The first thing, for both tasks was to research!
I had to think.. what are the typical things to see on the front cover of a magazine. Of course they would be different due to the different style of magazines the different target audiences etc. The thing that mainly differed the most was the language style, due to one being published at school. This would have information such as school countdowns, how to manage your exams, ways to release stress etc. The indie magazine would have to fit in the Indie Genre. It would have gig guides, and more colloquial language!
I had to ensure I was organized, therefore after my research the first thing I done was set a date for my photos. The school magazine I was given the opportunity to take them whilst being at school, therefore the students were natural and they were in the environment I needed them to be in, it was an easy set up with the mise-en-scene also being in the school environment, and the models were wearing business attire. The photos from my models, which I chose three different girls, had to be set up in my own time. With busy schedules I found this difficult.
The aim from the photos were different: The school, the smart look was essential, and I had to attract people to want to come to Wilmington,but also attract people to buy the magazine. I had to ensure the model looked friendly and approachable. Over all, as you can tell from my prelim task, my model doesn't even look out at the audience it is simply just a girl at work, I hadn't really had a good knowledge of magazines then, however with my music magazine I knew it was essential for the model to look out and interact with the reader. I decided to keep the inside environment for my front cover as it was natural and wasn't staged, and for the contents page I looked at the friendship approach to the magazine then moving outside.
The photos from my prelim task were taken from a professional camera, and edited in Abode Photoshop to get a finished and proper look. I knew that I had to try and understand this ASAP so I could put all these new understandings into my main task.
My music magazines planning was my in depth, I had to think about fashion within Indie what they wear, there make up style, hairstyles and had to capture this in my photos. From looking and flipping through magazines I realized that the conventional cover is a white or black background, although I went against this I found that it did in fact work because it fits the genre nicely. The pose of the model is simple yet effective, it doesn't give to much away. The process of taking the photos was hard, I changed settings multiple times in order to capture the perfect photo! I changed outfits hairstyles so I could really get to grasp in catching the perfect photo. With my photo for the DPS I decided to take it outside with artificial lighting from the flash of the camera, this was a hard process as it had to be weather permitting however I knew if I kept taking photos the perfect one would come in the end! Like,from research I knew what I was looking for and what I wanted to capture from the image. With the photos I did give myself a good amount of time around three weeks to get these photos together, I had to ensure I had enough photos to fit along three pages. Without my planning and research before the photo taking I don't think my photos would have been that good at all, this planning made my life a lot easier when taking the photos.
With my preliminary task I successfully created house style by the yellow and blue color scheme of which comes from the Wilmington badge. But also from the blinds in the front cover which I feel fitted in nicely. I feel this was the best approach with the color scheme I don't think it would work any better with a different colors schemes, I feel the colors worked well together and complimented each other nicely. Looking at the layout now, honestly it has not much sense of style! I should have took time to clear the desk away or even move my model so there isn't a plug socket in the way! I like the font for the magazine name as it is formal and think it works nicely, hence why I continued it onto the Contents Page. The badge offers brand identity so I feel I would still use the badge on the front cover. I feel now there isn't enough cover lines on the page at all. And they are all mainly situated at the bottom of the page, I could have spread them out better and put them all in align with each other to create a more sophisticated front cover as this aimed at sixth formers! My main struggle for me was getting the texts at a right side, as I couldn't picture my front cover as a printed magazine, some of the texts would be far far to big! Also the amount of space is a massive flaw within my magazine as it looks like I don't have much to offer. In order to improve this I feel that I should have added a couple more cover lines and spread them out across the whole page. Making a more professional look.
For my music magazine I achieved my house style from asking a sample of people, my target audience what there favorite color was, and the majority said Red so I knew it would revolve red, black from the background color and silver from the skulls. I used these range of colors across three pages, they compliment and work really well together. I didn't find achieving my house style that bad as I think I made the right decision to ask my target audience as it is based at them! Having not a lot of colors was a good decision in my opinion as it meant it looked neat and tidy,and I was going for the sophisticated look. The white of the writing complimented the black background. I feel for my front cover the 'Ruby Red' works well as it is very dominant and a central focus, also I really like the idea of actually flipping the magazine title around this really reinforces the title of the magazine. I feel this is much more neater than my preliminary task, the alignment is good at in line with each other creating that neater look! Compared to my previous contents page and front cover the one that I used as my final piece is whole lot better! The DPS for my magazine was my favorite page it allowed me to experiment with a new program Abode InDesign, which I found really easy to use and to pick up! The layout was really easy to put on with six columns, three of these were taken up by a photo on both pages with a pull quote from the magazine content, engaging with the reader and getting them involved! I really love my double page spread, I think it is by far the best out of all three pages for my magazine and I had the most fun making it, I think the quality of the pictures are really good and work really well.
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