Music magazine - feature spread

My project evaluation (video)

This is my video evaluation of my product, follow the link to watch the video


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/77570364/ALEXBURNHILLEVAL.mov

How I Designed My Magazine & Evaluation

I designed both my Front Cover and contents page using Photoshop, I used multiple different tools to create the pages, I used tools like the eraser, lasso and brush tools to edit the studio shots that I have taken for the magazine, they were used to any imperfections with the pictures. You can see in the image below that this picture uses the studio background in the image, this was because I liked the style of the backdrop because of the way that the light reflects of it slightly. The title below is the name of the magazine which I used a free text website to generate a unique text style which I transferred to Photoshop and changed the colours to white and removed the background that was sorrounding the text using the magic wand tool to highlight any unwanted parts of the image. The main picture was done in a studio by me, I had one of my friends model as the band member because he looked like an Indie style musician.

I then proceeded to use the text tool and brush tool to create the teasers on the cover along with a strapline which I have used text from fee urban fonts to make it look eye catching with a special font, the strapline has a yellow background to make it stand out on a shelf and to a potential reader, the text is in a Chalkduster style font because the background resembled a chalkboard, so I used this font to try and link the two together.

I then used another studio shot as a teaser image for a story inside and used brushes to create an effective outline around the image, again using a chalk style to keep with the theme, I have put in a barcode onto the front cover along with a issue number and price tag, to follow the common conventions of a magazine.

I have also used the circle shape tool to create a sticker for the front page and used the paint bucket to fill it in yellow and the brush tool to make a black outline, and the text tool for the writing in the sticker which I coloured red and beveled the image and used the stroke tool to help with the outline shading. I changed the font in the end because it wasn't bold enough and needed to be more visable.

I used a different style of font again and highlighted it creating a more visible font through the use of the red colouring and I have also changed the image in the top right corner and titled it, making it more relevant and follows conventions better, I also changed the colours to give it a continuing theme.

I added in the price as I left it out before hand which is not a common convention of a music magazine and I made the images larger to fill up more space on the page and also to make the page stand out more.

I used another studio shot for the contents page and then filtered the image to give it a layered cartoon style effect which makes the image very eye catching and memorable. The filter I used was poster edges. The font in this screenshot is there for reference only.

I also created a sticker for this page to advertise a competition that would be available to the readers to enter, I used the brush tool to get a weathered texture effect. I have also used one of my other images in the bottom right corner to link to one of the stories.

I have changed the font and colour of it for the contents page to make it different and stand out and also added a runner along the bottom with some text to link the image in the corner to a story. I used the red text again in the runner to make it stand out.

I changed the title and fonts again as I thought it did not look as good as it could, I used a more bold font which wasn't as childish as the last and I gave the text a background to make it stand out and highlighted the outside of the writing to make it thicker. The title has been redone in a different font making it look unique from the other text and stand out to the reader.

I rearranged the page again following a different style model as the page looked to blank, so I added more text and stories and used an image linking to a magazine feature which follows common conventions better than before.

The feature was designed in in design to make the columbs line up correctly, I used a studio shot in the feature on the left page and I also used a picture I took in the recording studio on the right hand side page, The titles and headings were all from a free text site which I edited in Photoshop by changing the colour and removing backgrounds. I then put these images into in design to be alligned. I wrote the articl in word first to make sure it was spelt correctly, I then placed it into columbs in in design which were then alligned. I added a mini - factfile in the corner labled devils in the details to make the feature page stand out more with bright colours and additional information about the band. I added the guitar into the title to use up some of the blank space above the title and fill up the page making it fuller and have more detail. I have also rearranged the border to have a 5mm gap between the edge of the page and the contents of it.

Overall I think that my magazine front cover and contents page could have been better, by making the colour scheme correct rather than using four colours I should have used three colours, the fonts could have been the same to make the text flow across the different pages. I could have used more interesting photos instead of using studio shots for every image. I could have made the layout better by using a more intersting style model rather than just a common style of front cover, The fonts could have also looked better as the fonts I have used don't look very good and doesn't give the impression that this would be a magazine available for purchase in a shop. The title could have been much better and imaginative because IND! isn't really memorable or eye catching.

Music Magazine Drafts - Front Cover, Contents and Feature

Flat Plans - Front Cover, Contents Page, Feature

These are my Flat Plans for my magazine, they are the basic design for my final product, these designs will most likely be altered in the finished product.



Front cover

Contents

Feature

To get an idea of the common conventions of feature articles, I am going analyse a feature article of Corey Taylor. I think that the target audience for this magazine would be 15-60 year old white male, metal heads, the images used follow the common conventions of metal magazines because its all dark and ominous with the dim lighting and the canvas background, the main focus of the picture is the star vehicle Corey Taylor, and it connotes the genre with the classic style of clothes he is wearing.

The layout of the feature is relatively simple, it features a large image of the star vehicle on the first page taking up all of the available space on the page with very limited amounts of text, and on the next page it has a large starting word to the article where it utilises a sort of graphically edited 'No' which also features a quote inside the 'O' which looks good and follows the same style as the imagery and text. The pages  feature a flowing style where the theme is classic and it goes very well together. The colour they have used connotes the genre because the black is a classic convention of the metal genre because its used quite frequently.

Typography, it doesn't feature much text but the text featured is brief and informal and the story features short, easy to read words in a readable font, the text is short because the readers are stereotyped as drunken and drugged up and so they have made the magazine very easy to read, the readers are probably in the social classification D1 to E. The stories themselves are not overly informational and seem more like person was recounting there night out rather than a conventional interview.

The imagery used in the feature is grimy and looks like it was taken in a dirty 1930's american alleyway, and the main model for the spread (Corey Taylor) is featured in a medium close - up wearing a classical mafia style suit with a fedora, this would appeal to the target audience because the style of shoot is a classic convention of this genre of music where they would use a setting from 50 or more years ago and make it look like the image was taken a long time ago giving this classic photo style.

The colour used is plain black and white for the text on the second page which keeps with the on going theme of using a classic style which makes the text stand out and easy to read, the image on the first page however, uses a variety of different colours such as; red, orange and grey, the red is used on the tie  which could connote violence as it is a metal magazine, the gray backdrop makes it look like it was canvas when mixed with the dim lighting giving it a weathered look and the orange was used like a backlight for a sign like you would find in Las Vegas which has Corey Taylor written on it. These features would appeal to the target audience because metal is meant to be seen as grimy and dirty and violent which would all appeal to the target audience who expect to find this in their magazine.

Equipment list & Studio Lighting Research

For my photo shoot I will need to have;


- Canon 600 D
- Background cover
- Model
- Props (Guitar, Hat, Jumper, Jacket)
- Reflector


The studio lighting that we have used includes apparatus like the reflector, the reflector is used to redirect or 'bounce' light from another light source toward the subject. Reflectors can be made of various materials from foam core to nylon. The more reflective the surface, the more the reflector will provide strong directional light. Less smooth surfaces provide a more diffused softer light. Reflectors are most often used in the studio to fill shadows, but can be used for getting light into any part of a scene. Once in place, they can be treated as a light source.

We also used a canon 600 D camera, it is a powerful and high quality camera capable of taking high resolution photographs which are perfect for magazine covers due to it's 18 megapixel resolution, it also lends itself well to using accesories such as different lenses and the ability to be mouted on a tripod. It features a HD recording ability although we did not use this it is still an impressive feature found on the camera and features an articulated screen for viewing newly taken pictures and video.