Looking back on the preliminary and main task, I think I have developed my skills and my ideas in making a good quality magazine. I have improved on my planning skills and technology skills which has helped me in producing better pictures and a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. To get a good idea of how a music magazine should look and what it should be about, I conducted some research on the internet to find out what the most popular magazines were and looked at the similarities and conventions they had, which I could input on my magazine.
I chose a very attractive young female to attract my audience and she posed in a very risqué manner to catch the audiences attention, contrary to me college magazine. As it was a college magazine, there was only an age range of 16-19 where some may not want to be exposed to such images and the magazine would have been sold in college. The difference in my images used in the college magazine and the music magazine, was I had a wider audience and I could be more creative and play around more with the difference in shots. The college magazine was also more toned down, as it was a college magazine; the main features would include themes about university, work placements, and general information about college life. However, contrary to the music magazine as I have mention it was for a broader audience, also people are more aware of their music preferences, so they are aware for what type of music magazine they would want to read.
I learnt how to handle the camera better, as I was able to be more inventive in my camera shots and angles, the camera shot used in my college magazine and the one used in my music magazine are mid shots, however, they both connote different things. The shot for the college magazine was used to shot the model working at the desk which denotes a college environment. This is the difference as the music magazine was more mysterious as I did not show all the models and body, and kept ‘more to the imagination'. I also edited the picture i used for my double page spread in Photoshop to make the image brighter.
For my college magazine the images I took where in the class room and I couldn’t experiment with different poses; as I didn’t have much time to do so. Unlike the planning and preparation for my music magazine as I planned my photo shoot thoroughly and wrote down as many shots ideas that I would like to take. At the end of the photo shoot I had over 100 images and liked this as I could chose the best ones out of all of them, whereas with my college I hardly any time and only had about 4 images to choose from.
Time management was a key factor in making my magazine pages because with this task I think we didn’t have enough time to do it, or it was just my management of time, as I wanted it to be perfect I spent lots of time planning and researching various magazines to see what is expected in the industry. I started off well by meeting the early deadlines but I started to fall behind with my sketches and in the actual production of the pages. This was also because I had a lack of understanding about Photoshop so it took me longer to grasp what I needed to do.
I took my photographs at my own house and borrowed props such as a saxophone, guitar an electric guitar and had the piano at my house which was the key inspiration for my whole shoot. I chose to use these props because it was different from using headphones or a microphone and wanted to be different and diverse in the type of images I created. For my front cover, I looked at various magazines and could not find one magazine what featured a saxophone on the front cover and liked this as it was unique. Most images are of models in mid long or full length shots, and I wanted to be different and have a more interesting approach.
I was unaware of the conventions used in contents pages, more so in the genre of music magazines, so I used the conventions which are mainly in gossip magazines. My first idea of a contents page lacked the professionalism and the total class and realism to a mainstream magazine; however, I did follow the conventions by generally informing the public on what content was in the magazine. My first draft of my contents page not only lacked certain factors of a mainstream contents page, but also lacked the quality of the main image. I followed through the idea of having both the cover star and the other star which features on the front of my magazine to feature in the contents page. However, I wanted to show of my skills in Photoshop and decided to remove the background behind the star. At first I thought this would have worked, but after re-evaluating this I realized it did not work, and preferred using non Photoshop images.
I was able to benefit from this because the feedback I got was largely positive and people seemed impressed with the work I had done. I printed all my pages out and I did a random survey on twenty-five people in my college as they are amongst my target audience, and I got very positive responses; ‘’it’s the best I’ve seen so far’’ and “it looks like a mainstream magazine, I would buy it” and “The article sounds professional and well written”. I have looked at my three pages and I have seen some strengths and weaknesses. I generally think that my double page spread and front cover are very good; I wouldn’t change anything about my double page spread. However on my front cover there are a few mistakes with spelling, yet I think that the image is so striking people would miss the spelling mistake, however if I was actually producing this magazine professionally there would be no mistakes. The cover lines, masthead and puffs are all very well positioned and the house colors of red white and black are a common feature in music magazines such as VIBE and NME. I didn’t base the color scheme on these magazines, but I thought that using two colors (black and white) was boring and I then incorporated the red which was the color of the models lipstick. I also used a hint of orange as I thought this would bring a summer vibe to the magazine, which was the time the issue would have been released. I did not follow the orange through to my double page spread, as I thought the article itself and the image was catching and just stuck to basic colors instead.
My only weaknesses were the spelling errors throughout my magazine. There is not many, however it was hard to see the mistakes when you thought they was right and I didn’t want someone checking my designs all the time as that would of slowed production down. I really liked the double page spread; I don’t think there are many weaknesses, as there is a very high quality image used and all the conventions of a double page spread such as the main cover line being the stars name and a question answer style interview.
The difference in my college magazine and music magazine is huge as the quality of the images is different and the other quality of the magazine is of a vast contrast. Here is a comparison of the images of the front cover that I used. The college magazine image is appropriate for a college magazine as it is informing the students of college life and doesn’t have to be of very good quality and extremely exciting.
I am very proud in the difference of my college magazine and music magazine images as it is clear to the audience which is more appealing and the use of the model in the music magazine wearing little is a huge selling point.
Overall, I would consider my media products to be successful and with the amount of time and effort I put into producing then and the immense positive feedback I received.
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