark creates a juxtaposition of colours that makes it all easier to read and more tidy-looking. The mix red and the greens is good - as they are directly opposing colours, it makes the numbers stand out against everything else - it draws attention to the stories they're advertising.

However, after making these, I was told that apparently people with reading difficulties or dyslexia find reading green more difficult than any other colour, so in the future I will avoid it.

Contents Designs

Contents pages are all about information and imagery. You want bright pictures that stand out and make people want to see what they're all about. You want brightly coloured headlines that do the same. Yet with this page you also need a good structure to make it easily-readable. I started by designing the structure. I also noticed that the school logo was missing - a key part if this was going to be a school magazine...

The second part was beefing it up. Putting in the logo that was needed, typing up what the articles would be like, a simple image to illustrate what I wanted. I also started to use the colours I wanted. I followed the colour scheme that i'd used for the front page.

Front Page Designs

Okay, here's my rough plan. I thought i'd need an unrectangular shape for the masthead to make it look different to all the others and a grabbing, dramatically shaped ear. The rest of it is pretty basic stuff, like a main headline, with a supporting image, surrounded by smaller headlines.

Then I decided I needed a colour scheme. I liked the contrast that I saw in other designs I looked at, so I decided to have a black background and bright colours in the foreground. For these colours I used some of the colours I found on the school logo (mainly green). I then looked at the other end of the spectrum (red/orange) and used the contrast between that and green to make the ear stand out even more. I also needed to plan the image - he kind of shape i'd need, the way i'd edit it, the size - all that jazz. And which font i'd use. I wanted something easy to read, not boring and official looking (as it IS a school magazine).