Evaluation

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? /

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it

to the full product?

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

• As you can see the different between my college magazines to my music magazine. The photography in my college magazine was taken with a digital compact camera and didn’t take me long to do as I didn’t have to plan anything, it was more like a ‘No think Do’ situation, while with my music magazine I upgraded to the (Camera name) which I had to plan out my whole photography shoot, outfits and image, having in mind I had to plan at least 3 shoots for the layout of my magazine.

• Throughout my journey of constructing my music magazine, I developed most of the basics from my first attempt of using the software’s such as Photoshop and inDesign to create my first college magazine, which I had no experience in using the software’s at all, all I had was one class tutorial on the basics of using Photoshop and inDesign and I had to develop on from there onwards. Photoshop on my first trail on the college magazine it was a complete disaster, it was so confusing so I just did what I could do, but as it came to the music magazine I experimented a lot to get a wide understanding of the things I can do and achieve to make my magazine twice as better as the first, learnt how to place my masthead behind my image, tone the lighting of my image, airbrush tool ect. Also through the making of my masthead I decided to try a different software to go about making it, I developed my skills on adobe illustrator and that’s how I created ‘Checkmate’ but as the magazine went on I decided it looks to jam packed so I made the title shorter, however even though I didn’t use my original design I still developed another skill in another software.

• The use of InDesign on my college magazine was also confusing, which showed when it was coming about to doing my music magazine; I would have to practise and develop my skills, which I did. I learnt to not only use the ‘ruler tool’ to position everything in my Photoshop front cover but I used it also in my inDesign content page layout. I took ideas from other magazine front covers to try replicating the positioning to make it look like the real thing.

Before; First attempt

After; Second attempt

• Blogger helped make me take notice of my journey to my final product, the things that went well, the things that didn’t, the things I had to change and think of new ideas. Uploading every week sometimes everyday on the outcomes of the lead up to the final piece.

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

• Looking back on the preliminary, I feel I have learnt a lot from when I started off the magazine to its ending product. From my first photography shoot that was a complete rollercoaster for a matter of fact, things just weren’t going to plan for me, my second photo shoot was winged but came out so much better than I expected. After that I just kept getting creative and imaginative ideas for my next shoot and then on, that’s why I was very pleased with the outcome of the audience’s feedback on my photography. Also Photoshop and inDesign helped me quite a lot I development my skills a lot, learning different techniques such as e.g. the airbrush tool.

FIRST PHOTO SHOOT

SECOND PHOTO SHOOT

• Looking back down memory lane when I first started using Photoshop and InDesign, it was a disaster, it always got me so frustrated I didn’t know what I was doing and I didn’t understand what I wanted to really achieve in the making of the magazine, I wanted to paint a picture in my head that I wanted to follow but I had completely nothing. Even after the class had a tutorial on the basics, the end result just came out plain and effortless, I wasn’t happy with it. But then I knew I had to do something about it when I began my music magazine, so I got the free trail at home of the software’s and practiced and experimented with different items on the software and I got better and better and I’m very glad on my final product.

From when I started I didn’t think I had no chance of it looking any different from my college magazine but I’m very happy with the end result as I really tried to use the skills I developed to fit the image I wanted to achieve.

By looking at the first images of my college magazine masthead, we can see that the words are balanced on top of each other; I would say it is very plain and straight forward.

Comparing it to the second piece of work you can see a vast improvement as I used adobe illustrator to create the masthead

These are the three mastheads I have used in my work from my college magazine to my music magazine; in terms of layout they are very different in terms of the first time I started using the software’s to the time I knew exactly how to use it.

On the other hand with the third image it shows how I made the masthead work with the layout of the magazine. The improvement comes from the layout and the positioning on the page amongst other aspects. This balances the page perfectly. The font is also very straight forward but strong, the font has been used alongside bold capital letters, this looks more effectively strong and stands out from the page more. I have also included a skyline on my masthead to tell what the magazine is based on.

• The case studies helped to give me ideas and helped me on expanding them, when I had the image in my head; I just let my creativity and imagination run free on Photoshop, InDesign and Adobe illustrator on the making of the front cover, content page and DPS. The making of the masthead I designed on adobe illustrator which I experimented on also which I was very proud of, but as my magazine started coming around, something didn’t look up to scratch and even when I switched things around in different positions there was still something off about it. Then my teacher took a look and told me to try cut down on some headlines then he suggested that the masthead be simpler and similar to the magazine ‘Q’. So I took his advice and tried it out and that was what was making the magazine looked packed and jumbled up, everything just looked in place after.

BEFORE AFTER

CASE STUDIES

• The colour scheme was the hardest part of the whole magazine I believe, I just couldn’t find the right colour scheme to fit my magazine, I looked through magazine to magazine trying different colour schemes, as usually magazine have three colours on their magazine, three just didn’t seem to work with my magazine, so I cut it down to two. Only when it came to the end of my magazine is when I took the colour from my models clothing and tried it and it just fitted. So I’m quite happy with the colour scheme, as most people liked it but some thought it came off to girly and perhaps didn’t fit the genre of my magazines. But I did state in my proposal that the magazine shows the ‘beginning’ of the clubbing and raving scene, so in other words I wanted the front cover to show ‘Before’ and the inside to show ‘After’ in the clubbing and raving environment.

Experimenting on 3 Colours for the colour scheme

Experimenting with 2 colours for colour scheme

From my college magazine to my music magazine, I believe I have improved a lot, and from my audience feedback I believe they think I have also. As for my college magazine it showed how I was just starting off using the software and I was just using the things I got the hand of first sight. As for the music magazine I actually experimented on other stuff apart from the basic’s and improved my skills and techniques.The variation between the two cover images is heavily different; this is due mainly to the way in which the photographs have been taken. If we look at my college magazine it shows that the colour pallet is bright and the colours don’t seem to be working well with each other, and the photograph is just plain passport picture photography, this is due to the location of the picture. Comparing this to the main task however, the colour scheme is a richer tones and more vogue. The photo was taken in a photography studio which I got to balance the light tone and I used a prop of a fan to show effect, this makes the picture look more attractive to an audience and it is therefore more effective.

COLLEGE MAGAZINE

MUSIC MAGAZINE

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In terms of the font used in both my college magazine and music magazine it’s quite a change. The style of font is straight away a difference; the college magazine font is soft and far more less effective. The music magazine font however is much more attractive and draws attention to the page and using a bold font emphasises this more. I used capital letters to build strength in my masthead. The college magazine I made it all capital and I made one of titles bold to show emphasis, however it does not look very good as it looks spaced out. However, the music magazine has used capital letters in a very effective way with the font style. As you can see, the masthead and the main feature use capital letters, conforming the magazine and looking very effective also , it is a vast improvement from the college magazine.The colours of the font have remained very similar, I chose a white font because I believe it just worked way better and stood out. Also it makes the colours on the main image stand out more by removing the bright colours

Another aspect is the positioning of the models in the photographs. With my college magazine the photo is not very focused on the model as in Photoshop I played with the effects and light balance, this is because the model picture was taken in the building and she was shy as people were around. In contrast, the main task features the model modelling and showing emphasis with her eyes and also the model was positioned slightly to the left of the page to draw attention to more of the headlines on the other side. This is more effective in two ways, the first of which I would say is the connection the audience have with the character on the page with the models eyes and full appearance. It’s as if she is leading you in to a trance with her eyes, and the second being that with the model slightly off centre it creates a more interesting image and allows a better use of the space.

My college and music magazine content page shows them vary styling of content page layout. Firstly by comparing the text of the mastheads for the page there is a vast difference. The college magazine uses the word "contents “which is in fact straight forward but I placed it in three page to make it less boring, Also looking at this, as discussed previously, the use of capital letters improves the piece further.The actual contents of the page is also presented very differently, from my college magazine I’ve learnt that the style of my positioned content page I couldn’t write as much headlines as it took up most of the space. So for my music magazine I I needed to present the features of the magazine in a better fashion, so I decided on giving them sections, also needed to make the main aspect of the content stand out more to the use of larger capital letters so I places a white box around the word ‘content’ and ‘issues I included pictures as a way of presenting

features in my magazine. In my college magazine only used two pictures as I didn’t have much space to attach anymore as the word ‘content’ took much most of everything. As you can see the college magazine I have used very small text and I haven’t exactly followed my front cover design. For my music magazine I used larger page numbers and added much more pictures and followed my colour scheme and it came out very well.