Evaluation: Task 7

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

Double Page Spread: in the preliminary task we didn't do a double page spread but i can imagine that my final one would be much better than one i created at the start of the year

Overall i mainly learnt about the different things that go to make a magazine and why they do them, i think my biggest improvement from the prelim to the final is the contents page as you can easily see each thing and what part of the magazine it belongs to whether the usual items or reviews.

Evaluation: Task 6

Websites: and the internet in general, being always connected to the internet meant that if i had a sudden rush of insperation i could look it up using something like http://www.google.com/ and then even post it to my blog.

Blogger: This was the most important website I used in creating my magazine, this was where I posted all of my work and progress to share for the class and teacher to see, with blogger you can include images, sound and videos in your posts along with other things that you can embed. I didn’t find using the website was a big problems as I had a blog with blogger previously so all the basic features I knew how to use. The problem came when I needed to change the date or time a post was posted but as an increased my posts and the use of changing the date became more frequent I soon learnt how to do it effectively.

Sribd: This is a useful website that I used in conjunction with my blog, this website allowed me to upload a word document I had created and then gave me an embedding code I then would put on my blog, and it was very useful in saving time. With anything there were problems with the uploading, if I was to upload a document with tables or images in then commonly they would move around and cover the text so I found in the end it was just as easy to put images on the blog when I needed text and images side by side.

Slideshare: This was similar to Sribd in that it let me upload a document from my computer and then embed it to a post but unlike it using a Word document it took a PowerPoint document.

Software:

Photoshop: For creating the magazine I only used one piece of software Photoshop, this is primarily an image manipulation programme so the obvious choice when it came to editing the photos. It has a vast range of tool which meant I could do things like cut out a person from the background to changing the colouring on a piece of clothing or the vibrancy of face colour. It also uses layers which mean that you can place things on top of each other and edit them independently. I had used Photoshop a little before but only to manipulate photos the first chance I came across to make anything like a magazine was in our preliminary task which only took a couple of lessons to complete so I was worried when it came to adding texts to the page however looking at my final magazine I feel that I got the hand of this. Another good thing came when finally saving my finished item you could save it as a JPEG file which meant it could easily be sent and printed as well as been put on my blog.

Equipment:

Camera: For taking the photos i used a Sony NEX-5 camera with a 18-55mm lens, i used a DSLR rather than a point and shoot style as it gave me more control over the shutter speed which i needed when taking the photos with the fire, I did use a point and shoot on my prelim but I felt when it came to editing them I should use a camera that had a better picture quality. I didn’t have many problems with this but one that I did come across is that the flash that came with the camera was poor and therefore I had to use an extra light to brighten up the scene.

Tripod: I attached the camera to a Velbon Stratos 480 tripod so i could keep the photos straight in and reduce shake from my hand it also meant i could keep the camera in the same position whilst i sorted out my models

Laptop: I used this for everything, because it had Photoshop already on it meant that I could use it in school to edit them at home and because I brought it in school it meant that I could maximise my time and carry on with work in free periods. Because I was using a MacBook Pro there was very little delay in opening and editing on Photoshop which reduced the waiting around time.

Evaluation: Task 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation: Task 4

Who Would Be The Audience For Your Media Product?



Target Audience Profile

Name: Joe Chamberlain
Age: 17

Gender: Male

Occupation: High Grade Student 

Lifestyle: Social goes to parties, quite wealthy, shops allot and listens to music

Ambitions: 

• to have a job in the media but really wants to be a manager of an magazine company
• Live in London
• Have multiple homes

Likes: 

• towns and shopping centers 
• music to be shared 
• Parties 
• Individuality 
• Socializing (eating out ect)
• Opinionated people
• Looking and sounding up to date
• Technology 

Dislikes: 

• messy people
• Fake people (people that hide allot of what they think)
• Unreasonable people 

Musical Preferences:

• pop music 
• Less mainstream music 
• dubstep 
• not affraid to go against the grain and listen to music that other people (peers) dont like

Media Consumer Habits:

• magazines 
• Social networks (blogs, twitter, facebook ect) 
• Uses the internet regularly 
• Downloading music 
• Owns iPod 

This is how i would feel my audience would spend their

time when thinking about media.

Disposable Income 

• spends money on clothes and shoes
• shops in H&M, Topman and Wellgosh
• likes to wear brands 
• shoes is a big part (Nikes)
• shops in towns and online to find a bargain

Hobbies

• go out with friends to cinema, eat, town
• watches movies

Evaluation: Task 3

When It came to thinking about who would publish ‘ECHO’ there was only one choice and that would be IPC Media. This was because in it portfolio of magazines it has the biggest music on (in my opinion) NME and with such a powerful music magazine in the same publisher as mine would not only show that IPC believe ‘ECHO’ is a good magazine but it is also possible to easily print an advert for ‘ECHO’ in NME and to some extent “ECHO’ could become a subordinate of NME that mainly focuses on the electronic side of the magazine. Not only is it that IPC has NME as a name in its portfolio it has other major popular brands art NUTS, Now, TVTime and Marie Clair. As a company ICP began in 1963 and produce over 60 media brands and they claim that through print they reach ‘almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults’. Which would mean with the backing of IPC Media my magazine would get a wide circulation that would give allot or profit allowing the magazine to grow bigger and get a huge reputation for being on the forefront of music.

Evaluation: Task 2

When creating my group for the magazine i thought instead of trying to come up with a group and have to make allot of the information up i decided to copy an existing group, this meant that focusing on every part about them meant I was able to come up with an outstanding and relatable group. To do this I went for a group in my genre and one that I knew would be easy to recreate with the time and resources I had; this is why I chose Magnetic Man. The obvious similarities are they both consist of 3 males; this was one of the reasons of choosing said band as I knew three males would be easy to get for my photos. One other thing that are the same but only by coincidence is the base colour of the outfits are black, I would of done this weather they not be wearing black in the press shot of MM as it gave me a strong and versatile base in to add text to. Where I did draw exact influence from the photo on the right as Skream and Joe are both wearing a tie, this adds the formality and sharpness I wanted to put across in the group – however I did change the colour of it in post production as I needed the colour scheme (black, white, purple) to be in the photo somehow. Another direct copy of the right photo is that Skream is standing slightly forward in the shot and so is Joe in mine, although in MM there is no leader as such I wanted there to be one in my group and seeing as Joe is the one doing the vocals I figured it should be him. It is purely by coincidence that they both similar hairstyles but this does a good job of strengthening the bond.

Along with allot of similarities I did feel that there needed to be something that made my magazine and the group on the cover independent. My group are an all white group, this was by intentions but I also don’t think that it detracts from the genre or overall feel of the magazine. There was one thing I dint like with the press shot of Magnetic Man and that was that all of three of them are wearing different expressions I thought I doesn’t show good unity between the members of for my group I made sure that all of them have the same expression on their face and were looking straight at the camera. Finally as I just mentioned I have all of my models facing the camera unlike in MM where they are slightly facing the middle man.

Evaluation: Taks 1

Evaluation

Feedback

This is the feedback i received on my own magazine

These are magazines from the class that i evaluated the first is George Hextall and the second Daisy Milburn

These are from past years that allowed us to see what grades you can get for what work

Improvements On My First Drafts

These are my updates that i made to my draft hand in, my main improvement is the contents page where i completely re-designed the style of it so it has more of a music magazine feel of it. on the cover i made the image bigger so it drew the on looker in and added a better cover line and gave one to the main band of the magazine. finally on the double page spread there wasn't much improvement needed, all i did was changed the size of the columns so that they fitted all on one half of the page and then i changed the title fonts to fit in with the font on the cover.

Pitch

Magazine Article - Second Attempt

Its been over two years since ‘The Futures Youth’ released their debut album, ‘Nowadays: It’s too crowded’ and as the summer of 2011 comes along they have their second studio album to deliver. We got to speak with Sam Worthington, James Smith and Harry Hextall. We already know that the group is a real success story for unknown unsigned acts as Sam found fame and fellow band member Harry through Myspace. Their new single ‘Out for the kill’ is available from iTunes now and ‘I speak the truth when I want to’ is scheduled for the end of May, just in time for the festival season! James indicated to us that the album is more about their contribution for music and not just money driven, at Echo we totally agree with this you can see that they have incorporated their own statement style of electronic synths and bass line but add over vocals from the lead singer Sam. A track on the album we really like is ‘you only loose when you finish’ in which they collaborate with renowned female singer Katy B. But don’t be fooled the whole album is not hit club songs, their are some where we get to listen to the softer side of Sams’ voice and this makes a refreshing change the heave dub step we most commonly see.

Its not just the songs that got heads turning, the album artwork is something to be admired, it has the daring of Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy but without the nudity and numerous covers, other similarities is the the artist George Condo also did the art. Harry told us that after seeing the mock ups for Kanyes he was immediately on  the phone to George and asking him to help them out. It features the group but as you’ve never seen them before, and we will leave that as surprise until the launch date. With this however has come criticism that they still haven't found their own style and they are nothing more than a copy of big names in the music bizz. We then got them onto the conversation for the summer, we already know they will be doing a 30 date tour up and down the country before they move onto europe in winter 2011. We did ask what it felt to be moving to Europe to which Sam told us ‘I see it as an honor that we can spread out into other cultures and we hope day that we can go to any country and be recognized’. Its allot to ask be we feel that they can do it with the forthcoming album. 

But what we wanted to know is if they have any plans for the summer as their tour dates a few and far between at that time. They seemed very reluctant to tell us what it was they had planned but after a bit of arm twisting and a cup of tea we got it out of them. And we can reveal here EXCLUSIVELY that it is confirmed that ‘The Futures Youth’ will be headlining at both Reading and Leeds. Will you be going? I know I will. We asked them how it felt to be playing at such a renowned music festival to which Harry replied ‘I couldn’t believe it, I still find it hard to get my mind round it now, but at the same time we think that our music and ourselves have come along enough to play to such big audiences’. We hope they can produce a set to rival some of the previous big headliners including ‘Daft Punk’ who in 2008 had people crowding at the main stage. On the note of playing to mass audiences I wanted to know what their best gig was and what made it. ‘Well for me it had to be one we did at Leicesters: The Auditorium because it was in the early days when we weren't being played on the radio and I was nervous how our unique sound would be received but after playing our opening verse the whole place seemed to just explode with excitement’ said James. One thing that we couldn’t not talk about whilst we had time with the group was their style, they are commonly snapped in the celebrity magazines as best dressed. 

Their smart casual look never fails to impress the masses that follow The Futures Youth, it was james that described to us why they dress the way they do, he told us that because the majority of their music is made on a computer then their is no room for error and the sound should be clean and the cleanliness is what we try emanate in their clothes. Finally I wanted to know what the future lies for them; have they started on a 3rd album?. ‘No, no third album as of yet we just want to get on the tour and then I have planned a months holiday to just relax. But after that I hope we can make another album, if the demands still their for us’ said Sam

Draft Selection

Out of the mock ups these are the ones that i think turned out the best what i shall turn into my drafts for the final magazine.

I like this one of the front covers the best as i think it has a real magazine style about it, i also think how the colours interact with each other works well. For when i hand in my final draft i need to add a date under the price and issue number. 

This was my original idea for a contents page and its what i still feel is best for my magazine, i still need to replace the celebrity photos with ones that i have already taken. Looking at it again i do feel also i need add the persons names over the picture. i may do this by using a font that fills the whole of the picture as a style point.

Final magazine contents page 

For the double page spread i picked this page, i feel that the way the columns are presented with the different sizes of fonts adds dimension to a large block of text. I needed to add the tour dates as the artice wasn't big enough to fill the whole page, i now think that this is something i want to to keep as a feature on the page. 

Double Page Spread Mock Up 3 - Real Photos

Evaluation 

I feel that the way the columns are presented with the different sizes of fonts adds dimension to a large block of text. I needed to add the tour dates as the artice wasn't big enough to fill the whole page, i now think that this is something i want to to keep as a feature on the page. i did need to use one of my first photos my final ones didn't have enough black for the layout i wanted to use. 

Contents Page Mock Up 3 - Real Photos

Evaluation

This was my original idea for a contents page and its what i still feel is best for my magazine. Looking at it again i do feel also i need add the persons names over the picture. i may do this by using a font that fills the whole of the picture as a style point. i also like the use of making the groups picture a black background which sets it apart from the others.

Frontcover Mock Up 3 - Real Photos

Evaluation

i took the style of the previous front cover but slightly changed it to see how it looks, overall i think out of the two this has the less impact factor of the other one. this i feel is because of the white circle and the big + sign. 

Double Page Spread Mock Up 2 - Real Photos

Evaluation

Here i took my on board the style of the 3 columns and i like the effect it has produced, the big I in the background comes from some inspiration in previous posts. I do really like this page but i just don't think it has what is required of a magazine double page spread. 

Contents Page Mock Up 2 - Real Photos

Evaluation

What i think is the best part of the page is the top half, i really like the big photo of my group and the title of the page. the bottom half however has some concerns, i want to use the theme of different boxes for each different part of the magazine but i feel that it lack images and the big fonts lack the professional touch. to overcome this is think i would take the idea of the old style polaroid pictures of the first contents page and use them in this layout. 

Front Cover Mock Up 2 - Real Photos

Evaluation

I feel this is a big improvement on the first mock up, the more information and the alignment of the text emphasises the music magazine feel. Another think that goes well is how each of the pieces of information is interconnected either by the colour or font. On the subject of colour i really like the way how ive incorporated the palette in the text, photo and title of the magazine and creates an air or professionalism.

Double Page Spread Mock Up 1

Evaluation

Although this isn't my photo used here it is something that i would consider trying to do, but in the real world i feel to get a photo such as this wouldn't be possible in the amount of time i have. The other things on this page i like is the larger quote and the oversized speech marks. I did think at the start of having the article as a block but going back and looking at the page i feel that it doesn't have the right feel for a magazine and a music one at that.

Contents Page Mock Up 1

Evaluation 

These are all the same contents pages with a different title, I like the idea of using the big E inspired from the Vibe magazine. The problem I suffered from is i can't think of a good place to put the title that would still show the E (hence the 4 mock ups). Another thing that i feel doesn't work too well with the page is the size of the E, it does leave alot of space free on the page which makes it look more unprofessional. If i did make it smaller i think that it would loose the shape and make the E less pronounces, taking this into consideration it makes this contents page a non viable solution.

Front Cover Mock Up 1

Evaluation

What i like about this cover came about by accident, the image was too small for the A4 size paper and instead of stretching the image so it looked too distorted i graduated the bottom of the image where it was black into a solid black colour - this also makes the white writing stand out. The current problem is that it was suggested to me that it looks a bit too much like a music poster with the lack of information and centre alignment, this is however the minimalist style Im going for in my cover, so when it comes to making the final cover i will have to add something such as a puff or plug.

Article For Double Page Spread - First Draft

Title: ‘The Futures Youth’ Songs, Summer and Style

‘The Futures Youth’ EXCLUSIVE music news, cancel your plans for the summer.

Its been over two years since the release of ‘The Futures Youth’ released their debut album, ‘Nowadays: It’s too crowded’ and as the summer of 2011 comes along they have their second studio album to deliver. We got to speak with Sam Worthington, James Smith and Harry Hextall that make up ‘The Futures Youth’. We already know that the group is a real success story for unknown unsigned acts as Sam found fame and fellow band member Harry through Myspace. Their new single ‘Out for the kill’ is available from iTunes now and ‘I speak the truth when I want to’ is scheduled for the end of March, just in time for the festival season! James indicated to us that the album is more about their contribution for music and not just money driven, at Echo we totally agree with this you can see that they have incorporated their own statement style of electronic synths and bass line but add over vocals from the lead singer Sam. A track on the album we really like is ‘you only loose when you finish’ in which they collaborate with renowned female singer Katy B. But don’t be fooled the whole album is not hit club songs, their are some where we get to listen to the softer side of Sams’ voice and this makes a refreshing change the heave dub step we most commonly see. But its not just the songs that got heads turning, the album artwork is something to be admired, it has the daring of Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy but without the nudity and numerous covers. It features the group but as you’ve never seen them before, and we will leave that as surprise until the launch date. We then got them onto the conversation for the summer, we already know they will be doing a 30 date tour up and down the country before they move onto europe in winter 2011 but what we wanted to know is if they have any plans for the summer as their tour dates a few and far between at that time. They seemed very reluctant to tell us what it was they had planned but after a bit of arm twisting and a cup of tea we got it out of them. And we can reveal here EXCLUSIVELY that it is confirmed that ‘The Futures Youth’ will be headlining at both Reading and Leeds. Will you be going? Im sure I will. We asked them how it felt to be playing at such a renowned music festival to which Harry replied ‘I couldn’t believe it, I still find it hard to get my mind round it now, but at the same time we think that our music and ourselves have come along enough to play to such big audiences’. We hope they can produce a set to rival some of the previous big headliners including ‘Daft Punk’ who in 2008 had people crowding at the main stage. One thing that we couldn’t not talk about whilst we had time with the group was their style, they are commonly snapped in the celebrity magazines as best dressed. Their smart casual look never fails to impress the masses that follow The Futures Youth, it was james that described to us why they dress the way they do, he told us that because the majority of their music is made on a computer then their is no room for error and the sound should be clean and the cleanliness is what we try emanate in their clothes. Finally I wanted to know what the future lies for them; have they started on a 3rd album?. ‘No, no third album as of yet we just want to get on the tour and then I have planned a months holiday to just relax. But after that I hope we can make another album, if the demands still their for us’ said Sam

- this is the first one i handed in and i was then given it back for some changes that i will do and the n upload the net draft 

Editing Photos

When making my magazine i needed to edit the photos i took and then put them all on one page, to do this i used Adobe Photoshot. This is really useful especially when editing the photos as i could use simple tools such as brightening the picture and then changing the contrast but them more complex ones like spot healing and advance cutting out so that i can lay the pictures out on the page. It is also really good when putting the different things on each page as you can use layers to layer up the different sections of the page, it also means you can sort everything onto a new layer meaning that it is easy to change anything you do.

This is a picture of me using Photoshop

Today I took my photos for my final magazine, to take them i used the Sony NEX-5 with a 18-55mm lens. I tried to use the 3 point lighting i have previously mentioned but found when i came to practice it was too difficult to not get any shows (i knew these would be hard to cut out later). I did keep my models the same although i did change the front man to another of the group as it made the pictures more interesting. 

3 Point Lighting

When i take my final photos Im incorporate m going to try and a technique called three point lighting, this is where you use 3 light at varuying angles and intensity. This will try to make sure there are no shadows on the subject or background. It will also then make it easy to edit and cut out the photos.

I had a look on the link Mrs Abrahamson posted on her blog for layouts of magazines and for the double page spread these two caught my eye, they are not originally what i wanted for my magazine or what i drew for my mock ups but when i have got my photos i may try and recreate the style of these.

what i especially like about this design is the letter d, i have added this into one of my mock ups and this is exactly what i meant by it. Unlike this though want the letter to cover all of the page or article and it shall be in the same colour as my palette of a dark purple. plus the contrast between the dark photo and then the clean white article page is something i now want to consider when making my double page spread.

Like the picture above, this design has the contrast in the picture and the page next to it, the special thing about this design is how the article isn't centred in the middle and doesn't fill the whole page. It adds an artistic feel about the double page spread.

Analysing Another Pitch

For my other pitch to analyse i chose to do George Hextall, from watching the animoto it was clear to me that he wanted to try and create a hip/hop rap magazine. A problem i think he would come across is; in the rap industry there is a clear divide between a stereotypical American rappers and a English rappers, the difference being that American ones are usually muscly black men whereas the English type being tall white men. A good point in his pitch was he unconventional colours, with the yellow if used correctly will make the cover stand out but it may look too unprofessional if the placing of colour is not done with care. From his pitch i didn't know what or who he was going to have on his cover, which was a problem in envisioning his magazine. His typical audience suits the style of the magazine perfectly as most rap followers are young around the 16 plus age.

Double Page Spread Mock Ups