Improving my Finished Magazine

Within our media class, we all evaluated each other's magazines saying the positives parts of our magazines and the parts which could be improved. Before hand I thought I had finished my magazine but from peer evaluation I made the decision to add to my contents page as it had space which needed filling up. I also added parts to my front page such as a barcode and more writing on the left of what was included in the magazine to make it more appealing to the target audience.

Finished Magazine Front Cover, Content Page and Double Page Spread

This is my magazine front cover, content page and double page spread finished. I have made sure i added the conventions of a pop magazine in order to fit my target audience.

Progress on Magazine

This is my progress with my magazine i am creating. I have added to all three pages. I am nearly finished but may need to add other smaller details to make the magazine look even better. I think I need to improve my front cover further to make it more eye catching and appealing to the target audience. By improving my front cover I feel my magazine will be finished as I am happy with my contents page and Double Page Spread.

Progress in today's lesson

In today's lesson I finished off the letter from the editor by completing the paragraph and changing the font's to fit in with the whole theme of my contents page. I have also edited a picture which I have now added to my contents page. I will be adding two other faces for 'well known faces' in the circle on my contents page as my contents page needed more images in order for it to look appealing to the target audience.

Progress in the lesson

This lesson I have managed to make progress on my contents page. previously I had no page numbers or titles for the pages and now I have nearly finished the pages I am going to include on my contents page. I still need to edit and add in images to my contents page and improve the design slightly.

Front Page Progress

I have made progress with my front page by changing the colour of the masthead to fit the background of my magazine. I added a picture which I had taken of two of my friends to use as a main headline for my double page spread. It is going to contain information about the tour they did and about how famous they are now. I am going to include different headlines to my magazines to make the audience want to read my magazine and I am going to add different images to show the different parts of my magazine.

My progress this term

In the first term of media I feel that I have made a lot of process. Firstly I have got to grips on analysing different pieces of work and how one image or piece of text can convey a lot of different meanings and can be interpreted in different ways. I have learnt how to analysis pictures more and pick out individual parts of it which could give a certain effect.
Another thing I have learnt this term is the basics to creating a magazine as I had to create a school magazine without any help to show what I already knew about the conventions of a magazine front cover and contents page. From this I then start to learn different terms and techniques to do with media and specifically magazines. After this I started to design my actual magazine front cover by using pages to and then designing a masthead by choosing the most liked font and name which I created and asked my peers about. In this following term I am hoping to complete my front page, contents page and double page spread. I will be taking more pictures of people to add to my magazine and will make sure I am always referring back to my target audience.

Photo Editing

I have been trying out using different effects on pictures and seeing what the effects would do to the picture I have chosen. I cut out the background of the picture and added various effects to the picture to create a different theme. Although I have added different effects to the picture, I don't think the theme being used for the pictures will fit the pop magazine which I am doing and therefor I will need to use a different image to use for my magazine. By editting these pictures I get an insight in to what different effects do to different images and how making sure the picture fits my target audience is essential in to making my magazine a success.

Editing Pictures

I havestrted toexperiment with using the different softwares to produce pictures for my magazine. For the picture shown on the left, I took the picture and then edited it. Firstly I cut out the background of the picture by using the lasso tool. After this I saved the photo then went to the online site fotor.com to edit the picture. I added mak-up to my model and added a toner to the skin. This made my picture more presentable and made the model stand out more. From doing this task, I found that cutting out the background for the picture was harder than whati thought and to perfect it I would need to spend a lot of time on it. I found it quite tricky to keep a steady hand while doing this so the picture quality is not as good. I also recognised when I zoomed in that the picture quality is not too good and therefor I will need to take the pictures on my camera instead of on my phone. I think to make this picture better I will have to keep experimenting and trying to improve it as this will only improve my skills furthur.

Photo's

For my magazine I needed a main image to use for the front cover. I decided to take a posed picture of two girls apposing to be pop stars on stage. I chose the pose which the picture would be taking and for this I tried to make sure the two girls posing for my magazine were not objectified making them out to be objects rather than actual people. 

Components for my Pop Magazine

Names of Artists & Bands which will be included on my Pop Magazine:

1. Clarence Vasquez (Singer)

1. Spencer Hogan (Singer) 

1. Bob Lawson (Singer)

1. Jill Murphy (Singer)

1. Beulah Crawford (Singer)

1. Carol Terry (Singer)

1. Gary Moreno (Singer)

1. Ginger Schultz (Singer)

1. The Autumn Ducks (Band)

1. Barbie and the Sticks (Band)

Question and Answer session with Lakisha Rand Interviewer: Hi Lakisha how's it going?Lakisha: Hey, good thanks, I’m really excited to be here speaking to you today.Interviewer: Yes, we all are, now I’m just going to ask you some questions about your singer lifestyle.Lakisha: Ok, go for it.Interviewer: Ok firstly, have you always enjoyed the art of music?Lakisha: Yes I have, I always knew from an early age that music is what I wanted to do in life.Interviewer: Ok, when did you start singing?Lakisha: I started singing when I was about 15, it was a singing competition that I entered, I didn't tell any of my friends or family I was doing it until the night itself, it was truly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.Interviewer: That's an amazing way to start your singing career then, all by yourself? Ok next question, who are you musical inspirations?Lakisha: I'd have to say Olly Murs is a big inspiration of mine, he's just such a cool guy and I aim to be as successful as him some day.Interviewer: What embarrassing songs might I find if I looked on your phone?Lakisha: (Laughs), I do like to listen to High School Musical songs every now and again to get me back in to the singing spirit, I just find the songs upbeat and easy to relate to in a weird sort of way.Interviewer: I'm sure we all have that one song we absolutely love but are too afraid to tell anyone. Do you have any hidden talents and if so what is it?Lakisha: I do indeed have a hidden talent; I can hold my breath under the water for around 4 minutes, not exactly the most exciting talent to have, but I’m proud to say I can!Interviewer: That's great. Just having a hidden talent is something to be proud of, well done you. Right next question, what kind of music do you listen to today?Lakisha: Well I wouldn’t want to be big headed, but I do enjoy listening to my own music, but I like artists, which are in the UK charts at the moment like Olly Murs!Interviewer: Ok, you definitely look up to Olly Murs for your inspiration then! Would you like to meet your role model one day? What would it mean to you?Lakisha: I would absolutely love to meet Olly Murs that would be one of the best days of my life, I would be so nervous to meet him, probably more nervous than before I perform on stage. It would be a great experience and I just hope that to my fans would be as excited to meet me, as I would be to meet Olly.Interviewer:  I’m sure your fans would be very excited to meet you. Do you enjoy writing your own songs/lyrics?Lakisha:  I find myself just writing different lyrics to new songs I want to produce all the time. I’d say in my spare time, that’s what I do, I just find my thoughts carry me away and I can spend hours at a time just playing around with words and making meaningful lyrics.Interviewer: That’s a great thing to do; it’s much better when the singer comes up with their own lyrics. If you weren’t singing, what do you think you’d be doing now?Lakisha: If it wasn’t for my singing career I think I would be a P.E teacher, I was always keen in sports when I was at school and always thought I would be a teacher, but after my confidence boost from doing so well in the singing competition, I just knew the singing career was right for me.Interviewer: Oh right, well it was just lucky you decided to do the competition then, isn’t it? How often do you practice your singing talent?Lakisha: I love singing so much, it’s my job and my pass time, and whenever I can I want to sing. I practice at my studio when I have to create new music or try something out but that’s not the only place I like to sing, I just do it around the house, in the shower, even when I’m making some toast, I just can’t resist but to sing so I suppose you could say I’m always practicing in one way or another.Interviewer: Well that’s just a lovely thing to hear, at least some people still chase their dreams and go after what they want, anyway, thank you for letting me ask you these questions and it was a pleasure to meet you.Lakisha: You're most welcomed, anytime, happy to help. Thank you for letting me feature in your magazine, bye.

For my Pop Magazine i need to make sure i include the right amount of pages to make it successful. I did research in to how many pages most music magazines have and from this i have decided to use 60 pages to show all the different parts within my magazine. To help me decide on a suitable amount of pages i looked on a popular pop music  magazine 'we love pop'. This magazine contains 66 pages and from this i helped me to come up with the rounded number of 60.

For the font i have already picked one for my MastHead and for the article i include on my double page spread, i feel that using the font aerial will be approproate as it's the font which is used most commonly by magazines and the only other time the font changes, is to make it more relevant to the genre of music and as i am doing pop, i researched double page spreads and they have all used the aerial font so i think this will make my magazine strong and presentable to the target audience and will make the magazine look tidy and easy for the viewer to read.

 

Testing out InDesign & Pages

To design my magazine I would need to produce it on either InDesign or Pages and from this I went onto both of the softwares and looked at what one i felt more comfortable at using. I found that InDesign was complicated as finding the different aspects to change parts was hard whereas on Pages it was straight forward and you could easily find what you needed to create what part you needed. The first image on was created on InDesign and the second one was on Pages. I prefer using Pages than to InDesign as you can change parts more easily than on InDesign. To conclude I have decided that I will be using Pages to create my magazine rather than InDesign.

MastHead Ideas for Pop Magazine & Most Expensive Font in the World

Macaroni & Cheese

I have decided to call my magazine 'Shuffle'. I have chosen to use this out of the other three choices, as it is the most relevant to the genre of music I am focusing on, pop. I feel that using this as the Masthead, it is easy to remember and viewers are likely to approve of the title and will want to read the magazine. 'Shuffle' signifies a process in which you can do when you listen to music. What it does is randomly choose songs for you and plays them one after another, so the name of my magazine would be related to music. By choosing this name, I feel it will stand out on the front page and will grab the attention of the right target audience I want.

I decided to try out different fonts and my first font I tried was 'Handful of Nothing'. I choose this as a possible font to use as I feel it makes the word stand out more. If I was going for more of a rustic look, this would be a good font to use. I think by using this font, it would appeal to a older teenager rather than a younger one. The over all design of the font would make my magazine individual and make it stand out from the other already existing pop magazines. The next font I decided to test was 'DJB Starry Starry Font'. I thought that this could be a possible/suitable font as it has the shapes of stars running throughout it and to the viewer, the celebrities which will be included in my magazine will be stars to them and therefor they will think that the celebrities involved in the magazine are well known and in the eye of the public a lot. Another font I decided to test is called 'Billo'. I think this is a suitable font to use as it is bold and stands out. If it was featured on a front page it would grab the viewers attention and would make the magazine look upbeat and well designed rather than something boring and un-interesting. I feel that this writing is a form of bubble writing and it fits in well with the genre of music I am doing. The final font I tried out was ‘Macaroni & Cheese’. I have chosen to use this font as my main font for my masthead. I have decided on this as I feel it it most suited to the target audience I am going for and will give me a good theme to run throughout the magazine. I have also created the masthead with the colour I am going to use and I feel the colour I have chosen is appropriate for my magazine and creates a good look to my front page.

 I have also tried out a number of colours for my Masthead. However I have came to the decision that the colours used on the final title would be the best colours to use. I have coloured the first and last letter of the word 'Shuffle' to a hot pink colour to make it relate to my target audience. I feel these are suitable colours to use as blue symbolises youth, truth and peace which will appeal to my target audience as they are young and will want to read something which is true and down to earth. Pink connotes unconditional love and energy. and by including this on my Masthead, viewers may feel the magazine will contain something interesting and a fact they do not know about. The unconditional love will be from the viewers and what they have for the artists which will be featured in my magazine and the energy part will show that my magazine is packed with information and lot's of detail.

The type of font, which is used for a title, is very important and makes a huge impact on the magazine overall. If the wrong font is chosen, this could cause the whole magazine to fail and not be accepted by the general public. Many people are specific in what fonts they use and will pay excessive amounts for them. While doing research i found that the font 'Lexicon ‘is one of the most expensive fonts you can buy. It comes in at around $391 for a single cut or $4,996 for the entire family. This shows just how important font is in order to make things work and be successful.