AS Media Coursework Main Task.Elliss Strong.

Introduction To Main Coursework.

For our main coursework task this year, we will have to design and produce a magazine front cover, contents page and a double page spread. We will be designing these pages, for a new music magazine. I am going to be focusing, like older magazines such as Smash Hits or Top of the Pops, on the genre of pop type music. This task is going to be a development of my skills from the preliminary task that we did on creating a new student magazine for college students. Below are the links, to the different posts that I included in my blog for the preliminary task,

Product Brief:http://sdcmediaasellissstrong.blogspot.com/2009/10/product-brief.htmlssstrong.blogspot.com/2009/10/product-brief.html
Flat Plans:http://sdcmediaasellissstrong.blogspot.com/2009/10/flat-plans.html
Photographs:http://sdcmediaasellissstrong.blogspot.com/2009/10/photogaphs.html
Evaluation:http://sdcmediaasellissstrong.blogspot.com/2009/10/evaluation.html

Target Audience.
When creating a magazine, the target audience for that magazine, is one of the most important things to take into consideration. If the target audience/readers aren't happy with the magazine, then it will not sell. So using the website http://www.nrs.co.uk/, I looked at the target audience for another magazine with the same genre as what I had chosen, Top of The Pops. I found out that, the main readers of this magazine was people, between the ages of 15 and 44. I also found that most of the readers are female, the figures stood at, 47,000 men and 122,00 women readers of the magazine. As a result of finding out this information, I now know what my target audience is, therefore knowing and understanding a lot more, what I should put in to the magazine that I am going to create. However when I looked on this database, with all the target audience figures, there weren't any for Smash Hits, the other magazine that I am looking at, this is because the magazine was discontinued a while back. But, because the magazines were very similar, in many ways, target audience included, I can roughly say that Smash Hits magazine would most likely have the same kind of target audience as Top Of The Pops magazine.

Although I couldn't find the actual figures for Smash Hits magazine, I did come across a quote on the internet that was, I think, written by a university student, who commented on why magazines like Smash Hits, were so popular. "'Manufactured pop' acts played on their image as well as music to become successful. Bands and artists would be interviewed by the magazine to promote their records. while the magazines sold copies as teenagers were interested in what they had to say (even if it was stupid things like what was their favourite colour-or something along those lines). I think that this shows that if you succeed making your target audience happy, then you will sell copies of your magazine, becoming more popular and making a name for yourself/the magazine.

Profile of a typical reader.

Name: Abby

Gender: Female

Age: 15 years old

Abby's Socio-Economic Classification is ABC1

Musical Interests: Beyonce, Jay Sean, JLS, Cheryl Cole, Rihanna, etc.

Other Interests: Socialising/hanging out with friends, going to the cinema, etc.

This is a profile of a typical reader of the magazine that I am creating. The reader, a teenage girl called Abby, fits into the statistics of the Top Of The Pops target audience, and she also has an interest in the type of music that will be looked at and talked about in the magazine. This profile is therefore a good thing to possibly refer to when making the magazine, as it will make sure that I am making the target audience happy at all times.

Analysis of Existing Magazines.

Front Covers.

The two front covers that I analysed are: Smash Hits-May 2005 and Top Of The Pops-Oct 2009:

Both magazines are aimed at around the same target audience, and therefore should be and are quite similar. One of the first things that you notice when you look at either or both of these magazines, is the big font sizes, that make some of the phrases used on the cover, catch your eye. This is a very effective technique to use, as even if a potential reader is just scanning the magazines, with the big font size, something might catch their attention, causing them to read the front cover, which could then result in them buying and reading a copy of the magazine. Both magazines have their main sell, or a phrase concerning their main story in quite a big font size, Smash Hits: Son Of Dork, and Top Of The Pops: Kiss & Tell, catching the attention, as mentioned before, and making it stand out, what the magazine or at least one story is going to be about, which would attract fans of those individuals as well as regular readers.

On the front cover of these magazines, they have used very bright colours, and have also kept to a small number of these colours. Using these bright colours on the front cover, is also another way of getting the attention of a potential reader, drawing them to the magazine, and then once they have had a glance over it will hopefully continue to read on, and become a more frequent reader. The bright colours are also a good way of making the magazine and pictures, or anything else on the front cover stand out on the page, and also making it different and more noticeable from any of the other magazines around it. I also think that the bright colours will especially capture the eye of the target audience, as teenagers/young adults, are quite associated with liking bright colours, and also making a statement and being different, and I think that it will reach and stand out to them a lot more than it would possibly to someone significantly older, who may steer away from bright colours.

The last main thing on the front cover of both of these magazines, that would grab the readers attention, is the images. Now on both of these magazines the images that go with the main story/main selling point, are very big and the take up most of the space on the front cover. I think that this is a really good idea, because of the fact that the image of the star, is so big it will definitely and almost immediately catch the target audience's attention. This technique also works even better when it is someone that is universally liked, or even if a particular sub-category/group of people within the target audience would like them, because if they see a picture of someone they like, especially a very big image on the cover, then they are bound to want to read the magazine to see what they are going to be talking about. The front cover of both of these magazines also contain a few smaller images, that also contribute to the content of the magazine, which can do pretty much almost the same thing as the main image, just not quite on the same scale. These image, I personally think, would be good for regular readers. What I mean by that is that when the regular readers, and some of the target audience that like the magazine, take a look at the cover and see the main image, they may not be totally sold on buying, however showing other smaller images of different celebrities can catch their attention all the same, and also have a similar or even the same effect as the main image.

Contents Page.

This is the contents page from a magazine called Mizz, now I used this because, Top Of The Pops magazine does not have a contents page, it in fact just puts the page numbers of the articles on the the front cover, in a little caption, either underneath the phrase or picture relating to that article. Also Smash Hits is now discontinued which means that I also can't get a contents page which resulted in me using this one from Mizz magazine.

The layout of the contents page is one of the most important things, I think, when creating this page to go in your magazine. The reason I think this is because you don't want to overcrowd the page, with all this information that may just confuse the reader, however you don't want to do the opposite and not put hardly anything on the page, leaving it looking bare, and unfinished. And I think that this contents page from Mizz magazine is actually a really good example, as it fits right in the middle of those two points mentioned just a moment ago. There are a few little pictures of some of the celebrities that are featured in the magazine, which would reach out and possibly make the target audience happy, if they are seeing one of their favourite celebrities throughout the magazine. They also have a main image on the page, so that there it isn't just a whole chunk of writing on the page which I think, would bore and unimpress the target audience. They have also put in a little note from the editor, which I think is a really good idea, especially in this teen pop magazine, as it makes it just that little bit more personal and really including the reader in the magazine, which really do think would go down well with the target audience. Another thing, in the layout is that they have all the names of the necessary people that help put the magazine together and all necessary information that may be needed if the reader wanted to contact the magazine for any sort of reason, which again involves the reader, which is a good thing to do. The main part of the layout: the actual navigation system of the pages is a really important part of the page, as it is the whole purpose of the page being there. And with this one, they have colour co-ordinated the categories, so the reader would know that if they saw the colour orange then they would be in the Fun category of the magazine, I really think that this is a great idea to use within the magazine as not only does it make the process of reading and looking through the magazine easier, it is also a nice look towards the magazine and also makes it a little brighter and also makes it look a bit more fun and exciting, and I think that that will please the reader/target audience of the magazine. On the contents page, they have used a few different font styles, however Mizz magazine have also tried to keep that number quite small. I think that using a few different font styles, is a quite an effective technique to use, this is because it makes the contents page a little different as different parts of it will stand out, due to the different fonts. Also having some of the different fonts the same/duplicated on the page, is also a good idea, to think about using for my own magazine, because having some of the fonts on the page the same makes the writing flow better, I think because some of those fonts are the same it make it easier for the reader, to read the page, rather than them having to adjust to a million different fonts sizes and style all on that one page. Whereas using this technique will definitely make the writing flow-making it easier to take in the information. I think this would go well with the target audience because, if they pick up the magazine and the reader is tired or just not focused properly, then the easy to read fonts, will make it more simple for them read, and probably more pleasing to the eye, that lots of different fonts, hopefully, making the reader happy.

Double Page Spread.

Below I have scanned in a Double Page Spread from Top Of The Pops magazine of October 2009.

One of the first things i noticed when looking and trying to analyse this page, was the colour and the use of it. Again they have used a bright colour scheme, and as said before this will work well with the target audience, as they are young adults/teenagers and they like those kinds of colours. But again they have used a couple of colours quite a few time, now this would be to not overpower the page with a rainbow of colour, which would possibly be quite hard to read, and digest the information. But this has been clearly thought about by Top Of The Pops, they have stuck to mainly three colours other than black: pink (magenta), yellow and the purple/lilac colour. And as more girls than boys, would read this magazine, I think the colour scheme they have used work really well for that, seeing as they quite girly/feminine colours, however it is also, I think, could be considered a unisex colour scheme-pleasing all readers.

The layout on this page, I think is a fairly simple one, yet it works. All the stories and their images that go with them have been placed in these coloured boxes, and have been placed around the edge of the page, and then gone into the middle. Now I wouldn't say that this layout is unusual, but I think that because it is simple and has been used many times before, it is effective. We read from left to right, and this page makes that job even easier for the reader's eye to do so. However because of the way they have been laid out and the use of colours and fonts, it would also be easy for the reader to scan over the page quickly, yet still being able to see what's been written therefore they can easily and quickly chose what they want to read about, and again this easiness, I think will make the target audience happier.

The next thing I focused on from the layout, was the images used, also within the layout. Now Top Of The Pops, have used so quite large images on this double page spread, and again I think this is a good idea, as it makes sure that the page isn't just full of loads of chunky writing, with either no or really small images, which would just be really harder and possibly more boring for the target audience to read, which could result in them not reading it all. The large images that are used also work well with the layout, in the way that the layout of the sells, and the fonts used, which I will get into later on, direct the reader through the page, easily, and these images also help to do. Because they are quite big images it works in the way that the reader can scan over the page and stop if there is something they want to read about, and that is where the large image helps. because a large image is going to catch their attention better than a small one.

The next technique that I looked at on the double page spread was the use of font styles. Now as said before this coincides with the layout and also the images used, as they all, I think, catch the readers attention when they may be having a quick flick through, ensuring that they have a read of this page. I think the fonts that have been used by Top Of The Pops, are quite casual, and this is a very good thing to use within this magazine. This is because the target audience and readers of the magazine, as shown by the nrs website, is mainly 15-44 year olds, therefore starting at teenagers, which would would something casual to read, and these style of font used, especially the one supporting the phrase, 'Rebels with a cause' are very much suited to that target audience, therefore, I think, this would make them feel that this magazine actually knows them, and knows what they want, possibly resulting in them becoming a more frequent reader. Now the other type of font used, is a very bold type, that stands out a lot, and it kind of makes you look and read it. This type of font is very effective to use as it stands out/makes a statement, and therefore catches your eye as you are looking over the page, and I think that this one again could go down well with the target audience as they will want something rather 'exciting' something that grabs there attention rather than something they have to search and look for themselves to read it, it is more effective to use these type of fonts, I think, in this type of magazine. Now the rest of the text is all in the same font, which again makes this easier for the target audience to read as they don't have to keep adjusting to a different style of writing everytime they want to read something new. And I think, regardless, of what the target audience is for the magazine, this is a very good and effective technique to use, to make the reader happier.

Now the last thing i looked was the language used throughout the page. Because this magazine is aimed at teenagers to young adults, pretty much all the language throughout the whole magazine is going to be very casual and informal. Now this magazine, I believe does that, and I think that when reading it, it makes you feel like you would be just talking to your friends about it, just having a relaxed conversation, and I think that this should be done in all the teen magazine, as it would make it feel a bit more personal, and on the same level as the reader, which possibly again could result in them becoming a regular reader. This magazine also has little speech bubbles over some of the pictures, where the magazine has made up little things that the person in that image would say, there is one on the story about Nicola Roberts saying 'Pat Butcher would love these when, when she is looking at a pair of earrings, now this adds a little comedy to the magazine. I believe that this would go down very well with the target audience, as they wouldn't really want it to be a very serious magazine, all the time, because it could then relate to the reader's personality, as the target audience-a teenager, isn't going to be serious all the time, they are going to be joking around with their friends, and that is why I believe this is a very effective technique to use throughout the magazine. They also, keeping in the causal and sort of comedy/funny language used, have written little comments under some of the articles, making it seem like a diary or something along those lines, where they have just made little notes, keeping it casual and reaching out on the same level as the target audience. 'Lucky Gerbils!' is just one of the little comments made underneath the story, about Brad Pitt buying some for his kids, now this I really strongly believe makes it quite a personal account, and it relates to the target audience greatly I think, because some of the readers may keep a diary or something like that, and these little notes are just like what the reader would be thinking after they have read the story, possibly making it seem like a diary, making it more personal and getting them more involved and also making it more fun for them to read, pleasing the target audience.

Flat Plans.
In this post I have uploaded my four flat plans: my front cover, contents page and the double page spread. When making my magazine flat plans and deciding on how I want my magazine to look, I have been referring back to other magazines in the same genre, as I think that is a good way to make sure that I am relating my decisions to my target audience.

With my front cover, I wanted to try and have a similar/or the same feel as the older pop magazines that were and are out there. When looking at previous magazines, I have noticed that the front covers seem to be very busy with lots of different elements, such as; main images, little images, little phrases and captions, and also the main text. This should draw the reader in as there a lots of different things going on that one page, without it being crowded and becoming cluttered.

There are also quite a few different images on my cover, and I think that these bright pictures, will definitely catch the reader/target audience’s attention, and show them all the different parts there are to the magazine, and please all the different interests of these readers. I have tried and I think achieved this, with my front cover. And I believe that this will appeal to the target audience, because it has lots of different parts to it, and therefore there should be something different on there that would draw in each independent reader.I also believe that by having quite a few different topics laid out on the front cover, that relate to things that are happening or have happened recently, then this could even attract non-readers, that may just be interested in what the magazine, has to say about the topic that interest them, which will boost the reader statistics.

With my contents page, I looked at one of the examples I had, which unfortunately wasn't Top Of The Pops, as it doesn't have a contents page. I wanted to try and keep this page quite simple, and I most definitely didn't want to make the page become cluttered, but I also needed to fit all the necessary information on there this, I would say, was quite a difficult task, to juggle the two, however I think the end result came out pretty good.

With this page, I wanted to have some kind of colour code, towards the different sections in the magazine, as this would make the magazine easier for the consumer to read. I also think that this would be a good technique to use as it would also, I think, connect with the target audience, as it is a bright design feature, and it also makes it a little easier and relaxing for them to read through the magazine. I also liked this sort of feature that has appeared in magazines that i have read, and when I saw I thought it was a good idea having that in there. I also put a few images on the contents page, as I knew that would make the page seem less busy, and I think that would therefore please the target audience, as the teenagers and young adults (17 year olds, upwards) won't want to read great chunks of writing, just on the contents page, so the images that will be put on the page will break up the intensity of the writing.

Double Page Spread

To be honest, with my double page spread I found that putting it together was rather easy. I think that I already knew how I wanted it to be laid before I had even started drawing the flat plan. I looked at other magazine double page spreads, and also ones that I have of my own, from the same genre, whilst I was drawing my flat plan, to make sure that I would be appealing to my target audience at all times. As mentioned before, I know that my target audience won't want just a load of writing filling up the page, so I therefore but a big main image, in the middle of the page, and also a couple little ones, to one side, as again, I thought that this would break up the intensity of the article/interview.

I also made a space on the right hand page, for some navigation (page number) and also a box for the credits, the name of photographers and the writer. I also made another box for promotional purposes, because the article is about a music/pop star, I thought that I would make this box, so that their album or single, could be promoted in the magazine. I thought that this would be a good idea, as it is a regular feature in other music magazines, as well as, any other type of magazines. I also think that this will appeal to my target audience as they would be interested in this star and/or music and therefore this would maybe be useful to them, in helping to decided whether to buy and where to buy the artists music.

Also in previous magazines, I have noticed that some have a little introductory paragraph at the top of the article, which could also be a sub-heading in other publications. I really like this idea, when I read magazines, and I also think that it would appeal to my target audience, as they would be able to read this little paragraph , and know roughly what the article is bout, and they could then decide on whether they want to read it, or just skip on to another page in the magazine

Fonts.
Fonts are another very important factor that needs to be taken into consideration, when making a magazine. This is because this along with many other factors all revolves around appealing to the magazine’s target audience. Therefore with the font/s for my magazine, I need to make sure they are going to appeal from teenagers and young adults and upwards-(15-44 year olds). So for my magazine I think that I will be using quite a casual font, as I think that that will be the best font to use with my target audience. I have looked at quite a few different types of fonts, to see if I could come up with a couple of fonts that I am pleased with and that I can choose between, possibly asking a few people who would possibly read the magazine, what they think of them. The website I have used to find these fonts is www.dafont.com.

I am really pleased with this selection of fonts, that I chose from the website. The one font that I really like, and am thinking about using for my title/masthead font, is the third font down on the left side. I was really pleased when I found this font, because it is really similar to the one I drew and wanted on my front cover, and the flat plan. I think that for my other main text fonts, I will be using the font that is the first font on the left hand side, I am going to be using this one because it is quite a casual looking font, however it is still bold enough to make a statement, therefore it is suitable to use as the 'sub-headlines' of the other stories, on the front cover. The next font I am going to be using, is going to be for the rest of the text in my magazine. This will be the font that is second one from the bottom, on the left. I really think that this is an almost perfect font for this, as it is a causual font, that will suit my target audience, and I think that it will also make the articles and the writing flow easy therefore making it easier to read.

Photographs.

For my photographs I am going to be using, a couple that I have taken at concerts that I have been to. For example I went to a Dizzee Rascal concert, and before that I also went to another concert which had JLS as the special guests. I thought that these two, especially JLS would be great to put into my magazine, and I also have quite a few photographs from both concerts, and can therefore use them as my photographs and in my magazine. I think that both of these artists, that were at the concerts, would be good to use in my magazine, because they are both in like the pop and R&B area of music, and especially JLS would appeal to my target audience. As I think that they fit very well into like the pop magazine image, what this type of magazine would go for. And I also think that Dizzee Rascal would also appeal to some of the other readers of my magazine, which is why I have chosen to use them in the magazine.

I think that I may also put in some photos that I have taken of some friends and other people that I know, to make up a new band, or just for some extra people that could be involved in the magazine, for instance they could be an interviewer, or like last week's or months competition winner. I think that it might be a good thing to put some of these types of photos in to give the magazine a little bit of variation, within its photographs.

Even though earlier, in this part of my blog, I said that I wanted to used some photos of friends in my magazine, I haven't done this. I did have a picture of one of my friends that I took for this project.

However when I put this photograph in my magazine, I would have used it in my double page spread, to try it out, I just didn't like how it looked compared to and with the other photographs I took of the actual band. Therefore I decided to just mainly use these photographs.

I also had one photograph on my double page spread that was bad quality, and I wanted to use it, however the quality of it was terrible, because of how the lighting was when I took it at the concert, and when I tried editing, which is in the next blog post, it just made the image worse.

However I recently went to another concert, with another friend, of the same band, which I thought would be a great chance to get some more photographs that I could use in the magazine. And I did get some pretty good ones that I had kept as a back up, incase something went wrong. So luckily when my other photo lloked really poor quality next to my others on my double page spread, I had another one from my new set that I really like, which I then put on instead of the first one.

The first photo. Photo from the new set.

Another photo I added to my magazine was a simple one of jewellery, which I put on my front cover to sum up the 'Style Wars' feature. I placed the items onto a piece of pink card that I had so that they would stand out and wouldn't have a dull background and also tie in with my magazine's colour scheme-therfore needing no editing. I really am pleased with this photograph because it is simple but effective.

Photo Editing.

For quite a few of the photos I used in my magazine, I did have to edit them a bit using Adobe Photoshop. Because mot of the images I used were taken a concerts, the lighting and also the focus wasn't the best, and not as good as others that might have been planned, with a clear background, etc. However, I really liked these images that I took at these various concerts, and I knew that I wanted to use them, so therefore I edited them on photoshop, try and make them look the best that they could.

One of things that I did a lot of with my photos, was dodging and burning, and also switching up the brightness and contrast, to try and get the best look for the photo. I found using the dodging and burning technique quite effective, because you could make parts of the image brighter without having to make the whole photo brighter and ruining the whole thing. With using the dodging and burning tools you could focus on one exact point within the photo. For instance I remember, that on one of the photos of the band JLS, it was one of the darkest pictures, and the quality was reduced when I brightened it, so I then used the dodging tool, which then made a specific part brighter than others, an I used this on the band members, so that they stood out a little better from the dark background.

With this second photo of the band I wanted and needed to make it lighter/brighter so that you could actually see the band under the stage lights. However when I did this it reduced the quality of the image greatly. Because the stage was so dark and there were only the four spotlights for lighting, you couldn't actually see the band clearly. I was a little disappointed with this, as I did like this image quite a lot. When the image's brightness was adjusted on photoshop the photo came out looking really grainy and was just generally really bad quality, because it is meant to be a dark photograph, with a dark background.

However I had my new set of photographs from which I chose a photo to replace this one, and the lighting and quality of this one was so much better that it didn't really need editing. And I am please that I am using this one, as it just looks so much better compared to the old photograph that I was going to use.

Another thing I edited on practically all of my photos were things like the date and big spaces of just black background, pieces of the photo that had nothing in them. For this I simply used the crop tool on the photoshop toolbar. This is only a simple thing to do but it makes the whole photo look different, in my opinion, because you don't see the date or just loads of empty space in the photographs used in magazines, that are in the shops. So by doing this, I hoped to make them a little more 'professional' looking and like they did belong in a/this magazine.

Once cropped...

I would say that one of the biggest changes that I made to an image was actually cutting out the subject matter of one of photographs, so that I could then use this on my front cover and change the colour of the background of the photo, by just placing it into my front cover, rather than actually doing the hard way with trying to cover up the old background and trying to find and match the colour of my front cover background. This photograph is shown below, as well as what it looked like after being edited.

To achieve this look with my image, I just simply used the magnetic and normal lasso tools. This made cutting the subject matter out of the whole image a lot easier. However I did sometimes switch from the magnetic lasso tool to the original one, when I got to smaller and trickier places, so that I would have a little more control over what pieces I would be cutting out. Once I had finished with the lasso tools, I then used the blur tool. I used this to blur and kind of smooth out the edges of the image, so that it wouldn't actually look like it had been cut out, and so that also looked like the blue of the front cover was the photographs original background. I have to say that I am really pleased with how this image came out, once it had been edited, and I really like the way it looks on the front cover of the magazine.

Planning and Evaluation of the article.

Here I have looked at two articles from magazines that are in the same genre as the magazine that I am making. Both of these double page spreads are interviews, and both of these stories or article topics have been featured on the front cover of the magazine.

However, there is one big difference between the two articles/interviews. One of them, the one featuring Alexandra Burke, is quite a serious interview, it is just basically getting to know her a little bit, like how her career is going so far. Whereas the other double page spread, the interview with Leona Lewis, is quite a humorous one. This interview is based on the silly questions that the magazine, or the people involved with that article, have asked her to make this a funny article.

Therefore with the Leona Lewis interview, the language used in it is informal, because it is quite a casual interview, with all the questions being very silly, and just letting the reader getting to know the star and see her funny side and possibly even relate to her. Although with the other interview, with Alexandra also uses quite informal language, again making the whole interview feel very casual, even though the topic is more serious than in the other interview. However, I don't think that formal language would be used in this magazine, because of who the target audience is, the young teenage readers of this magazine, probably wouldn't want to read the magazine if it used formal language instead of the 'friendly', casual writing that it uses now.

Whilst writing my own article, I have made a few changes, and a couple of drafts. These are shown below. I did this because I found it easier to write down a few different things of what I wanted to put in the article, which I would then try and piece together in a way that worked, and that would also be easy and enjoyable to read. This technique also helped me to try and get the right type of language that I wanted to use. Because is some pieces I would right the content how I wanted it to be put in the magazine, and then other times I would just write the content and make sure I put in all the information that I needed and wanted in the article.

I then put all of the pieces I had together in a word document, and then made the necessary changes, and changed some of language to make it more enjoyable and suitable for my target audience, and finally making sure that it all made sense when out put together.

Overall, I am really quite pleased with how my article turned out, and look forward to seeing the final results.

Evaluation of the finished magazine.

Changes.

One of the changes that I made to my magazine was on my contents page. I changed the topic for page 14, from Leona's Back!!, to Future Stars and Their Hits...Smurfie Syco and more...as this ties in with one of the main photogrpahs on my front cover, which I took of my friend, actually with the artist Smurfie Syco, when we saw him at one of the previous concerts that I also got some of my other photographs from, for example, like the one of Dizzee Rascal, that I used on my contents page.

I also changed the topic of my main article-on the flat plan it said that the article was about Cheryl Cole becoming number one, however that was just a rough idea. My article is actually on the band JLS, because I had the pictures that I took at their concert, which I could use for this project. I also chose to do them for my article, as I think that I would know a bit more about them rather than say Cheryl, because not so long ago they were on The X Factor, which is where we got to know them, and where their career got started.

Those were the main changes that I made to magazine throughout the whole project, however it could be said that there were a lot more changes mainly to do with my front cover. The reason I say this is because, I don't think I was ever really happy with my front cover throughout this project, I wouldn't be as happy with it like I would be with my contents or my double page spread, and I would be forever moving sells on it around, and maybe taking some away, putting new things in etc. But I found that in the last few weeks of this project it really started to come together, and things started to look good and I was starting to like how it was looking, and I have to say now when I look at it, and how it has progressed from just like the blue background, when I started to design it, I am pleased with it and just love the way that it looks and how all the sells and different features that I have put on it blend and flow so well together. I also think that because I kept changing my mind with all the different things to do with the front cover, that I experimented with loads of different options that I had and all the different ideas that I wanted to use, so in the end, I got what I wanted from it, possibly thanks to all the different layouts and looks that I tried throughout the project.

Final Magazine Links:

Front cover: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5WUAYNvqSRQMjlmNjczMDEtZThiNS00ZjY0LWJiODMtMDhjN2Y5NzYyOTZj&hl=en

Contents Page: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5WUAYNvqSRQMGQ3ZDExMjgtOGE5YS00ZDI5LWE0NWItODk3MzFlZDE5NWRi&hl=en

Double Page Spread:

Overview:

Article in detail:

Evaluation Presentation...

I had a little trouble uploading my powerpoint presentation, as it wouldn't upload, so I have therefore had to upload them as separate images/files:

Evaluation.

The facing pictures are the finished copies of my student magazine and contents page. To be honest, I am really quite pleased with my front cover. I really like the size of the main picture and the fact that because of its size it really grabs your or the reader's attention. I also am pleased with the way the layout comes across. I think that it fills the cover of the magazine, without actually making it look too busy and cramped, which could make the magazine look unappealing-reducing the amount of readers.
I have to say that I am a little less pleased with the contents page of my magazine than with my front cover. I think that this could be because at the moment there is just mainly writing of where everything would be placed and how it would be set out, and that when the pictures would be put in their places, then I think that it would look a lot better, and a bit less plain and boring. However I also think that it could have a bit more colour in it, rather than just the different coloured fonts. When I next make another contents page I think that I will bear that in mind, and will maybe think about changing the colour of the background of the text boxes, and then have a font colour that will stand out on the background colour. However I like the look, of having the colour scheme of the front cover reversed on the contents page.
Another thing that I think that i think I would probably change or could have done better, would be that I would put a couple or at least one more picture, on my front cover, as even though I am really pleased with it, it could be said that there is quite a lot of writing in proportion to the images. And i think that one more image would balance out the cover a little bit more making it, I personally think, a little more appealing to the audience.

Photographs.

These two are the photographs that I took to use in my student/college magazine. However, the first picture, that I took, I had two students in the photograph, we were then told that it was better, and that we should only have one student in our photographs for our magazines. Therefore I didn't use this photo for my main image on my front cover, of the magazine. When I came across this, I knew there was a really simple way of resolving this problem, which was just simply getting the one of the students in that first picture and then taking the photo of them, on their own. Which is where I got the second photograph from. I used this photograph for my front cover, as this image 'ticked all the boxes' that it needed to, to be able to be on the front cover of my magazine. I used this picture to cover up quite a lot of the front cover, as I thought that a big image on the cover would really capture the reader's attention, and I think that because it is a photo of a student from the college, that some other students may recognize, this could the bring in more readers from my target audience, because they might want to know the reason behind this person/student being on the front cover. When taking this photograph, it was advised, that the photograph that we take, and used on our front cover would be straight on, and also from the shoulders upwards. I think that the straight on angle of the photo is really sharp looking, and also eye-catching, and I believe that this is a good photo to use on the front cover, as it will capture the target audience's attention and possibly intrigue them into reading the rest of the magazine.

Flat-Plans

These are my flat-plans for my front cover and the contents page of my magazine. I drew these to help me at least have an outline or guide of what/how i would be designing my magazine. However throughout the project process there may have been a couple of changes to the original magazine flat-plans.

I chose the font for my magazine, quite easily I would say, because when I knew we were doing a student magazine, you know it has to appeal to the target audience of ages from 16 to 19/20, which made me think I wanted to keep the font and possibly the 'feel' of the magazine quite casual and relaxed. Therefore, hopefully, appealing to the other students, who would want quite a relaxed and informal magazine to read, unlike people/readers of an older age, of something like 35-40 plus.

With the colour scheme of the font colour, as well as the whole magazine, I wanted to use some of the colouring in/around the college, which is why I chose the pale blue, kind of colour, as I thought that it is in the college logo, and therefore relates to the students, my target audience, in a way.

I think one of the hardest things of the front cover designing process, was the layout of all the sells-text and images, main and also others that would be on the cover. I think, it was hard because you have to think about it being appealing to the target audience, but also that you can see everything clearly and that the magazine looks presentable and like a magazine. And I think that even though you have the flat-plans, it does change when you actually are designing the cover and contents page on In-Design, as when you have the actual size of pictures and other sells it becomes a little harder to place everything in the correct places and making sure that it fits in with the other sells on the page. However, I think that after looking at my flat-plan, and refering back to it when designing the cover on In-Design, I got all the elements on my cover in the places they were on the cover or near enough in the right places, which I am pleased about.

With the important information, such as the date, issue number and other things like that, I wanted to make sure that these things could be read quite esily by the reader, rather than them having to search over the cover and the contents page to try and find them. When this came to mind I made sure that I made space at the top of the magazine, in/near the masthead, for the date and issue number, so that they would be one of the first things the reader would read. Then with other information, like price etc. I put these at the bottom of the magazine, I think near the strapline, as again thought it was quite an easy place to find it, rather than have them all mixed up all over the front cover.

With the contents page, I had kind of the same thoughts as when thinking about the font, and masthead designs, I really wanted to keep it simple and casual. As I think that that is possibly what the target audience, would want, I don't think they would want the pages to be really busy and packed with information, that they would want it more relaxed and 'easy to read'. With this in mind, I kept the layout of the contents page, to a minimum, as much as I could. I put down the page number, and what article or topic is where/what page, and then I put a place for a couple images (relating to articles) and a little description of the image, and the page number. I then have the masthead, with the page title, and I also added in the date and the issue number again, with the possibility of putting in a logo or something, as I thought it just carried it on from the front cover, and you also have that information there, if it is needed. Another thing I added to the contents page is a category box, which I think would be helpful as the articles would categorised and this box would contain the different page numbers, that all the categories start on, therefore the audience can just read what bits of the magazine are most important to them first. Also another box, that says who or what is on the front cover and that needs recgonition, for example who is on the cover or wo took the photos or other information like that.

And those are flat-plans of my magazine's front cover and contents page.