Double Page Spread Final

Contents Page Final

Front Cover Final

Evaluation Seven - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Here is a video of me talking through this question.

Evaluation six; What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?  

The technologies that I have used throughout the process of constructing my media product range from, using objects such as a camera, video camera, Photoshop, Indesign, youtube, sliderocket, flikr, prezzi and photo editing websites. In terms of the websites I used to make my posts look unique and different from other peers are; youtube, sliderocket, flikr and prezzi giving me a vast range. Making it easier for me to present my work on my blog, through presentations or annotations.

Before I used any software’s I had to take pictures to build up my mood board for my actual magazine. By doing this I had to use a camera to take pictures of my artist, I am already fairly good at taking photos as I have my own photography page, so I was able to use my own camera and get straight into the photos without much help. I also done a focus group which consisted of me gaining three people to talk about their dislikes and likes of a chosen magazine that I picked out to record the feedback that was given to me I used a video camera which enabled me to be interactive with the focus group as well as be the person who recorded them.

I then began to use suitable technology software’s to make my work look professional; such as adobe photoshop and indesign. I first began using indesign for all three of my productions; front cover, contents page and double page spread. I then saw that the software indesign was not suitable for creating a front cover so I then changed the software to photoshop which made it easier for me, as I had somewhat little experience of using it and it was familiar to me. I believe now I am able to use photoshop, if constantly used on a daily basis. Indesign I began to use to work on my contents page and double page spread. This being because of the layouts that I set up; allowing me to start from a plain document and had guides and rulers to make sure everything was in its place. Not only was I able to keep an eye on my products but I was also able to add graphics and photos wherever I pleased for example adding a background photo which will be the base of my page as I did for my double page spread; which you can see below here.


Test #1

Test #2

Final and end product

Evaluation five; How did you attract/address your audience?
For this evaluation I used all three products of which I designed; the front cover, contents page and double page spread. Below you will find underneath each image a link to my notes on the pictures.

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Evaluation four; Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation 3... What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation 2

Evaluation 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• My media product represents particular social groups in terms of the genre I have chosen / the appearance of my front cover. 
• The genre of my magazine is Folk because of my chosen genre; it will only aim at social groups/ people who enjoy the genre. 
• I assume people who are fans of the folk genre enjoy the sounds of artists such as; The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Mumford and Sons, Bon Iver city and colour etc.

In terms of representing a particular social group; I was aiming for those who actually enjoy the genre of folk. In terms of this I looked at past photoshoot’s with upcoming folk artists for inspiration for my photo shoot with one of my artists. On the right side we have the artist Lianne La Havas, and on the left Leah. By looking at the photos I was able to gain inspiration on how to mould my model into the correct form to express the genre folk. Not only this; but to see what clothing would be appropriate for a female of this genre. I chose the artist; Lianne La Havas because she’s an upcoming folk artist who has so far had a number one hit “is your love big enough” Not only because she is an upcoming artist, but because the way she represents the genre folk is through her clothing/beauty. I wanted to do the same with Leah, especially through her clothing and hair. From the picture on the right we can see that Lianne La Havas has her hands running through her hair and smiling with a sparkly dress on showing that she is humble yet happy. Not only this but the photo been taken outside and most likely during one of her gigs, whereas I have chosen to take a photo of my artist inside; I chose to take the photo of my artist inside to show that she is yet to still come out with her music but to also show her vulnerability in terms of how she has been posed. I wanted to portray her in a way that was subtle yet expressive. The clothing of my chosen artist is pretty basic to show that she isn’t above or below anyone; she is equal. Through the colours of her clothing it shows that she is mellow. As blue is the colour of serenity and calmness, this is shown through the way my model has been posed too enforcing that she is again showing her vulnerability.

I have not only shown vulnerability with this particular artist but through another artist. Aisha; whom you can again find in the contents page. This being because her face is covered by her hair, showing she is shy as well as vulnerable. Not only could it show vulnerability but a sense of insecurities, this particular artist may not like the way she looks therefore hides behind her hair. I wanted to aim my magazine at teenagers as well as the older generation in terms of my chosen genre. Teenagers because many people would assume that the genre is based for those who enjoy rock and roll because of it originating from those times; I however aimed it at the social groups which enjoy the old sound and know the true meaning behind the songs. Many female artists of the folk genre sing about their insecurities and mostly about true love artists such as Kate Walsh, Tracy Chapman etc.



Evaluation 1 

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Front Cover Final Product.

Evaluation
Monday 18th March 2012; on this day we were taught a lesson on our evaluation process. The evaluation is basically where we look back on all the work we have done/ research that had to take place for our magazine. The evaluation consists of seven questions these being:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/ address your address?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.

Once I was given these questions, I annotated them to figure out what exactly the question is asking me so when I come to answer them I am aware within myself that I know how to answer the questions. Over the past days, I will posting my evaluation questions seperatley addressing them one by one. Not only this but presenting them in a unique way.

Magazine Changes

I have updated my magazine and made some changes... Enjoy!  

 

Front cover change.

Chaaannggeees! Oh no...
Aloha my dear friends! It's been a while, again I know. I am so sorry I keep on attempting to keep promises I just can't keep. I am so sorry, however I have good news! I have an update for you all for my front cover. I have decided to change the name of my magazine because of the examples of folk rock magazines I gain inspiration from all consist of two or three worded titles. So I present to you...
MY NEW MAGAZINE NAME! YAAY

Strictly folk, not only have I changed the name but the font also. It used to be called 'FOLK' I have no changed the name and font to make the magazine have a more elegant and matured look to it.

BEFORE

NOW

I am still working on my front cover as there are a few more changes I need to make in terms of colours and variety of font, so please bear with me and I hope I will be able to change it up in time. In the mean time enjoy!

SIDE NOTE

I am currently working on my contents page and double page spread. I am near to finishing my double page spread as I only a few more edits to do, to it and have completely changed it. Hopefully by Thursday night (07/03/213) I will have completed it and have it uploaded to my blog. Thank you for reading! :D

What I've been up too...
So currently I have been working on my Double Page Spread; here's a little slide show to keep you updated on the progress that I have made.

Adding new stuff.
I've been working on the name of my magazine and extra things such as the graphics and the colour used for the name. For my front cover I stuck to the font I originally chose but changed the colour from blue to red, also added a little subtext informing the reader about what the magazine bases around.

I gained inspiration from the magazine froots.

My subtext.

Update upon my front cover!
Aloha guys! Sorry for the late update but my laptop's Photoshop crashed I just recently got it back and so I have updated my front cover; however I have been asking fellow peers for their view point for my cover. Many people informed me that I should use less colours, and keep it strictly based upon three. However another student informed me that I should make it more colourful as my magazine bases around the genre Folk. My feedback was very helpful in terms of what colours to use and the set up of my front cover. In terms of where I have placed everything.

Here is my updated front cover.

I personally believe that my front cover can and will be better than what it is at the moment. I am not happy with my front cover at all at the moment, as I am not pleased in terms of how I have set up my front cover.

Progress on the front cover.
So whilst producing my front cover, I realized I haven't added any stamps/graphics like I drew on my flatplans. So I have produced three graphics which I will be using/ featuring in my front cover.

The green one is a feature that will based around the team giving their top 10 songs that they all love; hence why I used the magazines name to portray this.

The red one is a quiz I added for the contents page but will be featuring on the front cover to show the reader that not only is the magazine based around folk but it has a entertaining aspect to it also.

The black one is basically informing the reader as to where they themselves can find a guitar if wanting to purchase one, and the best places to look.

Features...
Whilst producing my magazine front cover I realized I need to produce my features to place on my magazine. In my flat plans for my front cover I said I would feature 'free magazines' and so I have produced pictures/features to use on my front cover for this to happen.

These are the end products.

 

Here is how I produced these calender snippets. Just to show you, what I used/ done. I used the website picmonkey to get the border photo to come out like this then added text.

 

 

Indesign Progress

So I have been messing around with indesign the past couple of days and I have chosen a font from my font research with others. The idea came originally from the font test of the orange bold font.

 

This will be the name and font used for my front cover as it is bold, and simple.



 

From this name I began producing my front cover slowly adding in the picture then small features such as free calenders etc.

 

I originally started with adding the photo of my first artist; Leah on the right hand side next to Toby, but I then realized that the photo did not go with the outlook I had in mind for the front cover.

 

 

Before I added anything else I began to play around with the colour of my name for the magazine ranging from light green, blue and dark blue.

 

I decided to change the colour of the magazine to dark blue and changed the picture I used for Leah; also adding a pull quote for Leah. Not only this but I also added the barcode as well as the price.

 

From this I received feedback from my teachers informing me that the font used for the pull quote was unreadable, not only this but it doesn't look as if it's folky. It looks more old english, not only this but I was informed my price was too big and so taking this feedback I produced something different.

 

 

Taking inspiration from my flat plans I placed the pullquote where I originally planned for it to go, and also added the free calenders which I originally wanted to on the front cover to capture the audiences attention.

 

So this is basically what I've been up to lately, sorry not having many posts this month; but I promise to keep you all updated from now on and throughout the new year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indesign...
So in today's lesson we were given a youtube video tutorial on how to use the program; Indesign. We learnt the first few steps on how to open a new document and how to add graphs to make the layout of our magazine easier.

This is the video tutorial that we were given to make using indesign easier for us.

Front Cover Photo!

Font tests
So I've been messing around with a few fonts and colours for the name of my magazine. Here are the outcomes.

I printed off my font tests and went round asking others of their favourite fonts. I came back with two most popular fonts.

 

The first being, the red thin font just because it's simple and straight forward in terms of my genre as it will be strictly folk music. However the colour they said should be changed to a more orangey/blue/ green colour to represent the genre 'folk'.

The second most popular font was the orange thick font, this being because when being placed on the magazine it won't be lost, so not only will it be easy for the target audience to spot but it won't get lost within the picture being used.

 

SHOTLIST

First off let me apologize for the delay of my shot list, I couldn't find it but I have finally found it and it is now ready for me to display to you lovely people. Again I apologize for the delay.

 

 

Planning for the interview.

29/01/2013

In today's lesson we went through, what questions we should ask/ how we should word these particular questions and what it is we should aim to ask. 

• What do your readers already know about the artist?

• What do your readers want to know more about?

• What is the artist best known for/ what do you they want to be known for?

• What are you going to try and find out about the artist? 

From these questions, I have produced four main questions that I plan to ask my artist which are;

1. If you could describe yourself in three words which words would you use?
2. So, Toby why music? Why not art or drama. What is it about music that completely reeled and captured you in?
3. The music that you produce is there someone there in the back of your mind. A lover by any chance?
4. When describing your genre what would you consider your music to come under? Do you think you’re similar to any artist out there (currently)...?

Distribution of my magazine... 27/01/2013

Hope you enjoy the video!

Feed back on flat plans
On the Tuesday 22nd of January 2013 I received feedback on my flatplans.

Feedback received;

1. The price of the magazine is a bit off, needs to go over conventions.
2. Double page spread should have a more structured layout.
3. Move eye catching masthead on double page spread.

What I have decided to do is take this feedback and produce a new flat plan for my double page spread; and be more creative. Also for the front cover, I am going to try and replace the position of the price and change the price to make it look more like a monthly magazine.

Friday 25th January 2013

So yesterday I again took a few more shots for my magazine, and played around with the camera and angles. I am hoping to use this picture in my contents page as a feature. Here's a few pictures of what took place. 

This is one of my favourite photos because I played around with the angle as well as the lightning. I made the lighting hit her face just enough so she could be visible as well as where it is I am taking the photo from.

This is another favourite of mine because I enjoy focusing on the small things, and having the rest blurred. The focus in this photo is the ring she is wearing; and the small details of it.

Aloha! It's Thursday 24th January 2013... 
Today I took photos of my chosen artist and it went splendidly! I started with the ideas from my shot list; then gradually took photo's in which my artist felt comfortable taking photos which allowed me to express his personality more. Not only did I think of ideas but I also allowed him to put any ideas forward. Here a few which are my personal favourites.

Experience...
So today was quite a helpful day! I and a few other students were visited by a photographer to show us a few tricks when taking pictures on the camera. Informing us that when shooting pictures in a studio to keep the ISO at 200 minimum. If comfortable then we are able to change and mess around with the settings ourselves. The photographer also showed us, how it is we can manipulate the lighting of the room to make the object/ model stand out more. Not only this, but he then showed us handy tips to be used on photoshop when producing our front covers. In terms of getting rid of spots, black heads etc.

Later on during the day a friend of mine who was also apart of my media group had her artist come in today for her photo shoot and politely asked me if I could assist her in terms of lighting and setting up. I obviously agreed as long as I was able to take photos of my own to feature in the contents page. She obliged and through this photo shoot I was able to learn different placements in terms of moulding the model; giving him/her props such as a guitar or microphone. Allowing them to find a comfortable pose which not only expresses their personality but how they feel.

Here are a few of my favourite shots from todays shoot.